Breena Clarke's Blog: A Few Whiles , page 4
April 27, 2014
Brave Women
1812: Cochabamba
Women
“From Cochabamba, many men have fled. Not one woman. On the hillside, a great clamor. Cochabamba’s plebeian women, at bay, fight from the center of a circle of fire.
Surrounded by five thousand Spaniards, they resist with battered tin guns and a few arquebuses: and they fight to the last yell, whose echoes will resound throughout the long war for independence."
- Eduardo Galeano, “Memory of Fire II. Faces And Masks”
Faces and Masks
The American continent is so very often imagined as a thing conquered/tamed by heroic individuals mostly characterized as men – rough, aggressive men who bring a sort of order to this vast expanse.
Many brave women have left their tracks on this continent, too. Read my blog here:
http://angelsmaketheirhopehere.tumblr...
Women
“From Cochabamba, many men have fled. Not one woman. On the hillside, a great clamor. Cochabamba’s plebeian women, at bay, fight from the center of a circle of fire.
Surrounded by five thousand Spaniards, they resist with battered tin guns and a few arquebuses: and they fight to the last yell, whose echoes will resound throughout the long war for independence."
- Eduardo Galeano, “Memory of Fire II. Faces And Masks”
Faces and Masks
The American continent is so very often imagined as a thing conquered/tamed by heroic individuals mostly characterized as men – rough, aggressive men who bring a sort of order to this vast expanse.
Many brave women have left their tracks on this continent, too. Read my blog here:
http://angelsmaketheirhopehere.tumblr...
April 22, 2014
Closing the book
I like basketball. Lately I've noticed -- other folks have noticed for me -- that I'm now picking up the game's metaphors. Yeah, I suppose I am. "Putting it all on the floor." I think I did. "Taking it straight to the hole." I hope I did. "Draining it from way outside." Yes, I tried to and now I figure it is safe to say:
"Book it!" Read my blog as I'm musing about the process of walking up to the publication date ( JULY 8) of my latest novel, ANGELS MAKE THEIR HOPE HERE.
http://angelsmaketheirhopehere.tumblr...
"Book it!" Read my blog as I'm musing about the process of walking up to the publication date ( JULY 8) of my latest novel, ANGELS MAKE THEIR HOPE HERE.
http://angelsmaketheirhopehere.tumblr...
March 4, 2014
2014 Festival of Women Writers in Hobart, NY
We are so pleased -- ecstatic actually -- to announce the participating wirters for The 2014 Festival of Women Writers in Hobart, NY, the book village of the Catksills. Our Festival will be held on September 5, 6, & 7, 2014.
Mermer Blakeslee is the author of three novels, Same Blood, In Dark Water and When You Live By A River.
Remica L. Bingham-Risher, is a poet and author of Conversion and What We Ask of Flesh.
Tara Betts, poet, her work appears in Villanelles and A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry.
Ginnah Howard is the author of Doing Time Outside and Night Navigation.
Stephanie Nikolopoulos is the author, with Paul Maher Jr., of Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.”
Kat Rosenfield is the author of the novels, Amelia Anne Is Dead and Inland.
Maria Mazziotti Gillan’s most recent books are Ancestors' Song, The Place I Call Home, and Writing Poetry to Save Your Life: How to Find the Courage to Tell Your Stories.
Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa is author of the novel, Daughters of the Stone
Simona David, a communications consultant, is the author of Self-Publishing and Book Marketing, A Research Guide.
E.J. Antonio, poet, author of Rituals In The Marrow: recipe for a jam session
Tayari Jones, novelist, author of Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow
Browse a shelf of their titles here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
The following 2013 participating writers will be returning for Festival of Women Writers 2014:
Marianela Medrano-Marra, poet, psychologist, and author of Diosas De La Yuca.
Bertha K. Rogers, poet laureate of Delaware County, N.Y. and author of Heart Turned Back
Sophfronia Scott, author of, All I Need To Get By.
Mary Johnson, author of An Unquenchable Thirst: A Memoir.
Alexis DeVeaux, author of Yabo and Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde
Lynn Domina, author of Framed In Silence and Corporal Works
Cheryl Boyce Taylor, author of Night When Moon Follows, Raw Air, and Convincing The Body.
Esther Cohen, author of No Charge For Looking and Book Doctor
Dara Lurie, author of Great Space of Desire: Writing for Personal Evolution
Breena Clarke, author of Angels Make Their Hope Here, Stand The Storm and River, Cross My Heart
Take a look at the titles of our 2013 writers here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
Mermer Blakeslee is the author of three novels, Same Blood, In Dark Water and When You Live By A River.
Remica L. Bingham-Risher, is a poet and author of Conversion and What We Ask of Flesh.
Tara Betts, poet, her work appears in Villanelles and A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry.
Ginnah Howard is the author of Doing Time Outside and Night Navigation.
Stephanie Nikolopoulos is the author, with Paul Maher Jr., of Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.”
Kat Rosenfield is the author of the novels, Amelia Anne Is Dead and Inland.
Maria Mazziotti Gillan’s most recent books are Ancestors' Song, The Place I Call Home, and Writing Poetry to Save Your Life: How to Find the Courage to Tell Your Stories.
Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa is author of the novel, Daughters of the Stone
Simona David, a communications consultant, is the author of Self-Publishing and Book Marketing, A Research Guide.
E.J. Antonio, poet, author of Rituals In The Marrow: recipe for a jam session
Tayari Jones, novelist, author of Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow
Browse a shelf of their titles here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
The following 2013 participating writers will be returning for Festival of Women Writers 2014:
Marianela Medrano-Marra, poet, psychologist, and author of Diosas De La Yuca.
Bertha K. Rogers, poet laureate of Delaware County, N.Y. and author of Heart Turned Back
Sophfronia Scott, author of, All I Need To Get By.
Mary Johnson, author of An Unquenchable Thirst: A Memoir.
Alexis DeVeaux, author of Yabo and Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde
Lynn Domina, author of Framed In Silence and Corporal Works
Cheryl Boyce Taylor, author of Night When Moon Follows, Raw Air, and Convincing The Body.
Esther Cohen, author of No Charge For Looking and Book Doctor
Dara Lurie, author of Great Space of Desire: Writing for Personal Evolution
Breena Clarke, author of Angels Make Their Hope Here, Stand The Storm and River, Cross My Heart
Take a look at the titles of our 2013 writers here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
2014 Festival of Women Writers in Hobart, NY
We are so pleased -- ecstatic actually -- to announce the participating wirters for The Festival of Women Writers in Hobart, NY, the book village of the Catksills.
Mermer Blakeslee is the author of three novels, Same Blood, In Dark Water and When You Live By A River.
Remica L. Bingham-Risher, is a poet and author of Conversion and What We Ask of Flesh.
Tara Betts, poet, her work appears in Villanelles and A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry.
Ginnah Howard is the author of Doing Time Outside and Night Navigation.
Stephanie Nikolopoulos is the author, with Paul Maher Jr., of Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.”
Kat Rosenfield is the author of the novels, Amelia Anne Is Dead and Inland.
Maria Mazziotti Gillan’s most recent books are Ancestors' Song, The Place I Call Home, and Writing Poetry to Save Your Life: How to Find the Courage to Tell Your Stories.
Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa is author of the novel, Daughters of the Stone
Simona David, a communications consultant, is the author of Self-Publishing and Book Marketing, A Research Guide.
E.J. Antonio, poet, author of Rituals In The Marrow: recipe for a jam session
Tayari Jones, novelist, author of Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow
Browse a shelf of their titles here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
The following 2013 participating writers will be returning for Festival of Women Writers 2014:
Marianela Medrano-Marra, poet, psychologist, and author of Diosas De La Yuca.
Bertha K. Rogers, poet laureate of Delaware County, N.Y. and author of Heart Turned Back
Sophfronia Scott, author of, All I Need To Get By.
Mary Johnson, author of An Unquenchable Thirst: A Memoir.
Alexis DeVeaux, author of Yabo and Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde
Lynn Domina, author of Framed In Silence and Corporal Works
Cheryl Boyce Taylor, author of Night When Moon Follows, Raw Air, and Convincing The Body.
Esther Cohen, author of No Charge For Looking and Book Doctor
Dara Lurie, author of Great Space of Desire: Writing for Personal Evolution
Breena Clarke, author of Angels Make Their Hope Here, Stand The Storm and River, Cross My Heart
Take a look at the titles of our 2013 writers here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
Mermer Blakeslee is the author of three novels, Same Blood, In Dark Water and When You Live By A River.
Remica L. Bingham-Risher, is a poet and author of Conversion and What We Ask of Flesh.
Tara Betts, poet, her work appears in Villanelles and A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry.
Ginnah Howard is the author of Doing Time Outside and Night Navigation.
Stephanie Nikolopoulos is the author, with Paul Maher Jr., of Burning Furiously Beautiful: The True Story of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.”
Kat Rosenfield is the author of the novels, Amelia Anne Is Dead and Inland.
Maria Mazziotti Gillan’s most recent books are Ancestors' Song, The Place I Call Home, and Writing Poetry to Save Your Life: How to Find the Courage to Tell Your Stories.
Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa is author of the novel, Daughters of the Stone
Simona David, a communications consultant, is the author of Self-Publishing and Book Marketing, A Research Guide.
E.J. Antonio, poet, author of Rituals In The Marrow: recipe for a jam session
Tayari Jones, novelist, author of Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow
Browse a shelf of their titles here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
The following 2013 participating writers will be returning for Festival of Women Writers 2014:
Marianela Medrano-Marra, poet, psychologist, and author of Diosas De La Yuca.
Bertha K. Rogers, poet laureate of Delaware County, N.Y. and author of Heart Turned Back
Sophfronia Scott, author of, All I Need To Get By.
Mary Johnson, author of An Unquenchable Thirst: A Memoir.
Alexis DeVeaux, author of Yabo and Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde
Lynn Domina, author of Framed In Silence and Corporal Works
Cheryl Boyce Taylor, author of Night When Moon Follows, Raw Air, and Convincing The Body.
Esther Cohen, author of No Charge For Looking and Book Doctor
Dara Lurie, author of Great Space of Desire: Writing for Personal Evolution
Breena Clarke, author of Angels Make Their Hope Here, Stand The Storm and River, Cross My Heart
Take a look at the titles of our 2013 writers here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
February 9, 2014
"Honey, I Love" and never will forget
"Honey, I Love" by Eloise Greenfield is a classic - a lovely collection of poems for young children that touches upon a wide range of feelings and experiences with the gentle, nurturing guidance of a favorite aunt. Consider this book the next time you're looking for a quiet classic for a young child. Author of biographies and fiction for children, Eloise Greenfield has created the world of an African American child's daily life that, with charm, intelligence, sensitivity and a deep understanding of what motivates and engages young children, does not exclude any child -- of any color or gender. The illustrations are by the award-winning children's illutrators, Leo and Diane Dillon. There is a quiet, intimacy in the spare drawings that, nevertheless, also includes complex, iconographic yet child-like depictions. This is a grand little book!
I have an intimate connection to this small book. I created a performance piece for children aimed for an audience of children and their people with these poems. The performers were all young people including my three year old son, Najeeb. He learned his poem by repeating it because he'd yet to learn to read. We worked on the blocking together. He had his own ideas about how his body should move in company with the words. The production was successful for the children who performed and the children who were the audience. I look back and consider that the others in the cast, also quite young, accomplished all of the poems and performed them excellently. The author, after an initial ruffle over permissions (I was not careful enough), attended the performances and was quite pleased.
I have a sweet, little signed copy. Eloise Greenfield was very generous in her remarks. I also have the signture of the young girl who had the lead though it is only a first name and my memory has failed to cough up her last name.
My son has since died -- very young, very accidentally, but I will always be able to savor his performance of Ms. Greenfield's poem, By Myself.
By Myself
By Eloise Greenfield
When I’m by myself
And I close my eyes
I’m a twin
I’m a dimple in a chin
I’m a room full of toys
I’m a squeaky noise
I’m a gospel song
I’m a gong
I’m a leaf turning red
I’m a loaf of brown bread
I’m whatever I want to be
An anything I care to be
And when I open my eyes
What I care to be
Is me
--- from the collection, "Honey, I Love," by Eloise Greenfield, 1978, Thomas Y, Crowell Company, New York.
I have an intimate connection to this small book. I created a performance piece for children aimed for an audience of children and their people with these poems. The performers were all young people including my three year old son, Najeeb. He learned his poem by repeating it because he'd yet to learn to read. We worked on the blocking together. He had his own ideas about how his body should move in company with the words. The production was successful for the children who performed and the children who were the audience. I look back and consider that the others in the cast, also quite young, accomplished all of the poems and performed them excellently. The author, after an initial ruffle over permissions (I was not careful enough), attended the performances and was quite pleased.
I have a sweet, little signed copy. Eloise Greenfield was very generous in her remarks. I also have the signture of the young girl who had the lead though it is only a first name and my memory has failed to cough up her last name.
My son has since died -- very young, very accidentally, but I will always be able to savor his performance of Ms. Greenfield's poem, By Myself.
By Myself
By Eloise Greenfield
When I’m by myself
And I close my eyes
I’m a twin
I’m a dimple in a chin
I’m a room full of toys
I’m a squeaky noise
I’m a gospel song
I’m a gong
I’m a leaf turning red
I’m a loaf of brown bread
I’m whatever I want to be
An anything I care to be
And when I open my eyes
What I care to be
Is me
--- from the collection, "Honey, I Love," by Eloise Greenfield, 1978, Thomas Y, Crowell Company, New York.
February 7, 2014
ANGELS MAKE THEIR HOPE HERE
This is the history of the origin of the people of Russell's Knob as recounted for several generations by the descendents of the founders of the settlement. The earliest written accounts of the history of Russell's Knob are found in the bibles, journals, diaries, business records and wills of the Smoot, Wilhelm, Beaulieu and Van Waganen families as archived by Sarah Jane Smoot.
Four sisters, four young girls - were part of the good-will gesture of a minor head man of the Lenape in the area above the Falls. He gave his daughters to British soldiers who wanted women and hadn’t thought to bring any along — as if they hadn’t meant to stay. The girls were treated like wives, settled near each other and were pleased with their father’s arrangements. Each had children, each had a clever brother, and when the war between patriots and loyalists broke out, these four grandmothers were given title to the lands of their husbands while the war raged in a bold strategy to preserve the lands for His Majesty. At the urging of their clever brother, the four grandmothers signed loyalty oaths to the Patriot cause as soon as their husbands were called up to the service of the war, and thus were not killed or burned out during raids by Patriots. The four grandmothers and their brother kept title to all of the lands that had formerly belonged to His Majesty, and through legal machinations after the war, become recognized by the Government of the State of New Jersey as the legal owners of the lands.
Russell’s Knob then is Grandmother’s town. The oldest inhabitants did, in fact, call it Grandmother's town. But it came to be called Russell’s Knob in the late 18th century when all of the settlers accepted the idea first proposed by Russell Sitton, grandson of one of the Grandmothers, that upon these lands no slave catcher, no slave trader, no bounty hunter or profiteer could pursue a bond person and that no one who reached the town would be forced to return to slavery. Russell Sitton’s band vowed to defend themselves against outside threat and, after several burn-outs, hid themselves and fortified with weapons.
Four sisters, four young girls - were part of the good-will gesture of a minor head man of the Lenape in the area above the Falls. He gave his daughters to British soldiers who wanted women and hadn’t thought to bring any along — as if they hadn’t meant to stay. The girls were treated like wives, settled near each other and were pleased with their father’s arrangements. Each had children, each had a clever brother, and when the war between patriots and loyalists broke out, these four grandmothers were given title to the lands of their husbands while the war raged in a bold strategy to preserve the lands for His Majesty. At the urging of their clever brother, the four grandmothers signed loyalty oaths to the Patriot cause as soon as their husbands were called up to the service of the war, and thus were not killed or burned out during raids by Patriots. The four grandmothers and their brother kept title to all of the lands that had formerly belonged to His Majesty, and through legal machinations after the war, become recognized by the Government of the State of New Jersey as the legal owners of the lands.
Russell’s Knob then is Grandmother’s town. The oldest inhabitants did, in fact, call it Grandmother's town. But it came to be called Russell’s Knob in the late 18th century when all of the settlers accepted the idea first proposed by Russell Sitton, grandson of one of the Grandmothers, that upon these lands no slave catcher, no slave trader, no bounty hunter or profiteer could pursue a bond person and that no one who reached the town would be forced to return to slavery. Russell Sitton’s band vowed to defend themselves against outside threat and, after several burn-outs, hid themselves and fortified with weapons.
A Few Whiles
I knew a boy once who thought that, if there was one while, i.e. a unit – a while of time, then surely there were two whiles and three and so on to several. So, often he would say that he’d be back in
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