It is hard to imagine a world without Chinua Achebe. So, over the next couple of weeks, I will post some reflections here on the life, work, and death of this essential writer, Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe. His death on March 21, 2013, last week, in Boston, is an enormous loss to the world of […]
On this Good Friday, 2013, when North Korea threatens the world with bluster beyond its means, when Syria lurches into a second year of war, and countless other human failures seem to overtake us, I’m drawn to Pablo Picasso and one of his paintings which always gives me hope. Picasso’s “Studio (Pigeons)” painted in 1957, […]
When a poet-friend “tagged” me for The Next Big Thing, I didn’t think I’d do it. It felt a little like a chain letter and I recall not liking the pressure chain letters contained. But I guess I’ve softened and come along to the point that I’m posting some reflections on the questions The Next […]
To truly recite a poem, you have to know and feel the poem. That knowledge and feeling flowed abundantly yesterday at Washington D.C.’s Banneker Academic High School. They rocked their POETRY OUT LOUD program. I was honored to be a judge for the second time and I sat amazed at these students, their passion for […]
I think of graffiti art as urban elegy. It’s the voice of the unheard, an epitaph of those who feel silent. As many readers of this blog know, Cool “Disco” Dan is a famous graffiti artist in Washington, D.C. who has been a subject in my poems. He began back in the 1980s and has […]