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I don’t laugh so loud / it’s the ghosts  / dancing inside me- / and the men

 

 

The Jazz Musicians

               (for Arthur Doyle)

 By Ekere Tallie

Who let the men

become ancient?

Their hands cracked

   sad as aimed guns

question mark spines

testify the constant lack

of answers and it hurts

to see them walk

moaning feet

 

what is lost

knowing that without a stage

there would be no ears?

 

It is the daily deaths,

   we are alive by design

I don’t laugh so loud

it’s the ghosts

dancing inside me-

    and the men

whose faces are map

and scripture slip their arms

into my laughter

reach through the music wall,

“Sister, can you hear me without sound?

Sister, can you see me when I am silent?”

*   *   *   *   *

6/22/01--Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie

 

 
 
Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie is a poet, writer and journalist.  Her poetry and fiction have been published in several journals in the United States, France and South Africa including: Bomb Long Shot, Paris/Atlantic, Drumvoices Revue, Carapace. Her works have been anthologized in Listen Up! (One World/Ballantine) and Catch The Fire!!! (Penguin/ Putnam) Bum Rush The Page: A Def Poetry Jam (Random House), Role Call (Third World Press). Ms. Tallie is Contributing Writer for African Voices literary magazine where she has worked since 1995. Ms. Tallie performs her poetry regularly and has been a featured reader at the De Nachten Festivals in Holland and Belgium, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Brooklyn Moon Cafe, Rutgers University, Hunter College, Barnes and Noble, Bryant Park, Mills College, Brooklyn Public library. She has collaborated with dancers and musicians, most notably for the "Jazz and the Spoken Word "segment of the Panasonic Village Jazz Festival, with Mingus Amungus in California and Words and Waistbeads Womans Collective in New York City. Ms Tallie also worked with Gerard Gaskin and Caroline Poon for an exhibition of words, photography and pottery titled "The Experiment." In 1999 Ms. Tallie was awarded a residency at Fundacion Valparaiso in Almeria, Spain. She has work forthcoming in Beyond The Frontier, (Black Classic Press), The Body Eclectic (Henry Holt) and The Book of Hope (Beyond Borders). 

Education

    Master of Fine Arts English/Creative Writing Mills College, Dec 2001
    Ploughshares International Writing Seminar Kasteel Well, Netherlands Emerson College, 1998
    Bachelor of Arts, Mass Communication Clark Atlanta University, 1996

    "Love is a story that we never stop telling" Veronique Tadjo

     http://www.ekeretallie.com

 

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