There’s no reason for you to know this, but Crossing Brooklyn Ferry is one of my favorite poems. It found me at a time of great sorrow (I’ll save that tale for another time) but it left me with such a gift.
At Fulton Landing on the Brooklyn side of the East River Coast, you’ll find Whitman’s words stenciled on the guardrail:
FLOOD-TIDE below me! I watch you face to face;
Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I see you also face to face.
Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes! how curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose;
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose
I hear these words every time I cross the Manhattan Bridge from Brooklyn to the City. Long gone are those days of ferryboats shuttling people between boroughs. Yet Whitman’s clairvoyance and eloquence, his hymn to New York City, to America, more than a century later, haunts and comforts. Perhaps in this instance, we can consider Whitman the patron saint of Poets in Unexpected Places (PUP). Poets Samantha Thornhill, Jon Sands, and Adam Falkner are the triumvirate behind this ars experimental endeavor. A few weekends ago, they gathered at the feet of the Gandhi statue in Union Square, corralled a few of their poet friends and took poetry to the streets– err, the trains. It’s something that many of us in the scene had talked and talked of doing one day, many years ago. Leaving the comfort of our sleepy or vibrant open mics, bars and ‘sanctioned’ places for sharing art, to engage audiences elsewhere. The world doesn’t always know how much she needs poetry sometimes unless she hears it.
I’ve neglected this space in recent weeks. The realities of the ‘hustle’ and multiple projects have demanded that I pay them closer attention. Additionally, writers write but writers also read. So I thought I share my current reading list:
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
Homebody/Kabul by Tony Kushner
The Ticking is the Bomb by Nick Flynn
The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Roberto Calasso
There may be a literary connection to this list. I’m not sure what it is. I do know that I have questions about our perception and understanding of our democracy. And I’ll certainly share more of my impressions of these books soon. I’m several New Yorker issues behind (which is typical), but I’m also currently reading Jill Lepore’s piece on the Tea Party movement.
I’m also really in love with Beyonce’s latest.
Also in the awesome category, here’s the promo for the upcoming season for State of the Re: Union.
Today will definitely end with me watching Iron Man 2! Here’s to walking and chewing gum.
On the other side of paradise, a conservative blogger (Debbie Schlussel) goes after our nearest and dearest, Urban Word:
Um, how can they use the word “scholar” and “hip-hop” in the same sentence with a straight face? Ditto for pedagogy. With hip-hop, it’s more like pedophilogy.
Institute participants will learn proven, hands-on techniques that will help them to develop lesson plans and strengthen their course study, as well as create a platform from which they will understand the scope of hip-hop history, culture and politics, Cirelli said. The learning component is supported with night programming by lecturers and performers who will synthesize the day sessions with effective strategies and cutting-edge multicultural educational approaches.
“Hip-hop history”? Is that like memorizing the day that Russell Simmons and Rev. Run bought their first pair of laceless Adidas? Or is it the date the first naked butt was shaken in front of the camera in a rap video? Or maybe it’s the first day Ice T smoked his first crack pipe with a stripper. Forget reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. Perhaps it’s the day Professor Griff of Public Enemy uttered his first “Dirty Jew” reference. It’s very important to America’s future that kids in school learn the important facts of hip-hop.
Math problem: If 50 Cent has 9 bullets in his body, but gets two removed while all but two of his 30 tattoos are lasered off so he can star in movies, how many women did he infect with herpes divided by how many used condoms need to be recycled to keep things green?
Ugh. I’m not posting the link because I can’t subscribe to steering more traffic to her site. Besides her unbelievably flawed, ignorant and racist assumptions about Urban Word’s poetry and hip hop education model, it’s unfortunately not a surprise. It’s blog baiting, again from the mouth of a Coulter wannabee. I feel like I’m repeating myself a lot about the symmetry of uncertain times, however, I feel compelled to note that uncertain social, political, economic times often breeds lazy commentary looking for scapegoats (see Thomas Chatteron Williams.) Hip Hop and a black president are excellent fodders for noting the decline of ‘real american values’, no? And for the past 20 years, hip hop has definitely been a prime target. Music generally. If it’s not Jay-Z, it’s Marilyn. Forget individual choices. Marilyn and Jay-Z have nothing to do with the person who chooses to pull the trigger to harm classmates or neighbors. Continue reading
A school district in Indiana has decided to ban Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.
Students at Franklin Central High School had to return an award-winning but controversial novel halfway through reading it Wednesday after complaints surfaced about its appropriateness.
District administrators say Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon” is being reviewed after it was pulled from two classrooms, and a decision on it is expected by Monday. A Franklin Township School Board member has vowed to keep it out of students’ hands.
“I was about as appalled as I’ve ever been in my life,” said board member Scott Veerkamp. “I wouldn’t want to expose my children to that garbage.”
Veerkamp said he and fellow board member Randall Bland received complaints about the book. Veerkamp then asked district administrators to pull it, which triggered a formal review.
“I couldn’t even sleep last night when I read some of the excerpts,” he said, adding that descriptive sex scenes, profanity, demeaning language and suicide were some of the material he found offensive.
Ok, that last part might be a bit of hyperbole. And this isn’t the first time that the Pulitzer Prize winning author had been subject to the scrutiny of school board members. In 2009, Song of Solomon was removed from the curriculum of a Maryland school district but later restored by a narrow school board vote.
The subject of banning books from schools and libraries often stirs alarm in me. And certainly, it’s valid for parents to question the content of some works of art in terms of ‘appropriateness’ for children. However, I have to wonder a little about this district and how ‘insular’ they are. Continue reading
