Tuesday, 22 January 2008

Curtis




when I see curtis in august dat yellowbone day after de rain in five rivers

leaning against dat blue wood door and he show me he sore foot how it ban up

say it pain him like hell and creak the hinge so ah peep it how it bandage

and how foot fly does zoot there so in his earthen room with the linoleum and smoke

I never did know dat 2 month later I getting this message in winter

when the cold have teeth and the grey does come down like a ol’man resting after lunch.

it choke me right here so and a couldn’t ‘ven talk

never thought it would hol’ me so

but no matter how you stretch and bend it

family come first

that same curtis we did love the same rockers and roots

that was heavy down in 79

is he who uses to ram bass on eight track and tape tape gi mi

is he one dusk in new street by the ravine say fellas leh we go an get some dead

dead as in chicken fried! and had us walk all round the indian farmlands of tacarigua

past unfinished villages and the unprimed masonary of slow houses

red brick dust and the dirt road we trod

seeking the smell of burning oil

and creole seasoning

and was take curtis take us to some backyard place like a slaughtery

and buy up a few bag a frozen fowl

and we now glum and despondent but laughing all the way home about how we been got

dead mean chicken live or dead back then but dead mean curtis dead today

and today I put on my long coat and went out into the night to teach

and all the while feeling the rumble of this dead

this sudden tug as if curtis and I were attached by some tough gossamer web

that sudden so it snap

and he gone reeling

reeling

that august day I snap him leaning on the brown bottom door, he had plans

said he woulda break down the ol house he father built with my mother and rebuild it

because the wood was rot and the rain did leak and this land is ours

and I wondered then, wee poopa , but you foot

you foot like it weeping black rain and I know sorefoot from long time

when it so it doh heal

mother mabel from champs fleur had one a bad one that never heal

it use to run pus

and she often bouce it on a bench when she ketch spirt with goblet in hand

in church on Sunday night

is curtis he father give the keys to the truck when forklift did jook out he life on the port

and curtis turn man

see him they

he did always love car an mechanical thing

Tuesday, 15 January 2008

Dr Roi Kwabena 1956 - 2008






Dr Roi Kwabena born 23/7/1956 Trinidad died 9/1/2008 England

I never had the good fortune of meeting Dr Kwabena but I was introduced to his work via a mutual friend. Another Trini poet man done.

LETTER FROM SEA LOTS

“........only five pounds yuh send?
bread, sugar an’ milk gone up.........
buses doh run.... water still go
now severe-threat in charge ah de water in maraval
so we looking out fuh poison...

money hard to come by....we down here suffering
sure..we have gas, oil, menthanol....
....steel, an’ sugar exporting..
buh mangrove still vamping...
factories not hiring.....even race horse protesting....
crime rampant as jurors hunted
laws improvising an’ english q-cees hustling..
buh teachers’ money still owing...

yuh ask for news? any news is sad news.....
doubles-man an’ market vendors still on de run
kidnapping an’ family murders add to dis shame
while meh OLE gran still worried sick ‘bout she pension...

cable an’ wireful, wid sure-hell come back...
even powertake an’ brit grasp follow fashion
buh maxi still accept short change
yet parts expensive..so only insurance profittin’
as sprangers still roam in de night

de only difference is de den opposition
must now salute for de independence parade...

senator..ah sure yuh would ah like tha....”


Roi Kwabena (from Selected Poems)

Thursday, 20 December 2007

NUMOON


Pic by Nailman


Just played at an amazing festival in Rotterdam. The Numoon Festival, with Ursula Rucker, Joseph Bowie (defunkt), Bembe Segue, Mark de Clive Lowe, Kain the Poet. Collective improvisation with the Numoon Orchestra conducted by Hanyo van Oosterom.
I was there from Friday to Sunday in cold Rotterdam. Went walking round the block and came upon Kain in a record shop buying a TS Eliot album. Kain has long been an inspiration to me, ever since a friend gave me The Blue Gureilla LP, which every spoken word artist must hear.
The whole vibe of the fest was beautiful. The people were open and warm, the music; and it was all about the musiC - was spellbinding with Halle, Colonel Red, Spoonface, Pan Africans, even the Silent Disco where folks dance round with headphones. For me though the performance that moved, shocked and had me deepened was Kain. Deep is not the word for what he did.
I guess you can tell a festival is special when there is no merchandise stall and DJ Gea is spinning Louis Armstrong.
The concerts were filmed and will be shown in the Netherlands on New Years Eve I believe, it will also be available to view online at www.numoonlab.tv
For more info on the Numoon Lab see : www.myspace.com/numoonlab

there are some pics from the festival at http://flickr.com/search/?q=numoon

and thanks to Hanyo, Bembe, Mark, Gea, Spoonface and his band, Joe Bowie for making it so special. I gotta be there next time!

Footnote: There is nothing that can prepare you for a performance by Kain the poet. It is a life changing, soul intensifying experience. Watch out for the blue Guerilla.

Friday, 30 November 2007

The Grimore of Grimalkin



My co-host at La Langoustine est morte has just had this, her debut collection published by Salt. Read her.

Besides an inveterate love of language which makes you write “her malachite décolletage,” whatever else you need to be a good poet is here. It could be sounds. Come right in; don't step gently then.

BERNADETTE MAYER

Sascha Akhtar repels ghosts with this text and liberates the word from the burden of meaning. These poems are spells and sonorous soundings that have the power to frighten, seduce or enchant. Akhtar aspires to magic. This is a timeless and vital collection from a poet willing to transcend the liminal.


ANTHONY JOSEPH

For more reviews and info see http://www.myspace.com/saschaakhtar

Wednesday, 31 October 2007

Acoustic Avant Gardism CD



Ronnie McGrath - Acoustic Avant Gardism - streams of consciousness poems for neo-surrealists (Ankhademia Press 2007, 15 track CD)

Footprints
more abstract than flower stems
set their homes in dusty bookshelves (Perpendicularities..)

All you hipsters, so-called blak dada intellegenics, performance poet dons having portraits taken leaning against brutal doorways, all you post modern poem writers suffering sick in attics waiting for something new, here it is. This is mouth music for your mind, shifting paradigms with the blistering texture of words and abstract Jazz feeling. It MUST be heard.
For copies contact Ronnie at info@ankhademia.com - do it now!

I just got back from doing a reading with Ronnie McGrath in Acton. It was the reading, of all the readings I've done this year, that I was most excited about. Because of course I love Ronnie's work - we share an estatic aesthetic sensibility - a vision of the liminal, also because it was billed as 'The Black Avant Garde' - as such as this, a historic event, a forum for experimentation. And the response from the audience was a beauty-full thing/one woman said how she felt her whole body open up, had a physical reaction to the poetry, exposed her vulnerability.We are attempting here to re-locate, re-design and re-focus the meandering nature of our legacy as it wanders narrow to the edge of definition and installation in time by kente cloths and black fists. More soon!