Great Things Happ’nin’
February 2010
Editor: Louis Reyes Rivera
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Table of Contents
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Part I: Upcoming Events
1. Arts Concert for PS 3
2. Haiti & the Rest of Us (Brooklyn, NY)
3. Haiti & the Rest of Us (Paterson, NJ)
4. CBJC Gala: Pharoah Sanders Returns to Brooklyn
5. Small Press Book Fair in March
Part II: News Upfront
6. Last Call for Manuscripts: Street Smarts
7. Call for Poets: Hart Island Reading
8. NWU Rejects Google Book Settlement
(An Editorial by Louis Reyes Rivera)
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Part I: Upcoming Events
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1. Arts Concert for PS 3
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On Saturday, February 27, 2010, the Chamber Jazz Ensemble, Sojourner, headlines a fundraising Arts Concert at PS 3 (50 Jefferson Ave., at Franklin Ave.) from 5pm to 8pm. The fund raiser to save arts programs at two schools in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant section is sponsored by the PTAs at the Bedford Village School (PS 3) and the Noel Pointer Foundation, both of which promote viable arts education programs.
In a rare collaboration, the two organizations are pooling their resources to raise the money needed to continue their respective arts programming. Located at 50 Jefferson Avenue between Franklin and Bedford avenues, PS 3 includes a 400-seat capacity auditorium, which the organizers hope to fill to its rafters.
Among the oldest public schools in Brooklyn, PS 3 has a long history as a public venue for the arts. On its grounds is a small garden dedicated to former Brooklyn resident and legendary pianist Eubie Blake.
Sojourner is a women's collective of musicians using various string instruments and African American themes to provide performances and workshops throughout the United States and abroad. Its workshops target both public school and college students in urban communities. The ensemble's members include Marlene Rice (violin), Judith Insell (viola), and Nioka Workman (cello).
Performances at the February 27 fundraising concert will also feature youth groups from both organizations, the Phantazia String Players from The Noel Pointer Foundation and the Bedford Village Ensemble, conducted by Jazz trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah. In addition, the concert will feature a guest poetry recital by one of Bedford Stuyvesant’s life-long residents, award winning poet, Louis Reyes Rivera.
With the current economic downturn cutting deeper into public monies and tax revenues, many of the arts programs have suffered budget cuts that leave schools like PS 3 with unprecedented deficits affecting their ability to maintain artistic expression within their academic curricula. Among the programs so affected is PS 3's annual Day of the African Child festival, as well as its partnerships with the Orchestra of St. Luke, Carnegie Hall Link Up Program, Family Day at MOMA, Education through Music (ETM), and other collaborations that have long been used to offer a fully rounded educational experience for its students. Says Principal Kristina Beecher, "The arts are a very important part of our children’s education, and we want to make sure that we keep our vibrant arts programs here at The Bedford Village School in spite of a $40,000+ deficit.”
The Noel Pointer Foundation (NPF), located at Bedford Stuyvesant’s Restoration, was created in memory of celebrated Jazz violinist, educator and humanitarian Noel Pointer. NPF offers string music artist-in-residence programs, teaching children across the ethnic spectrum. Among its curricula are music workshops for students from Pre-K through the twelfth grade, after-school programs for at-risk children, a weekly Saturday program and a Summer Music workshop series. Ms. Pointer says, “The arts are an essential component of children’s basic education. Every child deserves the opportunity to create his own voice through the arts.”
Tickets for the concert range from $50 (for VIP seating) to $20 for adults and $10 for children. Tickets can be purchased at PS 3,50 Jefferson Avenue (718) 622-2960, or the NPF, 1368 Fulton Street, (718) 230-4825.
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2. Haiti & the Rest of Us (Brooklyn, NY)
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On Thursday, February 25, 2010, Louis Reyes Rivera will offer an historical overview of Haiti’s revolutionary and hemispheric impact upon the century-long struggle to abolish chattel slavery throughout the Americas (1791-1888) as part of the bi-monthly discussion and lecture series named after long-time Brooklyn resident/educator/activist Professor William Mackey [Mackey to the Third(3)]. The group meets at 103 Quincy Street’s basement community room (just off the corner of Quincy and Franklin) starting at 7 p.m. Free and open to the public (donations encouraged).
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3. Haiti & the Rest of Us (Paterson, NJ)
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The Paterson, New Jersey chapter of the U.N.I.A. will host a community conversation on Haiti today this coming Saturday, February 27, 2010, at the Paterson Museum, 2 Market Street, with Louis Reyes Rivera, Samuel Solomon, Kamau Khalfani plus invited members of Paterson’s City Council and of the Haitian community discussing Haiti's past and present.
Part One: Historical Overview (starts exactly at 4:30 p.m.)
An historical overview of Haiti’s revolutionary and hemispheric impact upon the century-long struggle to abolish chattel slavery throughout the Americas (1791-1888) will be offered by poet/radio host Louis Reyes Rivera.
Part Two: Update on the Current State (starts exactly at 6:00 p.m)
An open discussion on the latest conditions in Haiti with Samuel Solomon, Kamau Khalfani and other guests, including several ofPaterson’s elected officials (TBA). For more information, call Brother Kamau at 1.973.684.5023.
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4. CBJC Gala: Pharoah Sanders Returns to Brooklyn
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The 11th Annual Central Brooklyn Jazz Festival opens with a gala at the Boys and Girls High School Auditorium featuringPharoah Sanders, on Saturday, March 27, 2010, beginning at 7:30 p.m. Joining the legendary saxophonist are the dancers and drummers Yoruba Folkloric ensemble, Omi Yesa, and poet Louis Reyes Rivera.
This year’s theme, “Expressions of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” includes more than thirty venues cooperating with one another in hosting and promoting the month-long April festival.
Joining the Central Brooklyn Jazz Consortium (CBJC) to bring Pharoah Sanders to Brooklyn is the International African Arts Festival Inc. (IAAF), which hosts the Brooklyn-based annual Arts Festival every July.
Boys and Girls High School is located on Fulton Street (between Troy and Utica Avenues) on the edge of the Bedford-Stuyvesant community. General seating is available on a first come/first served basis. Tickets in Advance go for $35.00 per person (more at the door). Interested supporters can purchase tickets on line at Brown Paper Ticket: www.brownpaperticket.com, or by calling either the CBJC office (1.718-773-2252) and/or the IAAF office (1.718.638.6700).
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5. Small Press Book Fair in March
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Mark your calendars for the 22nd Annual Indie & Small Press Book Fair scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, March 6-7, 2010. This year’s event celebrates National Small Press Month at the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen Library, 20 West 44 Street (between Fifth and Sixth avenues in midtown Manhattan).
The fair annually features book exhibits from innovative, alternative and small presses from various parts of the country, state-of-the-art panels discussing nuts-and-bolts issues and concerns. It’s a great place to purchase several one-of-a-kind books and where writers looking for potential publishers can network with a range of experts. Doors open at 10 a.m. and close at 5 p.m. For more information, email at contact@nycip.org or call 212.764.7021.
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Part II: News Upfront
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6. Last Call for Manuscripts: Street Smarts
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Please Note: Louis Reyes Rivera and Bruce George, co-editors of the critically acclaimed The Bandana Republic, are still accepting submissions for Street Smarts: An Anthology of Urban Survival Strategies. Because of the large numbers of requests by people still working on their submissions, the editors of Street Smarts have agreed to extend the current deadline to March 15, 2010. Please be advised that no materials will be accepted after that date.
This is bound to be another literary first, focusing on the urban working class and the ability of the underemployed to enhance its own earning power despite social conditions.
How do lower paid workers make ends meet? How do the unemployed survive once they’ve used up their benefits? What happens to them once they disappear from official statistics? What tactics have they developed? Is there another economic system at work that is totally outside of mainstream standards? What does the underclass and the fair-to-middling do to feed the family within a hostile economic and social environment? Are the strategies they devise parts of yet another working standard? To what extent is there an underground economy that is not exactly illegal, yet for which there is no yardstick by which to measure its effectiveness?
Given the current economic downturns and consistent losses of jobs, are the strategies and options that have long ago developed among the working poor still viable? What are they? Are they legal, extralegal or illegal? What common threads hold the underclass together? Do they bear their own ethics? How applicable are they?
The answers to these questions serve as the parameters for Street Smarts. Our target audience includes the hundreds of thousands who, like never before, are faced with new challenges – unemployment, loss of homes, credit card debts, etc., with homelessness and public shelters ever increasingly a viable and realistic given.
Here’s an opportunity for the entire planet to hear your truth, our truth, about both our desperate and our aspirate states, straight up from the streets. This anthology will offer real life stories of how folk who have come from or find themselves suddenly at the bottom have developed their own ways and means to survive.
The editors of Street Smarts welcome you to submit your own story of survival. It can come in the form of poetry or drama, as biographical and/or fictional accounts of ways in which citizens will make ends meet – how we work a hustle or cook those meals on a shoestring budget or how we use borrowing and lending to keep that household going (even via pyramid schemes or other forms of community banking, or working the numbers racket and/or relying on the bolita).
We want to hear from freelance writers and artists, from consultants who no longer work a regular j-o-b, even from street pharmacists and drug dealers. We want to hear from those who still host Rent Parties and poker games or organize poetry readings, who rent dance halls for weekend events or loan shark their way through life. We want to hear from anyone who finds a way to cut the price down or makes use of old home remedies instead of going to the pharmacy, from those who’ve survived prisons in every way imaginable, and how they adapt to street and prison codes in order to fend for themselves.
We will consider material on any topic, in any form and according to how each contributor interprets factual events and strategies, even when couched with fictional characters. What matters most is that you’re helping to illustrate how creative humans really are, no matter what the odds against us.
Artwork, photography and transcribed interviews are welcomed. Email your submissions to Louisreyesrivera@aol.com in simple word format. If you have to use snail mail, please include a self-addressed stamped envelope to Louis Reyes Rivera, GPO Box 16, New York City 10116.
File Formats:
All material submitted must be the author’s original work. Use of work that was done or created by others without permission is a violation of copyright laws. Send us your best work and in simple word format! Please use your program’s spell check option or manually check your work before sending it. The editors reserve the right to make minor grammatical changes so that all materials conform to our guidelines. We want this to be a work of art both for general markets as well as for schools.
Material submission guidelines:
Poems and letters cannot be more than up to three (3) pages in length (single spaced).
Short stories, interviews and essays (political or social) should not be more than ten (10) pages in length and must be double-spaced, typewritten.
Artwork and photographs should conform to a 6″ by 9″ format.
Requirements:
Please include with your submission your name/address, P.O. Box and/or e-mail along with a brief bio. Any questions or concerns about your submission can be sent to the editors at Louisreyesrivera@aol.com.
Terms & Conditions:
A submission implies that you agree with the following terms: No submission will be returned without your inclusion of a self-addressed stamped envelope. If your work is not accepted, we will either return it in your self-addressed stamped envelope or we will discard it (and/or delete it from our computer).
Submissions may not have been published before or appeared in any other commercial publication. None of the contents may be derived from previously created documents unless specifically noted.
You agree to authorize publication of your work to appear in Street Smarts
and in any manner that the editors deem appropriate to the format of the book. By submitting your work, you also grant permission for the editors to distribute it throughout the world.
You agree to hold harmless the editors and publisher from any and all claims, suits and damages based on international copyright laws, including plagiarism or unauthorized use, or any other legally related issues.
Having read the Terms & Conditions for submitting your work, you understand that these Terms constitute the basis for accepting your work and that you agree to such Terms & Conditions.
Submission Deadline:
We should have received your materials no later than March 15, 2010. Entries submitted after that date might not be considered.
SASE: We prefer that you email your submissions. If you decide to snail mail your work, include a stamped self-addressed business-sized envelope so that your work can be returned to you if it is not accepted.
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7. Call for Poets: Hart Island Reading
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Mother’s Day 2010, from 2 to 4 p.m.
Bowne House Historical Society
37-01 Bowne Street
Flushing, NY 11354
Hart Island, located in the Long Island Sound, is a potter’s field where an estimated 800,000 people, half of them children, are buried with no headstones, no markers, and bare records.
To raise public consciousness over this situation, Rosalind Maya Lama and Melinda Hunt have begun the Hart Island Project in order to pay homage to those children and to urge changes of the manner in which young unwed mothers and their offspring are treated. To help raise public awareness of this issue, Maya and Melinda are co-hosting a Poetry Reading on Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 9, 2010, at the Bowne House Historical Society in Flushing, Queens, from 2 to 4 p.m.
Poets interested in participating should immediately contact Louis Reyes Rivera at the following email address:Louisreyesrivera@aol.com. Space is limited, so all participants, poets and audience, are asked to RSVP their attendance.
Poets are asked to read from their original work and to include a recital of the names of children taken from their mothers by the state, institutionalized and, in the cases of those who died young, buried in such a place.
Says Maya, “This potter's field dates from the Civil War and is under the supervision of the New York City Department of Correction. Prisoners bury the dead, who include the homeless, the destitute, stillborns, and children who were in the care of the city's services and whose parents' rights had been terminated. In these cases, the parents were not informed of the death of their children. During the 1980s, burials swelled at Hart Island due to the AIDS epidemic. It is closed to the public and press, except for a one-time visit by a relative of the deceased, with permission of the Correction Department.”
Rosemary Vietor, President of the Bowne House Historical Society, will serve as hostess for the two-hour program which, thus far, includes poets Stacy Szymaszek, Jackie Sheeler, Steve Turtell, Ilka Scobie, Louise Landes Levi, Ira Cohen; Edward Field, and Louis Reyes Rivera. There’s still time for others to contact Rivera and get on board.
In addition, a one-hour Silent Prayer Vigil will be held at the Quaker Meeting House, located next door to the Bowne House, beginning at 11 a.m. This will be followed by a lunch and then the reading program at 2 p.m.
Both Bowne House and Quaker Meeting House were among this city’s critical places in the formation of both the Manumission Society and Underground Railroad in New York as well as in founding the first school here for Black children.
Collaborating with these two historical institutions for the Mother’s Day program is the Lewis H. Latimer House, another historic site in Queens. The three are among the co-sponsors for the Hart Island Project, along with the New York Foundation for the Arts and The Canada Council for the Arts.
The principle organizers of the Hart Island Project want to continue to co-host poetry readings throughout the city at different venues. Interested parties may contact Maya at mayalama@hotmail.com. She says, “the city's poets should take up the responsibility, as bards and troubadours and griots, of reciting the names (of the children) with relevant poems so that not even one person's name, or absence, is unspoken in public places.”
Maya became involved as the result of her own attempts to locate the remains of her son, born in 1959, and “lost to the city's draconian treatment of unwed mothers.”
The mother of a biracial child, she had legally lost her son to authorities on the grounds that she was too young at the time. Her son was taken from her and placed under local institutional and foster care. Years later, when she learned of her son’s death, she immediately began her quest to find his remains. In the process, she discovered that she was not alone. She writes, “I wondered where they [the other children suffering the same fate] were buried, if they died while in the city's care, or afterward, if they died homeless, destitute, or imprisoned.”
She delved into the archives which helped to confirm that their likely final resting place was Hart Island.
“I requested copies of the names of all the deceased, with the intention of reading them aloud and praying for them. The Archives let me know that Melinda Hunt [her compatriot with the Hart Island Project] has been collecting the names, so I contacted her, and this joint project evolved.”
Melinda Hunt has been photographing and writing about Hart Island since 1991 and has a website, www.hartisland.net, through which to propagate on behalf of the thousands of children buried in those graves.
Says Ms. Lama, “We are planning to work togethe