Samiya Bashir's Blog, page 11
January 3, 2010
Nappy Headed Aliens
[image error] Image Courtesy: http://www.iwatchstuff.com/2007/11/26... let me start by saying that it's just not really in my nature to be a kill-joy. I realize that this is the most popular entertainment out right now. I realize lots of people...
November 18, 2009
Thinking about form and function ...
Where does the relationship of form and function begin for you?
Form has everything to do with content. We know this from Olson. I love the potential openness of the page – there is so much unspoken "underneath-ness" in language. I try to use the page to illustrate the mind's meanderings – to suggest silence, for example, and to represent all the ways the subject is...
October 24, 2009
October 6, 2009
*Gospel: poems* gets some love ...
Lambda Book Report recently reviewed my latest book, Gospel: poems.Check it out:
Gospel, Samiya Bashir's second book of poetry, begins "at the crossroads" where "[w:]e argue as if Capulet or Montague./On neither red nor blue can we agree." The opening lines reveal the tension and disagreement considered, literally and metaphorically, throughout the book. The reference to Shakespeare is the first in a long series of allusions that animate Bashir's poems in this book. Bashir gathers stories and l...
September 14, 2009
Poem of the day ... for Homecoming
by Marilyn Nelson
Thank you for these tiny
particles of ocean salt,
pearl-necklace viruses,
winged protozoans:
for the infinite,
intricate shapes
of submicroscopic
living things.
For algae spores
and fungus spores,
bonded by vital
mutual genetic cooperation,
spreading their
inseparable lives
from equator to pole.
My hand, my arm,
make sweeping circles.
Dust climbs the ladder of light.
For this infernal, endless chore,
for these eternal seeds of rain:
Thank you. For dust.http...
September 13, 2009
Oiling my Pistons
bridge. Kidney Walks. Sun on the water. Vociferous ducks: quacking.
Nice. Nice.http://scryptkeeper.blogspot.com
www.samiyabashir.com
August 28, 2009
Back Home
rain is welcoming me back. Wondering how long, this time, I'll stay...http://scryptkeeper.blogspot.com
www.samiyabashir.com
August 6, 2009
Gospel: poems a bestseller at the Saints & Sinners Literary Festival!
The 2009 Festival was a great success ...
The 2009 Saints and Sinners Literary Festival was a tremendous success. Participants came from as far away as Slovenia to celebrate a love of writing and of literature and to support writers and artists within the LGBT community. Panels and Master Classes provided audiences with ample notes about the tools of the trade, from the importance of revision to how to write effectively with a full-t
July 30, 2009
"Stabilimentum," New Poem published on The Rumpus
Stabilimentum
Bend into my mouth
before frost ends us.
This long year
I've lumbered: spin,
devour, spin. Paced this crest
impatient for the tumble
of your nest upon my nest,
the hum of your dulcet strum.
And when I must bear you, maw
each strand still between my teeth,
bend into my mouth
impatient for the tumble.
I'll weave of you the dust
of a thousand thousand more of us,
lace the absence of your touch,
weep our bulbous clutch.
–Samiya B
Fingers Through Holy Water - The Rumpus reviews Gospel
Fingers Through Holy Water - The Rumpus.netGospel music, like its secular cousin the blues, never wallows in pity, but instead seeks to transcend pain and reach glory. Bashir's book makes the same trip.
Gospel, the word Samiya Bashir chose to title her second collection of poems, is one laden with connotations. It echoes the cadence of the pulpit, the call and response of preacher and congregation, songs of joy and praise and reliance on a higher power. It even claims the notion of a singular tr
