Happy Birthday to Freddy!

15 minutes left of Fred's birthday. (1hr 15mins, if you're on Central Time)

Wowzers!! Over the past two decades, he's been almost like a brother to me...ok...he's been exactly like a brother to me:) It seems like only yesterday, he was the short little squirt I was picking on in the back seat, during our family road trips. Now he's taller than me, practically a full grown man of 22, and rocks in every way imaginable. Love this guy!

If you haven't done so already, wish my "baby" bro Happy Birthday!! Don't know him? No worries. Send him warm thoughts and wishes. They'll get to him. I promise:)

In honor of the 22nd anniversary of his relationship with this life, check out this Anis Mojgani poem. It has become a mutual favorite of ours!!

Here I Am

"Will I be something?
Am I something? And the answer comes
Already am,
Always was,
and I still have time to be."
- Anis Mojgan

Cincy Public Library Rocks!

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need!”
- Marcus Tullius Cicero

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a total and complete bibliophile. I devour books...not read...devour :) Since I've moved closer to downtown, Cincinnati's Main Library has become my stomping ground. So, I was overjoyed to learn that they were recently named a Star Library by Library Journal’s Index of Public Library Service (LJ’s Index). Library Journal is a publication that rates libraries based on the different services they offer.

I've included some details below, but all of the mumbo jumbo just means that my Cincy Libray rocks!! If you love the library as much as I do, you might want to consider donating to their annual fund.

America’s Star Libraries for 2010 were selected after rating 7,407 public libraries. Star library status was awarded to just 258 libraries. The October 2010 ratings are based on Institute of Museum and Library Services public library data for 2008. Scores are determined by rating four per capita service output statistics: library visits, circulation, program attendance, and public library computer use.

7th in Hennen Ranking
Earlier this year, the Library ranked 7th among libraries serving populations of 500,000 or more in Hennen’s American Public Library Ratings, Cincinnati’s highest rating ever. Hennen’s top ranked public libraries are considered the best in the nation.

10th in Collection Size
The American Library Association also ranked Cincinnati’s public library in the top 10 for collection size, 1 of only 3 public libraries to make the top 10. Ranking 10th with a collection of 9.2 million items, our Library is in the prestigious company of the Library of Congress, Harvard University, and New York Public Library.
10th in Circulation

It’s important to note that with this recognition Cincinnati’s library has earned the distinction of being the only library in the country to be ranked in the top 10 on all library ratings: Hennen, Star, busiest, and largest collection.

More info

Convenience Store

Love this Buddy Wakefield poem!! Always gives me chills.

"...She doesn't need me or any other man but she doesn't know that either, and I'm just hopin' like crazy she doesn't think I'm the one because the only time I'll ever see North Dakota again is in a Van Morrison song late (LATE) at night, I promise.

Y'all, I feel like she's 37 years old wearing 51 (badly), dying inside (like certain kinds of dances around fires) to speak through you, a forest, if you weren't so taken with sparks.

But she was never given those words.
She has not been told she can definitely change the world.
She knows some folks do
but not in convenience stores
and NOT with lottery tickets..."

Thank God for Babies

A good friend gave birth to her first baby yesterday and I'm so happy for her!! I got to hold the beautiful girl only hours after she was born and it was as if the gloomy cloud that has been following me this week suddenly lifted. Seriously, it's been a crazy week, but holding this little girl completely melted my cold and stubborn heart.

Thank God for babies. Despite all of our brokenness as humans, each new child gives us an opportunity to turn it all around. It's as if, with each infant He brings into this world, God is winking at us and saying, "all is not lost. There is still hope."

I was just so inspired that I had to express it in some way...check out this new poem - hot off the presses :)

Baby Sasha Saves the World
BY Susan Baba

Just when you think he has tired of us
our ceaseless complaining
our needless lies

our insatiable appetite for all that shines
the anger we throw around so carelessly
the half-baked love we offer up with similar ease

just when you think he has tired of it all
wrung his hands of all our failures
and left us to bring about our own demise

he opens a woman's womb again
thrusts a crying and desperate newborn
into the world's waiting hands
reminds us that all is not quite lost yet
there is still hope.

And All they Know of Hate...

"And all they know of hate was that it couldn't beat the love out of me."

::sigh:: This poem...wow!

Andrea doesn't mention Don't Ask, Don't Tell. She doesn’t have to...this poem is about everything that is so much bigger than that.

Ashes
BY Andrea Gibson

"When they bring their children to my funeral
to scream faggot at my dust
tell them I was born into their casket."

Introduction to Poetry

We all need a refresher course every now and then :) enjoy!

BY Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Billy Collins, “Introduction to Poetry” from The Apple that Astonished Paris. Copyright 1988, 1996 by Billy Collins.

Girls and Boys. Who Should Make the 1st Move?

I wrote this a while back and finally decided to share. It's a piece about pursuit. The delicate dance between men and women. The pre-dating purgatory of I-like-you-but-I'm-still not-sure-you-like-me. Ugh! Stuck in one of those places right now. Maybe I'll have some good news for you in a few weeks :)

It's stressful and crazy on both sides, I'm sure, but I always think it's worst for the women. Culture commands that we be dainty ladies, waiting for "him" to step forward. And so, we pine...we sit patiently and hope he gets a clue before we wither into nothing!

My guy buds always ask, "Well, why don't you ask him out?" Um...what? Cuz that's not how it's done, son. Call me old fashioned. Maybe I'm setting back the struggle by a million years, but I will never make the first move again. Been there. Done that. That story never ends well.

If he's too chicken to tell you he's interested, that sort of foolish cowardice will, undoubtedly, enter your relationship and force you into the loony bin. As I said, been there. Done that. I'll encourage him, for sure, but the first move is up to him. I didn't make the rules, friends. I obey them to the letter :)

Anyway...the poem. It's a short and sweet piece. Let me know what you think.

I Will do the Rest
BY Susan Baba

If you would only outstretch your hand
Uncross your arms and reach for me
No florishes
No prose
No need to even step forward
If you would simply outstretch your hand
show that you have that same longing
that I too have hid for so long
I will do the rest

Get Mad about Something That Matters!!

I normally don't like to dedicate my blog to ranting because I'm really committed to the cause of spreading poetry and creative expression and I don't like negativity on my page...but some things just rub me so wrong that I have to speak up.

Ok. So, Kohls, one of the largest department store chains in the country, just came out with a "ghetto fab wig" and the Internets is all a-twitter about it. Heck! Twitter has been all a Twitter about it. As a proud natural, I guess I should be more upset about wig, but...eh ::shoulder shrug:: I agree. It is way tasteless and more than a little racially insensitive, but for real...Aren't there bigger things to be get upset about, good people?

Every natural hair, black entertainment, and urban site on the web is freaking out and I can't help but be disappointed in my people. I'm not going to lie. If this were a couple of years ago, I would have been raging too. "How dare Kohl's insult my beautiful, nappy locks??

But, nowadays, I try to reserve my rage for the things that make God angry. I want the things the breaks God's heart to break mine too. Jesus is probably rolling his eyes at this ghetto-fab afro fiasco. But -
the unemployment rate,
the fact that 1/50 children are homeless in America,
that more than 10 percent of all black males ages 25-29 are in prison in the US,
that kids are killing themselves daily because they think their lives have no value,
that kids are killing other kids in schools,
that kids are having kids themselves,

I'm sure that straight breaks his heart. Let's get mad about those things, instead.

Sesame Street's "I LOVE my hair" is the new jump off

Oh, Sesame Street, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways!

I found this video of the brown, afro-rocking Muppet sharing her love for her hair on the StyleList and I was immediately in love too. Like most little brown girls, I had major self-esteem issues growing up, that stemmed, in part, from my hatred of my hair. It never did what it was supposed to when I wanted it to and pretty much served as another reminder of how different I was from all of the blond, straight-haired, beautiful creatures I went to school with.

Eventually, I learned this little thing called self-love, realized that my worth resided in much more than my looks, cut off all of my hair and decided to start afresh. But, accepting and embracing my individuality has certainly been a process.

If this awesome song can save just one little brown girl for self-loathing and white-girl hair envy, that would make me oh-so happy:)

This pretty much made my whole week. Hope it brings a bit of sunshine to yours too!



"Don't need a trip to the beauty shop. 'Cause I love what I got on top. It's curly and it's brown and it's right up there! You know what I love? That's right, my hair! I really love my hair!"

On Marrying the Man of Every Woman’s Dreams

So, here it is - my first cheating-man poem.

Comments please!!

On Marrying the Man of Every Woman’s Dreams
BY Susan Baba

At first, you will think that you are important too.
Out of the many, he has chosen only you.
He will praise your beauty,
your soft hands,
your mermaid eyes.
He will call you the moon and stars
and you will believe him.
He will make you feel confident and poised
as he lightly holds your elbow,
to steer you through the crowds.
You will sit on park benches, restaurant booths, church pews
side by side.
You will both point to young and silly things
walking by, all short skirts and flirtatious longing
who think they have only their bodies to offer the world
But he -
he will praise your mind
your heart
your ability to always dress appropriately for the occasion
and he will seem to look inside of you and love you all the more.

Soon you will see that he is more important.
As your star peaks and begins its descent,
his will still be rocketing onward.
You will still be by his side.
He will still lead you by elbow through the crowd
of his adoring business associates and political allies
but he will not offer to get you a drink
or introduce you to his friends.
He will not even look at you

He will begin to work later now,
joke about the life of a “big man,”
promise to make up for missed engagements,
forgotten anniversaries.
But he will not.

You will try to ignore your senses,
but you will begin to feel small.
He will spend weekends away now.
He will know his children’s voices
from many phone conversations
But will always look on with astonishment
at how quickly they have grown.

You will wonder about his request that you never call him first,
about his sudden out of town trips
that seem to become more frequent,
but, you will not complain.
He will placate you with the reassurance that this is all done for your good.
It is what he must do to keep you wearing couture and driving luxury cars

Your eyes will scan the tennis bracelet on your wrist,
the vast expanse of home the two of you built together.
You will never tell him that you would give it all up
for the way things were.
You will want to,
but you will
not
say
a thing.

Think Only Nigerian Men Cheat?

I've been thinking a lot about cheating lately. Not considering cheating, but contemplating the "why" of it. Why do people cheat? Specifically, why does the person cheated on make the decision to stay?

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tried to address this question in "Imitation," one of many stories in her beautiful collection of short stories The Thing Around Your Neck. "Imitation" follows a middle aged Nigerian woman named Nkem who learns that her husband has a girlfriend in Nigeria. She lives in the US, for the children’s sake, while her husband is a prominent businessman abroad. Nkem grew up with nothing, so she was at first honored to now be able to afford a new life for her children. But, when she hears about her husband's apparent infidelity, she contemplates her next move and has to decide whether she will stay in the US, and live a comfortable but lonely life, or return to Nigeria and fight for what is hers.

Sadly, the story’s plot was not unfamiliar to me. In my small Cincinnati Nigerian community, it was common place to hear about this man or that man running the town with some other woman. No one batted an eye or seemed to act surprised when the "man" turned out to be their own husband. No one ever spoke of confronting him or keying the heck out of his car or, better yet, filing for divorce. The women would always just shake their head and say, "Thought he was different, but it seems that all Nigerian men are the same."

It took me a while to realize that extramarital affairs are not exclusive to Nigerian men. Politicians, celebs, and everyday people are ignoring their wedding vows on the regular. The most surprising thing, though, is that despite decades of women’s empowerment, the women usually take back their cheating spouses. I would like to think that I would go all Elizabeth Edwards on my man and blow his whole spot up or embrace my inner Candi Stanton and proclaim "I don't mind if he's getting some loving from you, as long as he takes care of home," but I would likely be more like Freida Khalo. I imagine that I would retreat within myself and mourn quietly. Finding out that my husband had been unfaithful would probably crush everything that I am.

Anyway, the topic of women who stay is a very fascinating one to me, so I decided to write a poem about it. "On Marrying the Man of Every Woman’s Dreams" is about a woman who has found neither the courage to confront nor the strength to leave.

Let me know what you think.

Dhani the Poet?

I am not one to crush on fictitious, mythical creatures like unicorns, magicians and professional athletes. I prefer to shower my unspoken adoration on everyday souls like the cute boy on my floor or the quite man that waits at the bus stop with me every morning.

Recently, though, I took a temporary liking to one of our very own Cincinnati Bengals. I saw him in the flesh at last week's TedXCincy Conference and was pretty impressed by this Renaissance Man. Dhani Jones brings the fury on the field, always rocks a bowtie and also has a poetic side. ::swoon:: Corny, I know!! Though this weekend's abysmally game has caused my crush to wane a bit, I wanted to share his poem anyway. It's amazing what you can find on the Google:)

He's no Daddy Shakes, but it's an interesting piece.

enjoy!

The Punch
BY Dhani Jones

I begin with a journey a magnificent tourney around the globe to stop and see the sights ...
An inviting aroma of new things to discover a world to uncover never turning off the lights ...
It’s a challenge I tell you, to step
I beg you, into the ring I go, for the first not the last but the beginning it is for forty some odd days I will live ...
It’s the first some might say the last others might insist ...
It’s just that time ...
It’s that movement that caught you that spirit that bought you for me to unwind ...
Time and time again I just bob and weave, bob and weave and use what was given a chance to prove what was inside ...
Here’s a man
Here’s a man with the thoughts of a man that I am
Here’s a man living in a heartbeat of time trying to escape the breath and design
Up elbow, right elbow, left elbow, right kick ...
Down elbow, left kick, right punch, left hit ...
A plethora of ideas of power it takes, to control and direct to the right space it must not break ...
It must not disgrace, it must not let down for the eyes are watching me from all around ...
I’ve heard my name spoken not once not twice but the third time around ...
I heard my name ringing in my head when I looked around ...
I realized it was me repeating it time and time again ...
I realize it was me who was getting punched not them ...
On to the bell with great strides I took and put forth all the effort and with pride I was not shook ...
It was my time to use all that I was taught and leverage my voice and my mind for the ultimate thought ...
I must conquer ...
I must live ...
I must set forth to understand and give ...
Of myself and those around me ...
And if one punch I must take, I will take and not break but he who gives shall receive and with ease I decree that this moment ...
I will stand and deliver, bend not fold, yet tell the stories untold ...
I will finish what I started and finish I did ...

Not Hallows Eve, But Close

Though this poem has nothing to do with Halloween, it reminds me so much of hauntings - of a wanton and wandering woman who have forgotten where she is going and where she is from...I have been her kind before.

Her Kind
BY Anne Sexton

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.


I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.


I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.

Be Your Own Muse

Hello good people! Today, I realized that I have been a boring, boring, slacker writer for the past few weeks. Actually, I realized it about 2 years ago on a flight to New York when a wise woman sitting next to me schooled me on the fact of life and again six months ago, when I bought, started, and subsequently put down the Artists Way.

I didn't remember either of these, of course, and chose to point the finger elsewhere. I have blamed the past few months of creative famine, first on the absence of one ex, then work, then the emergence and sudden exit of another ex... but it was actually all me. I was looking for inspiration everywhere but within...

I've decided to be my own muse from now on. No more dating poets and musicians and academics to help me tap into my creative side. No longer settling for being someone else's muse. I will inspire my own darn self :) In fact, I think it will be my motto for the rest of 2010....#BeYourOwnMuse

anyway...

I found this totally kick butt list of ways to be your own inspiration online. It kind of rocks :) Reading it made me feel like I did when i took the picture above - liberated!!

enjoy!!

How to Be Your Own Best Muse:
101 Ways to Delight and Inspire Yourself

BY Molly J. Anderson-Childers

1. Blow bubbles in your backyard.

2. Lie back in the grass and watch the clouds roll past.

3. Roll down a hill, then do it again and again until you’re dizzy.

4. Draw silly pictures and print hopscotch grids and poems on the sidewalk with chalk all over your neighborhood.

5. Write a spontaneous haiku — just jot down the first seventeen syllables that pop into your mind.

6. Take a walk.

7. Make friends with someone new.

8. Call someone interesting and invite them out for coffee.

9. Go fly a kite.

10. Find a park or playground and play outside. How long has it been since you were on a slide? It’s fun, even if you feel a little silly and awkward at first.

11. Learn a new joke and tell it to three people, then write it down as part of a scene in a story.

12. Dance in the rain.

13. Go barefoot in the grass.

14. Try to go a whole day without talking. Instead, write down what you want to say.

15. Wander through your favorite gallery until inspiration finds you. When you see an interesting painting or sculpture, write a poem or story about it.

16. Go book-surfing at a library or bookstore. Write a question in your writer’s notebook. Hold the question in your mind, walking through the stacks, and then open a book at random. The first phrase your eye alights on is the answer. (I can spend hours doing this.)

17. Take a long nap.

18. Where are you when inspiration finds you? If you get your best ideas while driving, try taking a long scenic drive. Take along a mini-recorder, or call yourself and leave a voicemail if you get an idea along the way.

19. When all else fails, try a long, hot shower. It seems like I’m always in the shower when the Muses come calling. They have a funny sense of humor, and I’m sure it amuses them to see me scrambling to dry off and get to a notebook. Not being able to write an idea down because I have shampoo in my eyes is sure to spawn inspiration.

I am a writer! Eat my Verbal dust!

Even I have to fight to surpress my inner literary elitist from time to time. It's not that I'm the most amazing poet ever or that I truly think I am. It's just that I sometimes get caught up in my own wit and literary magnitude...shouting, “I am a writer! Eat my Verbal dust!”

haha!

Enjoy Taylor Mali's hilarious poem about poets.

:)

I Could Be a Poet
BY Taylor Mali

I think I could be a poet because I like to wear a lot of black.
And I can think of incongruous images like a Marxist with a trust fund.
A Porsche pulling a U-Haul, a lobsterman in Birkenstocks sipping a cappuccino,
with his pinkie pointing toward the sky.
I have studied the poets who sing song out their lines
for no other reason than that’s how it’s done,
in love with the sound of their own voices,

Welcome, October. It's been a long time, my friend

Fall always comes too abruptly. One day, my shoulders are soaking up the sun and I'm complaining about the oppressive heat of the afternoons...and the next, I'm bundled up in coat and scarf and boots.

I can scarcely recall how to dress for this weather. I was so engrossed in summer that I forgot how to "do" fall. But, alas, I must learn again. I'm sure that, as I do year after countless year, I will relish the brisk wind and crunching leaves soon enough, but today...brrrr!

Welcome, October. It's been a long time, my friend :)

The Months: October
BY Linda Pastan

How suddenly
the woods
have turned
again. I feel

like Daphne, standing
with my arms
outstretched
to the season,

overtaken
by color, crowned
with the hammered gold
of leaves.

Slow Dance Music

Loving the rhythm and flow of this poem. It's like eavesdropping on a conversation between friends. It's like taking a glimpse into the mind of a stranger. It is at once intimate and intrusive, arresting and free. Loving it!

Thanks to Not that Anyone Deserves Anything for sharing.

Slow Dance Music
BY Tom C. Hunley

I can't explain the rain's attraction to my head,
though I'm touched by its will to touch me,
and I don't understand how I got here any more
than a lobster understands how it ended up in a tank
next to a Please wait to be seated sign,
but both of us can read the faces of the cruelly beautiful
women pointing at us.

I always feel eyes on me so
I apologize to insects after I kill them
and to the salmon on my plate, caught being
nostalgic for home. Everything makes sense if
you squint just right, and at least once a day
I realize that whatever I've been saying
isn't the point at all.

Like yesterday, I heard myself
say "Nostalgia" comes from Greek roots meaning
"painful return," which is why your childhood
home is paved over, a bump in the commuter
path of your old classmates, the ones who have
never gone anywhere.

And so instead of leaning
in for a kiss, I give my beautiful wife the umpire's
signal for "safe." And when I say "I love you"
she becomes red-faced, hits me with the back
of her fists, and calls the cops,
because those words no longer mean what they once did.

My First Visit to Nigeria

The most clear memory I have of my first visit to Nigeria was of the village. My family is from a small village in Kogi State and it's most common for everyone, even our city-slicker relations, to make the exodus back home every Christmas. This was another one of those years. I was about 12 years old and wanted so badly to go to the village well to help fetch water for the family. Of course I was the American cousin, so they begged me to stay put and avoid over-exertion, but my on-going nagging eventually wore down their defences:)

They allowed me to walk with my aunt to the well, which was about a 15 minute walk away. I carried a jug on my head like all of the other girls and boys and made the successful trip to the well and back. I was smiling from ear to ear, as I entered my grandfather's compound. I called everyone within earshot to see how strong I was. As I got closer to our family's water tank, I tripped and spilled all of the water on myself and on the floor. I instantly started crying. I'm certain that I was inconsolable for hours and ended up crying myself to sleep that afternoon. Man!! I still remember the embarrassment that lasted for days after that...

I can laugh at it today, but I was mortified. lol. Events like this are practically life-shattering when you're 12.

Anyways. I have many fantastic and happy memories, but that's one that for sure sticks with me. Happy 50th Birthday, Nigeria. Although we are far apart, you are still my home.

In honor of this big-deal birthday for the motherland, check out Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's poem Visiting Nigeria. If you've ever visited a homeland that felt both foreign and familiar, you'll love this poem. The popular author of books Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, and, most recently, The Thing around Your Neck really captures it all in this lovely piece.



Also check out the pics from my last visit to Nigeria. Hoping to go back in the next few months. We'll see...:)

Visiting Nigeria
BY Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

At first we goggled the
sprawling savannas; flat, vast expanses bearing
heads of grain, yellowish-brown in the scorching sun,
that nodded – swayed in the evenings – to the
magical drums of the northern winds

Then – south-bound - the joyous tears
of wise and wrinkled ancestors
trickled, and then poured down
to herald the resurrection of the yams

Then the lush wealth of green
surrounded us and we saw
on the stern-faced gods
carefully carved of living wood
a smile of benevolence

Then the brown, bare earth
turned red
with earthworm paths, with spicy dew
and our creased feet
like charred, parched brown paper
soaked the richness of re-birth

Then the Niger, still and silent
- housing its mermaids, its watery gods -
bore our canoe, zig-zag lines etched in its weather-beat body
in spiritual and dominant acquiescence

And at last
while the spirits roamed the hills
their piercing singing in the wind
(that our guards said were horny, mating crickets)
carrying the folklore of the wise tortoise
and feathers slipped off of humming birds,
our souls danced

FYI....