Dr. Ni's Notes & Nibbles--5

Welcome to Dr. Ni's Notes &  Nibbles--5, a gathering place of news, notes , words and wisdom bulldozing its way into your workday.

We begin this issue with news, news, and more news.  Given that so much trauma has graced Dr. Ni's life this past few months, we thought she should share with you some positive events--both recent and upcoming.  Read below for Dr. Ni's upcoming appearances and for podcast interviews that you can find on the web!

At my beloved Robin's Bookstore, where owner Larry Robin and Moonstone Series organizer Justin Vitiello never seem to lose faith in me:

Tuesday, November 6, 6pm - Poetry
Moonstone Poetry Series Presents
Election Night Poetry

With Marion Bell, Angelo Colavito, Richard Bank, Tree Riesner, Lili Bita, Bob Zaller, Niama Williams, Justin Vitiello, who will also read an excerpt from Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech on voting rights and choices. Hosted by Justin Vitiello, Open Reading, everyone is invited to read on this issue

Wednesday November 28, 6pm - Reading
Niama Williams

Niama Williams is the author of Eight books in about a year and a half, one of them written while I was an undergraduate: The Journey (novel told in stories; young Black girl with second sight falls for mysterious white psychiatrist), Detective Fiction (sequel to The Journey and a novel told in pieces [essays, short stories, poems, emails, etc.]; has the psychiatrist become a threat to her life and sanity?), Sojourn in Calidia (young Black woman working with guerrilla forces in fictional Latin American country falls in love with and betrays second in command of guerrilla leader). THE POETRY: Steven (dedicated to Spielberg; focuses on Hollywood stereotypes and what they do to our psyches), Famous Faces (people, famous and not, who have influenced the life of the poet), Soul Work (women in the poet's life and geneaology who raised her and raised those who raised her). NON-FICTION: Technically The Journey and Detective Fiction belong here because both are memoirs, but for you purists out there: Black Poetic Feminism: The Imagination of Toi Derricotte, a book-length study of the poetry of Derricotte, co-founder of the ONLY retreat exclusively for African American poets in the United States and Don't Keep No Secrets: A Black Woman Speaks Her Mind, a collection of essays.

Dr. Niama L. J. Williams is a poet, essayist, memoirist and adjunct professor of English with a Leeway Foundation grant, inclusion in an NAACP Image award nominated anthology Check the Rhyme, and participation in a Sable Lit Mag/Arvon Foundation writing workshop in the United Kingdom under her belt. She is available for comment at 484/231-1768 or [email protected].

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FORMER ADJUNCT NOW FREE FOLK (PRLog press release; copy into your browser)
http://www.prlog.org/10002279-former-adjunct-now-free-folk.html

Sunny Goodman is a new radio show host on Blog Talk Radio, and I was honored to be one of her first guests on the show devoted to serious presentations and discussions of erotic literature:

BlogTalkRadio and Air Atta Ca Talk hosts Dr. Ni (copy into your browser)
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/AirAttaCaTalk/blog/2007/09/22/co-host-dr-niama-williams-author

Open Your Throat and Speak September 18, 2006
1 hr 3 min 15 sec - Dec 7, 2006
Description: Dr. Niama Williams, Adam Borror, Jesi Yager, Andrea Lawlor

If you're having trouble watching the video, try copying the following URL into your browser:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-863618853560260154&pr=goog-sl

Tuck Self is a veritable Southern institution and an absolute delight to talk with; I have rarely enjoyed an interview this much!

http://www.therebelbelle.com/communications/RByell/071001/071001bwb.php
Newsletter from Tuck Self, the Rebel Belle
September 22, 2007: Issue #14
BELLE WITH BALLS:  Southern Voice for Bold Self-Expression

Belle with Balls: Dr. Niama Leslie Williams

Belles with Balls Podcast Folks, I'd like to introduce an abundantly passionate and delicious ball of empowered energy, Dr. Niama Leslie Williams. This month's Belle with Balls is a poet, writer and teacher who boldly proclaims her life purpose and inspires others by sharing her story of trauma and healing.

Of her purpose for writing, Dr. Williams says, "I frequently do not err on the side of caution in my writing, but I believe in the purpose of it: to speak to the things others do not want to speak of, with the hopes of reaching that one woman, or her lover, or her friend, who refuses to deal with her pain, who hides from it, who doesn't think she'll survive it. That's the audience I hope to reach."

A surprise appearance in Granger's; I am listed in the Subject index, last name first, with my poem "Afrocentricity."  The description of Granger's:

While anthologized poems by African Americans have always been indexed by Granger's(R), the great increase in interest by the general public and the growing number of African American Studies courses have led to the creation of a Granger's(R) index devoted exclusively to poetry by African Americans.To compile this "Index to African-American Poetry," a team of consultants sought to identify the best, most widely available volumes of poetry by African Americans. The results of their search: 33 anthologies and 32 volumes of collected and selected works. Like all Granger's(R) indexes, this newest index is easy to use. The Title, First Line, and Last Line index is arranged alphabetically. The Author Index is arranged alphabetically by poet and, under each name, by poem title. In the Subject Index, authors and their works are listed alphabetically under each subject heading.It is the fastest, most reliable way to answer such questions as: -What are the best anthologies of African-American poetry?-What have African-American poets written about such highly charged issues as religion? politics? patriotism? slavery? racism? money? sex? What have they written about Harlem? the civil-rights movement? Martin Luther King Jr.?-What did Audre Lorde write about grief? How often?-Who wrote the poem "Madam and the Rent Man," and where can it be found?

By Nicholas Frankovich & David Larzelere

Published 2000
Columbia University Press

American poetry/ African
American authors/ Indexes

352 pages

ISBN 0231112343

My apologies for the odd spacing and graphics quirks in the above; I am still learning the vagaries of gmail.  :-)

Because there is so much news, I am going to keep it to one poem this issue and then get right to the funnies; the section I know that all of you wait for.  :-)  The poem, Silence, was rejected by Poetry Magazine, but I offer it here because I believe in the quality and message it delivers and hope to see it placed soon in another market.

Speaking of markets:  keep an eye out for the 13th issue of Hamilton Stone, a wonderful online magazine in which an essay of mine appears.  I was honored to be heading that particular section of the 'zine.  Thank you Hamilton Stone!

And now, the poem:

SILENCE
Niama Leslie Williams
Copyright June 2007


"it was worth it
it was worth every second of it
for this poem …."

 
silence.
cripples
cuts
stops the blood
murders the passion
the fervor
with doubt

some things it confirms.

one to fear:
not a blow
nor a stroke
abandonment
desertion
neglect of the most benign.

i do not cast spears here
nor vengeance
nor vincent's mouthful of ashes
no wineglass with only dust and a pain-filled ruse.

no, i come humble
speak my truth
tell an advisory tale.

it is, in truth, an old story
pattern well laid

no intricate surfaces
red herrings
blind alleys

i should have known
when puzzled she said
"i did not think he would leave children"

love a powerful, misguided thing.

at 45 i tell him
of no electric
no phone cable internet
and he who clapped loudest
when i crossed doctoral stage
he who when he learns fifth book finished
confesses 250 pages into his 1st novel.

something about me already knows

no phone no electric
no cable no internet
he sends 4 pg letter
of stepmother's father's funeral
(he'd been dying for years)
and 3 pages crowing
3 successful $3,000 studio sessions

 i finally admit
yes, this is who he is
who he was
no blood of his in my veins
could not be

even if at two
abandoned by tubercular father
mother now forced into housekeeping
for whites.

i used to think that was it
the way his older brothers and sister
laughed, would tease
as the two year old sobbed for mother

 i used to think that was it

but i have grown to 45
in a country that does not love its struggling artists.

pca thought my work unworthy
addams, once-adored dean,
silence a weapon cruel in the hand
of she who sang of my brilliant graduation speech
five full minutes.

do not think my pen vengeful
but delany dismisses it all
as disconnect process for new phd.

really?
does unplugging from socket
drive all to suicide?
three times?

it is me, of course
oversensitive
supersensitive
seeing too much and can't report the half of it
there are things i cannot even tell the massey.

and of my work?
who will care?

if the artist dies of starvation
want
heatstroke
the works' value escalates, no?
romanticism in its proper function?

all because a foolish choice for art
to write, free.
not even i knew twould mean starvation
no job 13 months.

the things i say, record.

should i die all denied of course
the powers that be will have their way
they have learned how to kill with no knife.

and yet it is the oddest things
that make one live
doty on dogs and escaped cockatiels in new york
and an artist who wants his portrait
but demands doty draw it first.
'palled before the wall of blank whiteness initially
then bravery, gusto
pushed to rip crotch buttons
envision, embrace antlers

i read those words
feel the thrust the urgency of maleness
know my walking
breasts thrust out
no comparison

yet i taste his bold nakedness
the page gives it all

and then bidart on ulanova.

i had dissed poetry magazine
with angry regularity
confirmed in my soul that its white-run pages
precluded from seeing my brilliance
Black South Central North Philly
bipolar second sighted hot breathed steaming thighs
no man to understand
to bear it.

poetry magazine would never publish me.

but then bidart on ulanova.

someone, like me, who understood
inhaled tragedy
knew that tragedy lived in the marrow
one developed a taste for it early
when denied by all who existed
to take care of you
to teach you how to survive.

bidart tried to make it nice
"i saw ulanova at eighteen"
"on screen"
but it was too late
the last line could not erase, excuse
the careful, subtle, not at all keening
that communicated bidart's consumption
mastication and then offering of the pulp
to nourish us in our necessary imbibing
of tragedy.

ulanova had nothing to do with it
it was bidart making all things clear.

i do not know if i shall choose to live the year
if i shall choose to live it amongst
or if i will be blessed with a convent
a habit
full retreat.

it hurts a bit out here.

i have been responsible though
my work in the hands of one i trust
a stalwart spirit of fire
and should more come
his address memorized.

if lucky i will get to shropshire
perhaps see rajeev once more
embrace my traveling uncle martin
ask vincent for that one thing i want:
a hug
my arms wrapped around his waist, his back
my face to the side
my cheek against his chest

none of this under my control
God laughs when we make plans
i live to follow His instruction
i pray that He soon finds a safe place for me
for battling this country
this nation of commerce cash the material
with nothing
i pray only for a quiet quick passing.

My friend Sandy L. is in hospital at the moment, so I have no funnies for this issue.  I hope, instead, you will not mind if I leave you with an inspiring thought that will help your day go cleaner, swifter, and with a higher degree of positivity:

AN EXAMPLE FROM MY LIFE:  I could not discern why I kept being thrown from residence to residence; why no home I seemed invited into let me stay.  A friend, initially welcoming, became jealous of a small amount of financial good fortune.  Another friend with a jealous wife did not understand my strategy for coping with severe back and knee pain and a persistent throat infection; both decided that I was not working hard enough at finding housing and thus insisted that I be out of their home every morning by 8 a.m.  A third friend, the one person I have always been able to count upon in Philadelphia, the only person I have always been able to call at 2 or 3 a.m . no matter what, heard about this dynamic and came to pick me up, giving the second family what for about the daily early morning evictions.

It took weeks for me to understand that my homelessness, all along, had been about helping this particular friend.

He is a truly selfless man.   Church and seminary come before everything and and everyone else in his life, including himself.

He has been caring--mostly alone--for his 98-year-old mother when he is a 76-year-old asthmatic with allergies.  They were tensely sharing a 2-bedroom apartment, but he invited me into their home as though welcoming me into a mansion.  Initially, I was relieved, and then I noticed the cracks beneath the surface.

His kitchen had not been cleaned since the last century.  There were items growing in his refrigerator and on his countertops that Louis Pasteur would have been proud of.  The bathroom was not as bad, but was full of disorganized junk, overused toothbrushes, practically empty tubes of this and that.

At first I was furious, angry and appalled.  How could a man of God live this way?  How could he ignore the basics of daily living for so long and tell no one?

And then, as I talked to God about my anger, as I asked God to remove my anger, as I vented my anger to the Only Source that could absorb it, the light of understanding revealed itself to me.

This was a man who could not share his deepest pain with others.  This was a man to whom others came with their problems; no one ever expected HIM to need help.  He always had a handy list of resources for whoever might need them; no one thought to inquire about HIS situation and what needs he might have.

I, however, had been forced into his home to see his needs and to see to them.  I realized that in exchange for the rent-free loving kindness he was extending I could clean his kitchen and his bathroom; I could buy a few towels and washcloths and sheets for his bed at WalMart.  I could work to bring light and love and caring attention into a home he had had no time or will to make beautiful once the pressures of taking care of his mother beseiged him.

It took me an entire day to clean his kitchen, but the first night after cleaning it was the soundest sleep I had in months.  It was worth seeing his jaw drop in shock upon surveying the once-again-white countertop.  "It wasn't that clean when I moved in!" he exclaimed.

My soul has never been so rested as I have lived with him and tried to bring little niceties into his home.  The occasional bout of groceries when I can afford it.  The new set of pots--$29 and very nice thank you--at Walmart.  I continue to have no love for Walmart's treatment of its employees, but right now Walmart is all I can afford, and my friend's needs are immediate.

All of the truisms about helping another to remedy your own pain--yes, yes absolutely.  Once I stepped back, talked honestly to my Maker, listened with a full heart, I understood that sometimes we are manipulated by Him into a situation to help another one of His children who will see the light no other way.

May the sun be always at your back and the light of Your God, whatever manifestation or form He may take, be forever in your soul.

Love and blessings,

Dr. Ni