Note: Click on photos to enlarge for better viewing
The Sailors Review (TSR), a digital premier arts publication with Zimbabwean roots, has yet to disappoint. From the very first piece on a 15-year-old published author, Phakemenkosi Mangena, to the ending classifieds, Issue No.62 of TSR is a voyage worth taking.
Mbira DzeNharira’s song Bhurugwa Rembwa officially published on the 12th of August 2022. This song was published by The Sailors Music Collection a speaks to parts of me beyond my conscious experience and although I can’t decipher the lyrics of the song and don’t know if it’s connected to the following quote, I find kinship in both the song and quote:
"As human beings we tend to dwell on trivialities, we love all the other creations but hate fellow humans with a passion. Bombs, guns, missiles whose sole purpose is to kill one another are big business worldwide. Let us redefine the purpose of life and do away with sick minds that thrive on physically destroying ourselves” ~Tendayi Gahamadze (2022)
VaChikepe the Poet’sHow Far Are We From Food?, set to pulsing, piercing sounds of music, is for lack of a better term, arresting, much in the way hunger arrests healthy development of body, mind, and spirit. Takudzwa Chikepe, captain of VaChikepe and The 100 Sailors understands the needs of the entire being and it shows.
Kennedy Ochieng photo courtesy of plotscreativesmagazine.com
And I am continually amazed by poets who write eloquently in a language not native to them as I was by Kennedy Ochieng’sTeeth. I am including the final two stanzas below just to give you a sense of what these poets can do in a second language:
As the teeth peep through
The narrow windows of our smile
Giving a reflection of our heart
As sun's heat warm our souls
Even when its stare scare.
Never deny nature
One of the most precious gifts
The gift of a smile and love
That surpasses human understanding
Like showers of rain that kiss the desert
Love of a different kind by J C Wayne
And TSR does not omit the creative offerings of those whose native language is English. One of my favorite poartists, JC Wayne, founder and steward of The Poartry Project, is featured in POETRY FROM AMERCA, and she delivers a thought-provoking ekphrastic poem, MUNCH’S MADONNA, in response to Edvard Munch’s lithograph entitled Madonna. She also graces TSR’s pages with two of her own creations.
Martin Chivaku
And what a story to encounter in Martin Chivaku’s profile of Freddy Macha, An African Influent! A multi-talented individual if there ever was one, Macha’s story is compelling. Even the story he tells about how he started writing is alluring. If you read nothing else, I recommend this piece. Of course, you’d be missing out on an awful lot if you limited yourself to this one piece.
J R Turek
Another of my favorite poets (as well as people) is featured in this TSR issue. Judy “J R” Turek, The Purple Poet, graces TSR’s pages in answer to Brian Manyati’s interview questions. Those who frequent online poetry venues might recognize Judy as the poet who has written “at least 365 new poems each year…” for the past 18 years. I happen to have five of her books, the most I’ve held by any author ever! Do you think Judy cares much about poetry? Well, in TSR she writes:
“For those who think there’s nothing to write about, consider this. I have a collection of poems on dust. Yes, dust. Close your eyes, open your eyes, there are poems waiting to be written everywhere.
"For me, poetry is like breathing – I can’t imagine my life without it. I love the metaphor ‘poetry is in my blood.’ If I slit open a vein, poetry would pour out.”
Three of J R's Poetry Collections
In another segment Judy writes, “I am grateful every day of my life that I am who I am and that I do what I do.” I imagine that I am one among many who also am grateful that Judy is who she is and does what she does. If all you know of Judy is her online presence and her six books of poetry, this is another piece to curl up with.
Poem by Makomborero Nhau
I have already gone well beyond where I intended with this post, but that is the effect The Sailors Reviewhas on me. I start with the intent of doing a quick browse, and a quick note on Meta/Facebook about the current issue, and the next thing I know, I’m listening to music and reading intriguing piece after intriguing piece. So, for all the many wonders inTSR # 62, you'll just have to see for yourself. Till next....T. A.
Note: Click on photos to enlarge for better viewing
On August 8, 2022, Hiram Larew, founder of Poetry X Hunger, and Fizza Abbas of Fizza Writes co-hosted Poets Speak Back to Hunger: A Global 90-Minute Fund-Raising Reading. Twenty-eight (28) poets from several countries and states presented poems addressing hunger, and twenty-seven (27) additional participants comprised the audience.
The event was organized as a fundraiser, with those willing and able contributing to a hunger fighting organization of their choice in honor of Poetry X Hunger. We suspect that there were more donations than we can account for, but we know of at least twenty (20) contributions to organizations in the US and Pakistan.
The August event was just one of Poetry X Hunger’s
attempts to demonstrate that poetry can feed not just minds and spirits but can contribute to feeding those with hungry bellies as well. In addition to publishing the work of poets across the globe who care about anti-hunger initiatives, Poetry X Hunger is actively pursuing tangible initiatives to enhance awareness and to raise additional funding to feed the hungry.
cheryl latif
Among the initiatives underway to highlight the role that poetry is playing in the fight against hunger is poet cheryl latif’s article (seeking publication) about the role that the more than 300 poems published on the Poetry X Hunger site has played and is playing in advancing food security.
In addition, just recently, in their Fall 2022 edition, Pathways Magazine published an article by Hiram Larew which emphasizes the current and potential of poetry to mitigate world hunger. The Stansbury Forum has also picked up the article and the word continues to spread.
Heightened awareness is a plus, but tangible action, particularly fundraising efforts, are critical weapons in the fight against hunger. Toward that end, Poetry X Hunger is partnering with The Poartry Project, founded by poartist (poet and visual artist) J C Wayne, to organize another fundraising effort to assist hunger battling organizations with their mission.
Artwork by JC Wayne
This ongoing initiative is a collaboration among poets and visual artists culminating with an online art opening-the first time the artwork will be made available publicly-and auction on December 3, 2022, at 2pm EDT (auction ends on December 17, 2022). Seven (7) visual artists chose twelve poems currently published on the Poetry X Hunger website as their inspiration for 14 artworks/creations that will be auctioned, with partial proceeds going to selected anti-hunger organizations. More details about the art opening and auction will be forthcoming as the event draws nigh.
Are you excited yet? I sure hope so because your craft, poets and artists, is making a tangible difference in the mental, emotional, AND physical health of your fellow human beings! Stay tuned for more….
Note: Please click on photos to enlarge for better viewing.
I’m
glad you don’t have to take my word for it that we have a terrific, poetic
lineup for Poetry Bread Presents with Sam Castello on GMCR/KURU 89.1 FM’s Kindred Continuum segment
this Monday, September 12, 2022, at 10am mountain, rebroadcast on Sunday, September
18, at 4pm mountain. You can view the lineup in the spreadsheet below, and, of
course, you can listen to the show
during its broadcast/stream.
It
has been my pleasure getting to know a little about the poets whose work will
air on the show through their poetry and their bios. I hope it will be your
pleasure as well. With the exception of Grace Cavalieri’s bio the poets are
listed in order of appearance in the program.
Although
Grace’s poem, Who We Are, climaxes the program, I’m beginning with her
bio because her decades-long show, The Poet and the Poem, which is accessible from her website, was the impetus of the idea for the 9/12 Poetry Bread Presents program.
Collective Voices
During Grace’s 2017, 40th
anniversary show, she interviewed Sistah Joy Alford, Sylvia Dianne Beverly
(Lady Di), andAndré Brenardo
Taylor (Collective Voices), and their poetry started me
thinking about “message poetry,” which was my very loose “theme” for the show
that Sam Castello allowed me to guest-host in his stead.
Grace and the other poets granted me permission to use their readings, and one reading from each of the poets, excerpted from the Poet and the Poem program I listened to, formed the backbone and guiding light of the 9/12 radio program.
In addition to the four poets from Maryland, USA mentioned above, the show presents the work of 18 poets from five additional states and five different countries. I’ve presented below most (sometimes more, sometimes less) of the information the poets submitted with their bios.
Grace Cavalieri is the author of 26 books and
chapbooks of poetry, and she's also written texts and lyrics performed for
opera, television and film. She has had 26 plays produced on American stages,
the 21st of which, Quilting the Sun, was presented at the Smithsonian
Institution. Grace teaches poetry workshops throughout the country at numerous
colleges. She produced and hosted The Poet and the Poem weekly, on WPFW-FM
(1977-1997), presenting 2,000 poets to the nation. She now presents this series
to public radio from the Library of Congress via NPR satellite and Pacifica
Radio celebrating 42 years on air in 2019.
Grace
has received the 2013 George Garrett Award, the Pen-Fiction Award, the Allen
Ginsberg Poetry Award, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting Silver Medal,
and awards from the National Commission on Working Women, the WV Commission on
Women, the American Association of University Women, is the current poet
laureate of Maryland, received the DC Poet Laureate Award from Dolores
Kendrick, the Paterson lifetime Achievement Award, and more. She won a Paterson
Excellence Award for What
I Would do for Love, and The Bordighera Poetry Prize for Water
on the Sun. She received the inaugural Columbia Merit Award for
"significant contributions to poetry."
Jay Rose Ana is a spoken word performance poet, host of Words Collide Poetry
Open-Mic and The Poetic Podcast. Her written work, focusing on positive mental
health, and life as a transgender woman, has been published in numerous
publications. Her spoken word poems have been featured on both local and
national radio. In 2021, her poem MY JOURNEY was featured on the BBC Upload
Festival. Jay Rose Ana can be found on social YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/c/JayRoseAnasThoughts
Teresa E. Gallion is a seeker on a journey to work on
unfolding spiritually in this present lifetime. Writing is a spiritual exercise
for Teresa. Her passions are traveling the world and hiking the mountain and
desert landscapes of the western United States. Her journeys into nature are
nurtured by the Sufi poets Rumi and Hafiz. The land is sacred ground and her
spiritual temple where she goes for quiet reflection and contemplation. She has
published four books: Walking Sacred Ground, Contemplation in the
High Desert, Chasing Light, a finalist in the 2013 New
Mexico/Arizona Book Awards and her most recent book, Scent of Love, a
finalist in the 2021 New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards. She has two CDs, On the Wings of the Wind and Poems from Chasing Light. Her work has
appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. You can find more on Teresa at http://teresagallion.yolasite.com/.
Julian Matthews is an emerging
poet from Malaysia, of mixed-race minority, who is published in The American
Journal of Poetry, Beltway Poetry Quarterly and Borderless Journal, among
others. He stumbled onto poetry by accident five years ago at a writing
workshop. That happy accident has turned into a rabid compulsion. He is still
extricating himself from the crash. Welcome to his recovery. If you wish to
support him, please paypal.me/poetjulian or send him Wordle answers at http://linktr.ee/julianmatthews POET: RAWLE IAM JAMES
POEM: Human/male
Rawle Iam would tell you, that he is a student of life and thus life
is his greatest teacher. He is a personal leadership and spiritual coach, and
poet that uses poetry as an invitation to examine life. He is committed to
being of service to those seeking a holistic and inside-out approach to
understanding themselves and tapping into their vault of wisdom. You are your
purpose. You are not broken, nor do you need fixing. Rawle was born in Trinidad & Tobago and grew up in Brooklyn,
New York. He also spent time in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and lived the
majority of his adult years in Toronto, ON, and Kelowna, BC, Canada. He spent
over 25 years in the corporate world in a variety of roles performing various
tasks alongside good-hearted and well-intentioned people. His book of poetry, in flow with Grace,will be
out this September, and his work can be found at www.rawlejames.caand https://linktr.ee/rawleiam.
Fizza Abbas is a writer based in Karachi, Pakistan.
Her work has appeared in more than 100 journals, including Beltway Poetry
Quarterly, Poetry Village, The Cabinet of Heed and London Grip. She has
authored two poetry collections: Ool Jalool and Bakho- A girl with unkempt tresses. She has
also been a Best of The Net nominee and Oxford Brookes Poetry International
Competition 2021’s shortlist. Besides writing, she runs an interview series forwriters on her YouTube channel. She can
be reached at @fizzawrites on Twitter. POET: JENNIFER ELISE WANG
Jennifer Elise Wang (she/they) is a
non-binary femme in STEM from Dallas, Texas. When she's not doing
neuroscience research, she enjoys writing, dancing, and learning how to
skateboard and snowboard. She has been published in New Verse News, FERAL,
and Southern Arizona Press. She can be found at www.facebook.com/jeniversewritings and @JeniverseAbr on Twitter.
Dr. Michael Anthony Ingram is a retired university professor and social change activist. A Washington DC resident, he is committed to employing the arts, specifically poetry, to disseminate information and raise awareness about issues related to power, identity, and oppression. Widely known as The Counseling Poet, he has gained an international reputation as a spoken word artist and performance poet. A Pushcart poetry prize nominee, Dr. Ingram has traveled extensively, reciting his works and conducting workshops on building cultural competency and empathy skills through poetry and metaphor. He hosts Quintessential Listening: Poetry Online Radio, which “offers an online vehicle for artists to engage in conversational interviews about poetry.”
Mary Dezember, PhD, is a poet, an author of fiction and non-fiction, an
educator, an arts scholar and arts advocate. She believes in inclusivity,
pluralism and creating awareness that catalyzes healing. She enjoys performing
her poetry and advocating the creativity of others. Her publications include
several non-fiction essays and articles and two books of poetry: Earth-Marked
Like You(Sunstone Press, 2011) and Still
Howling(CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2016) with the title poem being the
First Place winner of Best Beat Poem Contest, 2016, sponsored by Beatlick
Press. Her novel, Wild
Conviction, a winner of the
Inkshares 2020 All-Genre Manuscript Contest, is in the works to be published.
She is the founder of Creatives in Conversation, an online venue that includes artist performances and interviews, and
is also a guide for Santa
Fe Art Tours in Santa Fe, New
Mexico. She is currently creating the website PoetryAboutArt.com. She teaches classes,
offers events, and publishes through her business, Dezember LLC. Her author
website is MaryDezember.com.
Julia Fricke Robinson divides her time between visiting children
and grandchildren in Colorado, Indiana and New York and living, dancing and
writing in a community of artists, writers, performers, activists and otherwise
interesting people in beautiful Silver City, New Mexico, where the weather is
just about perfect. Her published books include All I KnowandBetween the Desert and the
Wetlands, both available on Amazon.com.
Tatenda
Murangi is a Zimbabwean medical scientist currently doing a PhD in Clinical
Science Immunology. He is a passionate writer with a wealth of short stories,
articles, and poems. He is also the Editorial and Graphic Design Director for
VaChikepe and The 100 Sailors which boasts of 61st issues of a
digital creative journal called The Sailors Review. When it comes to art his
aim is to use creativity as a way of starting conversations around unspoken
issues in society. Given the unpredictable nature of his works, he has been
defined as simplifying complexity and bringing out the complexity in the simple
things in life. Hence the name sibuco. Tatenda’s most recent publications appear
in Don’t Give Up Africa and Married Too Soon, both available on Amazon.com. You
can view his work on his social media handles (Meta/Facebook and Instagram:
Tatenda Murangi).
Brooklyn native, Doreen (Dd.) Spungin, author of
the collection, Tomorrow Smells Invisible (Words With Wings
Press, 2020), hosts events for Poets In Nassau and Performance Poets
Association on Long Island. Her poetry can be found in anthologies as well
as in print and on-line journals, most recently: L I Quarterly; Corona,
An Anthology of Poems; Maintenant 16; First Literary Review East; Poets To
Come; The Avocet; Paumonok, Transition; Nassau County Poet Laureate
Society Review, and PPA Literary Review. Several of
her poems have been set to music by NY composer, Julie Mandel. Spungin lives on Long Island with her very supportive
husband, Neil. She lives for love, prays for peace and writes for her
sanity and will read anywhere for a cup of coffee or an Earl Grey tea. Spungin can be found on Facebook. Search for Doreen
Deutsch Spungin. A “sign-off” poem or daily/nightly thought is posted,
often with an accompanying photo or piece of art. Tomorrow Smells
Invisible is available at Amazon.com and
Barnes & Noble.com.
POEM:
Notes Taken in Research for a Poem About School Shootings
Heidi Kasa writes fiction and poetry. Her work
has appeared in several journals and at City Lights bookstore in San Francisco.
Her work has been a
finalist for a Black Lawrence Press award and shortlisted for a Fractured Lit
award. Kasa’s fiction chapbook, Split, was published by
Monday Night Press in August 2022. Whenever she can, Kasa returns to Massachusetts, where she grew from a sapling, and to California, where she started blooming. She edits nonfiction and currently lives in Austin, Texas. Find more of her work at www.heidikasa.com
Rick
Lupert has been involved with poetry in Los Angeles since 1990. He is the
recipient of the 2017 Ted Slade Award, and the 2014 Beyond Baroque Literary
Arts Center Distinguished Service Award, a 3-time Pushcart Prize Nominee, and a
Best of the Net nominee. He served as a co-director of the Valley Contemporary
Poets for 2 years, and created Poetry Super Highway. Rick hosted the weekly Cobalt Cafe reading for almost 21 years
which has lived on as a weekly Zoom series since early 2020. His spoken word
album Rick Lupert Live and Dead featured 25 studio and live tracks.
He’s authored 26 collections of poetry, including I Am Not Writing a Book of
Poems in Hawaii, The Tokyo-Van Nuys Express, and God Wrestler: A Poem for
Every Torah Portion (Ain’t Got No Press) and edited the anthologies A Poet’s
Siddur, Ekphrastia Gone Wild, A Poet’s Haggadah and the noir anthology The Night Goes on All Night. He also writes and draws (with Brendan
Constantine) the daily web comic Cat and Banana, and writes a Jewish poetry column for JewishJournal.com. He has been lucky enough to read his poetry all over the
world. See the following links for more on Rick: https://www.jewishpoetry.net/, https://www.instagram.com/rickpoet, https://www.twitter.com/rickpoet, https://www.catandbanana.com/.
Elise Stuart, Poet Laureate of Grant County in
2014-2017, has held numerous poetry workshops for youth in schools around Grant
County. Students made poem flags of their original poems, which graced schools,
libraries and coffee shops. She began an open poetry group in Silver City that
is alive and growing, and also hosts a monthly poetry event at the Tranquilbuzz Coffee House. Her first collection
of poetry,Another Door Calls, came out in the
spring 2017, then a memoir My Mother and I, We
Talk Cat in the fall of the same year. She is currently
working on a new book of poetry and vignettes.
J R (Judy) Turek, Walt Whitman
Birthplace 2019 Long Island Poet of the Year, Superintendent of Poetry for the
Long Island Fair, 2020 Hometown Hero by the East Meadow Herald,
Bards Laureate 2013-2015, is an internationally published poet,
translated into Korean, Romanian, French, and Italian; editor, mentor, workshop
leader, and 25 years as Moderator of the Farmingdale Creative Writing Group;
she has 2 Pushcart Prize nominations and recipient of the Conklin Prize For
Poetry, and was named a 2017 NYS Woman of Distinction. J R has written a poem a
day for the past 18 years and finished 2021 with 487 new poems.
J R is the author of Midnight on the Eve of Never, B is for Betwixt and Between, A is for Almost Anything, Imagistics, They Come And They Go, and most recent24 in 24. J R, The Purple Poet, hosts two events per month for Performance Poets Association (PPA); she’s the 1st Associate Editor for The North Sea Poetry Scene, PPA, and The Bards Initiative; she was the face of Princess Ronkonkoma
Productions for 16 years, and will appear in as International Artist in the Lounge Interview for The Sailors Review Issue 62. Judy lives on Long Island with her soul-mate husband, Paul, her dogs, and her
extraordinarily extensive shoe collection. She can be reached at msjevus@optonline.net.
Vincent J. Calone is a poet, playwright, actor, and director.
He graduated SUNY Oswego '95, studied under Lewis Turco author of The New Book of Forms. Vincent considers
himself a neo/modern formalist poet. He is glad to be part of the wonderful
local poetry and drama scene on Long Island and can be seen reading live at any
number of local events, including Neir's, Jack Jack's and Flash Mob Poetry, as
well as online events such as Spo-fest
and Cobalt
Poets. Vincent's posted a new poem every day on Raven Wire Poetry Prompts on Facebook
continuously from 08/01/22. He dedicates all his work to the two great loves in
his life, Danyalle and Jewelia. Vincent is proud to be part of the Brater
Agency writing collective.
POEM: I Would Have Told My Carpentry Teacher I love Trees
Mbonisi Zikhali is his name and
Zomkhonto is his totem. He
was born in Makokoba, the oldest township in Bulawayo, the second largest
capital of Zimbabwe, Africa. He currently resides in Windsor, Canada, and
is a spoken word artist, storyteller, youth mentor, community services worker
and mental wellness advocate. He won my first poetry award when he was eight
years old. He considers himself an afro-empath and is driven to ensure that
people find joy in the power of words and story-telling. He is a member of Artcite Windsor’sCommunity Connector and Free Verse Poets, which both seek to incorporate poetry and drumming as a way to re-engage the community in artistic ways, while providing a safe space to share stories and support each other emotionally. His most recent engagement with Artcite Windsor was as a featured artist in 2021’s Emancipate the Landscape, a month-long exhibition featuring digital artists Kiki Symone and Talysha Bujold-Abu, which ran from August-September. Mobonisi has also been the featured reader on multiple virtual open mics and will be the featured reader at Cobalt Poets on Tuesday, September 27, 2022.
JC Wayne is a poet, visual artist, cartographer of the
unseen, mentor and adventure guide, certified aging teaching artist, emissary
of beauty, perception, insight, and discovery. She created The Poartry
Project (poartry.org) to light a
path of good in the world through the practice of “poartry.” It is JC’s
calling and goal that The Poartry Project and its Voicing Art programs and
experiences of positive community gathering and creative collaboration engage, equip,
and empower lives as loving world-builders who wield the energy of language and
visuals as conscious acts of good to build loving worlds through loving words
and art.
JC holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Art
History with Honors from Brown University and achieved a Master of Arts in
Diplomatic History and International Comparative Politics as a distinguished
Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellow at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at
Harvard and Tufts Universities. She had an early career as a visible and
celebrated futurist thought leader and adviser to world leaders. She continues
to evolve her creative practice and collaborations with constant travel,
circulating throughout the year among her three creative hubs of New Mexico, Vermont,
and Chicago. She currently serves as Director of Youth Activities for the New
Mexico State Poetry Society and Youth Chair of the National Federation
of State Poetry Societies.
ADDITIONAL SUBMISSIONS
The following two poets will not have their work presented in the show but did submit poems.
Chip Williford is a writer of prose, poetry, and short
stories. He is a photographer, videographer, filmmaker, documentarian, family
historian, researcher, a good listener, and relatable storyteller. He is
Director of Poetry Street and Poetry Street on The Road. He has had fiction and
poetry published in SBC Magazine, Nassau County Poet Laureate Society
Review, Vol. VIII, 2020, Performance Poets Association 25th Annual
Literary Review, The Sailors Review, Issues #58 and #59, and Moonstone
Arts. He was a contributing writer in Oh!
What a Ride, 50 Years in the Airline Travel Industryby
author Rev. ElTyna McCree in 2016. Chip was co-featured at For Better or Versewith poet Nina Yavel. Chip is also the stage manager for the Love of Vinyl Music Hall of Fame Awards. His poetry may be
found at chipwilliford.com and www.poetrystreetontheroad.com
Hiram Larew lives in Maryland and is the Founder of Poetry X Hunger which is Fighting Hunger One Poem at a Time (www.PoetryXHunger.com). His latest poetry collection, Mud Ajar, was published in 2021 by Atmosphere Press with the audiobook version narrated by T. A. Niles (www.HiramLarewPoetry.com).
