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Mosquitoes Fly Out My Head

Poems & Other Jazz 

By Rudolph Lewis

 
 

 Bio-Sketch

Rudolph Lewis (born 1948 in Baltimore, Maryland) was raised by his grandparents William and Ella Lewis of Jarratt, Virginia — in the Village of Jerusalem. He was recruited 1967 by SNCC organizer Bob Moore while at Morgan State College (1965-1967) to establish a Baltimore SNCC branch. Along with Walter Lively, he helped to establish Black Liberation Press. He spent several years (since1969) as an organizer for Local 1199, the Health Care Workers Union; resigning from 1199 in 1974, and again in 1990, after another two years of service.

He graduated from UMCP with a B.A (1978) and M.A. (1981) degrees in English. After graduation, he taught writing and literature at University of the District of Columbia and the University of Maryland. In 1982, he spent ten weeks with the Peace Corps in Zaire. He taught writing at Northeast Louisiana University (NLU, 1983) and then the University of New Orleans (UNO, 1984-1986).

Yusef Komunyakaa and Lewis, along with Ahmose Zu-Bolton, created and built the cultural center Copacetic on Piety Street. Lewis wrote poems and essays that were published by The New Laurel Review edited by Lee Meitzen Grue. With poet Gillian Conoley, he also began his own rag, Crickets: Poems & Other Jazz, which lasted several issues. In 1987, he returned to Baltimore and worked again for Local 1199 as editor and organizer. From 1991-1997, Lewis taught in several adult education programs. During this period he spent a year in Morgan State’s doctoral program in education (1991-1992), and completed from 1994-1997 a masters program in library science.

From 1997-1999, he worked as a librarian for Enoch Pratt Free Library.  more bio

*   *   *   *   *

 

Table of Contents

Other Jazz

Africa

An American Goes Back to Africa (Review of White Man, Listen)

Bearing the Owners' Names & Other Burdens

Black Girl in Her Search for God (Shaw review)

I, Momolu or Liberia in the Bush (book review)

In Search of an African Identity

President Omar al-Beshir Do You Know This Man?

Telling the Truth about Africa  

Tending One’s Own Garden (book review of Shaw's "Black Girl")

Why Africa Ain't Israel in Today's African American Thinking

Why Africa Is Not Israel in Today's African-American Thinking (revised)

*   *   *   *   *

Biographical Sketches

Bio-Sketch of J. W. Livingston

Bio-Sketch of William Kircher

In Memory of Max Wilson (biographical essay)

Jessie Covington Dent (a biographical sketch)

A Political Portrait of Robert Moore (a biographical sketch)

Robert "Kaki" McQueen (a biographical sketch)

Walter Hall Lively (1942-1976) (a biographical sketch)

*   *   *   *   *

Editorials

50 Years of Progress Since Brown

America With Its Pants Down

Belief, DisBelief & Back  

Condoleezza Rice for President

The Dark Side of Obedience  Response by Wilson J. Moses

Dean Fades, Kerry Soars Clark Waits in the Wings

Dreams Buried in Freedom’s Coffin

Gospel for the Poor by Bill Cosby

In Defense of Aristide & the Viability of Haitian Democracy

Israeli State Terror & the Palestinian Liberation Struggle 

Jesse Jackson Scourged in The Baltimore Times 

The Lie That Unraveled the World (book review By The Light of My Father's Smile)

The Noise of Class Ideology  in Gates’ Tour of the Rich & Famous

A Note To Yvonne:  Malcolm's Letter to Elijah

Pass the Mic! Tour of Tavis Smiley Responses

Reconsidering Our History & Our Aims The Dilemma of Pete Rawlings

Skip Gates & the Talented Fifth: The Doublespeak of Academic Equivocation

Telling the Truth about Africa  

Quality Education for Black & Brown

Why Africa Ain't Israel in Today's African American Thinking

Why Africa Is Not Israel in Today's African-American Thinking (revised)

 

*   *   *   *   *

Essays & Other Prose

An Archival Search for Sterling Brown

Christian's Bio-Bibliographical Record  (literary essay on Christian)

Climbing Malcolm's Ladder (Brown, Baraka, Forman)

Douglass' 1845 Narrative (literary criticism)

Driving the Blues Away

Exploring Sexuality from a Black Perspective

Feminism, Black Erotica, & Revolutionary Love (on Kalamu's short stories)

Home to Jerusalem:  Journal Notes

In Memory of Max Wilson (biographical essay)

In Search of an African Identity (biographical essay)

Introduction to I AM NEW ORLEANS (literary essay on Christian)

Introduction to Letters of an Abiding Faith (a biographical essay)

Isaac in Heaven: An Interview (creative essay)

Leading the Negro into Modernity (literary essay)

Long Live the Kings of Black Entertainment (On JB, Rashaan, Sun Ra)

Magpies, Goddesses, & Black Male Identity  (literary essay on Christian)

Manana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective (book review)

Nathaniel of Southampton or Balaam’s Ass  (creative essay)

Nathaniel Turner, the Bible & Sword (conference paper)

The Need for a 21st Century American Philosophy

Nonwhite Manhood in America

Poetic Journey with New Orleans Writers (a biographical essay)

Remembering My Adult Education Students

A Theology of Obligation & Liberation (theology essay)

A Theory of a Black Aesthetic  (literary essay on Christian)

The Uncertain Identity of Nathaniel Turner (conference paper)

Understanding "Last Man Standing"   

*   *   *   *   *

Family Stories

Black Mama, White Son

                A Response to "Black Mama, White Son" by Lewis Lawson

The Confessions of Walter Cotton

Conjuring & Doctoring  

Driving the Blues Away: Or Dying by Degrees  Responses to “Driving the Blues Away”

Dwarf's Lament

Father Son and Mary

The Herbert Lewis Family (photo exhibit)

Letters of An Abiding Faith ( Table of Contents)

Me & the Devil at CrossHairs  

Tale for Sam Williams

TeeJay’s Song: Shadows at Midnight  

*   *   *   *   *

Interviews

Baltimore, Back-Sliding, & Budgets (interview with Fred Mason)

Carlyle Van Thompson Interviewn (author of The Tragic Black Buck)

Digital Technology & Telling Our Story (interview with Kalamu ya Salaam)

Interview with Keith Gilyard on Liberation Memories 

Interview I with Award Winning Neo-Griot (Kalamu ya Salaam)

Interview II with Award Winning Neo-Griot (Kalamu ya Salaam)

Interview with Herbert Rogers, Enoch Pratt Librarian

Interview with Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet (Yusef Komunyakaa)

Louis Reyes Rivera (interview)

Rudy Interviews Askia Muhammad Touré

*   *   *   *   *

Manuscripts

I AM NEW ORLEANS & OTHER POEMS by Marcus B. Christian

Letters of an Abiding Faith: Legacy of a Slave's GrandDaughter to her Son

Nathaniel Turner: Christian Martyrdom in Southampton 

 

*   *   *   *   *

 

Poems

 

Black Erotica

 

     Baby, I'll Do Right By You

     Bass String of Smoke & Bells

     Big Girls Can Handle Absence 

     Broom. Cats. & Dreams.

     Cecelia's Weekend at Jerusalem

     Down on All Four in Baltimore

     Dropping Shucks on Baudin

     Feasts & Thithes of Joy

     High Wind Blues

     A Hymn to Kola Boof  

     I Can't Get Over You

     Illusions in the Skull's Logfire

     In the Mirror I Am My Beloved

     Love Dust Around Our Feet

     Mosquitoes Fly Out My Head

     My Room Without You

     Potomac Dreams of André Breton

     Sisyphus at Rest

     That Aint Gonna Work, At All     

     Turned On About Two Dreaming You

     Uncertain Sweet Lips & Nightingales 

     Voices Whispering in My Ear

     When Love Blooms a Life Is Lost

     When Love Slips Away

 

Black Liberation

 

     Ain’t Nothing Changed  

     Alchemy of Water & Wine

     Always in Love the First Time 

     Bottoms Up, One More Round 

     Changes I Cannot Fathom

     Crossing Days on the Calendar 

     Devil's Got a Lien on My Soul  

     Feeding the Five Thousand

       Fishing Strong on the Moon    

     For Lucy Barrow, Revolutionary

       He Aint Giving Up No Secrets

       Heartbreak Hotel

     High Wind Blues

    I Aint No Alarmist 

       I Choose Us: The African

     Improvisations on Sacred Space

     In a Time of Chaos

     Interpretation in Small Containers

     It Must  Be Rain Drops

     For Stan Tookie Williams  

     For Walter Cotton, Outlaw

     Killing Fiends & Monsters   

     Last Man Standing

     Love in Action: Sermon in Verse

     Master Jack Turns Them Black     

     Metaphysical Blues

     A Menu of Choice

     Murmuring in the Smoke of Veils  

     Nat Turner Sermon 

     Ode to Bowling Balls  

     Othello Was a Plumber 

     Poem for Evelyn

     Postcard from Hell

     Praying for a Miracle 

     The Propaganda of History

     Retaking America, Again 

     Seek the Elegant Universe

     Sisyphus Walks Downhill  

     ShadowBoxing Truth on Druid Hill   

       Smokescreen for a Holy Presence  

      That Which Hurts

       The street I live on is dying     

     They Cant Stop Our Crazy Feeling

       Time Hijacked Blues 

     until my daddy comes

     We Get Out of All Your Boxes

     We'll Never Be Back the Same Again

     Which Way Freedom

     Will the people ever wake up?

      What It Means to Be Alone

 

Fourth World Poems

 

Coretta, Coretta  

Fourth World Poems

Keeping It Trim & Burning

Me & First Woman 

News Hour Scrapbook

Pigmeat & Catfish

Somebody Been Stealing

Starlight by Starlight

Strutting in a Cold Sweat

Take It Daddy, It’s All Yours

This Poem Ain't Easy

We Still Chasing Trim  

You Gonna Say Something

  

New Orleans Poems

 

     Battle for New Orleans 

     Can You Quilt a Life, Now Dead? 

     Crazy Horse at Mardi Gras, 1987

     Didn't He Ramble  (Buddy Bolden)

     Down by the Riverside       

     Heartbreak Hotel  

     Home Aint No Cakewalk

      I Aint No Alarmist

     I Gave My Heart to That Woman  

     In a Time of Chaos

     A New Day Is Coming

     No Mardi Gras Without Soul

     No Woman to Be Rollin 

     Ode to a Magic City

     Raining in This Terrible Land   

     A Sideshow in Your Mind

     There's No Way Out This Sadness?   

     Waiting for the Great Tragedy

     We'll Never Be Back the Same Again   

     What Does It Mean to Survive N'awlins   

     What Shall It Be, Stick or Broom? 

     When They Flooded New Orleans

     Wintertime in America

    

 

On Family

 

     Back in Swamp Briars

     Balance Due, Always  

     Hearing the Coffin Close

     It Must  Be Rain Drops  

     The Last Fair Deal Blues

     Love & Time Resurrected

      My Father Still Comes to Me

     Naked in the Outer Darkness

     Xmas Fifty Years Ago 

 

On Music & Musicians

 

     Breathing Low & Steady (John Coltrane)

     Didn't He Ramble  (Buddy Bolden)

     Music That Heals (Sidney Bechet)

     Ode to a Magic City

     Rahsaan Roland Kirk

     What It Means to Be Alone (Jimi Hendrix)

     Your Love Ain't Loving My Blues (Satchmo & horn)

 

On War

     

     The Altar of Blood Sacrifice Lives

    Celebrating the Spirit of Man

    Crossing Days on the Calendar  

    Falluja a Whipping Post      

    Falling Trees & Raining Bombs   

    Keeper of the Bones  

    A Menu of Choice    

    Metaphysical Blues  

    Retaking America, Again 

    Seek the Elegant Universe   

*   *   *   *   *

Related Files

African Renaissance 

African Renaissance (Journal)

The African World

Baltimore Index Page

Climbing Malcolm's Ladder

Communism as Russian Imperialism 

Control, Conflict, and Change

Editor's Page

Escaping the Black-Bible Belt

Fifty Influential Figures  

For Kwame Nkrumah

From Parks to Marxism: A Political Evolution

God Save His Majesty

Interview with Yambo Ouologuem

Kalamu ya Salaam Table

Kwame Nkrumah, Kenyatta, and the Old Order

The Legend of the Saifs

Literary New Orleans Poems and Prose

Marcus Bruce Christian  

Nathaniel Turner

Night of the Giants

Nonwhite Manhood in America 

The Political Thought of James Forman  

Responsibility of a Pan-African Socialist

"W.P.A. Guidebook Arouses Fuss"  

Yambo  Bio & Review    

Reviews

An American Goes Back to Africa (Review of White Man, Listen)

Beyond Religion, Toward Spirituality (Review of book by Marvin X)

Black Girl in Her Search for God (Shaw review)

Child Support & Post-Modern Fugitive Slaves  (Book Review)

Du Bois & Civil Religion (Review of Du Bois on Reform)

Exploring Sexuality from a Black Perspective (film review)

A Review of Mya B’s Silence: In Search of Black Female Sexuality in America 

I, Momolu or Liberia in the Bush (book review)

Land of My Daughters by Marvin X (book review)

The Lie That Unraveled the World (Review of By The Light of My Father's Smile)

A Life Won with Blood & Tears ( Mona Lisa Saloy's Red Beans and Ricely Yours (2005)  

Manana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective (book review)

Pass the Mic! Tour of Tavis Smiley  (Review of Event at Lyric Theatre)

Prayer Tradition of Black People -- Harold A. Carter (Book Review)

Southern Journey (Review of Tom Dent's book)

Tending One’s Own Garden (Shaw's "Black Girl")

Wish I Could Tell You the Truth by Marvin X

 

Related files

The Best of ChickenBones

Brother Rudy

Charlie "Nature Boy" Lewis

      Black Man Where Do You Stand   On the Wing of a Prayer   A Shared Moment   Back in Swamp Briars

Idle Minds Have Idle Time  

Mau Mau Aesthetics

Rudolph Lewis Bio

Rudy's Page

*   *   *   *   *

For Tookie

 

 

 

 

 

 

updated 1 November 2007 /  updated 24 February 2008

 

 

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