Showing posts with label A.B. Spellman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A.B. Spellman. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Poem-of-the-Week: A.B. Spellman



Things I Don’t Miss From My Youth

3. Not Knowing Better


florene barco moved
to
philadelphia &
on a visit home told
us she went
to school with
white kids

it was a lunar image

everything shouted
inferior
to us
the patterns
we walked. the ease
with which they
commanded. that
we could not live

by the river
word of lynching
farther south & of course
the signs. i
thought it all to be
as much of nature
as the night sky
the birds of the air

the notion of place
meant not where
you stood but how
you talked
to a white man

place was
the wet brown earth
your knees
sank down in

&
philadelphia
was the crescent
moon


- A.B. Spellman

Excerpt from “Things I Don’t Miss from My Youth” from Things I Must Have Known (2008). Used by permission.


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A.B. Spellman is an author, poet, critic, and lecturer. He has published numerous books and articles on the arts, including Art Tatum: A Critical Biography (a chapbook),The Beautiful Days (poetry), andFour Lives in the Bebop Business, now available as Four Jazz Lives University of Michigan Press). His poetry collection, Things I Must Have Known, was recently was published by Coffee House Press. Mr. Spellman has served on numerous arts panels, including the Africa Diaspora Advisory Group and the Advisory Group on the African-American Museum for the Smithsonian Institution. In recognition of Spellman’s commitment and service to jazz, the National Endowment for the Arts in 2005 named one of its prestigious Jazz Masters awards the A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy. In March 2006 he received the Benny Golson Award from Howard University for his service to jazz. He was a poet-in-residence at Morehouse College, in Atlanta, Georgia, where he taught various courses in African-American culture, and at Emory, Rutgers, and Harvard Universities, where he offered courses in modern poetry, creative writing, and jazz.

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Spellman will be featured at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness, March 10-13, 2010, in Washington, DC. The festival will present readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programming, film, activism—four days of creative transformation as we imagine a way forward, hone our community and activist skills, and celebrate the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for social change.

For more information: info@splitthisrock.org.

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem-of-the-Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!


Split This Rock
http://www.splitthisrock.org/
info@splitthisrock.org
202-787-5210

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Party With Split This Rock, Thursday August 27!

Featuring A.B. Spellman and Regie Cabico with the DC Youth Slam Team!



Thursday, August 27, 6-8 pm
Langston Room, Busboys and Poets
14th & V Streets, NW
Washington, DC

Split This Rock invites you to a party Thursday, August 27, 2009, 6-8 pm, in the Langston Room, Busboys and Poets at 14th and V Streets, NW. Busboys will be donating fabulous refreshments and creating a couple of funky Split This Rock cocktails.

Why party? Split This Rock has recently received nonprofit status, a crucial step on the road to becoming a permanent home for socially engaged poets from DC and nationwide. Plus, believe it or not, it's just 6 months until the second Split This Rock Poetry Festival. So we figure it's time to celebrate.

Reading and performing will be 2010 featured poet and DC leading light A.B. Spellman, along with Regie Cabico and the DC Youth Slam Team. See below for more details. Entry will be $10-$25, sliding scale, and you'll have a chance to bid on amazing prizes at auction. Come prepared for readings, for fun, for volunteer opportunities, and for celebrating! For more information: info [at] splitthisrock [dot] org or 202-787-5210.

Can't make the party? You can still volunteer - just contact us at the above email or phone. We'd love to have you involved! And you can definitely still make a donation. Just click here. Many thanks!

Poets Celebrating with Split This Rock August 27 - Join Us!

A. B. Spellman is an author, poet, critic, and lecturer. His poetry collection, Things I Must Have Known, was recently was published by Coffee House Press. He has published numerous books and articles on the arts, including Art Tatum: A Critical Biography (a chapbook), The Beautiful Days (poetry), and Four Lives in the Bebop Business, now available as Four Jazz Lives (University of Michigan Press). In recognition of Spellman's commitment and service to jazz, the National Endowment for the Arts in 2005 named one of its prestigious Jazz Masters awards the A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy. He was a poet-in-residence at Morehouse College, in Atlanta, Georgia, where he taught various courses in African-American culture, and at Emory, Rutgers, and Harvard Universities, where he offered courses in modern poetry, creative writing, and jazz.


The DC Youth Slam Team poets utilize their vocal energy and strength to channel emotions, generate a message, or participate in the artistic field they enjoy. Through their poetic works, they rejuvenate the art of poetry and create individual identities with distinct voices. These teens are the future voices of America. Welcome to the beginning of a movement.



Regie Cabico is the Director of Split This Rock's World & Me youth poetry contest and Artistic Director of Sol & Soul. Cabico is a poet, playwright, and spoken word performer. He took top prizes at the 1993, 1994, and 1997 National Poetry Slams. His work appears in over 30 anthologies and he co-edited Poetry Nation: A North American Anthology of Fusion Poetry. He received a NYFA Artist Fellowship for Poetry in 1997, NYFAs in 2003 for Poetry and Performance Art, and two Brooklyn Arts Council Poetry Awards. Cabico has been a teacher for Urban Word and developed a poetry and performance program for teens with psychiatric illness at Bellevue Hospital. He received the 2006 Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers in recognition of his work with diverse communities.