ktravula – a travelogue!

Browsing the archives for the Art category.

Kitengela Nights

(Kenya, 2005)

 

Kitengela nights, a freedom flight.

Dry wisps of grass fly by, breaking

with the cold wind of a pregnant night

as harmattan singes the flesh and mind,

lungs dotted with dust and rust.

 

Nairobi evening. Lights, cold,

And love – ugali and roasted meat,

Nyama choma, in the walled hub

Of a distant home from home:

Then, warmth in the eastern country.

 

April winds break across my face

in the bust of a fast-moving beast.

We were four – and a few more,

Strangers in a foreign land, alone.

Only love moved, hosted, filled us.

 

Now, the mind journeys back

In soft bytes of soothing moods:

dark, homely evening, Kenyan tropics.

Rain and home in a distant place.

Kitengela, you live across from me.

Kitengela Nights was published on April 3rd, 2012, with the tags , , , under the Art, Fun, Soliloquy category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.

On Word Predestinations

One of the premises of linguistic determinism is that “the structures, hierarchies, and hidden associations of our individual human languages determine the conclusions that we reach in our logic, the aspirations of our lived lives, and all our emotional content.” (Wiki). As opposed to linguistic relativity – a flip side of the debate which allows for more latitude as relates to the purpose and limits of language and thought, determinism suggests that all events are caused by all previous events, and – similar to predestination – that they were meant only for a particular purpose.

My fascination with words and poetry stems from a similar line of thought – at least as it relates to those still benign implications of the school of thought. One of my favourite parts of Czeslaw Milosz’s Visions from San Francisco Bay was where he was contemplating the source of words, and whether somewhere on a mere conceptual plane they had been predestined to fulfill the roles they do in poetry, jokes and fiction. A song by Rihanna titled “We found love in a hopeless place” was recently satirized as “We found Dove in a soapless place”, successfully replicating the rhyme and rhythm, and yet providing sufficient absurdity to make it a joke. Last week, a host on Fox news joked about the Sandra Fluke contraception controversy and its tv coverage, saying, “You don’t judge a Fluke by its coverage.” Boom.

There are a thousand and one instances of lexical serendipity to support a theory for “poetic determinism” (my coinage). Like Milosz, I find more than just co-incidences in the abundant evidence of the hand of the mystic in our communication patterns. I noted it when Obama killed Osama, or when the most remarkable election in America’s recent history just happened to feature a man with a middle name “Hussein” right during a war in Iraq. Mitt Romney’s last name has been occasionally anagrammed as “R-Money”, for good reason, and poetic justice. And just two days ago, a video surfaced that successfully arranged all his public gaffes into a rap song scored by – wait for it: another Michigan native – Eminem. Watch below:

Of course, due credit must go to the genius of the people patient enough to arrange such a brilliant collection of sound bites into a meaningful piece of poetic art. A bigger credit – for those convinced of such a thing as the predestination of words – must go to the mischief-making lexical muses of the realm. And then sometime last year, a congressman who tweeted pictures of his genitals just happened to have been named “Wiener”. Don’t even get me started on the endless tonal possibilities of ambiguity in the Yoruba language. Well, here’s one more:

On Word Predestinations was published on March 21st, 2012, with the tags , , , , under the Academic, Art, Observations, Opinion category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Words with Jason

Jason Braun, a spoken word poet operates out of Edwardsville. He’s a friend and a Hemingway aficionado. I spoke with him a few days ago about his influences and his opinion on spoken word poetry. His spoken word mixtape is entitled  “Made This For You: The Mix Tape as Literature” given away yesterday at Jasonandthebeast.com. This mixtape was a product of the Association of Writers Programs & Writing Programs (AWP) Conference, Chicago. 

Tell me about the source of your fascination with rap and poetry.

I started writing poetry in high school after reading Shakespeare. I was listening to the Wu Tang Clan at the same time. Eventually I realized that these two things were more similar than they were different. Then for a long time I was influenced by the Poetry Slam, the Beats and the Black Arts Movement. I was lucky to get to study with Eugene B. Redmond at siue and his jazz backed album was a big influence on me.

Later I started a band called Jupiter Jazz with Jerry Hill (DJ Uptown) and it was Hip Hop, Jazz, and Poetry. We had some big breaks and played some great shows including Riverfest in Little Rock, Arkansas with people like B.B. King and The Wallflowers. I then started the “Jason and The Beast” project to make sonnets into a Hip Hop album.

“Made This For You: The Mix Tape as Literature” is about pushing the boundaries of what music, poetry, can do and where they can do it.

“What direction do you see for spoken word poetry in today’s world, especially because of the influence of social media?”

I see it moving in at least two directions. On the one hand you have spoken word and slam as new place that publishing poets can come from. I don’t want to call them academic poets but they’re poets that want to publish books. Two of my favorite poets that started in Slam and have left it behind are Patricia Smith and Tyehimba Jess. On the other hand spoken word poetry is being put to good use in the global community by people like my friend Michael Rothenberg and his”100 Thousand Poets for Change.”

These two directions won’t diminish the great thing that Marc Kelly Smith started when he created the Poetry Slam. He’ll still be drawing a crowd at the Green Mill in Chicago.

Do you see spoken word poetry as complementing publishing or standing alone from it. Do spoken word poets have to publish poems or does it just suffice to participate in the trade as oral griots.

I like to make stuff. Books, CD’s, downloads, apps, backpacks that prepare people for the coming mayan apocalypse–I’ve got all of those things in the works. Really. And I like to put on shows, sing, rap, and teach. The griots and Homer might be closer to my heart. I think about this a lot.

Are there any other shows that you’ve participated in that you can highlight? Where and when?

I’ve co-directed a multi media show for Adrian Matejka’s National Poetry Series winning book, Mixology. Me and DJ Uptown played a short set there. It great to rap for my professors and former professors and help try to bring Matejka’s amazing book into 3D.

Beside the jasonandthebeast website, where else can we find you (online and elsewhere)?

If you’re in Chicago from Feb 29th-March 3rd you can find me and some of my collaborators at the AWP Book fair by going to the Sou’wester table G5. If you don’t have tickets to AWP you can probably find me during the evening at the main bar at the Hilton Chicago (720 South Michigan Ave) or hanging out at The Green Mill (4802 N. Broadway), where Marc Smith once put me on as a featured guest of his Poetry Slam.

In the St. Louis area:
On Tuesday, March 27 from 12:30 – 2pm in the Maple/Dogwood Rooms of the MUC, Jason Braun will be presenting at SIUE’s College of Arts and Sciences Colloquium during the creative writing panel on “Thinking about Space.”

On Thursday, March 29th at 7pm Jason Braun will be featured at the SIUE bookstore as part of the Graduate Writers Read Series.

On Saturday, March the 31st from 7pm Jason Braun will be featured by the St. Louis Writers Guild for a night of poetry and music, which will be at Kirkwood Train Station. Raven Wolf will be doing jazz back-ups. Other poets include Treasure Shields Redmond, Nicky Rainey, Erin Chapman, Gerry Mandel.

And on 88.1 KDHX Monday Nights from 9-10pm hosting “Literature for the Halibut.” You can listen from anywhere in the world at kdhx.org

You can find more about Jason’s mixtape here.

Words with Jason was published on February 29th, 2012, with the tags , , , , under the Art, Observations category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.

Ramblings: On A Few Personal Things

Hi Blog,

It has been a while, or has it? In-between worrying about the direction of this darned thesis (which is as interesting/exciting as it is burdening), and looking all around the internet for good English teaching opportunities in East Africa after this long American adventure winds up in a few months, and managing a language lab that caters to all students of foreign languages in this university, you have been a consistent friend. Even while worrying all through the last couple of weeks deciding which photographs to enter into that Juried Show, and eventually, the little details of its presentation, you have been here. Here’s my hug to you. Hold it tight. You deserve it.

Do you also remember that new position that was tossed on my lap from those brainy folks at Nigerianstalk? Adding a literary component to the already popular site of Nigerian news/thought aggregation, a LitMag was debut with a purpose of harnessing the strength of new literature on the continent and I was made the editor. Tell me, how easy was the task of transitioning from a distant critic of Nigeria/Africa’s new writing into an influential hand in its new directions? The first published pieces came from people we already had close by. I have now discovered Facebook – and twitter – as a treasure trove of other new writings while still unrelenting in trawling the web for as many more as one could find. Young/Old Nigerians and non-Nigerians are writing new, brilliant things. If we can use the LitMag to bring them to the attention of the world, and produce one or two best-selling authors (and maybe a Caine/Booker prize-winning author), that would have been a success, wouldn’t it? For now, I invite you over to read short stories by Anja Choon and Olumide Abimbola, poetry by Benson Eluma and Kolade Ajayi, reviews by Adebiyi Olusolape, and a delightful non-fiction by Temie Giwa. All delightful, really.

Yesterday, I played around with tumblr. I have been told consistently that it is a better portal for photo exhibition than Facebook or twitter. I didn’t pay attention to it much because – frankly – I wasn’t really ready to deal with the work of pruning a whole photo database of thousands of pictures for weed and tare. Now that some of the work in that department has got some attention, it might be necessary to take these advice seriously. People who access the tumblr page would be able to see my works-in-progress, and photos that I would rather not have to delete. After all, Facebook has now been fully privatized. Giving hard, creative work to Mr. Zuckerberg for free will bring neither pleasure nor profit. One could suggest that artists/writers who use that platform for exhibition of their work should get something back from the pool of advertising revenue that Facebook rakes in everyday… but one would be but one voice in the wilderness.

Valentine’s Day always reminded me more of that old picture I took on the way to campus in the winter of 2009/10: a student couple staring idly at the restful lake. There were just three shots, and only one of them became the super great piece that it eventually became. Sometimes I think of them. Would they recognize themselves in the photo today if presented with it? All the viewer sees is their backs turned to the photographer. Ahead of them is a serene lake disturbed only by the restless geese. Another thought: if that picture were to make it to a great exhibition somewhere in New York City sometime in the future, how much would it fetch? And, how does one quantify the value of being at the right place at the right time with the right kind of camera, and stealth?

The day, of course, always reminded of that one last year that ended with a speeding ticket on my driver’s license in St. Louis. Somehow, in spite of my enduring affection for that riverfront town, we always managed to run headfirst into each other’s restless ego. Last year was also memorable for a very remarkable congress of us five student friends watching the Grammy with wine, chips, food, and class homework. A year later, we are all mildly dispersed in all directions of the state. Next year will surely find us in even more disparate circumstances. As the Yorubas say, “twenty children will never typically play for twenty straight years.” (Good luck explaining that to a monastery).

The curator of the art show slated for Friday told me that the opening day is the only day that I am obliged to show up – in order to meet with other artists, and to talk to the guests. For the other days of the one-month event, visitors and guests will just wander around observing, reading artist statements, and pointing to particular artworks that catch their attention enough to bring out their credit cards.  The long nights between now and Friday will hopefully be filled with more productive endeavour. (I really hate bringing up thoughts about this thesis, as much as I have enjoyed working on it. I’m guessing that this is what a pregnancy feels like). As usual, there are a few new, and a few incomplete, novels all around my bed. None of them will be read to the end at the moment. Maybe this is a good time to return to editing that copy of Headfirst into the Meddle which my e-publisher has requested for a re-issuing. This year might be a good year for creativity after all – in spite of that damned blessed thesis.

Thank you blog for being there. I love you too. If you remain good, I promise to spend a lot more time with you when the thesis is over. Deal? I also have a story I want to tell you. Many stories, in fact, but there is this one about a personal brush with Intellectual Property violation on the internet. Will you still be here?

Sincerely Yours,

KT

PS: Supervisor just sent me a mail that began with the following: “Something else I forgot to mention… You will probably need to develop some facility at multi-tasking…”

Ramblings: On A Few Personal Things was published on February 14th, 2012, with the tags , , , , , under the Art, Observations, Soliloquy, Uncategorized category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.

Becoming an Artist

Once upon a time, a young man obtained a camera, and the rest is history. I have talked about my photography for a while now, but not how it all began. Maybe that is a story for another day, but one recurring memory from childhood is one in which Uncle Bola, the family photographer, lied to us about the presence of a special bird in the flash light of his camera. His most perplexing trick however was not that the blinding flash light looked nothing like a bird, but that our poses – deliberately worked to look our best for the photograph – never quite made it into picture form. “I’ve not yet developed it,” he usually said. Eventually, we figured out that he was only having fun at our expense and stopped falling for the trick.

My motivation for taking photographs then must have been a subconscious need to capture beauty through my own eyes. My first camera was a rickety hand-held that used a 32-exposure film reel. Luckier siblings who grew up in the 70s knew the Polaroid devices and the wonder of its instant production. I only heard of those times, and saw few square products of those times, some of which had my image on them as a little boy. You took a picture, mother said, it came out blank, and you quickly swiped it in the wind like a hand fan until the image showed up. That must have been fascinating. Needless to say, the first products of my hand-held camera were terrible. I had – in my stubborn curiosity – managed to have exposed the films to light.

Sometimes in 2002, I met poet Eugene B. Redmond on the campus of the University of Ibadan who took pictures of everything. Everything! He had two cameras, one of which was digital. Even at that time, I couldn’t figure out why anyone still carried non-digital camera. (Well, there was also Olumide who also had one slung on his neck around the campus). But who takes pictures of everything, from empty landscapes, to walking students, to idle pedestrians, to buildings, to dancing poets, to loose trash lying around the courtyard? On our way to the airport in Lagos while he was heading back to the United States, he kept his camera on hand taking pictures of road signs while discussing the nostalgia of his experience living in the city in the 70s. He was also the Alestle student photographer at the 1963 March on Washington. The only thing in my head watching him at the time however was, What kind of beauty do road signs represent to this visiting American. In 2009, he donated his collection (including thousands of photographs taken over his decade of teaching, travelling and writing) to SIUE.

I have just returned from the Edwardsville Arts Centre to sign the Exhibitor’s Agreement for the upcoming exhibition, an exhilarating experience. Two of my photos will be part of the EAC 2nd Juried Show taking place between February 17 and March 16. The photos were both taken more than three years ago and have never been shown in public. I spent the whole of yesterday fretting over little details of size, price, and whether (and where) to include my signature on the art itself. I have never done this before, but it was easy to accept that this has occupied some part of my subconscious for a very long time. My artist statement included a little of my motivation for the theme of movement. Since meeting that poet in Ibadan in 2004 and later in 2005, I have taken a special interest in the photographic arts. My presence on campus in Edwardsville throughout 2009 must have appeared to those who saw me taking pictures of almost everything something similar to what that poet appeared to those of us who observed him back then. This exhibition then, for me, is a first and important validation.

The venue is now being prepared. A man on a ladder moves words around on a while wall. Pat Quinn – the curator moves around the studio showing visitors the already displayed art. In one other room down the hall, three people sort through artist contracts and exhibition posters. It promises to be a good outing. There is some delight in this coming out: unveiling for the first time what had merely languished in electronic storage. This journey began a very long time ago, and what a journey it  has been.  You are all invited.

Becoming an Artist was published on February 11th, 2012, with the tags , , , , under the adventures, Art category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.