Samiya Bashir's Blog, page 3
July 14, 2012
Samiya Bashir shared an Instagram photo with you
Samiya Bashir just shared an Instagram photo with you:
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""RoadTrip 2012" (Hello #Arizona!)"
The Instagram Team http://scryptkeeper.blogspot.com
www.samiyabashir.com
July 13, 2012
Another badass day on the road with Asli!
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"Another badass day #ontheroad w/ Asli. Just landed in the #Navajo Nation. I've always heard that frybread is the #truth. I've always heard right. #roadtrip "
http://scryptkeeper.blogspot.com
www.samiyabashir.com
Samiya Bashir shared an Instagram photo with you
Samiya Bashir just shared an Instagram photo with you:
view full image
"Another badass day #ontheroad w/ Asli. Just landed in the #Navajo Nation. I've always heard that frybread is the #truth. I've always heard right. #roadtrip "
The Instagram Team http://scryptkeeper.blogspot.com
www.samiyabashir.com
May 22, 2012
Happy 30th Anniversary Dad & Halima!
Thanks for continuing to build me the best family on earth!http://scryptkeeper.blogspot.com
www.samiyabashir.com
May 10, 2012
Hurray! I get to play poetry with some great kids today!
This conference will expose 140 Detroit students, who are self-identified writers selected from 10 InsideOut high schools, to the wisdom and experience of Ms. Madgett and then engage them in workshops with some of our area's most exciting "rock star" writers. Students selected their top six picks from 13 enticing-sounding sessions such as Samiya Bashir's "Poetry Is Not a Game (Except When It Is)," "Emergence Travel Agency," with Invincible or Nichole Christian's "Tell Me One True Thing!" Detroit's honored Poet Laureate Naomi Long Madgett will keynote as she presents the 12th annual Lotus Press High School Poetry Prize to one of our students.Read the full article...http://scryptkeeper.blogspot.com
www.samiyabashir.com
May 9, 2012
Thank you Mr. President. Now what...?
Okay, I'm going to do the unpopular thing here. First: I'm going to stand up and cheer. I'm going to slow clap. I'm going to do an awkward dougie. I'm proud as hell at his 'evolution' (I doubt he was ever really against it, personally, but that's politics). I'm proud as hell we have a black president and that he (4 yrs into his term) has stood up for marriage equality. I'm so proud I'm going to say it's NOT ENOUGH. I am going to say: I want more.
First, they let canary-in-the-coalmine-Biden out of the 'closet' to test the waters. Good on them. Now POTUS is on record speaking about his "personal" evolution and how he and his family "personally" feel. That's lovely. It really is. I am always glad that people *personally* feel that we should all be treated equally. That's very nice.
But I also have friends in NC (and [INSERT YOUR STATE OR TERRITORY HERE] for whom *personal feelings* just don't cut it. I want my grandmother to *personally approve* of people's lives. I WANT THE UNIVERSALLY PROCLAIMED MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD TO *DO* SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
Now, I know that's likely coming. I see a summer upset ahead, in truth. That's politics. But having worked on this issue for years, having known (for ages) many many families who are *directly* affected by this, fully understanding that "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice" and having helped write all of that crafty messaging in another lifetime... I can not go on record ONLY clapping. I will not go on record simply thanking someone for acknowledging our collective humanity... not now. I won't sit to the side and smile and clap *only* (sure, I'll smile. I'll clap. But not *only* that) when someone says to our cancerous society: "Hey! Cancer is a horrible disease!" -- not when that person has the cure. In a syringe. In his hand. Behind his back.
Patiently waiting on my dear, beloved, POTUS to pull the plunger. Thank you. (smile. clap.)http://scryptkeeper.blogspot.com
www.samiyabashir.com
May 6, 2012
Toni, Toni, Toni!
A quick peak: MORRISON: They didn’t teach African-American writers even at African-American schools! I went to Howard University. I remember asking if I could write a paper on black people in Shakespeare. [laughs] The teacher was so annoyed! He said, “What?!” He thought it was a low-class subject. He said, “No, no, we’re not doing that. That’s too minor—it’s nothing.”Chiiiiiiile ... click here to read the whole thing.http://scryptkeeper.blogspot.com
www.samiyabashir.com
April 21, 2012
R. Erica Doyle and Monica Hand -- a lovely conversation a...
R. Erica Doyle and Monica Hand -- a lovely conversation at VIDA. Don't miss it!
Here's a sneak peak: "At one of those gatherings, in early 1997, I shared the email I’d gotten about the second annual Cave Canem retreat and we talked about what kind of space it might be—would it welcome our queerness? Some were skeptical. But we applied and got in and went together on a really crazy bus and train ride where I dragged you through Port Authority on the way to the Metro North and you complained the whole time. We were roomies! Remember how Sonia [Sanchez] was our next-door neighbor that first year? I remember her ironing and telling us to make our beds every day (very much a Virgo), her “Good morning, sistas!” I was so struck by her kindness and generosity, her compassion and humor. Her loving nature means so much to me, still. I remember the first night Elizabeth Alexander speaking so passionately about her friend and mentor Melvin Dixon and knowing that she had our queer backs. And certainly we both made friendships there that we will have all of our lives . . ."Click here for the full conversation!http://scryptkeeper.blogspot.com
www.samiyabashir.com
April 16, 2012
Congratulations to Tracy K. Smith on winning the Pulitzer Prize for "Life on Mars!"
Pulitzer Winner Tracy K. Smith on Why Poetry Matters - Speakeasy - WSJ: Poet Tracy K. Smith just won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her latest collection, “Life on Mars.”
http://scryptkeeper.blogspot.comwww.samiyabashir.com
April 3, 2012
RIP Elizabeth Catlett
RIP sweet Elizabeth Catlett.
Thank you.
Thank you.
From the New York Times:
Elizabeth Catlett, Sculptor With Eye on Social Issues, Is Dead at 96
Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesElizabeth Catlett in 2011.
By KAREN ROSENBERGPublished: April 3, 2012Elizabeth Catlett, whose abstracted sculptures of the human form reflected her deep concern with the African-American experience and the struggle for civil rights, died on Monday at her home in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where she had lived since the late 1940s. She was 96.
June Kelly, one of her American dealers, said Ms. Catlett died in her sleep.
In her smoothly modeled clay, wood and stone sculptures, and vigorous woodcuts and linocuts, Ms. Catlett drew on her experience as an African-American woman who had come of age at a time of widespread segregation and who had felt its sting. But her art had other influences, including pre-Columbian sculpture, Henry Moore's sensuous reclining nudes and Diego Rivera's political murals.
Her best-known works depict black women as strong, maternal figures. In one early sculpture, "Mother and Child" (1939), a young woman with close-cropped hair and features resembling a Gabon mask cradles a child against her shoulder. It won first prize in sculpture at the American Negro Exposition in Chicago. In a recent piece, "Bather"(2009), a similar-looking subject flexes her triceps in a gesture of vitality and confidence.
Her art did not exclude men; "Invisible Man," her 15-foot-high bronze memorial to the author Ralph Ellison, can be seen in Riverside Park in Manhattan, at 150th Street.
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