Culture: Jamaican Poet Claudia Rankine is a MacArthur "genius" Fellow

Meet the 2016 MacArthur Fellows

“While our communities, our nation, and our world face both historic and emerging challenges, these 23 extraordinary individuals give us ample reason for hope. They are breaking new ground in areas of public concern, in the arts, and in the sciences, often in unexpected ways. Their creativity, dedication, and impact inspire us all.”

—MacArthur President Julia Stasch

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  Ahilan Arulanantham

  American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California

  Los Angeles, California
  Human Rights Lawyer 

  leading advocacy and legal efforts to secure the right to due process for immigrants facing deportation and working to set new precedents for the constitutional rights of noncitizens.

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  Daryl Baldwin

  Miami University of Ohio

  Oxford, Ohio
  Linguist and Cultural Preservationist 

  restoring the linguistic, cultural, and intellectual heritage of the Myaamia (Miami) nation to its present-day descendants through a multipronged approach of research, education, and academic partnerships.

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  Anne Basting

  University of Wisconsin / Milwaukee

  Milwaukee, Wisconsin
  Theater Artist and Educator 

  revealing the power of storytelling and creative expression to engender sustained emotional connections among elders experiencing cognitive impairment.

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  Vincent Fecteau

  San Francisco, California
  Sculptor 

  whose deceptively intricate, abstract pieces provoke thoughtful reflection and bring viewers to the threshold between visual perception and objective knowledge of three-dimensional space.

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  Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

  New York, New York
  Playwright 

  using a range of theatrical genres in subversive, often unsettling works that engage frankly with the ways in which race, class, and history are negotiated in both private and public.

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  Kellie Jones

  Columbia University

  New York, New York
  Art Historian and Curator 

  whose research and curatorial practice have been instrumental in introducing the work of critically important, but under-recognized, black artists to the canons of modern and contemporary art.

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  Subhash Khot

  New York University

  New York, New York
  Theoretical Computer Scientist 

  tackling unresolved questions in optimization and approximation and contributing to significant advances in the field of computational complexity.

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  Josh Kun

  University of Southern California

  Los Angeles, California
  Cultural Historian 

  exploring the ways in which the arts and popular culture are conduits to cross-cultural exchange and bringing diverse communities in Los Angeles together around heretofore unnoticed cultural commonalities.

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  Maggie Nelson

  California Institute of the Arts

  Valencia, California
  Writer 

  rendering pressing issues of our time into portraits of day-to-day experience in works of nonfiction marked by dynamic interplay between personal experience and critical theory.

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  Dianne Newman

  California Institute of Technology

  Pasadena, California
  Microbiologist 

  merging methods and approaches from disparate fields to investigate the co-evolution of bacteria and their environments, from the ancient Earth to the human body.

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  Victoria Orphan

  California Institute of Technology

  Pasadena, California
  Geobiologist 

  whose studies of microbial communities in extreme environments are shedding new light on the biogeochemical processes underlying the cycling of nutrients and energy that shape the Earth’s climate.

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  Manu Prakash

  Stanford University

  Stanford, California
  Physical Biologist and Inventor 

  applying principles of soft-condensed matter physics to unravel microscale mysteries of living and nonliving matter and inventing affordable technologies for global education, health, and science explorations.

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  José A. Quiñonez

  Mission Asset Fund

  San Francisco, California
  Financial Services Innovator 

  whose model for establishing the creditworthiness of underbanked populations is affording them a pathway to mainstream financial services and improving their financial stability.

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  Claudia Rankine

  Yale University

  New Haven, Connecticut
  Poet 

  crafting critical texts for understanding American culture at the beginning of the twenty-first century in inventive, ever-evolving forms of poetic expression.

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  Lauren Redniss

  The New School's Parsons School of Design

  New York, New York
  Artist and Writer 

  fusing artwork, written text, and design in a unique approach to visual nonfiction that enriches the ways in which stories can be conveyed, experienced, and understood.

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  Mary Reid Kelley

  Olivebridge, New York
  Video Artist 

  whose unique vision spans a variety of media and culminates in arresting, playful, and erudite videos that explore the condition of women throughout history.

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  Rebecca Richards-Kortum

  Rice University

  Houston, Texas
  Bioengineer 

  developing point-of-care diagnostic technologies for use in low-resource settings and inspiring the next generation of engineers to translate lessons from the classroom into solutions for global health disparities.

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  Joyce J. Scott

  Baltimore, Maryland
  Jewelry Maker and Sculptor 

  repositioning beadwork into a potent platform for commentary on social and political injustices.

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  Sarah Stillman

  The New Yorker

  New York, New York
  Long-Form Journalist 

  bringing to light the stories of people usually invisible to mainstream reporting and providing new and compelling perspectives on even well-covered social justice issues.

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• 

  Bill Thies

  Microsoft Research India

  Bangalore, India
  Computer Scientist 

  advancing the socioeconomic well-being of low-income communities in the developing world through innovative communication and digital technologies that respond to real-world constraints.

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• 

  Julia Wolfe

  New York University

  New York, New York
  Composer 

  synthesizing various musical styles in highly physical, large-scale narrative compositions that reimagine folk traditions and lore and address issues of the American worker.

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• 

  Gene Luen Yang

  San Jose, California
  Graphic Novelist 

  bringing diverse people and cultures to children’s and young adult literature and confirming comics’ place as an important creative and imaginative force within literature, art, and education.

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• 

  Jin-Quan Yu

  Scripps Research Institute

  La Jolla, California
  Synthetic Chemist 

  pioneering new methods for the catalysis and functionalization of carbon-hydrogen bonds and enabling the development of versatile, novel, and beneficial chemical compounds.

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Culture: saving Mr Hughes' home

As a young girl in Portland, Ore., Renée Watson immersed herself in the words of Langston Hughes, discovering that his poems about black identity mirrored experiences in her own life. Since moving to Harlem more than a decade ago, she has often walked by his old home — a three-story brownstone on East 127th Street with cast-iron railings and overgrown ivy.

The author spent his final 20 years, and wrote some of the most notable literary works of the Harlem Renaissance, in this house. It was designated a historic landmark in 1981. Yet in recent years, the property has remained empty. A performance space opened in 2007 but closed when the tenants were evicted about a year later. In 2010, the current owner listed the house for $1 million but found no buyers.

With her neighborhood experiencing rapid gentrification, Ms. Watson, 38, an author and poet, felt that too many crucial landmarks of the Harlem Renaissance, like Mr. Hughes’s home, were disappearing or going unnoticed.

“It feels like, whether it’s intentional or not, our stories are being erased,” Ms. Watson said.

So, after a year’s worth of planning, she began to preserve the legacy of the house herself. She began a nonprofit organization, persuaded the owner to let her lease and renovate the brownstone, and started raising the money necessary to do so.

If she can successfully open Mr. Hughes’s home and maintain it as a public space, it would be a notable feat, especially in New York City, some preservationists say.

“That’s a pretty remarkable mission-driven desire to preserve a place,” said Seri Worden, senior field officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “I do think it’s rare, and it sounds like it’s working.”

Continue reading the main story

In a city brimming with famous homes and buildings, there could be a historic landmark on every block. Across the five boroughs, more than36,000 properties are designated landmarks by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Mr. Hughes’s former home is one of these properties, meaning the building’s exterior cannot be altered without approval from the commission. But since the brownstone is a privately owned home, the public cannot step inside to the space where Mr. Hughes’ creativity flowed, unless a new owner or tenant decides to convert it to accommodate that use.

With rents and mortgage costs soaring in the city, a small preservation group or nonprofit group like Ms. Watson’s must often confront almost insurmountable financial obstacles in order to buy, preserve and maintain a property.

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The home was designated a landmark in 1981, but in recent years, it has remained empty.CreditUli Seit for The New York Times

“It’s one of the greatest challenges facing historic preservation today,” said David Ehrich, a former banker who has led many efforts to preserve the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. “The cost of historic preservation is almost out of reach.”

Ms. Watson envisions using Mr. Hughes’s home as a gathering space for young artists, tied to a nonprofit she is starting for emerging writers.

In June, the homeowner agreed to lease and eventually sell the brownstone to Ms. Watson’s organization as long as its members could raise the money. Ms. Watson took to crowdfunding and raised more than $87,000, which she says is enough to cover the first six months of rent and renovation costs. She plans to sign the lease later this month.

Ms. Watson would not say how much the owner was asking for an eventual sale. Similar homes nearby have sold in the last several months for about $2 million.

Several famous New York City homes have been converted into museums — such as the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens — but many were sold or donated to the city. Other efforts have failed or stalled because of a lack of funding, resources or cooperation from the building’s owner.

Some historical preservation advocates, like Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, chairwoman of the New York State Council on the Arts, emphasize the importance of a homeowner’s right to keep a home private, even if it is a historic landmark.

Moreover, many existing house museums across the country have struggledto maintain budgets and build attendances. A house museum, Ms. Diamonstein-Spielvogel argues, might not be the most effective way to teach the public about a historic figure.

“I care more about who did what in that building,” she said. “I care more about his ideas than his furniture.”

Ms. Watson’s efforts are still a gamble. Like any nonprofit, her collective will need to continue fund-raising in order to sustain the home, she said. They also hope to bring in additional revenue by renting out rooms to artists and authors for events and book launches.

What makes Ms. Watson’s approach unique, Ms. Worden said, is the fact that she does not simply plan to make it a house museum, but rather is creating a space for educational and creative programs.

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The Steinway Mansion, a property in Astoria once owned by the Steinway family of the piano company. The executive director of the Greater Astoria Historical Society has tried for years to raise money to buy the house.CreditUli Seit for The New York Times

“House museums are really challenging,” Ms. Worden said. “We do have to think bigger about some of our historic sites.”

In Queens, Bob Singleton, the executive director of the Greater Astoria Historical Society, has tried for years to raise money to buy the Steinway Mansion, an elaborate Italianate villa once owned by the Steinway family, of the piano company.

When the house went on the market in 2011 for the first time in decades, he formed a group called Friends of Steinway Mansion, but they failed to raise enough money.

In 2014, the mansion and the surrounding lots were sold to its current owners, who bought the property as an investment. Warehouses and storage units have been built on the nearby land, but the mansion has remained vacant.

Sal Lucchese, one of the property owners, said he would “absolutely entertain” an offer to turn the mansion into a public space, but so far, Mr. Singleton’s group and others have not had the means to do so.

Beyond the financial costs, Mr. Singleton said the zoning and renovating logistics involved with converting the mansion into a community center required support from local elected officials, which he did not yet have.

“You need every component in the community on board for this,” Mr. Singleton said. “Unless you have that, everything else is moot.”

For a different group on Long Island, acquiring a historic home was just the beginning. In 2006, local advocates persuaded the Town of Huntington to buy the dilapidated home of the jazz artist John Coltrane and convert it into a museum. But largely because of a lack of funds, it has taken about a decade for the foundation in charge of the home to make progress on its renovation.

The Friends of the Coltrane Home hope to open the house to the public by late 2018, said Ron Stein, the group’s president. Yet it is still unclear how the museum will raise money to maintain itself.

“The challenge though, is not just saving the house,” Mr. Stein said. “It’s trying to find a workable, sustainable economic plan for the house.”

“It’s not a one-and-done situation.”

Performing Arts: Poetic voices young and old work it out at Poetry Society Jam

the makeshift orchestra was in full effect, delivering pounding, screeching ovations, mostly n the command of convenor M'bala to bring on and send off the poets making their offerings at the Edna Manley College Amphitheatre, the venue where, for the last 25 years, the Poetry Society of Jamaica has been steadily perfecting the art of "nakedness through poetic expression".

Judging from the general quality of the presentations on Tuesday last, there was more than sufficient "exposure" especially from the young men, whom one may not necessarily expect to be vulnerable and open in other circles. Britton Wright led the charge with a slick yet impassioned rap calling for his peers to get away from the numbness and disconnection of social media and to "reconnect" with their elders and others and the substance of things past. A female poet elicited the expected whistles and catcalls  when she salaciously described peeling and eating a mango in a manner that strongly suggested that she object of her affections was far more than a fruit.
There was a moment of remembrance too, for poet Dubmaster Lynch, formerly one-third of the group, LSX, with surviving members Sage and X delivering rousing renditions (even singing at some points) of some of the better known LSX works.

Featured poet Millicent Graham, after a near rapturous intro from Mbala, entered and read pieces from her two collections, beginning with the more recent "The Way Home" (her debut was "The Damp In Things" both available from Peepal Tree Press), poems which tended to reaffirm Wright's earlier message of reconnecting with the things that have made us.

Even though, its well on in the performance poetry game after 25 years, the Poetry Society is still a very valuable arena for those with works in need of a "test drive". Feedback is immediate, honest and largely constructive. With Jamaican writers like Kei Miller, Tanya Shirley and (novelist) Marlon James increasingly making favourable impressions on the global stage, the Society's role is more valuable than ever:

The next great Jamaican poet will read here! 

Arts: NG presents "Explorations" this Sunday

The National Gallery of Jamaica is pleased to present its new exhibition, Explorations 3: Seven Women Artists, which opens to the public on Sunday, May 31, 2015, as part of the Last Sundays programme for that day. The guest speaker will be Taynia Shirley and there will be a musical performance by Kelissa.

Explorations 3: Seven Women Artists, the third edition of a series of exhibitions that explore the big themes and issues in Jamaican art, asks the question whether any concept of women’s art is relevant in Jamaica today. This exhibition, which was curated by National Gallery Senior Curator O’Neil Lawrence, features the work of seven mid-career female artists who are based in Jamaica or of Jamaican origin and work in a variety of media: Jasmine Thomas-Girvan, Judith Salmon, Miriam Hinds-Smith, Prudence Lovell, Kereina Chang Fatt, Berette Macaulay and Amy Laskin. Viewers are invited to explore whether there are any commonalities that set these artists’ works and careers apart from those of their male counterparts and whether there is any justification to label them as “women artists.” Each of the featured artists has produced a statement on the subject that will be reproduced in the catalogue and the exhibition text panels. More information on this exhibition can be found on the National Gallery blog.

The poet-scholar Tanya Shirley has been described as “a startlingly bold writer with a particular gift for highlighting the telling detail in her vivid and arresting poems, which variously contain portraits of lovers, colourful eccentrics and family snapshots that capture the elusive magic of childhood memories, and reveal those paradoxical truths which all families strive to conceal.” She was educated at the University of the West Indies, Mona, where she now teaches between time spent elsewhere in the Caribbean and the United States, and she obtained an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland. She has published her poetry in journals such as Small Axe and The Caribbean Writer, and in New Caribbean Poetry: An Anthology, which was edited by Kei Miller, and So Much Things to Say: 100 Calabash Poets. Her debut collection, She Who Sleeps With Bones, was published in 2009 and she recently launched her second poetry collection, The Merchant of Feathers.

Kelissa McDonald was born and raised in the hills of St Andrew, Jamaica and was inspired from early on by reggae and Rastafari. With her parents as the lead vocalists in the reggae band Chakula, there was constantly music pulsating from her home. Her music has evolved into an expression of her background as well her stimulating living experiences in Tanzania, Ethiopia and Ghana. At the moment, Kelissa resides in Jamaica where she continues to make positive and conscious music as an avenue to express her diverse experiences and to inspire and uplift others.

Admission on Sunday, May 31, 2015 is free but donations are gratefully accepted. The doors will be open from 11 am to 4 pm but the opening speech and musical performance will start at 1:30 pm. The National Gallery gift and coffee shop will be open. Explorations 3: Seven Women Artists will be on view at the National Gallery until August 8, 2015.

localjoe.myorganogold.com

Art: Earl McKenzie's explorations continue at UWI

Dr Earl McKenzie poet, painter and philosopher will launch an exhibition of his paintings on Monday April 27, 2015 at 6:00pm at the UWI Regional Headquarters Building, Mona. The launch will include poetry readings by friends and colleagues including: Ann-Margaret Lim, Dr. Velma Pollard and Trudy Schoepko. The guest speaker will be Lecturer in the Department of Government and fellow artist Dr Clinton Hutton. This will be McKenzie’s fourth solo exhibition of paintings and poems. He has also exhibited at the Caribbean Literary and Cultural Centre in New York.

McKenzie is retired from the University of the West Indies, Mona, where he taught philosophy. He is the author of eight books including two volumes of academic philosophy and two collections of short stories. In 2012, his multi-genre volume of poetry, fiction, essays and visual art entitled A Bluebird Named Poetry solidified his skill in connecting diverse genres of artistic expression. In her launch of the text, Kim Robinson-Walcott notes that McKenzie “is interested in exploring his own multidimensional creativity with abstract, intellectual curiosity.” This exploration is evident in his paintings which, according to Edward J. Sullivan, Professor of Art History at New York University, “have the suggestive power of Giorgio Morandi: one of the greatest masters of the simple object.”

McKenzie has won numerous awards for his work. In 2000, he was awarded a Silver Musgrave Medal for his contribution to literature, and in 2011 he received a Mico University College 175^th Anniversary Award for distinguished service. His exploration of the intersections among genres of expression continues in the forthcoming publications of his first novel, a third collection of short stories and a memoir in 2015. The exhibition, which will be mounted in the lobby of the Headquarters Building, will run until May 8, 2015. The public is invited to attend.

Poetry: Cherry Natural, Warrior Poet

Cherry Natural unleashed powerful poems laden with strong messages of female empowerment, revolution and love on Tuesday when she performed as featured poet at the Poetry Society of Jamaica’s March Fellowship. Entitled Woman Rising, the fellowship was hosted to pay homage to women and poetry in a twofold celebration of International Women’s Day and World Poetry Day.

The open mic segment served as the night’s starter and saw varied presentations, a few of which provoked discussion in the analysis segment. The evening’s featured works also saw the reading of Lorna Goodison’s Where I Come From and Prof. Mervyn Morris’ Writing as tributes, honouring women and the craft of writing respectively.

Cherry Natural started her reading with Pickney Poems, detailing the birth and development of her poems, and then addressed the creative space and contributions of poets in Is Long Time Poets A Write. From there on she ventured extensively into the terrain of women’s empowerment, beginning with Woman I Was Born, which speaks about women not having to fit within established norms to be considered woman.

“I don’t have to be weak and fragile,” she said, acknowledging singer Pam Hall, who was in attendance. The backing track for Woman I was Born, which Hall produced and is on Cherry Natural's Earth Woman album, is from a Pam Hall song.

In the same vein Natural read Woman of My Word and Man Show, the latter detailing what she said was the struggle she faced as a woman coming up in the industry, especially in doing performances.

In one of many poems that hit home she read Slanguage, taking jabs at pop culture and its attendant language, noting that people were “swaggin right back pan di slave ship.” The usually fiery poet shifted things around with Compatible, outlining the qualities she might like in a partner, and also addressed love with Warrior’s Love Poem, both of which elicited much applause.

Cherry Natural closed with Fight Back, a piece that had a strong impact on the predominantly female gathering. Natural shared some of her martial arts expertise in advising women to take a stand against abuse, saying, “first time victim, second time volunteer.” She used a pair of nunchucks to do an elaborate demonstration, much to the surprise and excitement of the audience. “We take the revolution serious,” Cherry Natural said.

Following up on her 2012 album Intellectual Bad Gal, the public can expect a new writing project of the same name from Cherry Natural. It is a book of poems, quotations and self-defence tips.

-FRom the Sunday Gleaner

Literary Arts: The Poetic Icon, by the Poet Laureate

PROFESSOR Mervyn Morris, Jamaica's Poet Laureate, launched his latest book, Miss Lou: Louise Bennett and Jamaican Culture, at Lecture Theatre 3, University of the West Indies, on Tuesday.

It is a mini-biography on the legendary folklorist Louise 'Miss Lou' Bennett-Coverley who died in 2006.

Morris, who was a close friend of Bennett-Coverley, said while Miss Lou's performing skills are evident in the range of her work, he noted there was formidable opposition to her work.

"Although her work was mainly African heritage, Miss Lou always mingled in different streams...she was not excluding people," he explained. "Miss Lou was trying to redress cultural imbalance. She was not trying to reject standard English."

He pointed out that Miss Lou was religious and deeply spiritual. He closed by reading from his book.

Three of Jamaica's outstanding poets -- Mutabaruka, Oku Onuora and Jean 'Binta' Breeze -- performed at the event. Each testified to Morris' influence on their careers.

"I am a dub poet without apology because the process I deal wid is straight dubbing," said Onuora. "Mervyn is influential in that there is a upsurge in dub poetry in Jamaica. Mervyn, you helped to signal a new trend in poetry...dubbing is a process that can't be limited."

Onuora performed from Echo, his collection of poems which was written while he was incarcerated.

Breeze drew laughter with a humorous swipe at Onuora, whose 'set' went overtime.

"Mervyn taught me not to use two words (with the same meaning) in a sentence when one can do. Apparently he didn't tell Oku."

She performed some of her work including The Simple Things In Life, Repatriation and Third World Girl before saluting Morris, whom she said legitimised myself and others in the university".

Mutabaruka recited Call Me No Poet or Nothing Like That, Nursery Rhyme Lament, Haiti and Dis Poem.

- from the Jamaica Observer

Literary Arts: "Tree of Life" Brings renewal for writers

The inaugural Lignum Vitae Writing Awards were launched with an appropriately sprightly ceremony at the St Andrew parish Library (Tom Redcam), a place of which many of the event's speakers (including Investment & Commerce Minister Sharon FfolkesAbrahams) had fond memories at best.

But the Library's Main reading Room came alive with the announcement that the Jamaica Writers Society (JaWS, if you would) will be resucitating the dormant National Literary Awards, namely the Una Marson Award and Vic Reid Award for Adult Literature and the Jean D'Costa Award for Children's Literature (D'Costa being the author of the beloved Jamaican children's clasic "Sprat Morrison" among others).

The renewal is made possible thanks to the Cultural Fund of the Jamaica Copyright licensing Authority, or JAMCOPY, the official rights agency for literary works in Jamaica, which gave 1.5 million to the effort. The Marson prize carries a purse of J$500,000, whilst the Vic reid and D'Costa awards carry a purse of J$250,000 each. JaWS President Tanya Batson-Savage stated that it was the intention to expand the award categories, to take in poetry and other forms, as the presentation progresses bienially. That would have been encouraging news to the poets present, including Jamaica Poet Laureate, Prof mervyn Morris who, a it turns out, was due to launch a book project of his own, a biography of dialect champion and cultural icon Miss Lou, later that same day.

The audience, writers and otherwise also heard a timely reminder on the importance of the literary arts from guest speaker, Dr Velma Pollard, herself an award-winning poet, novelist and essayist, as well as selectiond from the works of the three writers for whom the Awards are named.

Entry is open to all Jamaican writers and the deadline for submissions is June 30, 2015, and for full details, contactthe jamaica Writers Society (JaWS) at sdbeharie@gmail.com, or on Facebook at  https://www.facebook.com/jamaicanwriterssociety

The awards will be presented in October 2015