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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=164
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