What’s Cooking?

2.27.20

In the Paris Review Daily’s Eat Your Words series, Valerie Stivers creates recipes inspired by food references in literature. Writing about her favorite Hilda Hilst novel, Letters From a Seducer (Nightboat Books, 2014), translated from the Portuguese by John Keene, Stivers mentions the eccentric ways food is incorporated into the text: “Blouses smell of apples; people sell clams, oysters, coconuts, hearts of palm, dried meat; a penis is a giant chorizo or a ‘wise and mighty catfish’ or a strawberry.” Write an essay that incorporates the shapes, smells, textures, and connotations of food in an unexpected way. What comes to your mind when considering the skins, peels, fat, seeds, flesh, pulp, nubs, and bones from your meals?

Poet of the Spirit: Sunni Patterson

To conclude my Black History Month themed posts, I interviewed poet Sunni Patterson. Patterson was instrumental in giving voice to New Orleans through her poetry after Hurricane Katrina. The performance of her poem “We Made It” on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam has over six hundred thousand views on YouTube. In many ways Patterson has become the face of New Orleans spoken word.

How has New Orleans shaped your poetry?
When you’re born and raised in New Orleans, you can’t help but have poetry in your bones. Even if you don’t know what it is, or what to call it, it’s there. From the way a story is told, the sayings, the anecdotes—all of it shapes my artistry. I know the music, air, culture, thickness of the city contributes to the sound of my poems.

Take us back to your appearance on Def Poetry Jam in 2007, what was that moment like for you?
I was asked to do it years before that performance. For some reason, I didn’t want to do it. Fast forward to after Hurricane Katrina. I’d just finished speaking at the University of Houston when I got the call from producers. I agreed immediately! I knew my voice and point of view about Hurricane Katrina and its impact on the city and residents needed to be heard.

I had no clothes after Katrina. A box of clothing from a church in Houston was sent to me. Most of the things I didn’t keep. I kept a crop top. I already had some denim material I wanted to use. I was leaving the next day, I called Mama Rukiya, she sewed something quickly with mudcloth and made detachable sleeves. Chile, I was sewing myself into the dress until it was time to go on stage! The needle and thread were still in the seams. It was a great experience.

Who are some of your poetry influences?
Ayi Kwei Armah, Lucille Clifton, Jayne Cortez, Neville Goddard, Zora Neale Hurston, Acklyn Lynch, Brenda Marie Osbey, Arturo Pfister, Rumi, Kalamu ya Salaam, Mona Lisa Saloy, and Sonia Sanchez.

What message do you have for the future writers of New Orleans?
My hope for the next generation of writers is to have hope. To hold the light. To honor the ancestors, elders, culture, children, and spirit of the city, but most importantly, to do the ugly, yet necessary, work of the heart. Those are the things that’ll keep them and us alive.

Sunni Patterson. (Credit: Gus Bennett, Jr. / 2016 New Orleans People Project)
 
Kelly Harris is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in New Orleans. Contact her at NOLA@pw.org or on Twitter, @NOLApworg.

Recurring Character

2.26.20

“There is sort of a recurring character with different names, this extremely self-possessed, undereducated person. There’s absolutely an element of autobiography there,” says Emily St. John Mandel in a profile by Michael Bourne in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. Bourne describes the different iterations of heroines that have surfaced again and again in each of Mandel’s novels: “The figure of the rootless young woman with few worldly possessions beyond a fierce intelligence and a certain relentlessness.” Think of a character from a short story you’ve written in the past who possesses certain personality traits based on your own, and resurrect this character for a new story. Which characteristics remain intact and which are more dispensable?

Party Time: Comicpalooza

As we prepare for our participation in the annual AWP Conference & Bookfair in March in San Antonio, I thought I’d share some of the literary festivals and conferences that Houston hosts. Last week, I wrote about Sin Muros: A Latinx Theater Festival, and today I want to tell you about Comicpalooza.

First, I have a confession: I am a comic book nerd. There, I said it. Some of you might read this and judge me and that’s okay. The real shameful thing is that I have never been to Comicpalooza and it looks exciting as hell!

This festival is now in its fifth year and boasts a thorough showing of comic fandom, appreciation, and literary craft. There is a slew of programming for every kind of audience, from cosplay to craft writing workshops on fantasy and noir, to open mics and DIY workshops on storyboarding for graphic novels. The festival even includes a Literature Conference with author panels, critique sessions with fellow writers, and fan roundtable discussions. The three-day event is Texas’s largest comic convention and what I love is that it’s all about community. If you’re interested, you can participate—that’s right, submissions are currently open for panel discussions and workshops. This year, Comicpalooza will be held over Memorial Day weekend, May 22–24 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Downtown Houston. So if you happen to be in town, I hope to see you there!

Lupe Mendez is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in Houston. Contact him at Houston@pw.org or on Twitter, @houstonpworg.

Public Property

2.25.20

In “‘Hostile Architecture’: How Public Spaces Keep the Public Out” in the New York Times, Winnie Hu reports on elements of urban architecture in New York City that are designed to enforce order and deter lingering, loitering, sleeping, skateboarding, and the homeless. This includes metal spikes, studs, teeth, bars, bolts, walls, and railings placed on resting surfaces like benches, ledges, and low walls in public plazas. This week, look around more closely at the architectural details you pass by and write a poem about an interesting feature or texture whose design functions in a specific way. Is it welcoming or hostile? Can you express the physical details by playing with sound, rhythm, and spacing?

Detroit’s Contemporary American Authors Lecture Series

Tuxedo Project resident fellow Rose Gorman has been working in conjunction with the Center for Detroit Arts and Culture at Marygrove College to help organize this year’s Contemporary American Authors Lecture Series. The series, which began in 1989, invites a nationally-known author to the campus for a lecture and reading that’s free and open to the public. There is also programming surrounding the event throughout the city that introduces Detroiters to the work of the featured author. Last year the series brought Elizabeth Acevado, a Dominican American poet and the author of The Poet X and With the Fire on High, to Detroit. I had the honor of sharing the stage with Acevado at Marygrove for the reading. Witnessing so many people there to hear Acevado’s words after weeks of diving into her work was moving to say the least.

On April 2, Roxane Gay will be featured and at the center of attention for this year’s event. Leading up to the date, numerous literary workshops, readings, and other activities will take place in the city to absorb Gay’s published works. According to Gorman, they are expecting to have programming happening every day of the week for the entire month of March! You will be able to find one-off events as well as weekly workshops encouraging participants to sit with a single text for more than one meeting. These will be hosted at locations such as the Room Project and Tuxedo Project.

Events begin this week and on Sunday, March 1 at ZAB Cultural Collective, a special five-week program will allow participants to enjoy a discussion group for Gay’s memoir, Hunger, that explores the text through the creation of visual art. These sessions will be led by Rose Gorman and artist Amanda Koss. “People can dive into emotions that they feel through color and shape,” says Gorman about the program. “The meaning is unique to the artist.” Read more about this program and register for events here.

Justin Rogers is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in Detroit. Contact him at Detroit@pw.org or on Twitter, @Detroitpworg.

Deadline Approaches for the Hurston/Wright Crossover Award

Submissions are open for the Hurston/Wright Crossover Award. Administered by the Hurston/Wright Foundation and sponsored by ESPN’s online publication the Undefeated, the award honors “probing, provocative, and original new voices in literary nonfiction.” The winning writer will demonstrate an ability to work across genres or “crossover between writing styles and techniques.” The winner will receive a cash prize of $2,000, free attendance at the Hurston/Wright Foundation’s Summer Writers Week, and a complimentary ticket to the foundation’s nineteenth annual Legacy Awards Ceremony in October 2020.

 

Using only the online submission system, submit up to 20 pages of literary nonfiction with a $30 entry fee by February 29. Black writers who have not published a book in any genre, through any publishing platform, are eligible. Visit the website for complete guidelines

The winner of the competition will be announced in May and honored at the Legacy Awards Ceremony in October 2020. Founded in 1990, the Hurston/Wright Foundation conducts writing workshops, public readings, and other programs devoted to increasing Black literary representation. The Undefeated “explor[es] the intersection of race, sports, and culture.” 

Framed Story

2.20.20

In the New York Times Letter of Recommendation series, Durga Chew-Bose writes about the value of getting an assortment of things framed after moving to an apartment in Montreal. “Some of us are born a little mournful, and we spend our lives discovering new traditions for housing those ghosts we’ve long considered companions. Framing, I’d venture, is central to this urge. It gives memories a physique.” Think of a memory that continues to haunt you like a ghost. Write a personal essay that uses a frame technique—the telling of a story within a story—to give the narrative a fixed structure. Tell the story of your memory, framed at the beginning and end with your current state of mind. What is revealed by the juxtaposition of this story embedded within another?  

The Legacy of the NOMMO Literary Society

My New Orleans Black History Month series of posts continues today with the NOMMO Literary Society. It’s impossible to talk about New Orleans Black literary history without talking about Kalamu ya Salaam and the NOMMO Literary Society.

Many of you may not know that NOMMO was founded by Salaam in New Orleans in 1995, a rare Black writers workshop established a year before Cave Canem. That summer, Salaam had led a writing workshop for male students on the invitation of Tommye Myrick at Southern University New Orleans. Poet Ayo Fayemi-Robinson (formerly known as Kysha Brown Robinson) then questioned Salaam about the exclusion of women writers in the workshop and from that encounter, NOMMO was born and had its first meeting that fall.

The workshop consisted of three parts: a selected reading, a “housekeeping” to share information about upcoming literary events and resources, and giving and receiving feedback on original compositions. The physical space of NOMMO had shelves full of books and CDs of music by Black artists, and there was a monthly reading held at Community Book Center.

The name NOMMO has two origins. First is the central African concept of NOMMO being the power of the spoken word. Second is from Salaam’s sarcastic quip that it was time for the elevation of the Black vernacular and “no more of that literary shit.” The workshop met weekly and hosted several prominent writers, such as Amiri Baraka, Staceyann Chin, Toi Derricotte, Terrance Hayes, Major Jackson, E. Ethelbert Miller, and Sonia Sanchez.

Hurricane Katrina ended NOMMO in 2005, but the legacy lives on through published books by alumni like Jericho Brown, Jarvis DeBerry, Freddi Williams Evans, and Keturah Kendrick.

New Orleans has a long literary history, including the 1845 publication of Les Cenelles, the first anthology of poetry by African Americans which featured the work of seventeen New Orleans poets. NOMMO was a continuation of this rich tradition of African American writing that lives on today.

NOMMO Literary Society reunion at Community Book Center in 2014. (Credit: NOMMO)
 
Kelly Harris is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in New Orleans. Contact her at NOLA@pw.org or on Twitter, @NOLApworg.

Dance Moves

2.19.20

In A Hidden Life, Terrence Malick’s latest film about an Austrian farmer who refuses to fight on behalf of the Nazis during World War II even while faced with execution for his defiance, the camera moves across landscapes as actors are kept in constant motion. Vulture film critic Bilge Ebiri reasons that this continuous movement of both camera and actor becomes a dance of sorts. Write a short story in which you place emphasis on the movement of your characters’ bodies. Focus closely on their actions, how they relate to one another spatially, and try to keep your writerly eye on the move. Create a dance that becomes a narrative of its own. What emotional states do these movements reveal?

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