YaoBobby

Music Break. YaoBobby ft.

Fredy Massamba

November 17, 2011 By Tom Devriendt 1 Comment

There’s a fast growing collection of cross-over hip hop songs produced by Central and West African artists making a living in the diaspora (especially in French-speaking hotbeds like Marseilles, Paris or Brussels), lyrically reaching back to the countries they’ve left. This collaboration between Togolese artist YaoBobby (rapping in Mina) and the prolific Fredy Massamba (singing in Lingala) on ‘(R)Evolution’ is another example. (You recognize the shirts.)

Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize

About the Prize
Letras Latinas, the literary program of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame, in partnership with Red Hen Press in Pasadena, CA, is pleased to support the publication of a second or third full-length collection of poems by a Latino or Latina poet.

The winning poet will receive $1000, a contract from Red Hen Press and, upon publication of the winning book, an invitation to give a reading in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C.

The Ragdale Foundation will offer a two-week residency to the poet in the year the winning book appears. Letras Latinas will also set aside a modest fund to help defray travel costs associated with further promotion of the winning book. The Letras Latinas / Red Hen Poetry Prize is awarded every other year. There is no entry fee.

The inaugural deadline is January 15, 2012.

Final Judge: Orlando Ricardo Menes

Orlando Ricardo Menes' poems have appeared in such literary magazines as Ploughshares, The Antioch Review, Shenandoah, Chelsea, Callaloo, Prairie Schooner, North American Review, New Letters, Indiana Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Epoch, among others. His latest poetry collection, Furia, was published by Milkweed Editions in 2005. He is also the author of Rumba Atop the Stones and editor of two anthologies: Re-naming Ecstasy: Latino Writings on the Sacred (Bilingual Press, 2004) and The Opening Light: Poets from Notre Dame, 1991 — 2008 (University of Notre Dame Press, 2011). A book of translations, entitled My Heart Flooded with Water: Selected Poems by Alfonsina Storni, appeared from Latin American Literary Review Press in 2009. Orlando Menes teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Notre Dame, where he is an Associate Professor in the English Department. In 2009, he was awarded a literature fellowship (poetry) by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

 

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Guidelines

Only submissions following these guidelines will be considered.

 

Eligibility

Latino or Latina poets who have had one or two full-length books of poetry professionally published: to establish eligibility, authors are asked to include with their submission a photocopy of both the title and copyright page of a first or second book of poems. Authors who have published three or more full-length books of poetry are not eligible.

Manuscripts may be submitted elsewhere simultaneously, but authors must notify the Institute for Latino Studies immediately if a manuscript becomes committed to another press. It is understood that, in the absence of such notification, the winning author is committed to publishing his/her manuscript with Red Hen Press. A manuscript committed to another press is not eligible for the Letras Latinas / Red Hen Poetry Prize. Employees and students of the University of Notre Dame and employees and board members of Red Hen Press are not eligible. Also, in the interest of widening the circle, winners of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize - the Letras Latinas first book award - are not eligible.

• TWO hard copies of your manuscript must be submitted.
• Manuscripts must be of original poetry, in English, by one poet who is a citizen or resident of the United States. There are no restrictions on the style of poetry or subject matter. Translations are not eligible.
• The manuscript must be a minimum of 50 numbered pages and a maximum of 100 numbered pages in length. All manuscripts must be paginated. Each new poem must start a new page.
• The manuscript should begin with unnumbered frontmatter: a title page that shows the book's title and your name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address; a table of contents; and (if applicable) a list of acknowledgements.
• Also, please include a single title page with nothing else on it in order to facilitate the blind reading of your manuscript on the part of the final judge.
• Begin paginating the manuscript after the front matter. If your book is divided into parts or has an epigraph, Page 1 will be the first part title or the epigraph. Otherwise, Page 1 will be the first poem.
• In formatting the manuscript, please make legibility your first priority. If you use a word processor, choose a standard typeface (such as Garamond or Times New Roman) in at least 10-point type. Manuscripts should be single-spaced or 1.5 spaced. Handwritten manuscripts will not be accepted.
• A brief biography may appear at the end of the manuscript. This information is not required and, if submitted, need not be included in the page count.
• Each manuscript should be fastened with a binder clip. Staples, report covers, and other bindings should not be used.
• Authors who wish the ILS to acknowledge the receipt of their manuscripts must enclose a self-addressed, stamped postcard.
• Manuscripts submitted to the contest will not be returned. Please keep a copy of the manuscript.
• A brief biography may appear at the end of the manuscript. This information is not required and, if submitted, need not be included in the page count.
• Each manuscript should be fastened with a binder clip. Staples, report covers, and other bindings should not be used.
• Authors who wish the ILS to acknowledge the receipt of their manuscripts must enclose a self-addressed, stamped postcard.
• Manuscripts submitted to the contest will not be returned. Please keep a copy of the manuscript.
• Due to staff limitations, only those poets who make it to finalist or short list status will be notified. Otherwise, authors can learn who the winner of the prize is by checking LETRAS LATINAS BLOG.

The Institute for Latino Studies reserves the right to withhold the "Letras Latinas / Red Hen Poetry Prize" in any given year.

Please send TWO copies of your manuscript, via US Mail, postmarked no later than January 15, 2012, to:

Francisco Aragón
Coordinator, Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize
Institute for Latino Studies
230 McKenna Hall
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556

See our full-page ad in the 2011 AWP Conference Program

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fellowship program

J. Frank Dobie's ranch house

Sponsored by the Graduate School at The University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Institute of Letters, the Dobie Paisano Fellowship Program provides solitude, time, and a comfortable place for Texas writers or writers who have written significantly about Texas. The retreat is on a 250 acre ranch about twenty minutes west of Austin. Here J. Frank Dobie's ranch house sits below a wall of cliffs and near a clear, beautiful creek. The house is furnished simply and comfortably, with modern conveniences. Utilities, internet, and phone service are provided, though the fellow must pay for long distance telephone service.

At the time of application, the applicant must meet one of the following requirements: (1) be a native Texan, (2) have resided in Texas at least three years at some time, or (3) have published significant work with a Texas subject. Those who meet requirement 1 or 2 do not have to meet the Texas subject matter restriction.

There are two distinct fellowships - one for September 1 - December 31 with a stipend of $5000 a month (the Ralph A. Johnston Memorial Fellowship); one for February 1 - July 31 with a stipend of $3000 a month (the Jesse H. Jones Writing Fellowship). Length of residency may change for maintenance or program needs. The fellowships are available to both creative writers and writers of non-fiction. Non-fiction should be written for the general audience.

The Jesse H. Jones Writing Fellowship will be aimed at, though certainly not limited to, writers who are early in their careers and who would benefit from an extended period at the ranch.  Demonstration of prior publishing and critical success is not expected, though, as in the past, many applicants will indeed have such a record.  Any writer at any level of success (including those with strong publishing records) is eligible for the Jesse Jones Fellowship.

The Ralph A. Johnston Memorial Fellowship is aimed at writers who have already demonstrated some publishing and critical success.  This may or may not be writers a little later along in their literary careers.  The definition of "publishing and critical success" will be determined by the judges each year, but, in general, we would expect at least one critically well-received book, or an impressive list of published essays, articles, poems, stories, etc.  The decision of the judges will be based on the quality of the writer's past work and the potential for future excellence.  Of course, the writer's suitability for ranch life is always taken into account.  We will be asking this writer to give a reading or talk at the university during the residency. 

Applicants may apply for both fellowships. The application fee is $20 for one fellowship or $30 for both fellowships. If applying for both, include the $30 application fee with the Ralph A. Johnston Memorial Fellowship application and check the appropriate box at the top of the Johnston application form. Application fees are non-refundable. Each application and its accompanying materials must be mailed in separate packets.  There will be separate judging panels for each fellowship.

Read the letter from the President of the Texas Institute of Letters if you are planning to apply. The letter is in .pdf format.  To access this letter you need Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. (Download free Adobe Acrobat Reader.)

"Discovery" / Boston Review

Poetry Contest

Now in its fifth decade, the "Discovery" Poetry Contest, formerly "Discovery"/The Nation, is designed to attract large audiences to poets who have not yet published a book.

For the fourth year, the 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center is proud to partner with Boston Review. Four winners are awarded a reading at the Poetry Center (set for Mon, May 9, 2011, at 8:15pm), publication in Boston Review and $500 each.

Timothy Donnelly, poetry editor at Boston Review, coordinates the contest. The judges for the 2012 contest are Tony Hoagland, Lisa Russ Spaar and Arthur Sze. The deadline to submit is Friday, Jan 13, 2012, by 5 pm. See guidelines below.

Cornelius Eady, Brenda Hillman and D. A. Powell judged in 2011.

 

The four winners of the 2011 “Discovery”/Boston Review Poetry Contest are: Ansel Elkins, of Greensboro, NC; Angelo Nikolopoulos of New York, NY; Adam Roberts, of Iowa City, IA; and Solmaz Sharif, of Los Angeles, CA.

The three runners-up for 2011 are Xavier Cavazos of Ames, IA; Rebecca Lehmann of Tallahassee, FL; and Megan Williams of Boise, ID.

 

This contest is endowed by Joan L. and Dr. Julius H. Jacobson, II.

Download the "Discovery"/Boston Review 2012 Guidelines here.

Harvest of Shame:

Slavery in America

A system predicated on slavery must be dismantled.

—

This is the way the humans who harvest the food for the best-fed people in the world get hired. One farmer looked at this and said, ‘We used to own our slaves; now we just rent them.’

–Edward R. Murrow, 1960, CBS News

CBS News chief national correspondent Byron Pitts reports on the condition of migrant farm workers 50 years after the premiere of Edward R. Murrow's celebrated documentary "Harvest of Shame."

 

In 1960 CBS aired a television documentary, “Harvest of Shame” that revealed the disturbing plight of America’s migrants who worked in the “sweatshops of the soil.”  Producer Lowe said that it aired after Thanksgiving to “stress the fact that much of the food cooked for Thanksgiving [was] picked by migratory workers” and to “shock the consciousness of the nation.”  Indeed, the footage was shocking, showing families of workers working and living in extreme, dehumanizing poverty; and the same scenes today should shame the consciousness of the nation even more.

 

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In 1970, NBC returned to Florida to see what had changed in 10 years since “Harvest of Shame.”  “White Paper: The Migrants” showed that not much had changed.  The 1980 sequel concluded the same thing ten years later.  Likewise, in 1998 for NBC’s “Children of the Harvest,” which followed the lives of migrant children who worked the fields beside their families.  Even though a farm worker must legally be at least 12 years old to work, they regularly found 5 and 6 year old children in the fields.  The youngest child working was only two years old.  Last year, NBC aired a sequel, following the Cruz family, as the parents and even their 10 year old Ulises worked in the fields.  That same year the independent documentary “The Harvest” followed 3 of an estimated 500,000 children who work in America’s fields.  For Zulema Lopez, 12, one of her earliest childhood memories is of her mother teaching her how to pick and clean strawberries.  She makes 64 dollars a week.  “I think I’m helping her [my mother] with that.”

Migrant farm workers average from 10 to 12,000 dollars a year.  Adult migrant workers are often paid below the minimum wage, but children field workers who are under the age of 16 are not even entitled to minimum wage.  Many work for only 2 or 3 dollars an hour.    Farm work is 4 times more dangerous than any other industry with more than 100,000 children and adolescents being injured every year.  Children expose themselves to long term illnesses from the sun, pesticides, and hours spent bending over.  The agricultural industry accounts for 40% of all work place fatalities for youths. 162 children died in agricultural work during a 5 year period in the 1990s.

America’s agriculture relies on undocumented immigrants who make up over half of the work force, but it also relies on documented immigration in the form of the H2 guestworker program.  A 2007 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center entitled “Close to Slavery” reported:

Bound to a single employer and without access to legal resources, guestworkers are:

• routinely cheated out of wages;

• forced to mortgage their futures to obtain low-wage, temporary jobs;

• held virtually captive by employers or labor brokers who seize their documents;

• forced to live in squalid conditions; and,

• denied medical benefits for on-the-job injuries.

U.S Rep. Charles Rangel recently put it this way: ‘This guestworker program’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to slavery.’

Congressman Rangel’s conclusion is not mere hyperbole — and not the first time such a comparison has been made. Former Department of Labor official Lee G. Williams described the old “bracero” program — the guestworker program that brought thousands of Mexican nationals to work in the United States during and after World War II — as a system of ‘legalized slavery.’ In practice, there is little difference between the bracero program and the current H-2 guestworker program.

The H-2 guestworker system also can be viewed as a modern-day system of indentured servitude. But unlike European indentured servants of old, today’s guestworkers have no prospect of becoming U.S. citizens. When their work visas expire, they must leave the United States. They are, in effect, the disposable workers of the U.S. economy.

Bleeding in progress

– making public

the violence of rape

by Sokari on November 25, 2011

 

Visual activist, Zanele Muholi discusses her most recent photographic installation “Isilumo Siyaluma”

 

A search for sanctuary

Sexual violence against women in Haiti is widespread, but a support group is standing up for the victims, as Angela Robson, professional winner of the competition, finds out

• By Angela Robson

• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 20 November 2011 20.00 EST

Many women have suffered sexual violence after moving to the camps set up after the earthquake that destroyed much of Haiti in 2010. Photograph: Andres Martinez Casares/Polaris/eyevine

It is early morning in downtown Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, and Helia Lajeunesse is tiptoeing her way around pools of rain. Dressed in a dark-blue T-shirt and frayed black trousers, she walks with her head bowed, only raising her eyes when she nears a blossom-clad building at the end of the street.

Waiting patiently for her are three teenage girls. One carries a sleeping baby. Another has no shoes. Helia embraces the girls affectionately and kisses the child on the head. Then she takes them up into the building to a room where a group of four women are already sitting, and where a ceiling fan whirls fitfully.

This is Kofaviv, a rape crisis centre supporting victims of gender-based violence across Haiti's capital city. Run by volunteers, it helps women and girls access medical and psychosocial care, and seek legal redress. It is a peaceful haven for rape survivors, many of whom walk miles in order to have someone to talk to. Helia is one of Kofaviv's 1,000-strong network of "agents" working in the displacement camps and poorest areas of Port-au-Prince.

When speaking about Kofaviv's work, Helia's eyes light up and her voice is clear and passionate. When talking about her own story, she covers her face.

"Rape is not a new phenomenon in Haiti," she explains. "In 2004, it was used as a weapon of intimidation following the departure of former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide."

That was the year masked, armed men came to Helia's house, shooting her husband dead in front of her and their four children. Helia was raped at gunpoint.

"They also raped my 17-year-old daughter," says Helia, her eyes filling with tears. "She gave birth to a little girl as a result of that rape."

But the family was to face further tragedy. In January 2010, they lost their home in the massive 7.0-magnitude earthquake, which left more than 250,000 people dead and more than a million homeless. Helia's youngest son, aged 21, was killed. Her daughter spent six hours under rubble before the family managed to dig her out. For three months the family slept outdoors in a church courtyard.

"The conditions were very bad," says Helia. "We were drinking out of puddles and sleeping outdoors. At night, armed gangs came into the courtyard, terrorising everyone."

Helia was so alarmed that she sent her granddaughter to stay with a relative in an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp on the edge of Port-au-Prince. The same week, the unthinkable happened. The five-year-old child was raped.

"I have come to terms with what happened to me," Helia cries out. "But how can we ever come to terms with this? He tore her little body apart."

Chantal Dumera is Kofaviv's coordinator. Haiti, she says, is witnessing an "epidemic" of rape in the IDP camps, with cases growing in number and brutality. "The majority of attacks take place at night, carried out by men carrying weapons," she explains. "Gang rape is not uncommon. Most survivors are unable to identify their attackers because of the lack of lighting in the camps."

Dumera cites the example of a woman who had been found shot in the head the previous night after having reported her rape to the police. "The perpetrators tell these women to expect retaliation if they go to the authorities," she says.

Dumera pauses and throws up her hands. "It is happening to children of six months, one year, five years. It is something that we cannot even begin to understand."

Dr Magda Cheron is a paediatrician working for FHI 360 (formerly known as Family Health International) in Haiti. She is alarmed by the way sexual violence is increasingly directed against children.

"Children are not adequately protected in the camps. Displacement makes them very vulnerable," she says. "Adolescent girls and women are bathing outside in full view."

More than 600,000 people are still living in the camps. "Sanitation is appalling. Cholera is still a problem," she says. "Toilets, if they exist, are overflowing. People are forced into very close proximity with one another, sleeping up to 10 or 12 in a tent. They feel frustrated and dehumanised."

In August 2011, the International Organisation for Migration polled more than 15,000 camp-dwellers to find out why they were still there despite the insecurity and discomfort posed by living in tents, enduring a cholera epidemic and two consecutive hurricane seasons. The survey found that 94% of people would leave if they had alternative accommodation. Most of those interviewed said if they had to depart immediately, they would not have the means to pay rent or the resources to repair or replace their damaged or destroyed homes.

Amnesty International confirms this evidence. "The people in the camps are the poorest and most vulnerable," says Javier Zuniga, Special Advisor to Amnesty International.

In Place Boyer camp, in the Pétionville district of Port-au-Prince, a group of women and men describe how camp conditions have worsened in recent months.

"We have been forgotten," says one man, pointing to a filthy track leading to the toilets. "Our children are walking in excrement and dragging the waste in and out of the tents. It is on these same tent floors that women are giving birth."

"It is dangerous in the camps but we don't have anywhere else to go," a woman adds. "As for the government and the UN, we would like to invite them here so that they can see for themselves how we live."

Zuniga believes that one of the main challenges for Haiti is the lack of adequately functioning state institutions. Almost a fifth of government workers were killed in the earthquake, and 27 out of 28 federal buildings were destroyed. The limited number of trained police on the ground is an additional problem.

"The UN, which has a mandate for protection, does a small amount of patrolling around Port-au-Prince but they do very little monitoring of the camps," says Zuniga. "As for the protection of women, they are doing very little given the extent of the problem."

"Women and children are being raped in camps and are expected to stay there, with their assailants still at large," he continues. "State capacity needs to be strengthened and rebuilt. There needs to be a far stronger system of government protection."

Despite receiving death threats for the work they do, Kofaviv continues to provide services to women and girls across Port-au-Prince. It has set up a community-watch system and has distributed whistles and torches to women and girls. It is also calling on the government to provide better lighting and security in the camps.

"The more people who stand up and speak out, the more progress we can make," says Helia.

"After everything I have been through, and what has happened to my daughter and my granddaughter, what keeps me going is knowing that I am part of the struggle now, united with other people in the fight against sexual violence."

__________________________

Rape affects almost 20% of

US women, study says

The study revealed that sexual violence against men is also prevalent

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Nearly 20% of women in the US are raped or suffer attempted rape at some point in their lives, a US study says.

Even more women, estimated at 25%, have been attacked by a partner or husband, the Centers for Disease Control said.

The findings form part of the first set of results from a nationwide study surveying sexual violence by intimate partners against men and women.

More than 24 people a minute reported rape, violence, or stalking, it says, with 12 million offences reported.

Experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) described the results of the first year of the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey as "astounding".

Among the key figures included in the survey's findings were:

• more than one million women were raped in the 12 months prior to the survey, estimates show
• more than six million women and men were a victim of stalking
• more than 12 million women and men reported rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner over the course of a year.

Lifelong hurt

"People who experience sexual violence, stalking or intimate partner violence often deal with the effects for their entire life," said Dr Linda Degutis, director of CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.

Many of those attacked experience rape or sexual assault in their early years, with almost 80% of rape victims suffering their ordeal before the age of 25.

Some 35% of women raped before they were aged 18 were also raped as adults, Dr Degutis added.

Among the effects measured by the study, Dr Degutis said, were increased fears for safety and incidents of post-traumatic stress among victims.

Clinical conditions including asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, diabetes, frequent headaches, chronic pain and difficulty sleeping were also more likely in women who are raped or subject to assault.

There were also clear findings about the incidences of attacks on men and observations about health impacts on men who suffer rape or sexual assault.

An estimated one in 71 men has been raped at some point in their lives, the study finds.

Almost 53% of male victims experienced some form of intimate partner violence for the first time before the age of 25. Some 25% of male rape victims were first raped when they were 10 years old or younger, the findings show.

The study data was based on a survey of 9,086 women and 7,421 men from around the US, the CDC said. Results were weighted in an effort to ensure nationally representative results.

Researchers conceded that sample size limited the study, but said they felt the methods used in the survey were likely to encourage genuine responses.

Research was carried out in a health context, the CDC said, without involvement of law enforcement, in an effort to ensure respondents felt able to describe incidents that could have involved close friends or family members.

__________________________

The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS)

On average, 24 people per minute are victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in the United States, based on a survey conducted in 2010. Over the course of a year, that equals more than 12 million women and men. Those numbers only tell part of the story—more than 1 million women are raped in a year and over 6 million women and men are victims of stalking in a year. These findings emphasize that sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence are important and widespread public health problems in the United States.

War Redefined

November 8, 2011

Watch the Full Episode:

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The capstone of Women, War & Peace, War Redefined challenges the conventional wisdom that war and peace are men’s domain through incisive interviews with leading thinkers, Secretaries of State and seasoned survivors of war and peace-making. Their experiences reveal how the post-Cold War proliferation of small arms has changed the landscape of war, with women becoming primary targets and suffering unprecedented casualty rates. Simultaneously, they describe how women are emerging as necessary partners in brokering lasting peace and as leaders in forging new international laws governing conflict. War Redefined reframes our understanding of modern warfare through probing conversations with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Madeleine Albright; Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee; Bosnian war crimes investigator Fadila Memisevic; Zainab Salbi, Founder of Women for Women International; globalization expert Moisés Naím; and Cynthia Enloe of Clark University, among others. Narrated by Geena Davis.