Andre Bagoo's Blog, page 3

Young birds can be tamedeasily but never attainthe deep...

Young birds can be tamed

easily but never attain

the deep scarlet plumage

of the free bird. Adults

lose their brilliant colour

in captivity. Persecution

and violence have had an

effect upon the scarlet ibis,

in making it watchful and

retiring. Knowing without

knowing, truly unknown. - from ‘The Scarlet Ibis’

Here’s a screenshot from the film poem featuring my work done by Soraya Moolchan and Israel Ramjohn which was shown last week in London at The Poetry Review’s Summer Issue launch.

Special thanks to Peter Minshall for lending me the mask from his 2006 band ‘The Sacred Heart’. More than a decade after that band, issues of bigotry, homophobia and hate are, sadly, still live today.

Photo by Israel Ramjohn/Hototo Films.

#poetry #filmpoem #ibis #scarlet #books #scarletibis #poetryreview #birdwatching #birdwatchingphotography #caribbean #lgbtq #trinidad #literature (at Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago)

Young birds can be tamedeasily but never attainthe deep...

Young birds can be tamed

easily but never attain

the deep scarlet plumage

of the free bird. Adults

lose their brilliant colour

in captivity. Persecution

and violence have had an

effect upon the scarlet ibis,

in making it watchful and

retiring. Knowing without

knowing, truly unknown. - from ‘The Scarlet Ibis’

Here’s a screenshot from the film poem featuring my work done by Soraya Moolchan and Israel Ramjohn which was shown last week in London at The Poetry Review’s Summer Issue launch.

Special thanks to Peter Minshall for lending me the mask from his 2006 band ‘The Sacred Heart’. More than a decade after that band, issues of bigotry, homophobia and hate are, sadly, still live today.

Photo by Israel Ramjohn/Hototo Films.

#poetry #filmpoem #ibis #scarlet #books #scarletibis #poetryreview #birdwatching #birdwatchingphotography #caribbean #lgbtq #trinidad #literature (at Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago)

Here’s a screenshot from ‘The Scarlet Ibis’, a film...

Here’s a screenshot from ‘The Scarlet Ibis’, a film poem featuring my work done by Soraya Moolchan and Israel Ramjohn which was shown last week in London at The Poetry Review’s Summer Issue launch. Special thanks to Peter Minshall for lending me the mask from his 2006 band ‘The Sacred Heart’. More than a decade after that band, issues of bigotry, homophobia and hate are, sadly, still live today.
Photo by Israel Ramjohn/Hototo Films.

Young birds can be tamedeasily but never attainthe deep...

Young birds can be tamed

easily but never attain

the deep scarlet plumage

of the free bird. Adults

lose their brilliant colour

in captivity. Persecution

and violence have had an

effect upon the scarlet ibis,

in making it watchful and

retiring. Knowing without

knowing, truly unknown. - from ‘The Scarlet Ibis’

Here’s a screenshot from the film poem featuring my work done by Soraya Moolchan and Israel Ramjohn which was shown last week in London at The Poetry Review’s Summer Issue launch.

Special thanks to Peter Minshall for lending me the mask from his 2006 band ‘The Sacred Heart’. More than a decade after that band, issues of bigotry, homophobia and hate are, sadly, still live today.

Photo by Israel Ramjohn/Hototo Films.

#poetry #filmpoem #ibis #scarlet #books #scarletibis #poetryreview #birdwatching #birdwatchingphotography #caribbean #lgbtq #trinidad #literature (at Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago)

They weigh thirty-five pounds, sothey have to try harder when...

They weigh thirty-five pounds, so
they have to try harder when flying 

- from ‘The Scarlet Ibis’

Just in time for July, I’ve two extracts from a new poem published in The Poetry Review. They make wild noises. Thank you, Emily Berry. More here. 

IN RESPONSE to surges of violent nationalism and political...

IN RESPONSE to surges of violent nationalism and political paranoia around borders, and to related social and ethical crises, JT Welsch and Ágnes Lehóczky have assembled WRETCHED STRANGERS an anthology that uses poetry to cross borders, celebrating innovative writing from around the globe, paying homage to the diversity that enriches us even as some continue to use it to divide us.

Solidarity with those marching in London. Solidarity with children in US cages, with those of the Windrush generation being denied basic rights, with those forced to appeal to a court for human dignity and equality, with wretched strangers everywhere.

Special thanks to the editors for including new work from me in this alongside poets such as Tim Atkins • Rachel Blau DuPlessis • Mary Jean Chan • Steven J Fowler • Peter Gizzi • Alex Houen • Vivek Narayanan • Alice Notley • Sandeep Parmar • Pascale Petit • Adam Piette • George Szirtes • Harriet Tarlo • David Wheatley • Jane Yeh.

THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT is now also available at Paper Based...

THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT is now also available at Paper Based Bookshop.

#marrythenight #visualpoetry (at Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago)

Love as protest

THEY can seem like strange things. Full of pageantry, pantomime, and artifice. But while there is a staged quality to every protest, demonstrations are fundamental to the Trinbagonian psyche. We are a society dominated by the theatre of the street, where the body is the site of power in the truest possible sense. We write our essays, editorials, poems, and novels not with ink and paper, but with placards, fabric and the mas on our backs.

The observance of the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia 2018 presented yet another opportunity for us to speak truth to power; to do what we did outside Parliament on April 7 and then again on the steps of the Hall of Justice on April 12. This time on May 17, a pride flag-raising ceremony is held at the British High Commission; a picnic is convened at Nelson Mandela Park; and a fete featuring music and poetry is held at Studio on Tragarete Road.

All these events have at least one thing in common. They represent the irruption of the private into the public, something all protests exemplify. In a sense, these kinds of activities, for better or worse, are natural responses to the burden we all know intimately, whatever our fragmentation as a community. We can all attest to the profound violation represented by the public imposition of mob rule onto our private affairs.

“I feel like contributing to my country,” says Johannah-Rae Reyes, 23, attending the picnic at the Nelson Mandela Park. “This is nation-building. People think of revolution in terms of armed violence. But I feel revolution can also be a picnic.”

- from my report on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia 2018 over at the QueerTT website. Read more here.

‘A stone if thrown might think it is a bird…’...

‘A stone if thrown might think it is a bird…’ Selections from THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT (Prote(s)xt, Bristol, 2018) are published today over at Burning House Press. #marrythenight

https://burninghousepress.com/2018/05/29/the-city-of-dreadful-night-by-andre-bagoo/

Thanks to all who dipped into my PITCH LAKE poetry reading last...

Thanks to all who dipped into my PITCH LAKE poetry reading last Thursday at Medulla Art Gallery. Through words and dance we asked questions about poetic form. What is a poem if not image and motion? We swam, we flew.

Photo: Justin Ramcharran