A battle finished…

So many moons ago in a land called 2007 I submitted two poems to the literary journal of Howard University and was graced with an acceptance of my poems in October. Here, about seven months later, the issue is finally up (minus my Nina Simone poem). See the link below.

http://www.coas.howard.edu/english/Amistad/Spring08/index2.html

Stuff

I think I’m becoming a design junkie. I’ve fallen in love with a website called Apartment Therapy and it’s all I can do to stop myself from rearranging things and wanting to run out to furniture stores. I think when the times comes for me to have my own house, I’ll have more than enough ideas in my head to furnish it.

I’ve also fallen in love with book and album shopping at the Goodwill. I’ve always loved thrift stores, but the Goodwill near my house is the first one that I’ve gone to strictly for books and albums. I’ve gotten everything from an original pressing of the Dreamgirls soundtrack to a copy of Up From Slavery in plastic to a collection of critical essays on growing up in the projects in the 1960s and 70s. I can’t wait to go back.

As much as I love my students (some of them are excellent writers), I am getting tired and I’m ready for the semester to end. There just seems to be a never-ending loop of lectures to write, papers to grade, e-mails to answer and handouts to make. Now that I have this first semester under my belt, there are some changes I am going to make in order to make things go a little smoother next time around. I want to rearrange my syllabus by adding some things, removing others and making things a little more clear. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve worked towards this for many years and now I’ve gotten here, I just need to make it work for me.

The Sonics Wonders of Kick, Push by Lupe Fiasco

Last year when I first heard Kick, Push I was amazed and this entry has been rolling around in my head for the last few incarnations of this blog (all three of them).
I’ll admit I’m a bit of an orchestra nerd. I played cello for many years and it’s still on my wish list of things to get myself. I fell in love with the strings and horns on Kick, Push so much that every time I hear the start of it, I turn up the volume. I get lost in the music of the song. It’s not the lyrics (nothing against them, however). It’s just the music. I had a burned copy on CD in my car and seriously I listened to it on repeat for weeks on end without blinking.

Why did I love it so much? Maybe it reminded me of growing up the daughter of a dj and tapping back into that love of music and feeling like I was a little girl in a basement full of records learning how to use turntables and a mixer for the first time. Maybe it made me realize, I’ve become an “oldhead”, that I miss ATCQ, Leaders of the New School, De La Soul, Pete Rock and CL Smooth, Brand Nubian, LL Cool J, MC Lyte, Kid N Play, Salt N Peppa, Eric B and Rakim, and a whole crew of others. I missed music and Lupe’s song took me back.

I’m listening to it now. I was sitting here writing a lecture of Argumentation and Persuasion essays and it came on random on Sekou (my mp3 player) and it’s now once again on repeat.

So thank you Lupe for opening the floodgates and making me remember how hip hop impacted my life.