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here in my head / these things they stay with me / this how i know i aint dead

when things i do they shackle me / my blood it pourd so endlessly

and this air so thick

 

 

corners

                                                    By Asili Ya Nadhiri

the softly stabbing sadness

of long worried nights

laying here waiting across my face

and the memories i swallow then yesterday

is what i lean up against

here in my head

these things they stay with me

this how i know i aint dead

when things i do they shackle me

my blood it pourd so endlessly

and this air so thick

it smothering me

is what i lean up against 

here in my head

these things they stay with me

this how i know i aint dead

notions of you

that i'm too scared to dare

my other little thoughts

they going no where

and the nipples of things

that i wish they could be

is what i lean up against

here in my head

these things they stay with me

this how i know i aint dead

 

Source: Asili Ya Nadhiri. The Inner Recesses of an Abandoning Life: Tonal Drawings Written in Poetic Form. 2004

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The language and rhythm of African people have been an obsession throughout my life.  I can still vividly remember the heavy syrupy dialect that impregnated my ears as a small boy, the hypnotic rhythmning of the body movements of African people that continue to sang to me, and the depth of the wellsprings silently stirring inside the language forged in the North American experience of African people.  By means of my tonal drawings, I am trying to actualize this experience-ing for the benefit of us all.

I am Asili Ya Nadhiri, born on August 29, 1944 in Durham, North Carolina and raised in a small tobacco town named Clinton, North Carolina.  My undergraduate education took place at Hampton Institute and Ithaca College, Masters at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and ABD (all but dissertation) at the University of Florida in Gainesville.  I have been an instructor of vocational agriculture in the Orange County Public School System (Orlando, Florida) for the past twenty one years.

New book entitled the inner recesses of an abandoning life by Asili Ya Nadhiri available.  For an excerpt and purchase visit www.hummdrummsung.com

A CD is inside the back cover of the book entitled the inner recesses of an abandoning life; and a cassette tape accompanies the book entitled HUMMING DRUMMM SUNG in soft pedal tones.  Nadhiri Writesasil@aol.com

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The White Masters of the World

From The World and Africa, 1965

By W. E. B. Du Bois

W. E. B. Du Bois’ Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization (Fletcher)

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Ancient African Nations

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Negro Digest / Black World

Browse all issues


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Enjoy!

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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan  The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll  Only a Pawn in Their Game

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for Slavery

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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg

The Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804  / January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of Haiti 

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update 12 April 2010

 

 

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