By Lyn Lloyd-Smith
The Homeless Hoarder’s Hunger Book
Into the coffee shops of idle eyes
She hikes her threads of tat-torn cloth
And residue of mildew breath.
She deftly drags a bulging pram,
Brimming with her rubbish child
Of cradled, cherished, bloated bags,
And crumpled faces off the road,
Her precious offspring
From the moon-blown streets.
[Read more…]
Continuing the National Poetry Month theme, from the 2015 Women of the World Poetry Slam, here’s Melissa Lozada-Oliva’s “My Spanish”. [Read more…]
San Diego Free Press continues its National Poetry Month coverage with the poem Stan Levin, a local activist with Veterans for Peace.
I was not a good kid,
not at home
not at school.
Once I slapped my first grade teacher
and she slapped me back.
I did not like school
and I did not like kids
who liked school
I’m not smart.
I did not like smart kids
Two high schools threw me out
I couldn’t get a good job.
As soon as I could
I left school
I left home
I left the neighborhood
and everything I was mad at. [Read more…]
Sometimes poetry is found in books. Sometimes music is found in poetry. Can it be that sometimes poetry is found in books as music? Here is the Columbian percussion group Grupo Pacuprá performing their work Libros. [Read more…]
From the artist Memo Atken’s web page, a description of his series Learning to See informs us that it’s:
an ongoing series of works that use state-of-the-art Machine Learning algorithms as a means of reflecting on ourselves and how we make sense of the world. … Artificial neural networks loosely inspired by our own visual cortex look through surveillance cameras and try to make sense of what they are seeing. Of course they can see only what they already know. Just like us.
“What they know” are “tens of thousands of images scraped from the Google Art Project, containing scans from art collections and museums from all over the world.” That is how mundane objects such as cloths, keys, plugs and hands become transformed into seascapes, flowers and flames.
The music selected to accompany this visual exploration is Gloomy Sunday sung by Diamanda Galás, a San Diego native. [Read more…]
Kay Kaufman Shelemay’s recent post on Ethiopian jazz master Mulatu Astatke characterizes Yekermo Sew (“A Man of Experience and Wisdom”) as his signature piece.
[It] was featured in the soundtrack of American independent filmmaker and screenwriter Jim Jarmusch‘s 2005 film “Broken Flowers” and then circulated across the world. Composed following Mulatu’s return to Ethiopia in the later 1960s, “Yekermo Sew” takes its title from a traditional Ethiopian Christian new year’s blessing in Amharic, the national Ethiopian language.
I thought I died a desert
rolled inside
lava beds
paralyzed by the eight legged
photophobic sun
I thought I died a desert
until the coyote laughed
heaps of boulders
into rear view mirror [Read more…]
Using simple, illuminative paper-cut puppetry, this enchanting video imagines the moment of witness that inspired Gwendolyn Brooks to write her landmark poem, “We Real Cool.” Created by Manual Cinema in association with Crescendo Literary, with story by Eve Ewing and Nate Marshall and music by Jamila Woods and Ayanna Woods. [Read more…]
By Jessie Hagopian / Common Dreams
Today, my good friend Michael Bennett, former Seattle Seahawk, and current Philadelphia Eagle, releases his new book, “Things That Make White People Uncomfortable”—the memoir/manifesto that he wrote with my other dear friend Dave Zirin.
I am going to assume my position as a teacher here and officially assign you homework: read this book! Take notes. Report back on it to your community. Then take action. It is indispensable for anyone who wants to understand why so many players today are refusing to just shut up and play and are creating the new national pastime of protest and play. But this book is much more than just an expository essay about the new Black athlete.
This is one of those rare books you read that will change the way you understand yourself and your place in the world. Only a few books have had that kind of impact on me. Books like “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” and “Angela Davis: An Autobiography.” Uncomfortable has me feeling like a kid again, remembering how those amazing autobiographies turned me upside down and inside out. [Read more…]
By Paul Armentano / Alternet
Scientific data is growing exponentially in support of the notion that legalized cannabis access can significantly mitigate opioid use and abuse.
On Monday, the esteemed Journal of the American Medical Association, Internal Medicine published a pair of persuasive new studies reinforcing this opinion.
In the first study, investigators from the University of Kentucky and Emory University assessed the relationship between medical and adult-use marijuana laws and opioid prescribing patterns among Medicaid enrollees nationwide. Enrollees included all Medicaid fee-for-service and managed care enrollees—a high-risk population for chronic pain, opioid use disorder, and opioid overdose.
By Amy Fan
San Diego Free Press continues its National Poetry Month coverage with the poem Helter Swelter by Oakland based writer and film maker Amy Fan. [Read more…]
On the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination, it seems appropriate to write about gun violence and the haters who enable it. Three local events relate to this topic, and there is some news of national interest I’ll add along the way:
