Kola articles from September 2008

Kola archives from September 2008

At twenty: take two.(Kola's twentieth year of publication)(Editorial)
September 22, 2008... In my editorial introduction to Kola 20.1, 1 pointed out (or celebrated) several particularities pertinent to the literary journal's first decade: its pan-African and multicultural catholicity, its de facto near-colonization by African-American...

Editorial.(KOLA's tenth year of publication)(Editorial)
September 22, 2008... KOLA has just passed its tenth year of publication and the editors would like to see it become an institution. It is one of the few literary magazines that deals mainly with black subject matter and the only black literary magazine published in...

The subway ride.(Short story)
September 22, 2008... As soon as the subway pulled out of the tunnel into the late afternoon light, Toya was sorry she consented to the interview. Even though there weren't any incidents in the Pelham Bay section of this white working class neighborhood, it was a...

Round-Table Talk.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... Round-Table Talk Eurocentric discourse: Finances, Resources, and Power Afrocentric dialogue: Nutrition, Education, And Freedom. Unicentric exchange: Truth, Trust, and Destiny.

True Sensuality.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... True Sensuality (A Muslim Woman Speaks: Sister to Sister) Ya' all trip me out Why am I always left out Me? I doubt That with-out A man You can And will Just chill And still Be a...

Company British Columbia, 1858.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... Company British Columbia, 1858. this land is the company's own ed, paid for. I wander it. prospecting, guessing, divining ground, counting days till this transforms to home. In my holy ghostly breath, I...

The Love Song of Gottingen Street.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... The Love Song of Gottingen Street Here, Own me, Be my cross-- My country-- I will have no passion No lover-- except you. Your black loins, Your handsome princes, Your beautiful melodies. ...

Self-discovery and the quest for an aesthetic, the emergence of black Canadian literature: 1975 towards the millennium.
September 22, 2008... The following is a short history on the evolution of black Canadian literature, my quest for an aesthetic and an identity as an artist in contemporary Canada during the latter part of the twentieth century. Though reference is made to many...

This issue of KOLA is my last as the editor.(Editorial)
September 22, 2008... This issue of KOLA is my last as the editor. Associate editor Horace 1. Goddard will be the new editor. My decision to play a less active role with KOLA is due to the constraints of other commitments and responsibilities. The experience as...

Mobius Loop.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... Mobius Loop Recycle me with your Scotch sweetened breath on my skid recycle me with your reefer chapped lips on my neck recycle me with your ginger root, cinnamon stick and cherry blossom teal recycle me running...

Vivenns.(Short story)
September 22, 2008... Baritone gritted with rasp, he raps to the hypnotic click of a metronome. He raps his written score, then steps out from behind himself. He stares out the window and rolls freestyles from his lips, dropping chrome-lined cars, crumbling...

Fulfilment.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... Fulfilment It is the rainfall that fulfills. In cafe Windows I regarded groups of young people idle in gossip, inclining heads of the young, gossiping Into their tea or coffee cups-- Rainfall outside On the...

Sheep Run.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... Sheep Run no crow overhead, just blue sky, an abandoned shack, windowless, burnt out, a landscape of distant iron bark approaching, for the next decade, in every space not filled in, by an old sheep, weak,...

Kolas's list of 100 plus black authors of the twentieth century (fiction, poetry & drama).(List)
September 22, 2008... Cameroon Mongo Beti King Lazarus Mbella S. Dipoko A Few Nights and Davs Ferdinand Oyono Houseboy Gambia Lenrie Peters Selected Poetry Ghana Kojo Laing ...

The Dark Falling.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... The Dark Falling Tears are falling Directly Into my stomach Fear is crawling Honestly In my blood Will I dance The Dark night will hang itself In blue sadness Tears will fall Fear will...

167 Bluff Road.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... 167 Bluff Road After the burning we moved to my grandparent's house, then to my aunt's. After Daddy left we settled into a trailer where our house had been. Ash, concrete, the squared foundation--burnt pile of our former...

Balconville revisited.(Short story)
September 22, 2008... OSCAR: (Staring intently at six o'clock news on the T. V.) Scary shit, eh? DESMOND: What? OSCAR: This thing at Oka. This land deal that's going down. DESMOND: Oh, the Oka crisis. OSCAR: Focking S.Q., a bunch of jokers. Look at...

A candid interview with young Canadian fiction writer Robert Edison Sandiford who presently lives in Barbados.(Interview)
September 22, 2008... ROBERT EDISON SANDIFORD first came on the scene a little over a decade ago when the names and faces of Black writers began to appear in mainstream listings. He was a freelance writer for local newspapers, The Montreal Gazette and Community...

Negrophobia.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... Negrophobia He discovers the dawning beauty of the earth, from the distance of disillusion's junk-yard, a dead moon and the debris of exploded stars that once twinkled to awake imagination from firmaments that hide the...

Kentucky Fried To Stay.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... Kentucky Fried To Stay (On visiting Yellowknife in the N.W.T. in December of 1997 and being observant) They say Colonel Saunders killed a man. I witnessed him swallow a village in an afternoon! Cold, crisp air--it's...

IV. iv.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... IV. iv You were not a traitor You were betrayed. You were something. You made nothing. You wrote dazzlingly and you lied brilliantly. You did your duty. You thought beauty a corruption of booty. ...

Carnation.(Short story)
September 22, 2008... Sarah Long had a visitor for the fist time in years. The momentous event made her delirious with ecstasy. She waltzed. Her pink, silk dress swished as it whirled about her skeletal, tall frame. Happiness gleamed in her green eyes. They flanked...

Literary criticism, The Interpreters: Soyinka's prose style.(African writer Wole Soyinka)
September 22, 2008... A writer's first task is to make himself understood by his intended audience so that he may stimulate and motivate them into intellectual, social or political action. To do this, the writer must be committed to his subject of discourse to the...

Black History Month is a time when most North Americans reflect on the contributions that Blacks have made to the development of civilisation.(Editorial)
September 22, 2008... Black History Month is a time when most North Americans reflect on the contributions that Blacks have made to the development of civilisation. Many among us who immigrated to Canada have long wondered about the relevance, the importance, or...

The red bra.(Short story)
September 22, 2008... No one observing him standing there, not too far from the lingerie department, would believe that he has heard what has just been said But, indeed, he has! In fact, he desperately resists the urge to turn in the direction of the somewhat...

The Pearl Gatherer.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... The Pearl Gatherer And Heaven's gates swung wide, in sweet anticipation of this new celestial scribe

Flint/steel sparks on tropic moon-night.(Short story)
September 22, 2008... Holding his head straight up on slender neck and bulging Adam'sapple, Maurice walked (click/clack/clikety/clack) under a full-moon tropic sky. And as he walked, he listened to the firm striking of shoes up Short on the narrow broken pavement....

Let me fix your piano.(Short story)
September 22, 2008... Rudolph Spearnov and his wife Eleana escaped from Russia during the uprising. He was a well-known pianist. He had become engaged to his wife when she was 16, and they got married two years later when she was 18. He was 32 years old. ...

Lady cowboys.(Short story)
September 22, 2008... The judge stared sternly at the defendant as he asked: "Is there anything you want to say before I pass sentence on you?" The defendant Angela Barrow paused for a moment before replying, then she said: "What is there to say your honor,...

Victoria Street.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... Victoria Street Plamondon a ghetto in progress Black youth hanging looking at girls feeling worthless police cars slithering to and fro registering names and faces staring at cabs drivers and dry lips...

September 11.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... September 11 The Strike What the fuck! Look. Look... there (Dumb-founded silence) It's going to hit. Oh my God! It's going to hit! (Exploding Flames) Nervous fingers search lips seals...

My Back is a Battlefield.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... My Back is a Battlefield They have made the world into a battlefield where each soul fights another to satisfy a foreign desire Mon dos est un champs de bataille My back is a battlefield and my womb is soft...

Ebony Woman.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... Ebony Woman I see her sultry dark as the Motherland, this effulgent luscious vixen with effusive personality, (brass sometimes) radiant smile bright as the Northern lights illuminating her...

Cudjoe.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... CUDJOE Cudjoe rises from his placid place, Crosses the boundary of shifting land to stare down The mutinous mountainside, past a blooming Frangipani; its soft flowers are laden with milk. There in this new place,...

"All the time in the ghetto, Violence".(Poem)
September 22, 2008... "All the time in the ghetto, Violence" you can't spin on the taps there's a drought in the city blacks swarm the city's junk spots like flies there is a phenomenal aura beneath the subway-in-the-sky your jacket...

Birthright/Again.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... Birthright/Again I rise and die The flower blooms Without a cause to I see inside a torture Chamber, pulling out my nails Remaining nails scratching down a chalk board, Again I don't check to see if you're...

An Eighth Lacking.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... An Eighth Lacking They say I have a caramel complexion But caramel with white turns beige And beige with more white can turn white-- An eggshell colour maybe Textbooks say I am of African descent; I have white...

Leave Mih Flyin Fish!(Poem)
September 22, 2008... LEAVE MIH FLYIN FISH! Dem Bajan so boldface Dey looking for a fight Dey sneak-in we waters As if dey have a fight To all de flying fish in de sea Even dose arong 'La Trinite' Well if is fight dey want ...

The morning came too soon.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... The morning came too soon The morning came too soon. I wasn't prepared for such a drastic change in my appearance. Before I knew it those wrinkles in my face came alive. I could've died; I was...

Perception.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... Perception What do you see when you look at me? My Colour--Black My Size--Fat Loud, Mean Certainly not a Queen Of Africa Barbados Canada? Poverty, Crime "Hey mon--got a...

Atonement.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... Atonement b i t t e r sweet fruit upon my tongue i taste your name richly steeped in wine an' goodjamaicarum preserving then the raisin of your goodness with which I bake anew each...

Unspoken.(Poem)
September 22, 2008... Unspoken It's like i can't figure him out in one sense and in another i can. in the material plane he's an elusive fragmented character; in the spiritual plane: he's whole and divine, i know him well in the spiritual and ...

Devotions.(Fictional work)
September 22, 2008... I see and feel him cradle the nape of my neck and mouth I care into my shoulder. It makes me shudder and I can't think. He drinks me in with his mouth and cups my buttocks with demanding hands. Together we fit a mold captured upon the hearth of...