Posted: Fri 14 Jul 2006 15:15 Post subject: author poet Toi Derricotte
Inundation...
That time my grandmother dragged me
through the perfume aisles at Saks, she held me up
by my arm, hissing, "Stand up,"
through clenched teeth, her eyes
bright as a dog's
cornered in the light.
She said it over and over,
as if she were Jesus,
and I were dead. She had been
solid as a tree,
a fur around her neck, a
light-skinned matron whose car was parked, who walked
on swirling
marble and passed through
brass openings--in 1945.
There was not even a black
elevator operator at Saks.
The saleswoman had brought velvet
leggings to lace me in, and cooed,
as if in service of all grandmothers.
My grandmother had smiled, but not
hungrily, not like my mother
who hated them, but wanted to please,
and they had smiled back, as if
they were wearing wooden collars.
When my legs gave out, my grandmother
dragged me up and held me like God
holds saints by the
roots of the hair. I begged her
to believe I couldn't help it. Stumbling,
her face white
with sweat, she pushed me through the crowd, rushing
away from those eyes
that saw through
her clothes, under
her skin, all the way down
to the transparent
genes confessing......Weakness by Toi Derricotte
Toi Derricotte was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1941. Her books of poetry include Tender (1997) which won the 1998 Paterson Poetry Prize, Captivity (1989), Natural Birth (1983), and The Empress of the Death House (1978). The Black Notebooks, a literary memoir, was published by W.W. Norton in 1997 and won the 1998 Annisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-Fiction. Her honors include the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, two Pushcart Prizes, the Distinguished Pioneering of the Arts Award from the United Black Artists, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the Guggenheim, and the Maryland State Arts Council. She is co-founder of Cave Canem, a workshop retreat for African American poets. She teaches at the University of Pittsburgh.
"toy dare-i-cot"; Derricotte was boarn in Hamtramck, Michigan on April 12, 1941 The daughter of Benjamin Sweeney Webster and Antonia Webster Cyrus; married Clarence Reese (an artist), July 5, 1962 (divorced, 1964); married Clarence Bruce Derricotte, December 30, 1967; children: (first marriage) Anthony.
She studied special education at Wayne State University, where she earned a B.A., and studied English literature and creatibe writing at New York University, where she received her M.A. She won a fellowship in poetry from the National Endowment fot the Arts and was a MacDowell fellow in 1984. She is an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA (1991 -- ).
Spirit and Flame: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry
(click title or book to order on-line)
Author: Keith Gilyard (Editor), with Sekou Sundiata
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Date Published: March 1997
Format: Trade Paper
Spirit & Flame celebrates the creativity of the African American poet. This volume, comprising more than two hundred pieces, delivers the artistic and political fervor of new and established black voices around the country - in the oral tradition; in tanka and sonnets; in lyrics that echo the sound of jazz, hip hop, and rap. Heir to the classic Black Fire published in 1968, the book exemplifies modern black aesthetics, bringing together some of the best African American poets of the last decade.
Cave Canem is committed to the discovery and cultivation of new voices in African American poetry.
Beginning as an all-volunteer effort in 1996, Cave Canem has moved swiftly to become a non-profit organization with a fulltime director and an active Board, funded through individual donations and foundation and government grants. Our program has expanded from a summer retreat to include regional workshops, a first book prize, annual anthologies, and readings and events in major cities around the United States. We are a national community of emerging and established poets, a family of black writers who create, publish, perform, teach, and study poetry, and support each others’ work.
HISTORY
In 1996 poets Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady began a weeklong summer workshop/retreat designed to counter the under-representation and isolation of African American poets in writers' workshops and literary programs. From the beginning, Cave Canem has offered a safe haven for black poets – whether schooled in MFA programs or poetry slams – to come together to work on their craft and engage others in critical debate.
PROGRAMS
Summer Workshop/ Retreat
The weeklong workshop schedule packs a rich mix of work and play into seven short days. Fellows study with a committed faculty of renowned black poets who represent different generations and poetic traditions. At the core of the Cave Canem experience are the afternoon workshops, where groups of eight to ten poets meet with a faculty member for writing exercises and critique of poems. Readings every evening feature faculty, fellows, and guest poets. Lively discussions about poetry often go on well into the night.
Elizabeth Alexander was born in New York City and grew up in Washington, DC. She has read her poetry and lectured on African-American literature and culture across the country and abroad. Her books of poetry include The Venus Hottentot (1990), Body of Life (1996), and Antebellum Dream Book (2001). Her poems, short stories, and critical writing have been widely published in such journals and periodicals as The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The Village Voice, The Women's Review of Books, and The Washington Post. Her poems are anthologized in over twenty collections. Her awards include a 2002 Guggenheim Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at the University of Chicago, and the George Kent Award, given by Gwendolyn Brooks. She has taught at Smith College, where she was Grace Hazard Conkling Poet-in-Residence and first director of the Poetry Center at Smith College. She is presently a fellow at the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University.
Body of Life
By Elizabeth Alexander
1. 1990
One by one 'til
I'm the only one
left in the photo
we took in Gay Paree,
trill the final syl-
lable, thrill to
pretending we're
the Revue Negre,
funking so fiercely
our black clothes stained
our curvature, fab-
ulous flames let loose
in the city of lights.
One by one you leave
the picture, nix nix nix,
my moonpie face left
shining there. Au Revoir,
or like they say
in Sula, "Vwah!", bright
as a bottle, the beau-
tiful childen are
leaving me to trill
the final syllable,
this beautiful-
ugly world.
2. 1983
The other girls taught shy me to be a diva,
to preen, to plump my titties up like they did,
to work it. We danced. We wanted the body
of life and I lived for a year in that
body, the body of life, in D.C.,
in the African diaspora:
Chocolate City.
That was my slut year.
All the men I didn't sleep with, all I did,
all the lunch dates, all the dinners, all
the whistles on the streets of Chocolate
City, all the men who called me Baby,
called me Girl, like the one who made me tuna-
fish and tried to suck my breasts, then asked
me to type his resume. My buzzer
in the middle of the night, my phone, a man
who greased me head to toe with Lubriderm,
a Cape Verdean who appeared on busses
and trains as if by divination, sketched
me naked, never spent the night. I told
one man how much I loved Betty Carter
and he said, I hope you're not one of those
bulldaggers. A lonely Nigerian
who cooked fufu groped me on the sofa,
his across-the-ocean wife and daughter
watching from their picture frames.
Rum and dancing, too many things in my mouth,
genitals cobbled with passion or disease, bright
clitoris a phantom limb, remembering --
I moved away to Boston and would call
you for the update: Renee was a samba
star at Brasil Tropical, shimmied
on Brazilian TV. Denise graduated
school and made the foreign service, moved
to Jamaica, to bungalow, with
a man and a maid Pansy. "Who's sick?"
I'd ask and you'd tell me, and who died,
and one day you said, "And I'm living with AIDS."
There was Kemron in Kenya.
You were saving to get it.
You met with a support group
of other black men. You had
a Dominican boyfriend,
same as me. Mostly you felt
O.K., but you hated
your medicine. You were fat,
but you still took class.
No, Tyrone wasn't sick. But David was dead.
It was Njambi who called me to say,
you were back in shape. You performed
for the visiting Eminence of Senegal,
the next day went into the hospital,
the next day died. It made a romantic
story, but you're still gone. "I love when you call me
because you're alive," you said once,
one of your few friends still alive.
I'm writing this poem to say how we were,
that we danced and fucked and sweated, loved
ourselves and each other, lived fiercely,
knew joy. I'm writing to say,
I got lucky, you were my friend, you
knew me as a girl, I am a woman,
now, with my little piece of your story,
the year of the body of life.
ABOUT THE NAME
When Toi Derricotte shared her dream of a retreat for African American poets with Cornelius Eady and his wife Sarah Micklem, they agreed to work together to make it a reality. In Pompeii, Italy, they found a fitting symbol for the safe space they hoped to create: the mosaic of a dog guarding the entry to the House of the Tragic Poet, with the inscription CAVE CANEM (Beware of the Dog).
Cave Canem: A Haven for African American Poets
Toi Derricotte
By Tara D. Hutchinson
A feeling of isolation and a desire for community motivated Pitt Professor of English and African American poet Toi Derricotte to take an historic step: She cocreated Cave Canem Foundation, which offers workshops for black poets, and it has evolved into more than she ever imagined.
Throughout her education, Derricotte had read few African American writers and had met fewAfrican American poets. A pivotal moment came in graduate school when she asked a professor why the class hadn’t read any African American writers.
“He said, ‘We don’t go down that low.’” Derricotte said. “Because I don’t look black, he didn’t know he was saying this to a black person.”
Although Derricotte had shared her writings—including four books of poetry and a memoir—at various writing workshops, she felt a growing sense of isolation because she usually was the only black writer there. She decided to take action.
In 1995, Derricotte began sharing her vision with a friend and fellow writer, Cornelius Eady, author of five books of poetry, including Brutal Imagination (G.P. Putnam Sons, 2001), which was nominated for the National Book Award.
Biography: Toi Derricotte
POSITION: Professor, University of Pittsburgh Department of English
EDUCATION: Bachelor of Arts degree in special education, Wayne State University; Master of Arts degree in English and creative writing, New York University
AUTHOR: Four books of poetry, including The Empress of the Death House (Lotus Press, 1978), Natural Birth (Firebrand Press, 2000), Captivity (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997), and Tender (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997); and a memoir, The Black Notebooks: An Interior Journey (W.W. Norton, 1997)
AWARDS: First Dudley Randall Award for National Contributions to Literature (2001), Pushcart Poetry Prize (1998, 1989) Black Caucus of the American Library Association Nonfiction Award (1998), PEN Martha Albrand Award for the
Art of the Memoir Nominee (1998), Paterson Poetry Prize (1998), New
York Times Notable Book of the Year (1997), National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1990, 1985)
“I had this idea for many years,” said Derricotte. “What if there was a place where African American poets could come together and feel safe?” According to Derricotte, black writers had places to gather, but oftentimes the writers did not feel free to express themselves.
In just one year, Derricotte and Eady formed the Cave Canem Foundation, taking the name from a Latin phrase meaning Beware of the Dog. Derricotte had seen the words above the door of the House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii.
The foundation held its first weeklong workshop in the summer of 1996. The 24 participants ranged in age from 19 to 85. Today, more than 200 people apply annually, but only 60 can participate. Derricotte and Eady hope to add a second summer workshop to fill the overwhelming demand.
As a result of the workshops, a community of African American writers has emerged, offering a network that has opened the door to publishing opportunities and funding sources.
“I feel like it’s something that goes well beyond anything we had ever imagined,” Derricotte said.
This summer marks the seven-year anniversary of the workshops, held at Cranbrook Schools in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. In addition, the Cave Canem Foundation offers two other workshops in New York City and two in Minneapolis, Minn. These are open to all writers.
Derricotte, who has taught poetry at Pitt since 1991, said she continually strives to bring as much of herself to the classroom as possible, sharing with her students her struggles as an African American poet.
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