SUNDAY COVER & POETRY (XI)

… Well, not yet. Hillary is still widely predicted to win the next two scheduled primaries. But... that’s about it.

[And, evoking Mothers’ Day, here’s how he answered when asked, in specific reference to this cover, during this interview, how he thinks his mother, if alive, would react to where he got now: “she would just say ‘don’t let it go to your head, just keep on working hard”…]

Now, apart from the obvious reason of this cover, what made me retake this series after a while was the interesting fact that, for the first time in this race, I actually heard someone in the mainstream media (or on any other media for that matter) referring to it as “The Mother of All Battles”! And, not only that, it was within a poem… by ‘BBC World News America’ anchor Matt Frei, on the BBC2 ‘This Week’ show of 24/04/08. Unfortunately, so far I couldn’t get the video of that show (it doesn’t seem to be available online any longer) or a transcript of the poem, but I had to mention it…

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SUNDAY COVER & POETRY (X)

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{Poem: A Martian Sends a Postcard Home, by Craig Raine. Raine is founder and editor of the literary magazine Arete'. His poetry collections include The Onion, Memory (1978), A Martian Sends a Postcard Home (1979), and History: The Home Movie (1994). His latest book is T.S. Eliot: Image, Text and Context (2007) - in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

BOAS ENTRADAS!

KANDANDOS!

SUNDAY COVER & POETRY (IX)

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{Poem: Jesus Isn't Just For Christmas , by John Hegley. John Hegley's collections include Glad to Wear Glasses (1990), Can I Come Down Now Dad (1991), and Dog (2000). His latest collection is The Sound of Paint Drying (2003). He has also released his own CD of songs and poetry Saint and Blurry. Musician Keith Moore accompanies John Hegley on his track here - in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

MERRY XMAS EVERYONE!

SUNDAY COVER & POETRY (VIII)

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{Poem: Sitting On The Pavement Outside The Camden Falcon, August 1987, by Alan Buckley. Alan was brought up in Merseyside and now lives in Oxford. He is currently one of two poets running the Live Literature Programme at HMP Grendon in Buckinghamshire - in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

SUNDAY COVER & POETRY (VII)

"In positing any solution we have to be aware of some historical background. Africa was colonized at a time when the nation state was a primary determinant of the historical process. The consequence was that the continent is today divided into more than forty-six-states – more than three times the number of Asia, whose land mass is fifty percent larger. This was done largely to further the interests of European power and commerce."

(...)

"Given that Africa was wrongly assumed to have had no history of its own before the arrival of Europeans, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that Europe created the image of Africa that the colonial period bequeathed to the world. Europe drew boundaries and undertook to establish a civilizing government in each with hierarchical administration and military support – according to the prevalent model of the nation state.”
(...)
“The question cannot be, do Africans have human rights, but what do Africans understand and desire their human rights to be? Otherwise we are yet again remaking Africa, and Africa’s struggle, in the image of our own modernity, or more truthfully, our own recent past.”

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{Poem: Europe, by Sarah Maguire. Sarah is the founder and director of the Poetry Translation Centre. She has published four poetry collections. Her latest, The Pomegranates of Kandahar (Chatto & Windus) is The Poetry Book Society's Summer Choice, 2007. in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

SUNDAY COVER & POETRY (VI)

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{Poem: Double Wedding, 1615..., by Jane Yeh. Jane is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Kingston University. Her debut collection, Marabou (Carcanet, 2005), was shortlisted for The Whitbread Poetry Prize and The Forward Poetry Prize For Best First Collection. in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

SUNDAY COVER & POETRY (V)

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{Poem: Actually, by John Mole. John is a poet and an accomplished jazz clarinettist. He is currently the Poetry Society's Poet in Residence to the City of London. He is the author of Counting the Chimes: New and Selected Poems 1975-2003, from Peterloo. in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

SUNDAY COVER & POETRY (IV)

(…)
Talking about gender issues she laments: “Young men should learn to be more gentile with women. They must not be like their older brothers, some of whom kiss and tell.” This reference is clearly directed at Hugh Masekela’s revelations about their marriage in New York City in the early 1960’s. She then recalls the words of her late ex-husband, Black Panther leader, Stokely Carmichael (aka Kwame Toure), whose speeches included: “We have to respect every woman, even a woman who is one day old. Why? Because some day she will grow up to be somebody’s mother.” And she adds words of disappointment: “One thing I’m not proud of was to marry Hugh Masekela.”
(…)
And Makeba also urges young South Africans to be more curious about their continent that has done so much for our liberation: “We have to stop it (xenophobia) and know that Africa belongs to us and we belong to Africa. And together we should walk and walk tall.”

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{Poem: What Is Exotic?, by Sujata Bhatt. Sujata is an India-born poet and translator. She received her MFA from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and now lives in Germany. She has published seven collections of poems with Carcanet Press. in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

SUNDAY COVER & POETRY (III)

For some content and really useful advice for women and everybody (Breast Self-Exam; Prevenção do Cancro Ovariano; Practical Measures Against Racism) click here.



{Poem: A Song To Heal, by Jean 'Binta' Breeze. Jean was born in Jamaica in 1957. Her poetry collections include the books Ryddim Ravings (1988) and The Arrival of Brighteye and Other Poems (2000). Several recordings of her work are available, including Hearsay (1994) and Riding on de Riddym (1996). Her latest book is The Fifth Figure (2006). in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

SUNDAY COVER & POETRY (II)

(…)
If the old recording industry in South Africa was totally white-controlled, it was still not half as horrendous as those which existed in places such as Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Congo, Cameroon, Kenya, Senegal, Angola, Mozambique, etc., where the music companies were personal kingdoms, which never got to grow to even a fraction of those in this country. At this writing, they still basically remain in that form or are extinct.
(…)
Some individuals might consider such a suggestion to be devoid of any moral merit; however, the one quality the history of Africa’s music recording industry can never claim to ever having possessed is any once of morality. It can only pride itself with exploitation, of the most despicable kind, one that proudly matches its colonial, economic and industrial counterpart’s atrocities.
(…)
If Africa’s present leadership can show as much interest in the development of the continent’s artistic excellence as it does in the promotion of some of its often misguided and destructive policies, if it can succeed in stopping the wars which consume frightful amounts of money that could be alternatively channelled into developing safety and security health and education, arts, culture, the traditional environment and the well being of the continent’s natural resources, then music, film, design and architecture would take a greater priority in our everyday lives.
If this were indeed at all possible, then Africa would surpass all other countries in its monopoly of the music and arts industries in the world. Would that such notions were dear to the hearts and minds of Africa’s political and business communities, then this Africa would become a great continent indeed.

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{Poem: Back To What?, by Benjamin Zephaniah. Benjamin is a poet, novelist and playwright. His poetry collections include The Dread Affair: Collected Poems (1985) and Too Black, Too Strong (2001). He has produced numerous music recordings, including Us and Dem (1990) and Belly of de Beast (1996). in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}

SUNDAY COVER & POETRY (I)

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{Poem: How To Leave The World That Worships Should, by Ros Barber. Ros is an American-born British poet and writer. Her books are How Things Are On Thursday (2004) and Not The Usual Grasses Singing: A Journey Around The Isle of Sheppey (2005). in Life Lines 2/Poets for Oxfam/Edited by Todd Swift, 2007}