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.

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.