if you don't know you better ask....
My boy
Truth Thomas' hefty chapbook (41 poems) just got released on
Mouthmark Press out of England. Treat yourself to some good poetry that stands up on the page and the stage! Go out and find this book, Party of Black by Truth Thomas. By the way if you see him on the street tell him he looks like shaft on the cover!!!!
click here for details.
order info:
Party of Black
http://www.flippedeye.net/mouthmark/
&
http://www.amazon.com
Rally at the Anancostia Public Library, Thursday, August 31, 2006, 5:00pm to 7:30pm
Rally at the Anancostia Public Library
Thursday, August 31, 2006
5:00pm to 7:30pm
Did you know that the Anacostia Library has been shuttered since December 2004? Did you realize that
the Mayor and the City Council have never found it a priority to make sure interim services are in place to continue to serve the needs of this neighborhood? Does this make you angry because you recognize the important role libraries can play in a community?
TWO YEARS IS TOO LONG!!
Come on out to rally for the immediate reopening of Anacostia Library and bring your friends and
children...
* Keynote speakers
* Children's activities and reading-time
* Food and beverages will be served
* Open mic for ALL - step up to the podium and speak!
WHERE:
Anacostia Public Library
1800 Good Hope Road, SE (18th & Good Hope)
(the 92 bus stops directly in front of the library)
WHEN:
Thursday, August, 31, 5:00 to 7:30pm
**
VOLUNTEER
We are looking for organizing assistance as well. Can you help spread the word by email, flyer? Can you help read books to kids or do you have a car?
Contact >>
Robin Diener, 202-387-8030,
rdiener (at) savedclibraries.org
**
FOR MORE INFO
Contact >> Joy Pinkney, 202-889-7581, joy (at) joynet1.com
**
ENDORSEMENTS
We are looking for organizations to endorse this
event. Please feel free to invite groups you may know
to be inclined to do so. They can contact >> Chris
Otten, 202-234-7075, chrisotten2 (at) yahoo.com
check out the DC Library Renaissance Project here
RIP Trumpeter Maynard Ferguson
Read more about him
here and
here
lots of good theater coming up this season
Theater Alliance presents
Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye at H Street Playhouse, October 12 – November 5, 2006
Robert O' Hara's Insurrection: Holding History at H Street Playhouse, March 1 – March 25, 2007
TJ is 189 years old and ready to go. But before he passes on, he convinces his great-great grandson to take him back to Virginia on last time. The further they drive, the further back in time they go landing them smack in the middle of Nat Turner's slave-led revolution. Ideas about slavery, homosexuality and the value of family converge in this time-bending comic fantasia.
( I am reading this play right now, it is pretty good so far)
Arena Stage presents:
August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean at Arena Stage, January 26 through March 18, 2007
In 1904 Pittsburgh, the mystical 285-year-old matriarch Aunt Ester leads spiritual journeys to the mythical City of Bones, where the truth has the power to "wash clean" the troubled souls who seek solace in her peaceful house. This Washington premiere of Gem of the Ocean, the ninth play in Wilson's historic, award-winning ten-part series, is presented as a loving tribute to this giant of American theater, who passed away in 2005.
and last but definitely not least
African Continuum Theatre Company presents:
September 21 - October 22, 2006
The Gingham Dog
Theater Alliance's Artistic Director Jeremy Skidmore steps a few doors down from his home theater at the H Street Playhouse to direct Lanford Wilson's play about the end of an interracial marriage in the 60s.
October 12 - 22, 2006
The Piano Lesson
Jennifer L. Nelson directs a cast composed of professionals and students of the University of Maryland's Department of Theater in August Wilson's 1930s installment in his series of plays dealing with the African American experience in the 20th century decade by decade. Performances will be at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University.
November 30, 2006 - January 14, 2007
A Raisin in the Sun
Jennifer L. Nelson directs Deidra Starnes, Jefferson Russell and Jewell Robinson in Lorraine Hansberry's famous portrait of the black family. The matriarch of a 1950s household in Chicago wants to use the money from her late husbands life insurance to buy a home in the suburbs where her family won’t “dry out like a raisin in the sun.”
January 19 - February 18th, 2007
Jitney
The African Continuum Theatre Company teams with Ford's Theatre to stage the 1970s installment of August Wilson's ten-play series detailing the African American experience decade by decade through the twentieth century. Jennifer Nelson directs a cast including Doug Brown, Kenyatta Rogers, Frederick Strother, David Emerson Toney and Craig Wallace.
February 9 - 17, 2007
J's Jook Joint
The company again hosts local African American performers in a nightclub setting. Performances will be on three Saturdays in a row.
March 17 - 31, 2007
Fresh Flavas
The company again presents a series of staged readings of new works.
May 10 - June 3, 2007
The Oracle
Ed Shockley's family-friendly play with music and life-sized puppets is loosely based on George Bernard Shaw's "The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God" about an African princess sent on a quest that brings her many adventures.
Venues:
The Atlas Performing Arts Center
1333 H Street NE
Washington, DC 20002
Theater Alliance at the H Street Playhouse
1365 H Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002
Arena Stage
1101 Sixth Street, SW
Washington, DC 20024
Ford's Theatre
511 10th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20004
Watch Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke tonight (8/21) on HBO
(Click here for image)
When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (four hours): Acts I and II debut tonight (8/21/06) at 9; Acts III and IV debut tomorrow night (8/21/06) at 9 on HBO.
Check out Esther Iverem's review at SeeingBlack.com. click here and check out
Alternet reporting on ABC's
Sunday Kind of Love Reading Series: BELTWAY POETRY QUARTERLY READING: A CELEBRATION OF DC PLACES
BELTWAY POETRY QUARTERLY READING: A CELEBRATION OF DC PLACES Please join us! Sunday, August 20 at 4:00 pm. Part of the Sunday Kind of Love Reading Series: featuring poets from Beltway Poetry Quarterly's DC Places Issue, Belle Waring, Kenneth Carroll, Andrea Wyatt, Brian Gilmore, and Terence Winch. Followed by an open mic (please bring place poems about Washington DC by yourself or others). Hosted by Sarah Browning.
Free. Busboys & Poets, 14th & V Streets NW, U Street/Cardozo neighborhood, DC. (202) 387-POET.
The DC Places issue showcases 52 authors whose poems name specific sites in the city (streets, neighborhoods, parks, monuments, buildings), along with an interactive map. Edited by Kim Roberts and Andrea Carter Brown, the DC Places Issue is available for free on line at http://www.beltwaypoetry.com.
About the featured authors:
Kenneth Carroll is a native Washingtonian. He is the author of a book of poems, So What! For the White Dude Who Said This Ain't Poetry (The Bunny and the Crocodile Press, 1997). Carroll is the DC Site Coordinator for WritersCorps, an arts and social service program founded by the NEA and AmeriCorps that was honored in 1999 by the national Coming Up Taller Awards. He is the past president of the African American Writers Guild, served on the board of directors of the Poetry Committee of Greater Washington, and was a founding member of the 8Rock Writers Collective.
Brian Gilmore is the author of two books of poems: Elvis Presley is alive and well and living in Harlem (Third World Press, 1992), and Jungle Nights & Soda Fountain Rags (Karibu Books, 1999). He was born and raised in Washington, DC.
Belle Waring is the author of two poetry collections: Refuge (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990), which won the Associated Writing Programs' Award in 1989 and was cited by Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of 1990; and Dark Blonde (Sarabande Books, 1997), which won the Larry Levis Prize in 1998.
Terence Winch's most recent book is That Special Place: New World Irish Stories, a collection of non-fiction pieces growing out of his life as a musician. He is also the author of three books of poems, The Drift of Things (The Figures, 2001), The Great Indoors (Story Line Press, 1995, winner of the Columbia Book Award), and Irish Musicians/American Friends (Coffee House Press, 1985, winner of an American Book Award), and a book of short fiction, Contenders. He has been the recipient of a poetry grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Also a musician and songwriter, Winch recorded three albums, all featuring his compositions, with Celtic Thunder, an Irish band he co-founded in 1977.
Andrea Wyatt was born in Brooklyn and now lives in Washington, DC with her husband, bookseller Lansing Sexton. She works at the University of the District of Columbia. Her books of poems include Three Rooms (Oyez Press, 1970), Poems of the Morning, Poems of the Storm (Oyez Press, 1973), Founding Fathers: Book One (LLanfair Press, 1976), The Movies (Jawbone Press, 1977), Jurassic Night (White Dot Press, 1980), and Baseball Nights (Renaissance Press, 1984). She is coeditor of Selected Poems by Larry Eigner (Oyez Press, 1972), Collected Poems by Max Douglas (White Dot Press, 1978), and The Brooklyn Reader (Random House/Harmony, 1994). To read poems by these authors: http://www.beltwaypoetry.com.
must see photography exhibit in Phily @ AAMP, August 11 through November 19, 2006
Shootout: Reverberating the Spirit and Legacy of Jack T. Franklin
Photography by 14 of the East Coast's hottest emerging photographers
Opening Reception: August 11, 2006 5:30-8:00 pm
On View: August 11 through November 19, 2006
Featuring the work of :
Betty Alexandra
Phil Asbury
Maria Atubiga
Laylah Amatullah Barrayn
Sarah Glover
Ayana Jackson
Jati Lindsay
Simba Madziva
Michelle Perez
Hannan Saleh
Uraline Septembre
Jamel Shabazz
Sarah Smith
Marissa Weeks
Curated by: Shantrelle P. Lewis
The African American Museum in Philadelphia
701 Arch Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
http://www.aampmuseum.org/
Fourteen young photographers were charged with capturing the world around them during an eight week period of Summer 2006. Energized by the courageous and brilliant photographic work of Jack T. Franklin, Shootout proclaims the significance of contemporary history-making through the lens and spirits of a revolutionary generation of artists of African descent. The exhibition recognizes the significance of documenting the extraordinary and simplistic stories of the African Diaspora in the 21st century.
R.S.V.P. ~ 215.574.0380 x.224
RIP Rufus Harley
Rufus Harley was a friend of my Dad's who was the first jazz musician to adopt the bagpipes as his first instrument. He also played on the Roots second album "Do You Want More". Read more about him
HERE. and
HERE
the goodness
Lots of good stuff going, brave the heat and check out some good events.
World class Saxophone Greg Osby is going to be playing at the
Warehouse Next Door on Saturday Aug 5th in a benefit for
The Alkem Foundation
Also
piano virtuoso Eric Lewis will be at
HR-57 on the Aug 4th and 5th...trust me you do not want to miss this brother is crazy on the keys, he is very innovative and fresh thinker.
i know i probably need a late pass on this one, but for all you non-cable-having-non-tv-watching folks (like me), Spike Lee has a new documentary coming out called “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts” coming on HBO, later this month. Read
HERE and
HERE for more info
AND!!!!
Big ups to my body Randall Horton whose first collection of Poetry
The Definition of Place will coming out very soon check for it
(click here) you will not be disappointed!
