Posts

Showing posts from May, 2008

The Cph Guide!

Image
Click on image to read article... This is the latest project I contributed to: The Cph Guide. The backcover reads: "This is a guide to Copenhagen. It is made by both locals and newcomers who provide an introduction to the city as well as presenting you with the ultimate listing of interesting and cool places..." So, if you're swinging by, you know what to get! farvel , the lab

Happy Belated Birthday!

Image
I always get a bit of comfort when positive coincidences occur in my life. It always makes me feel like I'm being guided, by some greater force and that I'm on the right path. Well, last night I was lucky enough to experience this feeling. One of the things that keep me really grounded and connected here in Copenhagen has been the wonder of the internet: connecting with others throughout the globe who share the same visions as I do. Sometimes I go on Youtube and search for everything from calypso to old school hip hop: Images that fortify me and sustain me. Last night was one such night: I decided to google El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X). I watched a couple of his speeches, and experienced the power of his words. Can't explain the wonder I experienced when I visited Electronic Village today and read that yesterday was his birthday! Read the treat here: Electronic Village . Enjoy the article! Hugs, Blackgirl on Mars!

I Like This Song & Video (I Miss New York)

Thank You Denmark

Image
Thank you Denmark for teaching me to make callaloo & dahl For prompting me to call my mother & ask: How do you cook yam? For forcing me to the Nigerian Market & discovering that green plantain can be fried when ripe that breadfruit can be bought in a tin & the importance of pealing cassava. Thank you Denmark, for having all the Calypso at the Library that I before foolishly took for granted in the way we all take the air, & the way in which our hearts beat. You might be interested in: The Legacy Circle Callaloo Creative Writing Workshops Naipaul Strikes Again -- Recent New York Times article Did you know that it is now illegal for female Muslim judges in Denmark to cover their heads on the job?!?

For You...

For Shelley

The Master: Lord Kitchener singing "Sugar Bum Bum"

Carnival

I found this video on Youtube and loved it--the music is by Andre Tanker and many thanks to the person who made this video!

Immigrant Mother

Image
There is Only so much an Immigrant Mother Can do. She can Carry Key Food Grocery Bags In each hand Full of Refined Sugar, white bread, a gallon Of milk & white Rice-- Food, Stripped Of all It’s Value… She can Call home, down to Trinidad, In a public Phone booth (with a stolen credit card number) & say: Everything all right, While her Children Gather About her Knees, and know otherwise... When she is in The silence Of her Brooklyn room, She Can get down On both Knees, light Colorful Candles To Saints & pray that they do All that she Can not do, Like: Give her Strength, Pay her Bills & Protect her from her husband. She can Load a Washing machine With the tattered Clothes of her Family, Make cow- Heal soup on Sundays & make That Orange Juice Stretch. She can Visit her Children Locked Up In Their Room & Conduct A stand-up Routine in her Worn-from-use Night-gown, large pink Plastic Rollers, wearing no Dentures & so Cheer them up (thank you Mommy). She can Work...

A Few Things

Happy Saturday! Here are a few things I wanted to share with you all. The first is a message I received from Amistad Confidential. This one is dedicated to those of us who especially like to keep our eyes on the world of publishing, not least of all--the fate of books for us, by us: Dear Friends, I'm an editor for Amistad/HarperCollins. You are probably familiar with some of our more famous books such as THE KNOWN WORLD by Edward P. Jones and Chris Gardner's THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS. I came across your respective sites from the ringshout.blogspot.com initiative started by my colleagues in other publishing arenas. I have launched a new blog for our imprint called www.amistadconfidential.blogspot.com where I discuss our books and publishing in general. I hope it gives people insight into the publishing world, particularly as it relates to publishing books related to the black experience. It is part of my web 2.0 initiative to help bring together people interested in the fate...

Fiction

Image
She was 60 and unemployed. Her rent had been raised from 650 to 950. She suspected it had something to do with the rent in Manhattan: Suddenly white people abounded in her neighborhood. Why didn't they just go away? She sucked her teeth: It was bad enough she had to see them at work and all up in the television. Why couldn't she have Brooklyn? They were like cockroaches, she thought. She moved here in 1970. She tricked her mother and eloped. Her mother had finally secured her a green card and a job in Cumberland, Maryland. "You play your cards right and you can get a good job in a bank." All the other West Indian girls were doing it and she knew she was lucky to be able to leave Trinidad for America. But then her husband mailed her the bus ticket from D.C. to Penn Station. After all these years here, she would always remember the color of the leaves on the trees when she first came here. She had never seen anything like it. She and her husband would take walks in Pros...
Image
Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.

The State of (In)visible Black Europe:Race, Rights, and Politics in Europe--April 29, 2008

Today I read an interesting, unoffical report about about the state of Blacks in Europe based on the UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE (HELSINKI COMMISSION) HEARING: THE STATE OF (IN)VISIBLE BLACK EUROPE: RACE, RIGHTS & POLITICS. Adrianne George from Black Women in Europe posted this unofficial report on a Blacks in Europe discussion group started by Bill from Jewels in the Jungle fame. I read the report with great interest, and was relieved to see many of my thoughts reflected in it. Sometimes, no matter how much we know something to be true, it helps to see that not only do others know it, but that these truths are being documented and recognized. I visited AfroSpear today, and was pleased to see that the report also warranted their attention. In this light, in this effort to disseminate this information to as wide an audience as possible, I too now offer this report for your perusal: The State of (In)visible Black Europe: Race, Rights and Politics ...

Happy Birthday Daddy (R.I.P)

Image
The Organist’s Daughter I sit Amidst The smell Of Disinfectant & shit while you sleep seeming delicately balanced between life & death I hold your hand. Although you are Asleep, We both know That you are Already dead. You wait for Me to do what I can not do. I hold your hand Daddy, your hand Which once held Belts lashed into Young flesh. You beat us, you said, because When you were young… Sometimes, I suppose It takes more than Just one man To break a cycle. Offences were Arbitrary & Ebbed & Flowed with The availability Of work. You were the overseer Of the plantation Of our youth. You were the guard Of the bedroom Which imprisoned us. The punisher Who whipped Young virgin Brown skin With metal-studded Leather (father) You executed our Youth Beheaded our hearts With a frustrated Sigh You midwifed us Out of our childhood & birthed beaten brothers & sisters bloodstain your heart, your badge of bitterness— this is your legacy. Your face is Round like the moon ...