|
Books and CDs by Glenis Redmond
Gwendolyn Knight: Discovering Powerful
Images /
Backbone /
Steam Dreams, an Anthology
Glenis on Poetry (CD)
Monumental (CD)
*
* * * *
|
Village Cry
By Glenis Redmond
I am living under the dread
of the confederate flag.
In my heart I know…
I am taller than plantation pillars.
I am taller than academic towers.
I am taller than the confederate flag
flying.
I’ve lasted through five-hundred years of
slavery.
There are many generations of uneducated
misery
between me and my resilient ancestors.
Their wilted souls like broken bones
provide blood in our red soil.
I look back.
I don’t see no trail blazed in glory,
just blood soaked cotton.
They tell me roots are lovely.
How would I know?
I can’t touch them.
I can’t hold them.
I can’t see them.
I’ve only held them in my mystical hand.
I’ve seen how they shrivel and shrink
when ripped from familiar soil.
They cannot breathe
as I cannot breathe.
I look back…
I don’t see no trail blazed in glory,
just my last name forced on by slavery.
R-E-D-M-O-N-D is too fragile to stretch
across these
atlantic waters.
I don’t have no last name,
neither does any other African brought to
this american
soil.
There is nothing affirmative action can
repair or replace in
thirty years.
Count them!
Five Generations of blood soaked cotton!
The new south cannot stand on the pillars of
the old south.
We can dress her up
with Magnolias, Camellias,
Honeysuckle vines.
Blood soaked cotton carries a stench.
I will not close my eyes to it.
I will not go gently.
I will do as Dylan Thomas says.
I will rage.
I will rage.
I will rage.
The Berlin Wall toppled.
Apartheid did too.
This flag will go down!
And I will be standing taller…
taller than plantation pillars.
taller than academic towers.
taller than the confederate flag flying.
This flag will go down.
It will be gone with the wind.
There will be no sequel Scarlett,
because, frankly I do give a Damn!
*
* * * * |
posted 23 January 2008
* * *
* *
Glenis Redmond is an
award-winning performance poet, praise poet, teacher,
and writer. For the past twelve years, she has traveled
both domestically and abroad, performing and teaching.
Her poetry has won the Carrie McCray literary award
1995, NC Literary Artist Fellowship 2005, Denny C.
Plattner Award for Outstanding Poetry, 2005. She is also
the two-time recipient of fellowships from both the
Vermont Writing Center and the Atlantic Center for the
Arts. Glenis has been published in numerous literary
journals and publications including Stanford
University's Black Arts Quarterly, Obsidian II: Black
literature in Review, Emrys Journal, Bum Rush The Page:
Def Poetry Jam, Appalachian Journal, Appalachian
Heritage and African Voices As a performer, Glenis Redmond was
the Southeast Regional Individual Poetry Slam Champion
in 1997 and 1998, and placed in the top ten twice in the
National Individual Slam Championships. She currently
presents a variety of performances for audiences of all
ages in venues ranging from top performing arts centers
to juvenile detention centers. Glenis has performed in
many diverse locations including the Paddington Arts
Festival in England, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New
York City, the Poetry Circus Festival in Taos, New
Mexico, and the Peace Center in her native South
Carolina.
As a teacher, Glenis Redmond has recently been invited
to join the national touring roster for the Kennedy
Center's Partnership in Education Teacher Training. She
helps both professional and amateur writers from 9-90
find their own poetic voices through workshops and
classes across the nation. Email:
poetica11@aol.com
and Website:
www.Glenisredmond.com
*
* * * *
The Blight That Is Still With Us—They still
honor Benjamin Tillman down here, which is very much
like honoring a malignant tumor. A statue of Tillman,
who was known as Pitchfork Ben, is on prominent display
outside the statehouse.
Tillman served as
governor and U.S. senator in the late 19th and early
20th centuries. A mortal enemy of black people, he
bragged that he and his followers had disenfranchised
“as many as we could,” and he publicly defended the
murder of blacks.
In a speech on the Senate floor, he
declared:
|
We of the South have
never recognized the right of the negro to
govern white men, and we never will. We have
never believed him to be the equal of the
white man, and we will not submit to his
gratifying his lust on our wives and
daughters without lynching him. |
Real change is more
than problematic in a state so warped by its past that
it can continue to officially admire a figure like
Tillman.
The host of a
dinner party I attended was Bud Ferillo, a white public
relations executive who produced and directed a
documentary called “Corridor of Shame” to call attention
to the terrible neglect of rural schools in South
Carolina.
If you were to walk
into some of those schools — which are spread along a
crescent-shaped corridor on either side of Interstate 95
from the southern edge of North Carolina to the northern
edge of Georgia — you might forget that you were in the
United States.
A former South
Carolina commerce secretary, Charles Way, talks in the
film about the time his car broke down near one of these
schools and he went inside to use a phone.
“I just couldn’t
really believe my eyes,” he said. “It was the most
deplorable building condition that I’ve ever seen in my
life. How the hell somebody could teach in an
environment like that is really just beyond me.”
Among many other problems, ancient
plumbing has resulted in raw sewage backing up into some
schools, bringing in vermin and unbearable odors. The
first school profiled in “Corridor of Shame” was built
in 1896.
Bob Herbert, NYTimes
|
Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
|
 |
* *
* * *
 |
Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
* *
* * *
update 23 April 2010
|
