ChickenBones: A Journal

Guest Poets & Their Poems

Special Topics: Stories, Essays, & Other Criticism   Guest Poets 2  

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Dunbar -- Brooks

Guest Poets & Writers Index

     Paul Laurence Dunbar Bio                                      Gwendolyn  Brooks Bio  

  Kalamu ya Salaam Table

Writing Sonnets

On Writing Haiku

Charles Chapman, Executive Director of the Los Angeles Black Books Expo, poet and  author  of two books; Larry Ukali Johnson-Redd, poet and author of Loving Black Women; Pearl JR author of Black Women Need Love Too and Arthur Joseph Graham Ph.D., author of many books. Pictured in Los Angeles, CA 7/15/07 after their successful "He Said She Said" Seminar and Book Signing Event at L. A's KRST Unity Center for African Spirituality, sponsored by The LA Black Book Expo Committee, KRST Center and Elbow Grease Productions. These authors and others will  appear at the August 10, 2007 LA Black Book Expo to be held at the Intergenerational Center 3980 Manlo in Los Angeles from 10 AM. To 6 PM. Larry Ukali Johnson-Redd and Pearl Jr. will appear at the Lucy Florence Coffeehouse and Cultural Center 3351 W.43 Street Los Angeles, CA as part of a What Black Men Think Program organized by Earl Ofari Hutchinson beginning at 7PM to 9PM Thursday 7/19/07. www.labbx.com / www.blackwomenneedlovetoo.com / www.lovingblackwomen.com   

First Tour of Duty and Other Poems

By Anastacia (Stacey) Tolbert

 Asili Ya Nadhiri  and how do you warm     / Duh Measur'n Rod    / Mama   /    Corners

 

Attending The Ninth National Black Writers Conference 

A Report by Larry Ukali Johnson-Redd

Report on Third Annual African-American Spoken Word Festival  /  Larry Uklai Johnson Redd Table

Files for Yictove On the Passing of Malvina Turk  American Money  Blue Print  (Poems) Jammin  Mr Politician  My Life Story  Tropical Love   

Did you know  . . .

April is National Poetry Month

We highlight Dudley Randall and Audre Lorde

 Reginald Lockett in Memory and Tribute

to Oakland’s Poet and Professor

Some Gangster Pain By Gillian Conoley

Some Gangster Pain  Slave Quarter  Suddenly the Graves  Goat Without Horns  / Global News:PoliticsLiterature & the Arts

 

Poems for Peace in Kenya

By Maurine Otor

Poems of Love and Pain  (Maurine Otor)  /  Human Rights and Women's Rights

Love Poems by Amendrius Elizabeth McRae

Would You . . . ?   Tribe

Poems on Kenyan Political Violence by Sitawa Namwalie

Alberto O. Cappas, Poet/Writer   Never Too Late to Make a U-Turn An Educational Pledge and 15 Questions to Self-Development

Poems: Dońa Julia Review   Cappas Bio  Nubian Voices   Dońa Julia    Her Borinquen   Haiti in Puerto Rico My Home

 

windowshades and other poems 

By Raymond Brookter

The Healing Power of Words   / Global News:PoliticsLiterature & the Arts

Interview with Larry Ukali Johnson-Redd Author of  Loving Black Women     

 Remembering Chinwe  History to Destiny Through Afrocentric Poetry  Waiting for You    My Beautiful Wife    Journey to the Motherland

 

Whatbody Is Killing

   (a concave allusion to Amiri Baraka’s “Somebody Blew Up America”)

By Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

Blue Voices for the Fourth of July  /  Somebody Blew Up America   Making Peace with the Loss of Things

Slo Dance Reviews   Celebrating the Release  Acknowledgements  Slo Dance Table   Slo Dance Introduction  A Real Long Look   The Protector  Mobutu and Zaire

 

Letter to a Relative: Poem for Leonard Peltier

 By Ayodele Nzinga 

Global News: Politics—Literature & the Arts

Tom Dent Speaks Tom Dent Bio  My Father Is Dead  Jessie Covington Dent  When I Do That Thing  

 

When I was a girl

By Mary Weems

On Almost Meeting Alice Walker  Five Poems   News at Noon   Argo Starch   Mary E. Weems Table

Man of Fire—Man of Passion  by C.P. Gause, PhD / Poems  by Andrea Barnwell To Myself: Lists    The Sudan     January Again     Rain Poem

A Poetic Purpose to My Life

By Craig A. Garner

Poems, Interviews, & a Story by Jane Musoke-Nteyafas: Meet Jay Lou Ava   Where Is the Love of All Things African? WE BE BLACK PEOPLE 

REMEMBER: CHEIKH ANTA DIOP   AFRO-DISIAC   FORBIDDEN FRUIT  Enough with the Poisonous Lyrics   Interview with Rudolph Lewis  

Malcolm     Shine & the Titanic   Poem for Our Fathers   Poem for Our Mothers

 By Professor ARTURO 

Global News: Politics—Literature & the Arts / Poem for Our Mothers (Video)

The Wondrous Wanda Coleman Poems  & Stories She Writes

 

Yictove Obituary & Poems

Written by daughter, Chie Lunn

 

Before Becoming Historical  / Yictove (Eugene Turk) made his transition suddenly Saturday evening,  July 28th 2007

Sundiata Memorials—A special Memorial for Sekou Sundiata takes place on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 (his birth date), at Tishman Auditorium, New School University, 66 West 12th Street, exactly from 6pm to 8pm, with poets, musicians, family and friends. . . . African Voices africanvoices@aol.com is looking for poems and short comments from friends and fellow artists who were influenced and inspired by Sekou Sundiata. Publisher Carolyn Butts and Editor Layding Kaliba are looking to publish as many dedications to him as possible; therefore, no submission should be longer than 500 words. African Voices also wants to include photographs to accompany the dedications All submissions should be sent to africanvoices@aol.com no later than midnight, August 20, 2007, in order to include materials gathered in the very next issue. Interested parties may submit materials via email and/or call African Voices at 212.865.2982.

Gifted Poet Sekou Sundiata (August 22, 1948 -- July 18, 2007) Obituary by Louis Reyes Rivera

 

Loneliness   40 Acres in a prison    Stand By Me

Poems/Lyrics by  Crystal Cartier

Check out Crystal's rousing Stand by Me video and her delightful Hello World video

The Afro-Blues Tradition: Glorious Child of The Africans  By Kwame A F Copeland

Emerge & See

By Tony Medina

The Different Flavors of Words  By Claudia Saul

African Burial Ground

By Linda Mayfield-Hayes

Po-It Brotha Soul Untitled  Himacy  Lickwid  Langwij (A Musical CD)

 

Queen Africa: A Poem in Two Parts

By  Betty Wamalwa Muragori

Maya Angelou at Million Man March   /   1 in 2 Million  / Cries of a Ghetto Child  / The Chosen One 

My Grandma Rocks the Cradle and Rules the World

& Other Poems by Ellen Dunbar

Writings by Ng'ethe Githinji I  Am Not Superman #1       Twenty Short Stories of Love

Poems by Cheryl W. Robinson

Global News:PoliticsLiterature & the Arts

37 Poems by Lasana Sekou taught at US university

 

A sudden thought for you & Other Poems

By Paul McIntosh

Second2Last Table --   a generation    Scene/Seen  Money  The 10 Step Program  Truth B   Conversation With Myself     Crown   Legion    Change

 

Rifts

By Mackie Blanton

After Katrina (An Intro) Chapter I  (Neighbors and Invaders)    Chapter 2  ( Earthquakes and Baklava)  

Chapter 3   (The Lens in Plato’s Eye)   Malcolm’s Landing

Mackie Blanton: Malcolm’s Landing:  After Katrina   Chapter I  (Neighbors and Invaders) Chapter 2 ( Earthquakes and Baklava)  Chapter 3   (The Lens in Plato’s Eye)  

Neighbors and Invaders   Eh, La Bas, Cherie! (letter)  Beers and Transformation   Ode #95   The Struggle Ode 

 

Send contributions to: ChickenBones: A Journal /  13219 Kientz Road / Jarratt, VA 23867  -- I became aware of Rudy Lewis’ labor of love a few short months ago during a visit to Kalamu ya Salaam’s e-drum listserv. As soon as I saw the title of the journal I knew it was about Black folks, and the power of the written word.  A quick click took me into a journal that’s long on creativity, highlighting well-known, little known, and a little known writers, and commitment to the empowerment of Black folks. I contacted Rudy to ask if he’d consider publishing some of my work. His response was immediate, and a couple of days after I’d forwarded some poems to him—they were part of ChickenBones. What I didn’t know was that this journal has been surviving for the last five years with very little outside financial support. . .  If we want journals like this to “thrive” we need to support them with more than our website hits, praise, and submissions for publication consideration.

—Peace, Mary E. Weems (January 2007)                    

How can we trust them?

 By Akoli Penoukou

Laura Ivers --What's For Supper   The Proliferation of a Lie  NEGLECT  The Price of Ignorance  Textbook Victimization  A Letter To Langston Hughes

 

 

Searching for my Great Grandmother at Stonewall

(For my great grandmother Mary Lewis Farrar)

By Beverly Fields Burnette

Voices of the Culture   Search for Black Men: Vietnam Post-Mortem

 Paula M. Patton-Ross -- Miss La Reba Potato's Salad   Tell Me Where  AfterGlow

 

Flowering Sky

By Arif Ay

 Poems Translated by Mevlut Ceylan

Carnations Guerrilla  Here   Looking at Istanbul  Ostlers & Doomsday   Parting  Poems of Destruction  RAMP  REQUIEM  

Say it Loud: Poems about James Brown. Edited by: Mary E. Weems, and Thomas Sayers Ellis. We grew up on James Brown’s hit me! When he danced every young Black man wanted to move, groove and look like him. Mr. Brown wasn’t called the hardest workingman in show business because he wasn’t. Experiencing a James Brown show was like getting your favorite soul food twice, plus desert. His songs, like black power fists you could be proud of and move to at the same time.  When Mr. Brown sang make it funky we sweated even in the wintertime.  Losing him was like losing somebody in our family. This is a shout out for poems about the impact James Brown had on our lives.  Poems that will help people remember, honor, and celebrate his legacy. Don’t be left in a cold sweat, send us your old and new James Brown poems today.

Submission Guidelines:  3-5 Unpublished and/or published poems with acknowledgement included. No longer than 73 lines  Deadline: December 31, 2007 (Receipt not postmark) Send hard copies along with a Word Document and short bio on a CD to: Dr. Mary E. Weems / English Department /  John Carroll University / 20700 North Park Blvd. / University Hts., Ohio 44118 / Send via e-mail attachment (Word Documents Only) to: mweems45@sbcglobal.net,  and tse@case.edu

Obama 3 and Other Poems

By Mawiyah Kai EL-Jamah Bomani

My Soul is anchored: poems from the mourning Katrina national writing project -- now on sale

 

 

When Music is a Poet's Tool: Tame turmoil. Transform all the bile-flavored anger and anxiety into words. Vent. Review the outburst to discover the pattern the turmoil never told you it had. Reshape the pattern into stanzas or lyrics, dramatic monologues, and narratives. Polish. Repolish. Publish. There are times when poems must respond  to natural disasters and subsequent pandemics to the reflux acid of war, racism, genocide. At those times, it is only normal for poets to let the turmoil roll. If you want a poem rather than the droppings of a vatic pigeon, you must dance in a music that takes you to the other side of natural disaster and national tragedy. Jerry Ward, Jr., "The Katrina Papers," DrumVoices, Spring-Summer-Fall 2006                   

 

Speak the Truth to the People  by Mari Evans

We're in the Same Boat Brother by Huddie Ledbetter

  Literature & Arts

Stacey Tolbert's Baring My Soul  /  Kool Aid  / Elvis at the dinner party  /   Breaking Down  / Anatacia's Lament   / Baring My Soul   /  Fantasy Island   

Sisters Who Hate Fast Food  / Sonia's Song  / What's Goin On 

Poor poetry, rich deceit

The Phrasing Of ISP Letters 

ISP Deceives 

Baroness Lynda Chalker

Poems by Cheryl W. Robinson -- Weather It Is / WE / River of Living Waters

Saloy Files: Red Beans and Ricely Yours (2005) WE: A Poem  For Frank Fitch  For Daddy V  Mother with Me on Canal Street  A Life Won with Blood & Tears

 

 

How We Sleep on the Nights We Don't Make Love

By E. Ethelbert Miller

    It Must Be Lester Young   New York: St. Vincent's Hospital  A Poem for Richard Omar, Books, and Me    

     In Shadows There Are Men  All that could go wrong  Fathering Words  Galbus on Ethelbert

Congratulations to E. Ethelbert Miller-- Poets & Writers is thrilled to announce that the three recipients of its 2007 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award are E. Ethelbert Miller, Francine Prose, and Susan Shreve. Established in 1996, the Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, which is presented at P&W's annual dinner, recognizes authors who have given generously to other writers or to the broader literary community. Honorees are nominated by a committee composed of past winners, other prominent writers, and the Board of Directors of Poets & Writers.  A Poem for Richard  It Must Be Lester Young   New York: St. Vincent's Hospital 

 

Mona Lisa Saloy

Winner of the PEN Oakland National Literary Award
For
Red Bean and Ricely Yours (2005)

Mackie Blanton: Malcolm’s Landing:  After Katrina   Chapter I  (Neighbors and Invaders) Chapter 2 ( Earthquakes and Baklava)  Chapter 3   (The Lens in Plato’s Eye)  

Neighbors and Invaders   Eh, La Bas, Cherie! (letter)  Beers and Transformation   Ode #95   The Struggle Ode 

 

ChickenBones Poetry Book for 2006

The Sleeping

Poems by Caroline Maun

Reviewed by Rudolph Lewis

Katrina   Faceless / The Red Rat Snake / Colors

Saloy Files: Red Beans and Ricely Yours (2005)    For Frank Fitch  For Daddy V  Mother with Me on Canal Street  A Life Won with Blood & Tears

Poems from  Ten Years of Feelings By Santos Vargas

Poems by Godspower Oboido: MONSTERS    WHAT'S HAPPENING TO MAMA'S LAND

 

Interview with Larry Ukali Johnson-Redd

Author of Loving Black Women

By Rudolph Lewis

History to Destiny Through Afrocentric Poetry  Black Love/ Spoken Word Poetry Tour

 Remembering Chinwe  History to Destiny Through Afrocentric Poetry  Waiting for You    My Beautiful Wife    Journey to the Motherland  

Poems by Glenis Redmond

Lifting   Mama's Magic   She   Mango

Poems by Christopher Barnes All Ear   Also Ran  An Ignoble Liberty  Antiseptic For A Foot-Stomped Ego  Appetites  As Harry Puts The Bomb Under The Audi…

Hail to the Chief & Other Poems by Richard Lawson

View From Crook Peak  Tsunami - Villanelle  A Wood in Somerset, Iraq  Leaves on the lawn  The Shed

 

Kwame Dawes: Wisteria, Twilight Songs from the Swamp Country   Tornado Child   Black Funk  Vengeance

 

Literary New Orleans

Poems, Essays, Reports, etc.

Katrina by Caroline Maun  There's Another New Orleans: by Patricia Jabbeh Wesley

Kalamu ya Salaam The Call: Ideology or Poetry?    My Life Is the Blues   Producing & Recording Poetry   A Black Poetics    African-American Language

Poems by Yictove

That Town   Grandma Turk   Tropical Love

Poems By Jennifer Brown Banks

I Once Loved a Poet . . .  The Leather Pants   City Living

Poems by  Jennifer Brown Banks The Paradox of Racism  The Leather Pants CAN A WHITE WOMAN DO THIS?    City Living   Angry Black Man

Poems by Dwight Hayes

 

Necromancers of Negritude & Other Thoughts

By Vince Rogers

Turkish Legislator Poets

 Ziya Gokalp  Mehmet Akif Ersoy  Yahya Kemal Beyatli  Faruk Nafiz Çamlibel  Yusuf Ziya Ortac

  Kemalettin Kamu  Hasan Ali Yucel  Necdet Evliyagil  Mehmet Atilla Maras  Erdem Bayazit

Translated from the Turkish by Mevlut Ceylan

Poems by Mevlut Ceylan  Ceylan Index  Thresholds  An Awkward End & Other Poems  The Birth  Living Is An Art   Pilgrim   Survival  

Time &  Freedom   Open Your Arms   The Hanging  The Appointed Time  Bare &The Letter

 

The Sultan Poets   Psalms by Mevlut Ceylan

Mevlut Ceylan Interviews

Ahmed Ali (1910-1994)

Ceylan Index   Mevlut Ceylan Interviews Rudy on Poetic Process 

Skin Poems by Drisana Deborah Jack Introduction  saturday night