A rich interweaving of personal and historical accounts of a social movement that explores the way memory reconstructs our view of the past.
The story of a truly galactic civilization with over 6,000 inhabited worlds.
A chapbook of love poems from Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef KomunyakaaI Said That Love Heals From Inside: Love Poems is a small treasure featuring five decades of love poems by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa. This selection of poems captures a broad understanding of the love poetry category--there is love and the lack of it everywhere: in the bedroom and on the basketball court in the Jazz club and on the battlefield. As Komunyakaa writes, "Hard love, it's hard love."
An Eastern Caribbean music festival as a window on social changeEvery year, on a weekend before Christmas, the small Caribbean island of Carriacou, Grenada, holds its annual Parang Festival, featuring concerts, performances of local quadrille dance, Hosannah band (a cappella singing) competitions, and the climactic string band competition. Born in the years leading up to Grenada's 1979 Socialist Revolution, the Parang Festival today offers a vehicle for Carriacouans to articulate and assert a progressive understanding of local cultural identity as well as a regional, pan-Caribbean belonging. Rebecca S. Miller examines the varying impact that factors such as cultural ambivalence, globalization, and technology have had on the performance of Carriacou's folk and traditional music and dance forms. Using archival sources and current ethnography, she illuminates the enduring significance of the Parang Festival to illustrate the social and political history of Carriacou as well as this culture's contemporary process of modernization. The book includes a web link allowing the reader to listen to a variety of musical examples.
A one-of-a-kind tour through exquisitely preserved, chronicled and illustrated historic buildingsPreservation in Action is the first publication that tells the compelling story of Old Wethersfield, Connecticut's largest and oldest historic district in its oldest town. Based on original research, with stunning photography and handsome design, through ten examples of restoration, rehabilitation, renovation, adaptation, and reuse, it demonstrates the community's efforts over more than a century to preserve the architectural legacy of its historic village, through individual and institutional commitments, civic planning decisions, historic preservation, and design review. The examples range from the oldest house in town, with a 17th century addition added thirty years ago, to a 19th century commercial building whose greenhouse was repurposed as a cafe in 2022 and includes the town's old high school whose redevelopment, in a bold partnership between the Town and the Historical Society, together with the Society's redevelopment of another town owned building, has spurred the economic revival of the old village.
Site-specific expressive ecologies sustain Korean folk culture in a globalizing worldThe madang is a key space and concept for Korean drummers and dancers. Literally a village circle, the madang is also a metaphor for an expressive occasion or cultural space of embodied participation. Korean performers step in the madang as a means of bringing their bodies into purposeful contact with the particular time and place of performance. Kwon contends that the participatory way of being that is cultivated in the madang counteracts the fossilization of tradition by bringing folk practices more fully into the embodied present, even if in an idealized fashion. The madang draws attention to the body; it increases one's awareness of space and place; and it creates open-ended performances that are conducive to a more dynamic range of social interactions. The book starts with a study of a Korean p'ungmul group that maintains a vibrant, expressive ecology in rapidly globalizing Korea. Kwon documents how historical trends, transmission practices, communal labor, and performative ritual all support this expressive ecology. The book then examines how these practices inspire meaningful, site-focused expressions of folk culture in regional, national, and transnational spaces.
Anthology of new work honoring the legacy of a celebrated African American poetThis carefully and generously curated mosaic of essays, letters, and poems reveals the profound impact that poet Yusef Komunyakaa has had on poets, educators, and readers worldwide. The anthology brings together creative and critical offerings from fellow poets, former students, literary entities, and other admirers. There are emerging and established voices--from previously unpublished writers to Pulitzer Prize winning poets. Together these pieces honor one of the most influential writers of the last half century, one, it turns out, who is as beloved for his teaching as he is celebrated for his creative work. Contributors include Terrance Hayes, Sharon Olds, Carolyn Forché, Toi Derricotte, and MartÃn Espada, among others. Dear Yusef affirms Komunyakaa's transformative influence, showcasing how his mentoring has ignited creativity, nurtured passion, and fostered a sense of belonging among countless individuals. Through the artistry of these testimonials, we witness the transformative power of poetry and the enduring legacy of a true literary icon.Sample Poem: from "Reading Yusef," by Major JacksonOver powdered beignets, over a demitasse of chicory near Royal, I came to grips I am the lonely sortfor I am ever seeking potions, my head sideways, a book winged in my hand, its words from the chitlin circuit, fried dough going cold and congealing, passing tourists drowned out, a sullen look on my face. It is when I mostwant to make love.Dostoevsky was a way out of my confusion, as was Baraka whom I gave my reverence freely.Nothing I believed stayed, and thus, my melancholy deepened though banjos and clarinets playedthe streets through late afternoon rain, maybeBlack Bottom Stomp, eucalyptus and live oaksaging against arpeggio-runs.from "The Forty-Fourth Poem," by Jennifer Grotz The first student in my correspondence course who completed the final lesson on Dien Cai Dau was, like many students in that course, incarcerated in the Indiana State Penitentiary. In his essay, he wrote that Dien Cai Dau was the first book of poems he'd ever read. He'd been so taken with the experience that he'd proceeded to read poems from it aloud to his fellow inmates, after which they'd exchanged stories about being in the military, about Vietnam. He wrote about what it was like to witness violence. About what it was like to be numb, or to want to be numbHe also wrote about appreciating beauty, especially natural beauty, and of an awareness of gratitude for some grace that had nonetheless kept him alive, about how the poems still gave him hope. Dien Cai Dau had had a profound effect on him.from "Dear Yusef," by Emily Jungmin YoonThe framework of your class was always care. Because you cared for us, we cared for one another. From then on, my poetry was always about love, even when it spoke through ugly histories, because I wanted to love the people in those narratives.
A lyrically and formally innovative exploration of desire and its costDEED, the follow-up to torrin a. greathouse's 2022 Kate Tufts Discovery Award winning debut, Wound from the Mouth of a Wound, is a formally and lyrically innovative exploration of queer sex and desire, and what it can cost. Sprawling across art, eros, survival, myth, etymology, and musical touchstones from Bruce Springsteen to Against Me!, this new book both subverts and pays homage to the poetic canon, examining an artistic lineage that doesn't always love trans or disabled people back. Written in a broad range of received and invented forms--from caudate sonnets and the sestina, to acrostics and the burning haibun--DEED indicts violent systems of carceral, medical, and legal power which disrupt queer and disabled love and solidarity, as well as the potentially vicarious manner in which audiences consume art. This collection is a poetic triptych centered on the question of how, in spite of all these complications, to write an honest poem about desire. At its core, DEED is a reminder of how tenderness can be made a shield, a weapon, or a kind of faith, depending on the mouth that holds it.[sample text]from EtymythologyI'm clocked by etymology, by the way even stilettos take their namefrom a knife. The way a knife, well-honed, can strip anything to the bone. Bear with me, sometimes even the myths growblurry in the distance. The root of Artemis, goddess of the hunt, is still unknown, but likely comes from artamos--butcher. Let's call this a kind of etymythology, post hoc history; let's call Artemis the root. For her wild heart. Her failedfemininity. Goddess of gender-fuckedgirls. Crooked prayer. The word worship is shaped from two shards--meaning worth & its giving. A mouth gives faith shape like clay. I mean that to pray is to god a God. To be butch & butcher the myth of a son, was to makea goddess of myself.
New poetry by the author of acclaimed 2023 novel Take What You Need faces the complexities of life on a swiftly heating earth.Idra Novey's first collection in a decade, since Patricia Smith chose Exit, Civilian for the National Poetry Series, brings a lyric intimacy to the extremes of our era. The poems juxtapose sweltering days raising children in a city with moments from a rural childhood roaming free in the woods, providing a bridge between those often polarized realities. Novey's spare, contemporary fables move across the Americas, from a woman housesitting in central Chile, surrounded by encroaching fires, to a man in New York about to give birth to a panda. Other poems return to the Allegheny Highlands of Appalachia, where Novey revisits the roads and creeks of her childhood: "Maybe we knew we only appeared/to be floating, but soon and wholly/we'd go under." Like Lydia Davis and Anne Carson, Novey draws from the well of her work translating myriad authors, from Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector to Iranian poet Garous Abdolmalekian, and from her own award-winning novels. These are deeply lived poems, evoking both a singular life and the shared urgencies of our time, a collection of great inventiveness and wit, conjuring our "bit part in the history of the future."[sample text]The Duck Shit at Clarion Creek We liked to stick it in a BB gun and shoot it. We tattooed with it. We said Hallelujah, the poor man's tanning lotion. Then the frack wells began, something black capping the water and we got high watching a green-backed heron die. We got funny at Clarion, flung each other's underwear into the trees. Why was it we got naked there like nowhere else? Maybe we knew we were getting rusted inside as the trucks we rode into the water. Maybe we only appeared to be floating, but soon and wholly we'd go under, get sucked to the bottom. We'd sink and become creek bed; its deep mud would claim us, hold us hard and close.
The role of performing art in one of the world's most diverse and complex societiesThis book is the first comprehensive overview of Javanese performing arts from their origins to their dynamic present. Renowned scholar and musician Sumarsam draws from a lifetime of immersion in both wayang and gamelan to guide readers through the concept of the "in-between," revealing how the interplay of dualisms--myth and history, sacred and secular, personal and cultural--forms the bedrock of Javanese performance. Rigorously researched historical case studies reveal the intricate relationship between histories and mythologies in Java. Wayang, accompanied by gamelan, is a multimedia performance imbued with rich historical, aesthetic, religious, and emotional associations. Sumarsam delves into this intricate, profound, and ever-evolving art form, exploring its diverse manifestations and venues, from courtly village entertainment-cum-ritual to palace-based aesthetic expressions of cultural proficiency; from coastal mercantile entrepots to the verdant wet rice terraces of Java; from colonial plantation and textile factory cultures to communities centered around contemporary industrial estates and creative economy initiatives. An essential resource for scholars, musicians, and enthusiasts of wayang and gamelan, The In-Between in Javanese Performing Arts offers an unparalleled immersion into the heart of traditional Javanese performing arts, revealing their profound impact on Javanese culture, identity, and artistic expression.
The role of performing art in one of the world's most diverse and complex societiesThis book is the first comprehensive overview of Javanese performing arts from their origins to their dynamic present. Renowned scholar and musician Sumarsam draws from a lifetime of immersion in both wayang and gamelan to guide readers through the concept of the "in-between," revealing how the interplay of dualisms--myth and history, sacred and secular, personal and cultural--forms the bedrock of Javanese performance. Rigorously researched historical case studies reveal the intricate relationship between histories and mythologies in Java. Wayang, accompanied by gamelan, is a multimedia performance imbued with rich historical, aesthetic, religious, and emotional associations. Sumarsam delves into this intricate, profound, and ever-evolving art form, exploring its diverse manifestations and venues, from courtly village entertainment-cum-ritual to palace-based aesthetic expressions of cultural proficiency; from coastal mercantile entrepots to the verdant wet rice terraces of Java; from colonial plantation and textile factory cultures to communities centered around contemporary industrial estates and creative economy initiatives. An essential resource for scholars, musicians, and enthusiasts of wayang and gamelan, The In-Between in Javanese Performing Arts offers an unparalleled immersion into the heart of traditional Javanese performing arts, revealing their profound impact on Javanese culture, identity, and artistic expression.
Classic and new work by poet and jazz writer A. B. SpellmanA. B. Spellman is an acclaimed American poet, music critic, and arts administrator. He is widely recognized as a leading figure in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, a cultural and literary movement that emphasized Black identity, pride, and artistic expression. Between the Night and Its Music brings together A. B. Spellman's early work with a collection of powerful new poems. Spellman's literary career took flight in 1965 with his debut poetry collection, The Beautiful Days, which introduced his distinctive voice blending elements of jazz, blues, and African oral traditions. In 1966, Four Lives in the Bebop Business established Spellman as a respected music critic and scholar. It was a groundbreaking work that chronicled the lives and struggles of four influential jazz musicians. Spellman held senior positions at the National Endowment for the Arts for thirty years with lasting impact on arts funding for inner cities and rural and tribal communities. In addition to poems from The Beautiful Days (1965) and Things I Must Have Known (2008), this book contains a trove of new and uncollected poems, confirming Spellman's continued centrality to contemporary American literature. This is an essential volume for readers already familiar with Spellman, and an excellent introduction for new readers. Lauri Scheyer's introduction situates Spellman's work within jazz writing, Black Arts, and American poetry broadly.[sample text]THE TWISTa dancer's worldis walls, movementconfined: musicgod's last breath.rhythm: the last beating of his heart. a dancerfollows that sound, blindto its source, toward wallswith others. she cannot dance aloneshe thinks of thoughtas windows, as ice around the dancecan you break it? move
Inventive poetry explores Jewish identity in America"How can I teach a prayer / I only know how to recite?" "America, whose death / didn't you come from?" These are some of the questions that poet Joshua Gottlieb-Miller wrestles with in his beautiful, gripping new collection. By turns experimental and documentary, Dybbuk Americana draws out the questions around Jewish identity in the United States, and what it means to pass on Jewish identity to one's child. This hybrid text draws on art, mysticism, and history, taking the dybbuk, a figure from Jewish folklore, as its central metaphor. A dybbuk is a restless spirit who inhabits another's body, and as a possessing spirit the dybbuk is often treated as a demonic force, but it can be read as merely trying to climb the ladder of the afterlife. In other words, a kind of striver. Enacting the idea of competing selves in one body, Dybbuk Americana plays with form via a series of text boxes that create a multi-channel effect on the page. The body of the poem can be read with surrounding and intercutting text boxes to generate multiple interpretations. This innovative poetic technique maintains a dialogue with Jewish literary lineages: Talmudic commentary and interpretation of the oral law, as well as the fragmented nature of geniza, a place where Jews store sacred documents when they fall out of use. Dybbuk Americana weaves together the father-son arc within a larger socio-political commentary and historical narrative. Poems move deftly between the ironic and the mystic, from aphoristic questioning and inventive narratives, to interview, oral history, and archival materials. In these lines, "the angels./ They get as close as they can." Witty, curious, warm, and searching, Dybbuk Americana signals a fresh voice in Jewish-American poetry.[sample text]CHAIN MIGRATIONIt took ten mento make a minyan, but only one nameof G-d for us to share, so we settled onAmerica, one by one, we settled on America, man and woman.My grandfatherearned his way overshoveling coalin the hold of a boat.Grandmother sewedgold into her coat. In secretthey sewed, they sold, they glowed. I dream ofgold. G-d's name in goldmilked and honeyedin the dustbeneath our boots--our dust. And when they madea minyan and didn'trealize it? And whenthey married inand didn't realize it?No matter: they sewed, they sold, they glowed.Yes, they soldtheir solid gold, sold goldinto gold, sewed goldtogether into dust.When I was bornthey gave mea dead man's name.But that's truefor everyone.
A new understanding of the birth of jazz through a fine-grained social history of early African American musiciansBrassroots Democracy recasts the birth of jazz, unearthing vibrant narratives of New Orleans musicians to reveal how early jazz was inextricably tied to the mass mobilization of freedpeople during Reconstruction and the decades that followed. Benjamin Barson presents a "music history from below," following the musicians as they built communes, performed at Civil Rights rallies, and participated in general strikes. Perhaps most importantly, Barson locates the first emancipatory revolution in the Americas--Haiti--as a nexus for cultural and political change in nineteenth-century Louisiana. In dialogue with the work of recent historians who have inverted traditional histories of Latin American and Caribbean independence by centering the influence of Haitian activists abroad, this work traces the impact of Haitian culture in New Orleans and its legacy in movements for liberation.Brassroots Democracy demonstrates how Black musicians infused participatory music practice with innovative forms of grassroots democracy. Late nineteenth-century Black brass bands and activists rehearsed these participatory models through collective performance that embodied the democratic ethos of Black Reconstruction. Termed 'Brassroots Democracy, ' this fusion of political and musical spheres revolutionized both. Brassroots Democracy illuminates the Black Atlantic struggles that informed music-as-world-making from the Haitian Revolution through Reconstruction to the jazz revolution. The work theorizes the roots of the New Orleans brass band tradition in the social relations grown in maroon ecologies across the Americas. Their fruits contributed to the socio-sonic commons of the music we call jazz today.
Keen, pithy meditations on a world that continues to surprise usThe poems in Pulitzer Prize-winner Rae Armantrout's new book are concerned with "this ongoing attempt/ to catalog the world" in a time of escalating disasters. From the bird who "check-marks morning/once more//like someone who gets up/to make sure// the door is locked" to bat-faced orchids, raising petals like light sails as if about to take flight, these poems make keen visual and psychological observations. The title Go Figure speaks to the book's focus on the unexpected, the strange, and the seemingly incredible so that: "We name things/ to know where we are." Moving with the deliberate precision that is a hallmark of Armantrout's work, they limn and refract, questioning how we make sense of the world, and ultimately showing how our experience of reality is exquisitely enfolded in words. "It's true things fall apart." Armantrout writes. 'Still, by thinking/we heat ourselves up."Sample TextHYPER-VIGILANCEHilarious, the way a crab's slendereye-stalksstand straight upfrom its scuttlingcarapace--the way vigilancetakes many forms? *That bird check-marks morningonce morelike someone who gets upto make surethe door is locked. *I soundlike I knowwhat I'm talking about.I sound like a comedian.
Evocative photographs and essay illuminate early American gravestonesGravestones are colonial America's earliest sculpture and they provide a unique physical link to the European people who settled here. Carved in Stone book is an elegant collection of over 80 fine duotone photographs, each a personal meditation on an old stone carving, and on New England's past, where these stones tell stories about death at sea, epidemics such as small pox, the loss of children, and a grim view of the afterlife. The essay is a graceful narrative that explores a long personal involvement with the stones and their placement in New England landscape, and attempts to trace the curious and imperfectly documented story of carvers. Brief quotes from early New England writers accompany the images, and captions provide basic information about each stone. These meditative portraits present an intimate view of figures from New England graveyards and will be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in early Americana and fine art photography.
"A shamanistic soul retrieval of the seven-hundred-year-old diasporic black arts tradition: to rewrite the record, to raise the vibrational frequencies of all beings on earth"--
"Poetry exploring the impacts of family bonds through enslavement and institutionalization in the stories of three generations of women, examining race and lineage, and asking: What do we inherit at the core of our fractured living?"--
A multivoiced dance history book, authored by twelve diverse choreographersIn an effort to deepen our understanding of what dance is and how it has functioned throughout human history, this prismatic book project is dedicated to an artist-centric perception of dance history. This book interrogates the history of dance from the subjective, poetic perspective of a choreographer. Diverse dance artists from the American dance field contribute prismatic, disruptive perspectives on how dance has unfolded over time and what dance history is. They reimagine the question: What is dance history? Twelve illustrated booklets, each written by a working choreographer, address the subject of dance history from nonacademic, subjective, poetic perspectives. The books model a way of enlarging and complicating how we view dance history by giving the authorial microphone to artists, to learn how their embodied perceptions relate to or diverge from the dominant dance canon. With contributions by mayfield brooks, Thomas F. DeFrantz, Maura Nguyen Donohue, Keith Hennessy, Bebe Miller, Okwui Okpokwasili, Eiko Otake, Annie-B Parson, Javier Stell-Fresquez, Ogemdi Ude, Mariana Valencia, and Andros Zins-Browne. Published by Dancing Foxes Press and Wesleyan University Press. Produced by Big Dance Theater with the generous support of The Howard Gilman Foundation, The Starry Night Fund, Big Dance Theater's Board Designated Fund, Virginia and Timothy Millhiser, and King's Fountain., reviewing a previous volume
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