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| Who Will be the First Youth Poet Laureate of Philadelphia ? |
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Who Will be the First Youth Poet Laureate of Philadelphia ? Maybe You!
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Meet the 2012 National Student Poets
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| Lylla Younes |
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| Natalie Richardson |
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| Claire Lee |
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| Luisa Banchoff |
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| Miles Hewitt BRAVO !!! Congratulations to Luisa Banchoff , Miles Hewitt, Claire Lee, Natalie Richardson and Lylla Younes; the 2012 National Student Poets. On Tuesday, these literary luminaries were officially appointed during the Library of Congress’ National Book Festival in To lean more about the National Student Poets Program and these winning poets, click here. http://www.artandwriting.org/the-awards/national-student-poets-program/ Did I mention I was a semi-finalist? Ah, to dwell in possibility… |
Foreign Language Programs for the Summer 2013
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| London |
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| Paris |
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| Paris |
This has got to be the longest period of time I haven't posted something. Pardon!- with a French accent ! I had such a busy summer and now school has resumed. I had an amazing time this past summer, in France London
Anyway… Believe it or not, NOW is the time to apply for so many remarkable summer programs, most of which offer financial aid and/or scholarships. Since I am in a foreign language state of mind, I will share some links to language programs, many of which take you abroad.
Does studying in England , France or Spain France
How about you guys who are interested in learning critical languages like Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Farsi, Russian, Korean and more? How about if you want to learn these languages in the countries where they are spoken? I got you covered. Check out the National Security Language Initiative for Youth. It’s an intense process to get selected, but if you do, all expenses are paid and you get to open your mind and heart to another culture. Here’s more information about the National Security Language Initiative for Youth: http://exchanges.state.gov/youth/programs/nsli.html
Ok, I know, some of you want to stay stateside, but still want the rigor and intensity of a total language immersion experience. Look no further. Here is the link to the Middlebury-Monterey Language Academy
Friday, June 15, 2012
Kehinde Wiley's Economy of Grace at the Sean Kelly Gallery-One More Day
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| Kehinde Wiley, Kancou Diaovno (2012) |
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Kehinde Wiley,
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| Sojourner in front of Princess Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (2012) by Kehinde Wiley |
Besides the above, what was great about being in New York Sean Kelly Gallery
It was exciting and odd at the same time to view this particular collection because the subjects are all women. Wiley is synonymous for his almost exclusive portrayal of men. True to his signature style, this body of work, entitled Economy of Grace, is over the top and spectacular. It was kind of eerie and neat to see his work in this huge gallery with just four or five people in there. It felt very intimate.
Wiley has said he based these paintings on historical portraits by masters like Jacques-Louis David, Thomas Gainsborough, and John Singer Sargent, and that Economy of Grace challenges society’s views of feminine beauty and the place of black women in art history.
“I am painting women in order to come to terms with the depictions of gender within the context of art history. One has to broaden the conversation,” he is quoted as saying.
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Kehinde Wiley, Judith and Holofernes
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http://www.skny.com/exhibitions/2012-05-06_kehinde-wiley/
Thursday, June 14, 2012
2012 National Scholastic Art & Writing Winners
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| Me, Sojourner Ahebee, with my gold medal. |
If you are a teen artist, enter next year. Here is more information: http://www.artandwriting.org/
Open Auditions at The School of Pennsylvania Ballet
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| Ballerina Misty Copeland |
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| The Power of Dance-Misty Copeland |
Like many girls and some boys, I went through a beautiful phase in my life when I wanted to be a ballet dancer. I took ballet lessons at the Gwendolyn Bye Dance Center Rock School
But there are those young people for whom dance is not a phase, but in the blood and their desire to dance will not be quieted. They are my idols, too.
The School of Pennsylvania Ballet
Source: Marissa Montenegro of the Pennsylvania
Auditions on Saturday, June 16 will be held at Pennsylvania Ballet’s studios at
http://www.paballet.org/BalletSchoolAuditionForm/Default.aspx
Ages 8 to 12
Check-in: 9:30 a.m.
Audition Class: 10 a.m.-11 a.m.
Ages 13 to 18
Check-in: 11 a.m.
Audition Class: 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
All ages indicated are as of September 1, 2012. Auditions are for the Student Division (ages 8-18) only. The
Based on current contractor projections, the
Re-opening the
Founded in 1963 by Balanchine student and protégée Barbara Weisberger, Pennsylvania Ballet is one of the nation’s leading ballet companies. Headquartered in
Topdog Underdog: A Review By Sojourner Ahebee
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| Suzan-Lori Parks |
Last Wednesday night at The Walnut Street Theatre, I attended Suzan-Lori Parks's Pulitzer winning play entitled “Topdog Underdog”. This play takes on the narrative of two brothers, Lincoln (played by Kash Goins) and Booth (played by Roderick Slocum). Already you are presented with a story, a play, swimming and rich with history. If it isn't obvious, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. The brothers in this narrative have a relationship I wouldn't hesitate to characterize as volatile and dysfunctional but the love between the two siblings is still present as well.
Lincoln and Booth were abandoned by their mother and father at the age of sixteen, and left with an inheritance of 500 dollars each. They had to learn what it meant to be an adult before most teenagers their age. Their harsh and unpleasant childhood follows them into their adult lives, which is where the heart of the play exists. Lincoln used to be a 3-card Monte con-artist but he stopped because he saw his friend shot as a result of this. He now takes on a job at a carnival arcade, where he dresses up as Abraham Lincoln and lets people shoot him. I find it interesting that he stops his prior job because his friend was shot but he takes on a job that involves people shooting him just for fun. There is something so haunting about this and it is here that you, as the audience, really begin to see the brilliance of Lori-Parks and the complexity of Lincoln's character. But back to the point. Lincoln's change of profession does not bring in the same amount of money as the cards but it's enough to support he and his brother in their shabby rooming house. Booth on the other hand has no job and completely depends on the income of his brother. He dreams of becoming good at 3-card Monte and when he's not dreaming, he's shoplifting. Booth is a character you can find yourself easily hating but deep inside all of his bad qualities, there is sometimes good. At one point in the play he steals some clothing from a department store,two suit to be exact, but one of the suits he steals for his brother. It's easy to just look at Booth as this “bad guy” but that's not how people really are. People contain multitudes.
What's even easier is to make Lincoln the good guy but what really separates him, morally, from his brother, Booth. Yes Lincoln stopped playing cards but he starts up again towards the end. On a literal level there is a tan folding screen separating the two brothers in the room but is that enough of a borderline? This all makes the audiences questions the moral differences between President Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth themselves. When it comes down to it, Abraham Lincoln was not concerned with the welfare of slaves if it meant the union was going to become split. He wanted the union to stay together. Then on the other hand you have Booth, a man who assassinated the president. He is painted as this racist southerner throughout the eyes and perspective of history books. Even though his actions were completely wrong, (especially considering the fact that I feel like Lincoln evolved as a president and as a person) are his views towards the slaves and African-Americans in general, any better than Lincoln's? But, at the end of the play, the character Lincoln receives the same fate as our 16th President. It's then left up to you, as the viewer, to make the decision on who's the “bad guy” or the “good guy”. Maybe neither exists.
Finally, this is a story about childhood nightmares and how they manifest into reality. This is a story about morals and lastly, this is a story about asking questions. You can never stop asking questions and finding new perspectives, which tend to hide in the dark corners of history.
“Topdog Underdog” will be at the Walnut Street Theatre until June 17, 2012. This is definitely a must see so I urge everyone to go out and support! Click the link below for more information concerning the showtimes.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Nina Simone Looming Large
Not only do I encourage you to purchase this book, but I invite you-TODAY- to support Hand in her immediate project, which is raising funds to get her to England, so she can participate in the Keats Festival in June. With the advent of fundraising platforms like Kickstarter and Indigogo, we can become patrons of the arts for a minimal contribution; but it’s a contribution combined with others that has a resounding impact.
Here is the link to a video of Hand reciting one of my favorites poems from me and Nina as well information about her fundraising efforts and how you can contribute: http://www.indiegogo.com/meandNina
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| Monica A. Hand |
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| me and Nina by Monica A. Hand |
Hi. I’m reposting a
post by my mom. It concerns a great poet
by the name of Monica Hand, who I got to see and hear at the AWP conference in
Chicago. Do support her campaign. Here it is.
Nina Always Looming Large
By Octavia McBride-Ahebee
Jazz reigns supremely in my family home. I had many momentous occasions to see, with
my father and brothers, live performances of our best jazz artists. One such occasion was when my dad and I saw
Nina Simone at the now defunct Chestnut Street Cabaret, in Philadelphia. A fantastically long line of her fans wrapped
around 38th Street onto Filbert and while they waited for doors to
open, they shared their Nina Simone stories.
These were tales not only of Nina’s concerts and her wonderfully
singular editorials which ranged from indictments on the music business to
charges that racism and sexism were still running amok in our country, but they
were tales of a more intimate dimension.
Most of those side-walk shared vignettes were about where people were in
their personal development when Nina so wonderfully, so unabashedly, so
melodically blasted the world with her take on things. It was as if Nina’s songs served to document
their lives and they were there for that concert not only to hear her, but to
continue on their journey with her serving as a pivotal backdrop in
illuminating the truth of their lives.
This brings us to poet Monica Hand and her new poetry collection,
me and Nina, which perfectly exemplifies all of the above. Poet Tyehimba Jess said of this collection
and of Hand: “Monica A. Hand sings us a
crushed velvet requiem of Nina Simone. She plumbs Nina’s mysterious bluesline
while recounting the scars of her own overcoming. Hand joins the chorus of
shouters like Patricia Smith and Wanda Coleman in this searchlight of a book,
bearing her voice like a torch for all we’ve gained and lost in the heat of
good song.”Not only do I encourage you to purchase this book, but I invite you-TODAY- to support Hand in her immediate project, which is raising funds to get her to England, so she can participate in the Keats Festival in June. With the advent of fundraising platforms like Kickstarter and Indigogo, we can become patrons of the arts for a minimal contribution; but it’s a contribution combined with others that has a resounding impact.
Here is the link to a video of Hand reciting one of my favorites poems from me and Nina as well information about her fundraising efforts and how you can contribute: http://www.indiegogo.com/meandNina
Here is information about the Keats festival- http://www.keatshouse.cityoflondon.gov.uk/852/The-Keats-House-Festival.html
You can order the me
and Nina from here as well: http://alicejamesbooks.org/pages/book_page.php?bookID=164Sunday, April 1, 2012
Trayvon Martin Is My Brother, Too !
My mother tells her son that the world is his oyster
Lay claim to all around you, she begs
And he smiles and believes in dreams that can’t be scaled down.
As he gets older, like now, like 10 years old
My brother, who is brown, tall like the Sahara Desert on stilts,
Handsome like the Grand Canyon in a rainstorm
Has only the weapons of a violin and a painter’s brush
And a bedroom plastered with heroes to calm his fears of the things foretold.
Maybe not his fortune, doesn’t have to be
But the wails of a mother tied to the wails of another
Linking hundreds of death cries over lost sons,
Released in one year, cascading through one city
Ours
Can spook a little brown boy thinking about living.
The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) have partnered with the nonprofit Alliance for Young Artists& Writers to create the National Student Poets Program, the country’s highest honor for youth poets whose original work exhibits exceptional creativity, dedication to craft and promise. Five outstanding high school poets will be selected annually for a year of service as literary ambassadors for poetry, encouraging a wide range of youth to explore and develop new creative capabilities.
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| By Kehinde Wiley |
an excerpt from An Ode to Liberty
By Sojourner AhebeeI.
I have a brother and he is brownMy mother tells her son that the world is his oyster
Lay claim to all around you, she begs
And he smiles and believes in dreams that can’t be scaled down.
As he gets older, like now, like 10 years old
My brother, who is brown, tall like the Sahara Desert on stilts,
Handsome like the Grand Canyon in a rainstorm
Has only the weapons of a violin and a painter’s brush
And a bedroom plastered with heroes to calm his fears of the things foretold.
Maybe not his fortune, doesn’t have to be
But the wails of a mother tied to the wails of another
Linking hundreds of death cries over lost sons,
Released in one year, cascading through one city
Ours
Can spook a little brown boy thinking about living.
I’ve been selected as a gold medal winner for poetry by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, representing the Midwest region where I attend school. Other notable past winners include Andy Warhol, Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, Richard Avedon, Robert Redford and Joyce Carol Oates.
http://www.artandwriting.org/awards/nationalwinnersNational Student Poets will be chosen from among the national medalists in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards by a national panel of literary luminaries and leaders in education and the arts. Student Poets will receive academic awards and opportunities to present their work at writing and poetry events, and will be featured at the National Book Festival in Washington, DC, in cooperation with the Library of Congress. Awards will be presented in September 2012.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed.I also would like to promote my poem “Listen to Africa”, which has been published as a poster for sale by the Syracuse Cultural Workers. Here’s the link: http://syracuseculturalworkers.com/poster-listen-africa
*Painting-Kehinde WileyThis is What Philly Brings-Denice Frohman; Gangsta Poetry
Again, it’s great to be home and reconnecting with Philadelphia’s vibrant poetry scene. In honor of National Poetry Month I will highlight some Philly poets you need to hear. Day 1: Denice Frohman
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