HOLD THE DATE!
 

After the longest winter, we open our studio to show new work and fresh inspiration, and to welcome our friends!

SUNDAY, MAY 18, 12–6 P.M.

411 New York Avenue NE, Third Floor
Washington, D.C. 20002 

MICHELINE KLAGSBRUN
RAYE LEITH 
The Tuesday Night Group 

 

COME RACE WITH ME

Kentucky Derby - May 3rd
Preakness - May 17th
Belmont Stakes - June 7th

Quote of the Day

You can hawk your gold if you’re hungry
Sell your mule when you’re desperate
What can you do with so many poems
Sprouting dead hairs in an empty coffin

    - Marilyn Chin

What's Going On?

I finished reading James McBride's The Color of Water this morning. The book had been on my reading list for a spell. Next on my list is Paul Robeson: A Watched Man by Jordan Goodman and Morowa Yejide's new novel Time of The Locust.

In the mail yesterday was a nice gift from Lolis Elie. He sent me a copy of Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans.

Yesterday at WAMU I met Jen Marlowe. A key person trying to keep the memory of Troy Davis alive. Here is a link to the amazing work she is doing:
www.donkeysaddle.org

I just interviewed Maurice Jackson (Georgetown University history professor) for The Scholars. A wonderful conversation about the history of D.C. black music. Jackson just guess edited the special jazz issue of the Washington History magazine. It's out now...

Jackson always look like he could be playing with Lester Young. I took this picture of him

International Arts Night Poetry Reading

at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center

8230 Georgia Ave.

Silver Spring, MD 20912

This event, a fundraiser for Pyramid Atlantic, is part of an international potluck and arts activities night.  Donation:  $10, or bring a dish for the potluck and donation is $5.  Eating and arting begins at 6pm.

Poetry reading begins at 7pm and includes poets from cultures around the world:  Zein El-Amine from Lebanon, Danuta Kosk-Kosicka from Poland, Ashira Malka an Israeli American, Kenneth Forde from Trinidad/Tobago, and Nancy Naomi Carlson who will read translations as well as the original poems in French of Abdourahman Wahberi from Djbouti.  (Abdou was planning on reading himself but has just returned from South Africa not feeling well.)

I’m so excited about this evening of oral/aural travel around the world—I do hope you can come.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or want more information:  annebeck48@gmail.com or (301) 270-8037.

Anne

-- 
Anne Becker

annebeck48@gmail.com

ME-K IS UP FOR AN AWARD

Me-K photo by Ethelbert

Greetings! Aqueous Books is pleased to announce the shortlist for the Flann O'Brien Award for Innovative Fiction. Congratulations to the following authors:

Don't Trust Anyone Without Secrets by Me-K Ahn
The Executioner's Race by Andrew Bynom
Partisans by Mark Cunningham
Leave a Crooked Path by Simone Hanson
Kinds of Leaving by Nancy Hightower
Water on a Hot Plate: Stories by Murli Melwani

The winner will be announced on April 30, 2014.

The extraordinarily high quality of submissions made selecting even the shortlist a tough decision. Thank you to everyone who submitted to the Flann O'Brien Award for Innovative Fiction. Submissions for the next award will be opening up in May. Check the Submission Guidelines page at http://aqueousbooks.com/submission_guidelines.htm for status updates.

Because several of you have asked about the submission status remaining as "New" in the submission manager, the status remains set as new until the submission has been assigned to another staff member. In this case, I am judging the contest and so did not assign these out to anyone else. However, I have read carefully through every submission.

Aqueous Books is looking forward to this month's release, Sibs, the seventh short story collection from Nathan Leslie. You can read more about this upcoming release and the author at http://aqueousbooks.com/index.htm.

Best regards,

Cynthia Reeser
Publisher
Aqueous Books
P.O. Box 170607
Birmingham, AL 35217
pubs@aqueousbooks.com
http://www.aqueousbooks.com

RADIO DAYS

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2014-04-23/special-readers-review-celebration-poetry

The Political Campaign of Andy Shallal: A Look Back and The Look Ahead

April 28, 2014, 1:00 pm4:00 pm
IPS Conference Room
1112 16th Street NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC

Join Andy Shallal, E. Ethelbert Miller, Joy Zarembka, Steve Cobble, and Jonetta Rose Barras for a conversation about:

Did the Shallal campaign for mayor of DC change the landscape of DC politics?
What strategies did the campaign pursue? What was successful? What failed?
How progressive is the progressive DC community?
What funding obstacles did the Shallal campaign have to overcome?
What role did the media play in getting the Shallal message out to the community?
Is DC ready for a dialogue on race, educational reform or income inequality?
Should Andy Shallal run again?

Reserve your 2014 Jefferson Lecture tickets!

The 43rd Annual Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities: An Evening with Walter Isaacson

Monday, May 12, 2014, 7:30 p.m. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Concert Hall 2700 F Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. Register for required free tickets at www.neh.gov. Other inquiries may be directed to 202-606-8446 or rpoor@neh.gov Join the National Endowment for the Humanities for the 2014 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities with Walter Isaacson, acclaimed author, president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, an educational and policy studies organization, and biographer of Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, and Benjamin Franklin, who will speak on The Intersection of the Humanities and the Sciences. The annual Jefferson Lecture, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), is the most prestigious honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities. #JeffLec2014 Preview the Upcoming Lecture In his lecture Isaacson will touch upon the careers of Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs, Ada Lovelace, Walker Percy, and Edwin Land and others who fused humanistic thought with scientific discovery.   Reserve Your Free Tickets!

"We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. You are cordially invited to attend a reception and fundraiser featuring Rev. William Barber, President of the North Carolina State NACCP and leader of the Moral Mondays Movement.  Join national faith, labor and community leaders as we support the largest movement in the South since Selma! When MONDAY APR. 28, 2014 From 6pm to 8pm Where BUSBOYS AND POETS 1035 5th STREET NWWashington, DC Register

We are raising funds for the NC Moral Mondays Movement and Moral Mondays 11 Week Freedom Summer Organizing Training.

Suggestion donation for the reception is $100. All proceeds from ticket sales will go to support NC Moral Monday/Forward Together Movement and Moral Freedom Summer. Donations are *not* tax deductible.

Forward Together, Not One Step Back!

moralmondays.kineticslive.com

E at UDC

I'll be reading my poetry today at UDC this afternoon.  Van Ness campus (Metro/Red Line stop).
The program begins at 4PM.
Building 41, A-03  Auditorium.

Birthday Girl on my Father's Day

Yesterday I took my daughter to lunch for her birthday. We had a lovely meal at Acadiana (located at 901 New York Avenue, NW).

www.acadianarestaurant.com

Jasmine-Simone

BASEBALL - CATCH IT!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/sports/baseball/yankees-masahiro-tanaka-epitomizes-the-japanese-approach-to-baseball.html?_r=0

I watched an episode of the BBC America series "Orphan Black" yesterday. Check it out! This show is a winner...

http://www.bbcamerica.com/orphan-black/

Let's name her after Nina Simone...

Not June but today. Today is Father's Day for me. It's the day my daughter was born; my first child entering the world.

In my memoir Fathering Words I wrote the following:

What would have happened if I had become a father at an earlier age like so many other young African American men? Sometimes the bus is crowded and I look at the male faces and know that my life is no different from those around me. Was it the African writer Armah who said the beautiful ones are not yet born? I think about Jasmine, and how I stood tall in the hospital watching Denise give birth and the doctor holding my daughter up to the ceiling like we were all in an episode of Roots.

More than thirty years have now passed. My daughter married - a lawyer down on K Street. I sat across from her and her husband yesterday in a restaurant in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Flashback - another night and I'm holding my daughter and giving my wife a chance to finish her dinner. Time after time the days keep passing and I'm still trying to hold her.

Jasmine-Simone

APRIL 17, 2014

The latest figures on global military expenditures came out this week from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. There's been a minor dip in the global figures, but expenditures are soaring in much of the world—Africa, the Middle East, Asia. We're still collectively spending over $17 trillion a year on war or preparations for war. Also out this week is the latest UN report on climate change, which tells us that we have a very narrow window in which to avert disaster. Where on earth can we get the money to deal with this looming disaster? We need to show up at the Pentagon and its counterparts around the world with tin cups in our hands—very large tin cups—to get the urgently needed resources. This week at FPIF, Oscar Reyes takes a look at the latest UN report on climate change and concludes that it's a politically biased document—and yet its urgent message must be heeded. Phyllis Bennis, meanwhile, describes the work that veterans and others are doing to address the continuing impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dan Connell looks at the plight of Eritrean refugees, who are suffering from a horrific combination of kidnapping, torture, and ransom. And Jon Reinsch writes about the imperative of apologies for war crimes, beginning with the United States and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Finally, in this week's World Beat column, I take issue with a recent unanimous vote by Congress to block Iran's choice for UN representative. Ah, I bet you didn't realize that Congress had veto power over the sovereign choices of other countries—or that the Obama administration has gone along with this nonsense. John Feffer Co-director, Foreign Policy In Focus

World Beat It's Our Party John Feffer “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to,” sang Leslie Gore back in the 1960s. That’s how Ted Cruz and Charles Schumer feel about Iran spoiling their us-versus-them worldview by agreeing to negotiate over its nuclear program. That’s how Congress apparently feels about another country exercising its sovereign right to appoint its own diplomats. And that’s how the United States feels about the rules of the global disco. It’s our party—and if you don’t party by our rules, you’re not invited. Read more…

FPIF Features A Roadmap for Survival  Oscar Reyes The latest UN report on addressing climate change reflects a strong Western bias, but it's the most comprehensive tool we've got. AFRICOM Goes to War on the Sly  Nick Turse An AFRICOM official says the U.S. has been "at war" in Africa for over two years. Promoting a “Right to Heal” from Ft. Hood to Abu Ghraib  Phyllis Bennis Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are holding the U.S. government accountable for innocent victims on all sides of the fighting. In Praise of Apologies  Jon Reinsch When a government refuses to apologize for war crimes, it means it would be willing to commit them again. Eritrean Refugees at Risk  Dan Connell Eritrean refugees face human trafficking, exploitation, and hostility throughout North Africa and the Sahel.

Focal Points Blog Seymour Hersh Draws Even More Criticism at LRB Than at New Yorker  Russ Wellen Who’s more credible: Seymour Hersh or Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan? An Open Letter to Aung San Suu Kyi  Sufyan bin Uzayr Daw Suu refused to address the plight of the oppressed Rohingya, who originally come from Bangladesh, when she met its prime minister. Tripping on the Czech Jewish Fantastic: From the Golem to Kafka to Daniel KumermannJohn Feffer The Jew from Prague who began as a window washer and became an ambassador.

Support FPIF! To protect our independence, we never run ads on FPIF. We take no money from governments or corporations. We survive on donations from readers like you. We’re a small non-profit with a tiny staff, so your dollars go a long way. Donate today!

And then my God called me - it sounded like thunder....

Ground moving. Too many earthquakes around the world.  A 7.2 quake hit central and western Mexico.  It wouldn't surprise me if Turkey, Iran on China was next.

THE POETRY OF MERRILL LEFFLER

On Thursday I read with the poet Merrill Leffler. (and Grace Cavalieri ) at the Takoma Park Community Center (MD). I've always admired this guy for many years. Below is the poem he ended his reading with.

Good words to go home with.

Beginnings and Ends

Here is the word

That divides the dark

And here is the word

That is filled with light

Here is the word

That severs the sea

And separates sky

And uncovers the earth

Here is the word

That revels in breath

And here is the word

That cleaves your soul

And here is the word

For singing your love

And here is another

For singing your grief

Here are the words

That will blind your eyes

That will freeze your tongue

That will strike you deaf

And here is the word

To open the dark

And here is another

To empty the light

And here is the last

To carry you home

 - Merrill Leffler

THE ARTS IN DC

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-bettmann/five-suggestions-to-impro_b_5107786.html