two hundred thousand ghosts…
children die
do not talk to me about prayer
or paradise
talk is cheap
children die
and my anger supersedes my grief…
Through the Eyes of Artists
” Let the earth bear witness
Let the wind bear witness
Let the art bear witness…
They shall be remembered forever…”
Haitian playwrights and poets take center stage in New York City on March 31, 2010
“Here is stage poetry that invokes the living to see and hear the dead and commune with them through the theatre. Here is to hope and communion for a future that remains alive and thriving through theatre/poetry/song.”
Poésie érotique ?
Vous avez dit «Poésie érotique »? J’y suis allée quasiment à reculons, à ce spectacle intitulé « Cultures Caraïbes », organisé par le CIDIHCA, ce dimanche 6 septembre 2009, à Montréal, et dans lequel on annonçait, entre autres choses, la « mise en lecture d’"Amours et Bagatelles", poésie et prose érotique avec Michèle Voltaire Marcelin [...]
revelations
“My first memory of Texas is being glued to my mother’s hip as we thrashed through the terrain looking for a place to call home. We never had a place, a house of our own. When I say ‘thrashed through the terrain,’ I mean branches slashing against a child’s body that is glued to [...]
the corridors of power
“Richard the III, an Arab tragedy”, an exciting adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, opens with a monologue by Queen Margaret who introduces herself with these words: “I am Margaret. It is your right to ignore me. I would ignore myself if I could but my history will not allow me. We lost. I don’t want your [...]
the silk road
There are phrases so evocative, they summon entire worlds and journeys, real or imagined . Silk Road is such a name. Conjuring visions of caravans passing across timeless deserts and oasis towns; of camels laden with bales of multicolored silks and sumptuous brocades, of handsome turbanned men with smoldering eyes carrying rubies and pearls, clusters [...]
cahier spécial haïti
Comme le Mexique, Haïti est à l’honneur au Salon du Livre qui se déroule à Paris du 13 au 18 Mars 2009. La maison d’édition Le chasseur abstrait, connue pour son site Internet Revue d’Art et de Littérature, Musique publie le 8e numéro de ses “Cahiers de la RAL, M” consacré à la création littéraire [...]
haïti, holy republic of all attempts…
This bilingual piece, adapted from the play “Dialogue with my Double” and various poems by Carmelle St.Gérard Lopez is a patchwork of activist literature – where for an hour and a half, there is intense communication between the audience and the stage. Punctuated by songs composed and interpreted by Maryse Coulanges, the text explores the [...]
when god is too busy
God is too busy to rescue drowning children, too busy to stop the flow of blood, too busy to notice the suffering of Haiti, so Gina Athena Ulysse prays to other gods. From behind the curtain, before her entrance on the La Mama stage, she sings a Vodou song. Ezili, save us as we are [...]
Under A Certain Little Star
by Wislawa Szymborska I apologize to coincidence for calling it necessity. I apologize to necessity just in case I’m mistaken. Let happiness be not angry if I take it as my own. Let the dead not remember they scarcely smolder in my memory. I apologize to time for the muchness of the world overlooked per [...]
Darwin, Lincoln and…Haiti?
“That there is suffering, no one will dispute it, but according to my judgment, happiness will decidedly prevail.” Darwin(according to Beaty) “Four score and seven years ago, my heart began to break, and for a while, I did not know what it meant to be free.” Lincoln(according to Beaty) Was there a relationship between Lincoln [...]
burning both ends
photo: meesta meesta “My candle burns at both ends It will not last the night But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends It gives a lovely light!” Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) “I do not think there is a woman in whom the roots of passion shoot deeper than in me,” 20-year-old Millay wrote [...]
3Penny Opera
In 1976, the year I started studying at the Aaron Davis Center for the Performing Arts, Joe Papp of the N.Y. Shakespeare Festival staged a revival of “Three Penny Opera” at the Beaumont. It featured Raul Julia as the murdering, whoring, Macheath, prince of thieves in stinking, corrupt London. I loved the play and had [...]
TGIF
Thank God It’s Friday because…. It’s live jazz night at Jazz966! With jazz vocalist, Tulivu Donna Cumberbatch And what were you doing on a Friday night that was better than listening to the Ray Abrams Big Band? In fact, when was the last time you listened to a big jazz band? (My last time was [...]
Paroles de femme…
Jeanie Bogart Mwen ekri, m-ekri, m-ekri ………………………………………. emosyon mwen sou papye bèl pawòl literati bèl chema fe klenklen (J’écris, j’écris, j’écris… mes emotions sur le papier, de belles paroles de litérature, de beaux schémas clinquants..) Jou m-kontre’w cheri tout ti mo dous krase rak plim mwen tranble, krache, vomi tout chema tounen madigriji m-bliye konte, [...]
After Love
After you left me I had a bloodhound sniff at my chest and my belly. Let it fill its nostrils and set out to find you. I hope it will find you and rip your lover’s balls to shreds and bite off his cock – or at least bring me one of your stockings between [...]
Good Fortune!
“Sonny Fortune is one of the most intriguing alto players in contemporary jazz.” Stereophile magazine You and the Night, Sonny… You and your alto sax and your music in the night at Jazz 966! Back in the 1970′s, when we were bright young things spending our nights in jazz clubs clouded with cigarette smoke, nursing [...]
Leyla and the Medicine Women
Her instrument is: “this mermaid whose hair can sing this cross to bear a wooden box half hourglass half hollowness restraining resonant air to know what is not woman not thing but voice and with the audience mute as a landscape to let it scream” Ramon C. Sunico ~“Cello poem” “I believe we all have [...]
“Je t’aime à la (Franco) folie”
Un joli programme s’est profilé à Tamboril vendredi soir pour la première de Francopholie organisée par Francesca. La fête régnait grâce aux artistes d’ici et d’ailleurs, dans un tour du monde où diversité culturelle et vivacité rafraîchissante se mêlaient. Musiciens et poètes venus du Sénégal, du Mali, de la Guyane française, du Canada, de la [...]
Music is the weapon
Fela believed that music was the weapon of social fight for the future. Throughout a career that began with the London jazz scene and the uptown Nigerian Highlife music in the 1950′s, peaked with the revolutionary Afrobeat in the 1970′s, and inspired countless artists ever since, Fela lived out the war cry ‘Music is the [...]
Et la terre, comme la langue
In memoriam Mahmoud Darwich 13 Mars 1942 – 9 Aout 2008 ” Jamais nos exils ne furent vains, jamais en vain nous n’y fûmes envoyés, leurs morts s’étendront sans contrition. Aux vivants de pleurer l’accalmie du vent, d’apprendre à ouvrir les fenêtres, de voir ce que le passé fait de leur présence et de pleurer [...]
The Prince
In 1968, in the Malian capital of Bamako, a land of kingdoms, a 19-year-old boy descended from Malian princes defied the conventions of his noble ancestry to become a singer. This begins like a fairy tale, and like most princes in fairy tales, he received at birth both gifts and curses: an incomparable voice, musical [...]
Compère Jacques Soleil
” Pour moi, tout est toujours neuf sur la planète; tout m’étonne, tout m’affecte ou me ravit. Chaque jour j’ai l’impression de naître dans un univers inédit, et il me suffirait d’apprendre à ouvrir les yeux avec une conception moniste du monde pour arriver à envisager et saisir à la fois l’arbre et la forêt.” [...]
