Poetry, Black History, Yoga, Vegetarianism, Reading, Hip Hop, Jazz, Blues (in short, this should be all Black music=the bedrock of American music), Movies, doing some occasionally silly stuff (WhirlyBall, video arcades, bowling, sledding). Just bought my first guitar, and I am already fiending to get good enough to buy one like Prince's in "Sign 'O' The Times" with a Whammy Bar on it. Since I'm in NY, I definitely need to go to museums and explore the hidden treasures tucked in the busy, crowded, immense streets that tumble out to boroughs.
Music
Nas*The Coltranes (Alice & John)*Prince*Me'Shell N'degeocello*Cassandra Wilson*Nina Simone*Ella Fitzgerald*Billie Holliday*Zap Mama*Sweet Honey in the Rock*Jean Grae* Ben Harper*The Roots*Outkast*Stevie Wonder*Living Colour*Bessie Smith*Public Enemy*KRS-ONE & Boogie Down Productions*Ani DiFranco*Janis Joplin*Teena Marie*Jimi Hendrix*Marvin Gaye*more to come.
Which Blues Legend Are You?
You are Son House. You were an archetypal blues figure in all aspects of your life. You fought your own demons, finding yourself caught between the world of the sacred and the profane, between fighting the Devil as a preacher and dancing with him as a blues player. Film of your performances in later life show at times a soft spoken, mumbling man who would suddenly reach down into himself and strum your National and, with the notes that came out, transform it all into a field of energy and depth. Take this quiz!
Tom Waits... charismatic story-teller with a
penchant for freaky people and unusual
settings. You thrive on the concept of the
underdog coming out on top.
Car Wash, Jim Jarmusch films-especially Ghost Dog, The Color Purple, Cooley High, Spike Lee joints, Say Anything, High Fidelity (which makes me miss Chicago), Singles, Carmen Jones, Pedro Almodovar films, Quentin Tarantino films, Todd Solondz films, documentaries-especially PBS and Black subjects.
Books
An Exaltation of Forms edited by Annie Finch & Katherine Varnes*The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde*Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan*Sonia Sanchez, Patricia Smith*Yusef Komunyakaa*Toni Morrison*Gwendolyn Brooks* Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston* If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin*Pablo Neruda's 100 Love Sonnets*Julia de Burgos*for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbo is enuf*Lucille Clifton*Collected Poems of Robert Hayden*Alabanza by Martin Espada*Sharon Olds*In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens by Alice Walker*The Black Poets edited by Dudley Randall*H.D.'s Trilogy*The Essential Etheridge Knight*The World Is Round by Nikky Finney*Wanda Coleman*Life From Death Row by Mumia Abu Jamal*Assata*Jonathan Livingston Seagull*The Velveteen Rabbit*bell hooks. Also, I love me some Cave Canem poets! Check out my lists on amazon.com called "Cave Canem Poets" and "Cave Canem Poets II" and "Cave Canem Poets III." Some of the other amazon lists are "Interracial Literature" and "Jazz Poetry" and "Not Just at The Poetry Slam." Did I mention that I do like Sylvia Plath too?
Which Dead Poet Are You?
You are Sylvia Plath - a fiery bombshell with a keen wit, and a gift for lyric poetry. You will forever alter the literary canon with your mind bending imagery, your sardonic wit, and the mythology you build around yourself. You are a voice to be reckoned with. Take this quiz!
My great uncle Dr. Lem D. Callahan.
A host of strong, vital women poets-Patricia Smith, Marilyn Nelson, Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Gwendolyn Brooks, Anne Waldman, Maxine Kumin and many others.
Afaa Michael Weaver.
Malcolm X, Vernon Johns, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Cornel West, Manning Marable.
Angela Davis, Assata Shakur, Ida B. Wells-Barnett.
If I had to pick fictional heroes, me and my homegirls keep saying we're going to make a T-shirt with all the girl superheroes of color with Mexican/Puerto Rican Arana Corazon, Darna from the Phillipines, and Storm-the African Princess of The X-Men. (Don't get me wrong about Wonder Woman, She-Ra, Spider Woman, She-Hulk and Firestorm 'cause I'm feeling them too.)
Your results: You are Supergirl
Supergirl
80%
Superman
70%
Wonder Woman
70%
Spider-Man
60%
Green Lantern
60%
Robin
45%
Iron Man
45%
Batman
40%
Hulk
40%
The Flash
30%
Catwoman
10%
Lean, muscular and feminine. Honest and a defender of the innocent.
You scored as Blade, Blade has gained many of the traditional powers of the vampire without developing their weaknesses. He has superhuman strength, senses and stamina, plus an accelerated healing factor.Blade is a master martial artist proficient in practically every form of weaponry known to man. His particular specialty is the use of edged weapons, be they teakwood daggers or swords.
New England College
Henniker,New Hampshire
Graduated: 2007
Degree: Master's Degree
Major: Poetry
Clubs: taught undergraduate poetry workshops
Current Courses:
Loyola University Chicago
Chicago,Illinois
Graduated: 1997
Student status: Alumni
Degree: Bachelor's Degree
Major: Communication (Journalism)
Minor: Black World Studies, English, Sociology
Clubs: Black Cultural Center, LUASA (Loyola University African American Student Association), an editor for The Loyola Phoenix, Cadence contributor, Mertz Hall Government (Secretary and Cultural Liaison), Lake Shore Student Government, supporter of GLABA, COPAA, Caribbean Club, Women's Center, LASO.
1992 to 1997
Kankakee High School
Kankakee,Illinois
Graduated: 1992
Student status: Alumni
Degree: High School Diploma
Clubs: KHS Student Council, The Keynote student newspaper editor, Youth & Government, KHS-TV, African-American Studies Club, recycling club, SCORE, Speech Team
Published poetry, essays, reviews and short fiction. Freelance writing for The Source, XXL, Black Issues Book Review, HUES, Feminist Review, Small Traffic Press, AWOL, Black Radio Exclusive, Mosaic magazine and others.
About me: Tara Betts is the author of the upcoming book ARC AND HUE, her debut collection on the Willow Books imprint of Aquarius Press in September 2009. Tara is a lecturer in creative writing at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. She is a Cave Canem graduate who has received her MFA in Poetry/Creative Writing from New England College and residencies from Ragdale Foundation, Centrum and Caldera and an Illinois Arts Council Artist fellowship.
Tara's work has appeared in Essence, the Steppenwolf Theater production "Words on Fire," Obsidian III, Callaloo, PMS, Drum Voices Revue, WSQ, Columbia Poetry Review, Ninth Letter, Hanging Loose, Drunken Boat and WombPoetry. Her work has been anthologized in Gathering Ground (University of Michigan Press), Bum Rush the Page (Three Rivers Press), The Spoken Word Revolution (Sourcebooks), Power Lines (Tia Chucha Press), Poetry Slam (Manic D Press), Black Writing from Chicago (Southern Illinois University Press), ROLE CALL (Third World Press), These Hands I Know (Sarabande), Best Black Women's Erotica 2 (Cleis Press), Hurricane Blues (Southeast Missouri University Press), Home Girls Make Some Noise: Hip Hop Feminism (Parker Publishing), Fingernails Across a Chalkboard (Third World Press) and Letters to the World (Red Hen Press).
Her work will appear in Mythium, Reverie, Meridians, TUESDAY: An Art Journal, and Thomas Sayers Ellis' Breakfast and Blackfist: Notes for Black Poets (University of Michigan Press). Tara has also been a freelance writer for publications such as XXL, The Source, BIBR, Mosaic magazine and Black Radio Exclusive.
Tara Betts encourages literacy and works with arts programs such as Urban Word NYC. In Chicago, she was an influential educator through Young Chicago Authors and the internationally-acclaimed Gallery 37. Tara co-founded GirlSpeak, a weekly writing/leadership workshop for young women. She has also conducted short-term workshops in schools, community centers, Ms. Foundation, City Girls (a substance abuse rehabilitation center for teen girls), Cook County Jail and Cook County Juvenile Detention Center, Louder Arts Project, Cooper Union, Dodge Foundation’s Poets-In-The-Schools program and London's Roundhouse.
Tara Betts appeared on HBO's "Def Poetry Jam" She also appeared in the Black Family Channel series "SPOKEN" with Jessica Care Moore-Poole. She has also been one of the writers/performers in girlstory-an intergenerational, multicultural women's performance collective. Tara has also performed in plays, including two SouthWest V-Day productions of Eve Ensler's "Vagina Monologues" at Chicago's DuSable Museum.
After winning Guild Complex's Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award, she represented Chicago twice at the National Poetry Slam. She has performed her work in Cuba, London, New York, the West Coast and throughout the Midwest at venues such as Arie Crown Theater, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Studio Museum of Harlem, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Bar 13, Cornelia Street Café, Bowery Poetry Club, Yerba Buena Cultural Center, The Metro, The Hip Hop Theater Festival, Ladyfest Midwest, the Field Museum of Natural History, Harvard University, poetry slams, conferences, several colleges, universities and numerous public, private and alternative schools. She has shared the stage with Patricia Smith, Rosellen Brown, Afaa Michael Weaver, Kwame Dawes, Luis Rodriguez, MC Lyte and Grammy-winner Jill Scott. She also coached and mentored countless young writers and performers that have participated in the Brave New Voices and Louder Than a Bomb teen poetry slams.
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Who I'd like to meet: People who like to laugh more than smoking, who like books more than loud clubs sometimes, who don't like to hug you like a fiending cat who wants to feel the shape of your curves under your clothes.
I want to connect with other writers, but I also want to meet other artists who want to collaborate with a writer. Also, I want to hang out with some folks who don't want to just hang out at a poetry reading, OK, maybe sometimes, but not all the time. I also like to hang with politically progressive people who aren't too rigid, but aren't raggedy ass hippies who can flip script if they decide they don't need to be down no mo'. People who don't just want to ADD you as a friend, but actually are your friend or at least have met you, talked to you or started to build a rapport with you. People who know what "rapport" means and other words that a well-developed vocabulary can provide. (Dictionaries can help, HINT.)
Now as far as the dream list, here we go: June Jordan, Malcolm X, my first relatives to come to America from my mother & my father's sides, Alice Coltrane, Bessie Smith, Zora Neale Hurston, Angela Bassett, Suzan-Lori Parks, George C. Wolffe, Diane di Prima, The Roots, Ani DiFranco, Pedro Almodovar, and many more... I think I've met a lot of folks that I hold in high regard, so I feel blessed and not compelled to name drop.
Please join me this Sunday May 17th as I welcome the delightful Miss Poetic Dee!!!! 12:00 pst 2:00 cst 3:00 est And as always..the blazin open Mic to follow!!!! www.blogtalkradio.com/epiphanyshouse
Yeah! I got it. Thanks soo much for your support! I'm excited. I have to send off all of my forms by Monday. Hopefully that goes smoothly. But yeah, I've been keeping my phone a bit at a distance so that I can finish up all of my assignments for this semester. I'm excited about graduation. I should be mailing out tickets really soon. Like sometime this week. I hope everything is going well. Can't wait to see you!
hey now! after deleting my 'writer page' i had to find a way to keep up with yall from my art page... im glad myspace offers that ability!
this is the last month for submissions and target release is aug/sept (toby press has offered to print us, so growing into that relationship should favor an earlier release)
Please join me Sunday April 26th as I welcome the brilliant Max Parthus!!!! This is the perfect way to end National Poetry Month! Be sure to be there 12:00 pst 2:00 cst 3:00 est www.blogtalkradio.com/epiphanyshouse Where artists meet….
congratulations the ren-mix. con gra tu laaaaation, i'm glad it is You. con gra tu laaaaa tion i know You'll Be happy. for as long as i can breathe You'll always Be BabyGirl to meeeeeee.
