it's 1 am and i should be asleep. monday awaits. but i couldn't let the night pass without blogging. :) the java monkey slam finals were tonight and i made the team along with gypsee yo, chas, and shannon leigh, with bryan patillo as slam master. it was all in all a night of great poetry. from the sacrificial poets courtney and jon goode, to the final round.
shoutouts!: thanks to kimpossible, tim, kwajelyn, celita, ashley, drea, my lovely sister keda, my beautiful mom jeanne, kyana, jon goode, gypsee yo, ebony janice, byron, asha, and myra for showing a sista so much love and support.
this is my third try at making the java monkey team and through the process i have learned that slam is a tricky thing. it's not something to base your value on as a poet. it's a competition, it's numbers, scores, strategy, with a lil entertainment mixed in. i like it because it challenges me, pushes me to take my work and my performance to another level. so at the end of the whole thing you gotta feel good about what you do, about what you say, and at least be able to walk off stage proud of yourself.
kudos to each poet that made it to the finals, the abovementioned and a.p., mista funn, chiara, lady, and stefen. i'll keep you all posted on the prep for nationals.
4.14.2008
4.08.2008
10 Quotes about Poetry
I wrote my first book of poetry in the fourth grade. mrs. perry’s class. mrs. perry was a large woman, jovial with glasses thick like microscope lenses and curly salt and pepper hair that had better body than many of the chicks in the pert plus commercial. it was January and we had read poems and quotes about dr. king.
mrs. perry armed us with white copy paper, markers, crayons, colored pencils and freed our eight year old minds to write poems and draw our own illustrations. once we had written the work, we did what we had no idea many writers must do. we self-published. we were responsible for writing, illustrating, binding, and coming up with cover art. my friend porsha had the genius idea of using old hand towels as the cover. my hand towel had a blue butterfly spread across it which matched perfectly with the electric blue duct tape that would become the book’s spine.
mrs. perry encouraged something that my mom had started in me before I was born. a love for words. mrs. perry’s book assignment showed me the power of not only honoring my own words but that words can be a gift that you leave for others. like an inheritance. today, I don’t have that blue butterfly hand towel or the duct tape, but I’m still writing, illustrating, packaging, hoping that someone will happen upon these words and find encouragement in them. in honor of national poetry month…ten quotes about poetry.
1. Writers don’t write from experience, although many are hesitant to admit that they don’t. ...If you wrote from experience, you’d get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.—Nikki Giovanni
2. I always write a good first line, but I have trouble in writing the others.-- Molière [Jean Baptiste Poquelin]
3. But all art is sensual and poetry particularly so. It is directly, that is, of the senses, and since the senses do not exist without an object for their employment all art is necessarily objective. It doesn’t declaim or explain, it presents. – William Carlos Williams
4. All poets, all writers are political. They either maintain the status quo, or they say, ’Something’s wrong, let’s change it for the better.’ – Sonia Sanchez
5. One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
6. The trouble with America isn’t that the poetry of life has turned to prose, but that it has turned to advertising copy. – Louis Kronenberger
7. My role in society, or any artist or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all. – John Lennon
8. I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests. – Pablo Neruda
9. At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet. – Plato
10. Poetry is concerned with using with abusing, with losing with wanting, with denying with avoiding with adoring with replacing the noun. It is doing that always doing that, doing that and doing nothing but that. Poetry is doing nothing but using losing refusing and pleasing and betraying and caressing nouns. That is what poetry does, that is what poetry has to do no matter what kind of poetry it is. And there are a great many kinds of poetry. – Gertrude Stein
mrs. perry armed us with white copy paper, markers, crayons, colored pencils and freed our eight year old minds to write poems and draw our own illustrations. once we had written the work, we did what we had no idea many writers must do. we self-published. we were responsible for writing, illustrating, binding, and coming up with cover art. my friend porsha had the genius idea of using old hand towels as the cover. my hand towel had a blue butterfly spread across it which matched perfectly with the electric blue duct tape that would become the book’s spine.
mrs. perry encouraged something that my mom had started in me before I was born. a love for words. mrs. perry’s book assignment showed me the power of not only honoring my own words but that words can be a gift that you leave for others. like an inheritance. today, I don’t have that blue butterfly hand towel or the duct tape, but I’m still writing, illustrating, packaging, hoping that someone will happen upon these words and find encouragement in them. in honor of national poetry month…ten quotes about poetry.
1. Writers don’t write from experience, although many are hesitant to admit that they don’t. ...If you wrote from experience, you’d get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.—Nikki Giovanni
2. I always write a good first line, but I have trouble in writing the others.-- Molière [Jean Baptiste Poquelin]
3. But all art is sensual and poetry particularly so. It is directly, that is, of the senses, and since the senses do not exist without an object for their employment all art is necessarily objective. It doesn’t declaim or explain, it presents. – William Carlos Williams
4. All poets, all writers are political. They either maintain the status quo, or they say, ’Something’s wrong, let’s change it for the better.’ – Sonia Sanchez
5. One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
6. The trouble with America isn’t that the poetry of life has turned to prose, but that it has turned to advertising copy. – Louis Kronenberger
7. My role in society, or any artist or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all. – John Lennon
8. I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests. – Pablo Neruda
9. At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet. – Plato
10. Poetry is concerned with using with abusing, with losing with wanting, with denying with avoiding with adoring with replacing the noun. It is doing that always doing that, doing that and doing nothing but that. Poetry is doing nothing but using losing refusing and pleasing and betraying and caressing nouns. That is what poetry does, that is what poetry has to do no matter what kind of poetry it is. And there are a great many kinds of poetry. – Gertrude Stein
10 Questions about Making the Band Season 4
first of all dear readers…clearly a sista has fallen off of her top ten game. I’m finally back at it and for my top ten negligence you will receive two back to back top ten lists. that should set us off right. and now the top ten…
so I get hooked into a couple of reality shows. america’s next top model. flavor of love (I know, I know…the first step to getting help is admitting you have a problem! LOL). and diddy’s making the band. I stayed caught up on this show until the season finale. inspired by vibe mag’s 20 questions here are ten questions I had about this season of making the band. things that make you go hmmm…..
1. is day 26 a good band name? 2. is donnie’s album ever gonna come out? 3. do you want to go to the dollhouse? 4. doesn’t aubrey look better without all that extra hair and lashes? 5. don’t you really want to say b---a--ness? 6. is bryan still rocking the clippered eyebrows? 7. how did diddy calculate that b----a--ness is down 15%? 8.. is b----a--ness down a notch because gas prices are so high? 9. didn’t danity kane turn out to be a good band name? 10. was anybody really feeling it at first?
so I get hooked into a couple of reality shows. america’s next top model. flavor of love (I know, I know…the first step to getting help is admitting you have a problem! LOL). and diddy’s making the band. I stayed caught up on this show until the season finale. inspired by vibe mag’s 20 questions here are ten questions I had about this season of making the band. things that make you go hmmm…..
1. is day 26 a good band name? 2. is donnie’s album ever gonna come out? 3. do you want to go to the dollhouse? 4. doesn’t aubrey look better without all that extra hair and lashes? 5. don’t you really want to say b---a--ness? 6. is bryan still rocking the clippered eyebrows? 7. how did diddy calculate that b----a--ness is down 15%? 8.. is b----a--ness down a notch because gas prices are so high? 9. didn’t danity kane turn out to be a good band name? 10. was anybody really feeling it at first?
3.19.2008
10 Favorite TV Theme Songs
top ten most memorable tv theme songs
I’ve got a couple of top ten blogs coming up that require a little more uh…research so I thought I’d post this one in honor of great singalong theme songs and of course hailing the wonders of youtube. enjoy!
1. fresh prince "looked at my kingdom I was finally there to sit on my throne as the prince of bel air"
2. reading rainbow – "butterfly in the sky…I can go twice as high!" check out these guys doing an acoustic version of the theme song.
3. a different world – seriously…this show inspired me to attend a black college. "it’s a different world than where you come from."
4. cheers "sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name"
5. growing pains "as long as we got each other…we got the world spinning right in our hands."
6. golden girls "thank you for being a friend. traveled down the road and back again"
7. silver spoons – what exactly does it mean to be face to face a couple of silver spoons? I mean if they were in a drawer, would they really be face to face?
8. family ties – "what would we do baby without us?"
9. the brady bunch – check out craiglewis gospelling up this theme song.
10. the wonder years "a lil help from my friends"
I’ve got a couple of top ten blogs coming up that require a little more uh…research so I thought I’d post this one in honor of great singalong theme songs and of course hailing the wonders of youtube. enjoy!
1. fresh prince "looked at my kingdom I was finally there to sit on my throne as the prince of bel air"
2. reading rainbow – "butterfly in the sky…I can go twice as high!" check out these guys doing an acoustic version of the theme song.
3. a different world – seriously…this show inspired me to attend a black college. "it’s a different world than where you come from."
4. cheers "sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name"
5. growing pains "as long as we got each other…we got the world spinning right in our hands."
6. golden girls "thank you for being a friend. traveled down the road and back again"
7. silver spoons – what exactly does it mean to be face to face a couple of silver spoons? I mean if they were in a drawer, would they really be face to face?
8. family ties – "what would we do baby without us?"
9. the brady bunch – check out craiglewis gospelling up this theme song.
10. the wonder years "a lil help from my friends"
3.14.2008
10 Quotes for Women from Marianne Williamson
People! A sista is late on her top ten Tuesday promise again, so it’s top ten Wednesday this week. I am in the process of reading a few different books, which means it’s been a minute since I finished one. :O In honor of DOING HER THING month, I decided to pass on some quotes from Marianne Williamson’s A Woman’s Worth. I don’t agree with everything in the book but every few pages Marianne will write this nugget that is something I can take home with me. I pass some of these nuggets on to you. As always, kudos, comments, and opinions are welcome. :)
1. There is nothing Madison Avenue can give us that will make us more beautiful women. We are beautiful because God created us that way. Some of us know of our beauty and express it and celebrate it. But beauty itself is not given to us by anyone; it is a power we have within us from the gate, radiance inside us.
2. Don’t let another woman inherit your spoiled-brat lover like a pair of uncomfortable shoes you took back to the store. If he doesn’t get it, let him know. Walk on by.
3. A career grows out of who we are; who we are doesn’t grow out of a career. [Your] goal must not be to find a job but to become a magnificent woman.
4. A woman who cannot honor her own feelings will not find them honored by anyone else.
5. There’s a difference between a gentle man and a weak man. Weak men make us nervous. Gentle men make us calm.
6. We serve [God] to the extent that we have thoughts of purity. Purity means that we do not manipulate or seduce or preprogram or project hidden agendas onto anyone or anything.
7. No man can convince a woman she’s wonderful, but if she already believes she is, his agreement can resonate and bring her joy.
8. Everywhere we look we are presented with the idea that men toy with women, women toy with men – that’s just the way things are; it’s the way of love. But that is not the way of love; it’s the way of lovelessness.
9. There is a difference between getting a partner and attracting a partner. Getting implies that our hooks work; attracting means that our light is bright and appears like a beacon to one who is meant to see it.
10. Throughout our twenties and thirties, we care so much about what the Joneses think, even if we think we don’t. These two decades are the time when we’re most tempted to try to live for others. Around forty, it occurs to us that the Joneses have holes in their socks too, thank you, and that we have less control over what other people think than we ever imagined.
1. There is nothing Madison Avenue can give us that will make us more beautiful women. We are beautiful because God created us that way. Some of us know of our beauty and express it and celebrate it. But beauty itself is not given to us by anyone; it is a power we have within us from the gate, radiance inside us.
2. Don’t let another woman inherit your spoiled-brat lover like a pair of uncomfortable shoes you took back to the store. If he doesn’t get it, let him know. Walk on by.
3. A career grows out of who we are; who we are doesn’t grow out of a career. [Your] goal must not be to find a job but to become a magnificent woman.
4. A woman who cannot honor her own feelings will not find them honored by anyone else.
5. There’s a difference between a gentle man and a weak man. Weak men make us nervous. Gentle men make us calm.
6. We serve [God] to the extent that we have thoughts of purity. Purity means that we do not manipulate or seduce or preprogram or project hidden agendas onto anyone or anything.
7. No man can convince a woman she’s wonderful, but if she already believes she is, his agreement can resonate and bring her joy.
8. Everywhere we look we are presented with the idea that men toy with women, women toy with men – that’s just the way things are; it’s the way of love. But that is not the way of love; it’s the way of lovelessness.
9. There is a difference between getting a partner and attracting a partner. Getting implies that our hooks work; attracting means that our light is bright and appears like a beacon to one who is meant to see it.
10. Throughout our twenties and thirties, we care so much about what the Joneses think, even if we think we don’t. These two decades are the time when we’re most tempted to try to live for others. Around forty, it occurs to us that the Joneses have holes in their socks too, thank you, and that we have less control over what other people think than we ever imagined.
3.04.2008
10 Favorite Women Authors
the first book I read where I saw a clear reflection of myself was mufaro's beautiful daughters by john steptoe. it had rich, colorful pictures of two beautiful african sisters, one whose heart was good and one with ill-intentions, on their way to meet a prince. the pictures and story were so vivid I sometimes ran my hand along the pages as if I could physically touch the leaves and foliage surrounding each scene. there is something to be said for reading a work that reflects back to you who you are and the life you know. there is also something to be said for reading a work that exposes you to a world you've never known. the following women authors (and many more) have been that way for me. check 'em out and hit me up with any add-ons.
1. alice walker (the color purple)
2. zora neale hurston (their eyes were watching God)
3. toni morrison (love, sula, song of Solomon, jazz, the bluest eye)
4. maya angelou (I know why the caged bird sings)
5. nikki Giovanni (love poems)
6. sonia sanchez (full moon CD and any of her haikus)
7. lorraine hansberry (a raisin in the sun)
8. ntozake shange (for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf)
9. gloria naylor (women of Brewster place)
10. gwendolyn brooks ("we real cool" and any of her sonnets)
1. alice walker (the color purple)
2. zora neale hurston (their eyes were watching God)
3. toni morrison (love, sula, song of Solomon, jazz, the bluest eye)
4. maya angelou (I know why the caged bird sings)
5. nikki Giovanni (love poems)
6. sonia sanchez (full moon CD and any of her haikus)
7. lorraine hansberry (a raisin in the sun)
8. ntozake shange (for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf)
9. gloria naylor (women of Brewster place)
10. gwendolyn brooks ("we real cool" and any of her sonnets)
my life as a cover girl :)
LOL clearly I've been watching too much america's next top model! how often does it happen that in one month you get to be on the cover and write the cover story for two different magazines? march is just such a month for me. this month I am featured in Christian singles magazine. and no it is not a print version of eharmony! lol Christian singles mag is subscription only but if you see me on the street I just might have a copy. if you want to order a copy call 800-458-2772. I'll post an excerpt soon.
I gotta give a shoutout to amy jacobs for her patience and for writing a great article from all my scatterbrained quotes. :) also big thanks to jeff frazier for taking the pics and making a sista look like she knew what she was doing! lots of love to my stylist Solomon wilkes for such a fierce haircut. say that! big big thank you to Cassandra at urban grind for giving us a place to do the shoot. I also must thank melody at the lenox mall mac store for the makeup. I also want to thank my mom and dad for…ok I'm done now. :D
a couple of months ago I had the opportunity to interview danny swain, a south Carolina producer/emcee. check out my cover story on danny in the southeast performer magazine and be on the lookout for danny's new release "and I love h.e.r." and his digital ep on def jux records. also, check out my spotlight on hip hop group platinum souls, making their way up the billboard charts.
right now i'm listening to...algebra blessett's debut CD purpose. fav song: "at this time." erykah badu's new amerykah.
artists you need to check out: chris cauley and chinua hawk. had a chance to catch these two singer/songwriters at cafe 290 along with atl soul singer anthony david. the three soulful singers traded mic time song for song, collaborating and improvising on the spot. give their songs some play or at least give some kudos! ;)
just watched: life is beautiful and season 2 of in living color. i seriously love homey d. clown.
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