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Best. June. Ever.  Happy Pride y’all!

Love,
Lex

Using the Mothering Ourselves Manifesta we acknowledged the fact that collaborating allows us to evolve out of the language of struggle into the language of creativity we are not making “something out of nothing” we are honoring what is present in our lives and our communities and mobilizing our creativity to make something out of ANYTHING!  This week’s group poem celebrates that clarity. Enjoy!

Something

by the participants in the Eye to Eye Webinar on Collaboration for Community Accountable Scholars

“We can make something out of anything.”  From the Mothering Ourselves Manifesta distilled from Audre Lorde’s Eye to Eye: Black Women Hatred and Anger

We can make something out of anything.

We can make home out of movement

We can make a movement out of feet stuck in the same mud.

We can make reality out of dreams

We can make family out of distances

We can make eternity out of the shortest stolen moments

We can make mothers out of brothers

We can make mothered mothers mothering abundant out of would-be martyrs suffering  in silence (ourselves)

We can make love out of heartbreaking laws.

We can make delicious banana fritters out of overipe fruit we forgot.

We can make ourselves anew in order to recognize & show up for our brillance…

We can make  difference be the springboard for greatness…

We can make our own cool, cultured collabos!

We can make it ALLL. Right!

Just Saying/See You There

By the Brilliance Remastered Eye to Eye Participants

After Audre Lorde’s “At First I Thought You Were Talking About…”

I speak the language of roots up, all the way everything must be changed.

She speaks the language of measurable deliverables.

I speak the language of rainwater-clarification-process-matters.

They speak jampack big words together like a train

I speak the language of here right here at home.

He speaks the language of inevitable uprise class struggle like science.

I speak in things felt a knowing of my bones

He through well thought out equations elaborate logic models

I speak in hope

Him pragmatism

I speak “like me”

She speaks I like you, but not always

She speaks me first. She speaks my kids first. She speaks secrets

I speak 69 years. He speaks FaceBook

I speak plan with flexibility.

They speak plan and stick to it.

I speak student wants and needs

They speak stick to what we need to see only

I speak possible risky let’s do it

they speak practical hedged bet sacrifice

I speak concepts & ideas are real, they are tangible, touchable.

They speak “huh, what you what you talking bout sistah?”

I speak seek the relationship

They speak: seek the product(s)

I speak the language of the academy sometimes

he speaks shyness, grammar of booze and sex

sometimes I speak no grammar language

But I know that:

“Black girls are from the future”[1]  and that

“Everything we do is insignificant. Yet it is incredibly

important that we do it.” [2] And that

Children are full people who have something to say

And that trusting is like tree roots and we reach down, tangled up

And that everything we need is already within us

And that I am who I am doing what I came to do

And that our silence will NOT save us.

SO I am seeking the place where the language of risky radicalism

meets the pragmatism of those who have seen the consequences

the place where afrofuturefearlessness meets blackbloodsoilhistory

the place where we feel whole meets

the place where we are allowed to be prisms of light

the place where faith meets shaking legs

the place where level headed realists can meet starry eyed dreamers

the place where good intentions meet critical implementation

the place where longing meets listening

the place where yes meets i know

the place where why meets when

the place where–as white people–we remember without expectation of forgiveness

we account for what has been lost and stolen

the place where but i have _______ friends, so I couldn’t be __________

meets self introspection

the place where bourgie balancing meets grace

where press and curl meets this is my natural curl

the place where longing children meet absent parents

the place where wholeness meets brokenness

where miracles equal a mere embrace

the place where courage (like jumping into a cold river)

meets self-determination (where are the rocks at the bottom)

the place where the long night meets the pale kiss of morning

the place where water and sky are indistinguishable

the place how i was raised meets raise UP!

the place where can’t get right GETS RIGHT

the place where hope meets salvation

where the souls of the living dance hot and fast in love, light

and treating each other right

the place where the love you always wanted meets the love you always had

See you there.

[1] Renina Weems

[2] Ghandi

By popular demand we bring you back the series that started it all…the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Potluck series!

The Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Potluck Series is a never-ending series of delicious gatherings celebrating, lifting up, studying and utilizing the legacy of Black feminist thought to save our lives and transform our communities in Durham, NC (and in your community if you choose to read along!)   All people who are excited to be transformed by the brilliance of Black feminists are welcome to this child-inclusive space!

This summer we will be gathering on 3 Sunday evenings to eat together and nourish our community and our movement with the brilliance of 3 of Lex’s favorite contemporary poets, Mendi Obadike, Samiya Bashir and Evie Schockley.   Bring food, receive photocopies of a selection of the featured poets poems and we’ll have a conversation that will change our lives!

2012: Focus on Contemporary Black Feminist Poets

This Sunday May 27th 5pm

Mendi Lewis Obadike

Former Durham resident, friend and inspiration to Lex and many others,  Mendi Obadike is a deep experimental tribute to reflection, manifestation and love.  A student of Lucille Clifton and a everyday example of how to bring poetry to life, her work makes space for conversations we need to have!   Join us for a discussion of a sampling of Mendi’s poems from Armor and Flesh and get ready to experience an open heart and a tingling of skin!  Check out Lex’s review of Mendi’s recent opera masquerade collaboration with her partner Keith Obadike in  4 Electric Ghosts  here to get a sense: http://bit.ly/KQBA2p

Save the dates for the other two sessions!

Sunday June 17th 5pm

Samiya Bashir

Brilliant poet, educator and smiling visitation of sunshine Samiya Bashir’s poetry rocks in your heart whether you read it with your eyes or your mouth.  There is something so Sunday-perfect and sanctuary ironic about these poems that you will not want to miss this session!  Read Lex’s overjoyed review of Bashir’s Gospel here: http://bit.ly/KQBA2t

Sunday July 22nd

Evie Shockley

Evie Shockley, also a former Durham resident and student of Lucille Clifton offers urgent experimental resources for Black feminist time travelers and our cluttered pockets.   As a scholar and artist her work allows us to speak with historical figures, re-meet ancestors we thought we knew and challenge the ways we internalize space.  Half-Red Sea is featured in the Mobile Homecoming web series The Real Reading Rainbow’s Kwanzaa poetry recommendations video (actually along with the books by the other poets featured in this series!   Check it out here:  http://bit.ly/KQByHZ

Yesterday was the second session of the Brilliance Remastered Eye to Eye Webinar on Radical Collaboration for Community Accountable Scholars.
We talked about what is at stake our collaborations, nothing less than the world we want to live in and create together.   We supported each other in holding ourselves to a standard where our collaborations themselves embody the values we have for our future, and where the impact of that collaborative work on US is not sacrificial, but also consistent with the nourishing vision we have for our species on the planet.

We made ourselves poets with this similie standard for what our collaborations can feel like, what our futures can feel like, what our days right now can feel like.

Be Like: A Poetic Vision for Collaboration 

by the participants of the Eye to Eye Webinar on Radical Collaboration for Community Accountable Scholars

like breathing, like recognition, like gratitude

like manna from heaven, free and plentiful for all

like eye contact, like risky breath, like skin

like ease, like willingness, like welcoming

like food on the table, like real justice for all, like freedom

like deep earthy soul bearing funky togetherness

like sisters I never had, like a family we are making everyday

like the joy of decoding a secret language

like celebration, like faces touching, like cherished communion and congratulation

like everyday cheer for your graduation from another insight-filled day of being you

like a shower, refreshed remembrance that I don’t have to be everyone

like a rub on the back looking at me eye to eye

like face to face, foreheads pressed in affirmation

like life sustained, like clean water, like no more premature deaths

like being excited and grateful you exist

like love, like love, like loving

like coming home at last