|
Books by Kalamu ya
Salaam
The Magic of JuJu: An Appreciation of the Black Arts
Movement /
360:
A Revolution of Black Poets
Everywhere Is Someplace Else: A Literary Anthology
/
From A Bend in the River: 100 New Orleans Poets
Our Music Is No Accident /
What Is Life: Reclaiming the Black Blues Self
My Story My Song (CD)
*
* * * *
Kalamu ya
Salaam: A Primary Bibliography
(in Progress)
By
Jerry W. Ward Jr.
Contemporary
technologies do more than affect how we conceptualize
and gain access to new knowledge. They have begun to
have a telling impact on how we regard the knowledge we
possess, let us say, about the history and continuing
production of Southern literature. They determine, in
part, how we decide to document and transmit that
knowledge to a future. My conversations with a few
scholars who know much about Southern and
African-American literature have revealed, not
surprisingly, that they know little about the work that
Kalamu ya Salaam has produced since the
late1960s, the importance of his role as editor of the
Black
Collegian (1970–1983), or the relationship of
his ideological positions to his exploring the aesthetic
possibilities of genre.
The reason is not
far to seek: very little has been written about
Salaam as a contemporary Southern writer or
the rich index his work provides to the dynamics of
thematic change in the expanding corpus of
African-American literature. As a first step in
addressing this absence of knowledge, I began several
years ago to itemize his publications. We would not have
comprehensive histories of Black South literature and
culture in the future, or be able to speak or teach
intelligently about the late twentieth-century Southern
forms of cultural critique and the place of aesthetics
within the politics of art, unless there were a record
of
Kalamu ya Salaam’s provocative writing, his
singular contributions to Southern cultural transmission
and transformation.
When
ya Salaam asked me in 1996 why I was
compiling a bibliography of his works, I simply replied
“Because it is necessary.” I would now amplify such a
response to say “Because it is necessary that we examine
the uncanonized (or having finding aids for doing so) in
order to understand Southern literature as an
institution.” The Internet, web site, and CD-ROMS do not
tell us all we need to know.
*
* * * *
Kalamu ya Salaam was born Vallery Ferdinand
III on March 24, 1947, in New Orleans, where he still
resides. Since the late 1960s when he was a member of
BLKARTSOUTH, the writing/performing workshop of the Free
Southern Theater,
Salaam has used the Crescent City as the
creative base for his work as poet, fiction writer,
literary critic, journalist and essayist, dramatist,
editor, music critic and producer, advertising executive
with Bright Moments, Inc., social activist, and “public
intellectual.” The breadth of his work marks him as the
most prolific African-American writer and thinker of his
generation in the South. His artistry over three decades
merits examination in the tradition forged by such
thinkers and artists as David Walker, Frances Ellen
Watkins Harper, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois,
Langston Hughes, Sterling A. Brown, Richard Wright, Toni
Cade Bambara, and Amiri Baraka—figures who have
represented the unpredictable symbols of
African-American artistic imagination and political
commitment.
*
* * * *
Southern
scholarship and critical inquiry can profit from
investigation of how blues and jazz inform
Salaam’s work, how the historical vantage of
New Orleans shaped his thinking about social struggles,
folk wisdom, nationalism and feminism, and how his
discover of self-inspired recognition of the global
importance of art for life. Embedded in
Salaam’s substantial body of work are clues
about why some contemporary Southern writers have
deconstructed the Southern mystique without denouncing
their heritage. Like many of his contemporaries,
Salaam has demonstrated that a Southern
sensibility can be a powerful tool in global discourses.
His work to date urges us to discover or rediscover the
passionate verities that Richard Wright and William
Faulkner shared at the lower frequencies. With two
books, Tarzan Can Not Return to Africa/But I Can
and Cosmic Deputy (a collaboration with the
visual artist John Scott) awaiting publication and
The Magic of JuJu, a study of the Black Arts
Movement, nearing completion,
Kalamu ya Salaam is very much the Black South
writer in progress and so too is this bibliography of
his works.
*
* * * *
The bibliography
covers the years 1968 to 1996 with several items
published in the first months of 1997 included. Given
the number of venues in which
Salaampublished and the difficulty of
physically examining some publications that are not yet
archived or in
Salaam’s possession (the shortlived National
Leader newspaper, such magazines as Wavelength and
Offbeat), a reader may discover that some items are
missing. This bibliography is, however, as comprehensive
as I could make it, and I am very grateful to
Salaam for his generous support in helping me
to track down rare items. The entries within each
category are arranged chronologically in order to
facilitate tracing what Salaam published
in any given year. The bibliography should be used in
conjunction with the biographical sketches available in
Arthenia Bates Millican’s “Kalamu ya Salaam,”
Dictionary of Literary Biography, 38 (1985),
231–239 and Charles P. Toombs’s “Salaam,
Kalamu ya,” The Oxford Companion to
African American Literature (1997), pp. 640–641.
Salaam’s “Art for Life: My Story, My Song” in
Contemporary Author Autobiography Series 21
(1995), 179–252 is a very thorough account of his life
and poetics, an invitation to read his works in light of
and against his announced intentions.
*
* * * *
Kalamu ya Salaam: A Primary
Bibliography
(in Progress)
I. Books
The Blues Merchant Songs for
Blkfolk. New Orleans: BLKARTSOUTH, 1969.
Hofu ni kwenu: My Fears for You.
New Orleans: Ahidiana, 1973.
Pamoja tutashinda: Together We
Will Win. New Orleans: Ahidiana, 1973.
Ibura. New Orleans: Ahidiana,
1976.
Tearing the Roof
off the Sucker: The Fall of South Africa. New
Orleans: Ahidiana, 1977.
South African
Showdown: Divestment Now. New Orleans: Ahidiana,
1978.
Revolutionary
Love: Poems and Essays. New Orleans: Ahidiana-Habari,
1978.
Herufi: An
Alphabet Reader. New Orleans: Ahidiana, 1979.
Iron Flowers: A
Poetic Report on a Visit to Haiti. New Orleans:
Ahidiana, 1979.
Our Women Keep
Our Skies from Falling: Six Essays in Support of the
Struggle to Smash Sexism and Develop Women. New
Orleans: Nkombo, 1980.
Our Music is No
Accident. New Orleans: New Orleans Cultural
Foundation, 1988. [Words by Kalamu ya Salaam. Images by
Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick]
A Nation of
Poets. New Orleans: Privately Printed, 1989 [Poems
in 2 sections: Blues (5 poems) and New Music (7 poems)]
What is Life ?
Reclaiming the Black Blues Self. Chicago: Third
World Press, 1994.
Ghosts! New
Orleans: Privately Printed, 1995 [5 poems by Kalamu ya
Salaam]
Tarzan Can Not
Return to Africa/But I Can. Clarkston, Georgia:
Vision 3000 [Projected publication]
Cosmic Deputy.
New Orleans: Runnagate Press [Projected publication]
(poems by KyS; drawings by John Scott)—not yet
published.
II. Pamphlets
“Bush Mama.” New
Orleans: Ahidiana, 1977, 5 pages.
Nuclear Power and
the Black Liberation Struggle. New Orleans: Ahidiana,
1978.
The Political Act
of Writing. New Orleans: Privately Printed, 1983.
Raise Beauty: Essay
and Poetry. New Orleans: Privately Printed, 1989.
[Essay: “If the Hat Don’t Fit, How Com We Wearing It!”;
poems: “A Gun in the Hand,” “Top 40,” “Inspiration,”
“Four Elements,” “Be About Beauty,” “Raise Beauty.”]
Art for Life: An
Essay/Year 200: A Poem. New Orleans: Privately Printed,
1989. [Keynote Address at the 31st annual
convention, National Conference of Artists, March 22,
1989]
III. Poetry in Periodical and Anthologies
“whi/te boys gone,”
“The Blues (in two parts),” “2 B BLK, … Food for
Thought.” New Black Voices. Ed. Abraham Chapman.
New York: Mentor, 1972, pp. 374–379.
“The Black Self
(the distances of what was laying heavy slow moving on
our faces).” Poems by Blacks, Vol. III. Ed.
Pinkie Gordon Lane, Fort Smith, Arkansas: South and
West, Inc., 1975, p. 83.
“from IN A SISTER
BLUES/No. 2 the shelter.” Callaloo, 1 (December
1976), 10.
“Unfinished
Business,” “Like Brothers Do,” “Hard News for Hip
Harry.” NIMROD, 21.2, 22.1 (1977), 234–239.
“Re Tail &
Merchandise, ghetto time,” “Diapers and Dishes,”
Black Scholar, 10.3 and 4 (1978), 15.
“Black Man Is (w/H
Nia in Mind.” Y’Bird, 1.1 (1978), 162–164.
“Bittersweet,”
“Iron Flowers.” Black Scholar, 11
(January/February 1980), 80 [Excerpt from Iron Flowers]
“Danny Barker,
Danny Banjo.” Xavier Review, 1.1 & 2 (1980/1981),
17–19.
“Ntozake Shange (to
those who wish she would shut up.” Quilt, 1
(1981), 127–128.
“haiku #30,” “haiku
#31,” “haiku #32.” Cricket, 1.2 (1985), no page
numbers. “haiku #30.” Cricket, 1.3 (1985), no
page numbers.
“haiku #30,” “haiku #31,” “haiku
#32,” “haiku #33,” “haiku #77.” Black River Journal,
1988, p. 9.
“Another Level of Sweetness.”
Zone, 2 (1988), 110.
“Govern Yourself Accordingly,”
“Where Are You?” Shooting Star Review, 2.4
(1988), 2, 6.
“A Sequence,” (I,
II, III, IV, V, VI) CICAD & 11 (1988), no pagination.
[Haiku-Kys has numbered in pencil the sequence as 27, 9,
81, 79, 62, 10]
“In Answer to Your
Prayer: We Care, Dear Irma, Your Song Makes Us Care.”
“Pa Ferdinand,
“uncle dewey.” Catalyst, Fail 1989, pp. 112, 116.
“Young Mother Blues
#1/T’s Tune.” IRIS: A Journal About Women, No. 24
(Fall/Winter 1990): IFC [Inside front cover]
“A Gun in the Hand
is Worth …” Original Chicago Blues Annual, no. 2
(1990), 41 [Also published in Only Morning in Her
Shoes: Poems About Old Woman. Ed. Leatrice Lifshitz
Logan: Utah State University Press, 1990, pp. 92–93.]
“haiku #103,”
“haiku #104,” “haiku #105,” “haiku #106,” “Sometimes I
Think I Have Not Done Enough To Make The World Safe for
Love.” New Laurel Review, 17 (1990), 30–33.
“And Say Yes.” A Carolina
Literary Companion, no. 11 (1990), 64.
“The Blues: My Story, My Song.”
City Arts Quarterly, 4.3 & 4 (1990), 29. [Reprinted
for A Nation of Poets]
“Nonspecific Physical Disorder.”
Literati Internazionale, 1.1 (1991), 23.
“Year 2000.” Black Books
Bulletin, 8 (1991), 133–136.
“blues zephyr.” Louisiana
Literature, 8.1, (1991), 42.
“Sweet BLK—Drums
Can Make You Happy: A Sweet for Edward Blackwell.”
The Chapbook for 1991. Ed. John W. Fiero. Department
of English, University of Southwestern Louisiana, Deep
South Writers Conference, pp. 49–56.
“Tasty Knees,”
“Haiku #9, ,” “Haiku #79,” The Sweetest Sound,” “Haiku
#107, ,” “Haiku #52,” “Haiku #25.” Erotique
Noire/Black Erotica. Ed. Miriam DeCosta-Willis,
Reginald Martin, Roseann P. Bell. New York:
Doubleday/Anchor, 1992, pp. 5, 17, 60, 99, 141, 159,
255.
“Can’t Do Nothing
For,” “Sometimes I Think I Have Not Done Enough to Make
the World Safe for Love (a letter to Linda/I waz just
thinking.” FORWARD MOTION, 11.1 (March 1992),
46–48.
“My Shoes Are Off.”
Catalyst, no. 10 (Spring/Summer 1992), 72.
“bahian beauty,”
“hues so deep the night’s darkness.” Amelia, 6.4
(1992), 23.
“Our World Is Less
Now That Mr. Fuller Is Gone.” In Search of Color
Everywhere. Ed. E. Ethelbert Miller. New York:
Steward, Tabori & Chang, 1994, p. 184.
“After the Music Do
You Remember?” Re/Mapping The Occident. Ed. Bryan
Joachino Malessa and John Jason Mitchell. Berkeley:
University of California, Berkeley, 1995, p. 45.
“the spurs of
life.” Essence, April 1995, pp. 89, 90, 92, 94,
96, 100. [6 haiku: “Height, Breadth, Depth,” “Makes You
Go Ooh!,” “New Orleans Rainbow,” “Spiritual Geography,”
“Sunrise on the River,” and “The Spice of Life.”]
“Two Poems [‘haiku
4/131’ and ‘in the custody of love’.”] MESECHABE,
no. 13 (Summer 1995), 14. [Published in New Orleans as
Mesechabe. The Journal of Sarre(gion)alism]
“My Soul Looks Back
& Wonders [poems with photographs by Gus Bennett],”
“Ruby Dee Eyes.” Fertile Ground, Ed. Kalamu ya
Salaam and Kysha N. Brown. New Orleans: Runagate Press,
1996, pp. 29–35.
“Handguns are the
Seeds of Destruction,” “haiku #133.” Long Shot,
18 (1996), 156–157.
“Haiku #107.”
EROS. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1996. n.p.
“New Orleans
Haiku.” Louisiana English Journal, 3.1 (1996), 55
[17 haiku: “French Quarter Intimacies,” “New Orleans
Rainbow,” “Everywhere You Eat,” “Our Natures Rise,”
“Funeraled Fare Well,” “Sunrise on the River,” “Til
Death Do Us Part,” “Secondline Send Off, … Quarter Moon
Rise,” “All Nite Long,” “The Spice of Life,” “Round
Midnight,” “Place de Congo,” “Spiritual Geography,” “St.
Louis Cemetery Crypt,” “Make You Go Oohhh!,” “Height,
Breadth, Depth”]
“Home is Where the
Struggle Is (Black Nationalist Meet in Red China).” A
Legacy of Resistance: Tribute to Robert and Mable
Williams, November 1996. [Program book, Wayne State
University, n.p.]
“Iron Flowers,”
“Still Life, Stealing Life…, … We Have Been Seen,” “Bush
Mama, “Danny Barker/Danny Banjo.” Trouble the Water:
250 Years of African American Poetry. Ed. Jerry W.
Ward, Jr. New York: Mentor, 1997, pp. 443–452.
IV. Fiction
“Second
Line/Cutting the Body Loose,” What We Must See.
Ed. Orde Coombs. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1971, pp. 21–28.
[Published under the name Val Ferdinand]
“Sister Bibi.”
We Be Word Sorcerers. Ed. Sonia Sanchez. New York:
Bantam, 1973, pp. 128–139.
“No Jive/We Got to
Move.” HooDoo, 2 (1975), n.p. [4–9] [Story is
dated October 1, 1971]
“Where Do Dreams
Come From.” EOTU, October 1988. [Six-page short
storyreno pagination]
“And Then They
Laughed.” Catalyst, Fall 1989, pp. 73–77.
“A Man Ain’t
Suppose to Cry.” OBSIDIAN II, 5.3 (1990), 53–71.
“Bird’s Solo.”
ASYMPTOTE, no. 4 (Summer 1990), 5.
“Earth.” NOBO,
1.2 (1991), 43–46.
“Buddy Bolden.”
Fertile Ground. Ed. Kalamu ya Salaam and Kysha N.
Brown. New Orleans: Runagate Press, pp. 248–253.
“Raoul’s Silver
Song.” StreetLights. Ed. Doris Jean Austin and
Martin Simmons. New York: Penguin, 1996, pp. 398–411.
V. Drama
The Picket
(1968). [First produced at Free Southern Theater, New
Orleans, 1968]
Happy Birthday
Jesus (1968). [First produced at Free Southern
Theater, New Orleans, 1969]
Mama (March
1969). [First produced at Free Southern Theater, New
Orleans, 1969]
Black Liberation
Army (Summer 1969). [First produced at Free Southern
Theater, New Orleans, 1969]
Homecoming
(Summer 1969). [First produced at Free Southern Theater,
New Orleans, 1970; published in Nkombo, N8 (August
1972), n.p.]
The Destruction
of the American Stage. Black World, 21.6
(1972), 54–69. [Ritual drama]
The Quest.
HooDoo, no. 1 (1973), n.p.
Blk Love Song
#1. Black Theater, USA: Forty-five Plays by Black
Americans, 1874–1974. Ed. James V. Hatch and Ted
Shine. New York: The Free Press, 1974, pp. 865–874.
Scenario for a
Black Woman (A Movie for Black Minds). Nkombo,
6.1 & 2 (June, 1977), 29–32, 34–47, 49–51, 53–55.
The Quest.
New Plays for the Black Theatre. Ed. Woodie King,
Jr. Chicago: Third World Press, 1989.
God Bless the
Child (c. 1990 unpublished), tss. 55pp.
Somewhere in the
World (Long Live Assata), Black Southern Voices.
Ed. John Oliver Killens and Jerry W. Ward, Jr. New York:
Meridian, 1992, pp. 326–345.
Malcolm, My Son.
African American Review, 27.1 (1993), 93–116. [Won
George Bass Award from Rites & Reason, Brown
University].
Memories
(1993 unpublished), tss. 73 pp. [Won CAC Regional
Playwrighting Award].
The Breath of
Life (1994 unpublished), tss. 51 pp. [Won Native
Voice Award from Louisiana State University].
Body and Soul.
(1995 unpublished), tss. 38 pp. [Won Native Voice Award
from Louisiana State University].
Blk Love Song
#1, Black Theater USA. Ed. James V. Hatch and Ted
Shine. New York: The Free Press, 1996, pp. 840–855.
VI. Articles and
Essays
“News from
BLKARTSOUTH.” Black Theater, no. 4 (1970), 4.
“On Black Theater
in America: A Report.” Negro Digest, 19 (April
1970), 2331.
“FOCUS: Julian
Bond, Lerone Bennett, Floyd McKissick Supporting UNCF.”
Black Collegian, 1.2 (1971), 6–7, 37.
“PROFILE: Texas
Southern University.” Black Collegian, 1.2
(1971), 8–11, 3536.
“BLACK HISTORY: The
Age of Black Invention.” Black Collegian, 2.1
(1971), 7.8. [Prepared by KyS]
“Black History.”
Black Collegian, 2.2 (1971), 7–9, 47, 50.
“PROFILE: Malcolm X
Community College.” Black Collegian, 2.2 (1971),
10-“Annual Black Theatre Round-Up: New Orleans.” Black
World, 21.6 (1972), 40–44.
“BlkArtSouth-New
Orleans.” Black World, 21 (April 1972), 40–45.
“BLKARTSOUTH/get on
up!” New Black Voices. Ed. Abraham Chapman, New
York: Mentor, 1972, pp. 468–473.
“The Editor.”
Black Collegian, 2.4 (1972), 6.
“Notepad #.”
Black Collegian, 2.4 (1972), 47. [Editorial
prefacing Book Review segment of EXPRESSIONS: Reviews]
“Africans West, Now
Known As Negroes.” Black Collegian, 3.2 (1972),
20–22, 50–51.
“PROFILE: Malcolm X
Liberation University.” Black Collegian, 3.2
(1972), 12–15, 51, 53, 55.
“Committee for a
Unified New Ark.” Black Collegian, 3.4 (1973),
22–24, 43.
“Les Ballets
Afrikan in Action.” Black Collegian, 3.5 (1973),
28–29.
“Afrikan Liberation
Day—Its Meaning and Significance.” Black Collegian,
3.5 (1973), 38, 41–42.
“More Than
Slogans.” Black Collegian, 4.2 (1973), 8.
“Open Letter to Our
Readers.” Black Collegian, 4.2 (1973), 19, 34. [An
introduction to the inaugural “EXPRESSIONS: A National
Review of the Black Arts”]
“Southern
University: One Year After.” Black Collegian, 4.2
(1973), 40–43, 54.
“$50 Crossword
Puzzle.” Black Collegian, 4.3 (1974), 36–37,
50–51.
“Dick Gregory: Our
Number One Social Critic.” Black Collegian, 4.5
(1974), 18–21.
“The Realities of
Living and Working in Afrika.” Black Collegian,
5.1 (1974), 28, 66–67.
“Imamu Amiri Baraka.”
Black Books Bulletin, 2.2 (1974), 33–37, 40–43.
“Tell No Lies,
Claim No Easy Victories.” Black World, 23
(October 1974, 1834.
“Black Student
Leaders Speak Out.” Black Collegian, 5.3 (1975),
39, 41 … [Article is cut off, supposed to continue on
page 51, no explanation of error given in subsequent
issues]
“A Response to Haki
Madhubuti.” Black Scholar, 6 (January/February
1975), 40–43.
“Can the System
Satisfy Us?” Black Collegian, 5.4 (1975), 6–7,
10.
“How To Live On
Your Own.” Black Collegian, 5.5 (1975), 4, 38–39.
“Black Music: The
American Artform.” Black Collegian, 5.5 (1975),
42–44, 4956.
“Is There A Doctor
In The House?” Black Collegian, 6.1 (1975), 2,
64.
“When Is A Champion
Not A Champion.” Black Collegian, 6.1 (1975), 35,
63. [Essay/editorial concerning Arthur Ashe’s Wimbledon
win]
“Soul In The
Superdome.” Black Collegian, 6.2 (1975), 30–31.
“Race, World
Relations & Our People’s Failure.” Black Books
Bulletin, 3.4 (1975), 4–7, 9–12).
“Change Is Our Only
Salvation.” Black Collegian, 6.4 (1976), 8, 10,
12–13.
“Which Way Are They
Going (The Nation of Islam.” Black Collegian, 6.4
(1976), 38–40, 90–91.
“Bingo Long.”
Black Collegian, 6.5 (1976), 34–35.
“On The Horizon:
Two Black Women.” Black Collegian, 6.5 (1976),
38–39.
“This is Reggae
Music.” Black Collegian, 6.5 (1976), 40, 42, 46,
48–49.
“Energy Is
Everywhere.” Black Collegian, 7.1 (1976), 4–6, 8,
70, 72, 74, 76, 78.
“Black Sounds
Wizards.” Black Collegian, 7.1 (1976), 58, 60–63.
“Black Boogie
Bends, Purveyors of the Big Beat.” Black Collegian,
7.2 (1976, 34–35, 66.
“The Commodores:
Moving On In High Gear.” Black Collegian, 7.2
(1976), 36.
“James Earl Jones:
A Great Black Hope.” Black Collegian, 7.3 (1977,
32, 62.
“Can This Be Real?”
Black Collegian, 7.3 (1977), 37,61.
“Making The Image
Real.” Black Collegian, 7.4 (1977), 54, 57, 58,
60.
“The Resurgence of
Jazz.” Black Collegian, 7.5 (1977), 38, 40–41,
65–66.
“Teddy Bear.”
Black Collegian, 7.5 (1977), 42, 50. [Article about
Teddy Pendergrass]
“The Positive
Personality of Minnie Ripleton.” Black Collegian,
8.1 (1977), 4344.
“OUTLOOK:
Industrial Production and Scarce Resources.” Black
Collegian, 8.1 (1977), 64, 66, 68, 70.
“Food and Our
Future.” Black Collegian, 8.2 (1977), 71–76.
‘”Looks Like
Murder.” Black Collegian, 8.2 (1977), 72.
“Gary Tyler Is
Fighting Back, What Are You Doing?” Nkombo, 6.3
(January 1978), 20–28.
“Don’t Forget Your
Ticket.” Black Collegian, 8.3 (1978), 30.
“The Great Wall
Does Not Divide Us.” Black Collegian, 8.3 (1978,
48, 50, 80.
Jimmy Smith and Les
McCann.” Black Collegian, 8.4 (1978), 90–92.
“Funk Wars: A
Profile of Funky Fellows.” Black Collegian, 8.5
(1978), 44, 4647, 78–80.
“Ashford and
Simpson.” Black Collegian, 8.5 (1978), 50, 54,
56.
“Nuclear Power and
the Black Liberation Struggle.” Black Scholar,
9.10 (July/August 1978), 28–35.
“South African
Showdown: Divestment Now.” Black Collegian, 9.1
(1978), 50, 52, 54, 56, 58.
“Max Robinson:
Taking the Weight.” Black Collegian, 9.2 (1978),
56–57, 9596.
“Oh Jamaica!”
Black Collegian, 9.3 (1979), 104, 176–179.
“Better Get It in
Your Soul: A Tribute To Charles Mingus.” Black
Collegian, 9.4 (1979), 122, 216, 218, 220.
“The Political and
Economic Ramifications of Bottle-Feeding.” Black
Collegian, 9.5 (1979), 88–89.
“Cinema as
Revolutionary Art.” First World, 22 (1979),
62–64.
“Revolutionary
Struggle/Revolutionary Love.” Black Scholar, 10
(August/September 1979), 20–24. [Reprinted in Foresight,
2.1 (Spring 1983), 25–28]
“Great Black
Music.” Black Collegian, 10.2 (1979), 62–64.
“Women’s Rights Are
Human Rights.” Black Scholar, 10 (March/April
1979), 9–14.
“Great Black
Music.” Black Collegian, 10.2 (1979), 54, 56–57.
“The Haiti
Experience.” Black Collegian, 10.2 (1979), 62–64,
66, 70, 126–127.
“Great Black Music:
Listen To The Songs of Our Fathers…Johnny Griffin Is
Blowing.” Black Collegian, 10.3 (1979/80), 78–79.
“Spirit Sensitive:
The Music of Chico Freeman.” Black Collegian,
10.4 (1980), 32, 34–36, 38, 40, 44, 48, 54, 58.
“Morning Glory:
Mary Lou Williams.” Black Collegian, 10.5 (1980),
18, 21.
“Commentary.”
First World, 2.4 (1980), 52–53. [Essays on language
and African-American literature]
“The Energy
Crisis.” Black Collegian, 11.1 (1980), 105,
108–110, 112, 114, 116–117, 120–122, 124, 126, 128,
168–170, 191–192, 194–195.
“Voices of the
Civil Rights Movement.” Black Collegian, 11.1
(1980), 196–197.
“How And Why Rodney
Was Downpressed.” Black Collegian, 11.2 (1980),
106–111.
“Cuban Cinema.”
Black Scholar, 11.3 (1980), 85–90.
“Black College Day
’80.” Black Collegian, 11.3 (1980/81), 10–11.
“In the Face of
Oppression: A Case Study of New Orleans.” Black
Scholar, 12.1 (1981), 65–67.
“African
Root/African Fruit Music.” Black Collegian, 11.4
(1981), 10, 12.
“New Orleans: Notes
from a Banana Republic.” Black Books Bulletin,
7.3 (1981), 14–17, 21.
“Yeah, But Is It
Music?” Black Collegian, 12.1 (1981), 40–42, 44,
46, 48.
“Stopping South
Africa.” Black Collegian, 12.2 (1981), 20, 22,
24–28.
“Great Black
Music—Are You Reggae For It Now?” Black Collegian,
12.2 (1981), 113–114, 116.
“Bob Marley.”
Black Collegian, 12.2 (1981), 115.
“Reggae Roundup.”
Black Collegian, 12.2 (1981), 118–120.
“Singers and
Songwriters: More Than Meets The Ear.” Black
Collegian, 12.3 (1981/82), 24, 28–29, 31–32.
“Basic Rules For
Black Communicators.” Black Collegian, 13.1
(1982), 128–129.
“Cutting the Body
Loose.” Wavelength, July 1982, pp. 26–31.
“12th
Anniversary Editorial: The Message!” Black Collegian,
13.2 (1982), 4.
“My People: My Name
is Fulani.” Black New Orleans, 1.1 (198), 24–26.
“Profile/Rev. Paul
Morton.” Black New Orleans, 1.1 (1982), 27–29.
[Published under the pseudonym Hughes Jones]
“Majority Rule: An
Analysis of the Election Primary.” Black New Orleans,
1.3 (1982), 26–27.
“The Exquisite
Cuisine of Chez Helene.” Black New Orleans, 1.3
(1982), 2324. [Published under the pseudonym Hughes
Jones]
“From Zydeco to
Blues, Jazzfest Has It All.” National Leader, 2.8
(1983), 1819.
“Marvin Gaye: A
Contradictory Singer.” National Leader, 2.12
(1983), 20–21.
“Kashif: A Musical
Inventor for the ’80s.” Black Collegian, 14.1
(1983), 118, 120, 122.
“For Malcolm, For
Us.” Steppingstones, Winter 1983, pp. 38–40.
“What Us Is
Writing? Re-reading Lorraine Hansberry.” Black
Collegian, 14.4 (1984), 45–46.
“The Political Act
of Writing.” SAGALA, 4 (1984), 32–37.
Source: Jerry W. Ward Jr. "Kalamu ya Salaam: A Primary
Bibliography (In Progress)." Mississippi
Quarterly. Winter ’97/’98. Vol. 51.
posted 27 March 2010
* * * *
*
Responses
Rudy
1. thank you.
2. this stuff will never be complete—a number of items have been
published in small newspapers that i have long forgotten about, not to
mention, for various reasons, there is a bunch of stuff uncredited or
under a pen name. nevertheless, rudy, i really appreciate the work you
are doing in general and this project is, of course, of particular
interest to me as i approach 60 (i'm 59 now).
3. i have a handful of projects i want to finish within the next year,
we'll see how that goes. which is to say, this bibliography stuff is
doomed to remain incomplete for years to come, and, at the same time, in
a perverse sort of way, the project is an inspiration to me to continue
trying to make it impossible for it to ever be complete ;->)
thanks rudy. much appreciated. a luta continua—kalamu
* * * * *
Dear Rudy,
Thanks also for sending the file of my Kalamu
ya Salaam bibliography. I'll check it for you a.s.a.p. Kalamu and I had
lunch yesterday and discussed, among other things, how pleased we are
with the work you are doing. What we especially like about
Chickenbones
is the range of coverage, your publishing new and old writers who allow
us to follow multiple currents in diasporic thought.
Happy Easter—Jerry
* * * * *
* * * * *
Miriam, Jerry's Call for Papers of uncanonized
writers highlights the dilemma of a lack of bibliographies and access to
writings. That is part of the reason so many writers are uncanonized:
out of print books, lack of a central location, little digitalization of
writings, etc.
Kalamu has been fortunate to have ChickenBones.
We have digitized so many of and
so much of his writings that a
number of 20 page papers could be written. ChickenBones is unique
in this. Of course we also have a great amount on Marcus Christian who
has also been removed from the canon.
Unless one is a
full-time professor and scholar or have a special love for a particular
writer. Or one has the financial resources to do the hunt for writings
or the research for writings, one will be unable to respond to Jerry's
CFP. Such a project was made for a scholar and poet like Mona Lisa Saloy.
She has been working on Bob Kaufman for years—Rudy
* * * * *
I totally agree with the above insights and comments.
We must remember that only we can develop our writings and institutions
which will bring our Worldview and cultural vision to humanity. Hats off
to Rudy and Jerry Ward for spot-lighting the work of this great artist,
critic and intellectual!—Askia Toure'
* * * * *
Many thanks. I will need help from all of you in
putting the spotlight on what Askia rightly calls our "Worldview and
cultural vision."—
Jerry
* * * * *
Dear Miriam, I published the bibliography on
Kalamu several years ago, but it only covers his work up to 1996. Some
high-energy young scholar will have to compile 1996 to 2010.—Jerry
* * * * *
Well, you're still a high-energy scholar, Jerry, but,
like me, you've probably wisely decided to devote these golden years to
your own work. Let's hope, though, that a younger scholar will continue
your work on Kalamu.—Miriam
* * * * *
We can be thankful that a lot of Kalamu's work as a
music critic is accessible at his site
www.kalamu.com/bol.
We also have some of his correspondence during Katrina on
ChickenBones. He wrote some poems during this period as well. I do
not have copies of that work. I have his novel on Robert Johnson in
Word. But I have yet had a chance to read it.
There is so much I would like to do in this regard. A friend of mine has
in his basement stacks and stacks of The Black Collegian. I had a
volunteer Austin Syndnor who helped to get the Kalamu bibliography from
hard copy to a digitized copy. All this kind of work has been intensive
and sacrificial.
Still we have made a dent. There is a considerable amount of material on
ChickenBones that is not listed in Jerry's bibliography, like the
Malcolm play, and most of all we have such manuscripts as Kalamu's
autobiography, "Art for Life: My Story, My Song:"
http://www.nathanielturner.com/artforlifetable.htm. I do indeed hope that some younger scholars and web
publishers will work on the foundations that Jerry and I have laid.—Rudy
* * * * *
Jerry, I'm with you on the importance of Kalamu. We first met and jammed
together (Kalamu on drums) at Fort Bliss, Texas in February of 1968. It
was a "homeboy’s" hookup that produced a long friendship. On my 60th
birthday, he gave me a cd of Lou Rawls' Greatest Hits and helped me
laugh the entire evening. There was a time when I knew the entire Rawls
songbook. He's a righteous brother.—Chuck
Siler
*
* * * *
music website >
http://www.kalamu.com/bol/
writing website >
http://wordup.posterous.com/
daily blog >
http://kalamu.posterous.com
twitter >
http://twitter.com/neogriot
facebook >
http://www.facebook.com/kalamu.salaam
* * *
* *
Guarding the Flame of Life
*
* * * *
*
* * * *
New Orleans Jazz Funeral for tuba player Kerwin
James /
They danced atop his casket Jaran 'Julio' Green
* * *
* *
* * * * *
 |
What This Cruel War Was Over
Soldiers Slavery and the Civil
War
By Chandra Manning
For this impressively researched
Civil War social history, Georgetown
assistant history professor Manning
visited more than two dozen states
to comb though archives and
libraries for primary source
material, mostly diaries and letters
of men who fought on both sides in
the Civil War, along with more than
100 regimental newspapers. The
result is an engagingly written,
convincingly argued social history
with a point—that those who did the
fighting in the Union and
Confederate armies "plainly
identified slavery as the root of
the Civil War." Manning backs up her
contention with hundreds of
first-person testimonies written at
the time, rather than
often-unreliable after-the-fact
memoirs. While most Civil War
narratives lean heavily on officers,
Easterners and men who fought in
Virginia, Manning casts a much
broader net. She includes
immigrants, African-Americans and
western fighters, in order, she
says, "to approximate cross sections
of the actual Union and Confederate
ranks." Based on the author's
dissertation, the book is free of
academese and appeals to a general
audience, though Manning's harsh
condemnation of white Southerners'
feelings about slavery and her
unstinting praise of Union soldiers'
"commitment to emancipation" take a
step beyond scholarly objectivity.—Publishers
Weekly |
* * * * *
|
Stewardship: Lessons Learned
from the Lost Culture of Wall Street
By John Taft
John Taft comes from a distinguished
political family well known for its
commitment to integrity. In
Stewardship: Lessons Learned from the
Lost Culture of Wall Street,
John Taft builds on that legacy and
presents an intelligent, thoughtful
argument for the importance of
establishing service to others as the
key to saving ourselves from the ongoing
financial crisis, and creating a more
stable and more compassionate financial
system. When the financial crisis hit in
2008, Taft was on the front lines with
investors and employees, and experienced
their extreme turmoil. Driven by a
conviction that purposefulness,
accountability, humility, integrity, and
foresight are our duty, and that making
the world a better place is our calling,
he outlines in this book his belief in
stewardship's core principles. These
principles are the answer not only for
minimizing the scale and impact of
future financial crises, but also for
addressing the major societal challenges
facing us today.
Wide-ranging in its coverage, the book
looks at the ways in which a lack of
stewardship contributed to the financial
crisis, how to strengthen banking
regulation, and much more. Including an
in-depth analysis of the ways in which
Canadian banks responded to the crisis
with integrity and established
themselves as models of fiscal
responsibility, it looks to the future
with optimism. |
 |
* *
* * *
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)
* *
* * *
Ancient African Nations
* * * * *
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
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* *
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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 16 March 2012 |
I agree wholeheartedly with Jerry about the significance of Kalamu's work as a poet, essayist, and memoirist; as a scholar of music and literature; and as a cultural activist in so many fields. Jerry is undertaking an important work in compiling a bibliography of Kalamu's work.—Miriam