Reading: Pamela Mordecai

My Ideal Schedule - Miami Book Fair International 2014

Saturday, November 22

Time	Location	Event
10:00 a.m.	Room 8201	Jen Karetnick on Brie Season, Chelsea Rathburn on A Raft of Grief: Poems, Danniel Schoonebeek on American Barricade and Elisa Albo on Each Day More
11:30 a.m.	Room 8201	The National Book Awards present the 2014 Winners and Finalists for Poetry including Fanny Howe, Claudia Rankine and Maureen N. McLane
12:00 p.m.	Auditorium	Mark Strand: A Poetry Reading and Tribute with Jorie Graham and Charles Wright
12:30 p.m.	Room 8202	Heather McPherson on Good Catch: Recipes and Stories Celebrating the Best of Florida's Waters; Jen Karetnick on Mango; and Mark DeNote on The Great Florida Craft Beer Guide
2:00 p.m.	Chapman Conference Center	Black Prophetic Fires: African American Leaders and Their Visionary Legacies
3:30 p.m.	Batten	The Fire This Time: Miami Book Fair Honors James Baldwin
3:30 p.m.	Room 8201	A Poetry Reading: Carolyn Forché on Poetry of Witness, Bob Holman on Sing This One Back to Me and Stanley Plumly The Immortal Evening: A Legendary Dinner with Keats, Wordsworth, and Lamb
4:30 p.m.	Room 8201	A Poetry Reading: Kimiko Hahn on Brain Fever: Poems, Vijay Seshadri on 3 Sections: Poems, Peg Boyers on To Forget Venice, Carl Phillips on Silverchest: Poems and Denise Duhamel on Blowout

Sunday, November 23

Time	Location	Event
11:00 a.m.	Room 8525	Future Tense: Independence, Diversity and the Future of Jamaican Publishing
12:00 p.m.	Room 8503	Rick Bragg on Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story
12:30 p.m.	Auditorium	Stuart Dybek on Ecstatic Cahoots: Fifty Short Stories, Russell Banks on A Permanent Member of the Family and Mary Gordon on The Liar's Wife: Four Novellas
1:00 p.m.	Room 7106	Mary Simses on The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Café, John Warley on A Southern Girl: A Novel, Anjanette Delgado on The Clairvoyant of Calle Ocho and Sam Barry on Her Wild Oats by Kathi Kamen Goldmark
1:30 p.m.	Room 8201	A Poetry Reading: Mervyn Taylor on The Waving Gallery, Saeed Jones on Prelude to Bruise and Catherine Bowman on The Plath Cabinet
2:00 p.m.	Auditorium	Marlon James on A Brief History of Seven Killings: A Novel, Francisco Goldman on The Interior Circuit: A Mexico City Chronicle, and Nuruddin Farah on Hiding in Plain Sight: A Novel
2:00 p.m.	Chapman Conference Center	Two Lives: Charles M. Blow on Fire Shut Up in My Bones: A Memoirand Richard Blanco on The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood
3:00 p.m.	Room 1164	Fairy Tales Told and Re-told: Russ Kick on The Graphic Canon of Children's Literature, Van Jensen on Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer: Complete Edition, Ted Naifeh on Princess Ugg and Heidi Schulz onHook's Revenge
3:00 p.m.	Room 8201	A Poetry Reading: Barbara Hamby on Street of Divine Love, Michael Hettich on Systems of Vanishing and Tony Hoagland on Twenty Poems That Could Save America and Other Essays
4:00 p.m.	Room 8303	Lauren Francis-Sharma on 'Til the Well Runs Dry, Elizabeth Nunez on Not for Everyday Use: A Memoir, Carole Boyce Davies on Caribbean Spaces: Escapes from Twilight Zones and Tiphanie Yanique on Land of Love and Drowning

Click here for the complete Fairgoer’s Guide: http://www.miamibookfair.com/events/

Book Reading/Signing: Marlon James and Geoffrey Philp

Book Launch: Rastafari in the New Millennium

Rastafari in the New Millennium 

Thursday, November 20, 2014

6:00 p.m.

UC I-Lounge

University of Miami

1320 S Dixie Hwy, 

Coral Gables, FL 33124

CD Launch: Scream by Malachi Smith

Launch of SCREAM – a CD collection of powerful prophecy, exhortation and lamentation by Dub Poet,Malachi Smith.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

6:30 p.m.

JEPA’s Place,

7153 West Oakland Park Boulevard, 

Lauderhill, Florida 33313. 

Resisting Against the System: Kreyòl, Patwa & the Matrix of Maroonage

Professor Geoffrey Philp traces the origins of language suppression as a tool of colonial policy in the Caribbean and the various forms of resistance in the work of Haitian and Jamaican writers such as  Manno Charlemagne, Bob Marley, Louise Bennett, and Felix Morrisseau-Leroy.

Geoffrey Philp, author of the e-book, Bob Marley and Bradford’s iPod, has also written five collections of poetry, two children's e-books, and two short story collections. An award winning writer, Philp is one of the few writers whose work has been published in the Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories and the Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse. He teaches English and creative writing at Miami Dade college where he is chair of Developmental Education at the North Campus.

"Preserving Global Creole Cultures and Languages"

International Creole Month

Thursday, October 23, 2014.   

9:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Room 3249.

North Campus Conference Center, 

Miami Dade College

Book Review: A Brief History of Seven Killings

When New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani described A Brief History of Seven Killings as “epic in every sense of that word,” I thought my reaction would be similar to Dr. Johnson’s response to another epic, Paradise Lost: “None could have wished it a word longer.” Coming in at just under seven hundred pages with a cast of at least seventy-six named characters from the laconic Josey Wales to the inscrutable Nina Burgess, A Brief History of Seven Killings spans three decades of Jamaican history during the post-independence era.

While A Brief History of Seven Killings could be reduced to the chronicle of Rolling Stone journalist, Alex Pierce, who stumbles on to information about the assassination of Bob Marley, which puts his own life in danger, that would be only one of the plots. And such a reductionist view would be a grave injustice to this monumental work. For Marlon James is updating many of the questions raised in Jamaican classics such as Brother Man, an exploration of the influence of Rastafari; Voices Under the Window, which captured the race, class, and colour conflicts of Jamaican culture, and The Children of Sisyphus, a Dantesque vision of a Jamaican ghetto. 

James is also asking questions that affect the life of every Jamaican at home and abroad: Why was the CIA involved in the destabilization of the Jamaican government from 1972-79? Why did the peace movement fall apart? Why would anyone try to kill the famed prophet of reggae and Rastafari? Only a writer with the prodigious talent and assiduous attention to the craft of storytelling that Mr. James possesses could have attempted such an ambitious project and created this spellbinding narrative. As someone who lived through those turbulent times and who is knowledgeable about many of the facts, rumors, and half-truths about the attempted assassination, I was impressed not only by James’s approach, but also with his treatment of the events surrounding December 3, 1976.

Perhaps, the most intriguing aspect of this novel is the shift in perspectives. Just when I thought I knew a character such as Josey Wales, the brutal leader of the Storm posse, I found myself in the middle of a tender scene between him and his son: “I smile with the boy so that he don’t feel like I threatening him too much, but he is sixteen now, and I still remember sixteen, so I know the hunger growing in him. All this talking back is moving from a little cute to a little threat. Part of it sweet me, seeing this little shit puff him chest out.” Or another killer, Weeper, who reads books such as Bertrand Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy and will not hesitate to murder and maim, yet still finds time to enjoy moments with his lover: “He thinking I going to be the one to look away first, but I not going look away and I not going to even blink.”

A Brief History of Seven Killings, which was dubbed the “Great Jamaican Novel” by Fader, has rightly earned this title. For even after six hundred and eighty eight pages, I was still concerned about the fates of Alex Pierce and the enigmatic changeling, Nina Burgess. Or whatever she calls herself these days.

Talkin Dub - Michael ‘Mikey’ Smith 60th Birthday Tribute

Talkin Dub - Michael ‘Mikey’ Smith 60th Birthday Tribute

Crafted in protest, powered by revolution, infused with reggae and blessed by Rastafari - Michael ‘Mikey’ Smith 60th Birthday Tribute.  Poets & Passion - A Caribbean Literary Lime 9th Season opener in celebration of the man, the artist; the activist.  

A program of film, music and performance poetry with guest poets AJA, jaBEZ, Queen Majeeda and Ras Osagyefo.  Presented by the Caribbean Cultural Theatre in association with Nicholas Brooklyn, Inc. and Big Sister Entertainment as a Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend event.  

Nicholas Brooklyn, 

570 Fulton Street (corner Flatbush Avenue), Brooklyn, NY

Thursday, September 18, 2014.  7:00pm.

Caribbean Cultural Theatre: 718.783.8345 

Nicholas Brooklyn: 718.858.4400

FACEBOOK: http://on.fb.me/1w7AfQ1

"Cry to Me": Fatherhood and Domestic Violence

The prevalence of violence, especially domestic violence with Caribbean families, has been one of the themes in my two short story collections, Uncle Obadiah and the Alien and Who's Your Daddy? 

In the short story, "Cry to Me," from Who's Your Daddy, which I've republished as an eBook, I've combined domestic violence with fatherhood in the story of David Hamilton, a respected professor, whose life is disrupted when his daughter becomes a victim of domestic violence.




I think "Cry to Me" is a precursor to a darker story that I am currently working on in which fatherhood turns ugly. Stay tuned.

WomanSpeak, A Journal of Writing and Art by Caribbean Women, Vol.7,

WomanSpeak, A Journal of Writing and Art by Caribbean Women, Vol.7, 2014, edited by Lynn Sweeting, brings together 30 contemporary women writers and painters of the Caribbean in a new collection especially themed, “Voices of Dissent: Writing and Art to Transform the Culture.”  Includes works by Opal Palmer Adisa, Lelawattee Manoo Rahming, Vahni Capildeo, Althea Romeo-Mark, Marion Bethel, Danielle Boodoo-Fortune, Sonia Farmer, Angelique V. Nixon and more. 


http://www.lulu.com/shop/lynn-sweeting/womanspeak-a-journal-of-writing-and-art-by-caribbean-women-vol72014/paperback/product-21293884.html

LETTER FROM MARCUS GARVEY: Connotations

For the past year and a half, I've been working on a collection of poems, LETTER FROM MARCUS GARVEY. Some of the poems have been published in Small Axe and  Susumba. Today, I received some great news from Connotations, which not only published poems #9, #18, and #35, but also an interview about the poems, Garvey's life, and my writing process.

Give thanks to Julie Brooks Barbour, who conducted the interview, and Kaite Hillenbrand, Poetry Editor of Connotations.

Here's the link: http://www.connotationpress.com/poetry/2413-geoffrey-philp-poetry

Sasenarine Persaud @ Edinburgh International Book Festival

Sasenarine Persaud recently returned from a successful eight (8) event reading tour of the UK, focused in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Sasenarine’s trip, funded mainly by the British Council, coincided with the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. As part of the Games, a poet from each Commonwealth country read and recorded a poem on the BBC’s (British Broadcasting Corporation) Poetry Postcard Program. Sasenarine’s poem, ‘Georgetown’ (from his soon to be released book, Love in a Time of Technology) is available here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p022ys3f 

The poem was printed on postcards and distributed throughout the Commonwealth Games. Sasenarine opened his tour with a reading and discussion on poetry and poetics, culture, homelands and exiles at the BBC in Glasgow in front a live audience.

This was followed by an interview and a reading at the Empire Café in Glasgow with an audience of over 200, and with the Scottish Minister of External Affairs and International Development introducing the evening. The Empire Café was formed to look at Scottish involvement with the slave trade and its association with the plantation system in the West Indies. The Empire Café commissioned Sasenarine to write a poem (‘Campbellville’) which was published by the Café in an anthology, and which led to the Café extending an invitation to visit Scotland.

Two (2) readings at the Saltire Society (Edinburgh Festival Fringe), in the historic courtyard building where Robert Louis Stevenson’s narrator of Treasure Island told the story of his iconic novel,followed.

Sasenarine rounded off his trip with three (3) readings at the Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF). He had the distinction of opening the 2014 edition of the EIBF on August 9, with a solo reading to a packed tent at a reading called “10 at 10”. Later in the day he read with three (3) other poets in an event billed as “Voices of the Caribbean Diaspora,” which occurred in the Baillie Gifford Main Theatre and which was introduced by Jackie Kay. His final appearance at the EIBF was at an event titled, ”Jura Unbound”, an evening of poetry, music and reflections, the evening before his departure.

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On my bookshelf: Pepperpot

Pepperpot is the inaugural publication of Peekash Press, a joint imprint of 
Caribbean literature by Akashic Books (Brooklyn) and Peepal Tree Press (Leeds, UK). In collaboration with the Commonwealth Writers, the British Council, the Kingston Book Festival, and CaribLit, Akashic and Peepal Tree -- already recognized as publishers of high-quality Caribbean literature -- further their commitment to writers from the region with this exciting new imprint. Pepperpot gathers the very best Caribbean entries to the 2013 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, including a mix of established and up-and-coming writers from islands throughout the Caribbean.

Featuring short fiction by: 

Sharon Millar (Trinidad & Tobago)
Dwight Thompson (Jamaica)
Kevin Baldeosingh, (Trinidad & Tobago) 
Ivory Kelly (Belize)
Barbara Jenkins (Trinidad & Tobago) 
Sharon Leach (Jamaica)
Joanne C. Hillhouse (Antigua & Barbuda)
Ezekel Alan (Jamaica)
Heather Barker (Barbados)
Janice Lynn Mather (Bahamas) 
Kimmisha Thomas (Jamaica) 
Kevin Jared Hosein (Trinidad & Tobago)
Garfield Ellis (Jamaica)

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