Words to live by

It is not what we think that matters,
it is our actions that count.
No one can see our thinking
until we take an action, be it behavior,
or speech reflecting truthfully
what we are thinking.

--Ligia Dantes

I forget, over and over again, that thinking is not an action. That when I die, it won't matter what, or how much, I thought. The truth of my life is what I do. Daily.

Ghost children of Italy

From Pina Piccolo, one of the brilliant Italian translators of the bilingual edition of Migritude I: When Saris Speak.

Perfect example of how poems can voice the unspeakable when all other language fails.

On August 8th (Shailja's note: My birthday!) the "security packet" passed by the Berlusconi government came into effect. Among its measures, now that being undocumented is a crime, is the provision that if you are an "illegal alien" and you go to give birth in a hospital, Social Services takes the baby, the mother is taken to jail and then repatriated. It's about as draconian as you can get. Thinking about it, I wrote this poem.

Ballad of the celestial messengers, or the ghost children born in Italy starting August 8, 2009

…. In the land of beginnings spirits mingled with the unborn. We could assume numerous forms. Many of us were birds. We knew no boundaries. There was much feasting, playing and sorrowing… There was not one among us who looked forward to being born…We feared the heartlessness of human beings, all of whom are born blind, few of whom ever learn to see… Those of us who made the pact to return to the spirit world at the first opportunity…were known among the Living as Abiku, spirit-children. We were the ones who kept coming and going, unwilling to come to terms with life…I was born not just because I had conceived a notion to stay… I prayed for laughter, a life without hunger. I was answered with paradoxes. (Ben Okri, The Famished Road)

Come forth spirit child
Into a world of collapsing towers
No water to kiss your head
No green-gowned doctor
To pull you out of your mother
No bureaucrat to inscribe your name
In the Great Book of the Living

Come forth spirit child
Born of clandestine mother
And pirate father
With rebel sisters
And swaggering brothers
Aunts by the roadside
Uncles on scaffolds
Cousins pushing wheelchairs
Grannies faraway
Grandpas long gone

Don’t long for the happy valleys
Of the Abiku
Games with the sprites
By the river
The buzzing of bees
The song of buds bursting forth

Your lullaby
The song of exile
Your milk
The sap of history
As its dregs settle
To the very bottom

Swallow the paradox,
Celestial messenger,
And bear us the cup
Of a rescued tomorrow.

Pina Piccolo, July 2009

Calendar updates

In addition to my plenary performance at the Bioneers Conference in October, I'll also speak on a panel on Re-Envisioning Leadership on Friday afternoon.

And coming up before that, the Individual World Poetry Slam hits the Bay Area - you can hear me riff on Poetry and Activism on October 8th.

Full details on my Calendar.

Youtube interview

Someone just sent me this three-minute snippet from an interview I did at the Internazionale Festival in Italy last year.

Warning: when it seems to end, at 3:20 - it really does end. The rest is just a dark screen. Weird.

I'm glad they included my framing of the Israeli state as a mass immigration problem.

Anyone have tips for how to blink less often on camera?

Action alert: Kenyan activists abducted by police

UPDATE:
Samson Ojiayo was released at dawn today. Godwin Wangoe was charged with belonging to a "proscribed group". Bail was set at the extortionate amount of Ksh. 100,000. He remains in police custody.

Two Kenyan activists, members of Bunge La Mwananchi (Kenya's Parliament Of The People) were abducted by police officers in Nairobi today.

Samson Owimba Ojiayo and Godwin Kamau Wangoe were bundled into a police vehicle, registration number KAN 938 N, by police officers who did not identify themselves, or give reasons for arrest. Colleagues have been unable to locate them at Nairobi's Central Police Station, Kamukunji Police Station, or Kilimani Police Station.

The danger is that they have been "disappeared" as a warning to other vocal civil society activists in Kenya.

Please help ensure their safety by sending two text messages, to Police Spokesperson, Eric Kiraithe, and former deputy Provincial officer Ndegwa, to convey that their abduction is known. If they have been arrested, then legal procedures of booking and charging need to be followed.

To Eric Kiraithe, cell number + 254 729 958 319

To former PPO Ndegwa, cell number + 254 722 492 138

Text / sms message:

Mr. Kiraithe / Mr. Ndegwa, intnational community holds u accountable 4 safety of civil soc activists, samson ojiayo n godwin wangoe, abducted by police 2day.

standing ovation

for Saturday's staged reading in Oakland of Bwagamoyo: The Father.

And terrific feedback.

Thank you EVERYONE who came, and everyone who emailed support before and after.

Huge appreciation to my co-actor, Zac Drake, who, quite simply, killed it.

His hair was the third actor, said one audience member. You had to be there to understand why :-)

His neck-shoulder line absolutely lived up to the moment.

That deep, resonant male voice really made the reading three-dimensional, was another comment.

Other highlights:

The pioneering radical activist poet, Nellie Wong, was in the audience. When she announced in the Q and A that it was her birthday, we all burst into a spontaneous rendition of Happy Birthday. I wanted to cry. Nellie Wong came to my reading on her birthday!

My voice coach from Migritude I, Kate Rowland, drove all the way in from Orinda. I was seriously intimidated by her being there, as I have so not been diligent about my voice work. I winced internally every time I heard myself slip off-voice in the performance. But she told me afterwards that I was a "tour-de-force." Even typing that puts a huge grin on my face.

People got it. The song of the individual body embedded in the body politic. Intimate violence inextricably melded with the violence of history. Hierarchies of bone and muscle mirroring national and international structures of power and dominance.

Thank you, fabulous Oakopolis people - Jan Camp, Joell Jones, James Minton, for making it all happen.

Thank you, David Borsos, for being there 200% for setup, breakdown, and everything in-between and after.

Thank you, Lea Arellano, for documenting the Q and A feedback.

Thank you, Lisa Martinovic, Pina Piccolo, Mai Palmberg, Kirstin Holst Petersen, for invaluable comments and feedback on earlier versions of the script.

And yes, we got some strong video, shot by Andrew Kaluzynski. As soon as I've had a chance to review it and pick out my favourite bits, they'll go up on youtube.

Finally, my debt to the African Guest Writer Fellowship at the Nordic Africa Institute, for time, space, resources, and community to complete and premiere the script of Bwagamoyo, is incalculable.