A Project of San Francisco Poet Laureate devorah major
April Featured Poets: Opal Palmer Adisa
and Grace Grafton
OPAL PALMER ADISA, Jamaican born, literary critic, poet, prose writer, storyteller and artist, has lived in the California Bay Area since the end of 1979.
She holds two Master of Arts degrees in English and Drama from San Francisco State University and a doctorate in Ethnic Studies and Literature from University of California, Berkeley.
Her published works are: Caribbean Passion, poetry, PeepalTree Press, 2004; The Tongue Is a Drum (poetry/jazz CD with Devorah Major) 2002; Leaf-of-Life, poetry, Jukebox Press, 2000;
It Begins With Tears, novel, Heinemann, 1997; Tamarind and Mango Women, poetry, 1992, PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award WINNER; Fierce/Love(poetry/jazz recording with Devorah Major),
1992; traveling women, 1989; Bake-Face and Other Guava Stories, 1986 and Pina, The Many-Eyed Fruit, children’s book, 1985.
Opal Palmer Adisa has written plays that have been produced in the Bay Area, has taught at San Francisco State University, Stanford, St. Mary’s and the University of California, Berkeley.
She is currently a Professor at California College of Arts & Crafts. Visit her website – www.opalwriters.com
Recommended Books:
- The Polished Hoe by Austin Clarke, (New York: Amistad, 2003. 462 pages). The Caribbean has produced some fine writers,
and no one is more gifted that Austin Clarke, who is a master storyteller. In this long, meandering tale, told by the formidable Mary_Mathilda,
Clarke reveals what agency is and painstainkingly allows reader to be witness to Mary_Mathilda’s tenacity and long_standing patience that leads
her to the path where readers meet her. Mary_Mathilda forces readers to take the long walk with her to the past that has caught up with the present.
This is a must read. It is the Winner of The Giller Prize
- Plot by Claudia Rankine, (New York: Grove Press, 2001. 103 pages). In this bold poetry collection, in the genre of language poetry,
Rankine moves with deft precision to describe the entire birthing process, from and before inception. Her eye for details, her emotional distance, yet oneness
with this process, is searing and stunning too. The poems pull you in with their simple, but audacious truth: “The womb similar to fruit that goes uneaten will
grow gray fur…” p. 16).
A surprised, delightful read, full of magic.
- Eleanor Holmes Norton: Fire in My Soul by Joan Steinau Lester, (New York: Atria Books, 2003. 370 pages).
For those who know and admire Eleanor Holmes Norton as a consummate politician and for those who don’t, this authorized biography reveals the maturation of this
complex woman. Joan Steinau Lester, long_time friend of Holmes Norton, manages to stay in the background, yet provides readers with an intimate, yet honest view of this feisty, determined woman.
A long, slow read, but well worth going the distance.
- Rules of the House by Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Berkeley, CA.: Apogee Press, 2002. 93 pages).
Reading these poems, I felt as if I was in a rain_forest, with the gentle trickle of rain falling off leaves, and my tongue out_stretch to catch the drops. Wangmo Dhompa is wise and peaceful. The poems
are little treats that I savor, not wanting the sweetness or tartness to disappear from my mouth. “We watch dust eat dust and forage for purple glass marbles./A rubber slipper opened out its lizard tongue.” P.50).
It is how she sees what she sees and yet allows the reader to see and experience it full through our own eyes.
Raised in the Tibetan communities in India and Nepal, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa is a truth_seer. The poems awaken all the senses.
Running Against the Tide
by Opal Palmer Adisa
the muse of madness
spins and spins
clamoring to be heard
tears like scarification
wetting its body
listen it wails
times was
when time is
when peace
was as breath is
when love
was as the
divine in us
is
we are the spaces
in between
the hatred
ripe as indifference
the denial
that issues the bullet
the sweat that
makes meager the meal
we are mangoes
in july
corn in september
and remembrance
is akin to honor
so they tumble into its arms
to be devoured
by this gigantic mouth
that can never be filled
regardless where
divisadero fulton
church amsterdam
king street slipen road
here there
san francisco
new york
kingston
the streets scooped them up
clutched tightly
refusing to let go
but madness is no fool
it has tricked the waves
and waddled ashore
it knows the veins of safety
detects the odor of peace
the street is no more
than someone dying
alone
grasping at life
to live
anywhere
wherever
listen
listen
time is as young
as innocence
and smarter too
Opal Palmer Adisa
Grace Wade Grafton
Grace Wade Grafton is a longtime teacher with CA Poets In The Schools, and recipient of many CA Arts Council grants for her work teaching poetry
to Lakeshore Elementary School students. Her chapbook, ZERO, won the Poetic Matrix contest. Her book, VISITING SISTERS, was published by
Coracle Books. She was named Poetry Teacher of the Year by the River Of Words annual youth-poetry contest sponsored by former US poet-laureate, Robert Hass.
Her work can be read online at poetrymagazine.com.
Lake Merced lessons
by Grace Wade Grafton
A cormorant, the rusty black of old tires,
lands on a spur of dead tree and
spreads its wings like an unheard-of airplane.
Feathers hang off the line of bone
like ragged laundry.
My student tells me,
they hang their wings out that way
because their feathers, unlike other waterfowl,
are unoiled. If they don't drip,
water's gathered weight will render them
unable to fly.
I brought him here to lake's edge to learn.
Now he teaches me. Parity.
I know he learned this lore from my friend,
his fourth grade teacher, who leads his charges
into feral territory, makes them sit
in the funky, beat-down fall grasses
where spiders spin dew-bedecked traps,
beetles and cicada barrage earth with busy-ness,
and seeds, right next to the kids' rears,
construct temples of germination
from grain upon grain of sand.
Under his tutelage, they sit and listen,
learning the silence of the hunter,
learning to let spiders crawl, safely, between
hairs on their hands, letting hawks' and gulls' cries
and the riffle of swallows
swooping to mud in steep banks,
enter their hearing.
Eucalyptus trees rub their leaves
against each other, tules shift
as the lake water shifts, the children
see coots dive, revolving their bodies
like lumps of mud disappearing
into the everlasting water.
Grace Wade Grafton
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