Voice Mail—died on June 24, 2009, the voice mail from my father said Transcription Beta (low confidence), Hello hi um I may be able to find somebody to reduce the size of the car OK I love you. The Transcription Beta had low self-esteem. It wandered into the river squinting and came back blind. The Transcription Beta could not transcribe dementia. My father really said, I'll fold the juice, not I love you. Is language the broom or what's being swept? When I first read I love you, some hand spun a fine thread around my lungs and tightened. Because my father had never said that to me before. In the seconds before realization of the error, I didn't feel love, but panic. We read to inherit the words, but something is always between and the words. Until death, when comprehension and disappearance happen simultaneously.
"One of the monstrous failings of American cinema is how it has neglected most of the best black filmmakers. Among the many careers that have been stifled is that of Billy Woodberry, whose first feature, the drama 'Bless Their Little Hearts' (streaming on Vimeo), was completed in 1983. His only feature in the nearly four decades since then is 'And When I Die, I Won’t Stay Dead,' a daring and accomplished documentary about the poet Bob Kaufman—which was completed in 2015."
Resources for Supporting and Uplifting the Black Community
Showing Up For Racial Justice DC: "SURJ DC is a chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), a national network of groups and individuals organizing white people for racial justice. Through community organizing, mobilizing, and education, SURJ moves white people to act as part of a multi-racial majority for justice with passion and accountability. We work to connect people across the country while supporting and collaborating with local and national racial justice organizing efforts. SURJ provides a space to build relationships, skills, and political analysis to act for change."
Critical Resistance : "As an abolitionist organization, Critical Resistance supports abolitionist reforms to dismantle the systems of policing and works to create viable alternatives in our communities."
Minnesota Freedom Fund: "The Minnesota Freedom Fund pays criminal bail and immigration bond for those who cannot afford to as we seek to end discriminatory, coercive, and oppressive jailing."
Poetry Daily stands with the Black community. We oppose racism, oppression, and police brutality. We will continue to amplify diverse voices in the poetry world. Black Lives Matter.
"Yes—I did feel as if the top of my head had been taken off. I was desperately goth at the time, and those lines were the gothiest thing I had ever heard. And hearing them re-configured my ideas about what a poem could be. No roses! No violets! That day, I wrote eight poems. Thankfully, I don’t remember any of them—except the very first one."
