Sunday, September 27, 2009

Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind: Happy Bday Fannie Lou Hamer!



Greetings loved ones!

It's that time again! It's always that time! The Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind is ETERNAL! In honor of the birthday of amazing civil rights icon and black feminist mentor Fannie Lou Hamer this

October 6th at 6pm

at Lex's Inspiration Station

we will be reading this poem fannie lou june jordan which June Jordan published in the New York Times in honor of Fannie Lou Hamer's life. Did you know Fannie Lou Hamer was June Jordan's mentor? Couldn't you kind of tell? Fierceness gets passed along generations! We will also be looking at my special beloved copy of the children's book that June Jordan wrote about Fannie Lou.

AND because so many of us have the amazing blessing of fierce and fabulous mentors we will be talking about what mentorship means with in the context of black feminism and within our communities in general.

Please come thru with food to share and bring your kids, your mentors and your mentees if you can!

love always,

lex

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Wednesday, September 23, 2009


3rd Annual In the People's Hands Arts and Activism Project

Community Writing Intensive

Poetry. Hip Hop. Performance. Instead of Prisons.



Contact Ebony Noelle Golden
inthepeopleshands@gmail.com
www.inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com
919.423.3780


Durham, NC—Oct. 1-4 artists from North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, New York, and beyond will gather for the third annual Community Writing Intensive in Durham, NC at the New Horizons School and The People's Channel. This year's theme, "to p.i.m.c. w/ love", is a satirical take on the lack of justice the prison system practices towards people of color and poor people. Visit http://www.inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com to register and see full schedule of events.

Participants will engage poetry, media, hip hop theater, and music as tools for critically and creatively engaging community wellness, prison reform, the school to prison pipeline, and decreasing violence in local communities.

Nia Wilson, Executive Director of SpiritHouse-NC said, "This program is absolutely necessary. Our path to freedom is informed by being able to articulate our stories, our visions, in our own words. SpiritHouse is dedicated to creating these intentional spaces for the entire community to dialogue, write, perform, and heal."

This year’s intensive features:

· Tuition-free workshops
· Workshops led by community poets and community organizers
· Travel Scholarships for commuters
· Youth-led workshops
· Writers-in-Residence
· Performance workshops
· Action-based community dialogue
. Manuscript workshops
. Open-Mic
. Virtual release of e-zine www.inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com
. Establishing a community board of artists and writers in the rooted in the south east

The In the People's Hands Arts and Activism Project is based on June Jordan's 15-year old "Poetry for the People" program. The program "continues to pursue Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of a beloved community for all".

June Jordan crafted Poetry for the People with three guiding principles in mind:
1. That students will not take themselves seriously unless we who teach them, honor and respect them in every practical way that we can.
2. That words can change the world and save our lives.
3. That poetry is the highest art and the most exacting service devoted to our most serious, and our most imaginative, deployment of verbs and nouns on behalf of whatever and whoever we cherish.

For more information about June Jordan and Poetry for the People, visit www.poetryforthepeople.org.
This project is made possible by a grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the We Shall Overcome Fund, The People's Channel, Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, and SpiritHouse-NC.

For more information about the intensive, to apply or to donate time, money, or services contact inthepeopleshands@gmail.com, or call Ebony Noelle Golden at 9194233780. To register for the intensive, visit http://inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com/registration.php.


-END-

Friday, September 18, 2009

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Buried Treasure

Hey y'all. Last night I filled in for Nia and spoke at the annual meeting of a Rape Crisis Center in the next county. I was honored to do it and affirmed by the people in the room. Feel free to participate in the prompt at the end of the speech!
love,
lex

Grassroots Organizing Against Sexual Violence


For the annual meeting of the Orange County Rape Crisis Center

Good evening everyone! I stand here representing Nia Wilson, director of SpiritHouse and co-founder with me and others of UBUNTU, a women of color, survivor-led coalition committed, with all of you, to ending gendered and sexual violence completely by filling our communities with sustaining transformative love.

I am not Nia Wilson, but I am proud to call her my sister, mentor, comrade, loved one, and dear friend. And some would say that we “look alike” because we have a shared vision of a transformed world full of inspired communities. And by community we mean groups of people connected by geography and affinity that truly support each member in having their physical, spiritual and emotional needs met, and their amazing priceless unique gift to the world expressed.

I am also here tonight in the legacy of Audre Lorde, black lesbian feminist mother poet warrior who also used her poetry, her life and her example to stand against sexual violence. I will be using on of Audre Lorde’s lesser-known later poems, “On My Way Out I Passed Over You and the Verazzano Bridge” in her collection Our Dead Behind Us to frame my discussion about women of color survivor-led grassroots organizing. Because I strongly believe that (as our other speaker, a high school English teacher and igniter of Scene and Heard youth poetry collective will also speak to) poetry is a powerful context for transformation.

I was asked to speak specifically about what grassroots organzing looks like from the perspective of women of color, those among us who have long held the under-rewarded task of ORGANIZING EVERYTHING often in the face of slander and disrespect…the exact kind of slander and disrespect that makes sexual violence against women of color seem normal.

Audre Lorde speaks for many when she says:

History is not kind to us

we restitch it with living

past memory forward

into desire

into the panic articulation

of want without having

or even the promise of getting

And this is often the position of women of color led initiatives like ours which do not conform to the standard of non-profit organizing. Organizations like SpiritHouse, which focuses on the soul work of healing with/as those most impacted by racism, sexism and classism, and coalitons like UBUNTU, which acts on the belief that we must create whoel communities full of shared childcare, shared, music, shared meals, collective gardents, and definitely poetry in order to grow a world where people are truly accountable to each other and sexual violence is no more….groups like ours are not always legible to foundations that value social services and policy outcomes, but which often overlook the community building work, the love work. Love is sadly undervalued in the non-profit industrial complex, but we as women of color are learning to be fierce beacons of love and finding support for that work is like planting your heart in the ground you stand on, shining your faith light and tears into your community and welcoming whatever grows up. Grass. Roots.

Even the present is not kind. We restitch it with living, past memory, forward into desire.

We draw on the resources of the brilliant women of color who have come before us and who hold a light to our vision today. SpiritHouse and UBUNTU have actively used the poetic work of Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Ntozake Shange and asha bandele in our healing performances and independent publications and writing workshops.

We also ally with contemporary warriors like genius filmmaker Aishah Simmons who’s film NO! reminds us who we are and what we deserve and reminds men who are allies committed to ending sexual violence of their stake in the matter. Deconstructing male privilege means that men are not helping to end sexual violence on my behalf, they are not stopping rape from a property perspective to protect wives, mothers, daughters, etc. If you identify as a man ending rape, you are ending rape because it is not what you would want someone to do to YOU, Period.

SpiritHouse youth program which I have been involved in for the past 5 years works with some of the most criminalized members of our communities. Young black people, mostly male-identified, who have often been long-term suspended and exprelled from Durham public schools because of their involvement in gangs or street organizations. These are the people most likely to get pulled over if they drive anywhere, who have the hardest times finding jobs, who are often harassed just for walking down the street or hanging out. And no, they don’t always have the most PC gender language. We know from being accountable to and led by these young people that being treated like a criminal does not give anyone a healthier relationship to their own sexuality or anyone else’s body.

If the increased surveillance and criminalization is not the way to end sexual violence, and I strongly believe that it is not, as a survivor like most survivors of sexual violence that was enacted on me by someone in my circle of trust, how do we heal our communities?

In UBUNTU, a coalition of which SpiritHouse is a founding organizational member, we believe that when everyone’s needs are met, when we can look at each other eye to eye, when we can tell the truth about economic violence, agist silencing and sex in general, and when we can tell the even harder, rarer, riskier truth about love, we will treat each other well, we will love each other right.

The committees of UBUNTU have created poetic performances, writing groups, a community garden, a national day of truthtelling and monthly potluck dinners as investments in the belief that as Audre Lorde says:

And I dream of us coming together

encircled driven

not only by love

but by a lust for a working tomorrow

the flights of this journey

mapless uncertain

and necessary as water,

And the flights are maples. The tragic thing is that we do not know how to navigate life without violence, distrust and harmful silences. But Lorde offers us this poem:

I am writing these words as a route map

an artifact for survival

a chronicle of buried treasure

a mourning

for this place we are about to be leaving

And in the spirit of that buried treasure, that necessary digging. I have a poem that I would like you to interact with. Are you willing to interact?

The poem is called Dig (available as a PDF here: http://brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com/lexicon/dig/

And at the end of the poem (and for you reading in the comments) please respond to the prompt for your community, for yourself, or for any definition of “here” that you hold:

“If you dig here you will find ______________________”

(at the event each person stood and declared that we would find, “a poem” “love” “hope” “more digging to do” “dirt” “roots” “a proud father of three daughters” “peace” “a hundred dreams ready to be lived” “intertwining pathways” and more! And each person remained standing until the entire room was standing for the depth of healing that will truly end sexual violence. And I said…)

I was asked to speak about what grassroots organzing looks like from my perspective. I think this is what it looks like. Learning to stand against sexual violence with our whole selves. Thank you for your bravery.

Friday, September 11, 2009

3rd Annual In the People's Hands Arts and Activism Project

Community Writing Intensive

Poetry. Hip Hop. Performance. Instead of Prisons.




Contact

Ebony Noelle Golden For Immediate Release 919.423.3780 www.inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com
inthepeopleshands@gmail.com





Durham, NC—Oct. 1-4 artists from North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, New York, and beyond will gather for the third annual Community Writing Intensive in Durham, NC at the New Horizons School and The People's Channel.


This year's theme, "to p.i.m.c. w/ love", is a satirical take on the lack of justice the prison system practices towards people of color and poor people. The intensive will engage poetry, media, hip hop theater, and music as tools for critically and creatively engaging community wellness, prison reform, the school to prison pipeline, and decreasing violence in local communities.

Nia Wilson, Executive Director of SpiritHouse-NC said, "This program is so absolutely necessary. Our path to freedom is informed by being able to articulate our stories, our visions, in our own words. SpiritHouse is dedicated to creating these intentional spaces for the entire community to dialogue, write, perform, and heal."


This year’s intensive features:
· Tuition-free workshops
· Workshops led by community poets and community organizers
· Travel Scholarships for commuters
· Youth-led programs
· Writers-in-Residence
· Performance workshops
· Action-based community dialogue
. Manuscript workshops
. Open-Mic
. Virtual release of e-zine www.inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com
. Establishing a community board of artists and writers in the rooted in the south east


The In the People's Hands Arts and Activism Project is based on June Jordan's 15-year old "Poetry for the People" program. The program "continues to pursue Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of a beloved community for all". June Jordan crafted Poetry for the People with three guiding principles in mind:

1. That students will not take themselves seriously unless we who teach them, honor and respect them in every practical way that we can.
2. That words can change the world and save our lives.
3. That poetry is the highest art and the most exacting service devoted to our most serious, and our most imaginative, deployment of verbs and nouns on behalf of whatever and whoever we cherish.

For more information about June Jordan and Poetry for the People, visit www.poetryforthepeople.org.

The Community Writing Intensive is sponsored by the We Shall Overcome Fund, The People's Channel, Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, SpiritHouse-NC, and the North Carolina Humanities Council.

For more information about the intensive, to apply or to donate time, money, or services contact inthepeopleshands@gmail.com, or call Ebony Golden at 9194233780. To register for the intensive, visit http://inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com/registration.php.


-END-

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

BrokenBeautiful: Fall in Love All Over Again!

moment of arrival

Schools in! And your summer-lovin, nerdy quirky space for creation is exited to check out your new And you keep on keep on falling in love with the world we are making together! I know you are so ready to see what BrokenBeautiful Press is up to in this amazing season of transformation!

MobileHome Money!: Buy Lex and Julia this MobileHome for our traveling queer black intergenerational community documentation and education project! Read all about it and contribute via paypal if you can here! Also, all proceeds from the DVD and Lex's speaking circuit will go towards the sustainable media making love bug extreme!

the mobilehome we want!!!!

Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind EVERYWHERE!!!: Spreading the gospel of black feminist possibility and legacy by every means necessary, the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind project has a multi-media life of it's own! In addition to the in-person study group (see more details below) Eternal Summer stays portable and interactive with the new

Eternal Summer PODCAST Series with amazing music, poetry and information! Scroll down or click here to download or listen to 1979 and Meditations on the Rainbow. I just recently got word that sistas in Kenya are using the podcasts for discussion sessions. You should too!

Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist MIND TV!!!! If you have the great sense to live in Durham, North Carolina you can get black feminist goodness right in your living room on Channel 18 Monday nights at 9pm!

AND the videos!

Picture 1Eternal Summer DVD of black feminist educational videos (available on a sliding scale fee for use in your community or classroom.) Paypal a donation between $11-25 to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com for your copy. shipping included!)

AND the Black Feminist Poet/Speaker/Workshop Leader for hire!

4495_1148688561670_1361255849_389085_216113_nThis year Lex is using her best developed and most cherished skill-the art of the life-changing workshop-to raise funds to support her decision to spend the next year doing the MobileHomeComing an immersive intergenerational community documentation and education project based on her lust for back queer community! (It’s weird that somehow I have to be consistent with a choice to talk about myself in the third person here, but I want to interject in the first person to say that your support means everything to me and it is evidence of the fact that it is possible to be a community supported, community accountable scholar in the 21st Century. :) More details here!

soft_launch_juliaQueer Renaissance Film Screening/B-day Bash Fundraiser: BrokenBeautiful Press is partnering with Queer Renaissance to create the party of the fall! On Saturday September 19th in Atlanta, GA we'll be screening Julia Wallace's film "Until" two Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind videos, a fashion line, music dancing, ties and more beautiful madness. For more details look at the event page here! The event is a fundraiser for intergenerational technology classes that Julia will be conducting in under-served communities in Atlanta.

Love Harder: Women of Color Working it Out

This is a reading group specifically designed for women of color in different communities to respond to the complicated matrix of oppressions that face us by loving each other even harder, with more intention, focus and specificity. We will be reading, gathering locally and posting our insights at www.loveharder.wordpress.com every season. Fall 2009 we are reading Andrea Smith’s essay about the three pillars of white supremacy. Comment on the blog or email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com if you want to participate!

The Summer Recap:


How amazing was our Summer!!??? Check it out!

Black Feminism Lives...ALL SUMMER LONG!

ffsmoiseCombahee Lives!: All summer long the Combahee Survival initiative has been sparking conversation on the Quirky Black Girls discussion forums and the Combahee Survival Blog invoking the brave brilliance of the 1977 Black Lesbian Feminist Socialist Combahee River Collective with contribution and statements from contemporary movement genuises! And it don't stop! Join Quirky Black Girls or email brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com if you want to get weekly discussion prompts!

Eternal Summer Study Groups: This summer Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist mind grew wide and deep. With intimate session on Lex's porch in Durham we discussed the poetry of Audre Lorde and Nikky Finney and we kicked of the Eternal Summer Warrior film series with a documentary about Ida B. Wells (which we screened in honor of her birthday!)

ida_wellsaudrenikky-finney2

Sistas in D.C., Ethiopia, Chicago, etc, have been doing local Eternal Summer sessions. Stay posted at www.blackfeministmind.wordpress.com to see what's happening near you...or better yet...gather with folks in your own community and read along!

In MAY Lex spoke at the Caribbean Studies Association meeting in Kingston Jamaica and Lex and Julia of the BrokenBeautiful Press/Queer Renaissance MobileHomecoming Collabo attended the inaugural visioning session of the Caribbean Region component of the International Research Network, a clearing house for LGBTQQI activists, artists, scholars and community organizations in the Caribbean!

speaking @ csa

In JUNE the hotness of the annual Gemini Jam (replete with Gemini juice and love message posters and the sweet sounds of DJ Superfree) popped off in Atlanta.

gemini jam

And THEN Lex went to the AMAZING Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University in Virginia and had the honor of celebrating Lucille Clifton's birthday and her amazing body of poetry with some amazing poets and teachers (including Nikky Finney and Akasha Hull! AND in a very BrokenBeautiful way...her chosen family and community paid for her to go! Here is a link to the thank you video!

furious flower with lucille

In JULY BrokenBeautiful Press was all over the Allied Media Conference in Detroit!

Alisa shows us what's up! Julia teaches livestream!

Shawty got Skills2Share was a space created by our beloved Cyberquilting Crew that encouraged Women of Color to learn skills from each other, from digital social networking, to quilting to video livestreaming to urban foraging.

lex working it out1lex workin it out2strategize

The Cyberquilting/SPEAK/INCITE: Radical Women of Color Media Strategy Session was the jumpoff of a year of collaborativeworld changing initiatives (like the above mentioned LOVE HARDER) about to pop off in your local and cyber community!

See more pics from the AMC (taken by Moya Bailey) here!

In AUGUST the education working group of Bull City (Durham) Affiliate of Southerners on New Ground and the Queer Collective took an idea from Lex's kitchen table to the streets and created a grassroots guerilla film festival focusing on Queer People of Color in just over a week! Imagine Born in Flames, Paris is Burning and Flag Wars projected large as life on a wall in downtown Durham y'all! The fest also featured Lex's short video "So You Know" about black queer publishing!



And just now over Labor Day Weekend was the delicious delectable Queerky Black Girls Cookout in the middle of the Black Pride Exuberance!

queerky cookoutqueerky cookout 2

in short...BEST SUMMER EVER!!!!!

also feel free to share amazing videos and pictures from your transformative summer. Email links and pics to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com and we'll post them here!

Happy to be falling in love with you all over again!

love,

lex

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

"Meditations on the Rainbow": Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Podcast II

Filled with great music...rare and priceless poetry from Sapphire all presented in that quirky, interactive, meditative, writing workshop-esque Eternal Summer style!

(this is a photo of the brilliant Sapphire...but this time it's actually Lex reading Sapphire's juicy poetic set)

This podcast is dedicated to all of us, but especially to Tyli'a Nana Boo Mack, a black transwoman made early ancestor in a brutal act of violence in Washington DC.

Get your pen and your paintbrush and listen here:

Eternal Summer Podcast Two!!!!

(If you listen to the end you'll hear Lex singing the blues!)

*Sapphire is not a particularly PG poet so this podcast is for grown folks and the folks they can be accountable for sharing it with.