I do not come to you as the reality. I come to you as the myth. Because that's what black people are. Myths....I come to you as a present from your ancestors....We just want to speak of realities. No myths! Sun Ra
Female
43 years old
BROOKLYN, New York
United States
I'm learning to sew, mulling a seasonal return to crochet, yoga, understanding the impact of architecture on social history, particularly in working class neighborhoods. I'm fascinated by the eruvim of Brooklyn, though they are very hard to photograph! It appears my love of plants is verging on fetish.
Music
The Knife, Alice Coltrane, Tomas Doncker, Jorge Ben, Bjork, Blonde Redhead, William Grant Still, Sun Ra, Os Tribalistas, Cassandra Wilson, Frederic Chopin, Nina Simone,
Movies
Man from London, Secret Sunshine, Following Sean, The Hours, Eternity and a Day, Mandaabi, Space is the Place, La Jetee, Mansfield Park, Millennium Mambo, What Time Is It There?, The Eel, Body and Soul, Looking for Langston, Black Girl (Ossie Davis), Illusions, Black Girl (Sembene Ousmane), I Can't Sleep, A Woman Under the Influence, The Kid Stays In the Picture, LOUD Quiet LOUD, Life and Debt, Spirited Away, 100% Arabica
Books
Bloodbeats Vol. 1 by Ernest Hardy, Erzulie's Skirt by Ana-Maurine Lara, In the Pines by Alice Notley, Between Dog and Wolf: Essays on Art and Politics by David Levi Strauss, The Marvelous Bones of Time by Brenda Coultas, The Putterer's Notebook by Akilah Oliver, The Open Curtain by Brian Evenson, a half-red sea by Evie Shockley, When Thy King Was a Boy by Ed Roberson
Heroes
My mother: expressive, hardworking, beautiful, fiercely protective, full of laughter, smart, great dancer, complicated, flawed, mysterious, beloved, ancestor.
Tisa's Details
Status:
Single
Here for:
Networking, Friends
Hometown:
Boston
Religion:
Other
Zodiac Sign:
Cancer
Education:
Grad / professional school
Occupation:
Writer, Professor of English
Tisa's Schools
Brown University
Providence, RI
Graduated: 2004
Student status: Alumni
Degree: Master's Degree
Major: Creative Writing
About me: I am a writer whose work often traverses the boundaries of genre, culture and history, and is lately focused on the act and art of seeing. My writing has appeared in The Believer, Curve, Girlfriends, and Xantippe, is forthcoming in 1913: A Journal, and has been included in gallery shows for artist Laylah Ali. I've served as a juror for the San Francisco International Film Festival and for Frameline.
My first book, Unexplained Presence, is now available from Leon Works!
Please go get you one!
Unexplained Presence is a collection of hybrid essays that remix stories from novels, paintings and films to zoom in on the black presences within them, and explore the continuum of racialized narratives within Eurocentric art. Moving from interrogations of Francois Ozon's 8 Femmes and Virginia Woolf's Orlando, to the machinations of the Regency House Party reality TV show, Unexplained Presence weaves threads of myth, fact and fiction into previously unexplored narratives lurking in our collective imagination.
I'm thrilled to have cover art byWura-Natasha Ogunji. Her piece is the perfect visual conception of my words, right down to the process: stitching colored threads, using solid and broken lines, through layers of transparent tissue paper.
I also have a chapbook, Tzimmes, a prose poem published in 2000 by A+Bend Press.
Tzimmes (pronounced "sim-mess" or "sim-meez") is a Yiddish word meaning either 'casserole,' or 'to make a big deal about nothing.' The book connects Barbados genealogy research, breast cancer, the films of Yvonne Rainer, and a potluck Passover seder, and riffs off of the definitions for tzimmes.
I co-edit and publish The Encyclopedia Project , a series of five hardcover annual publications, the first of which is Encyclopedia Vol. 1 A-E.
Each book in The Encyclopedia Project is laid out like a reference book (complete with cross-referencing!), reads like a literary journal, and includes a color art portfolio of the caliber found in artists catalogues, all with the aim of exploring narrative possibilities, and expanding literary community. We're working hard on producing Vol. 2 F-K at this very moment.
Who I'd like to meet: The dancers, the singers, the painters and swingers, the homemade philosophers with their handmade theories, filmmakers on paper, writers on film, amateur botanists and female turntablists, collage artists and intuitionists, free and wild stylers, plus the button-downs, the natty, the dreamy, pragmatics....animators of this creative life
We are here to support each other. We look forward to you joining the Organik B.L.U family. In the meantime stay beautiful and continue with the GR8 work!
Hey everybody, I want to personally thank all of you for your friendship and you can expect lot of exciting changes to my myspace page over the coming months. Stop by and leave comments anytime, and have a listen. Also I have a gig coming up at the Shrine in Harlem April 3rd, mark your calendar because the last gig at Grand 275 was crazy and this is gonna be even better. We are working on getting videos up on the youtube channel. Hope to see you in Harlem on April 3rd. Tomas Doncker
Hey everybody, I want to personally Thank all of you for your friendship and you can expect lot of exciting changes to my myspace page over the coming months. Stop by and leave comments anytime, and have a listen. Tomas Doncker
mi amiguita i would rather find you down the street instead of in cyberspace. but its good to see you here and maybe... in new york at a book release party? congratulations! i am going to try to make it down. i miss you. even more when i walk by the gaggle of chirping birds hidden in your old tree. i think they miss you too.
You know... when we talked @ Grand, your description of your book didn't do it justice. It sounded intriguing but after reading the description on your page, it really sounds dope as fuck. I'm headed back to NY for the first week or so of Dec., and we'll have to swap books when I get there. Be well...
</ 
