Stimulus Bill to Support Artists and Writers

Poems are just as important as cars

John Cavanagh, James Early, Barbara Ehrenreich, E. Ethelbert Miller, Marcus Raskin, Anas Shallal, and Melissa Tuckey

Stimulus: One Percent for the Imagination

Elizabeth Alexander

OBAMA JOY! Alexander Returns to the City!

Elizabeth Alexander has been selected by Obama to read a poem on the great day of January 20th. This is an honor for a wonderful human being. Lady Alexander is a gifted poet and critic. She is a mentor to a new generation of African American poets. I always felt her family was the First Family of Washington D.C. Her mother and father are two gems.

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Elizabeth Alexander, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1992, is Professor of African American Studies and effective July 1, 2009, Chair of the African American Studies Department (on leave Spring 2009). She is the author of four books of poems, The Venus Hottentot (1990), Body of Life (1996), Antebellum Dream Book (2001), and American Sublime (2005), which was one of the American Library Association’s 25 Notable Books of the Year as well as one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Her collection of essays on African American literature, painting, and popular culture, The Black Interior, was published in 2004. Her verse play, "Diva Studies," was produced at the Yale School of Drama in May 1996.

Alexander has taught at the University of Chicago, where she won the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, New York University’s Graduate Creative Writing Program, and Smith College, where she was Grace Hazard Conkling Poet-in-Residence, first director of the Poetry Center at Smith College, and member of the founding editorial collective for the feminist journal Meridians. Professor Alexander is an inaugural recipient of the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship for work that “contributes to improving race relations in American society and furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954.” She teaches courses on African American poetry, drama, and 20th century literature, as well as the survey introduction to African American Studies. You can read a selection of Alexander's poems on her web site

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Review of The Black Interior

Alexander, the author of three indelible poetry collections, including Antebellum Dream Book (2001), now shares the aesthetic and intellectual wellspring from which her poems arise in a fresh and penetrating inquiry into African American creativity, or what she calls the "black interior." An exhilaratingly precise and mind-expanding essayist and critic, Alexander writes with striking insight about the poetry of Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Michael Harper; the black arts movement; the paintings of Romare Bearden and Kerry James Marshall; and the films of Denzel Washington. In each finely structured essay, she shrewdly assesses the historical and social context within which black artists work and how "public and communal pressures" to create art that is of service to the black community "dramatically affect the choices" black artists make. Erudite, witty, and profound, Alexander also celebrates the influence of Jet magazine and considers the terrible fates and legacies of Emmett Till and Rodney King. This original and electrifying collection greatly enriches and extends understanding of African American culture and its essential role in American culture as a whole.

—Donna Seaman, Booklist

"Elizabeth Alexander is one of the brightest stars in our literary sky . . . a superb, invaluable commentator on the American scene."

—Arnold Rampersad

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Responses

Dear Friends:

It is indeed wondrous that Barack Obama's Inaugural Program has highlighted poet Elizabeth Alexander, not only because she is a much neglected excellent black poet (note some of her poetry books are either out of print or not well available) but also because there has been neglect of poetry in educational institutions and libraries and other public spaces.  So "Number Four" and "Number 11" (see below in ISP letter) are indeed of great necessity, especially to change the cultural tenor of the nation. Poets and writers create community and in these dire times a sense of community is a necessity. Moreover, poets and writers create capital from the ground up. Not only poets and writers but also storytellers are necessary with their emphasis on our folk histories and their highlighting and updating our mythologies..

The IPS letter below asks us to look back to what was achieved in the 1930s WPA. I became familiar with The Federal Writers program through my work with the Marcus Christian Papers at the University of New Orleans Archives. I partially retell that story in My Archival Experience. That work included at study of Marcus Christian (poems, letters, and diary notes), including his relationship with Sterling Brown who was head of the Negro Division of the Federal Writer's program. The WPA did not only field work in folklore, and wrote not only histories of blacks in Louisiana, Illinois,Virginia, and in other states, but also published Guide Books, as that of Washington, DC, which along with the federal highway programs, stimulated tourism in the United States, and thus wealth.

I greatly encourage writers and artists to send the IPS letter below to Congressman John Conyers (D-MI).—Rudy

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Call for Special Program

ATTENTION ALL POETS AND ARTISTS. PLEASE SUPPORT THIS DOCUMENT.

WRITE TO CONGRESSMAN CONYERS TODAY!

December 16, 2008

To: Congressman John Conyers (D-MI)

From: John Cavanagh, James Early, Barbara Ehrenreich, E. Ethelbert Miller, Marcus Raskin, Anas Shallal, and Melissa Tuckey

RE: Call for Special Program to support artists and writers in Stimulus Bill

As you well recall, one of the most creative parts of the New Deal were programs to help artists and writers. Thousands were helped with relatively small outlays of funds, and the nation’s artistic heritage was greatly enhanced. The same argument should be made today.

We urge you to recommend that one percent of the stimulus plan be spent on arts and culture ($6 billion if the final package is $600 billion), building on the Federal Art Project and the Federal Writers Project of the New Deal. We offer eleven ideas on how the money could be spent below. We also support ideas that link different parts of the stimulus package; for example, the new schools that will be built could be adorned with new murals and sculptures.

Here is some background, followed by ideas on how the funds could be spent.

The Works Progress Administration was created in 1935 with the purpose of bringing jobs to those who had become unemployed or underemployed during the Great Depression. Since artists and writers were also hit by the economic hard times, two divisions of the WPA were assigned the task of creating suitable jobs for such people -- jobs that would not only take advantage of these individuals' talents, but would also serve to enrich America's cultural heritage and embellish public spaces. The grouping of the largest of these programs is collectively known as the Federal Project Number One. Included in this collective were the Federal Writers’ Project, the Historical Records Survey, the Federal Theatre Project, the Federal Music Project, and the Federal Art Project. All of these programs were divisions of the Works Progress Administration. Out of the approximately $4.8 billion allocated to the Works Progress Administration, Congress permitted $27 million to fund the Federal Project Number One projects.

The Federal Art Project, along with several other WPA-backed programs, created well over 5,000 jobs for American artists. These artists created over 2,500 murals, over 17,700 sculptures, 108,000 paintings, and 240,000 prints. The project's legacy still lives on, since it supported artists like Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, and many other abstract expressionists whose work helped shift the most dynamic center of the art world to shift from its traditional location in Europe to where it now resides, in the largest cities of the United States.

The Federal Writers' Project created over 6,600 jobs for writers, editors, researchers, and many others who exemplified a given level of literary expertise. Established on July 27, 1935 by President Roosevelt, the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) operated under journalist and theatrical producer Henry Alsberg, and later John D. Newsome, compiling local histories, oral histories, ethnographies, children's books and other works.

These writers created over 1,200 books and pamphlets, and they produced some of the first U.S. guides for states, major cities, and roadways. In addition, the FWP was responsible for recording folklore, oral histories, and, most notably, the 2,300 plus first-person accounts of slavery that now exist as a collection in the Library of Congress. As with the Federal Art Project, the FWP's contributions to American literature were both significant and long-lasting, giving authors like Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, John Steinbeck, Sterling Brown, and many others the opportunity to continue their work in a time of difficult economic circumstances.

Here are some of the ways the funds could be used:

1. NEA and NEH: Increase funding for the NEA and NEH. Increase the staff at both agencies. Maintain many of the new NEA projects started by Dana Gioia, for example: The Big Read and Operation Homecoming.

2. Archives: Support the preservation of literary archives across the country. Many collections need to interface with modern technology; staff needs to be hired at various institutions. We don't want to lose our past.

3. A Secretary-level post for Culture/Arts: We support the idea of Bill Ivey, former NEA Chair under Clinton, and head of the arts/culture Obama Transition Team for a Secretary level post for Culture/Arts; indeed, the United States and Germany are the only wealthy nations without a Minister or Secretary of Culture. Ivey’s initiative involves the refocus and revitalization of the extant Committee on the Arts and the Humanities http://www.pcah.gov, which could be a better interim and/or long-term mechanism for new arts and culture policies.

4. Arts Education; Educational institutions, especially public school systems in low-income and under served communities, would hire artists and writers. Funds would be made available for artist and writer-in-residence positions.

5. Arts in Public Spaces: Support for the arts in public places; especially parks, metro stations, airports, etc. Every major city and community should have access to concert series and readings in their major parks, especially in times of economic hardship.

6. Workplace: Funds to bring poets and writers into the workplace. Build literacy by enlivening the reading public. Contemporary writers would bring their work to the people. Readings could be held around noon at workplaces.

7. Document history: Document U.S. literary and cultural history on a city, state and national level. This would be similar to the old WPA program. Interview major writers and painters. It could be done by doing a series of films.

8. American Artists Overseas: Money should be set aside to send American artists overseas for 3-6 month periods, with an emphasis on countries where the United States has been at odds. They would serve as cultural ambassadors and give lectures and performances. They would also collaborate with artists of the host country to produce cultural events.

9. Fellowships/Scholarships awarded to working/low income individuals who wish to enroll in creative writing programs. Many older people wish to return to school to pursue the arts but have no money for tuition.

10. Black colleges: Money should be set aside to develop creative writing programs at historical black colleges. No creative writing program exists at any black college. This would create teaching jobs for many African American authors.

11. Libraries: We should support library infrastructure and provide writer and artist-in-residence programs for our libraries, especially those in low-income communities. Our nation's libraries are public treasures and many have been closed in recent years. Money is needed to keep our libraries open and alive.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml
http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/WPAStateGuides.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WPA_Federal_Writers%27_Project
http://www.harwich.edu/depts/history/HHJ/fedart.html

Please share this information with other artists and writers. This document was drafted by members of IPS www.ips-dc.org

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The Intersection of Poetry and Politics—[Robert] Frost was the first poet to read at a presidential inauguration, and there have been only two others in the almost five decades since: Maya Angelou, at Bill Clinton’s first inauguration in 1993, and Miller Williams, at Mr. Clinton’s second, in 1997. (Some would include, with an asterisk, James Dickey, who composed a poem that he read at Jimmy Carter’s inaugural gala but not at the inauguration itself.) Now America is about to meet its fourth inaugural poet, a 46-year-old Yale professor named Elizabeth Alexander.

Thus far America’s inaugural poems have been a mixed, motley bunch. Frost’s “Dedication” was stiff and dutiful. (Another sample rhyme: “Heroic deeds were done./Elizabeth the First and England won.”) Ms. Angelou’s “On the Pulse of Morning” was touchy-feely, multi-culti and crammed with shout-outs:

Miller Williams seemed to get it about right. His inaugural poem, “Of History and Hope,” was dignified, with a weather-beaten resonance. It began:

What the world will hear at Mr. Obama’s inauguration is the work of a woman whose verse makes a sharply different kind of music from that of any of the inaugural poets who have preceded her. The principal obsessions in her four books of verse — race and history, love and family — are played out in poems that can buzz with an electric and angular ellipticity, as in “Emancipation,” printed here in its entirety:

At other times her voice is calm and plain-spoken, as in this snippet from the poem “Smile”:

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She is going about making a poem for Mr. Obama, she said, by casting an eye back. “I have read the previous inaugural poems, as well as many others,” she said. “The ones that appeal to me have a sense of focus and a kind of gravitas, an ability to appeal to larger issues without getting corny.” One thing Ms. Alexander wants to do, she said, is speak clearly but artfully. “I don’t want the poem to talk down to some imagined audience,” she said. Among the poets she has been reading for guidance are Virgil, W. H. Auden, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney and Gwendolyn Brooks. . . .

If there is anything critics and readers get wrong about her poetry, and that of her African-American contemporaries, it is that they “focus on content but forget about form and craft,” Ms. Alexander said. “And to a certain extent that’s O.K. I’m happy if people find something of interest contained in my poems. But they are not just documentaries. It’s been a problem through the ages. African-American poetry has been read sociologically.”

Ms. Alexander is not overly nervous, she said, about performing her inaugural poem. She enjoys reading her work. “By the time you are reading a poem, the real work has been done,” she said. “If I ever get nervous before getting up to read, I look at the poem and say: ‘You’re done. All I have to do is let you out.’ ”

The poetry world will be listening intently. “After eight years of mangled and manipulated language, and the palpable effects of that in the real world, it seems like any gesture toward clarity of expression and dignity of life is welcome,” Christian Wiman, the editor of Poetry magazine, said in an e-mail message.

“In a way, the poem itself is not the point,” Mr. Wiman added. “I would guess that a president-elect decides to have an inaugural poem in the first place not in the hope of commissioning some eternal work of art, but in order to acknowledge that there is an intimate, inevitable connection between a culture’s language and its political life. That Obama wants to make such a gesture seems to me a pure good — for poetry, yes, but also for the country.” NYTimes

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The 5th Inning by E. Ethelbert Miller The 5th Inning is poet and literary activist E. Ethelbert Miller's second memoir. Coming after Fathering Words: The Making of An African American Writer (published in 2000), this book finds Miller returning to baseball, the game of his youth, in order to find the metaphor that will provide the measurement of his life. Almost 60, he ponders whether his life can now be entered into the official record books as a success or failure. The 5th Inning is one man's examination of personal relationships, depression, love and loss. This is a story of the individual alone on the pitching mound or in the batters box. It's a box score filled with remembrance. It's a combination of baseball and the blues. To see a clip of Ethelbert reading The 5th Inning click here: http://www.eethelbertmiller.com/etube

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BLACK CLASSIC BOOKS   BCP Digital Printing

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The Katrina Papers, by Jerry W. Ward, Jr. $18.95  /  The Richard Wright Encyclopedia (2008) Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

The Katrina Papers is not your average memoir. It is a fusion of many kinds of writing, including intellectual autobiography, personal narrative, political/cultural analysis, spiritual journal, literary history, and poetry. Though it is the record of one man's experience of Hurricane Katrina, it is a record that is fully a part of his life and work as a scholar, political activist, and professor.  The Katrina Papersprovides space not only for the traumatic events but also for ruminations on authors such as Richard Wright and theorists like Deleuze and Guattarri. The result is a complex though thoroughly accessible book. The struggle with form—the search for a medium proper to the complex social, personal, and political ramifications of an event unprecedented in this scholar's life and in American social history—lies at the very heart of The Katrina Papers. It depicts an enigmatic and multi-stranded world view which takes the local as its nexus for understanding the global.  It resists the temptation to simplify or clarify when simplification and clarification are not possible. Ward's narrative is, at times, very direct, but he always refuses to simplify the complex emotional and spiritual volatility of the process and the historical moment that he is witnessing. The end result is an honesty that is both pedagogical and inspiring.—Hank Lazer

The Katrina Papers, by Jerry W. Ward, Jr. $18.95

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posted 26 December 2006