Anancy Festival 2014

Anancy Festival Pembroke Pines

June 28, 2014

Time: Noon – 4:00 pm

South Regional/Broward College Library

7300 Pines Boulevard, Pembroke Pines, FL 33024

Admission: Free

Susumba's Book bag: Online!

The first issue of Susumba's Book bag is now online, and features the work of Opal Palmer-Adisa, Sharon Millar, Joanne C. Hillhouse, Lisa Allen-Agostini, and Roland Watson-Grant, among others.

The inclusion of my short story “Blessed are the Meek” was especially gratifying because it has been the closest to an autobiographical story that I’ve ever written, and to see it in print has been cathartic. Publication closed the circle, so that I could lay those demons to rest.

Give thanks Tanya Batson-Savage and the Susumba team for providing another publication venue for Caribbean writers. 

Read and enjoy!

 http://www.susumba.com/magazine/issue/susumbas-book-bag-issue-1

South Florida Book Festival: Making Sound & Sense of Poetry

Sound & Sense: This workshop will explore the basic elements of poetry: rhythm, metaphor, and voice. Participants will be introduced to the work of several contemporary poets, engage in close readings of a text, and demonstrate what they have learned through an in-class writing exercise. 

Maximum participants: 15

Saturday, July 26, 2014

3:00 to 4:00 p.m.

African-American Research Library and Cultural Center

2650 Sistrunk Boulevard

Fort Lauderdale, FL 33311

Click here to register: sfbf-saturday.eventbrite.com

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SUNRISE ANCESTRAL REMEMBRANCE OF THE MIDDLE PASSAGE CEREMONY

SUNRISE ANCESTRAL REMEMBRANCE OF THE MIDDLE PASSAGE CEREMONY

HISTORIC VIRGINIA KEY BEACH PARK

MIAMI, FLORIDA

June 22, 2014, 5:30 a.m.

The Past is Present, he Future is Now.

All peoples are Three Peoples: the Ancestors, the Living, and the Yet Unborn. All of our Ancestors and all of our Future Generations are alive and present in us today.

--Traditional African Wisdom

Every word we say, every deed we do affects the next Seven Generations.

--Native American Wisdom

Virtually every African American today is descended from at least one Ancestor who survived the Middle Passage, as the unspeakable forced Atlantic crossing was called. For each survivor, from four to seven other Africans perished, between the point of their capture and the arrival of the ships in the “New World,”lives senselessly destroyed, wasted, and sacrificed to wanton greed and corruption.

Now in its 23rd year, Miami’s annual beachfront Remembrance of the untold millions of Ancestors who perished in that demonic “trade” – and of those who survived it, and the nightmare of centuries of slavery which followed, to give life to present and future generations – is one of the earliest established of the increasing number of such remembrance ceremonies around the nation and the world.

The Miami event is held annually on the Sunday morning closest to the summer solstice, and has also become linked to the growing observance of Juneteenth, the commemoration of June 19, 1865, when the true end of legal slavery in the U.S. came, as the last of the enslaved population, in East Texas, became free:Truly, “Until all of us are free, none of us is free.”

This year’s Ancestral Remembrance takes on even more timeliness and importance because 2014 marks the 20th anniversary of the 1994 launch of the UNESCO Slave Route Project in Benin West Africa, cosponsored by Haiti, as a global call to all nations which were touched by the “slave trade” to identify and conserve all historic sites, artifacts, archival records, oral memories, and other evidence so that this story is never lost or forgotten by future generations. This anniversary includes a special appeal by the Slave Route Project to the U.S. and North America to become more involved.

The Remembrance is open to all and is largely informal and grass-roots based. It begins with a Native American “Opening of the Way” ceremony and a pouring of a libation honoring African tradition, followed by an open invitation to share welcoming prayers, thoughts, performances, art, music and songs
(drummers are specially invited), and other expressions. The ceremony concludes with the placing of offerings of fruits, yams, grains, flowers, and other appropriate items, on a raft and carried out to sea and released.

For further information, call 305-904-7620 or 305-260-1246.

Happy Juneteenth!

Image by Cedric Cannon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia
Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, is a holiday in the United States honoring African American heritage by commemorating the announcement of the abolition of slavery in the U.S. State of Texas in 1865. Celebrated on June 19, the term is a portmanteau of June and nineteenth, and is recognized as a state holiday or state holiday observance in 41 states of the United States.
"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds" 
~Bob Marley's adaptation of a speech by Marcus Garvey.

Escribe Aqui/Write Here at The Betsy!

The Betsy Writer's Room presents a multilingual, multicultural Reading at The Betsy, Friday, June 27 at 6 p.m. in B Bar.

The Betsy hosts authors from various Hispanic and Caribbean countries in a multilingual reading in B Bar. The evening will be broken up into two readings:

Escribe Aqui will feature readings in Spanish with Hernan Vera Alvarez (Argentina), Pedro Medina Leon (Peru), Camilo Pino (Venezuela) and Jose Ignacio Valenzuela (Chile) at 6PM.

Write Here will follow, with readings in English by Anjanette Delgado (Cuba), MJ Fievre (Haiti), Mia Leonin (Cuba) and Geoffrey Philp (Jamaica).

Special Musical Performance by jazz saxophonist, Nestor Zurita.

Books & Books will have copies from selected works available for purchase.

CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR SEAT NOW.<http://the-betsy-south-beach.ticketleap.com/betsy-write-here/details>

Cash bar available. This is a free event.

2014 Annual FLASC Symposium Moca @ The Crossroads

2014 Annual FLASC Symposium 

2014 Annual FLASC Symposium  Moca @ The Crossroads

What happens when politics of class and culture collide? 

Saturday, June 14, 2014  |  4 - 8 pm

MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art, NORTH MIAMI

770 NE 125 Street, North Miami, FL 33161

While communities across the United States are becoming more diverse, more globally connected and less territorialized, artistic institutions that are entrenched in frozen concepts of representation, interpretation, communication, programming and access; not only have less relevance within their communities,  but find themselves in conflict with the very people for whom they were created.

Join some of the nations leading art scholars as they present the latest information and ideas and delve into the salient questions:

What role can artists and art institutions play with residents who live in an 

increasingly globalized and continually de-territorialized world? 

How can artists and art institutions organize sociopolitical and cultural 

dis/order with this globalized existence?

SPEAKERS

Houston Baker

Distinguished Professor, Vanderbilt University

Jessy Benjamin

Kennesaw State University 

Linda Carty

Syracuse University

William Cordova

Artist, Yale University

Margo Natalie Crawford

Cornell University 

Carole Boyce Davies

Cornell University

Jose Gutierrez

Miami Triennial 

Redell Hearn 

John Hopkins University 

Pete Wayne Lewis

University of Massachusetts 

Satya Mohanty

Cornell University   

Nkiru Nzegwu

New York State University at Binghamton

Alfredo Triff

Miami Dade College/University of Miami

For more information, please call  305.893.6511 x 12110

"Letter from Marcus Garvey"

Letter from Marcus Garvey

London, 9 June 1940

When I was in the Atlanta Federal Prison

I chanted through the silence, "Keep cool,

keep cool," For I didn't want to see twisted

bodies ripening on the flowering dogwood.

Or when I emerged from the caverns

of the Spanish Town District Prison,

the children hurled stones at my head,

like I was some lame poet,

and even after my first betrayal

when Amy brawled with a Judas,

you ignored me and said I made us

"a laughingstock to the world."

I took it because I knew you were blind

to your own beauty, that you could be seduced

by weak-kneed hypocrites who would call me

"a half-wit, low-grade moron." I took it all.

But what has me choking
on my words,is not the asthma, 
the shortness of breath

that has slowed my heart, 
my body that will be taken away soon-soon

by the whirlwind--what's left me mute

is the broken faith of my brothers

and sisters, scattered like goats on a far
hillside where my father lies buried
under the broad leaves of the breadfruit; 
his bones warmer than these white, 
cold pages swirling in my doorway

"Letter from Marcus Garvey" by Geoffrey Philp

"Letter from Marcus Garvey" was first published in Dance the Guns to Silence (2005), an anthology of poems that celebrated the life of the Nigerian activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa ((1941-1995): "the writer cannot be a mere storyteller; he cannot be a mere teacher; he cannot merely X-ray society's weaknesses, its ills, its perils. He or she must be actively involved shaping its present and its future."

The title, Dance the Guns to Silence is taken from one of Saro-Wiwa’s own poems, ‘Dance’. The anthology has a Foreword written by Ken Wiwa and editorial advisory from the renowned Malawian poet, now living in exile in Britain, Jack Mapanje.

Dance the Guns to Silence is an anthology of strong, thoughtful, poems of tribute, ranging from words of social consciousness to hard hitting images and moving stories.

Dance the Guns to Silence: 100 Poems Inspired by Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Edited by: Nii Ayikwei Parkes and; Kadija George.

For more information, visit this site: http://www.remembersarowiwa.com/poetry.htm

"Letter from Marcus Garvey" was also published in my most recent collection of poems, Dub Wise.

Visit my author page @ Amazon: Geoffrey Philp

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Presidential Proclamation for 2014 National Caribbean American Heritage Month

National Caribbean-American Heritage Month 2014

A Proclamation

For centuries, the United States and nations in the Caribbean have grown alongside each other as partners in progress. Separated by sea but united by a yearning for independence, our countries won the right to chart their own destinies after generations of colonial rule. Time and again, we have led the way to a brighter future together -- from lifting the stains of slavery and segregation to widening the circle of opportunity for our sons and daughters.

National Caribbean-American Heritage Month is a time to celebrate those enduring achievements. It is also a chance to recognize men and women who trace their roots to the Caribbean. Through every chapter of our Nation's history, Caribbean Americans have made our country stronger -- reshaping our politics and reigniting the arts, spurring our movements and answering the call to serve. Caribbean traditions have enriched our own, and woven new threads into our cultural fabric. Again and again, Caribbean immigrants and their descendants have reaffirmed America's promise as a land of opportunity -- a place where no matter who you are or where you come from, you can make it if you try.

Together, as a Nation of immigrants, we will keep writing that story. And alongside our partners throughout the Caribbean, we will keep working to achieve inclusive economic growth, access to clean and affordable energy, enhanced security, and lasting opportunity for all our people. As we honor Caribbean Americans this month, let us strengthen the ties that bind us as members of the Pan American community, and let us resolve to carry them forward in the years ahead.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2014 as National Caribbean-American Heritage Month. I encourage all Americans to celebrate the history and culture of Caribbean Americans with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand fourteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.

Presidential Proclamation for 2014 National Caribbean American Heritage Month -- JUNE 1st - geoffreyphilp101@gmail.com - Gmail:



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