Odes To A Pandemic
by | Mar 23, 2020 5:06 pm | Comments (2)
Confessions of a Virus, #1
First of all, I am not out to get you, personally
I don’t even know who you are
Poetry
MLK Poetry Slam Pops And Locks It Down
by | Jan 21, 2020 1:08 pm | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Ngoma.
Before the Peabody’s 24th annual Zannette Lewis Environmental and Social Justice Professional Poetry Slam began on Monday afternoon, poet and emcee Ngoma had a word for people who brought their children to see it.
“I’m going to warn you that we don’t censor people,” he said. “We don’t pull punches.” And for the next couple hours, none of the poets competing in the slam did.
Free 2 Spit Celebrates 15 Years of Poetic Expression
by | Oct 30, 2019 12:24 pm | Comments (3)
Robert Cooper photo
Baub One God Bidon.
Poet and organizer Baub One God Bidon does not like the sound of his own voice. “I hear myself speak and think ‘Is that what I sound like? Is that what people have to listen to?’” he said from his seat at a table outside of Koffee?.
But listening to Bidon is exactly what people do at Free 2 Spit, a local performance event and open mic that he organizes, hosts, and performs at once a month. He will be celebrating Free 2 Spit’s 15-year anniversary this Friday, Nov. 1, at the event’s Howe Street home in the People’s Center.
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Beinecke Goes “Beyond Words”
by | Sep 17, 2019 11:41 am | Comments (0)
Jean-Francois Bory
Fin de mots (End of Words).
It’s a typewriter, but it has been rendered useless for its intended task. It has been occupied by soldiers who patrol its keys and chassis as if it’s a hill they’ve just conquered but barely hold. But it still produces language, or at least characters that could be language. They just don’t come out like they used to. They rise from the typewriter’s body as if they’ve been collecting there, even in the typewriter’s occupied state, and just have to come out. What do they mean? Nothing apparent. But that raises other questions: What did they mean before? And where is this all going?
Conductor Falls Into Place
by | Aug 30, 2019 7:24 am | Comments (0)
Lisa Keating
Kuzma.
Two months ago, musician and conductor Marika Kuzma hadn’t even moved to the New Haven area yet. Today she finds herself having organized an upcoming event at United Church on the Green featuring acclaimed musician Paul Winter, a member of indie-rock darlings the Hold Steady, and a chamber ensemble, amid a host of speakers, all in the name of doing something about climate change.
Saul Fussiner’s Next Chapter
by | Aug 23, 2019 12:14 pm | Comments (1)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Saul Fussiner.
“I wanted to be Billy Bragg,” said Saul Fussiner: storyteller, playwright, screenwriter, teacher, and music fan. “The reason why I’m a live storyteller, I think really, is because of music. But I can’t play guitar and I can’t sing really well, so I needed a different way of doing storytelling.”
Had Fussiner ever played guitar? He laughed. He had a story about that.
State House Cabaret Explores The Life Aquatic
by | Aug 14, 2019 11:52 am | Comments (0)
Max Loignon of the Right Offs sat on a stool in Sara Scranton’s kitchen, strumming out a song that was already recognizable before Daniel Eugene started singing.
It was one of the musical numbers set to appear in the second production of the State House Cabaret — playing this weekend at the State House on State Street on Saturday, Aug. 17, and Sunday, Aug. 18. The music swelled and filled the room as the cast assembled there joined in, giving the classic “Crimson and Clover” their own sense of yearning and beauty.
At the end, Scranton ran over and gave Eugene a hug.
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Music Raises Voices Of Holocaust Witnesses
by | Mar 29, 2019 7:40 am | Comments (0)
Mark Gurevitch Photo
Slepovitch.
The effect is immediate: the accordion and clarinet take a breath together to drop into a melody that instantly evokes sadness and strength. Then the singer enters, hitting the same tone. She’s singing in Russian, but the music is nearly powerful enough to convey the meaning. “Farewell, our native city / farewell, family so dear / farewell, precious mothers / farewell, to all our friends,” the singer sings. “Blindly, we walk down the road / not knowing what lies ahead / the ominous thought is growing / that awaiting us is death.”
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“I Should Have Named You Amber — Just In Case”
by | Jan 22, 2019 8:54 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Ngoma.
Poet, organizer, and master of ceremonies Ngoma was once again in front of the microphone on the third floor of the Peabody Museum on Whitney Avenue on Monday, overseeing the annual Zannette Lewis Environmental and Social Justice Community Open Mic and Professional Poetry Slam.
The professional part of the slam tended to draw poets from around the country to compete. But the community open mic was already getting heavy.
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Behind-Scenes Effort Guides Westville Art Scene Into 2019
by | Jan 2, 2019 8:31 am | Comments (2)
Liz Antle-O’Donnell Photos
Pizza making at Rawa as part of “Let’s Play.”
From its art galleries to its warren of studio spaces to its live music and theater venue at Lyric Hall, “Westville is seen as an arts center in New Haven,” said Elizabeth Antle‑O’Donnell. An initiative she’s helping to build is making sure it stays that way, and grows.
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Hillhouse Students Pen Political Poetry
by | Dec 21, 2018 8:52 am | Comments (2)
Christopher Peak Photo
Malik Giscombe works on an evidence-based essay in English class this week.
Hillhouse’s Chevaunne Breland.
One of district’s star teachers, Hillhouse High School’s Chevaunne Breland, asked her 10th-grade students in Pre-AP English to try their hand at writing poems of their own, as they studied what the professionals produced.
Voices Raised At Arts Awards
by | Dec 10, 2018 8:39 am | Comments (2)
Luciana Q. McClure Photos
AwardeesMelton, Slomba, Downing, DeLauro, Hameen, and Washington.
The Arts Council of Greater New Haven’s 38th annual awards ceremony, held Friday during a luncheon at the New Haven Lawn Club, began with a protest. As patrons were seating themselves in the Lawn Club’s expansive ballroom, a troop of young women marched in file toward the stage, chanting and holding aloft signs about stopping domestic and sexual violence, about women’s suffrage, about curing breast cancer.
The women were dancers from Premier Dance Company, headed by Hanan Hameen, one of the afternoon’s award recipients. They took the stage to a blast of music from the speakers, moving from funk to pop to hip hop, as patrons finished sitting down — a fitting nod to the theme of the arts awards this year, of phenomenal women.
‘Tis The Healing Season
by | Dec 4, 2018 1:11 pm | Comments (2)
Markeshia Ricks Photos
Psychologist and founder of Therapy for Black Girls Joy Harden Bradford …
… and newly elected U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes were highlights of the inaugural luncheon.
Healing comes in many forms. Some find it in dance. Others in prayer. The women of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. brought several forms of self-care together in an inaugural “The Art of Healing” luncheon.
A&I Draws Strength From City
by | Apr 30, 2018 12:18 pm | Comments (1)
Elon Trotman.
Jazz heavyweights and artistic emissaries from Africa will mix with New Haven’s finest talent at the International Festival of Arts and Ideas this year. That’s just the way Chad Herzog, co-executive director of the festival and director of programming, wants it, as the festival continues to deal with a tighter state budget by sinking its roots deeper into the Elm City.
Poets Ride A Wave Of Words
by | Jan 16, 2018 8:39 am | Comments (0)
Hartford-based artist and poet Zulynette Morales looked down at a sheet of paper in front of her, then back up at the standing-room-only crowd packed into the mineral hall on the third floor of the Peabody Museum Monday afternoon. “Peace to Puerto Rico,” she said. Then she began to sing from a Willie Colón song from the 1970s. “Pronto llegará / El día de mi suerte / Sé que antes de mi muerte / Seguro que mi suerte cambiará.” I know my luck will change before I die.
Expression Mondays East Runs From Poetry To TV Pilots
by | Oct 11, 2017 7:42 am | Comments (0)
“Good morning America, how are you?” sang Expression Mondays East cohost Bobcat Carruthers, playing “City of New Orleans” — the Steeve Goodman song that Arlo Guthrie made famous — with guitarist Sal Fusco and Terence Clarke on harmonica.
Others in the audience answered with their own instruments, and another night of sharing and expression began.
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New Haven’s Patron Saints Canonized
by | Oct 4, 2017 7:53 am | Comments (0)
Sara Scranton Photos
Artist Sara Scranton.
Artist and poet Daniel Eugene told me before his photo shoot with Sara Scranton at his Studio Feruvius in Westville that he plans to be the Patron Saint of Paper Trails.
Ode To Trump #26
by | Aug 23, 2017 12:00 pm | Comments (1)
Zoe Matthiessen
Donald Trump & The Solar Eclipse
Donald Trump & My Jewish Mother
by | Jul 4, 2017 9:43 am | Comments (3)
Pearl Appel, far left, on her wedding day.
Pearl would have known what to say to Donald Trump.
The Word Goes To Church
by | Jun 20, 2017 12:06 pm | Comments (0)
Ihsan Abdussabur had a question that had gotten under his skin. He understood why people have an inborn fear of loud noises. But darkness? Darkness, even as it extended to human bodies?
He couldn’t get to the bottom of that one. It wouldn’t stop him from trying.
Baub Bidon Asks What Happened To Hip Hop
by | Jun 7, 2017 8:05 am | Comments (1)
Karen Ponzio Photo
Baub OneGod Bidon.
When I arrived at the People’s Center on Howe Street, the door was locked and two men were hanging out on the front steps waiting to get in. I introduced myself to Baub OneGod Bidon, the night’s featured performer as well as the founder of the long-running spoken-word open mic Free 2 Spit. I told him I hadn’t wanted to bother him as he was getting ready.
“Next time, you come right on over. When you come here, you’re family. You just come on in. Everybody is welcome here. This is our family and our community,” he said. He set the tone for the entire night.
Poets And Artists Step Up, Or Should
by | Apr 21, 2017 12:07 pm | Comments (0)
Allan Appel Photo
The artist with her “Remendando Mi Patria.”
Artists have a stage and they sure should use it. They could sense dangerous shifts in the body politic before non-artistic citizens do, and they should act on on these instincts. And poets are always in the midst of difficult times — it comes with the profession — so they could guide others when the difficulties spread.
Hill Central Poets Slam Into Action
by | Apr 13, 2017 7:48 am | Comments (0)
Lucy Gellman Photo
Clockwise from top: Williams, Serena Anes, Dejesus, and emcee Elijah Vann.
Tyrese Dejesus ran onto the stage of Hill Central and lifted both hands in the air. He puffed out his chest and took a quick, deep breath. Then he looked out into a swelling audience, ready to make an announcement.
“I am not a poet!” he declared.
His peers raised their eyebrows and cocked their heads to listen closely. A few looked as though they were ready to call his bluff. Others waited to hear more.
A Festival Soldiers On
by | Mar 30, 2017 10:25 pm | Comments (0)
Courtesy A&I
Chad Herzog, the International Festival of Arts & Ideas’s interim co-executive director and director of programming, stood on the stage in a large room on the first floor of Alexion, on College Street. Before him, artists and filmmakers mingled with bankers and civic leaders. A countdown clock projected on the wall that looked more like something for a sports event — maybe a nod to March Madness? — had just run out. Herzog was on stage to announce A&I’s lineup for 2017.
When Poetry And Exploitation Collided
by | Jan 23, 2017 8:44 am | Comments (1)
Beinecke Library
A black novelist was so sick of the portrayal by his fellow writers of the Negro as fundamentally different from other homo sapiens that he wrote a satire, Black No More, starring a doctor who invents a procedure to lighten skin pigment.
A white champion of the new black lit himself penned a novel called Nigger Heaven, featuring sexual promiscuity; it sold well, and he was accused of exploitation.
And one of Langston Hughes‘s earliest blues-inspired poems was called “Fine Clothes to de Jew”; it broke new ground but its subject infuriated the black middle class — and, yes, there already was one in the Harlem of the 1920s and 1930s.