Zimbabwe

November 14th, 2011—The Saint Paul Almanac is pleased to announce the first of its 2011–2012 series of acclaimed Lowertown Reading Jams, celebrating the rich literary history of Minnesota’s capital city. The November 14th presentation of the eclectic series, curated by J. Otis Powell!, features readings by eight writers—Louis Alemayehu, e.g. bailey, Andrea Jenkins, Tom Kanthak, Leah Nelson, Alexs Pate, Katherine Pehrson and J. Otis Powell!. The "Duende and the Sound of Soul" Lowertown Reading Jam will be presented on Monday, November 14th, 2011 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Black Dog Coffee and Wine Bar, 308 Prince Street in Saint Paul. INTRODUCTION BY J. OTIS POWELL! "So, then, the Duende is a force not a labour, a struggle not a thought. I heard an old maestro of the guitar say: ‘The duende is not in the throat: the duende surges up, inside, from the soles of the feet.’ Meaning, it’s not a question of skill, but of a style that’s truly alive: meaning, it’s in the veins: meaning, it’s of the most ancient culture of immediate creation." — García Lorca "I’ve been ruminating on duende for nearly a year pondering it's place in my cultural heritage and identity. Duende and the Sound of Soul is a way of inviting other artists into my exploration. A tall elegant griot advised, “let it hang like it’s got nowhere better to be. Push meaning to an upper register where falsetto is aspiration and reaching is creative process.” As a way of searching for duende in literature, I make words growl so the reader knows what it is to be fierce. I make them whisper softly, gently before they cry ugly and bare pain. True blues isn’t news but baritone notes from a tenor horn can move ancestors. Fire is needed more than light so orange lilies scream at the Sun; that’s duende. A flower is a lovesome thing when it screams because it carries dark stories from wounded souls. Artists learn craft so that we can be instruments for ghosts to sing through." INTRODUCING THE PERFORMERS Writer, performance artist, mentor, curator, consultant, Open Space Technology facilitator and arts administrator. J. OTIS POWELL! was a founding producer of Write On Radio! while working at The Loft Literary Center. He has received the Loft Creative Nonfiction Award, Jerome Mid-Career Artist Grants, Jerome Travel and Study Grant and Intermedia Arts’ Interdisciplinary McKnight Fellowship. In 2009 the MN Spoken Word Association awarded Mr. Powell! their Urban Griot Innovator Award and inducted him into the MN Spoken Word Association’s Hall Of Fame. Powell! is also a founding curator for Bridges—a performance arts program with Pangea World Theater. His poetry, essays and articles have appeared in two books of his original work: Theology (Traffic Street Press) and My Tongue Has No Bone (Porter Publishing) and numerous anthologies, newspapers and magazines. His writing was included recently in: Barefoot In The Mountains, Views From The Loft and his work will be featured in an upcoming anthology of poems from Downstairs Press. As of this biography he was recording a new CD project titled BALM! with TruRuts/Speak Easy Records. ALEXS D. PATE's debut novel Losing Absalom received a Minnesota Book Award and was named Best First Novel by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Other novels include the New York Times best-seller Amistad: The Novel; Finding Makeba; The Multicultiboho Sideshow, winner of a 2000 Minnesota Book Award; and West of Rehoboth. His newest book In the Heart of the Beat: The Poetry of Rap was released in January of 2010 and received critical praise. Pate’s first memoir, The Past is Perfect: Memoir of a Father/Son Reunion (working title) will be published in 2011. The book is about the struggles of reconnecting with his estranged son and entering into the world of memoir writing. Pate is Assistant Professor of African-American and African Studies at the University of Minnesota. Born in Chicago of African and Native heritage, LOUIS ALEMAYEHU developed his poetic skills and musical sensibilities as a part of the Black Arts Movement in the 1970s. From 1973 to 1976 he lived in the middle of Chicago’s Black Arts Movement in a creative and activist community that included Haki Madhubuti, Gwendolyn Brooks, Carolyn Rodgers, Sonia Sanchez, Phil Koran and a cadre of men and women who constituted the legendary artists collective known as the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, or the AACM. Louis believes that poetry is a tool for healing; his performances, lyrical twinings of jazz, chant, poetry and song, are art-as-ritual, often performed ceremonially. He has performed for the past 30 years with his seminal poetry-jazz ensemble, Ancestor Energy, a band of master improvisational musicians and composers that has included Carei Thomas, David Wright, Donald Washington, Gary Schulte and Mick LaBriola. Multidisciplinary artist E.G. BAILEY is an award winning spoken word artist, po

• published: 16 Feb 2012
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