Earth Day 2015: "Everglades Litany"

and blessed be the morning star in the arms of gumbo limbo

blessed be the sun on the cruciform wings of anhingas

blessed be the wind where ospreys and black vultures ride

blessed be zebra butterflies on crowns of tamarind

blessed be lightning on the spires of royal palms.

blessed be wildfires that temper berries of the green hawthorn

blessed be hurricanes that tear at the bark of tallowwood and bay-cedars

blessed be bracken and wild olives huddled by salt marshes

blessed be august heat that rasps the throat of morning glories

blessed be panthers and deer hiding behind a screen of leatherwood

blessed be brown pelicans grunting in mangroves after thunderstorms

blessed be the evening star over aisles of magnolias

blessed be barred owls cooing by swamps and hardwood hammocks

blessed be june beetles dusting pollen off their backs in the damp air

blessed be woodstorks and spoonbills wading through resurrection ferns

blessed be chanterelles, their yellow plumes rising from oak and pine

blessed be the moon ripening with pond apples on the banks of canals

blessed be dew and mist, fog and hail, falling on blades of  sugar cane

blessed be  loggerhead turtles lumbering past the thorns of anemones

blessed be, blessed be all that move, live, and breathe on the edge of these lakes

blessed be, blessed be... everything

Geoffrey Philp

Excerpt from xango music: http://www.amazon.com/Xango-Music-Geoffrey-Philp/dp/1900715465

 

 

Image: http://www.campingroadtrip.com/tips-and-articles/best-things-to-do-at-everglades-national-park

 

 

On My Bookshelf: Spring Evenings in Sterling Street: Poems by Eliot Bliss [Kindle Edition]

Eliot (Eileen) Bliss was a Creole writer born in 1903 in Kingston, Jamaica, a British colony at the time. She died, forgotten and neglected, in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, in December 1990. At her side was her lifelong companion, Patricia Allen-Burns, who had supported and taken care of her for 60 years.

The poems collected here were written from 1922 to 1931, and were found in 2004 in the apartment she had shared with Ms Allen-Burns.These poems reflect different stages and periods in Eliot Bliss’s life: There are poems that bring to mind the Caribbean, where she was born and whose memory she would always carry with her; others are dedicated to spiritual life; some to important literary figures, women who had an influence on her life.

About the Editor

Michela A. Calderaro, an Associate Editor of Calabash: A Journal of Caribbean Arts and Letters, teaches English and Postcolonial Literature at the University of Trieste (Italy). Dr. Calderaro, whose critical works include a book on Ford Madox Ford and numerous articles on British, American and Anglophone Caribbean writers, is currently working on Creole writer Eliot (Eileen) Bliss’s biography.

Available @ Amazon: http://goo.gl/QnjkaC

Malachi Smith @ Miami Dade College, North Campus

During National Poetry Month, Malachi Smith, the internationally renowned dub poet, will be reading from Scream, his latest CD, at Miami Dade College, North Campus, on Tuesday, April 14, 2015.

The son of a preacher, Malachi was born in Westmoreland, Jamaica. At the tender age of eight, Malachi began writing poetry and recorded his first poem “Kimbo to Kimbo” in 1979. Following on this early success, Malachi became a founding member of Poets in Unity at the Jamaica School of Drama and went on to produce many other CDs such as Blacker the Berry - The Sweeter the Cherry, Throw Two Punch, Middle Passage, and Luv Dub Fever.

In 2009, Malachi won the Outstanding Writer award for the Jamaica Development Commission's Creative Writing Competition. A retired member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force  and a graduate of Miami Dade College, Malachi is based in Miami.

Malachi Smith

10:00 am to 11:00 a.m.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Rooms 3249--Halls A&C

Miami Dade College, North Campus

11380 NW 27 Avenue,

Miami, FL 33167

This performance is free and open to the public.

I am Pi (2013)

Irrational & Transcendent



***

Bob Marley Symposium @ Florida International University, Biscayne Campus

http://africana.fiu.edu/events/2015/bob-marley-symposium-bob-marley-at-70-critical-look-at-the-man-the-music-and-the-message/

A Hundred Years of Garveyism: Triumph and Tragedy

A Hundred Years of Garveyism: Triumph and Tragedy

In this dynamic presentation, Professor Geoffrey Philp traces the origins of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and discusses the challenges that the movement confronted during the twentieth century.

February 10, 2015

10:00 – 11:00 a.m. 

Room 2151

Miami Dade College, North Campus

11380 NW 27 Avenue,

Miami, FL 33167

Happy Birthday, Brother Bob!

“bob marley in the daycare center” imagines where a reincarnated Bob Marley would choose to work in his next life. 
 

bob marley in the day care center

 

when i first glimpsed him, the smile,
as he played peek-a-boo in the communal playpen,
inside the  young president's club, mt. sinai,
after circle time with the toddlers, reading
real-life stories of heroes whose only weapons
were words aimed at the dragon's heart,
they stared, transfixed, at the sound
uncoiling from his mouth like smoke;
he placed them gently on their blue cots
while the older kids built castles with blocks,
unsteady as jericho's wall to the rastaman's song,
then  retreated to the infants' area to sponge bathe
the early risers--he'd burned through life so fast,
he'd never really grown accustomed to this
human softness--no longer the hard, bitter seed
filled with a desperation that couldn't wait to shatter
its shell, like the eucalyptus pods that fell
on the playground where he'd decided
almost a lifetime ago, this time, he'd take it slow.

Happy Earth Day, Brother Bob!

 

***

“An Evening with Martin, Malcolm & Marcus”

Stageworks Theatre and Claudron Productions present

“An Evening with Martin, Malcolm & Marcus”

‘The Meeting’

Written by Jeff Stetson

Directed by Ron Bobb-Semple

Featuring Josh Goff as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Federico Gordon, Jr. as Malcolm X

Performances March 27th & 28th @ 8 p.m. and @ 3 p.m. on March 1, 2015

Claudron Productions in association with Stageworks Theatre is proud to announce the regional premiere of the historical dramatic stage play, The Meeting, by Jeff Stetson at the Stageworks Theatre in Tampa’s Channel District.

This eloquent play depicts the supposed meeting of two of the most important men of modern times: Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. Differing in their philosophies, but alike in their mutual respect, the two men debate their varying approaches to the same grave social problems, both prepared to die for their beliefs but neither aware of how soon their assassins' bullets would await them.

The action takes place in a suite high up in a Harlem, New York hotel, where Malcolm X and his bodyguard, Rashad, rest before Malcolm's fateful appearance at the Audubon Ballroom. Malcolm X has requested a secret meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who is also in New York, and Dr. King has responded by trudging up the back stairs to Malcolm's suite.

Cautious at first, the two quickly fall into a spirited debate about their differing approaches to improving the lot of the black man in a predominantly white society—Dr. King (the lamb) hoping to find racial harmony through love and peaceful resistance, while Malcolm (the lion) is reconciled to violence and revenge if blacks are to win out over oppression. But no matter how provocative and persuasive his arguments, Malcolm is unable to shake Dr. King's commitment and composure—even when he defeats him in a bout of arm wrestling.

As it happens, Malcolm's Chicago home had been fire bombed that morning and, as he prepares to leave, Dr. King gives him a present: a much loved doll that his daughter had asked him to give to Malcolm's. The two men then arm wrestle again, this time to a draw, an act symbolic not only of their clash of wills but also of the conflicting beliefs which both honor in the other but will not accept for themselves, no matter how eloquent and powerful the arguments set forth.

To complete the Evening will be Ron Bobb-Semple’s one-man cultural and educational presentation “The Spirit of Marcus Garvey” which highlights the sojourn of Marcus Mosiah Garvey in the United States from 1915-1925.

The Stageworks Theatre is located at Grand Central in Channel District – 1120 East Kennedy Blvd, Tampa, Florida 33602. For Tickets and further information call the Theatre’s Box Office  at 813-374-2416 or www.stageworkstheatre.org. Tickets - $23; Military, Seniors and Groups (10 or more) $20.

New Book: Leaving by Plane Swimming Back Underwater by Lawrence Scott

A daring new collection of short stories from the prize-winning Caribbean writer Lawrence Scott, author of Light Falling on Bamboo.

"Marvelous voices that grow into a very special world that Lawrence Scott has made his own. These are stories full of charm and surprise." Romesh Gunesekera.

In these stories, Lawrence Scott explores a world of yearnings and memory, of departure and return, underpinned by the disturbing tensions created by religion, race, sexuality and crime. Sensuous and evocative, Scott's prose has a lightness of touch and tone that exhilarates and illuminates. In the midst of everyday lives, he finds the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Original paperback Price: £9.99  
Publication: 2 February 2015 
ISBN: 9780957118782 

For further information, please contact the publisher: polly.pattullo@gmail.com 

Papillote Press 
23 Rozel Road, 
London SW4 0EY 
Tel: 0207 720 5983 
Email: info@papillotepress.co.uk 
www.papillotepress.co.uk

New E-book: Twelve Poems and A Story for Christmas

The poems describe the journey of a newlywed couple, Mary and Joseph, to their ancestral homeland where they are to be registered in a census decreed by a tyrant. Mary is pregnant and Joseph knows that the child she is carrying is not his. As they travel through the harsh landscape, they are joined by strangers who have been summoned by dreams, visions, and supernatural events to bear witness to a child whose birth they are told is destined to change the course of human history.

In "A Miami Christmas Story" Raymond Allen, a despairing musician and family man, wrestles with his pride that is both the source of his sorrow and redemption. 

Twelve Poems and a Story for Christmas explores the inner lives of characters that surround this perennial story and reveals a human dilemma: to find meaning behind the events in our lives.

http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000032834/Twelve-Poems-and-A-Story-for-Christmas.aspx

Mary's Journey

If only Joseph had listened when she told him
one of those three kings, she couldn’t tell which, 
was a harbinger of trouble. But Joseph, being Joseph

couldn’t turn away strangers lest they be angels
from God and welcomed them. The Magi showered
gifts on the newborn, but when they left, 

Mary discovered they had given the child
more than gold, frankincense, or myrrh.
Now she had to trudge through the village, 

to find this old woman, who everyone called
a witch because she knew herbs that could cure
or kill, and beg for a remedy to heal her son

of a sickness she had never seen before. 
The old woman peeled away the swaddling
cloths, wrapped around the child as if to staunch

a wound, went to the back of her hut, 
and pounded leaves into a poultice. 
“Rub this over his chest and he will get better.” 

“A man who is born for the cross can’t drown.” 
Mary nodded. She didn’t understand a word-- 
only what she needed to do to save her son’s life.