2011 FOUR WAY BOOKS LEVIS PRIZE IN POETRY
Judge: Claudia Rankine
Submission Dates: January 1 – March 31, 2011 (postmark or email deadline) by online submission manager or regular mail. Postmark deadline March 31 and email deadline (by 3 am EST April 1).

Awarding publication of a book-length collection and $1000.

Open to any poet writing in English, regardless of publication history.
Submissions accepted on-line (preferred) and by mail.

Please read the following instructions carefully.

Online submission:
Submitting to us online is easy, saves you money, and saves trees.

• Fill out our

online entry form and follow the directions for online credit card payment on our secure site.
• You will be assigned an online entry number. You will then submit your manuscript through our online submissions program.

By mail:

• Submit a previously unpublished, full-length poetry manuscript by regular mail (USPS only).

• Please include a completed Entry Form. Click here to download the Entry Form (PDF format). (You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print the Entry Form.)
• Include one cover page with the title of your work and all of your contact information, including your email address if you have one. Your name and contact information should not appear anywhere else in the manuscript.
• You must include a second cover page with just the title of your work, no other contact info.
• No more than one poem per page, please. More than one section of a poem can appear on a page, of course.
• No page limit, but we recommend a length of between 48 and 80 pages of poetry. This page limit does not include your title page, notes, etc.
• Do not include art work.
• Please use a legible font of 12 point.
• Include an entry fee of $28 with your submission, by check, made payable to Four Way Books. A stamped self-addressed postcard may be included to confirm receipt of manuscript. Multiple submissions may be mailed together. If you submit more than one manuscript, please supply contact info for both and an increased fee ($28 per submission).

Mail submission and entry fee to:

Four Way Books
POB 535 Village Station
New York NY 10014

GENERAL GUIDELINES (for all submitters)
• Please let us know immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
• Material in your manuscript may have been published previously in a chapbook, magazines, journals or anthologies, but the work as a whole must be unpublished.
• Translations and previously self-published books are not eligible.
• There are no length requirements save that book-length collections of poetry usually run between 45 pages of text and 80 pages.

NOTFICATION
The winner will be notified by email or phone no later than Labor Day. Submitters will be notified by email only. The result will also be posted on our website by Labor Day.

We do not return manuscripts. We do not offer editorial feedback to submitters.

Our Reading Policy
Each manuscript is delivered to our readers as a blind submission. That is, it is stripped of identifying material. Only the manuscript, inclusive of any text notes, is sent to the readers and, if chosen as a finalist, to the judge. We do not give a list of submitters to the judge.

Please do not submit to this contest if you are close enough to Claudia Rankine that her integrity, your integrity, and the integrity of Four Way Books would be called into question should you be selected as the winner. You may query us if you have questions regarding this matter. We will allow you to submit to us outside of the contest if you feel that you are treading deep water in this regard. Please query by email to editors@fourwaybooks.com.

Our preliminary readers for the contest are selected by the director of the press and are published poets, experienced editors, and/or poets who have received a graduate degree in creative writing or literature. Each manuscript is read by at least two readers. We regularly rotate our readers.

Our readers select an approximately 50 manuscripts as finalist selections. They look for work that is beautifully crafted–manuscripts that feel whole and well shaped. They do not try to second guess a judge's preference. Rather, they look to present a wide range of excellent work to the judge.

Finalists are notified in May that their work will be sent on to the judge. On occasion, a judge may ask to see more work – the judge is not allowed to ask for specific work by a specific writer, but may ask to see a wider sampling of strong work. If that is the case, the press reviews the submissions again and more manuscripts are sent to the judge as finalists. Therefore, we do not inform the public of finalist selections since that list may grow after May.

The judge is instructed to notify the press of any indiscretions. If a submitter contacts the judge regarding the contest, that person will be disqualified. If the judge does not select a winner, the press's director and senior editors will select a finalist's manuscript to publish.

ČERVENÁ BARVA PRESS Poetry and Fiction Chapbook Contest.
January 2-March 31. Judges will be announced. $12 entry fee.

This contest is open to any writer from all over the world.
If entering the contest from outside the USA, please use an international money order only.

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Guidelines for poetry:

Send 3-24 poems, SASE, $12.00 entry fee payable to Červená Barva Press, title page with contact information including e-mail, phone number, and address. Please include a page with just the title.

Winner of the poetry chapbook contest receives 25 chapbooks and $100.00
Everyone who enters the poetry chapbook contest will receive a copy of the winning chapbook.

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Guidelines for fiction:

Send one or more short stories, one long story, or flash fiction.
Please do not exceed 15 pages, single typed. Send in 11PT Garamond.
Include title page, title page with contact information including e-mail, address, phone number and SASE..
Make entry fee for $12.00 payable to Červená Barva Press.

Winner of the fiction chapbook contest receives 25 chapbooks and $100.00
Everyone who enters the fiction chapbook contest will receive a copy of the winning chapbook.

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Please note: Judges will be announced shortly.
Last year, Afaa Michael Weaver judged the poetry and Dorothy Freudenthal judged the fiction.

Send to:
Červená Barva Press
Poetry/Fiction Contest
P.O. Box 440357
W. Somerville, MA 02144-3222

Visit the Červená Barva Press bookstore, The Lost Bookshelf.
Click on the Červená Barva Press bookstore button and scroll down to look at our chapbooks.
We do quality work on all our chapbooks and books. www.thelostbookshelf.com

Finally, one last note: please make sure your submissions are neat and that you followed the guidelines. If you have any questions or need further information, contact me at: editor@cervenabarvapress.com

Thank you-
Gloria

Poems of Solidarity for Haiti

PDF of Collection of Poems
Available for Download
Atlanta, Georgia

 

Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010, Alice Lovelace, Armed With Art and In Motion Magazine initiated a contest to collect poems of solidarity for Haiti. Alice Lovelace wrote, "We know that art can heal, we invite you to write a poem of solidarity from your heart to the people of Haiti to help them in their healing." (See original Call to Submit Poems.)

In addition to making available online the collection of poems of solidarity, a donation was made to Haiti relief efforts in the name of the contest winner. (See original Announcement of Winning Poems).

We thank everyone who submitted a poem.

We invite our readers to share the link to this free downloadable collection with your friends, family and colleagues. We ask that you write your congressperson to request the release of aid our government promised to Haiti, but has yet to deliver. Let us keep the on-going crisis in Haiti and the conditions of the Haitian people uplifted in our thoughts, words, and actions.

Here is a PDF of all the poems submitted:

• Poems of Solidarity for Haiti
  free download of PDF of 126-page collection

   

The Poems of Solidarity collection also includes the following article written one year after the earthquake:

• Million Plus Remain Homeless and Displaced in Haiti:
  One Year After Quake
  by Bill Quigley and Jeena Shah
  New Orleans, Louisiana and Port au Prince, Haiti

   

Here are the poems of the contest winner and other finalists:

1st Place: Sharecropper's Pantoum by M. Ayodele Heath

2nd Place: Ayiti by April 'AP' Smith 

 

Honorable Mention:

Wings Soaked in Molasses by Darnell Fine

Haiti, after Pat Robertson by Karen Garrbrant

Everybody Running, Saying Jesus by Jenny D'Angelo

Tomorrow's Toussaints by Kalamu ya Salaam

Published in In Motion Magazine January 22, 2011

The next love jones (if it becomes a feature that is…)

By Sergio, on February 27th, 2011

People  just love… I mean LOOOOOOOOVVVVEEEE love jones (not a typo the first letters weren’t capitalized). Personally I don’t get it and never did. I guess mainly because it’s a romance and us tough guys don’t like romance. We like it hard and rough. But I can’t get into that right now (though actually that could be a subject for a more extended piece sometime in the future).

But I’ve seen a funny and very charming film that I like very much, with black characters who are engaging and interesting and successful (and dare I say it?) yes even bougie. It’s called Their Eyes Were Watching Gummy Bears (the title will make sense if you see the film). However the film is a short currently on the film festival circuit, but it’s wonderfully acted and directed by Raafi Rivero, and feels like a condensed version of a feature film, which the filmmakers might have in mind to make one day. Take a look at the trailer:

 

Here is a ”making of” featurette:

Black Future: Model Damaris Lewis

By BV Staff

Posted Jan 27th 2011 7:30AM

Editor's Note: For Black History Month we've chosen to not only remind readers of African-Americans' rich past, but to also spotlight some of the young people who're poised to make history in the coming years -- our "Black Future."

You may not know her name, but you definitely know her face. Calling upon the presence, body and poise of the iconic models of the '90s, Damaris Lewis has graced the pages of top magazines including V, Vogue Paris, Marie Claire, Vibe and Sports Illustrated for the third consecutive year. She's also been the face of campaigns by top beauty companies like Yves St. Laurent. Inspired by the model moguls of the past, Lewis is not limiting herself to fashion and beauty. With a new movie in the works and an appearance in Kanye West's 'Monster' video, this up-and-coming model is destined to become a household name in no time. -- Rhonesha Byng

When you think of Black History and Black Achievement, what do you think of, and how do you see yourself fitting into that legacy?

We come from a race that at one point in time, people didn't want us to make history. People didn't want us to do anything. If it wasn't for the people who came before me, then the stuff that I do wouldn't be possible. I'd like to continue making a difference, and have people in a couple of years look back and say, "The reason I still have my job is because Damaris changed something."

In your field, having a strong sense of identity is important -- keeping this in mind, how do you define yourself and keep a sense of identity throughout what you do?

I like to use the word unusual. Not in a bad way, but I have a phrase that says, "At birth you are given a name that serves as your identification, but it's up to you to define you." Technically I don't have a full definition yet, but I do think that by living my life I create my definition. Definition is something that is made and not something that you are born with.

 

Can you explain why being an American black model is a rarity for those who aren't in tune with the fashion industry and what it's like in the fashion industry right now?

It's a rarity because there will always be a 1:5 ratio unless there's a project that is centered around the African-American models. When you go to a casting you might be 1 in 30, when you go to a job and there's 10 girls you might be the only black girl; that's just how we have to live our lives. But the thing I love about being a black model is that none of us look alike. At the end of the day, we all stand out.

Do you ever think about who came before you and how you're continuing their legacy?

I look up to Naomi's generation, Tyra's generation, the Beverly Johnson generation, these were women -- not teenagers -- who made their brand as business women. They took photos, but at the same time they understood how to use their money. They knew how to negotiate and they knew how to stay in the game. I look up to those women also because they had bodies, they were athletic and they had presence. When a model from today walks in a room, a lot of the time you won't know that she's there unless she says "Hi, I'm so-and-so."

What about the legacy of the models who broke down barriers and opened doors to allow you to do what you do? How does the thought of their legacy influence you?

When I'm shooting, I get the most gratifcation when someone tells me that I remind them of a '90s model or an early 2000's model. I think that as far as their legacy, it makes me push on because there's a sense of remembrance. I have my job right now because there was someone before me who paved the way for me, who opened doors for me and let people see that the black model is here to stay.

Which model do you feel opened the door for you?

I'd say Tyra. Tyra started off skinny and in fashion and then she transferred into the Sports Illustrated-Victoria's Secret world and captivated the minds of a lot of people because she was able to do the switch, and she was able to do it wisely. My story is very similar to hers. I started off in fashion, I went to Paris a lot, and then by the grace of God got picked up by Sports Illustrated. Tyra's honestly one of the only references that I can have to being a model in this industry and growing up in this industry, because we got to watch her grow.

How do you hope to transform your industry and develop your career?

I want to bring back the model who is a mogul. I want to bring back the model who had different talents. I look up to the Cindy Crawfords of the modeling industry. They're still around because they branded themselves and they branched out. It;s great to model, but if you have the talent and the drive to take it somewhere else, then why not? I plan on using my other talents besides taking pictures to get off of the paper.

How does it feel, and how does what you're doing now connect with the legacy of the history that came before you?

I tell people everyday that I need to pinch myself. All I wanted to do was dance and go to school. When I was found by my agent at 13 years-old, I didn't want to do it. Now it's surreal. Being a girl who comes from Brooklyn -- not necessarily a great part of Brooklyn -- you don't grow up with dreams like that. You grow up with dreams, but you don't grow up thinking that they are going to come true.

As a race, we need to embrace every race, and in order to keep creating history we need to get everyone on board to know that we are creating our history. We have Barack Obama in office right now. He's a bi-racial president and that shows people that we can create something great, and so that's what I want to continue to do. I want to keep showing people that yes. the color of my skin might be brown, but what lies underneath is no different than any other race.

Anti-Abortion Billboard Targeting Blacks Placed In New York’s SoHo Neighborhood

Thursday Feb 24, 2011 – By Jamilah Lemieux

Yesterday, Texas-based anti-abortion group Life Always erected a billboard targeted at African-American women on the corner of Watts and Sixth Avenue in New York’s upscale SoHo shopping district. According to the NY Times, Steven Broden, a pastor and Life Always board member, stated that the campaign is starting here in New York and will spread to other cities over the next few weeks. He added that a Black History Month start date was intentional, as to highlight the “disproportionate” number of Black women who terminate pregnancies each year.

The Times cites 2009 Department of Health statistics, which report an overall abortion rate of 41% and 59.8% for non-Hispanic Black women.

In a statement, city public advocate Bill de Blasio said, “This billboard simply doesn’t belong in New York City. The ad violates the values of New Yorkers and is grossly offensive to women and minorities.” He added, “A mix of intolerance and bad judgment put this ad up. Common decency demands it be taken down.”

In Wednesday’s press conference, which was described by the Times as “sparsely attended,” Reverend Michael J. Faulkner of Harlem’s New Horizon Church joined Broden in describing abortion as genocide and claimed the ad was not meant to attack one group of women. “This is not targeting black women. This is targeting the practice, and saying to black women, ‘If you find yourself in this crisis of an unexpected, unwanted pregnancy, there are alternatives,” he stated.

Broden stated that the billboard was placed in the “largely White” neighborhood, as opposed to areas in Brooklyn, Harlem or the Bronx that boast large Black populations, because it would be “the best way to get attention.” The family of the young girl pictured, who Broden described as a “prop”, contacted Brooklyn City Councilwoman Letitia James to say that they were outraged by the poster and that they had been told the child’s image would be used in a different manner. The advertising company responsible for the ad claims that the family signed a standard picture release form.

City Councilwoman Christine C. Quinn, who represents the SoHo district where the billboard was placed, had harsh words for Life Always: “To refer to a woman’s legal right to an abortion as a ‘genocidal plot’ is not only absurd, but it is offensive to women and to communities of color. Every woman deserves the right to make health care decisions for herself, and I will continue to fight to protect this basic right and against this sort of fear mongering.”

The billboard sits only a few blocks from Planned Parenthood’s SoHo clinic, which the Life Always site refers to as an “abortion office”. Abortion accounts for only 3% of the visits to Planned Parenthood locations across the country each year. An official statement from the organization about the offensive ad states that the campaign is “an offensive and condescending effort to stigmatize and shame African-American women while attempting to discredit the work of Planned Parenthood.”

The statement goes on to say that in 2010, New York’s Planned Parenthood offices provided “71,000 STI tests, 56,000 family planning visits, 21,000 HIV tests, 19,000 contraception consultations and 12,000 cervical cancer screenings.” In addition, they deal with “tens of thousands of parents, caregivers, teens and community based organizations” through educational outreach initiatives. “The unintended pregnancy rate in New York City is impacted by a myriad of societal factors, including poverty, access to information and education, access to birth control, and intimate partner violence, among others.”

The statement quotes columnist Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal Constitution who stated, “It’s both sexist and racist to suggest that black women don’t have the intellectual and emotional firepower to make their own decisions.” In response to the emergence of these billboards in Los Angeles last month, Janette Robinson Flint, Executive Director of Black Women for Wellness, wrote “Black women stand at the intersection of racism and sexism in this country, and we face the pain of living at this crossroads every day. It is demonstrated by our health status — we suffer from some of the highest health disparities in Los Angeles County. Rather than allow outside agitators to barge in and try to divide us by scape-goating Black women for political gain, Black women’s organizations and our allies must come together to find solutions to ending the health disparities and crises we face.”

__________________________

__________________________

 Half Life

Don't Believe the Hype: Attempting to re-frame a woman's right to choose as genocide against blacks is one of the ways in which anti-abortionists try to persuade.

Anti-abortion advocates kill me (and not because I am a doctor who performs abortions).

They yell and scream and pray and shout and speak in tongues to protect fetuses, but once they are born and are actually living, breathing children, they no longer give a fuck.

Let's have a look at the evidence provided by The New York Times'Charles M. Blow:

Republicans need to figure out where they stand on children’s welfare. They can’t be “pro-life” when the “child” is in the womb but indifferent when it’s in the world. Allow me to illustrate just how schizophrenic their position has become through the prism of premature babies.

The bad news is that, according to the March of Dimes, the Republican budget passed in the House this month could do great damage to this progress. The budget proposes:

• $50 million in cuts to the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant that “supports state-based prenatal care programs and services for children with special needs.”

• $1 billion in cuts to programs at the National Institutes of Health that support “lifesaving biomedical research aimed at finding the causes and developing strategies for preventing preterm birth.”

• Nearly $1 billion in cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for its preventive health programs, including to its preterm birth studies.

This is the same budget in which House Republicans voted to strip all federal financing for Planned Parenthood.

It is savagely immoral and profoundly inconsistent to insist that women endure unwanted — and in some cases dangerous — pregnancies for the sake of “unborn children,” then eliminate financing designed to prevent those children from being delivered prematurely, rendering them the most fragile and vulnerable of newborns. How is this humane?

It's not.

But in the world of cognitive dissonance, it is very possible to both love fetuses and be indifferent or hostile to the welfare of actual children while simultaneously claiming moral authority. It is utter bullshit, but they do it every day of the week and are unbothered by the contradiction.  

They are NOT pro-life; they are anti-abortion, which is, at root, about defining patriarchal power vis-à-vis absolute control over a woman's body.

Don't believe the hype. 

Read more.

__________________________

On Abortion and Humanness

My girl DeeDee was to most, including her older sister and mother, too young to care for a child.  They, as women, had traveled the road of being young mothers and saw promise and redemption in DeeDee, who shared my gifted and talented classes in high school.  I distinctly remember the somber faces sitting in the waiting area of the doctor’s office where DeeDee would terminate her pregnancy.  I recall the blank faces of the women, some my age, some older, and the weight.  I could see the weight that they were carrying, and not any in pregnancy pounds.  I sat there with her, sixteen, holding her hand, hoping she wouldn’t be broken by what she was facing, wondering if I would have the courage that she did even in her trembles.  This was my first experience with abortion past a medical, textbook definition and what I had learned in my Catholic CCE classes about how girls like my friend DeeDee and the doctors who performed abortions were evil.  DeeDee wasn’t a murderer.  She was just a girl, an awkward book worm like me who believed in the boy who promised her everything, including love, but who wouldn’t even accompany her on that day because he “didn’t know if the baby was his or not.”  In that moment, whether I realized it or not, I became pro-choice.

Many years later, past my teenage years, my best friend T, who was struggling through an unproductive relationship with her son’s father, and working diligently to support a new baby boy, found out she was pregnant, again.  She cried, we both did, wondering how this happened, though we knew, and lamenting on ideas of raining and pouring.  At this point in our lives we were both mothers and we understood, without doubt, the cost of mothering.  She knew she wasn’t prepared to take on the responsibility of another child.  I mostly listened, and wiped tears, and held hands, much like I had done with DeeDee those years before.  In addition though, this time, I gave what I could financially to help her end the pregnancy.  I suppose now, according to many, I was supporting the end of a life and was by definition, complicit in committing murder.  In my eyes though, I was helping to save a life, T’s, in giving her hope and another chance to get it right.  Who among us, in all our glory and sin, does not deserve another chance? The human journey, especially for women, is hard.

Nailah, my magnificent, brilliant, and healthy five year old daughter, gives me life.  After reading Ta-Nehisi Coates‘ post concerning the GOP’s desire to gain (more) control over women’s reproductive health I revisited my own birth story.  Nailah’s father and I were newlyweds and so ready to start a family that we hurried into getting pregnant.  I knew, I believe, when Nailah was conceived.  I certainly knew I was pregnant before a test (even a blood test almost) could confirm it.  I was excited about becoming a mother, that in itself I realized was the good fortune that some women never have.  We chose midwives who worked within a local hospital, as we wanted our birth experience to be as natural and non-evasive as possible.  I quickly had to change to a high risk doctor though, as I realized that I had a very rare blood clotting disorder that would make my pregnancy difficult.  This condition could be dangerous, but it usually was not according to my doctor and specialist, so I went on with my hopes of a fairy tell birth like those wonderful ones I watched often on The Learning Channel.

Despite a difficult and painful pregnancy, I had done all the right things.  I ate well, took those disgusting prenatal vitamins, picked out African baby names and bought lots of books for my future bundle of joy.  I would read to her, nightly, as she lay in my womb.  I was hopeful and unprepared for what would soon come.  It came anyway.  A few days before my pregnancy hit the six month mark I was told by my doctor why the headaches I had been having were leaving me incapacitated.  I was quickly admitted into the hospital and told that I was, essentially, having a stroke.  The condition was pregnancy induced hypertension (or preeclampsia). Over the next few days my organs began to shut down.  Also, my daughter was not receiving the blood flow that she needed to develop.  We were both apparently dying.

We survived, the both of us.  We are fortunate in ways that I can’t lend words to.  Nailah, born at one pound and one ounce, spent the first four months of her life in the neonatal intensive care unit, as did I, visiting every day for her entire stay.  And even in that, the terror of not knowing from one day to the next if the child that you love with all of you will die, or be handicapped by any one, or all, of a long list of illnesses associated with premature infants, was mostly unbearable.  It was a weight.  A weight similar to what I had witnessed the women in DeeDee’s doctor’s office carry, and DeeDee, and T, and, well, many women.  The other day, after reading Tah-Nehisi’s analysis and contemplating what has been happening in the news from the GOP’s stance on abortion definitions to South Dakota’s attempted legislation making possibly murdering an abortion doctor, or anyone associated with an abortion procedure, a justifiable homicide, I pondered if I would have known upfront the hardships that I would face in my pregnancy and even what Nailah might have faced as a result of my condition, would I have chosen to terminate my pregnancy.  Would I become one of the women that this nation appears to hate?  Would I be a murderer, a sinner, a statistic?

What I have realized is that regardless of whether or not I chose to terminate my pregnancy or stand by the sides of my sisters T and DeeDee, as a woman I am still very much under attack.  Regardless of whether abortions are legal, or whether killing an abortion provider is legal, abortions will still take place, as they always have.  What many consider means to stop abortions are actually only means to withdraw safe environments for women to do what they will do, which is and has always been what they deem necessary.  As much as I despise comparing the events of the Maafa with, well, anything else that has ever occurred, I somehow feel less free and less in control of my personhood today.  I stopped trying to change people’s minds in my twenties.  I am fully aware that opinions are heavily formed by experience, and we each have our own.  What I hope to do is provide something more profound to this debate- humanness.  We live in and by theories that others philosophize, laws that others enact, decisions that have absolutely nothing to do with our well being, bartering all the while with the lives of others.  In these acts, we call ourselves righteous.  There is something very, very wrong and even cowardly about it all, which, I gather, is all I really am trying to say.

============

>via: http://jonubian.com/2011/02/16/on-abortion-and-humanness/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Tale of Two Women at a Crossroads in Haiti

Feb 26, 2011 – 11:10 AM

Emily Troutman Contributor

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Mirlande Manigat wants to be the president of Haiti. She is 70 years old. She is a professor, and she went to the Sorbonne.

Alexandra Delophene wants to go to school. She is 19 years old. She is a mother, and she had the baby when she was 17.

Last week, Manigat began the second round of her campaign in the small ghetto of Solino. As she rounded the corner, on her way to the stage, she passed by Alexandra's house. The teenager reached into the crowd.

"I told her I want to go to school and my mom can't afford it. The security agents were pushing on me, and I grabbed her hand," she said. "I cried out, 'I want to go to school!'"

 

Emily Troutman for AOL News

Mirlande Manigat, who is running for president of Haiti, greets a crowd in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Solino.

On Monday, she told me the story. All of Solino knows the story now. Alexandra is rail thin, but strong. Part-bird, part-woman. The neighborhood is small and busy. Crooked stacks of broken houses lean downhill, like plants growing toward an unseen light.

After Alexandra grabbed her hand, Manigat went on. The crowd swelled to a thousand. Manigat isn't especially popular here. She decided to restart her campaign in Solino, partially, she said, to prove she could.

On stage, Manigat was surrounded by a coterie of insiders and politicos. When she finally spoke, she continued their themes: Christianity, morality and education.

"I met a young girl on my way in. Where is she?" she asked the crowd. Alexandra, hidden, 50 yards back, was pushed forward and ascended the stage.

As they met, two different worlds would collide. Haiti's presidential race is battle for Alexandra's vote. But also, for Alexandra.

Contrast of Candidates

Manigat will compete in the March 20 election against Michel Martelly, the popular musician-turned-politician. Martelly is famous in Haiti for his bad-boy lifestyle, which he curtailed a decade ago.

 

Emily Troutman for AOL News

At a rally for Mirlande Manigat, candidate for president of Haiti, a crowd of about 1,000 gathered to hear her speak. This neighborhood is torn between Manigat, seen as the moral candidate, and Michel Martelly, known for his former bad-boy lifestyle.

But, oh, the stories. When he performed as "Sweet Micky" on the musical floats at Carnival, he used to moon the crowd, wear a skirt, booze, smoke. And as he told me months ago, "I would curse. And I mean curse."

Everyone here has shorthanded his most outrageous antics, to avoid the shame of saying them out loud. "The T-Vice story," especially, can make a grown man blush.

In politics though, Martelly has suited up and run a young, media-savvy campaign. He is smart and compulsively charming.

He is also, according to Manigat, immoral. Though she hasn't mentioned him by name in her speech yet, others around her do.

Last week, the mayor of nearby Petionville said, "Manigat is Jesus. And Martelly is Barabbas. Who are you going to vote for?"

In the Bible, Barabbas was a criminal, the man the public chose to save instead of Jesus. That turned out to be a mistake. Not only a mistake, but a humiliation.

The comparison is apt. Some historians suggest Barabbas and Jesus were the same person. And here, Manigat and Martelly are vying between Haiti's split personality.

Him: bandit, scapegoat, cowboy, wild card. Her: professor, "granny," "Mommy" and, of course, "first lady," as her husband was once president of Haiti.

"A granny? I am a granny! I am a grandmother!" she told me. "Look at my hair, I have gray hair.

"You know, for me," she said, "it's an expression of affection. You know they call me Granny and they call me Mommy too? And personally, I'm very flattered by that."

Manigat is the dignified, Christian, moral choice and, for many, an opportunity to actually be saved.

Attracting an Educated Crowd

Outside a hot, sunny tent at a private hillside college in Port-au-Prince, students arrive by foot and by taxi. Taxis are marked with a red ribbon around the rear-view mirrors of the early 1990s Toyotas, mostly banged up, repaired, breathless.

Their general condition belies the fact that taking a taxi is a luxury in Haiti. These students are among the lucky, rare, middle class.

 

Emily Troutman for AOL News

The presidential election in Haiti is a battle for Haiti's youth. Mirlande Manigat has positioned her campaign as the moral, Christian choice.

They're Haiti's best and brightest. And they've come for Mirlande Manigat's morning lecture on constitutional law.

Though she doesn't talk politics in the classroom, Manigat's students say the politician and the professor are identical.

"It's the same thing. She teaches the whole population like she teaches us. ... It's like a follow-up on school," one young student said about her stump speech.

What does she mean by morality?

"She thinks that you have to be moral to be a good politician. If you're not moral, you can't respect the constitution."

"It's like ... a leader who can follow up on a good principle and lead with dignity."

And immorality? They have trouble defining it. They say they know it when they see it.

"It's when you don't respect principles and some value as a human being."

Is a man wearing a skirt immoral? Is Michel Martelly immoral?

"It's really complicated," a student said. "There are two people, Michel Martelly and the personality. I don't really know him personally, Michel Martelly."

He said Micky's immorality is in his demeanor, somehow, and that's complicated.

"Micky is an educated person, but he doesn't have the same level as Madame Manigat. But then again, that always happens around the world, that some people can't access another level of education."

"I don't see myself, as a young person, in Martelly," offered one young man, softly and sincere. "They always say that if you can project a big light, you can be a little flash. He could've been famous and been a role model, but he wasn't."

Manigat's students are overwhelmingly, though not universally, planning to vote for her. They feel like she already voted for them.

"One thing that I see is that she opened her campaign at Solino. During her campaign, she has to pound on education and go to the ghetto areas and spread the message."

Alexandra Takes the Stage

"I met a young girl on my way in. Where is she?" Manigat asked the crowd. Alexandra was lifted onto the stage and into the candidate's arms.

 

Emily Troutman for AOL News

Mirlande Manigat hugs Alexandra Delophene, 19, who was brought onstage during a political rally.

"She said to me, 'I want to go to school. Because it's been a long time since I've been. So Mirlande Manigat, see what you can do for me.'"

Alexandra beamed.

"The second thing is," Manigat continued. "She had a child. At 17 years old."

The crowd listened. Alexandra recalls the experience: "I hid my face. I didn't want people to see me because of that."

"People were happy," she told me later. "But I guess, also thinking that if I wasn't acting like a whore, it wouldn't have happened."

And here is Alexandra: teen, mother, voter and, in her own mind at least, whore.

"Do you want everyone to go to university?" Manigat called out that day.

Yes! Answered the crowd. But Solino didn't really need an example. As Alexandra told me her story, Adeline, a neighbor, listened in. She is 17 and she has a baby, too.

"I was in love with him and we had sex. And ... it happened," she told me.

The baby's father is still in high school, though Adeline has never been to school at all. That was part of the appeal.

"He always talked to me about education," she said. "About going to school. He always talked about what it takes to fight with life, to move my life forward. He always gave me good advice."

For Alexandra, "I was at school at the time. We were classmates."

When she became pregnant, the school made her quit. Her baby's father is still in school.

"I'm not really in love with him. But what's happened has happened."

She lives with her ex-boyfriend's mother now, and Alexandra's little girl is poised to be the fourth generation of women in her family who can't read.

What's your favorite part about being a mother?

"I'd rather go to school," she said.

Alexandra was embarrassed by Manigat that day, but desperate. She is not educated, but she is also not ignorant -- smart enough to beg for school, to take her shot.

"I'm not angry, and I can't be angry because I need that. I really need that. Someone to pay for me to go to school."

Mirlande Manigat wants to be the president of Haiti. Alexandra wants to go to school.

But who is Alexandra? Jesus or Barabbas? Saint or sinner? What did Alexandra think about Manigat's speech on Friday?

"I didn't really pay attention," she said. "But she got my mom's phone number."

 

Ntjam Rosie

Don Cherry

Found Object, No. 11

Corrected: A rare film clip (there must be more where this came from), posted on Youtube in September 2010, of the Don Cherry Trio live in Paris in 1971. Cherry, an American, is on piano and cornet and is accompanied by South African bassist Johnny Dyani and Turkish percussionist/drummer, Okay Temiz.  All three called Sweden home at that time. Cherry is singing in Xhosa; probably one of Dyani’s compositions. Cherry later appeared on Dyani’s 1978 album, “Song for Biko.” Separetely Dyani and Temiz formed the group Xaba with another South African Mongezi Feza. Dyani died before playing a show in Germany in 1986. Chimurenga Magazine‘s most recent issue has an interview by Aryan Kaganof with Dyani.