Author Archives: Syreeta

Totally Delayed Reaction Syreeta….

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So, I’m late in noting it here, but in case you might be interested, I’ve been blogging for the totes awesome Feministing for the past nine months back as a new contributor, I answered some questions for The Feministing Five.

I plan to update here whenever possible of publications and whatever assorted brain droppings that manifest. Mostly, I’ve been playing here a lot.

I did a podcast with these fine folks in the summer.

This week, in the face of the Snowbracabra 2, Saturn Returns… I’m headed off to the Association of Writing Programs (AWP) annual conference in Boston. We’re co-hosting an offsite reading featuring our contributors along with the fine people of Storyscape Journal and Toadlily Press. We’re pretty geeked. Additionally, I’ll be chopping it up on a panel with my fellow curators of Poets In Unexpected Places about the game changing marriage between public art and poetry. If you’re in the Boston area, please come out!

‘who will survive in america?’

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A Disclaimer: I started writing this piece a little more than a year ago. Over the next month, I’ll be publishing this essay in progress in parts. You, fair internets, are part of my creative process. There’s a much longer project I’m embarking on, and this essay in progress figures prominently. Thanks for reading.  -S.

March 2011

1.
Dead birds.

Thousands of them. Real and imagined, suddenly appear from nowhere. At least to me. My iPod shuffled to a haunting tome in Nina’s brittle contra-alto, ‘Why you wanna fly, blackbird? You ain’t ever gonna fly.’ I clicked a link of short essay of images from the Gulf:

The timing of these two moments did not suggest coincidence. Later, I observed a quiet invasion on the A Train to Manhattan. To my left, a five year old boy’s attention fixed on a small screen. To my right, a forty five year old man methodically slid his index and thumb across a device. Their faces were aglow in part by the blue white light and the satisfaction at destroying something. I didn’t get it. Soon, I discovered the game everywhere.

By the end of 2010, Angry Birds had been downloaded 50 million times. At a 99cents per download, Rovio Corporation, the small Finnish company who created the mobile app with just $100,000 yielded a return of $8 million. I don’t think I’ve ever considered birds angry. What would birds have to be angry about anyway?

I played it once. It’s a simple slingshot game. Three little birds pummel digital wooden and stone structures to retrieve eggs stolen by evil pigs. And if I’m to be honest, there’s something quite gratifying about aiming a thing at a target and hitting it. It’s rote and it’s calming. Anxiety runs pretty is high these days. I’m not sure that I’m good at anything. I can do many things well, but what have I exactly? I’m still struggling with that answer. Yet, this Angry Birds app is the truth. I can advance to higher levels and achieve precision with just two fingers and lord over my opponent. A wooden wall, a house of cards constructed by evil pigs. The metaphor isn’t concealed here. David versus Goliath. People versus the Corporation. Could my bird pummel a brick wall? Will I ever fly again?

I found the observation of this academic curious:

Rovio made a smart choice in making the birds angry, said Jesse Schell, a professor at Carnegie Mellon who studies game design and entertainment technology. “You can smash them into things and it’s O.K.,” he said. “Imagine if they were cute little birds. It might be kind of funny on some level, but most people would probably be a little repulsed.”

Just imagine…

Continue reading →

like spinning plates.

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We’ve been watching its progression for many months now.

The progress of the rise of the new towers is, undeniable. The city’s skyline forever altered by the devastating events of that day, but now, something new emerges. Almost overnight, the new 1 World Trade Center, the Freedom Tower, pierces the space where the twins towers once occupied.

Bear with me. I know I’m stating the obvious, but I had grown accustomed to the absence of the twin towers. A coping mechanism, really, but now, at any point in the city, there’s this new tower, piercing the skyline. I’m surprised by how much it rattles me. I didn’t loose anyone to the attacks. But I’m a New Yorker now. I know things change here often, the definition of a New York Minute, but still…

*
Minoru Yamasaki was a pre-eminent Japanese American architect that designed two significant developments in the mid and late twentieth century. Pruitt-Igoe Houses in St. Louis and the World Trade Center. Recently, I, with a couple of my urban planning nerd friends, went to a screening for a documentary unpacking the legacy of the largest public housing development in the United States, built in 1954 then leveled by demolition in 1972. Pruitt-Igoe was celebrated as an achievement in public housing, a collection of 33 buildings, but within its short lifespan, it became a haven for crime and extreme poverty, an albatross to the St. Louis Housing Authority, whose shortsighted underwriting contributed to the accelerated decline of those buildings.

The first phase of demolition was televised in 1972.

1972 would also be the year that the doors of the Twin Towers, Yamasaki’s latest creation, would open. As we watched the film, I wondered about the architect. Yamasaki died more than two decades ago. He would never know of the two bombings of his greatest masterpiece, and how the second bombing obliterated it from skyline.

The cycle of a building life. Create. Build. Destroy.

*
She’s almost topped off now, this new freedom tower. A prefabricated spire of 1,776 feet to mount her head. Heavy is this crown for this new building. It took a good ten years, multiple arguments over its design, negotiations with property owners, city officials, the families, so many hands and she emerges, dwarfing all other surrounding buildings. She is history. She will be an office complex. She is steel and glass. She is symbol.

I don’t work in lower Manhattan anymore. But each trip in recent months, I look up, cooly observe the progress. Now, as the tower nears completion, she insinuates her presence in my reality. It feels funny.

Did anyone ever witness a phoenix rise from ashes?

found poem in phone conversation. or:

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Real talk from my Granny about writing. I’ll let her do the talking here:

Poetry has a way coming directly from your heart. And it helps you with your day to day. I just love it. That’s what it does, it comes from the heart.

[There's] a poem I wrote a poem about being in the womb before you’re born and being in love. Can’t remember it, but I asked the question: ‘do you still love me? do you still love me.’ [It was] definitely coming from my heart. and I wrote it. That was on my mind that day. That’s where poetry come from. That’s what makes it so beautiful.
The most beautiful poem I’ve ever read is Thanatopsis. Most people quote the ending, but if you take the time and start at the beginning of the poem, then the summation at the end of the poem, then you live:

[she quotes the poem from memory]

To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides

You won’t go kicking, screaming. You lay down and go sleep. i can’t think of a more peaceful thought of death than that. If you live the right way. every time I go over it I find something new… I’m saying all of this to say, poetry comes from your heart. Poetry is the thing.
I just love it. I just love it.
Just think on it. Just think on these things.

‘a yearning beyond visible expression.’

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Tomorrow afternoon I’m reading with a set of talented folk at the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe to celebrate the release of For Some Time Now: Performance Poets of New York City, a self published volume of photographs by Jonathan Weiskopf, edited by Jeanann Verlee. My essay, Notes Toward An Ars Poetica, is included in the anthology. I’m really honored to be included in this beautiful project.

For those of you wholly unawares, I’ve been spottily documenting the New York Performance poetry scene for years. Many of the members in this community had become some of my closest, dearest friends. Some of my earlier photo work covering my time as a resident photographer at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in 1999-2000 on Verbs On Asphalt, conceived and designed by Claire Ultimo. (The above photo is one of my own, of Jeanann Verlee at the National Poetry Slam in St. Paul 2010 (that’s not included in the book). The essay included in Weiskopf’s book, kinda brings my story in this community full circle. I’m no poet; just a woman grasping at air and words and images to sort out meaning in living everyday.

When you lose 4 of your most significant people who’ve influenced you in your life over an 18 month period, it changes you. For my part, the true manifestation of that change is making itself fully known now. Amidst all that grief, I fought my way to joy, largely in part because of this community.

I could say more, but now is not the time. If you’re free tomorrow afternoon, stop by the Nuyo between 2PM – 6PM to view the exhibition and buy the book.

Nuyorican Poets Cafe 36 E. 3rd St., New York, NY 10009

What I’m Reading. What I’m Thinking.

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It was not natural. And she was the first…
A poet can read. A poet can write.
A poet is African in Africa, or Irish in Ireland, or French on the left bank of Paris, or white in Wisconsin. A poet writes in her own language. A poet writers of her own people, her own history, her own vision, her own room, her own house where she sits at her own table quietly placing one word after another word until she builds a line and a movement and an image and a meaning that somersaults all of these into the singing, the absolutely individual voice of the poet: at liberty. A poet is somebody free. A poet is someone at home.
How should there be Black poets in America?

-June Jordan, The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America

This the epigraph to Adrienne Rich’s essay, ‘History Stops for No One’ in her collection, What Is Found There.  I picked this book up again 3 weeks ago to reread days before she died. I can’t stop reading it. You should read it too.

More later.

Programming Notes.

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Hello Internets,

I’ve been so busy that I haven’t spent much time here. Here’s to changing that in 2012. Here’s a modest roundup of what’s I’ve been up to and what’s coming up:

- Union Station Magazine’s Storyteller Issue (edited by yours truly) is up. Check it out!

- I try to wrap my head around The Tuscon United School District battles censorship with Arizona State Schools Superintendent for Moonshot Magazine.

- Friday, February 10th @ 7:30 – I’m reading works of fiction/ish with Eve Bates, Ana Božičević, Gregory Crosby, Jason Helm, Kendra Grant Malone and Erin Rashbaum for Moonshot Magazine’s Cavity Search.

That’s all she wrote for now. I’ll be with more goodies.

Also – Yay Giants!

#BLACKOUT.

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I’ve read several opinions on SOPA/PIPA for weeks. I may be off in my read of it, but below is my letter to Senator Schumer urging his withdrawal of support of this bill. I’m sharing it here. Read the bill. Section 103 is SCARY. I’m not kidding.

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Dear Senator Schumer:

It has come to my attention that you support SOPA/PIPA that is currently under consideration in Congress. Your support of this bill is distressing and as a long time supporter of your service, and I’m now faced with a difficult decision if you choose to continue your support of this bill.

This bill is poorly written. It is unclear where piracy/copyright protection for the entertainment industry and preservation of free speech begins and ends.

The definition alone of a ‘internet site dedicated to the theft of US Property’ is so wildly unwieldy that EVERY INTERNET SITE CREATED IN THE US would be subject to scrutiny of the Attorney General depending on the claim by any entity that said site has committed ‘theft’ of content, which in this case equals ‘loss revenue’ for said entity. Should a site post a review or comment about a product that is unflattering to said product, the entity has the right to request the AG order Google to remove references index references to the site in a simple search, and the host provider would be mandated to block access to the site to any viewers who seek the domain. The offending entity has little to no resources to object this claim and the US government can assume ownership of the domain? This is my close read of Section 103 of the bill as it is currently written.

While many may believe that this is tied only to piracy (blocking sites that allow for streaming of motion pictures or major record label music), I don’t see how this bill protects the very foundation of our democracy, the ability for the press to communicate with readers, trusted and respected bloggers to communicate with their readers. I read US papers and international papers online. The bill would allow the US government to unilaterally block any foreign website. Should the BBC report on American events, the AG has the discretion to block my access to it? Really? It also seems to imply that a simple email communication between an individual and me could get flagged as copyright infringement and could mean that my email becomes property of US government and all my communication would be blocked. Am I mistaken in this interpretation?

I have a blog and occasionally write for other sites. If I’m reading Section 103 correctly, it also implies that any reference I may make could be in violation of copyright protection. I’m also a volunteer editor of an online literary journal. The content we publish is original work from writers and visual artists. We understand the sensitivity of this issue of piracy. However, should our original content reflect views that are deemed unsavory to an entity, corporation or the federal/state/local governments could simply block access to that content. We are a small entity; we rely solely on our connection to an online community of readers. There are many sites that are similar to ours in creating content. The bill could shut us down and hundreds down like us with the broad and undefined powers given to the attorney general under the guise to simply ‘protect US Property’.

The definitions are so nebulous, it allows for gross abuses in enforcement that leave me to conclude that in its implementation it would reach further than just shutting down sites of pirated entertainment media. It would be censorship of information and silencing between communities sharing communication, information for social and political action. It leads me to conclude that this is a direct assault on our first amendment rights.

Any reasonable person who reads this bill as it is currently written understands that this bill provides a trapdoor to ending free speech. I urge you to withdraw support from SOPA/PIPA. I’m sure that you and many members of congress could spend a little more time to precisely define terms to protect content creators and uphold copyright laws without making every citizen of the United States a criminal. You vote for this bill, you will lose my vote in the next election cycle.

Sincerely,

Syreeta McFadden
Brooklyn, NY

‘Let’s meet the moment. Let’s get to work.’

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Here’s the thing: Nobody hires in August.

I know this fact quite intimately. I had begun my job search in the summer of 2008, before my job was ‘eliminated’ at the end of 2008. I was working in the real estate world then, and contrary to popular narratives, signs of distress were everywhere in 2007. In August 2008, a colleague enlightened me to this universal corporate meme.

So when the new numbers were released from the department of labor that showed zero job growth for the month of August and the unemployment rate held at 9.4, I didn’t flinch.

My expectations were already low.

I’m no politician, just an average, slightly over educated black woman who worked in the very industry that seems to be the lynchpin of the Obama’s job plan and well, a fake psychic.

Here’s me in February 2009:

So this brings me to my current thinking about infrastructure. Infrastructure is more than the physical universe of roads, bridges, schools, power grids, levees, dams, reservoirs, trains, subways. Think of them as veins and vessels within the body. The body cannot live without the mind. Teachers, firefighters, police officers, servicemen and women flow through that universe. So do you and I. And all of us need to be a bit more educated about how we all are connected in this life. How do we individually complement the stimulus package that was just signed? Infrastructure, beyond the jobs and economic stability it can create, includes you, me and a dose of intellectual curiosity.

America is a young nation with old systems in play. All that American ingenuity we’ve been taught about has laid fallow for too long.

Here’s Obama in 2011:

The purpose of the American Jobs Act is simple: to put more people back to work and more money in the pockets of those who are working. It will create more jobs for construction workers, more jobs for teachers, more jobs for veterans, and more jobs for long-term unemployed. (Applause.) It will provide — it will provide a tax break for companies who hire new workers, and it will cut payroll taxes in half for every working American and every small business. (Applause.) It will provide a jolt to an economy that has stalled, and give companies confidence that if they invest and if they hire, there will be customers for their products and services. You should pass this jobs plan right away. (Applause.)

Indeed. This thought process is rooted in simple economics: cash begets demand, demand begets supply, begets higher GDP. This is stimulus for main street. Create an environment so that consumers spend and employers hire. Investment in infrastructure is known by most policy wonks as the speediest metric to mark job growth. It is not unlike the recession of 2000/2001, when everyone looked toward investment in construction starts for housing, to compensate for the epic failure and job losses from internet companies folding. And that housing boom (and inevitable bust) carried the country out of recession of the early aughts. I suppose the logic remains the same here for the American Jobs Act; incentivize the private market (small businesses) to hire more 14 million Americans out of work, put cash in the pockets of those underemployed and overworked Americans so that we spend more and grow the economy.

Construction jobs are like cells dividing, besides the trades that get hired, folks who do work with their hands, it also creates a bureaucracy, a host of support staff to manage the endeavor. It’s not a bad idea…

Which is really to say that while this is effective method to stimulate job growth, it is a terribly old idea. If we’re to presume that everyone in the job market is looking to specialize in masonry, electrical, engineering trades, then he’s definitely on to something. It certainly would require a re-education or refining of capabilities. The ‘jobs’ that this bill will likely create would require a highly specialized labor force, one that seeks transform an erstwhile trader/bookseller that’s been serving up your latte at your local coffee shop for the past six months to rewire a school to support a 4G network.

When we talk of job creation what exactly are we talking about? Continue reading →

however do you want me. however do you need me.

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So I took the summer off from blogging and have been on my reinvention grind. This economy has been various degrees of unkind and kind to black girls (and yes, everyone). As of late I’m choosing to embrace a more positive dream (more on that later). Yet, these hands were not idle. There’s the summer issue of the litmag I edit with an awesome team of folks and a new issue to drop later this month. As well as confronting my oddball disdain for Herman Melville (my sole summer read), which has really revealed a misdirected love for his whole opus. That reads cryptic, I know. I’ll unpack that later gators.