Books

You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt. ~Author Unknown


Greystone Books have sent me some gardening books...want one?
Check out the show for the question, know the answer? just call the station, 416-736-5293

1. A Passion for this Earth
Inspired by David Suzuki, Writer, Scientists, and Activists explore our relationship with nature and the environment.

2. An Ecology of Enchantment: A year in the life of a Garden by Des Kennedy

3. Gardens: A Literary Companion edited by Merilyn Simonds

4. Deserts: A Literary Companion edited by Wayne Grady

and
5. Shining Big Sea Water
The Story of Lake Superior by Norman K Risjord

And Bethany House Publishers, thanks for the Edge of Recall which went to listener Katherine Fournier.

Last Monday on Covered and Bound this is what I talked about...

On June 16, 1976, 20,000 students marched in Soweto to protest being taught in Afrikaans the language of their oppressors. They were fired on by the South African authorities and some of them were killed. June 16 is now acknowledged as the International Day of the African child by the international community and is also a public holiday in South Africa.

Music - South Africa's Lady Smith Black Mambazo with Paul Simon
"Homeless" and "Under African Skies" with Miriam Makeba.

Born in Johannesburg in 1932, the South African Diva is called Mama Africa.
After she testified agains the South African government in 1963, her citizenship was revoke and her right to return to her homeland. After 31 years in exile she was persuaded by Nelson Mandela to return to her home.

Music - Pata Pata -by Miriam Makeba

I played another story from Radio Netherlands Radio Books, Janice Levy's story, "The Scorpian Wore Pink Shoes."

Music - Yo Vivire by Celia Cruz

Love, Love, Love.

Touched by an Angel
by Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

Today on Covered and Bound

I talked about Motion in Poetry...by Spoken Words Artist Motion, I played a track from her called "Life Sentence" I read this poem by Nikki Giovanni, "choices" and I spoke of the Truth and Reconciliation that Canada has started with it's First Nation People, then I stopped for a moment and acknowledged that we are on Native Land. I played a song for Asheda, "Love The Life You Live," by Midnite and played two Linton Kwesi Johnson tracks, From his album, "More Time" Poems of Shape and Motion and Mi Revalueshanary Fren, from "tings and times" I found out that Linton Kwesi Johnson became one of only two living poets to be published in a Penguin Modern Classic in 2002.
Today I was UNSTOPPABLE

Choices

if i can't do
what i want to do
then my job is to not
do what i don't want
to do

it's not the same thing
but it's the best i can
do

if i can't have
what i want...then
my job is to want
what i've got
and be satisfied
that at least there
is something more to want

since i can't go
where i need
to go...then i must...go
where the signs point
through always understanding
parallel movement
isn't lateral

when i can't express
what i really feel
i practice feeling
what i can express
and none of it is equal
i know
but that's why mankind alone among the animals
learns to cry

by Nikki Giovanni

Inside Google Book Search: Celebrating World Book Day

Inside Google Book Search: Celebrating World Book Day

I love Poetry

I told Dionne Brand that she wrote this poem for me, and for my mother and now it is also for Tanya S.

I am not that strong woman

I am not that strong woman on the mountain
at Castle Bruce
the mountain squarely below her feet
the flesh bursting under her skin
I cannot hold a mountain under my feet,
she dug yams and birthed a cow
I am not the old one
Boxes on her head in Roseau
the metred street, she made one hundred turns in it
the pee streaming from her straddled legs
she stood over the gutter,
the hot yellow stream wet her ankles
and the street
nor the other one on church street
skirt tied around her waist
mad
some aged song shared her lips
for many years with a clay pipe.

I am the one with no place to live
I want no husband
I want nothing inside of me
that hates me
these are walls and niches
park benches and iron spikes
I want nothing that enters me
screaming
claiming to be history,
my skin hangs out on a clothes line
drying and eaten by the harsh sun
and the wind threatens to blow my belly
into a balloon
to hold more confusions,
alone is my only rescue
alone is the only thing I chose,

I'll gather my skin like a washerwoman
her hand insisting the wind out,
I will bare my teeth to the sun
let it feel
how it is to be dazzled.

Dionne Brand from "Chronicles of the Hostile Sun"

The wait is over

The wait for another entry, it's the lack of accountability, so I am going to mention my blog again on Covered and Bound. I feel a great way to restart this blog is with a poem but this is really about the way I feel about Pablo Neruda and I wanted an excuse to add another one of his poems.

XVII From: 'Cien sonetos de amor' by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were brine-rose, topaz,
or barbed carnations thrown by the fire.
I love you as certain hidden things are loved, secretly, between night and soul.

I love you like the flower-less plant carrying inside itself the light of those flowers,
and, graced by your love, a fierce perfume risen from earth,
is alive, concealed in my flesh.

I love you without knowing how, whence, when.
I love you truly, without doubts, without pride,
I love you so, and know, no other way to love,
none but this mode of neither Your no I,
so close that your hand over my chest is my hand,
so close they are your eyes I shut when I sleep.