School Of Our Lorde

August 3, 2016
by alexis Leave a comment

The Difference Between Poetry and Rhetoric: Responding to Police Violence

“The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready…” -Audre Lorde in “Power”

Thursday August 4th 6pm-9pm EDT. Online.

We have recently heard quite a lot of rhetoric, during an election cycle where (thanks to intentional organizing and horrific acts of harm caught on video) police violence cannot be ignored. And we have continued to see the judicial system offer anything but justice. Due to repeated requests, we are offering another one night webinar on how writers, scholars and artists can respond to police violence in this moment.

This online course is for those of us who are scholars, writers and artists who are figuring out our role in a moment characterized by (a need for) drastic change. This one night workshop draws specifically on ways that Audre Lorde and June Jordan responded to police violence as poets, university teachers and public intellectuals. We need the depth of their legacy right now as much as we ever have.

The class will draw on Sista Docta Alexis Pauline Gumbs’s chapter “Nobody Mean More: Black Feminist Pedagogy and Solidarity” in the book The Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent (eds. Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira.)

As she says in the chapter itself “This chapter is a meditation on what it means to be nobody in a university economy designed to produce somebody inviduated, assimilated and consenting to empire. Is it possible to instead become nobody in the academic space? Is it possible to align with the illegible oppressed/contemporary subaltern, the falling apart abject nonsubject, inside a university English class?” (Participants in the course will get a pdf of the full chapter to refer to for the class.)

If you, like Audre Lorde and June Jordan, are a writer or teacher or a theorist or a thinker or an activist or a mother or all of these things at the same time, join us for a supportive space where we tap into the the power of black feminist legacy and empower each other (the nobodies that we are) to face this moment.

Get your ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-difference-between-poetry-and-rhetoric-responding-to-police-violence-tickets-26877479264

FAQs

If I did NOT participate in “Nobody Mean More: Responding to Police Violence” a few weeks ago, can I still take this course?

Yes. In fact, part of the reason this course is happening is to accommodate people who wanted to participate in the first course and could not.

If I DID participate in “Nobody Mean More: Responding to Police Violence” a few weeks ago, can I still take this course?

Yes. Although we will be drawing on the same ancestors (Audre Lorde and June Jordan) and the same texts, we will be doing different activities. If you participated in the first class and want to stay engaged in this conversation feel free to join us again.

Do I need to do a lot of reading to be ready for the course?

No. When you register you will get access to all of the texts mentioned, but these are for your continued exploration and you are not required to read them ahead of time.

Why are there a limited number of tickets for an online event?

The online platform that Brilliance Remastered uses for courses enables 50 live users at a time. So there are only 50 tickets for this event. There are also a limited number of free and choose your own donation tickets…which usually go first. If you want to be the first to know about Brilliance Remastered courses

join the facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/BrillianceRemastered/

or the email list here: http://eepurl.com/bsb6rj

If I change my plans, can I get a refund?

There are no refunds because there are a limited number of spots. If your plans change your offering will be considered a donation to this ongoing work. If you email to let us know, we may offer your spot to someone on the waiting list.

August 3, 2016
by alexis Leave a comment

Beyond and Across: Ancestor-Accountable Poems

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 11.24.24 AM Last week as everyone was reminded again of the urgency of our political, creative and intellectual work at this time, a group of us went underwater to hear the voices of our ancestors whose warnings, wisdom and ways are seeking to guide us in this moment. Water holds sound and the love of our ancestors holds us as we make braver and braver decisions. The Breathe Underwater: Baptismal Intensive was a sacred space of remembering and renewal. We brought our ancestors into the space, embodied each other’s ancestors, dove deep into the ancestrally co-written works of M. Nourbese Philip, M. Jacqui Alexander and June Jordan, broke our contracts with slavery and internalized capitalism, cleansed ourselves with divine memory, listened to whales, coordinated our breathing, let words wash over us and laughed and raged and rose up renewed.

Below we are offering some poems that we created. We were inspired by Kitsimba’s commitment (voiced across generations in Jacqui Alexander’s Pedagogies of Crossing) that “all life is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean” to create an invocation that articulates our connection AND we each wrote poems inspired by June Jordan’s Who Look at Me to prepositionally describe our ancestral relations. Take a deep breathe and let these words hold you, like how water holds sound, like how our movement holds contradiction, like how our ancestors hold us and we hold each other.

P.S. If you want to learn about future online intensive or in-person Brilliance Remastered gatherings join the email list or the facebook group.

Join us on Thursday August 4th for a one night workshop on The Difference Between Poetry and Rhetoric: Responding to Police Violence.

Registration is also open right now for the Nobody Mean More to Me retreat in Durham on September 9-11.

all

an invocation for and by the participants in the breathe underwater: baptismal intensive

(we recommend starting with three deep breaths and ending with seven)

“all life is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean.”

-Kitsimba in Pedagogies of Crossing by M. Jacqui Alexander

all light is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all love is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all memory is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all prayer is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all discernment is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all clarity is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all passion is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all singing is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all dance is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all freedom is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all resistance is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all abundance is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all playfulness is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all silliness is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all joy is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all power is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all sacred ritual is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all gratitude is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all compassion is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all forgiveness is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all rage is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all wonder is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all hope is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all transformation is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all wisdom is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all grace is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all elevation is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all rest is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all connection is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all breathing is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all dreaming is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all spirit is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all blessings to overcome are shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all that was, is and shall be is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

all of who we are is shared with those at the bottom of the ocean

Beyond and Across

by Njeri Damali Campbell

Who look at me?
Who speak to me?
Who laugh at me?
Who fight with me?
Right beside me?
Who stand above me?
Who rage with me?
Who cries on me?
Who move through me?
Who come for me?
Who be with me?
Who womanifest as me?
Who want for me?
Who travel across me?
Who remember for me?
Who remember as me?
Who exists in me?
Who persists as me?
Who endures despite me?
Who loves between me?
Who knows through me?
Who knows as me?
Who cannot without me?
Who wait beyond me?
Who speak through me?

by Beth Bruch

Who laugh with me

Who sustain with me

Who walk with me

Who dream through me

Who dream of me

Who remember in me

Who move through me

Who live in me

Who return to me

Who love through me

Who exist around me

Who work with me

Who sing through me

Who speak in me

Who dance around me

Who whisper to me

Who remember for me

Who create for me

Who run around me

Who receive from me

Who give to me

Who remind to me

Who help with me

Who challenge against me

Who slip from me

Who return to me

Who play with me

Who love in me

Who burn in me

Who yearn for me

Who are of me

by Natalie Clark

Who dreamed me into dreaming
Who held me in DNA
Who witness me now
Who unfold me yesterday
Who swims me
Who is me tomorrow
Who is me yesterday
Future ancestor.
My daughter
Who my daughter me…

by Sheena Sood

Who hold onto me?

Who guide over me?

Who cultivate across me?

Who be with me?

Who is around me?

Who is within me?

Who teach through me?

Who ground within me?

Who process through me?

Who belong in me?

Who laugh with me?

Who bestow upon me?

Who give beyond me?

Who come before me?

Who sit beside me?

Who endure inside me?

Who exist among me?

Who feel near me?

Who love beyond me?

Who forgive because of me?

Who heal through me?

by Laura Sullivan

you communicate through me

you extrapolate from me

you visualise beyond me

you create around me

you shine light into me

you grow roots underneath me

you love throughout me

you guide over me

you delight in me

you reassure despite me

you poke holes in shadows for me

you comprehend inside me

you manifest through me

you send ravens to me

to aunt Toni (Antoinette Blanche)

by Faith Holseart

Toni come to me

Toni don’t hide from me

Toni hear longing from me

Toni guide me

Toni help me

Toni guide me to how

Toni guide me to the heart

Toni meet me halfway

Toni trust me

Toni believe me

who lives within me

by ife kilmanjaro

who lives within me

revealing your lives in memories

in dreams

fights lost hopes deferred commitments

incomplete

it is for you they we that i am do

together we make up for things undone

way back then

and now

we live within we

together we work

to lift this ancestral shroud of

fears of sufferings of mistakes of violence

of …

our children deserve a chance to

be free of the consequences we

elevate the willing sequester the

unwilling

so souls can be free and

the living can live

who breathe with me

by alexis pauline gumbs

who breathe with me

who sing as me

who dance through me

who kiss upon me

who laugh around me

who bless over me

who love in me

who guide beside me

who open up between me

who designate exactly me

who fly through me

who hope inside me

who whisper into me

who rise under me

who radiate across me

who smile surrounding me

who protect by me

who teach above me

who love all of me

July 2, 2015
by alexis Leave a comment

Sign Up by July 6th: Maroon Studies Webinar Intensive #2: Necessary as Water

Maroon Studies Intensive #2: Necessary as Water: July 15-17, 2015 (12pm to 2pm Eastern)

This is a webinar intensive for thirsty visionaries who value transnational/intercommunal connections and a planetary scale of transformation. Transubstantiating the poetry of Audre Lorde, the theoretical work of Jacqui Alexander, Chandra Mohanty, Michelle Wright and Katherine McKittrick and the activist legacies of June Jordan and Lydia Gumbs, this webinar is especially necessary for thinkers connecting basic needs to brave visions.

8 spots are available. $175-225 sliding scale (payment plans available).

You can reserve your spot by offering a $50 non-refundable deposit here (please include the name of the webinar in the notes):

May 11, 2015
by alexis Leave a comment

Today: Tune in to Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Frontlines Conversation #1 (Guerilla Mama Mai’a)

Photo by sister-editor China Martens

Tune in today (May 11th at 3:30pm eastern) for a long distance kitchen table conversation with Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Mai’a Williams (two of the three co-editors of Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Frontlines) in a one on one conversation on moving from the shorelines to the frontlines, mothering, the revolutionary mothering zine, transnational fairy godmothering and more.

Tune in to our video conversation live, or after the fact here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJy7Djn_6bc

See you soon!

Love,

Lex and Mai’a

May 8, 2015
by alexis Leave a comment

And it is done. Daughter Dreams Actualized.

Last night’s Daughter Dreams: Revolutionary Mothering Conversation #1 was a miracle! Fruit, cake, juice and profound sharing about our night dreams, our spiritual visions and our aspirational intentions about being and having daughters and mothers and birthing creativity, possibility and community into the world!

After a night of laughter, tears, lesson sharing, deep listening and collaborative remembering we created a poem together and offered it to each other in a circle to witness and affirm our intentions. After each dream affirmation we repeated “And it is done,” together. We invite you to witness and affirm our dreams now. Feel free to add your own dream affirmation in the comment section. And it is done!

And it is done.

by the participants in Daughter Dreams

for the unloveable broken pieces

I dream of wholeness

And it is done.

for my 3 daughters

I dream a world where they can soar and shine in safe environments

And it is done.

for my grandchildren

I dream that they will one day ask “what is gender?” “what is gender violence?” because they haven’t experienced the colonization of gender and violence against women and girls.

And it is done.

for my mother Anthonette Elix to Anne Wallace

I dream of faith and her highest destiny fulfilled

And it is done.

for Osunnike and Ololodi

I dream of unlimited creativty, health and wholeness in their bodies and realized visions

And it is done.

for Erica Jeanette Wallace

I dream of purposeful and peaceful living and loving

And it is done.

for myself I dream of abundant space, love, partnership and collaboration

And it is done.

for Eloise

I dream of your love expression

And it is done.

for Aleese

I dream of continued life

And it is done.

for my mother Carmen

I dream of the creativity you were never allowed to express.

I dream of the adventures you’ll have not that I’m grown.

I dream of life.

And it is done.

for Bombom and Bz

I dream self-knowledge and self-love

And it is done.

for Lula Mae

I dream wholeness

And it is done.

for liberation

I dream of expansive thought and courage

And it is done.

for future

I dream of life abundant

And it is done.

for love

I dream of light

Our panelists Michelle Lanier, Dannette Sharpley, Rachael Derello and Dannette’s daughter Maria Lillian, blessed by light.

And it is done.

for Pearl Adele Stokes

I dream of me and the rest of her descendants experiencing a true sense of liberation in our spirits minds and bodies.

And it is done.

for Pearlene Derello

I dream of us healing our individual, collective and ancestral trauma

And it is done.

for Adele Rose Derello-Luebke

I dream of us all forever living int our own bodies (while we are on this plane) safely, lovingly and with gratitude

And it is done.

for Eden and all she births

I dream of grace made liberated by her love made life- overflowing in peace, fertile in shimmering goodness-glorious to behold!

And it is done.

for Mariah

I dream of a world where both literary and intuition are respected equally.

It is done. We live not by bread alone but by our hunches, inklings, wisdom, knowledge and sheepskin.

And it is done.

for IonaPearl

I dream of JOYFUL TRUE CONNECTION

And it is done.

for Lorraine

I dream of RELEASE FROM THE BONDAGE OF ANXIETY

And it is done.

for Courtney

I dream of TRUST and BELIEF IN HER GIFTS

And it is done.

for Jeevan

I dream of open untrammeled, uninhibited life

fields of life spilling over with light and the possible

deep soils of life endless and unknown

waiting for you, you in particular, you to join us in joy

And it is done.

for me

I dream of making space

making art

And it is done.

for Judy

I dream of being with glorious eyes and heart wide open

And it is done.

for myself

I dream of strength

And it is done.

for Carmela

I dream of home

And it is done.

for children

I dream they will not be harmed

And it is done.

for Richard and Joni

I dream a world

And it is done.

for Richard and Joni

I dream of their own bed

And it is done.

for my daughter

I dream a safe home and a steady bed

And it is done.

for Ariana

I dream of homefulness, heldness, hope and hallelujah

And it is done.

for me

I dream of openness to receive the love I was made by and for

And it is done.

Look out for Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Frontlines from PM Press this Fall!

Much gratitude to Ed Swan and the L Room B & B for hosting this event. Please support their fundraising campaign if you can! https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/thelroombnb

May 7, 2015
by alexis Leave a comment

Maroon Studies: A Brilliance Remastered Summer School Webinar Series

Maroon Studies: A Brilliance Remastered Summer School Series

Intensive #1: Debt and Black Unbelievability: June 15-17, 2015 (12pm-2pm Eastern)

This is a webinar intensive for bad credit/bad debt intellectuals committed to unbelievable futures. Engaging ideas of debt, credit and the incredible this webinar draws on texts by Evie Shockley, Fred Moten, Jamaica Kincaid, Sylvia Wynter, Gayatri Spivak and of course our real life experiences of pulling our realities out of thin air. This is especially necessary for broke and brilliant creatives committed to black life.

8 spots are available. $125-225 sliding scale (payment plans available).

You can reserve your spot by offering a $50 non-refundable deposit here:

Intensive #2: Necessary as Water: July 6-8, 2015 (12pm-2pm Eastern)

8 spots are available. $125-225 sliding scale (payment plans available).

You can reserve your spot by offering a $50 non-refundable deposit here:

Intensive #3: Blood, Water and Land August 10-12, 2015 (12pm-2pm Eastern)

This webinar is for ride or die radicals who live to love the people. Drawing on the legacy of Sisters in Support of Sisters in South Africa, the solidarity journalism of Alexis DeVeaux, the blood ecologies of Jewelle Gomez and Audre Lorde and the salience of spit, saltwater and sangre, we will explore connections, contradictions and discursive possibilities across imperial divisions towards tangible outcomes.

8 spots are available. $125-225 sliding scale (payment plans available).

You can reserve your spot by offering a $50 non-refundable deposit here:

May 7, 2015
by alexis Leave a comment

Today: Daughter Dreams: Revolutionary Mothering Conversation #1

Join Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind for the first in a series of Revolutionary Mother’s Day conversations.

Thursday May 7th at 6pm at the L-Room (107 West Geer St. Durham, NC)

This first session is about mothers and daughters and dreaming and will feature wisdom from wise mamas in Durham including

Michelle Lanier

Serena Sebring

Dannette Sharpley

Rachael Derello

Inspired by Audre Lorde’s practice of dream-mothering (which included keeping track of her own dreams, applying lessons from her dream and her children’s dreams to her parenting, and making a space for her daughter to share dreams with her) and by the impact of her dreams on her life-saving poetry, this will be an evening of dream-sharing and poem making.

Refreshments based on the favorite foods of the wise mamas will be served and copies of Laboring Positions which features Alexis Pauline Gumbs’s essay “Daughter Dreams and the Teaching Life of Audre Lorde” will be available for sale.

All are welcome!

(Look out for Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Frontlines coming out this fall from PM Press http://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=746 )

April 30, 2015
by alexis Leave a comment

Dark Sciences: A People of Color Dream Retreat August 20-24th (Alma de Mujer, TX)

“Message Received” for Audre Lorde by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind and The Revelry invite you to a love-filled people of color retreat on the magic, technology and practice of dreams!

Where?: Alma de Mujer retreat center (outside Austin, TX)

When?: August 20-24 2015

How Much?: $400 (Meals, Housing and all Programing included)

Scholarships Available!

Where do I register: right here!

“We know that ancestors beforeandcomingandnotgone have dreamed us up (are still dreaming us up), and that the future is <— ∞ —>. We know that our dreamworlds are time-folding and -foiling, and available for our deepest extragalactic play.” -from “The Future is Dark” by Almah LaVon

“Black feminist dream work is a risk, a recurring articulation. It is happening right now. Are you awake?” -from “Daughter Dreams” by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

“Science” for Queen Nanny by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

This is a gathering of our dreams, for our dreams, about our dreams.

This is for Queen Nanny of the Maroons the great scientist of ancestral connection and supernatural presence.

This is for Harriet Tubman who dreamt all night and sometimes in the middle of the day for our freedom.

This for Anna Julia Cooper who the grown folks woke up out of her sleep when she was a child asking about whether we would be free.

This is for Bayard Rustin who strategized and organized for how we could all say, show be our dreams together out in public on the Washington Mall.

This is for Yuri Kochiyama, who dreamed long and across many liberation movements.

This is for Audre Lorde who made poetry out of nightmares and curricula out of dreams.

This is for Gloria Anzaldúa who trusted the walk between worlds.

This is for Joseph Beam who dared himself to dream.

This is for all of us, breathing in the dreams of our ancestors.

“To Love” for Sonia Sanchez by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

This is the first convening of a queer-black-feminist imagined collective dreaming house for people of color.

Because our dreams are crucial and priceless, not only as fodder for 5 year plans at institutions that wake up to forget us, but also as what they are—unpredictable multi-layered prophecies and warnings that love the moon more than the sun, that cherish darkness over light. Like us.

We are inviting the black power of our dreams to guide the way forward and backwards into the depth of love we need in order to enter an ethical relationship with the planet and each other.

We are welcoming our dreams as both individual well-springs of self-reflection, divine connection and growth AND as a collective resource for community and planetary transformation.

None of us has the whole dream. All of us nurture priceless pieces of a transformed and transforming reality and so we are here together with the potential to puzzle it out and to develop the part of our existence that moves beyond individuality back into communion.

We are dreaming you up right now. We have been dreaming each other always.

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Your dream conveners!! Alexis and Almah!
Photo by Kimmie Ramnine

We are inviting you to enter this collective dream space which is:

the opening gathering for a long-term collective process of valuing, honoring, archiving, sharing and listening our/each other’s dreams
a ritual educational skill-share where we honor the dreaming practices of our ancestors and deepen our capacity to be present to our own and each other’s dreams
a sacred space for queer affirming people of color to trust our intuition and be ourselves

There are 21 spots for this experience. Register here and offer your $75 deposit here:

*Scholarship requests for tuition meals and housing are guaranteed AFTER your $75 deposit is received.

Feel free to email alexispauline@gmail.com with questions!

If you want to donate to the scholarship fund to help other dreamers attend this once in a lifetime sacred space find out how here: http://www.alexispauline.com/apgblog/cause-view/support-dark-sciences-a-people-of-color-dream-retreat/

December 5, 2014
by alexis Leave a comment

It Will Not Always Be This Way: Prophecy Poem or Impermanence After Phillis

“Frontispiece Remastered” Collage by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Last night after laying our bodies in the street in protest, while advocating and praying for our comrades who had been arrested, while grieving and grieving the loss of black lives, the audacity of state violence, while remembering the police murder of Fred Hampton and honoring the resilience of our beautiful communities, 5 black women gathered in the name of Phillis Wheatley. 230 years ago today Phillis Wheatley/Peters the first Black person to publish a collection of poems in the United States, witness to the American Revolution, acquaintance of a Queen and a President, died free, cold and poor somewhere in Boston.

Our conversation, blessed by the literary and historical expertise of Dr. Tara Bynum, ranged from the possibility of “ordinary” Black life in a context where just being a live and Black is framed as not just extraordinary but abnormal, to speculations of the layered and syncretic spiritual cosmologies present in Wheatley’s work and her correspondence with her friend Obour Tanner, to Morissonian (as in Toni) reflections on the normalcy of evil, to raw honesty about slave-funded academic institutions that continue to enslave black scholars, to just wondering where our friends are and if they are okay.

Inspired by Wheatley’s invocation of the sacred nine in her poetry, we mused a while and generated resources of laughter, love, epic realness, star-knowledge, movement, history, tragedy, song and hymns to share with each other as a reminder that the institutions that harm us are not our only sources of power, we are resources for each other. Finally we created this poem together out of our outrage at this moment and our faith that our lives and our world can be different. This is a prophecy poem offering on the date of Phillis Wheatley’s ascension. May all of our ancestors receive it and join us in transforming life on earth.

Prophecy Poem (impermanence after Phillis)

by the participants in Bright Black Broadcast #3: Phillis Wheatley

black bodies disappearing into death, state-sanctioned choke-holds.