African American Review articles from March 1993

African American Review archives from March 1993

The black South in contemporary film. (Section 1: Black South Culture)
March 22, 1993... In a cinema accustomed to equating gritty with real, oppression with existence, and anger with passion when it comes to the lives and legacy of the descendants of African slaves in America, Julie Dash's 1992 film Daughters of the Dust is...

The autobiography of an idea. (Section 1: Black South Culture)
March 22, 1993... The purpose of this essay is to support the premise that an idea is born, nurtured, and raised to maturity just as an individual is. That idea is death, the cessation of life - or death-in-life - as the sole source stream in a writer's world....

Cloak of darkness. (segregation in New Orleans Recreation Department) (Section 1: Black South Culture)
March 22, 1993... The New Orleans Recreation Department used to provide separate and unequal playgrounds for the city's children. Before they became integrated in 1962, there were over 100 playgrounds for whites and less than 20 for Blacks. My family did not...

Two views of my grandmother. (Section 1: Black South Culture)
March 22, 1993... Grandma mumbles a lot, it sounds like a foreign language. Sometimes she sits with her pipe between her teeth and mumbles aloud, sometimes she mumbles while she works. I like to listen to her; I pretend I am playing with my dolls and I sit on...

Hairpeace. (requirement for Afro-American women writers to discuss hair) (Section 1: Black South Culture)
March 22, 1993... One day a famous white guy photographer came over to take Greta Garbo's picture, but when he got there and turned the lens in her direction, Garbo said, "O-o-o-o-o-o", this terrible hair!" I know the feeling. Sometimes it seems like all we...

The ritual. (an Afro-American woman getting her hair done) (Section 1: Black South Culture)
March 22, 1993... I spent a recent Saturday getting my hair done. The whole day. For me, the monthly hair ritual consist, of rising early to untwist my thick, "awfully curly" (one woman's description) tresses. The untwisting - always accompanied by good music...

Miz Culchure Lady. (Afro-American woman living African culture) (Section 1: Black South Culture)
March 22, 1993... I've seen her everywhere. Wearing her hats, walking and talking fast, taking care of business. No doubt, she is universal. And sometimes she is not a she at all, but a he of a certain nurturing, fostering, marshaling spirit. Keeper of the...

Two views of New Orleans. (Section 1: Black South Culture)
March 22, 1993... My first knowledge of the great Mississippi came as a child when my father packed us into the family car on Sunday nights for the ritual drive down to Canal Street. This was a big thrill, for Canal Street was a spectacular delight of decorative...

Faulkner's Southern reflections: the black on the back of the mirror in "Ad Astra." (William Faulkner) (Section 1: Black South Culture)
March 22, 1993... Critics as diverse as Hodding Carter and Thadious M. Davis have asserted that the Southern African American characters in the Faulkner canon are his strongest characterizations - that Dilsey and Luster subvert the narrative moment from Quentin...

The ladder: a one-act allegorical play about drugs. (play) (Section 2: Drama)
March 22, 1993... Cast Henry Highsmith Mr. Highsmith Mrs. Highsmith Al Cohall Mary Wana Henrietta Herroanne Charlie Kokane Peter Pillsaplenty Stanley Smart Howard Highsmith (Lights up on ladder. A male figure is seated on the ladder, but he is not all...

You're different. (play) (Section 2: Drama)
March 22, 1993... Cast Karen Jennings. Black coed at predominately white college. Full of racial pride and self-awareness. Determined to be accepted as a cultural entity. A senior. Earl. Black male student at the same college. He knows what the...

Yardbird's vamp. (play) (Section 2: Drama)
March 22, 1993... Cast Bird, the Musician. A mute personification of Charlie "Yardbird" Parker. The only sounds that he makes come from his horn. Bebop (Trumpet). A young optimist professor of Bebopism... shades of Dizzy Gillespie. Bigger...

Malcolm, my son. (play) (Section 2: Drama)
March 22, 1993... Cast Amina. African American woman. Late 30s, early 40s. A single head of household. Her son has been away at college. She is an aged militant who has been worn but not defeated by dealing with the necessities of daily life. ...

Yusef Komunyakaa: the unified vision - canonization and humanity. (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... In an interview in the journal Callaloo, Yusef Komunyakaa, author of seven collections of poems, expresses his admiration for poets whom he considers to have achieved a "unified vision" in their poetry, an achievement he apparently strives for...

Reading South: Poets mean & poems signify - a note on origins. (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... Sarah Webster Fabio published a considerable amount of her poetty in seven volumes under the collective title Rainbow Signs (1973), an autobiographical gesture of leaving evidence. A native of Tennessee, Fabio left rainbow signs of a moment in...

Song of joy. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... It is through eyes shaped both by expectations and disappointments that I choose to see the half-full glasses and people perfect except for a few small flaws. It is with a heart both fragile and strong that I dream dreams of lovers who...

Oh! To daufuskie (dah first key). (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... On Daufuskie, the invaders relish the Indian history - trading lives like coon hides - the mounds, the greens of Arnold Palmer"s house islanders seek to find the fare to take the ferry to Hilton Head or Savannah in 50 minutes On Daufuskie,...

Aging. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... My mother's mother died at forty-six my mother at forty-nine mid-life crisis for me began at twenty-three Now over the hill at thiry-five graying hair as proof I wander aimlessly through the labyrinths of my once young mind.

The long and short of it. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... To every jazz aficionado or would-be who has wondered what Professor Longhair was doing with his left hand and how know that it was gumbo and crawfish ettouffe screened-in porch sitting on hot summer nights fighting the anyway mosquitoes while...

Auction block. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... Open your legs gal ain't gonna tell you no mo - now step right up you fine Virginia men of class - Step right up and look at this here gal's hole - now that's a well for a lot of drinking. Aunt Sue spread her legs wide as six white men...

Where does the slave woman's face. (untitled poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... where does the slave woman's face find reflection... the mirrors of broken-winged birds the eyes of children in flight the wide-open death panes of lost crystals... full of age... full of blood. where does the slave woman see herself...

This South: I. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... Angular in vision Feminine in aura Masculine in concept Fundamental in landscape A pointed land Language folk speaking Tongues of a secret ambiguity (anchored) On a fragmented landscape (a canvas) layered on a black man's...

On the second birthday of my grandson Mikki (June 16, 1991). (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... You are not an endangered species; You will not die from an overdose of drugs Or be murdered in the streets by your own brother. You will not become a prisoner caged while your genius rots like a dead animal on a country road. Like all...

Requiem for a teacher. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... She commanded the old weather-beaten school house beside the rock which the Native Americans had set, A signal during ancient centuries. She had seen fifty years of sunshines and I had seen only four. I was a tiny replica of my mother Groomed...

Last one in should bring the light. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... Night's late Night's dark Even the dogs Done stopped their bark Most everyone sane Done gone to bed Nothing much stirring But the dead Last one in Should bring the light No need it to burn All the night Light turned low Just a faint glow So you...

Totes. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... Why I totes on my head Why you wanna know Why I totes on my head It's sensible for sho' My back is straight My arms are free Can swat a fly That's worrying me Can use my stick To kill a snake My hand is straight My neck is strong Even got a...

Poem for Mildred: wherever you are. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... Mildred It's been years since Our mad telephone romance But I think of you still Our mad telephone romance That never materialized Because you lived downtown On Flood Street In the lower ninth ward And I lived uptown On Erato Street In the...

Bayou ballad. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... Oh, have you heard, and it was not long ago, how they killed the sweetest singer of cajun zydeco? Amedee Ardoin was brought to play a fais-do-do near Mamou. The summer's heat bore through the roof and walls of that wooden-tin dance hall....

Mirrors. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... My father was in the backyard working with the bricks and concrete blocks and weathered 2 by 4's and big, dirty pipes-the essentials of his livelihood. Linda was out in the carport; she looked more domesticated than refined. When I was younger,...

Mississippi River Poems. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... "The Mississippi rolls because there are skeletons rocking in cypress knee chairs under the silt." (Malaika Favorite, "Uses for Dry Bones") I The river that divides but also connects, reaching from shoreline to bank - It connects...

The big fight. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... The park, Four o'clock, We'll settle it then, Were the words that lashingly leaped from my lips. The park... that old but familiar theater of thunderous throw downs. I remember when Motorhead beat-up Tony there, But today was my day, four...

Land changes. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... Every day, as we lugged tobacco down rows brightly lit with sun, the hot sand kept stinging our bare feet like fire ants, the field hummed with bees. We would pause, then straighten our backs, and stare at elms rubbing together insistent as the...

Tunnel rats. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... With flashlight, knife and .45, bravado deserted skirmishes ago, I drop into what could become my grave, scorpions, snakes, booby traps, the enemy armed and crouched in a coil of darkness, fear forcing me forward on my knees in the mud through...

Word works. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... I'm about how words work up a gumbo of culture stamped and certified African delivered on southern American soil In my word house We spit out articles and prepositions like bitter chewing tobacco We lean on words that paint pictures of galait...

Homecoming. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... I after 45 years of writing letters & calling Estelle sent word to find a contractor - she wants a home built next to her sister the house, brick & modern, is an oddity - sits prominently among shotgun houses, cows, chickens, fish...

God. (poem) (Section 3: Sayings, Sermons, Tall Tales, and Lies - Contemporary Black Poetry)
March 22, 1993... I done Converted God To a father and a friend So He could see The trouble "we" is in