blackgirl on mars: notes on a life in copenhagen: On Being Me (A Response to Alice Walker's 'On Stripping Bark from Myself'

Saturday, June 13, 2009

On Being Me (A Response to Alice Walker's 'On Stripping Bark from Myself'

because
all the women
in my family
keep Silent
about their
Awkward truths
I will
tell mine
in an Art Blakey
kind of way

So that
the young
will know that
there are
warriors
before them:

women who
lead with
dreams
and know
that there
is no
Such
thing as
a Casual Lover...

I will live
my life
lonely
it may
sometimes
seem

because

the person
in Love
is the
person
who can
never
be Free...

Bornholm, June 2009

1 comments:

Mista Jaycee said...: In Love
Yeah, the sweetest bondage. An embrace you can't escape from and that you never want to.
Love!
Mista Jaycee; 3:54 PM

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Blackgirl on Mars can be heard at Blackgirl on Mars Myspace

blackgirl on mars is...

from Flatbush Avenue & my parents hail from Trinidad & Tobago. I grew up jumping double dutch with bell telephone lines and listening to the groans of my daddy's hammond organ.

Jimmy Smith, Gil Scott Heron, Nina Simone...they all whispered in my ears since I was a baby. When I was ten I was sent to live with my grandmother in Diego Martin, Trinidad. Hildred Balbirsingh is no joke and is my hero number one. She does what is necessary, and this includes raising other people's children--how cool is this? She is in her 80s and still raising children!

I've lived in Trinidad, Brooklyn, New York City, Maui and now Copenhagen. I studied with Suzanne Lori Parks, Jaime Manriquez & Jane Lazar. My writing has appeared in the Source, Vibe Magazine, Spew II (legendary), Oneworld Magazine and a few anthologies, including "Expat:Women's True Tales of Life Abroad" & "In Defense of Mumia". I've interviewed Daddy-O;Savion Glover; Kara Walker; Gary Simmons;Lady Saw; Sol Sax and Paul Beatty (among others).

I apprenticed under the magnificent Marie Brown of Marie Brown Associates for 4 years and learned among other things,the greatest lesson ever-- how to be a better human being (thanks Marie!)I am currently working on my novel, "The Mothers of Memory" and working on spoken word shows and recordings.

And if you don't know all these names I'm dropping,then check them out--it's worth it!

xxx

blackgirl on mars is the continuous narrative of what happens when the rug of learned cultural codes necessary for one's survival is pulled out from under one’s brown feet. Out of this space, this perspective, comes a voice that is increasingly being heard: that of the colored & underrepresented masses the world over (we are the majority).

Something is happening right here & right now & blackgirl on mars has got her pen on it--from reminding us of our greatness to seeing the beauty in even the minute gesture of a leaf falling on to the concrete. There is beauty in the psychological struggle of being in a rugged land of the strange (where winters are harsh & dark), and it is out of this search for this beauty that I have looked within and processed everything you read on this page.

So sit back, relax & read the adventures of a sister who from all appearances seem only to live in another country but from experiences thus far-- it might as well be on another planet...

blackgirl on mars!