JUNETEENTH: Dick Gregory speaks on “The Game” at the Starlight Room on Broadway in North St. Louis

Juneteenth is “the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States”. I celebrated my first Juneteenth in the early 1990s as a member of Luisah Teish’s “Full Accord Ensemble: Arts at the Crossroads.”
This year, though, I celebrated Juneteenth with Dick Gregory at the Starlight Room on Broadway in North [...]

St. Louis Social Life: 5 things I’ve learned about our city’s culture in the past 12 months

1) In the year I’ve been here I’ve learned that St. Louis is such a Big Small Town. I love going to functions and watching everyone greeting one another with such warmth—folks they’ve often known all through school, grown up in the same neighborhoods, and can compare the ages and names of brothers and sisters [...]

A. R. Crymes BEA Podcast

Click here to go to A. R. Crymes podcast from BEA (Book Expo America). Really good!

Walter Bargen, Missouri’s First Poet Laureate, guests for St. Louis Writers Guild

I was eager to hear Walter Bargen, Missouri’s First Poet Laureate, read his poetry and give good advice on writing a first line that arrests the attention and makes the reader want to keep going. He did not disappoint.
With charming diffidence and low key humor he kept us enthralled and left us wiser for [...]

David Sedaris in St. Louis at Left Bank: Like a Rock Concert

It was like a rock concert this week when David Sedaris (pronounced as in “dare”) came to town to speak at Left Bank Books. Folk who couldn’t find seats stood up inside. Folks who couldn’t get in the room stood up outside or lounged in those great portable camp chairs.
I sat next to a 16-year-old [...]

Eugene Redmond, Drumvoices Revue, invention of Kwansaba

The three posts below are clustered.
Eugene B. Redmond is poet laureate of East St. Louis.
Drumvoices Revue is powered by Eugene B. Redmond.
The Kwansaba is a new poetic form invented by Redmond.
Then, there’s the Eugene B. Redmond creative writing club….!

Eugene B. Redmond, poet laureate of East St. Louis, master teacher

To watch Eugene Redmond teach is to fall in love with writing, with words, and with the world. Here are some gems from a workshop I attended.
Eugene talked about connection and continuum…how our identity is rippling out in circles: woman/womanhood; story; village/community; power; race and class; visionary source and lineage.
Eugene has a big view [...]

Kwansaba: birth of a poetry form

The Kwansaba came into being as a praise song. Drumvoices Revue has used the Kwansaba form to praise Richar Wright (2008), Maya Angelou and Quincy Troupe (2007), Jayne Cortex (2006), Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez (2005), Katherine Dunham (2004), Miles Davis (2003). Outside of haiku and the blues, the Kwansaba is one of the most [...]

Drumvoices Revue: A Confluence of Literary, Cultural & Vision Arts

The current issue of DRUMVOICES REVUE commemorates the 50th anniversary of the publication of Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart.” I taught his novel as a Peace Corps teacher in Ghana and Botswana. I meant a lot to me then and I still consider it one of the world’s masterpieces.
Eugene Redmond, Poet Laureate of East [...]

Adult’s Reading Kid’s Stuff

My niece Janean Baird is a tigress reader in Illinois. She writes today about the summer reading program at their library. –JGR
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I’m participating in the Adult’s Reading Kid’s Stuff at the library again. I love that I can get prizes for reading this summer too! Also, with children’s literature I can read it in a [...]