Alli Marshall's Blog, page 8
July 28, 2017
By a hare
A retelling of an Asian rabbit myth, excerpted from a longer poetry cycle on which I’m working.
[image error]
1830s-era French natural history print
Black-naped hare, meadow creature, keeps his language
secret. No one around here speaks rabbit. When the beggar
asked for alms, the monkey gathered fruit, the otter brought fish
and the jackel stole a pot of milk. The rabbit only knew
how to harvest grass, so it threw itself on the cooking fire.
But the beggar transformed himself into Sakra, ruler of the Devas
and rewarded the rabbit for his selflessness by placing him
on the moon. It was better than death by immolation,
but it was far away, and cold at night, and there was no grass
at all. And no one spoke rabbit there, either.
Filed under: inspiration, poetry, Writing
June 22, 2017
Of Faulkner and polar bears
Image from endangeredpolarbear.com
A writer who I don’t know but follow on Twitter posted this William Faulkner quote today: “The only thing worth writing about is the conflict in the human heart.” And my first thought was, “Wait, is that right?”
I like quotes from writers and quotes about writing, but the thing about quotes is they sound like edicts when, in fact, they’re just the musings of creative people who, like the rest of us, are making it up as they go.
And writing as an art form carries with it a certain self-importance. It often defaults to taking oneself too seriously — a side-effect of all that time spent in solitude. After hours and weeks and months with just the white of the page and the arrhythmia of the keyboard, writers are deluded that they know something particular about the human psyche and its workings and its purpose.
But even if that’s the case, so what? We humans are fascinated with human nature because it is us; but so much of the world we live in is not of us or like us or about us. We neglect sea and sky and bird and beast and write on and on about the human heart, that bloody, faulty muscle that we attribute to emotion and sentiment and compassion when it’s only actually concerned with
cardiovascular exertion.
Should we not, perhaps, write about the conflict between Israel and Palestine? Between scientists and climate deniers? Between polar bears and rising sea levels? Between Democrats and Republicans? These are not struggles of the heart, but of the head, of the elements, of forces of good and evil, giving and taking, greed and moral code.
Should we not write of those powers that turn our societies into a tug-o-war, of the ideologies that split our families and communities, of the constabularies that undermine our humanistic leanings?
Why even write if not to explore the world and its nuances? Why work with words if not to tell stories, seek truth, endeavor to offer explanation for what seems so muddied and incomprehensible?
Or perhaps Faulkner knew this and concluded, ultimately, that the conflicted human heart — by which he meant mind — was at the root of all of these woes. The troubled mind dreamt a troubled world into being. And therefore, by rooting out the human seed that sprouted a forest of discontent, we can begin to make real change.
But I suspect Faulkner’s quote has more to do with the practice of writing in solitude about solitude, of creating a world in which each person is an island and each person’s baggage is private and unique and more worthy of examination and attention than all the polar bears on all the melting icebergs.
And that, of course, is just silly.
Filed under: essay, writer quotes, Writing
June 19, 2017
The squirrel knows but isn’t telling (micro fiction)
Photo from society19.com
There’s a house on Kimberly Avenue. There are many houses, but this one in particular is the kind of house that exudes style and dignity and the kind of manicured calm that comes from proximity to wealth. The whole street is like that — wide and well-maintained with grand old shade trees casting cool green over sidewalk and tended lawn.
No one is ever tending this particular lawn. Landscaping crews piloting tractor-sized mowers are for the nouveau riche; the truly wealthy have yards maintained by elves who show up, soundlessly, after midnight, and pluck every clover and sorrel by hand so nothing remains but a uniform blanket of St. Augustine sod.
This lawn is a serene bay of grass swimming away from stately maples in whose shadows are planted dense beds of ivy. A brick wall snakes the property line, with a wrought iron gate left open to suggest a sleek town car will soon pull onto the crescent of driveway.
There is never a car, though. There’s never a flutter behind the drawn curtains or a porch light flicked off or on. There’s only the lawn and the trees, the gate and the wall that pens in the house, meeting at stocky stanchions in each corner. The stanchions are sober as centuries, entertaining only the occasional squirrel.
And one black sock.
That’s what this story is about. There’s a sock on one of the stanchions that has been there for weeks. Probably a month. It’s an athletic sock, and it’s without a mate. It grows more faded, more worn, more fibrous and less sock-like with each passing week.
The mystery of the sock is both that it’s there at all — why would someone walking down shady, elegant Kimberly Avenue suddenly stop to take off a single sock and then leave it on the nearest wall? — and that no one has removed it. Not the house’s occupants, not the gardeners, not the late-night lawn-care elves, not the neighborhood association, not one of the dozens of professional dog walkers, not a do-gooder passer-by.
So the sock remains, weathering birds and squirrels and thunderstorms. It’s mysterious and out of place, a story that staunchly declines to tell itself, a mislaid object that refuses to be relaid in its proper place.
Filed under: flash fiction, inspiration, Writing
June 9, 2017
Arts, equity, and the whitewashing of Riddle Fest
I learned something this week: There are no artists of color performing at the upcoming Riddle Festival, an annual event celebrating Lesley Riddle. What you need to know here is that Riddle was an African-American musician from Burnsville who greatly influenced the Carter Family. So think about that for a minute: The first family of country music has a black musician to thank.
[image error]
Lesley “Esley” Riddle, right, with guitarist Brownie McGhee.
This is not the only story where mountain, Appalachian, country, folk and roots music — much of which seems so of the domain of white folks — is actually closely tied to and even originating from the creative efforts of people of color. But because the white narrative has long been the dominant narrative, people of color tend to be diminished or overlooked or left out altogether. Or not invited to participate in a festival commemorating a person who looks like them and represents the history, hopes, talents, and ingenuity of their community.
I don’t think the organizers behind Riddle Fest intended any harm or slight, but I do think these kind of oversights pile up, one on top of the next, until we really can’t see past them anymore. Words like “appropriation” get bandied about — for good reason — but I see a greater harm. Yes, when white musicians record and profit from the songs of unrecognized musicians of color, it’s plagiarism and intellectual theft. If the original artist isn’t being uplifted and his or her family compensated for payment that the original artist never received, the crime is compounded. But there’s also a social implication: Not only are we white folks complicit in perpetuating white supremacy (I know: The term calls to mind Klan robes and skinheads in red boots — it actually means maintaining a narrative and system wherein the needs of white people are valued above, often at the cost of, the needs of all other groups), we are deteriorating the rich tapestry of our collective human story.
By writing some people out of that story, we lose track of their contributions, their talents, they unique points of view, their voices in the choir. We paint with fewer colors, sing with fewer notes, dance with a limited vocabulary. I could go on. But think of all the musicians we don’t know about because they were be written out of our collective history in order to maintain a prominent and dominant place for white artists. Think about this: Old-time music wasn’t only made by white folks. But can you name a black artist (other than members of the Carolina Chocolate Drops) in that genre? And aren’t you curious to know who those under-recognized artists are, what they sound like, what tunes of theirs could be shared right now?
So it’s important that Lesley Riddle was a black man, and it’s important that the black community is part of any celebration of him, and any carrying forward of his music. It also matters that while Riddle was key to the Carter musicians becoming The Carter Family, the Carters were early inductees to the Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame, but Riddle has yet to receive that distinction. In fact, only one artist of color — Piedmont blues dynamo Etta Baker — has thus far been inducted into that organization in its nine-year tenure.
We need to collectively care about these disparities and not allow them to stand. There’s too much at stake. Too much art, and therefore humanity, is being lost to the revisionist history we have — even if unwittingly — agreed to.
Filed under: creativity, history, Music, Writing
June 2, 2017
Weekly reading 7
“Skull House, Mississippi, 2014,” by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
You guys. I love Junot Díaz and really love both this writer’s use of a Díaz quote and just where he’s coming from in general.
• “Dragons Are for White Kids with Money: On the Friction of Geekdom and Race” by Daniel Jose Ruiz in The Millions: “There is progress; we now have an unapologetically black super hero series in Luke Cage. There is BlerDCon (Black Nerd), and Blerds (the term is typically inclusive of any non-white nerd) even get a shout-out in a song (thanks Childish Gambino).”
• “The Loneliness of Donald Trump” by Rebecca Solnit at lithub.com: “Instead of the dictator of the little demimondes of beauty pageants, casinos, luxury condominiums, fake universities offering fake educations with real debt, fake reality tv in which he was master of the fake fate of others, an arbiter of all worth and meaning, he became fortune’s fool.”
• “Let’s Play: Intuition, Imagination, and Black Creativity” by Maggie Millner at PW.org: “There’s a diversity within the black arts community that we don’t always acknowledge. … There’s no one way to be black or to celebrate our lives.”
Filed under: Books, creativity, essay, Writing
May 25, 2017
Weekly reading 6
A vintage photo of African-American bikers from the story “Soul on Bikes & Black Chrome: The History of Black America’s Motorcycle Culture” at salvedgeyard.com.
An interesting read as we go into Asheville Beer Week (aka, not so much different from All Weeks in Asheville). The question that brought me to this article is: Why is Asheville’s beer scene (aka, outside of medical, probably its largest industry) not welcoming to or inclusive of people of color?
• “There Are Almost No Black People Brewing Craft Beer. Here’s Why.” by Dave Infante in Thrillist: “[The post-Prohibition] consolidation of most beer brewing in the US into very large corporations probably hurt all sorts of minorities who would have potentially owned breweries.”
To put this next piece context, I came to this story after being seriously annoyed by 45’s comment that an investigation into his Russian ties are a witch hunt. Witches, historically, were women healers and leaders who were persecuted for their independence and for the ways they sought to provide for their families and communities (doing what the governing bodies of their times would not). Witch hunts were systematic murders to stop the power of women. A white man of significant privilege and power aligning his predicament with that of “witches” (many of whom didn’t even identify as such), is tone-deaf and insidious. Here’s a story about a legitimate witch hunt in the 21st century. And be warned, it’s hard to take.
• “Witch hunt: Africa’s hidden war on women” by Witch hunt: Africa’s hidden war on women in The Independent: “These women are frightening anomalies here: they have a flicker of financial independence denied to all other females. It has to be stopped.”
• “Chelsea Manning’s Lawyer Knows How to Fight Transgender Discrimination—He’s Lived It” by Samantha Michaels in Mother Jones: “If you can’t go to the bathroom, you can’t go to school or have a job. … You can’t go to the movies or a restaurant. This is really a question of whether or not as a society we’re going to let trans people participate and be part of our social fabric.”
• Transcript of New Orleans Mayor Landrieu’s address on Confederate monuments in The Pulse: “In the second decade of the 21st century, asking African Americans — or anyone else — to drive by property that they own; occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd.”
Filed under: essay, history, journalism, Writing
May 15, 2017
Weekly reading 5
The post is late but the material is still worth a read…
[image error]
Untitled, 2009 by Kerry James Marshall. Acrylic on PVC panel
61 1/8 × 72 7/8 × 3 7/8 in
• “University Students Want Free Tuition For Blacks As Reparations For Slavery” by David Krayden in dailycaller.com: “The Western Kentucky University student government passed a resolution, 19-10, that advocates the recognition of slavery as a “debt that will never be paid” and offer free tuition to black students as compensation.”
• “This Mother’s Day, Black Lives Matter Activists Will Give More Than 30 Women Their Freedom” by Dani McClain at The Nation: “Black people didn’t wait for an Emancipation Proclamation or the end of the Civil War to act on their own behalf. … Instead, they sometimes bought their own and each other’s freedom, and in doing so left a blueprint for how to directly challenge mass criminalization today, even as policy battles are in progress.”
• “This racial justice jam, or White folks trying to figure it out” by Shay Stewart-Bouley on her blog, black girl in maine: “Racism in this country is largely a white problem, but white people solving it alone won’t work.”
• “How Watermelons Became a Racist Trope” by William Black in The Atlantic: “These symbols have roots in real historical struggles—specifically, in the case of the watermelon, white people’s fear of the emancipated black body.”
THINK ABOUT IT:
“A lot of times equality can feel like oppression for those who are losing their advantage, but that’s not a reason we shouldn’t fight for equality.” — Western Kentucky University student senator Lily Nellans
Filed under: creativity, essay, journalism, Writing
May 7, 2017
May (triptych)
Countess Szechenyi at Twin Oaks garden party, ca. May, 1926. Photo from modern farmer.com
i.
In the ink-blue dusk
when everyone hurries home
the flower moon blooms.
ii.
The garden trembles
as a thousand crickets sing
summer’s arrival.
iii.
Do the church bells ring
this time each night? Sound travels,
the doors are open.
Filed under: poetry, travel, Writing
May 5, 2017
Weekly reading 4
Image from the japantimes.co article “Japan’s men and women must stand together against the scourge of sexism,” which is mostly depressing but does use the awesome word “womenomics.”
• “What It’s Like to Transition in Trump’s America” by Katelyn Burns in Elle: “I’m afraid I won’t be able to afford the things I need to live my life authentically. … It scares me that as a trans person of color, I’m not sure anyone would jump to my defense.”
• “Why American needs a slavery museum” video posted by The Atlantic: “We need to understand today whey we have so many problems in America, why so many people are in jails, why so much poverty, black people being shot and killed like game. All that was rooted in slavery. If you don’t understand the source of the problem, how can we solve it?”
• “On Realizing I am Black” by Gabriel Ramirez: “In Boston, I held the elevator door for every racist that I looked better than…”
• “To Understand the Cost of the War on Women, Look to Mississippi” in Mother Jones: “The reaction used to be, ‘Oh, look at what’s happening in Mississippi.’ … Now it’s ‘Oh my God, this is happening in my backyard.’ People are really alarmed.”
• “I Do Sex Work So I Can Look At Myself In The Mirror” by Angel Archer in Huffington Post: “The narrative of a person entering the underground economy to afford medical expenses has a kind of tragic romance a la Breaking Bad, illuminating the human cost of market failure in the nation with the highest nominal GDP.”
THINK ABOUT IT: #BlackWomenAtWork is a twitter hashtag. Because it has to be. Because the United States is a giant racist jerk. But thanks to the omnipresence of social media, we white people can follow the tag, think about what it tells us, and actually ramp up our learning curve. Here are some things that our POC coworkers are dealing with:
@wickdchiq: White ppl get mentored, POC get policed in the workplace.
@BirdspeedSK: Was asked if I have a dad, hair was touched without permission, was called a monkey and chav…This was my first day.
@ByrdreneeM: When you raise an issue over & over again in meetings, over email, etc & everyone acts like they didn’t hear you.
Filed under: Writing
May 2, 2017
Collaborative chapbook
Last week I was part of an art show/performance that was the end result of an 11-day collaborative challenge. The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design selected 11 artists (a combination of writers, crafters and visual artists) to team up and create work based on the CCCD’s exhibition, The Good Making of Good Things: Craft Horizon’s Magazine, 1941-1979.
[image error]
I was paired with weaver Danielle Burke who’s focus in Appalachian coverlets. We were both inspired by a February, 1974 issue of Craft Horizons in which writers were tasked with creating prose around the art of long-dead makers whose works had outlived any knowledge of the ancient artists who made the work.
[image error]
We were also inspired by the story of Dani’s loom, which came with writings and samples from three women who’d used it the 1950s and 60s. I wrote poetry around those makers — also more or less lost to time — and Dani created woven collage with photo copied images of the weaving samples. Our final result for the exhibition/experiment/happening Object as Poet, which we presented on April 29, was a chapbook. The cover — Dani’s woven collage — us at the top of this post. Here are some of the pages:
Filed under: creativity, inspiration, poetry, Writing
