FIRE AND INK AN ANTHOLOGY OF SOCIAL ACTION WRITING

o=> EDITED BY CO

FRANCES PAYNE ADLER, DEBRA BUSMAN, AND DIANA GARCIA

SUB Gottingen 7 74 r"

2009 A 4078

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA PRESS TUCSON Contents

Preface: What Is Social Action Writing? xv Giving Thanks xxi

1. BREAKING SILENCE/THE POLITICS OF VOICE Introduction i You Gotta Be Ready for Some Serious Truth to Be Spoken 3 Debra Busman Breaking Silence 7 Janice Mirikitani Frame 11 Adrienne Rich Ode to Joy 14 Chris Abani A Castle in Lynn 16 Linda McCarriston My Coming Out 18 Tracy Kelly Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to 3rd World Women Writers 22 Gloria Anzaldua Introduction: On Bearing Witness 32 Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

2. WHERE I COME FROM Introduction 39 The Jacket 41 Gary Soto Singing 44 Jacob Bloom The New Reb 46 Khadijah Queen There Ain't No Starbucks in the East Side 47 Viana Enedina Torres Where We Come From 49 Matthew Shenoda Goldsboro narrative #5: Elders the grandchildren of slaves 51 Forrest Hamer The Return of Jake Condor 53 Juan Felipe Herrera Apprenticed to Justice 57 Kimberly Blaeser A Fancy Dancer, Ascending Among Mountain Flowers 60 Ralph Salisbury Chicken Blood 62 Amy Samala Dixon Peace Grove 65 Ray Gonzalez Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self 69 Alice Walker

WRITING RACE, CLASS, GENDER, AND RESISTANCE Introduction 77 The Lesson 81 Toni Cade Bambara like a woman 89 Debra Busman Blink Your Eyes 93 Sekou Sundiata Blues on Yellow 95 Marilyn Chin Las Rubias 96 Diana Garcia

Vlll CONTENTS poem to my uterus 99 Lucille Clifton Daddy Blues 100 Kelly Norman Ellis Standing in the Elevator 102 Minnie Bruce Pratt The Brides Come to Yuba City 103 Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Girl 105 Jamaica Kincaid First Practice 107 Gary Gildner He Defies You Still: The Memoirs of a Sissy 108 Tommi Avicolli Mecca Terreno 117 Zachary Knapp The Fear That Doesn't 122 Frances Payne Adler from White Skin Privilege 125 Harlon Dalton

4. COMING INTO LANGUAGE Introduction 129 Wilshire Bus 131 Hisaye Yamamoto DeSoto Not Editable 136 Chrystos Nobody Mean More to Me Than You / And the Future Life of Willie Jordan 139 June Jordan Persimmons 156 Li-Young Lee The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action 159 Audre Lorde Coming into Language 163 Jimmy Santiago Baca

CONTENTS IX 5. THE WORK WE Do Introduction 171 The Circuit 173 Francisco Jimenez Like the Wind 178 Debra Busman Domestic Work, 1937 182 Natasha Trethewey Cotton Rows, Cotton Blankets 183 Diana Garcia Cannery Town in August 184 Lorna Dee Cervantes In the War Zone 185 Chan Khong Camp Observations 194 Diana Garcia from now let us shift.. . the path of conocimiento . .. inner work, public acts 198 Gloria Anzaldua

6. A STORY ABOUT THE BODY: ENVIRONMENT, ILLNESS, AND HEALTH Introduction 209 epitaph for a peach 211 David Mas Masumoto Federico's Ghost 214 Martin Espada El Fantasma de Federico 216 Martin Espada . Addiction to the Dead 218 Margo Tamez With Knees to the Ground 223 Rafael Albarran • A Story About the Body 225 Robert Hass

CONTENTS Once I Was Told the Air Was Not for Breathing 226 Paola Corso Ghost Fishing Louisiana 228 Melissa Tuckey Grito de Vieques 229 Aya de Leon Sphere 232 Kate Gale Eating Wild Mushrooms 233 Gary Young All My Relations 234 Linda Hogan Born to Beauty 238 Evelyn C. White

RELEASING THE DRAGONS: WHEN THE PRISON DOORS ARE OPENED Introduction 241 Mourning Exercise 245 Jarvis Jay Masters No One Can Stop the Rain 248 Assata Shakur No Public Safety 250 Chrystos They Are Searching 252 Katya Komisaruk Letters Come to Prison 253 Jimmy Santiago Baca It We Die 254 Ethel Rosenberg After My Arrest 255 Judith Clark Mango Chutney 257 Chris Abani Sequence for Mumia Abu-Jamal 260 Dennis Brutus

CONTENTS XI from Cleansing the Doors of Perception 263 Judith Tannenbaum from Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance 275 Leonard Peltier To Be Led by Happiness (Re: March 8, 2003) 280 Alice Walker

8. WAR AND OTHER FORMS OF VIOLENCE Introduction 285 Somewhere Outside Due Pho 289 Daniel Cano Tomatoes 302 Janice Mirikitani These Bones, These Bones 306 Akasha Gloria Hull Poem About My Rights 308 June Jordan Peacekeeping in Bunia 312 Khadijah Queen In the Village of Missing Fathers 313 Rigoberto Gonzalez from interlude: the avenue of the americas 319 Alicia Ostriker Even the Tin Man Had a Heart 321 Marc Harshman The House Murdered 323 Mahmoud Darwish The Colonel 3 24 Carolyn Forche from The American Invasion of Macun 325 Esmeralda Santiago

9. WAGING PEACE/LOVE AS REVOLUTION Introduction 331 Thank You, M'am 333 Langston Hughes

XH CONTENTS Call Me by My True Names 337 Thich Nhat Hanh Litany 341 Sonia Sanchez Matriot 343 Frances Payne Adler Luna Llena 345 Linda Lopez Revolution 346 Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts Late Poem to My Father 347 Sharon Olds Lunch in Nablus City Park 348 Naomi Shihab Nye Kindness 350 Naomi Shihab Nye At the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border 352 William Stafford shadow-patterns of leaves 353 Dennis Brutus Allegory 354 Rafael Campo Route 23: 10th and Bigler to Bethlehem Pike 356 Becky Birtha from Arts of the Possible 359 Adrienne Rich

10. TALKING, TEACHING, AND IMAGINING: SOCIAL ACTION WRITING Introduction 367 Building Nicole's Mama 371 Patricia Smith from Activism in Academia: A Social Action Writing Program 374 Frances Payne Adler

CONTENTS Xlll Baring/Bearing Anger: Race in the Creative Writing Classroom 387 Toi Derricotte from Poetry into the Twenty-First Century: The Democratization of Verse 392 Miguel Algarin from Poetry in Motion: An Interview with Carolyn Forche 398 Jonathan Cott An Interview with Sam Hamill 405 Anne-Marie Cusac An Interview with Arundhati Roy 413 David Barsamian Poet Illuminates the Politics of Outrage: An Interview with Martin Espada 423 Margaria Fichtner Imagine the Angels of Bread 426 Martin Espada Imagina los Angeles de Pan 428 Martin Espada

Source Credits 431 About the Editors 439 About the Contributors 441 Index 457

XIV CONTENTS