Durham Poems: From the Finding Poems Retreat Participants

On September 28th an eclectic group of poets gathered for session 4 of the Finding Poems Series.  We were inspired by June Jordan's architectextual poems and by the powerful video conferenced-in sharing of environmental justice scholar Cheryl J. Fish to engage the spatial realities and legacies of Durham in a poetic way.  We wrote many poems that day but here is our group poem/group of poems for Durham.

And you can listen to it here:

Durham Poem #34

Durham, don't dig down deep

Beg barter and plea, Baby

For transformation you are not willing to have as your birthday wish, Honey

Durham Poem #9

whirlwind my heart you dirty city

you tobacco dust you slave lust trust

you breathing devil     land

Durham Poem #23

Durham, Durham

The beats of the hearts the angers the terrors the smiles

Dance Durham

Durham Poem #24

the pompeii

in durham, traffic slower

than my blood flow

during morning prayer, a man

ask me for food, or change

in front of mcdonalds,

i extend a banana,

he refuses, i continue

singing.  i belong here.

Durham Poem #25 (26, 27, 28...)

the first year i shivered.  who knew there could be snow down here

making broken oak litter

the two next i plumped + grew + crossed under electrical wires to a turtle river.

and coming for fourth year, three thunderstorms have

drenched me here: the drops are so much bigger than

at home

new home, you got warm tapioca pearls,  got aloe blood, got muscadine guts coming from the sky.

Durham Poem #31

Home

Not West Virginia

Now

Durham Poem #4

There is a man waving a gun next to the Bull

We're to hide inside, as they kill him; watch him die till morning

As a city with its history tattooed on your sidewalks, I wonder how you might caption your present.

Durham Poem #202

This elastic place-when I breath it

I'm learning new shades; if I remember to keep my lungs open

Here-I am becoming more comfortable with complex color patterns and asking for hugs when I need one.

For more information or to sign up for the upcoming October 19th Finding Poems Retreat Lucille Clifton and the Poems of Our Past Lives contact Lex via the Finding Poems Page:  http://blackfeministmind.wordpress.com/finding-poems-a-series-of-one-day-retreats-in-durham-nc/

To sign up for Lex's Nov. 2nd workshop at LaVenson Press Studios  "Blue Airmail Letters: The Impossible Poem Home" sign up here:   lavensonpressstudios.com/events/poetry-with-alexis-pauline-gumbs/

Enough: Affirmations that Sustain Sistorians

Last night was the LAST NIGHT of the Brilliance Remastered Sistorian Webinar.  I'm not ashamed to say I teared up.  Also I kinda sang Boys II Men's "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye."  None of us wanted to get offline.  It was truly a 'you hang up, no you hang up' situation.  I am so grateful for this space and to each of the amazing sistorians who participated.   As part of our process of moving forward affirmed and empowered to continue to act on the insights we came to together we collected quotations from geniuses (from Gwendolyn Brooks to Rob Base) to carry with us...post in our offices, keep in our wallets and to turn to as mantras when we need them.   We hope they can affirm you too!!

“I am who I am, doing what I came to do.” Audre Lorde (Eye to Eye: Black Women Hatred and Anger)

"for we are the last of the loud, nevertheless live. conduct your blooming in the noise and whip of the whirlwind.” –Gwendolyn Brooks “The Second Sermon on the Warpland”

"come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed."
--Lucille Clifton

"Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." -Audre Lorde

“I love myself enough to be who I am.” Essex Hemphill

“I have hopes for myself.” Gwendolyn Brooks (Interview in Sturdy Black Bridges)

"Black women are inherently valuable." -Combahee River Collective Statement

"I have everything I need within myself." -Rah Goddess

"I got an idea that I want to share. You don’t like it? So what. I don’t care." Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock (It Takes Two to Make a Thing Go Right—especially useful in a racist academic/activist workplace)

“Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can anyone deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.”
― Zora Neale Hurston

“Anyone working to resist white supremacy has to be a visionary..”  Bekezela Mguni

For more affirmations check out this post we love from Crunk Feminist Collective’s Robin Boylorn: http://www.crunkfeministcollective.com/2012/10/25/overcoming-a-stigma-tism-an-affirmation-for-blackgirls-who-have-considered-suicide-when-closed-eyes-are-enuf/

Want to sign up for the October Webinar---Bright Black: Ending Slavery in Contemporary Black Intellectual Practice?  There are a few days left to get on board! Sign up here.

When in Rome (Finding Poems): All Day Retreat on June Jordan's Architectural Poems

10am-4pm Saturday September 28th, 2013

Durham, NC

Join Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind for an all day retreat inspired by the poetry June Jordan wrote while on her Architecture fellowship in Rome!   (This retreat also includes a walking meditation on the architectural structure of LGBTQ parades complete with box lunches!  We know June wouldn't want to miss it!) We will also have a video guest appearance by Cheryl J. Fish, the first scholar to publish in June Jordan's architectural work!!!

Sign up and share food preferences: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xhhFfoiCjlI1hLT0veAVOooiEU-ogRjEeKsuSABIDKs/viewform   

Offer your retreat fee here at a rate you can afford.  (Keep in mind comparable one day retreats cost about $155.00)

Image of June Jordan's vision to redesign Harlem by designer Shoji Sadao.

Did you know that acclaimed black feminist poet June Jordan was an architect?   Not only that, she won the Prix de Rome in architecture in the 1970s.    This retreat asks us to find the poems in the built environment around us in conversation with the poems that June Jordan wrote while in Rome (some of her less studied work).  For more by Alexis on June Jordan and the poetics of architecture see:http://pluraletantum.com/2012/03/21/june-jordan-and-a-black-feminist-poetics-of-architecture-site-1/

On the Finding Poems Series:  This set of 6 one-day community writing retreats over a six month period is designed to offer writers at all levels an opportunity to find the poems speaking to them everywhere and to deepen their poetic practice by drawing inspiration from black feminist poets.  Each retreat will be all day on a Saturday and will include meals, inspiration, nerdy contextualization and loving support from an exuberant educator who has been creating transformative writing space for over 15 years.

Sister is a Verb: Clarifications from the Sistorians

This week during the third session of the first ever Brilliance Remastered Sistorian Webinar we talked about the hard work of sistering, how it causes us to grow, how sometimes it takes us apart and puts us back together.  We read Audre Lorde's essay "Eye to Eye: Black Women Hatred and Anger" and talked about how institutional oppression and trauma continually challenge our ability to believe that we are "enough" to love each other and ourselves.   We find ourselves repeatedly challenged by the work of sistering, but Toni Cade Bambara says "sister is a verb" and it is what we do.  After a collectively challenging week that has tested our health, our relationships, our spirits and our resolve we put together this clarification about sistering that displaces "sister" as a simple name and deepens our understanding of sistering as an intentional practice.

Sister is a Verb

After Toni Cade Bambara

By the Sistorian Webinar Participants

sistering is NOT for the faint of heart

sistering is painful

sistering makes me want to run and hide.

sistering is a constant hide and seek where searching is a necessity

sistering is not-who-i-thought-i-was vulnerability

sistering can be exhausting

sistering brings up all my anxiety

sistering is wake up in the middle of the night work

sistering is giving what i think i don't have towards a future i'm still learning to deserve

sistering is having no clue and being willing to learn and listen

sistering is owning that sometimes all you can do is sit with and listen

sistering is not being afraid to reach out again and again for what you need

sistering is an opportunity to be reborn

sistering is about being together and also about spending time with yourself.

sistering takes practice, but it doesn't get easier

sistering demands selflessness... sometimes when I most want to be wrapped in myself!!!!

loving yourself...through the hard days..so you can be kind on the next

sistering is nurturing and love and hugs and taking time out to be with another

sistering is about listening and remembering.

sistering means believing that there is some way to say/show what i mean and be heard

(even if it doesnt work the first time)

sistering is about TRYING.

sistering is slow sometimes

sistering is overwhelming fast sometimes

sistering is slumber parties and indulging the girl inside you

sistering is just typing "girrrrrrrrrrrrl..." sometimes... and she already knows what you mean

sistering saves lives

sistering is a technology we are supposed to forget

sistering is deep love

sistering is about showing up.

sistering is about showing out sometimes too

sistering is conscious

sistering affirms

sistering is about telling Black women they are beautiful

(there are enough compliments and adoration to go around)

sistering is salvation earned and gifted

sistering is transformative generosity

sistering is knowing you are infinite and if you share yourself...there is nothing to lose

sistering means you have to do the work of loving yourself and believing in your greatness

sistering is what we do

*********

Are you looking for a transformative space for community accountable intellectuals?  Sign up today for the Bright Black Webinar which will convene at 7pm ET every Tuesday in October.  Sign up closes on September 27th.

We Who Believe in Freedom: A Sweet Remix for Ella from the Sistorian Webinar!

Last night was the first night of the Brilliance Remastered Sistorian Webinar facilitated by Laguana (Elle) Gray and Alexis Pauline Gumbs!  After reading Barbara Ransby's introduction to Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision we had an affirming and transformative conversation about what the technology of sisterhood teaches us about self-care, abundance and love.   Many of us remember Ella Baker's statement (immortalized by Sweet Honey in the Rock) that "we who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes."  A few years ago while doing some research at the Schomburg Library in NYC I came across a letter from Ella Baker to a friend and comrade that made that statement real in more than one way.  Ms. Ella was explaining that even though her community was begging her to take a sabbatical and had even fundraised the money to allow her to do so, she could not "find the time" to actually take a break.   When I read that letter I saw myself and so many of the organizers, educators, activists and artists that I know, and many of us in the webinar have seen the people we love work tirelessly and unsustainably.   With this poem we begin a practice of modeling abundant presence and sustainable freedom for ourselves, each other and everyone who would call us sister.

We Who Believe in Freedom

(a remix for sweet Ella and all of us)

by the participants in the Brilliance Remastered Sistorian Webinar

we who believe in freedom rest

we who believe in freedom believe in the centrality of joy

we who believe in freedom believe in the transformative power of pleasure

we who believe in freedom believe in the transformative power of silence

we who believe in freedom cultivate the faith to be still

we who believe in freedom nourish our souls

we who believe in freedom nourish our souls with deep breaths

we who believe in freedom value our breathing over our reputations, our relationships over our resumes

we who believe in freedom believe that freedom is a personal practice

we who believe in freedom listen to our bodies and take time to release what does not uplift us

we who believe in freedom allow ourselves to talk back

we who believe in freedom TAKE NAPS

we who believe in freedom kiss ourselves and jump back smiling!

we who believe in freedom SING for no or whatever reason!

we who believe in freedom dance in our seats...

we who believe in freedom LOVE!

we who believe in freedom love ourselves like we love our little sisters.

we who believe in freedom forgive ourselves as a practice of compassion

we who believe in freedom practice the power to say no

we who believe in freedom don't gotta do it all ourselves!

we who believe in freedom believe our ancestors are helping us.

we who believe in freedom remember and share the stories of our past freedom struggles

we who believe in freedom believe in each other enough to share power and responsibility

we who believe in freedom speak in love and cultivate honesty

we who believe in freedom actualize the transformative power of sisterhood

we who believe in freedom don't have to prove it we just live it

we who believe in freedom REST

*********************************************************************************************************

(Does this make you want to sign up for the next Brilliance Remastered webinar?  Get the details here:   www.alexispauline.com/brillianceremastered/webinars/)

Back to School Blessings from the School of Our Lorde!!!!

Back to School Black Feminist Oracle Blessings Fundraiser!

Hey loved ones!  I am so excited to be creating a whole new School of Our Lorde curriculum and distance learning platform with fancy audio visual treats and surprises this school year.   It's a surprise, but you are going to LOVE it and it is going to make the indepth (aka obsessive) research that I've done on Audre Lorde's life and work and the work I've been doing around the country with specific geographic communities available to this worldwide community of Audre Lorde loving folks.   Yippee!!!!

So this back to school season I am hosting a virtual fundraiser to jumpstart our new School of Our Lorde Distance Learning Offerings!

Which means donate and you can get these gorgeous back to school blessings (drawing on Audre Lorde's syllabi, speeches and poems about teaching) for you or a loved one!!!!

$10-20 one time donation:

A Black Feminist Oracle Poem (aka alphabetical found poem from within one of Audre Lorde's poems about school/teaching) sent directly to your inbox!

(Just include the intention you want blessed and a letter of the alphabet so I can distill your poem!)

$30-100 (or a monthly sustainer rate of $5-15):

A 30-minute one on one Oracle Reading Session with an interpretation of your Black Feminist Oracle Poem.

(16 available)

$150-300 (or a monthly sustainer rate of $20-25):

An IN PERSON one on one Oracle Reading Session with an interpretation of your Black Feminist Oracle Poem when I am in your neck of the woods.

• 4 available in Durham in September and October
• 2 available in Atlanta Oct. 24-28
• 2 Available in Cincinnati Nov. 7-11
• 2 Available in LA  Sept. 15-16

$1000-2000 (or $100+ sustainer rate):

A customized Audre Lorde based workshop for you and your crew including an installation of a Black Feminist Oracle activity for all participants when I am in your neck of the woods.

• 2 available in Durham in September and October
• 1 available in Atlanta Oct. 24-28
• 1 Available in Cincinnati Nov. 7-11
• 1 Available in LA  Sept. 15-16

 

The Sistorian Webinar: Wednesdays in September!!!!

The Sistorian Webinar (co-facilitated by Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Elle Gray)  

As Toni Cade Bambara taught, sister is a verb!  This webinar explores sistering as an intellectual practice and standard for engagement in an intellectual marketplace that encourages competition, tokenization and shade.   Join sister-comrades Elle and Lex  on Wednesday evenings this September as they draw on texts by black feminist historians, lead discussions on sistering as an intellectual practice and live online interviews with black feminist historian sheroes!  

Course fee: $200

The course is limited to 8 participants on a first come first-serve basis!

To sign up email brillianceremastered@gmail.com and let us know

1. Who you are and

2.  What you hope to get out of the course...

And send your deposit of $50 via paypal

Elle and Lex have collaborated on a number of projects and are co-authors of the companion curriculum for SPEAK! a CD featuring a collective of radical women of color writers.  We are excited to invite you to participate in our newest collaboration...the Sistorian Webinar!!!

(you can sample the CD here by the way: http://sfonline.barnard.edu/polyphonic/gallery/speak.htm)

Laguana "Elle" Gray is an assistant professor of history at UTSA.  She received a B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Houston and an M.A. from Louisiana Tech University. Dr. Gray teaches courses on recent American history, African American history, women's history, and race. She plans also to teach courses in labor history. Her current research areas include the (U.S.) South, black women's history, labor history, and black-brown relations. Her research interests lie in centering the roles women of color play in social movements, social policy, feminism, and creating alternative media. She is working to publish a book that chronicles the history of the lives and labors of black women in the southern poultry processing industry.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a queer black troublemaker, a black feminist love evangelist, a prayer poet priestess and has a PhD in English, African and African-American Studies, and Women and Gender Studies from Duke University.  Alexis was the first scholar to research the Audre Lorde Papers at Spelman College, the June Jordan Papers at Harvard University, and the Lucille Clifton Papers at Emory University, and she is currently on tour with her interactive oracle project “The Lorde Concordance,” a series of ritual mobilizing the life and work of Audre Lorde as a dynamic sacred text. Alexis has also published widely on Caribbean Women’s Literature with a special interest in Dionne Brand. Her scholarly work is published in Obsidian, Symbiosis, Macomere, The Routledge Companion to Anglophone Literature, SIGNS, Feminist Collections, The Black Imagination, Mothering and Hip Hop Culture, The Business of Black Power and more. Alexis is the author of an acclaimed collection of poems 101 Things That Are Not True About the Most Famous Black Women Alive and poetic work published in Kweli, Vinyl, Backbone, Everyday Genius, Turning Wheel, UNFold, Makeshift and more. She has several books in progress including a book of poems, Good Hair Gone Forever, a scholarly monograph on diaspora and the maternal, and an educational resource called the School of Our Lorde. She is also the co-editor of a forthcoming edited collection on legacies of radical mothering called This Bridge Called My Baby.

Bright Blues: Lex's Interactive Black Feminist Adornment Installation on the Washington Mall This Week!

Come see my installation Bright Blues: Black Feminist Adornment practice and get a free black feminist literary oracle reading 11am to 5:30pm today thru Sunday at the Smithsonian Will to Adorn Design Tent on the Washington Mall near 12th St and Jefferson Dr. NW ‎#blackfeminismlives ‎#smithsonianresidency   
Love, 
    QBG Lex

Support the Octavia's Brood Anthology (featuring work by QBGs Moya and Lex and many others!!!)

Hey loved ones, 

  I wanted to give y'all the opportunity to support this exciting new anthology that we are so excited to be a part of!!!!  We are almost half-way to the financial goal!
Love,
 lex

From: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/octavia-s-brood-science-fiction-stories-from-social-justice-movements

Greetings! We are Adrienne Maree Brown and Walidah Imarisha, two community organizers, educators, writers and self-proclaimed nerds. We have individually and collectively been working to bridge the visionary qualities of science/speculative fiction with radical community organizing practice.

We thought there was no better way to do this than with our current book project: Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. It’s an anthology of radical science and speculative fiction written by organizers and activists.

What We Need

We need to raise $8,277 to cover the cost of designing and printing the anthology (with a release date of summer 2014), as well as to fund a national tour where we will not only do readings of the anthology, but writing workshops and organizing strategy sessions where we can support communities turning their visionary ideas into concrete action!

We have received overwhelming support from everyone we tell about Octavia’s Brood. Because we believe in the principles of communities organizing and supporting themselves, we are turning to our strongest supporters and allies, our visionary community, to birth Octavia’s Brood into the world. 

What You Get

In exchange, we are offering some amazing gifts, from not only us the editors but from the writers and our community: exclusive songs by visionary hip hop artists Invincible and Gabriel Teodros only available here; an unreleased science fiction story by one of our amazing writers; hang outs with Octavia’s Brood editors or writers (realworld or virtual!), and more!

And everyone who contributes anything, even $1, will get a thank you in the book for being part of our visionary community, and creating the space for us to re-envision our movements and the world around us.

Other Ways You Can Help

There are 4 easy ways you can support Octavia’s Brood:

1. Contribute to our campaign (and claim some of the great perks available!)
2. Contribute airline miles for the tour and editors' meetings
3. In-kind contributions for website support, promotional materials, app creation
4. Spread the word!

We believe it is our right and our responsibility to dream new worlds, and then set about building them.

Origin Story

Walidah Imarisha is a writer, organizer, educator and performance poet. She is one half of the poetic duo Good Sista/Bad Sista. She has shared the stage with Angela Davis, Cornel West, Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Kenny Muhammad of the Roots, Chuck D, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Umar bin Hassan from The Last Poets, Boots Riley, Saul Williams, Ani DiFranco, John Irving, dead prez and Kochiyama. Her work has appeared in dozens of publications, including the hip hop anthology Total Chaos. Walidah has facilitated poetry and journalism workshops third grade to twelfth, in schools, community centers, youth detention facilities, and women’s prisons. She directed and co-produced the Katrina documentary Finding Common Ground in New Orleans. She has taught in the Portland State University’s Black Studies Department, Oregon State University’s Women’s Studies Department and Southern New Hampshire University’s English Department.

Adrienne Maree Brown has been fanning the flame of Octavia Butler love through workshops and strategic readers for the past several years. She is approaching Octavia's work through the lens of emergent strategy - strategies rooted in relationship, adaptability, and embracing change. Adrienne started writing when she was 2, won her first essay contest in the 6th grade, and was blogging 5000 people before blogs existed. Writing is her first passion, and throughout an incredible journey of social justice and movement facilitation, her steady identity has been writer, penning words that are from the heart. She's written for Africana (now Black AOL), Wiretapmag.org, Alternet.org, HuffingtonPost.com, Feministing.com, Washingtonpost.com, Racewire.org, Left Turn; Race, Poverty and Ecology; and Yes.  Now, Adrienne primarily and sometimes prolifically writes for her own blog - The Luscious Satyagraha, which has a readership of thousands - tracking her own personal and cultural transformation.

Combahee Pilgrimage Podcast: Join Us in Sound and Spirit!!!!!

“The Combahee River Collective was a Black feminist group in Boston whose name came from the guerrilla action conceptualized and led by Harriet Tubman on June 2, 1863, in the Port Royal region of South Carolina.  This action freed more than 750 slaves and is the only military campaign in American history planned and led by a woman.”
-Combahee River Collective Statement 177

June 2, 2013 will be the 150th anniversary of Harriet Tubman’s successful uprising where 750 enslaved Africans freed themselves and each other at the Combahee River.  This uprising was also the inspiration for the Combahee River Collective a Black lesbian feminist socialist collective founded in Boston in 1977 who created an analysis of interconnected liberation centered on the lived experiences of Black women and designed to free us all.

In the spirit of the Combahee River Collective, Harriet Tubman and all the people who stood for their freedom that day the Mobile Homecoming Project and Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind will be coordinating a pilgrimage to the Harriet Tubman Bridge on the Combahee River for a weekend of celebration, clarification, community building and ritual.

Registration is closed and 21 black feminist pilgrims are packing their bags to converge at the river as we speak!!!  But we know there are so many of you who wanted to come in person and who wherever you are in the world will be joining us for this liberation moment in spirit!

So TODAY only!!!  Anyone who makes a donation of any size to the Mobile Homecoming Project and includes the word "podcast" in the notes will receive a downloadable copy of the special hour long Combahee meditation mixtape, travel music compilation that Lex made for the participants!!!  And spread the word to your friends so we can all meet at the water!