Art

By Lucille Clifton

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I have to thank Goddard advisor Rick Benjamin for singing this poem to us yesterday. It’s about time I overcame my prejudice against poetry, don’t you think?

to my friend, Jerina

listen,
when i found
there was no safety
in my father’s house
i knew there was none
anywhere. you are right
about this, how i nurtured
my work not myself, how i left
the girl wallowing in her own shame
and took on the flesh
of my mother. but listen,
the girl is rising in me, not willing
to be left to the silent fingers
in the dark, and you are right
she is asking for more than
most men are able to give,
but she means to have what she has earned,
sweet sighs, safe houses, hands she can trust.

Credit: Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton.

Fragments of Interest

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no-self portrait
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no-self portrait
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no-self portrait

Loving the Queer Pissed Off Collective (QPOC),

this slideshow of Allen Ginsberg with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche,

the Undoing Borders Manifesto,

thrilled about a victory for Sogorea Te / Glen Cove and indigenous land defense,

and wishing I could read Spanish well, so I could tear into el libro de Pan Y Rosas.

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hope you’re well, friends.  sorry for the patchiness of late.  reforestation will soon begin.

love, katie

Abstract Photos

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My fellow student Doug — a film, photography, and lighting teacher — showed us some incredibly beautiful images today where he made photographs of the ocean look like abstract paintings. Naturally, I couldn’t wait to fool around with my camera, trying to teach myself this new way of looking at things.

My images didn’t quite achieve abstraction, but ‘messing up’ on purpose — “making the familiar strange” — is a not-too-boring and awfully enjoyable way to spend an hour.

tree
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purple 2
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The Practice of Contemplative Photography, a book by Buddhist meditators Andy Karr and Michael Wood, who themselves were inspired by some of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s photographs, has been calling my name for over a year now. Time to finally check it out of the library and practice some of its exercises. (They used to have a web site with exercises and example submissions, but I can’t find it anymore . . .)

Earth As Friend, Care As Collective, Struggle As Compassion

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A beautiful catch-up conversation with my friend Junot has got me viewing photos of this week’s camping trip with new eyes.

As we reconceptualize our ideas of care and stress relief, striving to integrate our healing and fighting work, I feel challenged to question my relationship to this restorative vacation in the redwood forest.  Not “question” like browbeat myself about it, but firmly and lovingly investigate my own views.

Do I see these hikes as a kind of spiritual refueling?  Do I see them as material for photographs?  Do I view the trees and streams and skies as teachers, as providers of wisdom, about impermanence, identity, and borders?  Do I see myself as responsible to these paths?  These non-wildernesses?  Are we in dialogue, or am I looking for an uncomplicated, friendly, comfortable, and shallow “mothering”? Is the earth a being with rights?  Is the earth a being beyond rights?

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Zine Week Day 5: The Art of Demonstration by Cultural Correspondence, 1985

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Final zine, y'all! This one arrived to me in the mail as a gift (among many!), along with the usual scholarly correspondence, from my amazingly heartful, talented, and fly poet / professor / academic advisor / friend, Gale P. Jackson.

I love it because

  • Its content is both instructive and creative, showing “Techniques, materials, How to / Where to [of] Banners, Signs, Floats, theater, Music, songs, chants, puppets, etc.”
  • It was published in 1985, making it one year older than me
  • The illustrations and layout are incredible
  • Some content is time-specific and local, making it political propaganda as well as a DIY manual.

I’ll try to let this one speak for itself. With deep gratitude and appreciation to Gale! Hopefully some of the specific contents will infuse themselves into my organizing, and be reflected there.


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Zine Week Day 4: New Thoughts On Animal Liberation

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What, you thought Zine Week would adhere to linear time?

Just kidding; sorry for the lapse! Today’s zine, from a member of Austin-based group ¡ella pelea!, is especially exciting for its application of class consciousness theory from Advance the Struggle’s Oscar Grant pamphlet (featured on Zine Week Day 2) to the Animal Rights Movement (ARM) in the U.S.

in Buena Vista Park, SF

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Zine Week Day 3: A Stand Up Start-Up: Confronting Sexual Assault with Transformative Justice by Philly Stands Up

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Last month I talked a little bit about transformative justice and the dope workshop that folks from the Philly Stands UP collective offered here in Oakland. This zine is one I picked up at that workshop: kind of like a primer for the PSU model.

There’s a lot I like about this zine.  Its unpretentious candor.  The ways it contextualizes itself, pointing to overlapping work that others are doing. (The final chapter is an excerpt from Color of Violence: the INCITE! Anthology.) The way it foregrounds survivor support in its Points of Unity:

We are a group that survivors can come to for help and support.  We will always support survivors and ensure survivor autonomy, where they will always be in control of how a situation is dealt with.

. . .

We do not support the prison system as a viable means of rehabilitation for perpetrators, but we will always support a survivor’s wishes and engage the legal system on any level necessary.

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Zine Week Day 2: Justice For Oscar Grant by Advance the Struggle

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Sorry for the late post again! Today’s zine is already a Bay Area radical classic, examining the politics around the recent wave of struggle following a caught-on-tape police murder. A white cop shot a young Black Oakland resident in the back, while the young man was lying face-down on a subway platform. (This officer, by the way, may be released from prison next month, having served less than a year of his 2-year sentence.)

Published in its original version back in mid-July of 2009, the new updated edition contains the same dope analysis of the role of nonprofits, histories of rioting, racist policing and more, plus a new preface, more art, and a supplementary article: “Moving Beyond Violence vs. Nonviolence.”

In my forthcoming guest column in make / shift magazine, I draw on A/S’s analysis of the Oscar Grant movement to illustrate my own alternatives to liberal, relativist interpretations of Buddhist teachings. You’ll have to wait til the magazine comes out to read my application of their deft explications, but in the meantime why not throw down a few dollars for a copy (just click the Donate button on the Advance the Struggle blog) and print the primary source material yourself? :)

Ink drought in your printer? No worries; you can read the web version, too. Still donate, though!