Marlene Nourbese was already in the room when I arrived. To call the Gothic Room a room does it so much disservice. The interior of an Edwardian chapel maybe or something close to it but certainly not a room. Chairs were lined up semicircular in front of a podium. She sat to the left of [...]
Roaringly funny. On the difficulties of walking the sometimes long and uncertain road from poetry to profit. Enjoy! Hope your weekend is sunny and fun! There are so many poets with so many books on so many presses swarming so many internet radio sites, readings, conferences, and all that other horseshit—mainly for “exposure”—that we’re all [...]
Afternoon with Fred Moten is a limited Brittle Paper series. Catch up on the story behind these unusual class notes @ Afternoon with Fred Moten Note # 1 Note # 2 A man stopped them on their way from the river. He said he wanted to read them a poem he had written himself. They [...]
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. A bewitching little book. No use trying to figure out what it is. Is it a collection of poems, a series of vignettes, a novel, a travel guide, an ethnographic commentary, a bureaucratic document, a lineup of fireside tales, a meditation? What I can tell you is that it’s a rewrite or, [...]
How do you take notes in a class where the only way to note is to take flight? Last semester, I sat in on an undergraduate poetry class taught by Fred Moten. Fred Moten‘s lectures are unusual. Picture this. There is Moten dishing out what by all accounts are profound words of wisdom about poetry. [...]
In case you were wondering, Oron is not the name of a constellation even though it sounds like one. Oron is a Nigerian border town where Chibuzor Okoroafor lives, attends the Nigerian maritime academy and writes poetry. Oron is “the land of aquatic splendor…a lovely estuary town, connecting the Atlantic… a wonderful place to be,” [...]
I like to think about thinking. It is something that I have always enjoyed. I sometimes think of myself as a child that never stopped asking the probing question, “why”. Fortunately the universe has not stopped answering. —Darin L. Triplett To The Probing Question of Who I Am By Darin L. Triplett To the probing [...]
“Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known” is my favorite piece in Soyinka’s most recent book of poems, published in 2004. The poem is dedicated to the Egyptian writer, Naguib Mafouz and begins with two epigraphs. The first one, “The world is a market place” comes from a Yoruba song. And the second, taken from James [...]
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[turns white] …I hate when I do that. You terrestrials don’t have to worry about that condition. Sure, I hear you might stutter occasionally, or slip in the Freud, or insert the pause of um, like, uh…. but at least you don’t have to worry about inking yourself. It’s kind of like an underwater Turret’s [...]
We move through life in chapters, as we learn to read them. Every lesson is not understood, Before we turn the page. As youth we move briskly through the book of life, Only skimming the text. Rushing to the next happenstance. Decreasingly illiterate, Nonetheless, remarkably unwise. Hastily making choices, Re-sculpting the pre-sent, before our eyes, [...]
After a good day of novel reading and cafe lounging, I ended up at the Salvation Army not far from my house. At the thrift shop, anything can happen. You could find the first artist print of a fairly popular American painter. Or you could spend a couple hours sniffing dust and Febreeze and find [...]
When the behind-the-scene video is cool enough to be an official video, you know it’s all going to be worth the wait. “Princess of China” is a song from Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto album. I’ve read enough fairytales to expect princesses to have their castles, ball gowns, and enchanted rings. But it’s Rihanna and she’s the Princess [...]
Songs of Solomon. Isoken did not leave the staff room of Patricia Primary School when the closing bell rang. Everyone else did. It would appear that she was inspecting the attendance booklet on her desk. Actually, her mind had taken her elsewhere, perhaps, to the room she was renting at no. 15 Furniture Rd. The [...]