This class was taught on October 28, 2018 at San Diego Writers, Ink at the Ink Spot. Jihmye Collins was a Black Panther in Indianapolis, Indiana during the Civil Rights days. In those days he would get up at 4:00 A.M. to go to a kitchen where he would cook breakfast for children of diversity & poverty who would go to school hungry without that kitchen. The Black Panthers fed 15,000 children a day at their height of their influence in 7 American cities. At the end of his life he was a member of the Bahai Faith that believes we are a world family.
Jihmye Collins was my brother/friend.
Jim Moreno
Cost: $60.00
First 2 hours, 1:00 P.M. To 3:00 P.M. To Actualize A Dream
Quotes: Jihmye Collins: I dedicate this, my second book, to the inevitability of the unity of the human family. As one in pursuit of world citizenship, I continue to look for paths of understanding, particularly as they regard those differences across ethnic lines which we have not yet learned to appreciate and respect.
Collins: Through consultation about our differences, we can find truth, if it is truly desired, which could lead to a Pathway to justice, given a collective will, thereby giving a great, lasting gift to the family of man.
Richard Blanco: I…felt early on…that the truth was always in the gray, and so that’s what I try to do―uncover the gray, what’s not been talked about, the point that hasn’t been made.
Sonia Sanchez: You can’t have relationships with other people until you give birth to yourself. All poets, all writers are political. They either maintain the status quo, or they say, ‘Something’s wrong, let’s change it for the better.’ The joy of poetry is that it will wait for you. Novels don’t wait for you. Characters change. But poetry will wait. I think it’s the greatest art.
Collins: However, notwithstanding great advances over time in all fields of endeavor, the one constant that has and continues to plague human behavior is a collective inability to share the once plentiful resources of earth without conflict―even to the point of glorifying in war to further agendas of aggression for gain.
Chief Seattle: Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we can not eat money
Thich Nhat Hanh: When we are truly in the present moment, we may encounter parts of life that are refreshing and healing. But we may also encounter war, suffering, violence, hatred, fear, and discrimination. When this happens, we may feel anger arise. But those who create discrimination and hatred are the victims of fear. It is fear that is the obstacle.
Music To Write To Because Jihmye Loved Jazz:
John Coltrane – A Love Supreme [Full Album] (1965)
Feels So Good – Chuck Mangione [FULL VERSION]
Herbie Hancock – Watermelon Man
Play: Jihmye Collins (4:38)
Play: What does it mean to be human? | Sonia Sanchez | TEDxPhiladelphia (Stop at 4:06)
First Forty 1: 00 P.M. To 1:40 P.M.
Read: Jihmye Collins, Poem Jihmye Collins,Sometimes I Dream A Dream
; I Paint Because…,; The Classical Players; You Are My Cousin; Joy Kogawa, Where There’s A Wall; Joe Milosch, Advice to The Lovelorn; Jim Moreno, The Black & Blue Blues. Sonia Sanchez, Reflections After the June 12th March for Disarmament.
Play: Joy Harjo: Poems are houses for spirits (6:05) Meet Ishmael Reed (1:37)
2nd Twenty 1:40 P.M. to 2:00 P.M.
Write: Choose one of the 8 prompts below that have been paraphrased from the poems you just read and write for 20-30 minutes. Click on one of the music links above to listen to as you write if you like. When you have finished with your poem read it aloud.
Poetry Prompts: I’m worthy of the poet’s song… I write because…
The music in my poem… Love is not a muscle of…
Poetry seeks what is impossible to find… Calmly thinking of humanity…
Words loosen bricks on any wall… In that moment it was what I want…
After reading your poem – 15 minute break
When You Paint Your Poems: The Poetry of Jihmye Collins
Poem-Making With Jim Moreno
Second 2 Hours, 3:15 P.M. To 5:15 P.M. The Bridge to Equality
Quotes:
Robert Glasper: It was our aim to create an expression of jazz that was genre blind as a means of sharpening the dialogue between cultures…if I can mix traditional Korean music with Indian raga & I can mix that with the fervor of the Delta blues, then what am I saying about the people. If I can marry their cultural expressions musically, then I can marry the people as well.
Miles Davis: Do not fear mistakes. There are none. I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning… Every day I find something creative to do with my life. Bebop was about change, about evolution. It wasn’t about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change. It’s always been a gift with me, hearing music the way I do. I don’t know where it comes from, it’s just there and I don’t question it.
Elizabeth Alexander: Art replaces the light that is lost when the day fades, the moment passes, the evanescent extraordinary makes its quicksilver. Art tries to capture that which we know leaves us, as we move in and out of each other’s lives, as we all must eventually leave this earth. Great artists know that shadow, work always against the dying light, but always knowing that the day brings new light and that the ocean which washes away all traces on the sand leaves us a new canvas with each wave.
Quincy Troupe: I saw that flame and felt the hotness of it close to my face. I felt fear, real fear, for the first time in my life. But I remember it also like some kind of adventure, some kind of weird joy, too. I guess that experience took me someplace in my head I hadn’t been before. To some frontier, the edge, maybe, of everything possible. I don’t know; I never tried to analyze it before. The fear I had was almost like an invitation, a challenge to go forward into something I knew nothing about. That’s where I think my personal philosophy of life & my commitment to everything I believe in started, with that moment.
Richard Blanco: In my mind, the real story of a nation is found in the people of a nation. The emotional histories of those people are what interest me as a writer. Unfortunately, the stories today seem to be somewhat washed out by politics & the political class that we’ve created & surrendered our democracy to. We can’t seem to speak to each other unless it is through political party lines. I see poetry as one way to reintroduce the story of the people in the political conversation by grounding abstract issues in real names, faces, & lives.
Music To Write To:
Miles Davis – In a Silent Way – 1969
Norah Jones (with Wynton Marsalis) – You Don’t Know Me
Anoushka Shankar e Patricia Kopatchinskaja – Raga Piloo
First Forty-Five 3: 15P.M. To 4:00 P.M.
Play: A Muslim and Jewish girl’s bold poetry slam (2:57)
Poema para Magic Johnson (Quincy Troupe, Estados Unidos) 2:29)
Read: Jihmye Collins, These Times; Internet Isolation Facebooking My Space; Quincy Troupe, A Poem For Magic; Elizabeth Alexander, Boston Year, Butter;
Play: Poet Richard Blanco Delivers Inaugural Poem – Obama’s Second Inauguration (6:46)
2nd Twenty 4:00 to 4:20 P.M. Write: These are times of ______& _______…. Electronic connection has its ups and downs…My round ball is my religion…My first week in_______…My mother loved liverwurst more than…One sky, many faces…
Last Forty 4:20 P.M. To 5:00 P.M. Read
When You Paint Your Poems: The Poetry of Jihmye Collins
Bibliography
1) Artist, activist Jihmye Collins dies at 71, The San Diego Union Tribune, March 23, 2011.
2) Body of Life, Elizabeth Alexander, Tia Chucha Press, 1996.
3) Celebrating Black Music, Ebony Magazine, June 2018, p. 67.
4) Advice to the Lovelorn, Joe Milosch, http://www.poeticmedicine.org/joe-milosch.html
5) Jihmye Collins, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qac0YuArJBA
6) Pathways: Thoughts From the Middle of the Road, Jihmye Collins, Pip Printing, San Diego, CA, 2000.
7) Miles The Autobiography: Miles Davis With Quincy Troupe, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1989.
8) Poetry & Other Writings: In Search of a New Time, Jihmye Collins, Gazebo Press, San Diego, CA, 1995.
9) Poet’s Choice, Edward Hirsch, Harcourt, Inc. New York, 2008.
10) The Black & Blue Blues, Jim Moreno, Entered in the Kowit Contest, 2018.
11) The San Diego Poetry Annual: 2009-10, Internet Isolation Facebooking My Space, Jihmye
Collins, Publisher William Harry Harding, p. 144.
12) The Writers Chronicle, Vol. 1, Number 1, September 2018, An Interview with Richard Blanco, William Walsh, p. 55
13) Together We Are One: Honoring Our Diversity, Celebrating Our Connections, Thich Nhat Hanh, Parallax Press, Berkeley, 2010, p. 87..
14) Venus Hottentot, Elizabeth Alexander, Rectors and Visitors of the University of Virginia & Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1990.
15) Woman in the Woods, Joy Kogawa, Mosaic Press, 1985.
Quotes: Susan Collins: He grew up in Chattanooga during the Jim Crow days … people were being lynched around him,” Susan Collins said. “He grew up with a desire for justice, a desire for the recognition of all humanity. He became active in marches and writing letters to the editor … calling attention to injustice.
Edward Hirsch: Poetry speaks with the greatest intensity against the effacement of individuals, the obliteration of communities, and the destruction of nature. It tries to keep the world from ending by positing itself against oblivion. The words are marks against erasure…we need these voices to restore us to ourselves in an alienating world. We need the sounds of the words to delineate the status of our being. Poetry is a necessary part of our planet.
Hirsch: The horrors we face daily around the globe…challenge us to find meaning in the midst of suffering. Poetry answers this challenge. It puts us in touch with ourselves. It sends messages from the interior and also connects us to others. It is intimate and secretive; it is generously collective…poetry is a means of exchange, a form of reciprocity, a magic to be shared, a gift.
Ishmael Reed: Writing poetry is the hard manual labor of the imagination. One of the joys of reading is the ability to plug into the shared wisdom of mankind. I reached the age of 70, because I have cultivated an association of multicultural intellectuals who are informed and alert to whatever “tricknology” that’s laid on us by the powers that be. These (intellectuals) include White ethnic intellectuals- people who know their roots- as well as Native American, Asian American, Hispanic and Black intellectuals. These are thirty, forty-year associations with some of the best minds around. Minds that are ignored by the media.
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