Gifts for Mother Maya by Jolivette Anderson

 

 

Maya Angelou’s works have been criticized as works of “uplift” and not genuine art. What are your thoughts on this?

Jolivette:  Art must be functional. Artist must be critical thinkers who observe, analyze, interrogate, and offer solutions to the problems within their (our) communities. As a poet, Dr. Mother Angelou observed the pain of her people.

She analyzed the conditions of her people. She interrogated herself to see how she could best contribute to the ongoing work, begun before she was born, to help heal the hurt and pain of her people. It is obvious that her answers came in the form of ‘be positive’ and ‘uplift’ your people with your work and words and your work-in-words. There is nothing more genuine than seeing ones own humanity and the humanity of others and being positive in the face of treacherous negativity.

How would you characterize Angelou’s style—her language, her tone, her choice of metaphors, and so on?

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The Bhubezi Women – The Women Who Hold Up the World by Cheryl Penn

 Hatshepsut’s Needle

It’s really quite difficult to tell how/when/why the Revealing of the Bhubezi Women unfolded.  It’s equally problematic to tell how many there are, or their particular function in Holding up the World.  One fact is evidenced – they are all REAL historical figures, most of which have been misunderstood by history.  Bhubezi Women identified thus far: Magenta, Sienna (better known as Shahrazad), Mona Lisa, Hypatia, Hatshepsut, Empress  Zhangsun, Pandora and Cynisca.  In the secret Sof Omar caves, an intriguing stele was found with the following inscription:The Ones That Protect From:  The Conscious Life, External words, Pure Pain, False Dreams, Ones to travel to the deepest reaches of the psyche, A barrier on their behalf to the outside world, A Thousand Deaths, An Unfulfilled Life, Enantiodromia,  The Incorporeal Body, The destructive animus, Lost Instinct.

**THE INFORMATION that Ms. Penn shared with us on this blog is imperative to Women’s Herstory around the globe. 

more than all our fingers and toes

It’s enough of us.

It’s enough / for some of us to write the voices of our past

continue the deliverance of our voices from the antiquity of Africa

document our grandmother’s old wives tales and spiritual songs from the fields

it’s enough to tell our current urban tales of survival / struggling to survive / and losses at surviving.

It’s enough of us.

It’s enough / for some to visualize and write our tomorrow’s.

like prophetic bone tossing          because you can read the temperature of the streets and the height of the water’s tide

 

Did you realize that? It’s enough of us to be re-membered.

it’s more of us than all our fingers and toes.

 

 

(this was inspired because I become bothered with: “i can’t read another slave book or see another slave movie!” “that’s what we DON’T need is another urban writer!” “now everybody is a poet.”  the survival of our literature cannot be an option.  so let there be another and another and another.  may the village judge what stays and what goes. just encourage another and…)

Stolen Legacy: A Writer’s Remembrance

The other day I was at a poetry spot and the host gently reminded the audience how magnificent the art was for the evening and that it had all been created by African American people.  The crowd seemed to be in awe of themselves and apparently had forgotten our brilliance.  It made me think of how perhaps we have allowed ourselves to be imitated and distorted so much and for so long that we now imitate the distorted image of what is given back to us.  That comment provoked this blog.  To hopefully encourage writer’s to remember the power and historical relevance of… THE WORD.

First let me mention, I am writing this from the perspective of Kemetic ancient studies.  The antiquity of Africa.  The land where the seven liberal arts formed the foundation for the Egyptian mystery systems, the first system of a documented resource for salvation.  A sacred and complex study of disciplined curriculum for writing and teaching.  Where breath transcended into sound, prayer, song, poem and eventually the eternal documentation for the cradle of civilization.

How important should a writer of color hold their art?  Well, considering our ancestors were murdered for speaking, dancing, and writing in their original language, that question should encompass no space for denial.  They were murdered for a language and lifestyle that supported true knowledge of self to escape the wheels of rebirth.  A dance that made rain fall.  A music that could be captured by soil.  Today’s writers should hold their art very seriously.  In fact, it should be held as the rest of the world views it, with reverent veneration! It is adored globally.

some days i feel like, Goddess Auset

tenacious and stout would describe her love for him. or even, whole. this love predates all the great love stories. the kind that makes great movies and transcends love beyond the ordinary. their love defined truth, justice and righteousness.

it was not the contained love in a “faithful” box. in fact, it was not faithful. it evaded being self served and accepted deliverance for another being. it is the reciprocal love that most people say they deserve. There is no complete inscription of their relationship but they all seem to speak that Auset and her love, Ausar, had a legendary love.

The land of Egypt succeeded in enterprise under the leadership of Ausar. He provided laws and education and taught the people the art of agriculture. Auset championed the interest of his reign and they were both highly respected as rulers. When Ausar was murdered by his brother, Auset took to the land of Egypt to gather his body parts as he had been dismembered. She is primarily noted wearing a throne headdress to illustrate her representation of power. Auset is often called the Goddess of motherhood, magic and fertility.

Later in life I’ve realized how important it is to continue to wear my crown even in relationships. It is important to continue to revere my purpose in spite of who I am in a relationship with. This actualization came with maturity as I began to re-define what my societal constraints determined for me.

I have yet to feel safe and supported with my confidence to be an intelligent and sensual woman in a relationship. But when I observe the relationships around me that have survived both people remaining individuals, and not committing to the “relationship”, I know it can be accomplished. Some days I feel like Goddess Auset and breath fire and light for my love to come.

Some Things I am Convinced Of

I am convinced of my ancestors effortless being of linking the seven sciences. 

                         (Grammar, Arithmetic, Rhetoric, Dialectic, Geometry, Astronomy and Music)

I am convinced my ancestors altruistic nature taught this ingenuity to everyone else on the earth

I am convinced once it was duplicated the magic just wasn’t the same… it never had the same exact medicinal results

I am convinced this angered the foreign thieves

I am convinced the foreign thieves feared our wedded power if we were to ever reconnect the power of It All

so we were taught to compete in a way that destroyed families/communities/dynasties

we were distracted with results while the formulas to create now became our quest

and this continued through captivity

but we began to communicate through drums and quilts and songs

and then some of us were chosen to eat and… we were separated again

something happened in the 50’s/60’s where we began to communicate through song and dance and sermons and theatre

and then some of us were chosen to eat and… we were separated again

and then we created a culture of hip hop with music and dance and graffiti and religion and clothes

and then some of us were chosen to eat and… we were separated again

and then poetry began to crawl then walk and ran from corner to corner of the world

and we met at coffee houses and corners and churches

and then some were chosen to eat and… we were separated again

I am convinced the spirits of our ancestors will garner enough energy to once again present an opportunity for us to reconnect ourselves as One

and this time my dear Artists,

We Must Feed Each Other until we get the formula just right!

We must bite the hands of the presenter and

re-member Ourselves.

I am convinced of this.