phati'tude Literary Magazine Vol. 3, No. 2 by The IAAS

LIFE IN THE 1960s Beth McClelland

V O L. 3 || N O. 2 || S U M M E R 2 0 1 1 a publication of

THE BEATS & SIXTIES COUNTERCULTURE / WHAT IS A BEAT?

The Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc.(IAAS) a New York nonprofit organization

Jed Skinner & David S. Wills

Gabrielle David Editor-in-Chief Jennifer-Crystal Johnson Associate Editor

Karen Chau Rebecca Kaye Editors

BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT: AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW Kalamu Ya Salaam

Amanda Ostrove Eric Barbera Editorial Interns

REVISITING POETS OF THE 1960s

Lorraine Miller Nuzzo Art Director

Janice Mirkitani & Victor Hernández Cruz

Michelle Aragón Director, Marketing Communications

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Gabrielle David, Chair Angela Sternreich, Secretary Lynn Korsman, Treasurer Shirley Bradley LeFlore Stephanie Agosto Michelle Aragón Advisory Board Kenneth Campbell Robert Coburn Andrew P. Jackson (Sekou Molefi Baako) Special Advisor for the IAAS Board

INTERVIEWS: Aimee Suzara, Elizabeth Bradfield, Brian Roley, Jericho Brown, Melinda Palacio, Shane McCrae

WE ARE MARSHALL BLOOM Blake Slonecker

124

phati’tude Literary Magazine is published quarterly (Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall), ISSN: 1091-1480; ISBN-13: 978-1463786939; Copyright © 2011 by The Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc. (IAAS). All rights reserved. Printed and bound in the U.S.A. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical without permission in writing from the Publisher. The views expressed by authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors of phati’tude Literary Magazine, the Board of Directors of the IAAS, donors or sponsors. Single issue: US$18; Annual subscriptions: US$65; Int’l-Canadian: US$75; Institutional US$110. We offer special discounts for classes and groups. The Publisher cannot guarantee delivery unless notification of change of address is received. Visit our website at www.phatitude.org. Manuscripts with SASE, letters to the editor and all other correspondence to phati’tude Literary Magazine, P.O. Box 4378, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163-4378; or email editor@phatitude.org. Cover Art: Travis Smithlin (see p. 182).

P H A T I ‘ T U D E L I T E R A R Y M A G A Z I N E S U M M E R 2 0 1 1

C O N T E N T S DEPARTMENTS 8 10

22 171 176 182

EDITOR’S NOTE THIS & THAT JOHN TYTELL The Donkey & the Written Word EDWARD P. MORGAN What Really Happened to the 1960s: How Mass Media Culture Failed Democracy CHUDE PAM PADER ALLEN Loneliness in the Circle of Trust BOOK REVIEWS THE FINAL WORD ALISHA SALARIO Breaking the Poetry Code CONTRIBUTORS COVER ART Travis Smithlin

FEATURES E S S AY S A R T I C L E S 32

BETH McCLELLAND Life in the 1960s

JED SKINNER The Beats & Sixties Counterculture

DAVID S. WILLS What is a Beat?

KALAMU YA SALAAM The Black Arts Movement: An Historical Perspective

107

JIM McGARRAH Call & Response

V I S I T

O U R

W E B S I T E

A T

W W W . P H A T I T U D E . O R G

SUMMER SIXTIES SPECIAL

113

MIMI FEREBEE Richard Wright’s Native Son: A Literary Locomotive on Contemporary Tracks

124

BLAKE SLONECKER We Are Marshall Bloom: Sexuality, Suicide and the Collective Memory of the Sixties

158

VIVIAN FAITH PRESCOTT A Poetry Collage: Changeling and Mary Jane Typewrites Her Way Home

INTERVIEWS 74

GABRIELLE DAVID REVISTING POETS OF THE 1960S: Distinguished poets Janice Mirikitani and Victor Hernandez Cruz talk about the sixties and their work.

KAREN CHAU THE 1960S WITH A NEW CENTURY TWIST: Today’s emerging writers, Aimee Suzara, Elizabeh Bradfield, Brian Roley, Jericho Brown, Melinda Palacio and Shane McCrae discuss how 1960’s counterculture has made an impact on their writing Recent Israeli Short Fiction

SHORT STORIES 140 153 136

LOIS BARR Hedgeville WILLIAM CASS Joy IRENOSEN OKOJIE Gunk

V O L. 3 N O. 2

PROSE POETRY JEFF ALFIER 66 Crossing the Color Line at Ruby’s Lounge, Asbury Park, 1968

JA A. JAHANNES 144 Long Time Coming Doesn’t Worry Me

ELIZABETH BRADFIELD 73 The Guides Go Ashore Ahead

ERREN GERAUD KELLY 149 Yes, blacks do listen to james taylor 151 Coffeehouse poem #10

CAROLYN HOOPLE CREED 160 Last of the Flower Children

ROY MASH 161 The Incredible Shrinking Man

C. L. CONNEL 162 Twenty-seven

JESÚS PAPOLETO MELÉNDEZ 63 the revolutionary

GABRIELLE DAVID 167 When a Voodoo Child & a White Blues Mama Go Out in a Purple Haze

LISA MORRISS-ANDREWS 146 Weren’t We Nifty

MARGO DEAN 65 Indiana Summer VICTOR ENNS 147 Gimme Shelter (1962) 147 Change Room 148 The Golden Hour ROY F. FOX 55 Presidential Trilogy 57 1960: Little Mites

MELINDA PALACIO 164 Who Will Pick His Apples PATRICIA PERCIVAL 59 My Life, With Paul McCartney 60 Summers, Grey Moss Lane 61 Saving Graces KENNETH POBO 70 Lulu and the Trillium

SARAH FRELIGH 54 The Class of ’69

NANCY SCOTT 145 At The Alchemist & Barrister 145 Saturday Night at the Movies, Manhattan, 1961

STERLING HAYNES 163 Weapons of Destruction

AIMEE SUZARA 67 My Mother’s Watch

KATHLEEN HELLEN 71 The Approximate Wall 72 Self Portrait, 1965

TOM WAYMAN 165 Interest

DEBBIE OKUN HILL 62 If Marilyn Could Rise From the Grave

P H A T I’T U D E LITERARYMAGAZINE

CHANGMING YUAN 58 One More Difference

P H A T I ‘ T U D E L I T E R A R Y M A G A Z I N E F A L L 2 0 1 0

E D I T O R ‘ S N O T E G

“My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.”

— John Lennon

I Gabrielle David, founder and editor of phati’tude Literary Magazine, is a writer and multimedia artist who has worked as a desktop publisher, photographer, visual artist, video editor and musician.

V I S I T

O U R

TW AS A TIME OF REVELA TION AND REV OL UTION WAS REVELATION REVOL OLUTION UTION. Over forty years ago America staggered through a the most turbulent decade in its history. And those unforgettable people and places, words and sounds, challenged our imaginations and our very spirit of being — the Kennedys, King, Ali, Freedom Riders, the Beatles, Malcolm X, Protest, Hendrix, Vietnam, Riots, Joplin, Dylan, Rolling Stones, Hippies, Flower Power, Chicago, Memphis, The Black Panthers, Rubin, Hoffman, Hayden, McCarthy, Chávez, Leary, Black Power, Women’s Lib — forever changed our lives and our nation. This issue, the “Summer Sixties Special,” acknowledges this amazing decade through literature. Actually, the concept for the “Summer Sixties Special” came about quite by accident. I ran across a poem in the submission pile about the 1960s, which became the inspiration for this issue. The issue’s title, the careening sounds of s’s, “Summer Sixties Special,” captures the spirit of writers reflecting, memorializing and sharing what the sixties means to them.

W E B S I T E

A T

W W W . P H A T I T U D E . O R G

SUMMER SIXTIES SPECIAL

By the way, while working on this issue, we began putting our heads together to figure out what to do with the cover. I tried to get in contact with Peter Max, whose artwork defined the era. Since that request fell through the cracks, associate editor Jennifer-Crystal Johnson and myself racked our brains out trying to figure out what image we could use that would readily identify with the sixties as well as connect to today, and we eventually settled on the peace sign. This internationally recognized symbol for peace was conceived in England by Gerald Holtom in 1958 for the British nuclear disarmament movement as a visual plea to end the atomic arms race that started with the devastating attack on Hiroshima during World War II. The lines inside the circle represent semaphore signals (a system for conveying information at a distance by means of visual signals with hand-held flags), for the letters "N" and "D," standing for "nuclear disarmament." Not patented or restricted, the symbol spread throughout England and transported across the Atlantic and took on additional meanings for the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s including the anti-Vietnam protests, and the environmental, women’s and gay rights movements. Even after all these years, whenever people come together in the name of peace, they use the peace sign, so special thanks to artist Travis Smithlin for designing the cover for our “Summer Sixties Special.” Ð

Y H AV E a d i r e c t A C T U A L LLY connection to the sixties. But as much as the 1960s had a great effect during my childhood, I’m really a child of 1970s — embarrassingly known as the “Me” decade — when I was a teenager and coming into my

own. During the 1960s, I was just a kid, too young to participate in any meaningful way, but cognizant of what was going on, often engaging in very adult conversations with my mother. What I did do was witness my older cousins dealing hands on with the social and political turmoil of the decade: fighting with their parents to cut their hair into afros, wearing dashikis (now known as “kente cloth”), participating in protests and rallies; and “getting down” with the Beatles, James Brown, the Rolling Stones and of course, the Motown and Philly sounds. I remember listening to them discuss segregation, the Civil Rights movement, the Black Panthers and the Vietnam War. I distinctly remember 1968, when Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated; I remember where I was when it happened and I remember their funerals. I even understood that our lives would be much different than our parents when I listened to them speak with great expectation about the future. It would be years later before I figured out and fully understood what the sixties were really all about, but there I was, in the thick of it, an outsider looking in, along for the ride. The upheaval of the 1960s didn’t just happen, it was thrust upon us. Dissatisfaction began to ferment after World War II when the U. S. government began promoting traditional values, namely domesticity (in which family and home remained a central priority) and political and cultural conservatism. The suburbs would eventually become an iconic symbol of American safety, pastoral happiness prosperity and “whiteness” during this era. But it would be the 70 million children from the postwar baby boom that began to move away from the conservative fifties seeking real change in the cultural fabric of American life.

By the beginning of the 1960s, many Americans believed they were standing at the dawn of a golden age. On January 20, 1961, the handsome and charismatic John F. Kennedy became president of the United States. His confidence that, as one historian put it, “the government possessed big answers to big problems” seemed to set the tone for the rest of the decade. However, that golden age never materialized. Instead, the 1960s resonated as a decade of change, often so dramatic that some feared for the American way of life. This era of change began in earnest after Kennedy’s assassination, with widespread tensions developing in American society that tended to flow along generational lines regarding race relations, sexual mores, women’s rights, traditional modes of authority, and experimentation with psychoactive drugs and different religions. Young people were breaking free from the constraints of 1950s orthodoxy in a desire to create a more inclusive and tolerant social landscape. The Vietnam War and the protracted national divide between supporters and opponents of the war, were arguably the most important factors contributing to the rise of this growing “counterculture” movement. For those most deeply invested in the movement, the counterculture was more about philosophy than a style. American society, they claimed, had been corrupted by capitalism and the materialist culture it spawned. In pursuing “success,” people had lost sight of the more meaningful experiences life had to offer. “Turn on, tune in, and drop out” was less an invitation to party than a call to experience life more intimately and deeply. This attitude culminated in 1968 with the assassinations, and to my dismay, by 1970, the movement petered out, going in a different direction.

V O L. 3 N O. 2

Naturally, literature reflected what was happening during this crazy decade. Numerous literary groups (many of which began during the 1950s) responded to the vast social changes taking place during the 1960s. Many consider the Beats as the wellspring of the movements that followed because it was the first widely celebrated “bohemian” experiment after World War II. Centered in Greenwich Village and San Francisco, the Beats became identified as a community of artists coming together and creating a lifestyle that included drug experimentation, a fascination with Eastern religions and personal spirituality, open homosexuality and an anti-establishment demeanor. Confessional poets like Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, also sought to astonish readers by exploring deeply personal experiences such as mental illness, sexuality and hostility with the immediate family. Poets associated with American feminist thought, including Adrienne Rich and Audre Lorde, are often linked to other schools of poetry as well, but are distinguished by verse fiercely dedicated to expressing the predicament of modern American woman. The Black Mountain poets, including Charles Olsen and Robert Creely, are remembered for their spontaneity, open forms, sudden, unexpected imagery and diction, and remarkable freedom in prosody. The New York School, which included poets Frank O’Hara, John Ashbury and Kenneth Koch, distinguished itself by its close association with the experimental painting underway in the city and its environs. The Black Arts Movement (BAM), ignited by the Civil Rights movement’s political and social struggles, created some incredible literary talents such as the Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, Nikki

Giovanni, Ishmael Reed, David Henderson, to name a few. Encouraged by BAM, Asian American and Native American literatures began to emerge during the late 1960s and exploded during the early 1970s. The Chicano literary movement, stirred by the likes of Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzáles, Trinidad “Trino” Sánchez and Abelardo “Lalo” Delgado; and the Nuyorican movement, led by Miguel Algarin. Pedro Pietri, Victor Hernández Cruz and Miguel Piñero quickly emerged on the scene, challenging the status quo. These movements had one thing in common: a desire of self-determination and self-reaffirmation by eliminating Jim Crow style segregation and police repression; to improve educational opportunities; and political representation. This ideal would later play prominently during the Women’s Lib movement and among gay and lesbian writers. Although many continue to disagree over the sixties’ counterculture and its influence on American politics, society and culture (the Conservatives believe the sixties tried to destroy America, while the Left feels it didn’t go far enough), what is certain is that feminism has fundamentally changed gender relations; the Civil Rights movement has diminished racism and helped foster a multiracial popular culture; and that most Americans support environmental protection. This confirms what makes America unique — while discrimination was the fabric of our country, we had the ability to dig down deep, battle our demons and make it right. We still have miles to go, but we have certainly made some progress. Yet despite these advances, as we pushed forward into a new century, we seem to have gotten “stuck. “Although the U. S. is mired in endless wars, few are reacting with the same

P H A T I’T U D E LITERARYMAGAZINE

intensity as they did with the Vietnam War. While baby-boomers’ financial and educational future could be obtained with relative ease, today’s Gen Z have no idea if they will ever be able to achieve, let alone match, the financial rewards of their parents or grandparents. The country seems content to remain bogged down in ideology — Tea Party, Republican, Progressive, Democrat and the Left — instead of settling disputes concerning health care and bank reform, unemployment, infrastructure issues, and the big one, taxes. However, there is no question that the writer’s role in modern society is pivotal in our culture, and played an important role during the sixties. Some would argue that a writer’s mission is as it has always been, to testify about man and his circumstances; to strike a blow at indifference and ignorance, and to explain the essential meaning of what’s happening in the world, either through poetry, fiction or nonfiction. I believe that the act of writing is an unconscious political act, and that when one writes, they automatically share their thoughts, revealing oneself and the world around them. Certainly, the literary works from the 1960s, as diverse as Harper Lee, Joseph Heller, Allan Ginsberg and Gwendolyn Brooks, have left an indelible mark on the literary scene and beyond. Revelation is revolution. And so the poems and stories that follow in our “Summer Sixties Special” is a convergence of people who lived through it, and people who are what they are today because of it. Together, they paint pictures using verbs, nouns and adjectives on how this momentous decade has impacted their lives, and quite possibly, their writing. So hang on to your hats and read on. As the Beatles sang, quite appropriately, “Here Comes the Sun.”

P H A T I ‘ T U D E L I T E R A R Y M A G A Z I N E S U M M E R 2 0 1 1

T H I S & T H A T R A N D O M

T H O U G H T S

I D E A S

T he D o nk ey & TTh h e Writte n W o rd Do nkey Written Wo "The human tongue is like a cracked cauldron on which we beat out tunes to set a bear dancing when we would make the stars weep with our melodies." — Gustave Flaubert

S IT ARBITRAR Y, MEREL Y ODD ARBITRARY MERELY ODD, or the result of etymological curiosity that the words ‘write,’ ‘rite,’ and ‘right’ seem somehow related as do the words ‘author’ and ‘authority’? Does the writer serve some righteous or ritual function as recorder of the tale of the tribe? Such questions have their anthropological dimensions in the very evolution of writing which is not nearly as long as we might imagine. Before exploring that quite recent past, allow me a brief autobiographical explanation of why I chose to write in the first place. Call it “the writer’s rite.” (cont’d pg. 12)

V I S I T

H O U R

N W E B S I T E

T A T

W W W . P H A T I T U D E . O R G

SUMMER SIXTIES SPECIAL

Wh eall ned tto o th e 1 960s: Whaat R Reall eallyy H Haappe pen the 1960s: How Mass Media Culture Failed American Democracy THE PAST AS PROLOGUE: DISTORTED HISTORY— DECLINING DEMOCRACY

OR T Y YEARS AFTER the tumultuous year of 1968 ORT ushered in an era of political backlash and market

liberalization, Americans turned out in record numbers and elected Barack Obama as the first African American president. At the precise moment the national networks

could officially declare Obama the winner, NBC anchor Brian Williams observed, “We have news. There will be young children in the White House for the first time since the Kennedy generation. An African American has broken the barrier as old as the republic; an astonishing candidate, an astonishing campaign. A seismic shift in American (cont’d pg. 14)

E D W A R D

M O R G A N

L o n e lin e s s in th e Cir ru line the Circc l e o off TTru russ t

W AS ONE OF ALMOS T a thousand people who WAS ALMOST went to Mississippi in the summer of 1964 to support the southern freedom movement’s struggle to end racism. When I speak about my experiences as a white activist in the Mississippi Summer Project — what is now called “Freedom Summer” — young people ask if I was afraid. I’ve always hated this question.

(cont’d pg. 19)

C HUDE PAM PARKER ALLEN V O L. 3 N O. 2

P H A T I ‘ T U D E L I T E R A R Y M A G A Z I N E S U M M E R 2 0 1 1

B O O K R E V I E W S E X P L O R I N G

L I T E R A T U R E

Our mission is to increase interest in reading by providing cool, short book recommendations in poetry, fiction and nonfiction. To submit reviews, send them to editor@phatitude.org. Happy reading!

Sông I Sing: Poems By Bao Phi Coffee House Press, 2011 (www.coffeehousepress.org) $16.00; 170 pp. ISBN: 978-1566892797

ARNING: When reading Sông I Sing by celebrated slam poet Bao Phi, be prepared to read out loud. The poems and their rhythmic repetitions beg to be spoken, not just read. Composed with rhythms that refuse to stay flat on the page, Sông I Sing is a relentless anthem that breaks the proverbial silence about racial prejudice and violence against people of Vietnamese origin living in the United States. In Sông I Sing, Phi exposes the ludicrousness and violent reductionism of stereotyping by playing with and, ultimately, invalidating stereotypes associated with Vietnamese people (cont’d pg. 26)

V I S I T

O U R

W E B S I T E

A T

W W W . P H A T I T U D E . O R G

SUMMER SIXTIES SPECIAL

The Iovis Trilogy: Colors in the Mechanism of Concealment By Anne Waldman Coffee House Press, 2011 (www.coffeehousepress.org) $40.00; 720 pp.; ISBN 9781566892551

AYS ANNE WALDMAN IN THE opening of her book, Anew: “So poem is the song in spite of the will of

Zeus. Blast him, and that willpower played out as it is doing now, twenty-first-century fix. I’ll be the gray-eyed Athena, clear-sighted through his fog of war.” To set the tone for this epic poem, Waldman unveils a sense of feminine power and investigative curiosity intrinsically present in inquisitive minds and determined people. To research, dig deep, and uncover the truth — this is the mission and accomplishment of the few. But more than (cont’d pg. 26)

Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America By John McMillian Oxford Univ. Press, 2011 (www.oup.com/us) $27.95; 304 pp.; ISBN: 978-0195319927

HE INF ORMA TION MONOPOL Y by the mainstream INFORMA ORMATION MONOPOLY media has been challenged in recent years by the proliferation of independently owned websites and blogs. The staying power of these news sources are no longer wholly dependent upon the dedication of journalists, but also that of “everyday people” who still value freedom of speech, honesty, and critical thought in a democracy. Similarly, during the sixties, technological changes in the form of photo-offset printing made newspaper production cheap and easy, allowing small independent newspapers (cont’d pg. 27) V O L. 3 N O. 2

Whorled: Poems By Ed Bok Lee Coffee House Press, 2011 (www.coffeehousepress.org) $16.00; 140 pp., ISBN: 978-1566892780

HORLED:POEMS IS A COURA GEOUS attempt COURAGEOUS to portray the intricate human workings at the

heart of the dusty underbelly of the American dream. In Lee’s dark vision, everyone has undergone violent rituals of emigration and initiation to arrive at their present time and place: lost somewhere in the ruined urban American landscape. Ed Bok Lee’s collection features men who live in the shadow of the wars in Vietnam and Korea, “casualt[ies] of history and time,” and women who “come to America by way of rape/drugs, abandon.”

(cont’d pg. 28)

Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature By Emma Donoghue Cleis Press, 2011 (www.cleispress.com) $18.95; 273 pp.; ISBN: 978-1573447171

HANCES ARE ANY READER who went to school unlikely avoided contact with gay and lesbian literary icons or literary characters in their English curriculum. But more often than not, the sexuality of such prominent characters was expurgated. By the midto-late 1980s, the publication of lesbian literary criticism and scholarship began in earnest, with book-length studies, thematic essays and special issues of scholarly journals. In Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature, Emma Donoghue excavates a long-obscured history of “inseparable” friendship between women that (cont’d pg. 29)

P H A T I’T U D E LITERARYMAGAZINE

SUMMER SIXTIES SPECIAL

Love Like Hate By Linh Dinh Seven Stories Press, 2010 $16.95; 240 pp.; ISBN 9781583229095

TILIZING A REFRESHINGL Y SA TIRICAL and blunt REFRESHINGLY SATIRICAL tone throughout his first novel, Linh Dinh is as

entertaining as he is unique. Though the novel is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended, the refreshingly graphic use of descriptions and colorful expletives is a wildly entertaining read. The novel addresses the human condition and highlights the vast cultural differences between American and Vietnamese culture from 1975 to the next generation. In his detailed accounts of interactions between husbands and wives, to examinations of the American culture we (contâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d pg. 30)

Generation on Fire: Voices of Protest from the 1960s, an Oral History By Jeff Kisseloff Univ. Press of Kentucky, 2007 (www.kentuckypress.com) $34.95; 284 pp.; ISBN 9780813124162

HE BES TW AY TTO O LEARN about history is to hear BEST WA from the people who lived it. In Generation on Fire, Kisseloff brings together a diverse group of people who fought for their beliefs in the 1960s, no matter the consequences. Some of the most amazing stories are told in this collection: accounts of protests and abuse by police, riots, jail time for voicing opinions, and Freedom Riders making their mark on society. The impact these individuals made on history and society ultimately altered not only their own lives, but the lives of Americans across the country. (contâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d pg. 31) V O L. 3 N O. 2

An historical overview of how arts, politics and social movements intersect with music

S A NATION, THE SIXTIES continues to captivate our attention. In retrospect, the sixties seem to embody ideals about freedom, protest, and liberty to new generations seeking inspiration. This post-war idealism became innately tied into causes such as the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, the Vietnam War, sexual revolution, feminism and gay rights, environmental issues, and a series of assassinations (John F. Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy), which culminated into demonstrations and violent protests. But the flowering of real revolution — political, sexual, racial, artistic — was heralded by a music that chronicled the times in its sound as well as in its lyrics. From the British invasion (The Beatles, Rolling Stones), to the Motown sound (The Four Tops, The Temptations, Martha Reeves & the Vandellas, Diana Ross & The Supremes), classic rock (Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Doors), folk music (Bob Dylan, Joan Baez) and funk (James Brown, Sly & the Family Stone), the music of the sixties reached its pinnacle in the hedonistic festival culture (Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock Music Festival) of the late sixties. The decade presented social and political changes that had never been seen before. What follows is a chronicling of the music alongside the ideological turmoil and shifting moods of a nation during the sixties — an era defined by change.

(cont’d pg. 34)

The 1960s are associated with what [Thomas] Frank calls â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;the big change, the birthplace of our own culture, the homeland of hip,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; a period of various shifts that have shaped our current society(1). This hints at an underlying consensus that the 1960s were a time of high artistic endeavour, the centre of countercultural resistance, and some of the cultural ripples that are still being felt today.

SUMMER SIXTIES SPECIAL

WHAT FACTORS INFLUENCED this period of time for this decade to be so prominent? The cluster of significant events that occurred in the late Sixties has led Gitlin to compare this time to ‘a cyclone in a wind tunnel’(2), and Rabinowitz argues that ‘the 1960s confound representation – or rather narrative – because words fail; image and sound (...) are what remain’(3); events and figures that ‘stand out’ in these ways are those that are likely to receive the most attention. These two arguments enhance the point that, because there are many narratives of the Sixties, each one places emphasis on different aspects of the decade. When one considers the notion of the Beat generation’s ideas of the Fifties contributing to aspects of the following decade’s culture, art and politics, it can be easy to focus solely on the prominent figures and events, and link them together. When this happens, an inevitable decision is being made: what is worthy of being called Beat, what is worthy of being called Sixties culture, and where such culture lies geographically as well as historically. A linear narrative where there are, in Negus’ words, ‘distinct breaks involving beginnings and endings or births and deaths’(4) generates problems. This approach generally fails to acknowledge other perspectives, to account for the voices of people excluded from the narrative. A Vattimo argues, it is only from the ‘victors’ of history ‘that

history is a unitary process in which there is consequentiality and rationality’(5) . What I would like to do in this essay is consider the notion put forward by Laibman, that ‘there was not one 1960s; there were many’(6). This is not to say that the Beats did not influence anything, and I do not wish to undermine or trivialise their work and its importance. It is also impossible to go into detail about every aspect of Beat culture. However, by looking generally at some of the areas where the Beats’ influence occurred, what it influenced, and to what extent, this will expose other voices and locations, which I hope will better inform the argument I wish to make. It is important to consider the social contexts of the Fifties to be able to understand why the Beats’ work was considered to be so significant. One of the central themes in historical narratives of the Beats is a description of a prevailing climate of conformity in post-war America. Following the end of World War II, the ideas and ideologies that were driving factors during the conflict were seemingly discredited. Woods argues that, in America, intellectuals began to focus their attention onto ‘the roots of totalitarianism, dissecting evolving notions of democracy and republicanism’(7). What resulted from this was a more scientific, calculated approach of looking at how society should operate. (cont’d pg. 40) V O L. 3 N O. 2

P H A T I’T U D E LITERARYMAGAZINE

SUMMER SIXTIES SPECIAL

In a 1968 essay, “The Black Arts Movement,” Larry Neal proclaimed Black Arts the “aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power concept.”

IN A 1968 ESSAY, “The Black Arts Movement,” Larry Neal proclaimed Black Arts the “aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power concept.” Both inherently and overtly political in content, the Black Arts movement was the only American literary movement to advance “social engagement” as a sine qua non of its aesthetic. The movement broke from the immediate past of protest and petition (civil rights) literature and dashed forward toward an alternative that initially seemed unthinkable an unthinkable and unobtainable: Black Power. In a 1968 essay, “The Black Arts Movement,” Larry Neal proclaimed Black Arts the “aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power concept.” As a political phrase, Black Power had earlier been used by Richard Wright to describe the mid1950s emergence of independent African nations. The 1960s’ use of the term originated in 1966 with Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee civil rights workers Stokely Carmichael and Willie Ricks. Quickly adopted in the North, Black Power was associated with a militant advocacy of

armed self-defense, separation from “racist American domination,” and pride in and assertion of the goodness and beauty of Blackness. Although often criticized as sexist, homophobic, and racially exclusive (i.e. reverse racist), Black Arts was much broader than any of its limitations. Ishmael Reed, who is considered neither a movement apologist nor advocate (“I wasn’t invited to participate because I was considered an integrationist”), notes in a 1995 interview. I think what Black Arts did was inspire a whole lot of Black people to write. Moreover, there would be no multiculturalism movement without Black Arts. Latinos, Asian Americans, and others all say they began writing as a result of the example of the 1960s. Blacks gave the example that you don’t have to assimilate. You could do your own thing, get into your own background, your own history, your own tradition and your own culture. I think the challenge is for cultural sovereignty and Black Arts struck a blow for that. (cont’d pg. 48)

A V O L. 3 N O. 2

Distinguished poets Janice Mirikitani and Victor Hernandez Cruz talk about the sixties and their work.

HE 1960S USHERED in a period of unprecedented change in U.S. society. As children of the post-war baby boom began to break away from the conservativism of the 1950s, they sparked a movement which would result in revolutionary ways of thinking and radical transitions in the cultural fabric of American life. These changes affected education, values, lifestyles, laws, and entertainment. In fact, a virtual explosion of loud, fast, and lurid medium â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the television â&#x20AC;&#x201D; brought news and spectacle into every corner of the United States, transforming nearly every aspect of public life, including the social impact of the writer. Much of the poetry from the 1960s reflects the political and social turmoil of the time: the Vietnam War, Civil Rights and Black Power movements, the assassinations of political leaders, protests, and the emergence of new types of drugs and music. Literary works from this

SUMMER SIXTIES SPECIAL

era are sometimes classified as “postmodern,” a loose term suggesting a cultural and aesthetic break with the formal styles and values exemplified by authors writing earlier on in the twentieth century. Many of the poets favored open forms, vernacular diction, personal themes, political and social struggle, and a variety of radical perspectives. While the Beats ushered in the 1960s, it was the Black Arts movement that had a profound impact on the poetry of the period, including poetry that emerged out of the Nuyorican and Chicano movements, the Asian American movement, and the Native American Renaissance. Literature was judged first and foremost by its political message. Did the poetry incite action? Did the verse further the political cause for blacks? This shift in focus from aesthetics to politics was a radical aspect of African American art but, in many ways, this poetry was similar to the other verse being written at the time by the Beats and feminists. They, like their African American counterparts, were protesting a whole range of societal problems. As artists, poets, and activists used their personal lives to make political statements, they simultaneously engaged in a profound search for identity. In questioning the basic assumptions of the American identity, these authors confronted problems of the divided self. This new dilemma is evident in Lorna Dee Cervantes’s division between her Chicana heritage and her American life, Adrienne Rich’s identification as both a lesbian and a mother, Amiri Baraka’s personal variation upon doctrines of Black Nationalism and American identity, and Joy Harjo’s palpable tension between a Native American worldview and dominant American culture. Two poets who came from this era of self-discovery are Victor Hernández Cruz and Janice Mirikitani. Hernández Cruz and Mirikitani offered poetry characterized by an open form and conversational diction that covered candid subject matters. Over the years, their poetry evolved to cover issues as vast as humanity and history, as well as personal explorations. In the following interviews, Hernández Cruz and Mirikitani share their perspectives on the poetic odysseys they undertook during the 1960s and how the legacy of that era continues to resonate in their work.

V O L. 3 N O. 2

SUMMER SIXTIES SPECIAL

ANICE MIRIKIT ANI IS AN IMPOR TANT FIGURE in the Asian American MIRIKITANI IMPORT community and in the literary world. Her unique trajectory of activism — from her participation in the San Francisco State Third World Student Strike in 1968, to her current work with the Glide Foundation — has unequiviocally informed her literary works. Mirikitani also helped spearhead an Asian American movement that helped to define and carve out a place for Asian American writers and their own literature, as well as promoting ways in which ethnic minorities can come together to achieve positive literary and sociocultural results. Multicultural visionary. Activist. Executive Director of Glide’s 52 programs. Janice Mirikitani has produced a body of work that is an eloquent testament to a literary commitment that spans over four decades. In this interview, we learn about her literary odyssey during the 1960s and its impact today.

Mirikitani was born a Sansei or third-generation Japanese American to Ted and BelleAnne (Matsuda) Mirikitani, who were Nisei (second-generation) farmers in San Joaquin County in Stockton, California. Her grandparents emigrated from Japan to Hawaii in the early twentieth century, working on plantations until they saved enough to move on to California. When she was only a year old, her family was swept up in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's controversial decision to intern Japanese Americans, spending her early childhood in at the Rohwer War Relocation Center in Arkansas. (cont’d pg. 78)

V O L. 3 N O. 2

ICT OR HERNÁNDEZ CRUZ is a Puerto Rican poet of international ICTOR acclaim. Bilingual, multicultural, and binational, Cruz’s body of work encompasses a wide range of sounds and styles: Beat and Black; English and Spanglish; Afro-Caribbean, Taino and Islamic-Arab; Concrete and Free Verse; Jazz and Bebop. His is the language of the urban, intellectual Latino who nevertheless cannot survive without transforming the past into the present, whose articulately persuasive humor and intelligence bear persistent witness to a meld of peoples and culture. Born in the barrio El Guanabano in the town of Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, Cruz and his family left the island in 1954 because of the devastating economic situation in Puerto Rico. At age five, they migrated to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, an area dubbed “Loisaida,” for its large Puerto Rican community.

Since hitting the poetry scene in the 1960s, Victor Hernández Cruz has created a linguistic mixture of the most disparate images, ideas, and people from landscapes both tropical and urban, into a unique contemporary North American poetic mode truly his own.

Learning English along with a new culture was both a challenge and a reward for the young Cruz, who quickly made the intersections between his new home and his old, which would become material for much of his writing. Cruz reacted inquisitively to the incredible variety of cultures that surrounded him — the Lower East Side was home not only to Puerto Ricans, but to Jews, African (cont’d pg. 86)

P H A T I’T U D E LITERARYMAGAZINE

Today’s emerging writers speak on how 1960's counterculture has made an impact on their writing

HE 1960S HAVE A WIDE-REACHING legacy in American popular culture and history. The trends of the decade, the popular music, the political movements, anti-war protests, sit-ins, acts of civil disobedience, as well as the famous figures of the time have all come to define the 1960s as a cultural touchstone. With popular television shows like Mad Men and Pan Am set in the 1960s, it’s clear that this decade still speaks volumes to some part of the national imagination. As part of our “Summer Sixties Special” issue, we focused on the ways in which the 1960s have impacted various communities, including the literary community and we found that the 1960s have come to represent an important era in American history for innumerable reasons: as a generation, it came to define an up-and-coming group of young people (cont’d pg. 98)

P H A T I’T U D E LITERARYMAGAZINE

SUMMER SIXTIES SPECIAL

writing comes from the self, from a “ All particular history among histories, from a particular set of beliefs and perspectives and experiences, and when I write, I am writing across and through a gap.

”

— Aimee Suzara

interesting though — while the subjects of my “ It’s life and my life’s work are irrevocably linked to the politics of the 1960s, my aesthetic is not. ” — Elizabeth Bradfield

the 1960s counterculture grew out “ Iofthink the attitudes and impulses already common among writers and artists. ” Roley — Brian

try to add something to the progressing “ Iconversation we call poetry. And I try to honor those whose contributions have had an effect on me. ” Brown — Jericho

and cultural awareness, farm workers’ “ Chicano rights, and the importance of everyday citizens, such as teachers, are important values I grew up with. These values play a prominent role in the subjects and characters I write about.

”

— Melinda Palacio

I don’t know that much of the 1960s is “ But reflected in my work nowadays. For a long time after I started writing, I tried to sound like [Sylvia] Plath, and I draw on her and her contemporaries still.

”

— Shane McCrae

V O L. 3 N O. 2

SUMMER SIXTIES SPECIAL

Jericho Brown

Melinda Palacio

Shane McCrae

RECENTLY Y RELEASED AVING RECENTL his first book of poetry, Please, three years ago, Jericho Brown has since been forging ahead into new projects. Brown holds a BA from Dillard University, an MFA from the University of New Orleans, and a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston. He has previously worked as a speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans and currently serves as Assistant Professor at the University of San Diego. His writings have appeared in a diverse collection of journals and anthologies, including The American Poetry Review, jubilat, Oxford American, Ploughshares, A Public Space, and 100 Best African American Poems. The recipient of the Whiting Writers Award, he has also attended fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Krakow Poetry Seminar in Poland. As a reader and writer, his viewpoints on the ways in which the personal and political shift and overlap may even have carried over into his work: editing an anthology that focuses on underrated and underrecognized poetry.

CIO’S NO A PALA N MELIND VEL, NOVEL PALACIO’S MELINDA VEL Ocotillo Dreams, she focuses on personal narratives that combine political intent with regional atmosphere. A graduate of Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz in Comparative Literature, Palacio has been published in a variety of journals and anthologies including Arizona Republic, BorderSenses, The East Valley and Scottsdale Tribune, Sage Trail Poetry Magazine, Black Renaissance Noire, PALABRA: a Magazine of Chicano/Latino Literary Art, Askew Poetry Journal, and San Pedro River Review. Her poetry chapbook, Folsom Lockdown, has also been honored with Kulupi Press’ Sense of Place prize. Palacio’s new book of poetry, How Fire Is a Story, Waiting, is scheduled to publish in 2013.

While new to the publishing side of the business, Shane McCrae has managed to produce an incredible swath of writing. An alumnus of both the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, where he obtained his MFA, and Har vard Law School, McCrae’s work has been published or is forthcoming in such publications as American Letters & Commentary, Columbia Poetry Review, Shampoo, GutCult, The Best American Poetry 2010, The American Poetry Review, Fence, jubilat, Gulf Coast, and Denver Quar terly. McCrae is the recipient of the 2011 Whiting Writer’s Award. He has published two chapbooks One Neither One in 2009 and In Canaan in 2010, with his most recent book, Mule, released in 2011.

(cont’d pg. 104)

(cont’d pg. 105)

(cont’d pg. 102)

V O L. 3 N O. 2

Aimee Suzara N HER CAREER, AIMEE SUZARA has pursued the continuing impact that politics and art can have on each other. A poet, Suzara has published a chapbook the space between; her poetry has also been featured in various journals and anthologies, including Kartika Review, 580 Split, Lantern Review, and Walang Hiya: Literature Taking Risks Toward Liberatory Practice, and Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees. Suzara has been featured as a spoken word artist throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, and has toured several schools throughout the country. A performer, Suzara has also written plays Pagbabalik (Return), featured in festivals in 20067, and is currently working on her second, A History of the Body. She also recently collabored with Amara Tabor Smith and Deep Waters Dance Theater to produce a food-justicecentered dance theater piece, Our Daily Bread. As a writer and performer, Suzara is also an advocate for the intersection of arts and literacy, and currently serves as a lecturer of creative writing at Cal State University Monterey.

Elizabeth Bradfield

Brian Roley

WO POETR HE A UTHOR OF TTW POETRY AUTHOR Y collections, Approaching Ice and Interpretive Work, Elizabeth Bradfield focuses her attention on the various links between humanity and the natural world. For her, the ideology of the ‘60s has a long reach; the environmental movement was just then beginning to emerge. In addition, her poems have also appeared in The Atlantic, The Believer, and Poetry. Bradfield has been the recipient of the Audre Lorde Prize and a Stegner Fellowship, among other honors. Bradfield’s knowledge of the industry extends beyond the creative: she serves as the founder and editor-in-chief of Broadsided Press. Bradfield currently resides in Cape Cod, working as a naturalist and teacher.

S A WRITER AND TEA TEACHER CHER, CHER Brian Roley understands the difficulty in trying to achieve both goals at once; in his own writing, he seeks to politicize through common human experiences, rather than explicit political statement. Raised in Los Angeles, Roley attended Wesleyan University, studying philosophy and psychology. He later earned an MFA from Cornell University, earning the Arthur Lynn Andrews Prize for best graduate student fiction. Currently the Associate Professor of English at Miami University, Roley’s works have appeared in Epoch, The Georgia Review, The North American Review, The San Francisco Chronicle, The American literary Review, Prarie Schooner, Ascent, Snake Nation Review, The Seattle Review, and The Asian American Literary Review, among others. Roley has also been awarded various honors, including the Lawrence Foundation Award, the Pamana Legacy Arts Award in Literature, and was also a Faulkner Society Prize finalist. His most recent book is American Son, a novel chronicling the relationship of two lightskinned biracial boys to their darker Filipino mother.

(cont’d pg. 101)

(cont’d pg. 99)

(cont’d pg. 101)

P H A T I’T U D E LITERARYMAGAZINE

A Musical Flashback of the 1960s

NCE UPON A TIME in the years between Eisenhower and Nixon,before the complete destruction of America by the corporation plague, a generation of citizenry was vaccinated with democracy and this preventative injection made it possible for people of all ages, faiths, and incomes to create and hear that most blessed of sounds known only as Rock. So it was in those melodious days, those days of incense and peppermints, when joy could still be plucked from steel strings and exuberance beaten from tom toms and conga drums that I heard the great Who gods of call and response play:

From Hendrix, Joplin, Clapton, and Jagger to Page, Morrison, Plant, and Dylan, the gods swaggered and strutted across stages, generating history before my eyes for less than ten dollars a seat. I was a young and easy audience in those wine bota and Zig Zag paper days, in the time before the demon Ticket Master came to rule the magical sounds of earth. I worshipped them all, even Elvis a little bit, with truth and reverence, but not with knowledge. (contâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d pg. 108)

112

P H A T I’T U D E LITERARYMAGAZINE

Pickup Stop: 1930s — A Quick Brunch Break: 1960s — Final Destination: 2011

ICHARD WRIGHT, AN AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERARY PIONEER, died November 28, 1960. While his body may have taken its last breath, his words undoubtedly lived on, revolutionizing literature within the development of their protagonists. Whether Bigger Thomas of Native Son, or some of his other complex leads (recall Dave of The Man Who Was Almost a Man, Jake Johnson of Lawd Today!, Cross Damon of The Outsider, etc.), this author constructed raw insight into the psychosomatic compositions of poor, black, male individuals. If we are to do a comprehensive review of the 1960s, we can not forgo an opportunity to analyze some of the themes and motifs that Wright discussed within his earlier works. His scripts paved the foundation for a 1960s African American culture, and his readership solidified his efforts with a requested reprint of his Native Son in 1966.

Many of Wright’s sentiments linger even as we press on within our contemporary world. We see Biggers walking the streets, Daves struggling to be seen, and Jakes playing with Crosses as the sun transforms into a moon. Weaving cultural history and personal reminiscences into his stories, Wright presents a poignant snapshot of the African American, post-slavery experience. His pictorial focal point — according to critics like Margaret Walker — is the shattered promise within the concept of American democracy (Walker, xiv-7). By crafting an environment rot with financial instability and insecure black psyches, the author forces readers to expand their knowledge of white racism and African American struggle. (cont’d from pg. 114)

SUMMER SIXTIES SPECIAL

EARLY ON THE MORNING OF November 1, 1969, Marshall Bloom – a frantic icon of the Sixties underground press and a devotee of the Jewish afro and fu manchu beard – parked his green Triumph sports car in a lonely field near Leverett, Massachusetts, just up Highway 63 from Amherst. Though only 25, Bloom had already followed so many veins of Sixties youth culture as to encapsulate much of that turbulent decade in a single lifetime. A minor yet vital figure in the constellation of New Left leaders, Bloom occupied an influential discursive position in the Movement by founding Liberation News Service (LNS), an organization akin to the Associated Press of the underground, and Montague Farm, a foundational counterculture commune. Bloom had also played active roles in the civil rights, antiwar, and student movements, all the while keeping his gay identity concealed. But on that crisp autumn morning, he hooked up one end of a vacuum hose to the tailpipe of his Triumph and the other end into a sealed window. Bloom started the car and read the New York Times. He left a note nearby: “My love to all, especially my parents, and to too many to name here who have given me joy and love; would that my life could have been more help to them; I am sorry about all this.”

Bloom’s suicide was an ending. But it also marked the first salvo in a long battle over the meaning of his life. Ever since his death, Bloom has inspired an array of remembrances that have emphasized not only his particular biographical features, but the symbolic resonance of his life within the broader history of the Movement. Some see the coincidence of Bloom’s suicide, the Days of Rage, and the Chicago conspiracy trial as symbolic of the Movement’s self-destruction. Others see his suicide as representative of the shame experienced by millions of closeted men even as the homophile movement gave way to gay liberation. Still others remember Bloom as a pioneering figure in the back-to-the-land and organic farming movements. Because Bloom’s life trajectory so closely followed key developments of the Sixties, memories of his life often align with common — if sometimes conflicting – paradigms for understanding the decade as a whole and its signal narratives. These public remembrances constitute a collective memory of Marshall Bloom — albeit small in scale and developed mostly by his friends and associates — that is as variable as Bloom and the Sixties were complex. (cont’d pg. 126)

V O L. 3 N O. 2

125

I LIVE IN A PAPERWEIGHT. The big world is more digestible from this small, see through world. Before I started occupying the things of others, I used to be a part of your world, where car horns and chugging trains were my language. The language of the city, and screaming traffic lights and dilapidated houses were my spies. This paperweight is a compact globe. Shake it and snowflakes are warm kisses I swim in. It belongs to Michael. He doesn’t see me but I see him. I see his full, thick hair has outgrown his last haircut and waits for the teeth of an afro comb to run through it again. His wiry frame is still but looks as if it’s poised to move even in sleep. In this world, we sow seeds in concrete that don’t grow and sheathe our knives with skin. Michael has never flown. To appreciate flight you must have stood still, and when you fly you learn to cherish stillness.

STOP TALKING: Michael, we have an honest relationship, like two sides of a fading copper coin so I’ll tell you this: you don’t get wings Michael! Look at your brown skin. Did you really think the streets of London would shelter your hollow boned ideas of fortune? All you did was trip over the failures of others. They’re your enemies, plotting against you. See them dancing on the train platforms, wearing the heads of sheep. In the carriages, reaching into the chests of passengers who don’t notice, but we see them! See how this city has broken you? How this world has destroyed you? Sucked your resolve through vacuum cleaners, quashed your individuality like a fly with routine, systems and media brain washing. You didn’t know conformity was a man. Yes, he met you at the airport when you stepped off the plane. He smiled and you smiled back. Can (cont’d pg. 138) (cont’d pg. 14)

MR. DIMITRIADES SAYS I LOOK LIKE A GODDESS with this white frill on my black hair pulled up and twisted into a bun. He goes nuts if a hair gets into someone’s food. That should be the worst thing that happens in this joint. I mean the place looks great out front, but you wouldn’t feed your dog this stuff if you knew what happened in the kitchen, and I don’t mean just picking up the food that falls on the floor. It’s worse. Sickeningly worse and I don’t even want to talk about it and as soon as I graduate from this overrated place they call a university, I’m history. No more red and white nametag saying, “Hello, I’m Angie.” If the owner didn’t hit on all of us, I could tolerate the roaches. I mean he comes up on you faster than a cockroach. Well, the analogy isn’t good because around here the cockroaches are slow and fat, not like the ones in the Bronx where I grew up. They were skinny and fast. You’d turn on a light and things would scurry, but so fast you weren’t sure you saw them, and that’s how my boss is. You say, “Did someone just brush against my breast?” or “Is his hand on my ass?” And of course we’re (cont’d pg. 142)

140

P H A T I’T U D E LITERARYMAGAZINE

SUMMER SIXTIES SPECIAL

WHEN THE TIN ROOF RA TTLED LIKE THA T, it sounded like rain, but it RATTLED THAT was only the sound of the droppings from the fir trees in the stiff breeze. You see, winter was coming. It was a sound that stirred the dust off things in me, things in a room whose door was never completely closed, a room full of Neither of our families had much money. It wasn’t anything memories about Charlie we thought about then. Our fathers worked at the same ceand the year 1967 in ment plant, though our families weren’t particularly close. We North Olmsted, Ohio, knew each other through church and the neighborhood. I didn’t when we were both really become good friends with Charlie until seventh grade when Sister David kept us both after school for inappropriate thirteen. behavior. My offense was passing notes to a girl; his was reading a book about St. Augustine behind his math text.

(cont’d pg. 154)

ARTWORK: Jennifer-Crystal Johnson

C V O L. 3 N O. 2

153

P H A T I ‘ T U D E L I T E R A R Y M A G A Z I N E S U M M E R 2 0 1 1

CONTRIBUTORS M E E T W H O

T H E P O E T S M A K E I T

& W R I T E R S H A P P E N!

Jeff Alfier holds an M.A. in Humanities from Cal State University at Dominguez Hills. He served twenty-seven years in the Air Force and is a member of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). He is a two-time Pushcart nominee and a 2010 nominee for the UK’s Forward Prize for Poetry. Alfier’s poetry has appeared in journals such as Birmingham Poetry Review, Brilliant Corners, Crannog (Ireland), Los Angeles Review, and the New York Quarterly. His latest chapbook is Bluesman’s Daughter (Kindred Spirit Pr., 2011); and a first full-length book of poems, The Wolf Yearling, to be published in 2012 by Pecan Grove Press. He serves as co-editor of San Pedro River Review, a journal of poetry and art. www.sprreview.com. Chude Pam Parker Allen is a member of the Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. During the 1964 Freedom Summer she was a freedom school teacher in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Her memoir writing and poetry can be found on the Veterans website, www.crmvet.org, as well as in Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: An Anthology of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement (Black Belt Pr., 1999) and Letters From Mississippi (Zephyr Pr., 2002). She is featured in the 1994 film, Freedom On My Mind. Allen is the author of Free Space, A Perspective on the Small Group in Women’s Liberation, Times Change Press 1970, and collaborated with Robert Allen on Reluctant Reformers: Racism and Social Reform Movements in the United States (Howard Univ. Pr., 1974), writing the chapter on the woman suffrage movement. Lois Barr is Associate Professor of Spanish at Lake Forest College, Chicago. She directed the research for and was co-executive producer of the documentary Isa Kremer: The People’s Diva, and published Isaac Unbound: Patriarchal Traditions in the Latin American Jewish Novel (1995), as well as many articles and reviews on modern and contemporary Spanish and Latin American fiction. Her creative work appears in East on Central, Love After 70, 94 Creations, Ekakshara, The Daily Palette (Univ. of Iowa), the Legendary, Mochila, Flashquake and The New Vilna Review. Her translations have been published in Brújula and Collage.

V I S I T

O U R

W E B S I T E

A T

W W W . P H A T I T U D E . O R G

SUMMER SIXTIES SPECIAL

Elizabeth Bradfield is the author of Interpretive Work (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Pr., 2008), which won the Audre Lorde Award, and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. She also published poetry collection Approaching Ice (Persea Books, 2010) that was a finalist for the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. Her poetry has been published in The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Field, The Believer, Orion, and numerous other journals and anthologies. She has been awarded fellowships and scholarships from Stanford University’s Wallace Stegner program, the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, and elsewhere. Bradfield is the founder of Broadsided (www.broadsidedpress.org), a grassroots, virtual, collaborative press. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Washington and received an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Alaska, Anchorage, where she lived for five years. She now resides on Cape Cod and works as a web designer and naturalist. William Cass has published twenty-one short stories accepted for publication in mostly smaller literary magazines, including Red Wheelbarrow, Bellowing Ark and Sunday Salon. He lives and works as an educator in San Diego, California. Karen Chau is an Editor at phati’tude Literary Magazine. She is originally from Allentown, Pennsylvania, and recently graduated from Brandeis University. She has previously published in Racialicious. Carrie L. Connel was born and raised in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. She is a poet and short fiction writer who has been published in The Toronto Quarterly, Canadian Stories, Bygone Days, Shadowfeas, and Under the Armchair. Connel lives in London, Ontario, and is a graduate student at The University of Western Ontario. Carolyn Hoople Creed teaches Creative Writing, along with English Literature and Composition, at Brandon University. Her articles, book reviews and poems appear across Canada, and her poetry has traveled the busses of Winnipeg for the Poetry in Motion program. Gabrielle David, Editor-in-Chief of phati’tude Literary Magazine, is a multimedia artist that has worked as a desktop publisher, photographer, artist, video editor and musician. David has published several essays on multicultural literature and published the poetry collections: this is me, a collection of poems & things (CCI Books, 1994); and spring has returned & i am renewed (CCI Books, 1995). Her work has published in Paterson Literary Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets, AIM Magazine, and phati’tude Literary Magazine. She is the Executive Director of the Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc. (IAAS), a NY-based nonprofit organization that promotes multicultural literature and literacy, which publishes phati’tude Literary Magazine. Margo Dean earned an M.A. in Creative Writing from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville as well as degrees in African Languages and Literature (B.A.), Accounting (B.S.) and teaching English as a Second Language (M.A.). Her work has appeared in the journals Ba-Shiru and River Bluff Review. She currently lives and writes in southwestern Illinois. Victor Enns lives and writes in Winnipeg, Canada. He grew up in a small border town just across the line from Neche North Dakota. His work appears regularly in Canadian journals where three of his poetry collections have been published. His most recent U.S. publications are Afghanistan Confessions and Rattle. Mimi Ferebee holds degrees in both English and Psychology from the College of William and Mary. She recently retired a career as a clinical therapist to pursue her primary passions of writing and editing full-time, and is working on obtaining Ph.D. in English Literature. She has published in several journals and magazines, including Contemporary World Literature, Decanto Magazine (UK), Both Sides Now, Flutter Poetry Journal, Leaning House Press, Caper Literary Journal, ChickenBones: A Journal and Houston Literary Review. Ferebee is currently the editor-in-chief of Red Ochre Press, and her first poetry collection Seraglio, published by Patasola Press, is forthcoming. Roy F. Fox serves as Professor of English Education and former Chair of the Department of Learning, Teaching, & Curriculum at the University of Missouri. His research focuses on the teaching and learning of writing, as well as media literacy — especially how people interact with television, film, and advertising messages. In addition to numerous chapters and articles, Fox is the author of several books, including Images in Language, Media, & Mind; Harvesting Minds: How TV Commercials Control Kids; and MediaSpeak: Three American Voices. He is the recipient of the Maxine Christopher Shutz Award for Distinguished Teaching and the William T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence. Most recently, he wrote the Foreword to Fame to Infamy: Race, Sport, and the Fall from Grace (Univ. of Mississippi Pr.), edited by Joel Nathan Rosen and David Ogden, and launched a new online journal, Engaging Cultures & Voices: The Journal of Learning English through Media. Sarah Freligh is the author of Sort of Gone, a book of poems that follows the rise and fall of a fictional pitcher named Al Stepansky. Her work has been featured in Garrison Keillor’s “Writer’s Almanac” and in the recently-released anthology Good Poems: American Places. Among her awards are a 2009 poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a poetry grant from the Constance Saltonstall Foundation in 2006, and a grant from the New York State Council for the Arts in 1997.

V O L. 3 N O. 2

177

Sterling Hayes was an M.D. recruited by the U.S. Army to look after the cadets at Marion Military School in Alabama, the people of Perry County, and attended the health needs of many “Nam” veterans. A writer in retirement, his work has appeared in anthologies in Canada and the U.S. as well as The Harvard Medical Alumni Journal, The Medical Post, Okanagan Life, AlbertaViews, and local newspapers. He is the author of Wake-Up Call: Tales from a Frontier Doctor (Caitlin, 2010) and Bloody Practice: Reflections on Doctoring Around the World (Caitlin, 2003). Kathleen Hellen has been an educator in the Appalachian Region for over twenty years, and in Baltimore, Maryland working with poor and disenfranchised children. Her work has appeared in Barrow Street; Cimarron Review; the Cortland Review; The Evansville Review; Hollins Critic; In Posse Review; Prairie Schooner; RHINO; Subtropics; among others; and on WYPR’s “The Signal.” Her awards include the Washington Square Review, James Still and Thomas Merton poetry prizes, and individual artist grants from the state of Maryland and Baltimore City. Her chapbook, The Girl Who Loved Mothra (Finishing Line Pr.) was published in 2010. Debbie Okun Hill is an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets with over 180 poems published or pending in over 75 publications/websites including Vallum, The Windsor Review, Other Voices, Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine, Mobius, and The Binnacle’s Seventh and Eighth Annual Ultra-Short Competition anthologies in the U.S. Another Trail of Comet Dust (Beret Days Pr., 2011) is her second published chapbook. Born and educated on the Canadian prairies, she is a former communications specialist with The Winnipeg Art Gallery, Lakehead University and Fanshawe College. Hill currently resides in southwestern Ontario where she co-hosts a spoken word event and is president of The Ontario Poetry Society, a provincial organization with over 200 members. Ja A. Jahannes is a poet, writer of fiction and nonfiction, poet, psychologist, and composer. He is a frequent columnist for numerous American and international publications. His work has appeared in diverse publications and anthologies, and he serves as Contributing Editor for two international online magazines. Jahannes has lectured in the United States, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, South America, the Middle East and Europe. Jennifer-Crystal Johnson, Associate Editor of phati’tude Literary Magazine, is originally from Germany, but was raised all over. She has published one novella, The Outside Girl: Perception is Reality (Publish America, 2005) and the poetry collection, Napkin Poetry (Broken Publications, 2010). Her poetry has appeared in various anthologies including The Lightness of Being (Int’l Library of Poetry, 2000), Theatre of the Mind (Noble House, 2003), Invoking the Muse (Noble House, 2004), and Our 100 Most Famous Poets (Famous Poets Pr., 2004). She is a freelance writer and editor, and is based in the Pacific Northwest. www.soulvomit.com Rebecca Kaye, an Editor of phati’tude Literary Magazine, is in her second year of the Masters in Creative Writing program at Oxford University. As an undergraduate, she attended Durham University where she mastered in English Literature and French. She is the former editor of Etcetera Magazine, literary supplement to The Cherwell, an Oxfordbased student newspaper. She is currently a house contributor to the online journal, The Fabelist. Erren Geraud Kelly is a well-traveled poet based in New York City who received his B.A. in English-Creative Writing from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. His work has appeared in over three dozen publications in print and online such as Hiram Poetry Review, Mudfish, and Poetry Magazine; and anthologies such as Fertile Ground, Beyond The Frontier and others. Roy Mash lives in Marin County, California. His poems have appeared in AGNI, Atlanta Review, Barrow Street, The Evansville Review, Nimrod, Poetry Eas, and RHINO, among others. Beth McClelland recently ended a 30-year career as a professional accountant. She is now actively pursing a career in writing and has published a series of hiking articles in the Edmonton Journal. Jim McGarrah holds a M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College and an M.A. in Liberal Studies from the University of Southern Indiana. His first book of poems, Running the Voodoo Down, won a book prize from Elixir Press in 2003. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a finalist twice in the James Hearst Poetry Contest. McGarrah has published Home Again: Essays and Memoirs from Indiana (Indiana Historical Society Pr., 2006), a memoir, A Temporary Sort of Peace (Indiana Historical Society Pr., 2007), and his novel, Going Postal, in 2007. Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, a proud Puerto Rican, is one of the original founders of the Nuyorican poets’ movement. He is a recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry (2001); an Artist for Community Enrichment (ACE) Award from the Bronx Council on the Arts, New York (1995); and a COMBO (Combined Arts of San Diego)-NEA Fellowship in Literature (1988). Meléndez has spent the past 30 years working as a poetry-facilitator working in the public schools, during which time he has coordinated many successful poetry/creative writing workshops, impacting the lives of tens of thousands of young people. The author of the poetry collections, Casting Long Shadows (1970), Have You Seen Liberation (1971), Street Poetry & Other Poems (1972), and Concertos On Market Street (1993).

178

P H A T I’T U D E LITERARYMAGAZINE

SUMMER SIXTIES SPECIAL

Edward P. Morgan is a University Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Lehigh University where he has taught for 35 years. Among other writings, he has published numerous articles and two books on the 1960s era and/or it’s representation in the mass media: What Really Happened to the 1960s: How Mass Media Culture Failed American Democracy (Univ. Pr. of Kansas, 2010, 2011) and The Sixties Experience: Hard Lessons about Modern America (Temple Univ. Pr., 1992). Lisa Morriss-Andrews studied arts, science and languages in California, Banff, Alberta, and Kingston, Ontario. This past year she devoted herself to completing and submitting three of her six novel manuscripts to publishers. He has won several local writing awards, one international online award and scholarships to both the Banff Mountain Writing program (2006) and (soon to attend) Summer Literary Seminars in Lithuania (2011). Her fictional writing draws on the people and experiences in her life, including: her childhood in Louisiana, adolescence in California and adult life in Canada. Lorraine Miller Nuzzo has been Curator, Art Director of phati’tude Literary Magazine and “phati’tude-related” projects since 1997. While pursuing her professional career, Nuzzo studied painting with Mary Nagin and Carole Jay in New York; and with Tim Holden in Italy. She has held exhibitions at MIB and BJ Spoke Gallery; and is also a former partner of “hotshots unlimited photography,” which held an exhibit at the Langston Hughes Library. She holds a Master’s degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Hofstra University and a Bachelors degree in Psychology with a minor in Art from SUNY, Empire State. www.rainynuzzo.com Irenosen Okojie is a London based writer and the National Development Coordinator at Apples & Snakes, England’s leading performance poetry organization. She is a Producer on The Underground Railroad, a network for artists of color. She has been published in Flipped Eye, Jungle Jim Magazine, Pride Magazine and BFM. Her writing was featured on Resonance FM. She is currently working on her first novel and collection of short stories. Melinda Palacio grew up in South Central Los Angeles and now lives in Santa Barbara, where she is an editor for Ink Byte, an online magazine for writers. She also writes a Friday column for La Bloga.com. Palacio holds a B.A. from Berkeley and an M.A. from UC Santa Cruz in Comparative Literature. Palacio is a 2007 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Rosenthal Fellow and a 2009 alum of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. Her poetry chapbook, Folsom Lockdown, won Kulupi Press’ Sense of Place cash prize and publication, Spring 2010. She published her first novel, Ocotillo Dreams (Bilingual Review Pr.) in 2010. Her work has been published in a wide variety of journals and anthologies, including the Arizona Republic, BorderSenses, Scottsdale Tribune, Black Renaissance Noire, PALABRA: a Magazine of Chicano/Latino Literary Art, Poets and Artists, Askew Poetry Journal, Latinos in Lotus Land: an Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature, San Pedro River Review, San Diego Poetry Annual and Southern Poetry Anthology. She enjoys public speaking and sharing her knowledge of writing and publishing through workshops, lectures, and panels. Patricia Percival graduated form Duke University and Emory University School of Law. Sparked by a box of typed poems found among her brother’s possessions after his suicide, she has been studying and writing poetry since 1997. Her search for publication has just begun. Kenneth Pobo teaches creative writing and English at Widener University in Pennsylvania. He has published a dozen chapbooks and four full-length poetry collection. This year, he will have two chapbooks forthcoming: Contralto Crows from Green Fuse Press, a chapbook of poems, and Tiny Torn Maps from Deadly Chaps, a collection of 36 “tweet fictions.” His work appears in journals such as Mudfish, Nimrod, Indiana Review, Stickman Review, 2River View, The Same, and elsewhere. Each Saturday he has a radio show, Obscure Oldies, from 6:00-8:30 p.m. at www.wdnrfm.org. Much of his writing is connected with sixties music. Vivian Faith Prescott is a fifth generation Alaskan of Sáami and Suomalainen descent (among others). She is Co-Director of Raven’s Blanket, a non-profit organization designed to enhance and perpetuate the cultural wellness and traditions of Indigenous peoples. Her work has appeared in Drunken Boat, Permafrost, Yellow Medicine Review and Turtle Quarterly. She was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry. Her first book of poetry The Hide of My Tongue will be published in the winter of 2011 by Plain View Press. Her digital chapbook Slick is available at https://sites.google.com/site/whiteknucklechaps/home/slick. Her website is www.vivianfaithprescott.com and she blogs at http://planetalaska.blogspot.com Alizah Salario is a freelance journalist living in New York. Her work has appeared in the Daily Beast, Ms. Magazine, The Huffington Post, Playbill, The Rumpus, Women’s eNews, and at the Poetry Foundation, where she was the 2010 journalism fellow. A graduate of Pitzer College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she taught English literature for four years before devoting herself to writing and reporting full-time.

V O L. 3 N O. 2

179

Nancy Scott is the author of two books of poetry, Down to the Quick (Plain View Pr., 2007) and One Stands Guard, One Sleeps (Plain View Pr., 2009) and two chapbooks, A Siege of Raptors (Finishing Line Pr., 2010) and Detours & Diversions (Main Street Rag, 2011). She is the current managing editor of U.S.1 Worksheets, the journal of the U.S.1 Poets’ Cooperative in New Jersey. Originally from the Chicago area and a graduate of the University of Chicago, Nancy moved to Central New Jersey in the mid-60s and has lived there ever since. She began writing poetry in the mid-90s as a way to record the many stories she’d heard as a social worker for the State of New Jersey assisting homeless families, abused and foster children, and those with mental health issues and/or AIDS. Her poetry has been published in numerous print and online journals, including Poet Lore, Witness, Pemmican, The Ledge, Mudfish, Slant, Journal of New Jersey Poets, Segue, and Umbrella. She has enjoyed a residency at Ragdale and is a four-time Pushcart nominee. www.nancyscott.net Jed Skinner is a British musician and writer with an interest in Beat culture. He studied Popular and World Music at the University of Leeds with Simon Warner, a former rock critic for the British newspaper The Guardian. He has also contributed to other music-based publications in the UK, and has branched out into staging sound installations and other unusual music projects. www.jedskinner.com. Blake Slonecker lives in Forest City, Iowa, where he is Assistant Professor of History at Waldorf College. He earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009. His article “African Americans, New Leftists, and counterculture at the Columbia University protest of 1968” appeared in the Journal of Social History. He is currently completing a book manuscript, Living the Movement: The Death of the New Left and the Stillbirth of the New Age. Aimee Suzara and has been sharing poetic and multidisciplinary work since 1999. As a spoken word performer, she has been a featured guest at schools, colleges and festivals throughout California and beyond. Suzara’s multidisciplinary play, Pagbabalik (Return) in 2007 was selected for several festivals and supported by Zellerbach Community Arts Fund. Her poetry collection, the space between (Finishing Line Pr.) was published in 2008 and her writing appears in several journals and anthologies, including Check the Rhyme, An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees (Lit Noire Pr.), 580 Split, Kartika Review, and Walang Hiya/No Shame. She is a co-founder of the environmental justice organization, Filipino/American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity (FACES) in 1999, and has worked with San Francisco Women Against Rape (SFWAR) and the Youth Media Council. Suzara received her M.F.A. at Mills College and currently teaches English at several community colleges and leads workshops on poetry and performance for youth and adults. John Tytell was born in Antwerp, Belgium and grew up in New York City . He is a writer and academic whose works on such literary figures as Jack Kerouac, Ezra Pound, Allen Ginsberg, Henry Miller, and William S. Burroughs, have made him both a leading scholar of the Beat Generation, and a respected name in literature in general. He has been a professor of English at Queens College, City University of New York since 1977, and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his Ezra Pound: The Solitary Volcano (1987). His work has appeared in the American Scholar, Partisan Review, The New York Times, and Vanity Fair, among other publications. Tytell’s most recent work, Reading New York (2003), is a hybrid of memoir/biography/literary criticism. Tom Wayan has published seventeen poetry collections, most recently My Father’s Cup (2002; shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award) and High Speed Through Shoaling Water (2007). A collection of his essays was published in 1983, and another, A Country Not Considered: Canada, Culture, Work, appeared in 1993. A play of his, “The Parts Yard,” was produced in the 1984 DuMaurier Festival of Plays in Vancouver. David S. Wills, a graduate of the University of Dundee, currently lives in China where he is a university professor and part-time writer. Wills runs Beatdom.com, a blog dedicated to the study of the Beat Generation. He is the author of The Dog Farm (2011), a novel based on his experience living in Korea. Kalamu ya Salaam is a New Orleans writer, filmmaker and educator. He is co-director of Students at the Center, a writing program in the New Orleans public schools (http://sacnola.com). He is also moderator of “Breath of Life,” a Black music website (http://www.kalamu.com/bol). Ya Salaam blogs at neo•griot (http:// kalamu.posterous.com) and his creative writings are available on his daily blog at WordUp (http:// wordup.posterous.com). Changming Yuan, author of Chansons of a Chinaman (2009), is a three-time Pushcart nominee who grew up in a remote Chinese village and published several books before moving to Canada. Currently Yuan teaches in Vancouver and has poetry appearing in Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Exquisite Corpse, London Magazine, phati’tude and more than 350 other literary journals/anthologies worldwide.

180

P H A T I’T U D E LITERARYMAGAZINE

P H A T I ‘ T U D E L I T E R A R Y M A G A Z I N E S U M M E R 2 0 1 1

C O V E R A R T Travis Smithlin Tra vis Smithlin is a self-taught, digital ar tist with a passion for ravis artist making some of the most creative and vivid artwork around by mixing digital photographs with multimedia techniques. His unique and original artwork has been used for some of phati’tude Literary Magazine’s interviews and short stories. Smithlin was an at-risk youth who turned his life around when he attended a boy’s school for wayward youth. There, he learned about personal responsibility, teamwork and empathy, which has served him well. When Smithlin completed the program, he took time to travel around the country to learn about himself, the world around him and to figure out what he wanted to do next with his life. He realized the drawings he created over the years, coupled with his fascination with technology was something he could expand on, which prompted him to pursue a career in digital art and web design. Smithlin currently attends the Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online Division and holds a 3.76 GPA, extending his knowledge in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Dreamweaver, PhotoShop and Illustrator. He also works as a freelance artist and makes flyers, stickers, logos, illustrations, and web and graphic design layouts. With graduation on the horizon, Smithlin’s goal is to open up a web design firm and continue creating digital artwork and layouts for print and online media. Says Smithlin, “Many websites give overwhelming attention to all of the new technology with very little to technique. My goal is to use my skills to combine superior digital artwork with exciting, well-designed websites, that are both intuitive and artistically sound.” Smithlin is truly gifted in mixing images with shapes, colors, texture and text in a original and creative manner, so we are pleased to use his cover, “Peace” for our “Summer Sixties Special” issue.

V I S I T

O U R

W E B S I T E

A T

W W W . P H A T I T U D E . O R G