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The Griffin Poetry Prize

1. The Griffin Poetry Prize, valued at C$130,000, is awarded annually in two categories – International and Canadian. Each prize is worth C$65,000.

2. In each category, the prize is for the best collection of poetry in English published during the preceding year. One prize goes to a living Canadian poet or translator, the other to a living poet or translator from any country, which may include Canada.

3. Translations are assessed for their quality as poetry in English; the focus is on the achievement of the translator.

4. Should a prize-winning book be a translation from a living poet, the prize is awarded 60% to the translator and 40% to the original poet. If the original poet is dead, but his/her work is within copyright, 40% of the prize is given to the original poet’s estate. Otherwise, the disbursement of that portion of the prize is left to the discretion of the judges.

The Trustees

1. The Trustees of The Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry are:

   Margaret Atwood, Poet/Author
   Carolyn Forché, Poet
   Scott Griffin, Entrepreneur
   Robert Hass, Poet
   Michael Ondaatje, Poet/Author
   Robin Robertson, Poet/Publisher
   David Young, Playwright

2. Trustees may not participate in judging in any way.

3. No Trustee may participate in the selection of judges if he or she has a financial interest in a publishing house that issues contemporary poetry. *

* In May 2002, Scott Griffin purchased House of Anansi Press, a Canadian literary publisher. To preserve the integrity of the Griffin Poetry Prize, he no longer takes part in the selection of judges. And like other Trustees, he is prohibited from involvement in the judging process. (With these safeguards in place, House of Anansi titles are deemed to be eligible for the Griffin Poetry Prize.)

The Judges

1. Qualified judges of stature will be selected annually by the Trustees.

2. Judges may not be on salary at a publishing house that issues contemporary poetry.

3. The judges will compile a short list of up to seven outstanding books of poetry, four International and three Canadian.

4. From the short list, the judges will select the final winners in the International and Canadian categories. Short-listed Canadian books are eligible for both prizes.

5. The judges have absolute discretion in interpreting the rules, and their decision is final.

6. All decisions of the judges will be unanimous.

7. Click here for the current panel of judges.

Eligibility Criteria

1. Submissions must come from publishers, who may enter an unlimited number of titles.

2. To be eligible for the International prize, a book of poetry must be a first-edition collection (i.e. not previously published in any country), written in English, or translated into English, by a poet/translator from any part of the world, including Canada.

3. To be eligible for the Canadian prize, a book of poetry must be a first-edition collection (i.e. not previously published in any country), written in English or translated into English by a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident in Canada.

4. Books must have been published in English during the calendar year preceding the year of the award.

5. Winning the Griffin Poetry Prize (or any other prize) in previous years does not render a poet ineligible for the current year’s prize.

6. Only books of poetry written by authors or translators alive at the date of publication will be considered.

7. Books must be the work of one poet.

8. Volumes of Selected and/or Collected poetry, previously published, will only be eligible as translations.

9. Combinations of Selected and/or Collected poetry, combined with previously unpublished poetry, will only be eligible as translations.

10. A book of translations by two translators is eligible if they have collaborated throughout. A collection of translations by various hands is not eligible.

11. A book by a Trustee or current judge is not eligible.

12. No self-published book is eligible.

13. The judges’ decision as to a book’s eligibility is binding.

14. All books must carry an ISBN.

15. A book is defined as having at least forty-eight pages.

Conditions of the Prize

1. A book which is entered for the Griffin Poetry Prize will not qualify for the award unless the publisher agrees:
   • To prepare and encourage its nominated poet(s) to participate in all reasonable publicity associated with the Griffin Poetry Prize;
   • To sticker copies of the winning book with the Griffin Poetry Prize seals (to be provided by the Griffin Poetry Prize);
   • To secure the prior written approval of The Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry with respect to art work, when including facsimiles of the Griffin Poetry Prize seal on all reprints of the winning book(s); and
   • To comply with Rule 6(g).

2. Poets and publishers agree to permit The Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry to include selections from short-listed works in a Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology. A one-time permission fee of C$200 will be paid to each originating publisher of the short-listed books. Proceeds will be donated to a literary cause.

Submission Procedures and Deadlines

1. Publishers may submit any number of titles, each published (or scheduled for publication) before the annual deadline of December 31st, for delivery by no later than January 10th.

2. Submissions postmarked after December 31 of each year will not be eligible.

3. The Griffin Poetry Prize may at any time call in a book which has not been submitted. In that event, the publisher will be required to forward an entry form along with four copies of the book to the Griffin Poetry Prize, and to comply with all other rules and regulations.

4. The Griffin Poetry Prize will acknowledge receipt of submissions.

5. No books will be returned to publishers.

6. Four copies of each book must be submitted to:

   Mrs. Ruth Smith
   Manager
   The Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry
   363 Parkridge Crescent
   Oakville, Ontario L6M 1A8, Canada
   Canada

7. Each submission must include an Entry Form along with any available press material, including a current biography and photograph of the author and/or translator. (Preferred photograph formats are 8.5×11 black and white print or high resolution [300 dpi or greater] TIFF or JPEG file.)

Finalists

1. A short list of finalists will be announced in March or April of each year. National and international publicity, promoting the short-listed poets and the Griffin Poetry Prize, will begin at that announcement and continue until after the winners are declared.

2. It is expected that shortlisted poets will participate in reading their poetry at a public event and will attend the awards ceremony.

3. $10,000 will be awarded to each shortlisted poet, conditional upon the shortlisted poet attending and participating in the annual Readings event.

4. In the event that a shortlisted book is a translation, the $10,000 will be equally shared between the translator(s) and the living poet, conditional upon (c) above.

5. The readings and the awards evening of the Griffin Poetry Prize will take place in Canada over two days in May or June of each year.

6. The Griffin Poetry Prize will bear the cost of travel and overnight accommodation for authors who live outside Toronto, Canada.

7. The judges will select the short list and the winners in private deliberations. Publishers will receive no advance notice of the short-listed nominees or the winners.

Further Information

All enquiries should be directed to:

Mrs. Ruth Smith
Manager
The Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry
363 Parkridge Crescent
Oakville, Ontario L6M 1A8
Canada
Telephone: (905) 618 0420
E-mail: info@griffinpoetryprize.com

Download the Rules

Click below to download
griffin-prize-rules.pdf (~170K)

 

Click here for the entry form.

SUBMISSION INFO

There are no application forms, fees, or any other restrictions for submissions, nominations, or recommendations to the panel. The book is what matters, not the procedure. The only requirement is that two copies of the book must be mailed to the Before Columbus Foundation by December 31st for consideration for the following year's Awards. Anyone may make a submission (it does not have to be the publisher). There is no limit on the number of titles that may be submitted. All genres are accepted (including anthologies, children's books, and multimedia). You may include reviews, publicity, or other informational material with your submission if you wish.

Prepublication copies are accepted. Reprintings or new editions of lost classics are also welcome. The overriding principle is that there shall be no exclusions except time constraints (leeway is even available on deadline postmark dates, with prior approval). Submissions cannot be returned and acknowledgement is by SASE request only. For more information, please call.

American Book Awards
Before Columbus Foundation
The Raymond House
655-13th Street, Suite 302
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 268-9775
info@beforecolumbusfoundation.com

How Katrina Shaped

Acclaimed Novel

GO HERE TO VIEW VIDEO

Salvage the Bones is a book about love, family and a fight for survival - for the pit-bull dog sent into battle and the human characters confronted by catastrophe.

The story follows 15-year-old Esch and her family in the days leading up to and after Hurricane Katrina, the storm that devastated much of the US Gulf Coast in the summer of 2005.

Esch has just discovered she is pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is more focused on dog fighting. The fictional community is overwhelmingly black and desperately poor.

The novel's author, Jesmyn Ward, who recently won the prestigious National Book Award for 2011, says her own life was for the inspiration for much of the story.

Her family home in Deslille, Mississippi was flooded after the storm. And in the desperate search for safe ground in the aftermath, she tells the BBC that she encountered racism instead of humanity.

The idea of a post-racial America, she claims, is a fantasy. "Salvage the Bones is what people here in rural, black Mississippi did, not only after Katrina", she says. "They always did it and they still do it every day".

Produced by Anna Bressanin, Camera by Ilya Shnitser

 

 

>via: http://www.5min.com/Video/How-Katrina-Shaped-Acclaimed-Novel-517233898

 

__________________________

 

 

 

Ignored by literary world,

Jesmyn Ward wins

National Book Award

 

By Ed Lavandera, CNN

 

Dallas (CNN) – Jesmyn Ward stunned the literary world Wednesday night when her novel “Salvage the Bones” won the National Book Award for fiction. Ward was considered a long shot, at best, to win the prestigious award.

Before the nominees were announced in mid-October, Ward’s novel didn’t generate much publicity. The 34-year-old author was convinced her novel would be “lost in the sea of books.”

Now, people are paying attention. One critic says Ward's novel “has the aura of a classic.”

“Salvage the Bones” tells the story of a poor black Mississippi family struggling through life in August 2005 as Hurricane Katrina is about the strike the Gulf Coast. In one of the few reviews of the book in a major newspaper, The Washington Post praises Ward for her honest depiction of life in her home state of Mississippi.

“Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy,” the newspaper's review states.

Ward grew up in DeLisle, Mississippi, and is a Hurricane Katrina survivor. She worked on “Salvage the Bones” for three years. The book is her second novel.

She teaches at the University of South Alabama and is working on her next book, tentatively titled “Men We Reaped,” a memoir of living in her hometown as five young black men died, including her brother, who was killed by a drunken driver.

Exhausted after a night of celebrating her National Book Award honor, Ward talked to CNN's Ed Lavandera about what the award means to her and how a family tragedy helped persuade her to become a novelist.

CNN: Were you surprised that your novel “Salvage the Bones” won the National Book Award?

Jesmyn Ward: I was totally surprised. I was shocked. I had prepared an acceptance speech, just in case, but I did not think that was going to happen at all. I kept telling myself, just breathe, breathe, keep breathing and you’ll be fine.

CNN: What does this award mean to you?

Ward: I haven’t even processed what it means to me yet. I began looking at the list of past finalists and past winners; all the writers on those lists are amazing, and many of them - I’ve loved their work and they’ve been idols to me for a long time. So to be in the same company with writers of their stature amazes me, and I think that’s why I haven’t processed it yet. It’s overwhelming.

CNN: I couldn't find any reviews of your book in major newspapers across the country or much talk about your book before it was nominated for a National Book Award. Did you feel like your book was being ignored or lost?

Ward: I did. My publishing company worked hard to ensure that wasn’t the case, but it still felt like that was the case. I think part of the reason was because I’m writing about poor black people from the South. I think people make certain assumptions about what they’re interested in reading or what others would be interested in reading, and when they think of poor black people in the South, they don’t think people are interested in reading about those people. So I did think that it was just being lost in the sea of books.

CNN: What is it about your novel “Salvage the Bones” that resonated with the judges?

Ward: I think the characters resonated with the judges - they were real and alive on the page, and because they were experiencing this hurricane. … The characters became real for them on the page even before the hurricane entered the picture, and then … you introduce the hurricane into the narrative. I just think that was compelling and they saw these characters as real people. It was a story that needed to be told.

CNN: Like the characters in your book, you grew up as a poor black girl in the South. Is this book autobiographical in any way?

Ward: There are three things that I draw from my life that are included in this book. One is that the book is set on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, in a small, rural black community, which is the kind of community I come from. Two, the characters experienced Hurricane Katrina. I was home for Hurricane Katrina, so I had some of my experience to draw from. It was like firsthand research. But the characters’ experience in the storm is totally different from mine. And the third thing is actually the dogfighting. When I was younger, I actually witnessed some dogfights. The other things the characters experienced throughout the book [are] purely fictional.

CNN: How has growing up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast influenced your writing? Why did you want to take readers to this place?

Ward: I have a love-hate relationship with home. There’s so much I love about home, but then there’s a lot that I can acknowledge that I dislike about home. And acknowledging that to myself helps me see that place more clearly and to bring readers to that place. I just think these stories are worth being told and these people are worth being written about. I think our stories are universal stories. In the end, it’s about us as human beings trying to survive and make the best of what we have right here, right now.

CNN: You talk about being bullied when you attended public school by black classmates and, when you started at a mostly white private school paid for by your mother's employer [her mother worked as a maid for wealthy white families], you were bullied because of the color of your skin. You've said some students even threatened to lynch you in the hallways. This must have great impact on your writing.

Ward: That’s one of the reasons that I can acknowledge that there’s much that I love about Mississippi and growing up there, but that there’s also much that I hate. The bullying I experienced, much of it revolved around race. Having that history made me want to write about those things, to write about the sort of people that I write about, so that the types of people I went to school with who saw us not as human beings, but as less than human beings, would read my stuff and then would see us as human beings. At least that was my hope.

CNN: Your brother was killed at the age of 19 by a drunken driver. You’ve said his death really inspired you to become a writer. Can you explain that?

Ward: We were very close. I didn’t realize until after he died that all these things we had shared, that I could tell those stories and have them remember and understand. As I was trying to live through the grief after he died, his dying taught me that we aren’t promised anything, that tomorrow might not come. So understanding that reconfigured things for me and made me think about, with the time I have left, what can I do that would make this life worth living and give my life meaning. And for me, that was writing.

CNN: At what age did you start focusing on writing?

Ward: I didn’t start really focusing on writing until I was 24. I’d always loved reading. I dabbled in writing, wrote really bad poetry in high school. I also took a few writing classes when I was an undergrad at Stanford. I was so intimidated. I felt like I didn’t have the chops to do well in the writing workshops in the classes, and I didn’t think I was a good enough writer, so I didn’t take many creative writing classes while I was there.
But after I graduated and my brother died, it made me focus on sort of realizing and making a serious attempt at what I always secretly wanted to do but never had the courage to do.

CNN: “Salvage The Bones” is really the story of siblings. Is that important to you?

Ward: There are things that happened in this book that surprised me when I wrote them. The development of that relationship between those kids, I didn’t know that was going to be as important in the book as it was. I didn’t realize it was going to be such an important theme in the book. I loved that relationship the siblings had. I was interested in the different tensions. Nothing about their relationships is perfect. Sometimes they lie to each other, sometimes they misunderstand each other, but still in the end, those relationships endure.

Written by Kathleen Cherie Featured

Dec

23

2011

Jimmy Jean-Louis

Talks About the

Toussaint L’ouverture Movie,

Family Life and Hollywood

 

 

In a matter of years, Jimmy Jean-Louis has become the most prominent black actors in Hollywood and one of the most successful Haitian actors in Hollywood (some would say the most successful). Jean-Louis who immigrated to France while a pre-teen worked first as a model in Europe, then moved to the USA in the 90s, and has never looked back.

From roles in Phat Girls to Diary of a Tired Black Man to his iconic role in the television hit series, Jean-Louis practically typifies the Hollywood Dream. But he’s also spread his wings, having flirted with Nollywood, having starred in Relentless and the award-winning Sinking Sands, two African-produced dramas. One of the biggest highlights of his career thus far, is playing the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L’Ouverture in the Philippe Niang biopic of the legendary 19th Century leader. Next up is a role as a priest alongside 50 Cent, Meg Ryan, John Lithgow, and Anthony Anderson in the film The Lives of Saints. For Jean-Louis, life is good.

At the time of our interview, the actor is fighting a really bad cold, but decides he wants to keep his word about our scheduled interview. Calling from Paris, France, the Pétionville-born actor is enthusiastic and animated as he discusses the Toussaint L’ouverture project, family life, and educating kids in Haiti, a cause close to his heart.

Would you tell us about the mini-series that you’re in, that’s about Toussaint L’ouverture?
As it is now, it’s two movies of 90 minutes. Part 1 and part 2. It’s a total of 3 hours. It was shot entirely in French, [with] a little bit of Kreyol as well. Shot in France and Martinique, which replaced Haiti as a location. It’s ready now. I believe between February or March, it will be available. It was financed by French television…France 2. It will be on their station first and then [it will be available] for the international market. I’m not sure yet how it’s going to be distributed, whether it’s going to be in theaters or broadcasted on an [American] television station.

How did you get involved?
The producers contacted me. You have to understand they have tried to make this movie for the past 20 years. And Danny Glover tried to make this movie for the past 15 years. And many other names have tried to make it. It was a long overdue movie. I was called by the producers to play the role, because they felt I fit the character. I had to do a lot of exercises. I had to learn how to ride a horse. I took lessons for a couple of months. [I had to learn how to] do sword-fighting. I took lessons in California and France.

Did you read any books to give you a sense of the time period?
Yeah, of course. I read a few books. I watched a few documentaries that were made about him. I had information coming from him from historians in America and France. Had a lot of conversations. So, I had to do a lot of research to portray him as well. I’m very, very proud of the end results.

Why was the movie filmed in Martinique and not in Haiti? A lot of people feel it would have brought a lot of publicity to Haiti, and it only seemed natural that it should be filmed in Haiti and not another island.
Haiti falls short on some requirements. I think the production tried, but it’s difficult to get insurance to insure a place like Haiti right now. From what I’ve been told, that’s one of the reasons why we couldn’t go there and shoot. The structure in Haiti is not the best either. Electricity. The roads are still pretty bad. As a Haitian, I would love to have shot it there.

Are you going to be returning to American television anytime soon?
I’m not sure as to what will come to me in the future. I’m open to all kinds of projects. I’m still doing movies in different places, in different markets. Whether it’s America, France, or Africa. As of now, I am not currently attached to any American TV show.

What was the last the last thing that made you cry?
[long pause] Well. [pause]. Maybe going back to Haiti. Definitely the earthquake. Since I’ve been going back and forth, I’m very touched by what’s happened. Every time you go there, you still find a good reason to cry. I was there last week, and the situation is still so bad. People losing their family members. The dire situation there.
 

What exactly did you see? What have you observed in terms of the lives of people there…Does it seem like it’s improving?
Not really. Not really. Very little change. Unfortunately. After so long. After two years.

You have so many projects going on. How do you balance fatherhood, and family life with such a busy schedule?
You just have to prioritize what’s the most important in your life. You will find ways to do it.

You and Garcelle Beauvais are two of the most prominent Haitians in Hollywood. Are you two friends?
I would say yes. I don’t speak to her everyday. We don’t see each other every day. But from time to time, we see each other.

Do you guys have any plans of working together in the future? Any projects?
I would love to. At this time, I’m not attached to any project that she will be part of, or vice versa. But it’s definitely something I would like to be part of. I think she’s very talented. And she’s done a lot. An on top of that, being Haitian, yes, I’m always looking forward to collaborating with my Haitian peers.

Your organization Hollywood United for Haiti is doing a lot of great things. What are your latest accomplishments?
We have a school. Now we’re able to give the kids one meal a day as well as an education. It’s located in Cadet, which is a very remote location up the mountains, a place where about 90% of the people do not know how to read or write. I’m very happy and very proud of it [the school]. I went there last week, and it was just such a joy to see the kids being happy not only to be educated, but be happy to be fed. I’m trying to keep the community up and moving forward, and putting a big smile on their faces.

What’s the enrollment number for the school?
Right now, we have 100 kids, but we’re not finished with some parts of the building. But when we’re done, we’ll welcome 350 kids. This is our second year.

You played the role of The Haitian on the series “Heroes”. What would you say were the best moments of that experience?
It wouldn’t be necessarily a moment. It was more like a feeling. Playing The Haitian on “Heroes” was such a source of pride to me because it was one way to put Haiti on the map. Not too many people knew too much about Haiti. And to be able to actually play a superhero and his name was The Haitian, on one of the most successful shows on television was a great way to advertise Haiti on a TV show to the rest of the world. That brought me a lot of joy to actually portray a Haitian as a superhero.

In the past you’ve expressed your appreciation for Sydney Poitier. Have you met or connected?
Yeah, I’ve had the chance to meet with Sydney Poitier twice. The first time, I did express to him that he inspired me to continue to fight and create a space for myself in the game of Hollywood.

And speaking of Hollywood, is it possible to be in Hollywood and not go Hollywood.
Of course. It all depends on what people mean about going Hollywood.

Losing your head, and not having your head on your shoulders anymore.
It’s a small portion of the people. And most of the times, you know about that small portion of people because the media is all over them. But at the same time, we don’t know about a larger portion that don’t go Hollywood, because the media doesn’t have anything special to say about that. You know how many actors there are in Hollywood. Thousands and thousands. At the end of the day they [the media outlets] [chooses to concentrate on those] actors who are getting in trouble. So definitely, you can work in Hollywood and not go Hollywood.

You were in a couple of Haitian movies. Not two, but three, Cousines, Life Outside of Pearl, Le President a-t-il Le Sida?
I was actually in four. Moloch Tropical.

I was counting the ones about that were made by directors based in Haiti.
It’s all about Haiti. It’s directed by a Haitian. How more Haitian can it be? [laughs]

Are you planning in being in any other ones? Or writing or directing any?
Yes I did Cousines, yes I did Le President a-til- Le Sida?. I would have loved to do more. To be honest with you, I am very proud of these movies [made in Haiti]. It’s too bad that the situation didn’t allow us to continue to do these kinds of movies. It’s just a shame we couldn’t continue to do them. And that was for many reasons. First of all, most of the theaters have closed down. Piracy started to take over. The people, the producers that used to put in a little bit of money into these movies couldn’t make their money back. So, we couldn’t continue to create those type of movies. But yes, I would love to continue. But the reality is, it’s difficult. We have no way to distribute these movies in Haiti. I’m not sure if there’s still one good movie theater in Haiti. Yes, the desire is there, to continue. But the reality doesn’t allow us to. I hope this will soon change. I hope we’ll be able to build theaters. It is absolutely necessary. We have about 3 million people in Haiti, and most people would love to see those type of movies, Haitian movies. We have a lot to do. And building theaters is one of them. We have to find a way to fight piracy. Find a way to [train] the filmmakers, so we cannot just make movies, but make movies of quality.

In the past you’ve said that France is not one of the most minority-friendly countries in the world. Has anything changed?
I am calling you from Paris. [laughs]. Well, slowly, but you know we still major issues as far as minorities are concerned. Even though France is full of minorities, whether it’s blacks from the Caribbean, blacks from Africa, a lot of Indians. Arabs, Moroccans, Tunisians, Vietnamese. Still a lot of people coming from outside of France. It’s difficult [for them] because France is considered a Caucasian country. America is a country that was built on immigration, so it’s very easy for a Hispanic, a black, a Chinese, or a Caucasian to say that, “I’m American.” And nobody will question the fact that they’re American. It’s not the same thing in France. If you’re not Caucasian, it’s very difficult to actually tell people that you’re French. They will [look at] you and say, “Yeah, you’re French but where are your parents from?” Or they will [keep questioning you] until they find out the background of where you’re really from. So you can already understand that things are not as smooth as we’d like for them to be over here [in France] regarding minorities.

How did you get involved with Moloch Tropical?
Raoul contacted me, and yeah he proposed that role of Gerard Francis. It was well-written, well-done project, and I couldn’t say no. It was a joy for me to work with Raoul. He’s one of the most talented directors I’ve worked with.

You’ve worked with Gessica Geneus in, like, three movies. How do enjoy working with her?
Most of them were completely accidental. The first one, which was Cousines, was the very first time I met her. My first movie made in Haiti. The next one was The President a t-il Le Sida?. The third time I didn’t even know she was going to be in Moloch Tropical. Raoul cast her. I think she’s very promising and very talented. She definitely has a future in the business. Not just in Haiti, but outside of Haiti, France, and the States. As long as she continues and keeps herself focused, she could definitely go far.

Your kids were born in California and France. How do you keep the Haitian culture alive in them?
My kids were born in California actually. None of them were born in France. All of them were born in LA. I think being Haitian is a lifestyle. I’m very in touch with Haiti. We go to Haiti regularly, with the family and the kids. I stay very close to Haitian family members. I speak the language to them. I try to give them as much as I can. Just so they feel connected. They know they are as Haitian as much as they are American. They’re born in America but they have a strong feeling that they are very much Haitian.

Photos: M&C, Noel Vazquez/Getty and Pascal Legretain/Getty Europe

 

Bruised but defiant:

Mona Eltahawy

on her assault

by Egyptian security forces

 

Mona Eltahawy's tweets about her assault in Cairo made global headlines. Here she tells her full, extraordinary story for the first time

• Comments (92)

•  Mona Eltahawy
• • guardian.co.uk, Friday 23 December 2011 

The price of protest: writer Mona Eltahawy with her arms in casts after they were broken by Egyptian security forces in Cairo. 'Our dictators tailor wounds to suit their victims’ occupations,' she says. Photograph: Dan Callister for the Guardian

 

The last thing I remember before the riot police surrounded me was punching a man who had groped me. Who the hell thinks of copping a feel as you're taking shelter from bullets? Another man tried to protect him by standing between us, but I was enraged, and kept going back for more. A third man was trying to snatch my smartphone out of my other hand. He was the one who had pulled my friend Maged Butter and me into an abandoned shop – supposedly for safety's sake – and he wouldn't let go of my hand.

It was November. Maged and I had come from Tahrir Square to Mohamed Mahmoud Street, the frontline of clashes between protesters and the military, following a violent invasion of Tahrir by police and soldiers a few days earlier. Almost 40 people had died – including a distant relative – and 3,000 were wounded.

Maged tried to pull me away. "Enough smacking the groper, let the phone go." It's clear to us both now that those men we'd met among the protesters on Mohamed Mahmoud Street had entrapped us. They worked with the security services, who were a few metres away, just beyond no man's land, and their job was to hold on to us until the riot police came.

And when they did come, I was the only one left in the deserted shop. I thought Maged had managed to escape, but he later told me he was nearby being beaten, able to see riot police beat me, too. "You were smart to defend your head," he said. He needed stitches to his face, and still has contusions to his head and chest.

I suffered a broken left arm and right hand. The Egyptian security forces' brutality is always ugly, often random and occasionally poetic. Initially, I assumed my experience was random, but a veteran human rights activist told me they knew exactly who I was and what they were doing to my writing arms when they sent riot police conscripts to that deserted shop. Bashar al-Assad's henchmen stomped on the hands of famed Syrian cartoonist Ali Farzat. Our dictators tailor wounds to suit their victims' occupations.

As the nightsticks whacked at my arms, legs and the top of my head (in the week that followed, I would discover new bruises every day), two things were at the front of my mind: the pain and my smartphone.

The viciousness of their attack took me aback. Yes, I confess, this feminist thought they wouldn't beat a woman so hard. But I wasn't just a woman. My body had become Tahrir Square, and it was time for revenge against the revolution that had broken and humiliated Hosni Mubarak's police. And it continues. We've all seen that painfully iconic photograph of the woman who was beaten and stripped to her underwear by soldiers in Tahrir Square. Did you notice the soldier who was about to stomp on her exposed midriff? How could you not?

My phone fell as the four or five riot policemen beat me and then started to drag me towards no man's land. "My phone, I have to get my phone," I said, and reached down to try to retrieve it. It wasn't the Twitterholic in me that threw herself after the phone, but the survivor. For the first three or four hours of detention, I knew they could do anything and no one would know. In the event, it was near-miraculous that, while I was at the ministry, an activist with a smartphone came to discuss setting up a truce between protesters and security. As soon as he signed me in to Twitter, I sent out, "beaten arrested at interior ministry". And then his phone battery died.

Most people detained the same week I was taken in ended up at a police station or jail, but for some reason I was taken to the interior ministry and was then handed over to military intelligence for almost 12 hours. The sexual assault couldn't have lasted more than a few minutes, but the psychic bruise remains the freshest.

The orange midnight air – a cocktail of street lights, an adjacent school on fire, and air that was more tear gas than oxygen – and the black outlines of the helmeted riot policemen invade my thoughts every day, but I feel as though I have dissociated myself from what happened. I read news reports about a journalist whose arms were broken by Egyptian police, but I don't connect them to the splints around my arms that allow only one-finger typing on a touchpad, nor with the titanium plate that will remain in my left arm for a year, to help a displaced fracture align and fuse.

But the hands on my breasts, in between my legs and inside my trousers – that, I know, happened to me. Sometimes I think of them as ravens plucking at my body. Calling me a whore. Pulling my hair. All the while beating me. At one point I fell. Eye-level with their boots, all I thought was: "Get up or you will die."

They dragged me to the interior ministry, past men in plain clothes who were wearing the same surgical masks that we Tahrir-side civilians had worn against the tear gas. I almost shouted out, "Are you friend or foe?" Their eyes, dead to my assault, were my answer.

"Shit, I've been caught." I began to panic. "Shit, they're probably going to charge me with spying." I had lived in Israel for a period, where I had worked as a Reuters correspondent.

"You're safe now, I'll protect you." A senior plainclothes officer reassured me. "If I wasn't here, there would be no one protecting you from them. See them, over there? Do you know what they'd do to you?" He was pointing to a mob just steps away, itching to get at me. Even as the officer offered hollow protection, the men who had brought me in still went at my breasts. He did nothing.

It was an older man, from the military, who ended it. "Get her out."

"Why are you at war with the people?" I asked him. He looked me square in the eyes, fought his tears and swallowed. He couldn't speak. Others asked me again and again: "Why were you there?"

"I'm a journalist, I'm a writer, I'm an analyst," I said. But really I wanted to tell them I had longed to touch courage. It lived on Mohamed Mahmoud Street where young men – just boys in many cases, with their mothers' numbers written on their forearms in case they ended up in a morgue – would face off with security forces. Some of those who survived the tear gas and the bullets – rubber-coated and live – lost eyes. Security sharpshooters liked to aim for the head.

For months, Tahrir Square had been my mental touchstone: in New York City, where I live, and wherever I travelled to lecture on the revolution. But it was impossible just to stand by in the square and watch as the Motorbike Angels – volunteers who came on bikes to aid the overworked medics – zipped towards the field hospitals with their unconscious passengers, asphyxiated from the tear gas – and often worse – from the Mohamed Mahmoud frontline.

"If I die, I want to be buried in my Moroccan djellaba. It's laid out on my bed, ready," tweeted blogger and activist Mohamed "Gemyhood" Beshir. The hits of tear gas he inhaled pushed him back, so younger men would break his fall and fill in for him on the frontline until he recovered.

Throughout my detention, I demanded medical care for my arms, and showed my captors the increasingly dramatic bruises developing on my hand and arm. Most asked me to make a fist. "See, it's just a bruise. You wouldn't be able to make a fist if you had a fracture."

And I told them deliberately graphic details about the sexual assault. Eyes would twitch and look away. No one wanted to hear. "Why's a good girl like you talking about hands in your trousers? Shut up and silence your shame," I imagined them saying.

I'll be damned if I carry this alone,I thought. And so I went on and on, until finally they heard, and one of them yelled out: "Our society has a sickness. Those riot police conscripts who assaulted you, do you know what we've done for them? We've lifted them out of their villages, scrubbed them clean and opened a tiny door in their minds."

"That's exactly why we're having a revolution," I responded. "No one should have to live like that. Who created that misery they live in that you 'rescued' them from?"

I also let it be known that I was a US citizen, and asked for a consular representative to be called. I knew that, as an Egyptian-American (I moved to the US in 2000), I would be spared many horrors that countless unnamed Egyptians suffer. But I also anticipated the flip side. "Aren't you proud of being Egyptian? Do you want to renounce your citizenship," the military intelligence officer asked me.

Blindfolded, bone-tired and in agony from my fractures, I replied: "If your fellow Egyptians break your arms and sexually assault you, you'd want someone in the room you can trust."

The sadistic violence the security forces and army unleashed on Mohamed Mahmoud Street has ripped asunder naive notions that the military were "guardians of the revolution", or that the "army and the people are one hand". No, they broke my hand.

Last week's images from Egypt of the woman stripped down to her underwear and beaten have further unmasked the brutality of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the military junta that runs Egypt and which must be tried with crimes against the Egyptian people. I'm unable to look at any of those images of beatings because I feel the nightsticks fracturing my arms all over again. If I hadn't got up when I fell, they would have stomped on me as they stomped on that woman.

I spent the first two weeks back in New York on a painkiller high. It numbed the pain, as well as my ability to write. Once a week I see a psychologist who specialises in trauma; an orthopaedic surgeon has operated on my left arm to realign the ulnar shaft and fix it in place with a titanium plate and screws, and I have regular physiotherapy. But this week's massive women's march in Tahrir has sharpened my focus once again. When a woman who took part wrote to tell me I'd helped to inspire the march because I'd spoken out on Egyptian TV about my beating and assault, I was finally able to cry. They were the tears of a survivor, not a victim.

The Mubarak regime used systematic sexual violence against female activists and journalists, and here's the SCAF upholding that ignoble legacy. But to quote the women in Tahrir this week: "The women of Egypt are a red line." My body, and mind, belong to me. That's the gem at the heart of the revolution. And until I return to Egypt in January, healed once again, I will tell that to the SCAF over and over. One finger at a time.

 

How Mona tweeted her arrest and assault

The night of 23 November, as violence builds in the Egyptian capital, Eltahawy is reported missing. From prison she borrows a phone to tweet:

"Beaten arrested in interior ministry"

 

A campaign to free her begins to gather momentum, then on Eltahawy's feed:

"I AM FREE"

 

"12 hours with Interior Ministry bastards and military intelligence combined. Can barely type – must go xray arms after CSF pigs beat me"

 

"5 or 6 surrounded me, groped and prodded my breasts, grabbed my genital area and I lost count how many hands tried to get into my trousers"

 

"@Sarahngb is coming to kindly take me to the hospital. Besides beating me, the dogs of CSF subjected me to the worst sexual assault ever"

 

"Didn't want to go with military intelligence but one MP said either come politely or not. Those guys didn't beat or assault me"

 

"Instead, blindfolded me for 2 hrs, after keeping me waiting for 3. At 1st answered Qs bec passport wasn't w me but then refused as civilian"

 

And then...

"The whole time I was thinking about article I would write; just you fuckers wait"

Challenging Hip-Hop's

Masculine Ideal

Kreayshawn has a slow and cutesy approach to rapping. / Ruby Washington/New York Times

By TOURÉ

Published: December 23, 2011

 

HIP-HOP is primarily a celebration of black masculinity. Sure, there have long been significant black female and white male figures, but the majority of the conversation in hip-hop is and has always been about the actions, thoughts, feelings and ethos of black men. But this hegemony cannot last forever. Eventually the throne will have to be shared. The world of hip-hop has some diversity: Eminem, Mac Miller and Nicki Minaj now; the Beastie Boys, Lauryn Hill and Missy Elliott in the past. We have respected rappers of South Asian descent: M.I.A. and Heems from Das Racist. But what about the American white woman? Could she ever rock the mic for real?

The cosmology of American celebrity requires several blond white women be major planets at all times. From Marilyn Monroe to Madonna to Britney Spears to Paris Hilton to Lady Gaga, our culture refuses to allow a void in the job called America’s Favorite Blonde. (Some might say the woman currently holding that office is Beyoncé.) Given that cultural law, how long will it be until some blonde — or any white woman — rises to fame through hip-hop? I daresay it’s inescapable. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already. Well, it may happen soon. We now have a small movement of white female rappers who want to be taken seriously, including Iggy Azalea, Kreayshawn and K.Flay.

There are too many cultural consumers who love rappers and who love blondes to keep a collision of the two from occurring, especially when the dominant hip-hop consumer is the young white suburban male. Imagine if Pamela Anderson could flow, allowing him to get his hip-hop fix and his soft-core pornography fix at the same time. That would blow his mind.

There is nothing about the skills required to be an M.C. that makes it impossible for white women to rhyme. It’s not that their mouths can’t do it. The true barrier to entry is that there is an essence at the center of hip-hop that white women have an extraordinarily hard time exuding or even copying. For many Americans, black male rappers are entrancing because they give off a sense of black masculine power — that sense of strength, ego and menace that derives from being part of the street — or because of the seductive display of black male cool.

Black women and white men who have been successful in hip-hop have found ways to embody those senses and make them their own. But hip-hop coming from a white woman is almost always an immediate joke. Take Gwyneth Paltrow, for example, showing how much she loves hip-hop by earnestly rhyming the lyrics to N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton” on a British television show or Natalie Portman furiously spitting rhymes in gangsta-rap style on “Saturday Night Live.”

As soon as white women start rhyming, no matter what they say, it’s seen as cute and comical, like a cat walking on its hind legs. Seeing them try to embody the attributes of hip-hop’s vision of black masculinity is a hysterical gender disjunction: they wear it as convincingly as a woman wearing her husband’s clothes.

Even when a talented vocalist like Lykke Li tried to make Rick Ross’s song “Hustlin” her own, she simply could not rise to the level of the song. The sense of danger or cool that black male rappers manifest so easily is hard for white women to display. Of course that won’t stop those who want to rhyme from trying.

Iggy Azalea, a highly sexualized M.C. in the tradition of Lil' Kim and Trina, is working at establishing her hip-hop bona fides. / Bell Soto

If a group of white teenage boys conspired to construct their dream white female rapper they might come up with Iggy Azalea, 21, a sexy rapper with long blond hair, a model’s enticing looks and the detached, hyperconfident air of a dominatrix. She has an aggressive vocal approach and a silky flow. There’s nothing cute or comical about her rhyming. She lives in Los Angeles and grew up in a tiny Australian town idolizing Tupac and Grace Kelly. Now she’s a highly sexual M.C. in the tradition of Lil’ Kim and Trina. If the white women of the world can possibly produce one superstar rapper, Iggy Azalea could be it.

The best song on her mixtape, “Ignorant Art,” is all about her sexual power. It’s title is unprintable. There’s an ominous tone to the song, as if she could kill you in bed or turn you into a hopeless addict. “Hook ’em like crack,” she rhymes. “After shock/Molten lava drop/This should be outlawed/ Call me Pac.” Linking her bedroom potency to the power of the most important name in hip-hop is a bold statement but a familiar gesture in modern hip-hop.

The video features Iggy Azalea in yellow skin-tight, high-waist pants and high heels, flinging her ponytail and licking ice cream suggestively. It was shot in the same sort of South Central Los Angeles neighborhood we saw in the movie “Boyz N the Hood” and in Snoop Dogg videos, placing her in an area that is recognized by longtime hip-hop fans. She raps as she sits on a stoop and dances in front of an ice cream truck, surrounded by black people. The video begins with her eating breakfast as an older black woman watches. Although their relationship is not clear, all this proximity to blackness characterizes Iggy Azalea as a person who is no stranger to black culture and communities, suggesting it’s no anomaly for her to rock the mic.

Strangely, for a video so overtly sexual, she spends a lot of time with a black boy, maybe 6 years old, sweetly draped on her back or playing at her feet or making sexually suggestive moves on a toy horse. Is she bad at baby-sitting or does he represent a man she’s been with and dominated so completely she’s infantilized him? Iggy Azalea is unsigned, but she has high-powered management, so she won’t be for long. Expect a lot of noise to surround her 2012 debut album.

Where Iggy Azalea works at establishing her hip-hop bona fides, Kreayshawn, a 21-year-old from Oakland, Calif., plays with hip-hop signifiers but sees no need to establish her cred. She has black men in her video for “Gucci Gucci” but spends most of it with her white female D.J., who oddly looks like her twin, at her side. The first time I watched “Gucci Gucci,” which has become an Internet sensation with millions of views, my primary thought was “interloper.” Does she really understand or respect what hip-hop’s all about? I doubt it, but if her audience doesn’t, then it won’t hold her back.

She rhymes, “I’m lookin’ like Madonna, but I’m flossin’ like Ivana,” tying herself to rich white women as well as childishly simple rhyme patterns. The song is about a rejection of label worship. She says she doesn’t wear Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Fendi or Prada because everyone does, explaining that she’s liberated from the fashion establishment and able to create personal style without buying it from them. But in the video she hangs out on Rodeo Drive and at a party in a room at the Standard Hotel in Hollywood dancing in front of Warhol-print curtains. She wears a large Minnie Mouse-inspired bow on her head as well as the door-knocker earrings that were stylish decades ago in hip-hop, making her look like a retro caricature.

The song basically attacks a central tenet of hip-hop: Many rappers embrace labelism as part of their celebration of upward mobility as well as a postmodern sentiment that you are the brands you wear. Her rejection of that reeks of white-girl privilege. But similarly privileged people may find her message refreshing.

Kreayshawn has that slow, nasal, staccato, cutesy approach to rapping that you might expect if a white girl was making a rap song as a lark. She doesn’t come across as sexy or even very sexual. She’s more nerd chic. She calls her crew the White Girl Mob (as opposed to Iggy Azalea’s White Girl Team), and in her songs she repeatedly refers to women she loves as “bitch,” making certain we hear her doing what black rappers routinely do, using a pejorative slur in a transgressive way.

At one point in “Gucci, Gucci” she says, “I got the swag and it’s pumping out my ovaries,” which is intended to sound hard core but is kind of gross and self-satirical. She attended film school, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this were part of a guerilla documentary making fun of hip-hop.

 

K.Flay has a more melodic and semi-sung flow. / Maggie Percell

More skilled and perhaps more interesting is K.Flay, 26, a Stanford graduate and a talented vocalist who uses rhyming as a sonic technique. Culturally she is not trying to push her way into hip-hop; she’s more of an indie rock chick. Her rapping is melodic and semi-sung, and on her most recent mixtape, “I Stopped Caring in ’96,” she samples indie groups like the xx and the Vines and talks about alienation:

Mind in a permanent state of flux

Mental double Dutch

Had a bag of Cheetos ate ’em up

3 p.m. and I’m still waking up

Wishing I could save myself, but I’m not brave enough.

She dresses like an un-self-conscious hipster, wearing T-shirts and Nike high-tops, little makeup and barely styled dark hair. K.Flay has no black people or hip-hop signifiers in her videos. She represents a generation of white kids who grew up with hip-hop but who weren’t obsessed with it so they feel rhyming is theirs to use without needing to pay homage to the culture.

Does the slight rise of white women pose a threat to the soul of hip-hop? Will this moment be recalled years from now as a crucial step toward the whitening of hip-hop, toward a world in which hip-hop looks the way rock ’n’ roll does: a neighborhood that’s been so completely gentrified that the kids have to be reminded that rock was once a black space? I don’t think so. It will take a lot more than a few white women to fundamentally impact hip-hop, which remains unbreakably connected to the spirit of black masculinity, for which America continues to hunger.

The Disappearing

Black News Professional

Slowly but surely, America's newsrooms are becoming whiter again, notes news veteran Paul Delaney.

• By: Paul Delaney | Posted: December 23, 2011 at 12:04 AM

John Forte

John Forte & Valerie June

“Give Me Water”

11.15.2011

“As a burgeoning filmmaker, I directed the video to “Give Me Water.” I wanted to create a visual accompaniment that embodied the spirit of the music – simple, beautiful, and poignant. Suffice it to say, Valerie’s beauty made that job a great deal easier.” – John Forte

 

 

BkMk Press of the University of Missouri-Kansas City Announces

Short-Fiction Book Award

The G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction

 

Poetry Book Award

The John Ciardi Prize for Poetry

Next postmark deadline (both awards): January 15, 2012

For the best book-length collections of poetry and of short fiction in English by a living author

Prize: $1,000 and publication of winning book for each prize

Submissions:

• Manuscripts must be typed on standard-sized paper, in English. Poetry manuscripts should be approximately 50 pages minimum, 110 pages maximum, single spaced. Short fiction collections should be approximately 125 pages minimum, 300 pages maximum, double spaced.
• Entries must include two title pages: one with author name, address and phone number; and one with no author information. Any acknowledgments should appear on a separate piece of paper.
• Entries must include a table of contents.
• Author's name must not appear anywhere on the manuscript.
• Please submit your manuscript in loose pages, bound only with a clip or rubber band. We prefer that you do not staple or permanently bind your manuscript. Do not submit your manuscript by fax or e-mail.
• Simultaneous and multiple submissions are acceptable. Please notify us of acceptance elsewhere.
• A SASE should be included, for notification only. Note: No manuscripts will be returned.
• A non-refundable reading fee of $25 in US funds (check made payable to BkMk Press or a completed credit card form printed from this link) must accompany each manuscript. Entrants will receive a copy of the winning book in their genre when it is published.
• Manuscripts must be postmarked no later than January 15, 2012. 

Manuscripts will not be returned.  No refunds will be issued.

Judging will be blind at all levels. Initial judging will be done by a network of published writers and editors. The final judging will be done by a poet and a fiction writer of national reputation. Winners will be announced in July 2012 and the winning entries will be published in 2013.

These competitions are held annually.

Address To:

 

John Ciardi Prize for Poetry or Sharat Chandra Prize for Fiction
BkMk Press
University of Missouri-Kansas City
5100 Rockhill Road
Kansas City, MO 64110-2499

(816) 235-2558*
Fax (816) 235-2611
bkmk@umkc.edu

Available to contest entrants at the special price of $5 each postage paid are the following titles from BkMk Press:

Stations of the Air by John Ciardi. These poems were collected after Ciardi's death in 1986.

Family of Mirrors, poems by G. S. Sharat Chandra, professor of English at UMKC who died in 2000.

Available to contest entrants at the special price of $10 each postage paid are the past winners of the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry: The Resurrection Machine by Steve Gehrke, 1999 winner, selected by Miller Williams; Kentucky Swami by Tim Skeen, 2001 winner, selected by Michael Burns; 2002 winner Escape Artist by Terry Blackhawk, selected by Molly Peacock; 2003 winner Fence Line by Curtis Bauer, selected by Christopher Buckley; 2004 winner The Portable Famine by Rane Arroyo (selected by Robin Becker); 2005 winner Wayne's College of Beauty by David Swanger (selected by Colleen J. McElroy); 2006 winner Airs & Voices by Paula Bonnell (selected by Mark Jarman); 2007 winner Black Tupelo Country by Doug Ramspeck (selected by Leslie Adrienne Miller); 2008 winner Tongue of War by Tony Barnstone, selected by B. H. Fairchild; Mapmaking by Megan Harlan, selected by Sidney Wade; and the past winners of the Chandra Prize: 2002 winner A Bed of Nails by Ron Tanner (selected by Janet Burroway); 2003 winner I'll Never Leave You by H. E. Francis, selected by Diane Glancy; 2004 winner The Logic of a Rose: Chicago Stories by Billy Lombardo, selected by Gladys Swan; 2005 winner Necessary Lies by Kerry Neville Bakken, (selected by Hilary Masters); 2006 winner Love Letters from a Fat Man by Naomi Benaron, (selected by Stuart Dybek); 2007 winner Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales by Eleanor Bluestein, (selected by Marly Swick); 2008 winner Dangerous Places by Perry Glasser, selected by Gary Gildner; Georgic by Mariko Nagai, selected by Jonis Agee. .

In 2011, watch for Ciardi Prize winner Secret Wounds by Richard Berlin, selected by Gary Young; and Chandra Prize winner Living Arrangements by Laura Maylene Walter, selected by Robert Olen Butler.

In 2012, watch for Ciardi Prize winner Axis Mundi by Karen Holmberg, selected by Lorna Dee Cervantes, and Chandra Prize winner Garbage Night at the Opera by Valerie Fioravanti, selected by Jacquelyn Mitchard.