What, indeed, to the American Slave Is the 4th of July, Frederick Douglass (performed by Brian Jones in this clip) asked July 5, 1852 and to date has no satisfactory answer. At the Arts in Corrections conference recently several guest artists, artist scholars spoke eloquently about art and the practice of freedom. Today’s prisons house millions of people who return to society stripped of their capacity to participate fully. No longer citizens, like their legal chattel ancestors who were not even human—three-fifths human on the books, what does this incapacity mean for a nation whose founding principles speak to life, liberty for all and justice?
The conference was held at Santa Clara University, the 8th of 21 California missions, and the state’s oldest institution of higher learning in California. As we moved between sessions, statuesque trees casting shadows from the past, we could not help but reflect on the scattered bones the Jesuits exploited to be here. Beautiful rose bushes, manicured lawns, disturbing peace. The edifice a graveyard, but then there is probably no California territory where indigenous ancestors do not roam, disgruntled by the state’s blatant and continued disregard for life.
However, Alma Robinson, director, California Lawyers for the Arts, inspired she said by Rhodessa Jones’s Medea Project, invited such voices in the room, as she also called on her ancestors, Grandmother Isabel whose belief in higher education meant she would oversee the building of a school for African American children. This family reunion is its 114th Anniversary Season (1906-2019) this summer in Charlotte, NC. The school was burned down twice by Klu Klux Klan members, where upon Grandmother Isabel invited the community into her home for instruction. Her granddaughter, Alma says education is cheap medicine; art is cheap medicine. Legislators are investing more dollars in this cheap, effective, folk medicine.
CLA with the California Arts Council and the William James Foundation host this biannual conference attended by artists and allies from California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation: artist teachers, educators and their former students, not to mention of course, researchers who are plotting the effects of arts on the morale of those inside and the arts ability to transform space, if only for a little while—we heard from participants that those moments in rehearsal or performance or at the easel or writing or reciting are not just restorative, the creative process is what freedom looks like. It is what our ancestors held onto when the future looked bleak.
When Rick Walker, guest speaker, at the garden reception spoke of how art saved his life multiple times as he waited for release, incarcerated wrongfully for 12 years –he was not the only person present at the conference to so witness—art making, whether music or visual arts kept him sane. He even taught art classes. Walker and other Arts in Corrections artists’ work was a part of an exhibit that evening.
Joey Mason, musician/guitarist, a member of Marin Shakespeare Company’s Returned Citizen’s Theater Troupe, stated instead of being on the yard at San Quentin, he was in the Art Room—an oasis in hell. This kept him away from situations which might have led to trouble. Theatre, in particular is a different kind of collaboration between men who might have be enemies outside in this case, the Art Room. However, it is art which dismantles these artificial walls both within and without. Creativity is a bold and fearful step in institutions predicated on separation, division and mistrust.
“Breaking Through,” directed by Suraya Keating, with Assistant Director, Rachael Adler and Tony Cyprien, Musical Director, Marverick Harrison, featured Tony Cyprien, Gary Valentino Hollis, Pamela Ann Keane, Joey Mason and John Nesblett in ensemble and individual scenes and monologues. During the Q&A afterward, many people were visibly moved by the work especially Tony Cyprien’s solo reflection on time, rehabilitation and friendship. The Troupe’s performance was part of the evening entertainment programming.
Dorsey E. Nunn, Executive Director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC) and co-founder, All Of Us Or None (AOUON), said until the state recognizes his humanity, there is no freedom. He shared a recent ad in the Sacramento Bee which asks support for ACA 6: Restore Voting Rights to Californians on Parole. This bill will give “California voters the opportunity to automatically restore voting rights to people immediately upon their release from prison. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have already adopted similar policies.” To support this legislation visit: https://act.colorofchange.org/sign/help-stop-felony-disenfranchisement-ballot-box-support-aca-6/?source=jl_tw
The term “returned citizens” implies certain rights denied the recently released, sometimes legal and/or human rights are denied forever depending on the state and/or the crime. Taxation without representation, the reason why this nation resisted Britain’s domination, is true for millions of Americans who have served time in American gulags. They are taxed and have not voice—this is why the Louisiana and Florida State legislation authored in 2018 to restore voting rights to people on parole or out of prison. In Florida, Amendment 4,
which “restored the right to vote to 1.4 million individuals with felony convictions in their pasts, except individuals convicted of murder or felony sexual offenses,” are being challenged presently to include debt or fees connected to the conviction need to also be paid off. Civil and Human Rights Restoration is an incremental process.
When Bob Moses, Civil Rights icon and architect of the Algebra Project asks, “who are ‘the People’ the US Constitution references,” each of us needs to pause and think about the disenfranchised men, women and children absent from this dysfunctional democracy. Just a bit of hemlock on the barbecue sauce – eat with caution.
On the Fly
Oakland Symphony’s Annual free Independence Eve Celebration, July 3, at the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., concert at 8 p.m. SF Mime Troupe Celebrates 60 Seasons with Treasure Island, July 4-Sept. 8. Call (415) 285-1717 http://www.sfmt.org/
MacBeth: A Dramatic Stage Reading at Celebration Arts, 2727 B Street, Sacramento, (916) 455-2787. It’s a free event, July 5th and 6th, 8 p.m.; San Francisco Jewish Film Festival39 sjjff.org or 415.621.0568
The exhibition, “about things loved: Blackness and Belonging” at Berkeley Art Museum Pacific/Film Archive (BAMPFA) continues through July 21, Wed.-Sunday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m., with selected tours on Wednesdays and Saturdays. BAMPFA is located at 2155 Center Street Berkeley, (510) 642-0808 and bampfa@berkeley.edu
On Saturday, July 13, 11:30 a.m.–1 p.m. or 1–2:30 p.m. there is a special workshop: Gallery + Studio: Finding Form and Space in Black Abstraction where participants can explore the varied perceptions of space and form on view in About Things Loved, then use paint and other materials to create a layered canvas of your own. The workshop is for ages 6 to 12 with accompanying adult(s).
Visit https://bampfa.org/program/about-things-loved-blackness-and-belonging
Coffee, Rhum, Sugar, Gold: A Postcolonial Paradox continues at the Museum of the African Diaspora continues through August, with a special film series curated by Cornelius Moore, Director, CA Newsreel. The screenings are Wednesdays, 6:30-9 p.m., July 10-Aug. 7. There is also an artist talk with Firelei Baez with Pamela Joyner, Tuesday, July 9, 7:30 p.m. Visit https://www.moadsf.org/calendar/
Measure for Measure at Marin Shakespeare Company
On this remarkable theatre’s 30th Anniversary Season entitled: “Playing for Good,” Marin Shakespeare Company mounts perhaps its most thematically descriptive work of the Bard, if one were to ask, what does MSC do? Not only does Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” articulate the company’s mission, it’s relevance today is all the more reason to continue producing such work. Art raises the bar literally what it means to be human.
Dominican University setting, a monastery with San Quentin State Prison a close neighbor many of us passed on our way to the theatre — on stage there are men wearing CDCR attire, both orange and the blues –recently released men sit in the audience and perform on stage. Engaged opening night (pay-what-you-can), the audience relishes the chocolate cake and sips champagne, as novitiate Isabella (Luisa Frasconi) pleas her brother’s case– sentenced to death for fornication. Pompey (Ed Berkeley) and Mistress Overdone (Isabelle Grimm) and others parley the inequity of something as natural as sex being the cause of death. Sitting judges also think death too great a sentence, but with mandatory statutes, there is no recourse except a pardon.
Such laws would certainly be a quick way to trim a population.
Morality is a personal choice. When legality and morality collide, the legal system is set up to act — citizens hope, as a check and balance. More often than not, as in MFM justice is a club the powerful control. Justice is not fairness or what is right, justice MFM shows is for those who can get away with tyranny and abuse.
When the sitting judge, Lord Angelo (Joseph Patrick O’Malley) thinks he can bargain with Isabella– sexual favors for her brother, Claudio’s release, the question arises, is justice just for “just-us?” The powerful make and break rules others are imprisoned and executed for?
Set to wonderful original spoken word created and performed by LeMar Maverick Harrison, MSC’s timely production calls into question sexual violence, over incarceration, state violence and trivial laws that waste valuable resources.
We laugh as gravity settles like confetti, agile actors dancing from stage into the audience where a few lucky patrons are addressed directly. At the end when all is perhaps forgiven, the bad guy stewing over an open flame, I am not sure what to think about Vincentio (Patrick Russell) who abdicates his responsibility and is the reason for the mess. He hides out dressed as clergy to watch what is going on in his kingdom and cleverly makes the problem go away, something theatre lends itself to. But this problem doesn’t dissipate. In fact, the way Russell plays Vincentio he also needs to check his behavior toward the chaste Isabella.
I wonder, given the over incarceration of Black men and women, and the undervalue of Black women, would Angelou have asked for Isabella’s sexual trade or just taken it, as his will to do so and still executed her brother? Would a Black Isabella have gotten such a platform to share her story publicly and then have it validated? I am just reminded of Anita Hill and her testimony and her bravery, yet nothing came of it and Thomas was given the post in this nation’s highest court. If he’d been denied, perhaps there might not be such a level of tolerance in public offices like the presidency.
Measure continues through July 21 at Forest Meadows Amphitheater on the campus or Dominican University, 890 Belle Avenue in San Rafael. Visit marinshakespeare.org or call (415) 499-4488.
Toni Morrison: Pieces That I Am, dir. Timothy Greenfield-Sanders—
A Review
by Wanda Sabir
It’s a film we’ve all been waiting for, even if we didn’t know we were holding a collective breath beyond hope that it would someday be made. With an all-star lineup of guests who rave and even weep over a life well-crafted like the characters that haunt and explicate a gene pool too deep to tread lightly—Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’s “Toni Morrison: Pieces That I Am,” (2019), 120 min., is that work. The director shares an intimacy on screen with an artist, Nobel Laurette, mother, Daddy’s girl, whom we know from “The Bluest Eye,” “Sula,” “Song of Solomon” and “Beloved” to “Paradise” and “A Mercy.” Some like Angela Davis, Oprah Winfrey, Walter Mosley, Sonia Sanchez and her editor Robert Adams Gottlieb, know her as friend.
In a work that is as lovely a cinematic journey as it is a pleasure to listen to and discover more about this very private yet public figure, this may be a work Greenfield-Sanders cannot top. Morrison’s mother’s family moved from Greenville, Alabama to Lorain, Ohio, where Morrison was later born. Her dad grew up in Cartersville, Georgia.
Morrison speaks of her community as a mixed race town where all the kids played together and the families got along. The second eldest of four, she spoke of going to Howard University and then Princeton so she could have fun, perhaps too much fun away from her mother’s watchful eye.
The author’s journey to New York where she was hired by Random House is a sight, mere words cannot convey. Imagine a self-possessed Morrison with a pipe, the only woman in photos with white male colleagues that speaks volumes about Morrison’s autonomy and self-assurance. In one scene she learns that women editors are making less than their male counterparts. In the next she tells her supervisor, “I am head of household just like you.” Her pay is made equitable immediately.
This example of Morrison’s non-sexist or racial nonsense is repeated often in “Pieces that I Am.” An epic life, what makes this film even more remarkable is the use of fine art to illustrate the journey from Jacob Lawrence’s “Migration Series” to Charles White, Lorna Simpson and Hank Willis-Thomas, the work explores a writer’s life and the reciprocal nature of this medium. The film’s release locally and nationally, June will also debut on KQED locally in the American Masters Series.
The director and I had an opportunity to chat briefly late June about this work.
Wanda Sabir: Oh my goodness. Your film is so marvelous.
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders: Thank you.
WS: It is such a tribute . . . long overdue to this fabulous woman.
TGS: Long overdue. I agree with you.
WS: Totally amazing. Were you put on this planet to do this?
TGS: Sometimes they happen: strange things that are unexplained. I guess maybe I was put here to do this.
WS: I’m wondering about the title because there are so many aspects of her life that you could have zeroed in on, but this is the story that you both choose to tell.
TGS: The title is a line from [the novel] “Beloved.” We were searching really for a subtitle, and when I saw that, it all came together kind of perfectly because it relates to Micalene Thomas’s wonderful opening where the pieces of Toni come together. It relates to the way Toni writes. It’s not linear; she comes from many different directions, and it also relates to the concept of the film which is that these are the pieces of Toni Morrison, the single mother, the editor, you know, the teacher, and of course the great writer and Nobel winner.
WS: Right, right. That’s so true. As I was watching the film last week. I took so many notes.
TGS: It’s a really dense film in that sense. There is so much to think about, [you know,] we kind of lure you in because Toni is so loving really in the film. You know, you love her. I think that once you start to watch it, all of a sudden there’s so many things to think about, right?
WS: Yes, there are. I was wondering if you could tell me about your Toni Morrison, and what pieces of her didn’t make it into the film. I just love learning about her family and their moving — her grandmother, having to pick up the girls and move to Lorain, Ohio. Her mother and father sounds so powerful. Those stories are so riveting.
TGS: She wonderfully contrasts her parents in a very vivid sense of their personalities. I think, in the film she says my mother looked at each person as an individual and she didn’t look at color or anything. She just looked at them as like, you know who they were and if they were a good person or not. And her father was very strident. Different, you know, but for good reason. I mean he had come from some place of horror and seeing terrible things.
WS: Right, right. Definitely and then I wonder if because her father was such a strong presence in her life if this is why she was able to function in such a male-dominated field (publishing).
TGS: It’s a very interesting point you bring up. It’s not specified in the film, but I know from knowing her and from hearing her talk that her father he had tremendous influence on her and also he believed in her. I think at a very early age her father adored her and realized how brilliant she was. I think this was a man who really knew, [the way a parent knows which of his] children are special or exceptional in some way. I think [he knew she was exceptional and I think] that probably stayed with her whole life that this strength that she got early on from him. I’m happy you brought that up. Thank you.
WS: Here’s this woman smoking a pipe and she’s the only woman among all these men. Some people might be like wow all these powerful white men. Aren’t you like lucky? The way she saw it was they are lucky to have me.
TGS: ‘I was more interesting than they were,’ she said.
WS: Exactly. She holds her own and claims her space and doesn’t compromise. I mean, I love it. She was not about to take less pay, for the same job.
TGS: All of the lessons we try to teach today. She was a pioneer. She was doing that when it was really hard.
WS: Right, right. Talk about how you frame your subjects with your camera, both still camera and your film camera. It’s intentional the way you shoot and I was thinking about Brian Lanker, the photographer whose work, “I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women who Changed America,” had a stop at the Oakland Museum of California.
Lanker said when he was on tour with the exhibit, he placed his subjects so that he was looking up to them, as opposed to down. It was a position of reverence and respect. Talk about your philosophical intent in framing Morrison the way you do as well as the people who are talking about her. I also noticed positioning and power dynamics within the framing as well.
TGS: I’m a photographer and a filmmaker. My photography is distinctive. I have a look that is really a simple backdrop and one light and direct to camera gaze. That is all purposeful, because what I’m trying to do is focus on the person not on my fancy lighting [and] not on some environment that they’re in. I’m trying to say look at this person here. Look into his or her eyes. That’s kind of my intention, and I translate that look to film so that when you’re looking at these interviews, you’re getting the kind of the beauty of my portrait lighting, but you’re really focusing on that person.
“And what I what I try to do in this film is, if you noticed, Toni is the only one who’s talking directly into the camera. The others are talking off camera. There are talking about her, but she’s talking to us. That was very conscious on my part. It was something I’ve never seen in the documentary where you combine those two — you either decide one way or the other. You don’t do both.
“I felt that by letting Toni be the only one talking to camera, it also gives her agency and it makes it Toni’s story. She’s the one looking at us. It becomes overwhelmingly clear that she’s telling the story.”
WS: It is really clear. The work looks like she is directing it.
TGS: “As a white male director, I’m very conscious of my white male gaze. I surrounded myself with people who were able to kind of bring voices to the production, to the film and at the same time, you know, making sure that by shooting at the way I did Toni is really telling her story.”
WS: You have a series on identity: “The Black List” became three feature films, followed by the “Latino List: Volumes 1 & 2,” “The Out List,” “The Women’s List” and “The Trans List” There are eight films in total. I was just wondering how this film is like a culmination of that work and what could follow this?
We both laugh.
TGS: “At the moment. I’m not even thinking about like what to do next. But when you look at this film, when you see the 12 people in it, they all deserve documentaries such as Sonia Sanchez, Walter Mosley, Angela Davis and you know Farrah Griffin . . . all these people are remarkable. There are so many great stories out there to tell but the Toni one was very personal to me because she’s been such an influence on all of our lives, but on my life in particular. She was the one that got the Blacklist idea. I give her credit for the whole series. It is based on an idea that Toni had.”
WS: Tell us about that first shoot 38 years ago as you set up without assistance in your SoHo Studio.
One such topic is viagra for sale india buying medicine online through an Online Pharmacy. Watermelon- This is one of the best fruits to increase male libido and cure impotence include figs, pomegranate, avocado, and dates. tadalafil online in uk click that page Getting some aphrodisiac medicines- When men come to know a new type or erectile dysfunction called moderate erectile problems. purchase viagra http://icks.org/n/data/ijks/1483321954_add_file_4.pdf Detoxification is essential to order viagra end the adverse effects of the drugs. TGS: “I was asked in an interview: Do you remember what [Morrison] was like back then and I said, I remember how confident she was as a person. When you’re a photographer looking at the subject, you’re trying to read the subject and see if the person is nervous. Do I make need to make him or her feel better? What do I need to do to get trust from the subject? And I remember with Toni she walked in smoking a pipe. She was confident. She was clearly like, here we are, let’s do it. It was it was remarkable. I remember that very well.”
(The director doesn’t share that he walked Morrison to the bus stop because he knew she’d have difficulty getting a taxi from his East Village photo studio. She never forgot the favor and when Vanity Fair magazine wanted to do a profile, she insisted the editors call him. Fast forward, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders is on the masthead.)
WS: Another aspect in this unique film is the art. It is amazing. I recognize Charles White, Kara Walker, Kerry James Marshall. Jacob Lawrence’s “Migration Series” follows Morrison’s family north from Alabama. To let these famous Black artists illustrate a film is so beautiful.
TGS: I have never seen it in a film. I always thought, why aren’t we cutting to a painting? Sometimes you don’t have a photo. I think that what we did here was so special because it [not only] brought 20-something African-American artists’ work into the film which was wonderful, but it also was about a feeling that these images give not just illustration; they give you a mood and an understanding of what was being said.
‘So when Sarah Griffin says, ‘There’s a whole world out there that white people don’t even know about and we cut to the Kerry James Marshall ‘Pastime’ painting what could be a better image than that that painting? It’s just a flawless piece of filmmaking if I do say so myself. (The director coughs/chuckles modestly. I join him).
[I agree, yet it is Rashid Johnson, artist and friend of the director, who introduces him to artists like Kerry James Marshall’s work, who generously makes his work available for the film when asked.]
“It was fun to do that and I have a long history in the art world. I photographed for 20 years the world of artists and art dealers and critics. I have 700 portraits at Museum of Modern Art in their collection, so it’s a very big part of my life. I studied art history at Columbia, so I know a lot about art and a lot of artists and many of them in the film like Kara Walker and Lorna Simpson. I actually photographed Jacob Lawrence before he died”.
WS: I have to stop the director and take a breath before continuing. Jacob Lawrence?! Wow —
Tell me about Mickalene Thomas’s opening collage.
TGS: Well Mickalene Thomas is a very important contemporary artist. She’s one of the artists I did not know personally and I pulled an Oprah, you know, I just found her phone number somehow [and] I called her and I explained what we were doing and she said ‘I’m in,’ that quickly.
“I think that was the reaction of almost everyone I reached out too. Everyone felt that way about Toni. Mickalene is known for her collage work, so I thought there was a way for her to do some kind of piece for the opening based on my photographs.
“We gave her, oh gosh, hundreds of images to play with . . . every photo I’d taken of Toni and just said, you know go to town on this. Four months later, we were about to send the film to Sundance to try and get into the festival and I called her I said I need something early next week. She sent the marvelous piece we finessed into that opening that you see.”
WS: Remember when Toni Morrison’s son passed, Slade. The film is it’s both personal and public, in the way it is choreographed so to speak. I just love hearing from her friends, because you can say that the people that are talking about her are both friends and Morrison groupies. Oprah is so dramatic and Sonia Sanchez, when she starts crying, I start crying too. Oh my. And then there’s Angela Davis. Like who knew that Toni Morrison was the reason why we have her autobiography at 28?
We think, Angela Davis was really 28 at one point? (The director and I take another moment to laugh). Look at what she is doing at 28? Then Muhammad Ali? Oh my goodness. Walter Mosley sitting around the kitchen table just sort of chopping it up, as they say. It is so special.
TGS: “They understand [her gift]. I think it was Paula Griffin who said ‘she means so much to us.’ I love that line.”
WS: Right. It was so funny, you know to see my younger daughter, TaSin’s friend Hank Willis Thomas in the film. They were in the same graduating class at California College of Arts and Crafts. My daughter a BFA in photography, Hank an MFA.
TGS: “His mother Deborah Willis is a friend of mine. She’s fabulous. I love that piece of his too. “Isn’t that sort of perfectly placed as well that kind of divine image to show there.”
WS: Elizabeth Catlett. You have a who’s who. Some artists are making their appearances as spiritual being– theirs is an Aṣẹ to their work and their spirits and to what they’ve done for our people “[I love that,” the director says] but it’s also a nice Aṣẹ to Morrison– they are tipping of their hats.
TGS: “It is and it is intentional and [I love] to have you’re saying that. I have watched the film many times with audiences and certain audiences just really get it and there’s always someone in there who’s whispering under her breath or his breath is always liked Elizabeth Catlett, Charles White, Kerry James Marshall . . . . I love that when that happens. They are part of a dialectic these images.”
WS: How long did it take you to pull it all together? I mean, of course 38 years, but this particular project?
TGS: “It’s really about five years. First talked to Toni asked her if she would consider it. She didn’t say no, which was a good sign. Then finding the funding for it [when she approved], assembling the team and choosing the people to be in it and then you know, really two years of editing is an enormous amount of work: researching, finding all this material in high resolution and getting the licenses for it. All of that is just tremendous amount of work.”
WS: Hmm. So how did you decide, because I’m sure everyone you asked to talk about Ms. Morrison probably said, yes. so how did you end up with this select group of people? I read that you had a Peter Sellers’ interview that didn’t make the cut. I remember the Sellers Morrison symposium on “Desdemona” at UC Berkeley with Rokia Traoré (who played the lead). Toni Morrison who wrote the libretto participated via skype.
TGS: “I was very careful not interview anyone who wouldn’t make it into the film. I think it’s unfair to just interview lots f people when they give you their time and their energy. Peter, I feel such guilt for. We have a fabulous piece on Shakespeare and Toni with Peter Sellers, and we pulled it because it was an easy seven minutes to pull out of the film and I haven’t for the DVD extras and stuff, but you know, I try to really just invite people who I knew I would include the film in some way.”
WS: Desdemona was really amazing. And I was so excited when I thought Morrison was going to be in the house, because she comes here. She had come to the Bay Area because she’s a friend of the Marcus Bookstore founders here. She comes to do fundraisers for them. I think Marcus Books the oldest black book so here in Northern California.
TGS: “In this seven minute clip we also asked people what their favorite Morrison book was.
Angela Davis’s is ‘Desdemona.’ Isn’t that fascinating? She said that when she saw the production it was the most moving thing she’d ever seen in her whole life.”
That’s in the DVD extras. I wish we could have put it in the film but there’s so much that we could that other stuff that we had that we had to make decisions. As the director you’ve got to say: this is the length is going to be; this is the way it’s going to be structured and I don’t think there’s room for that. It’s to make those choices.
WS: “Toni Morrison: Pieces That I Am” (2019) is a classic similar to “James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket” (1990), dir. Karen Thorsen. In “Price of the Ticket,” Toni Morrison speaks at James Baldwin’s funeral. Other more recent series classics are: “Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart,” (2018), dir. Tracey Heather Strain and Peabody Winner for 2017, “Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise” (2017), directors, Bob Hercules and Rita Colburn Whack.
The film is currently at Landmark Albany Twin, 1115 Solano Avenue, Albany, (510) 525-4531. To listen to an interview with Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, director, on Wanda’s Picks Radio Show visit: http://tobtr.com/11434151
“Toni Morrison: Pieces That I Am” opened nationally at the end of June and continues in Bay Area theatres such as: Embarcadero Center Cinema, San Francisco; Kabuki 8, San Francisco; and Albany Twin, Albany
Official Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8sUwXTWb4M
Queen Toni Morrison is with the Ancestors now. A dear friend wrote this poem in her honor. MumC lost her baby last year shortly after his 7th birthday. This is from her award-winning blog: Mum C Writes: Poetry, Short Stories, Articles
AN INKY WARRIOR AT REST (For Toni Morrison)
by Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia
When a big tree with strong branches
…and healthy leaves
…falls
The earth shakes in fear and sadness
…not because of the weight and bruise
But in mourning for the many beaks
…the many mouths
…the many buttocks
Who have been stripped off their benefactor
…with all her healing touches
The more we wail
…the clearer our reason of loss
Damirifa due Maame Morrison!
II
As we mourn your loss
…we know your horn of felicitations blow wild in the yonder world
…leading your martyred spirit back home
…birthing your immortal soul here
…here- where blacks lack less because of your crack
…on unreasonable reasoning so dark
To reach parked consciences
…backed into dark quarters of humanity
Ayekoo our Dear Dear Blessed Beloved
…turned Saint in love
III
When humanity suffered a coma
…and blacks suffered the trauma
…of the inhumane hammer
…nailing them onto woods of animals
Pairing prized ebonies with monkeys
…making them donkeys
…and locking them in murderous rooms of slavery
…with no known keys
You were one great manna
…which fell amidst the non-empathetic hunger struggle
…and told the world with words
…which painted clearer pictures than colours
…of the poison of cruelty
…dressed in slavery
…overlooked by supremacists
…as it consumed souls with its gluttony
IV
You’re one of the topmost Iron ladies
…who wielded a real sword
…in ink
You’ll forever be that beautiful brain
…who fought on the field of slavery
…and conquered more soldiers of hate
…than many pious soldiers with great ammunition could
Only with your words
V
Goddess of literacy!
Sun of fairness!
Moon of clearer perspectives!
Tuntum brane a wo fata nsamerane!
The woman with More Reason well parcelled as Morrison
Get your pampered rest
…as we continue your noble quest
You did do more than your best
…and deserve a fulfilling crest
…worthier than your imagination could fetch
VI
Nnaase o!
Akpe o!
Oyiwaladɔɔn for the eighty eight years of living which will last through all lifetimes!
Thank you warrior extraordinaire!
For all you were
For all you’ve been
For all you achieved
For all your wealth of knowledge
…which will protect humanity for all lifetimes
Damirifa due
…due due ne amanehunu!
Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia © August 6, 2019
In honour of Toni Morrison (February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019)
