Many have held so tightly to patriarchy. They no longer have hands to hold, grip-locked and wedded to a system of perceived intellectual prowess, and no informed feeling of the matters we are currently facing as a world, as friends, as people. To let go is what so many have done, are doing, now more than ever. For if we do not, we succumb to…
The Invocation: Courage in Cook County(a late night/early morning draft) by aja monet Downtown is behind us and we’re driving up the Dan Ryan to 63rd and Stewert where therein lies a block of a building called, a school just after the train tracksI look out the window from the passenger seat to observe a refined man the color of shimmering hooves,the Sears Tower of the South side,a chest…
On Tuesday, April 9, 2013 Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams and I were invited by Marquette University Center for Peacemaking program to speak with peacemaker students in the Pilsen and Little Village communities on Chicago’s Lower West Side. We engaged youth in two presentations about the importance of peacemaking in the world. It was an honor and a beautiful afternoon of smiles and reflection. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwHmSKj8Ujw
If you are in it to make a living, run. I know these modern day poets will tell you, “Oh but you can have it all!” No. No great artist has ever figured out how to make a living out of his art if only how to make a living. That is the key. I know very little about making a living off of my…
You know, a lot of people feel insecure about not having much to write about. However, I think it is also part of the process. It is okay. Julius Lester once wrote: “In attempting to shoulder his responsibility, the writer must always be aware of when he has something to say and when he doesn’t. The greatest danger comes when he has nothing to say,…
“Weathering” by aja monet When the earth shatters beneath usand we are broken open, picked apart by the silence— Let me tell you: you are unrehearsed laughter between the murmur of my lips, an unconscious love, a man dippedin midnight lightening. I will fix my body for youand fold in the bend of your arms, a tortured jewel. You are a freedom song humming in the shadow…
“Women, more often than not, speak from a position of lack, of not having received the love we long for…Taught to believe that the mind not the heart, is the seat of learning, many of us believe that to speak of love with any emotional intensity means we will be perceived as weak and irrational. And it is especially hard to speak of love…