VOICES OF SANKOFA: BEARING WITNESS

On behalf of Poets Network & Exchange, the Bronx Book Fair aka The People’s Book Fair and our distiguished ensemble congratulations Brooklyn Book Festival! It was our honor to participate with a host of community literary organizations in Brooklyn Book Festival’s official Bookends event. On September 22, 2024 we presented VOICES OF SANKOFA: BEARING WITNESS. We are appreciative and applaud Brooklyn Book Festival’s contributions to the literary landscape by providing opportunity for collaboration, creativity and community!

There is still opportunity to attend Brooklyn Book Festival 2024 events until September 30th, both in person and virtually. To connect to the Brooklyn Book Festival and scheduled programming visit: https://brooklynbookfestival.org/

Poets Network & Exchange and the Bronx Book Fair aka The Peoples Book Fair partnered to collaborate and feature an ensemble of brilliant and celebrated poets, spoken word artists, performance artists, an actor, visual artists and an assemblage artist for VOICES OF SANKOFA: BEARING WITNESS.“ The word Sankofa comes from the Akan community in West Africa and is translated to mean, “We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; we must understand why and how we came to be who we are today.” Sankofa teaches us that in order to know where we are going, we must acknowledge and learn from the past.

Dressed in white our ensemble of brilliant artists storytellers, writers, poets and authors each accomplished in their own right united with community to honor, acknowledge and remember the ancestors. The ancestors who came before us. The ancestors who sacrificed for us; so that we would live, not merely survive and achieve all that they were denied. Ours was a sacred space and event. Ensemble members were Jacquelyn Grant Brown, Edward Currelley, Lorraine Currelley (yours truly) and Leah Maddrie. Presentations individually and collectively magnificent, powerful and inspiring and empowering. Our heartfelt gratitude to our featured ensemble of writers is beyond measure!

WELCOME ANCESTORS, HONOR, REMEMBRANCE & RESILIENCY
VOICES OF SANKOFA: BEARING WITNESS started with Part One the welcoming and honoring of the ancestors with quotes, statements , stories and poems. Words from the ancestors that have impacted our lives and continue to do so. Jacqueline Grant Brown shared a series of riveting poems by poet Lucille Clifton. Leah Maddrie shared a quote from Mother’s Trunk, a story based on a letter written to her and discovered years later in her mother’s trunk. The International Day of Remembrance of the Slave Trade and It’s Abolition and quotes by James Baldwin.“Take no one’s word, including mine but trust your experience, know whence you came if you know whence you came there is really no limit to where you can go. “The Fire Next Time shared by writer and poet Edward D. Currelley.

I read “Won’t You Celebrate With Me” by poet Lucille Clifton and “If We Must Die “by Harlem Renaissance poet Claude McKay.”

WE REMEMBER & WILL NEVER FORGET!
Jacquelyn Grant Brown’s reading of three poems; “Mother Loses Control”, “Still in Need of a Mother” and “DNA” are richly carved thought provoking stories. They are emotionally, spiritually and physically resonating. They tear at heart speaking to our human core, wounds, behaviors, and needs.
Leah Maddrie’s “Mother’s Trunk”, is a beautifully woven tapestry centered
on the contents of a letter addressed to her saved amongst the treasured contents in her mother’s trunk. Mother’s Trunk and letter metaphors for life, love, resiliency, strength, courage and wisdom. On our death who will inherit our lifetime; our trunk?
Edward D. Currelley read an excerpt from “Fractured Soul” from his book In Two Parts and a quote from James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time.

“Fractured Soul” is a poignant story written about the savage and brutal murders of Suzy Jackson Grant, Ethel Lance, Rev. Dr. DePayne Middleton, Tywanza Sanders, Myra Thompson, Rev. Simmons Sr., Rev. Sharonda Singleton, Cynthia Hurd, and Honorable Rev. Clementa Pinckney on July 17th, 2015 at Emanual African Methodist Episcopal Church. Nine Black parishers were murdered by a White male supremacist; whom they had welcomed and prayed with before being slaughtered.

The Fire Next Time, “(p.112–114) This past, the Negro’s past, of rope, fire torture, castration, infanticide, rape; death and humiliation; fear by day and night, fear as deep as the marrow of the bone; doubt that he was worthy of life, since everyone around him denied it; sorrow for this women, for his kinfolk, for his children, who needed his protection, and whom he could not protect; rage, hatred, and murder, hatred for white men so deep that it often turned against him and his own, and made all love, all trust, all joy impossible — this past, this endless struggle to achieve and reveal and confirm a human identity, human authority, yet contains, for all its horror, something very beautiful. I do not mean to be sentimental about suffering — enough is certainly as good as a feast — but people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are. That man who is forced each day to snatch manhood, his identity, out of the fire of human cruelty that rages to destroy it knows, if he survives his effort, and even if he does not survive it, something about himself and human life that no school on earth — and indeed, no church — can teach. He achieves his own authority, and that is unshakable. This is because, in order to save his life, he is forced to look beneath appearances, to take nothing for granted, to hear the meaning behind the words. If one is continually surviving the worst that life can bring, one eventually ceases to be controlled by a fear of what life can bring; whatever it brings must be borne. And at this level of experience one’s bitterness begins to be palatable, and hatred becomes too heavy a sack to carry. The apprehension of life here so briefly and inadequately sketched has been the experience of generations of Negroes, and it helps to explain how they have endured and how they have been able to produce children of kindergarten age who can walk through mobs to get to school. It demands great force and great cunning continually to assault the mighty and indifferent fortress of white supremacy, as Negroes in this country have done so long. It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate. The Negro boys and girls who are facing mobs today come out of a long line of improbable aristocrats — the only genuine aristocrats this country has produced. I say “this country” because their frame of reference was totally American. They were hewing out of the mountain of white supremacy the stone of their individuality. I have great respect for that unsung army of black men and women who trudged down back lanes and entered back doors, saying “Yes, sir” and “No, Ma’am” in order to acquire a new roof for the schoolhouse, new books, a new chemistry lab, more beds for the dormitories, more dormitories. They did not like saying “Yes, sir” and “No Ma’am”, but the country was in no hurry to educate Negroes, these black men and women knew that the job had to be done, and they put their pride in their pockets in order to do it. It is very hard to believe that they were in anyway inferior to the white men and women who opened those back doors. It is very hard to believe that those men and women, raising their children, eating their greens, crying their curses, weeping their tears, singing their songs, making their love, as the sun rose, as the sun set, were in any way inferior to the white men and women who crept over to share these splendors after the sun went down. … I am proud of these people not because of their color but because of their intelligence and their spiritual force and their beauty. The country should be proud of them, too, but, alas, not many people in this country even know of their existence.” -James Baldwin

“Daughter Of Ancient Blood, Bone And Spirit”, a narrative poem honoring and calling out to the ancestors and the ancestors response to the author’s pleas and prayers. Part of the anthology From the Ancestors, Poems and Prayers for Future Generations, edited by Ron Whitehead. Thirty-five poets, musicians, singers, healers, curanderas, and shamans from twenty countries in seventeen languages.
“A Love Poem for People of the Sun” is the author’s love poem to Black people, the ancients, ancestors, historical and herstorical contributions. It is part of the BRONX MEMOIR PROJECT VOLUME VIII, an anthology of poems and stories by Bronx residents. Published by the Bronx Council on the Arts.

To our community of encouragers, supporters and attendees, we are filled with a depth of appreciation. Your unwavering appreciation, presence, and support of our programming propels us forward.

Poets Network & Exchange and Bronx Book Fair aka The People’s Book Fair are committed to the creation of programming, growing and contributing to the literary landscape of New York City and beyond! Our work centers on providing a healthy environment where all are safe and welcomed. We are an intergeneration organization and encourage the creativity in all! We are about community and will always be about the people’s work! We advocate for literacy, social justice & equity, environmental, food, water, and health justice & equity.

©Lorraine Currelley September 22, 2024. All Rights Reserved.