Re: Passing Strange

When film meets theater, enhanced by rock and roll, it becomes a uniquely magical experience. Such is the collaboration of filmmaker Spike Lee and musicians Stew and Heidi Rodewald in the theatrical film version of the Tony-Award winning, Broadway musical, Passing Strange. Highly recommended! Check it out for yourself.

In Honor Of National Poetry Month...

In honor of National Poetry Month starting up tomorrow and running through the entire month of April, I am recommending(actually, begging and pleading!) that those of you who read my blog, order a copy of my book, Joby, Uninterrupted:Bittersweet Symphonies and Bohemian Rhapsodies. It's 79 poems, written over the last 20 years and running the gamut of topics from love, jazz, family, faith, doubt, death, and how I've seen the world during the course of that time frame. They range from whimsical to intense and intensely personal--I can't do it any other way. The poems are inspired by and influenced by my literary muses including James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Marvin Gaye, Langston Hughes, among others. I can say, with almost absolute certainty, that you will not be disappointed and it will be a welcome addition to however you celebrate National Poetry Month, if you celebrate it at all and I hope you do. If there are any artists in our nation that should be celebrated, it's poets. They are literary filmmakers, whose words are mini-movies for the mind and soul(God knows, it'd be nice to be compensated like most filmmakers!). So, do yourself a favor and those in your sphere of influence who may also love poetry, and direct yourself to the attached link and buy my book. And if not me(WHY NOT?!), then celebrate a poet, any poet, this coming month. Check out a local reading(there's literally one almost every day of the week at any coffeehouse or bookstore in any major city); borrow a book or two from the library; and there's plenty to discover via the Internet(hint, hint). In any event, happy National Poetry Month. Accept some verse into your life--you'll be the better for it. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was life. Peace, shalom, as-salamu alaykum, shanti.

But You Still Call Me...

This is a new poem, just written this morning, and inspired by recent events. It may be revised or retained as is. Let me know your thoughts. They might be taken under advisement....might be.



But You Still Call Me...



I fought for your right to freedom of speech,
But you still call me nigger;
Fought for the right to live in your neighborhood,
But you still call me nigger;
I’ve taught and raised your kids,
Cleaned your houses,
Mowed your lawns,
Made your lives easier to manage,
But you still call me nigger.

I’ve fought in all your wars,
Sacrificed myself on the battlefields,
So that you could live,
But you still call me nigger.

I’ve marched in the streets for freedom—
For yours and mine, and our children’s children;
Been stoned and beaten, spit at and cursed,
Without fighting back,
But yet,
You still call me nigger.

I’ve brought laughter into your homes,
Entertained you on stage and screen,
Given you reason to cheer on the fields of play,
And you still call me nigger.

I’ve discovered advances in medicine
To help prolong your life;
Fought for health care for those of you
Who don’t even have it;
Even attained to the highest offices in the land,…

But you…

Still…

Call…

Me…

Nigger.

© 2010 Joseph Powell

Man Of A Certain Age

I'm trying very hard not to become that guy. You know the one who wakes up one morning and realizes that half his life is gone and he has nothing to show for it. That the dreams he once had and the goals he had planned have fallen by the wayside and become all but distant memories. You know, that guy. Maybe one of you is him. But I know I don't want to be, in spite of the seeming path leading in that direction.

I'm four years shy of 50; almost 23 years have passed since my college graduation, where I was supposed to have the whole world in front of me. Like many before me, I had bought into the whole dream of going away to college(of which I was the first in my family to do so), meeting the woman who was going to be my life-partner, raising at least 2.5 kids in a beautiful suburban home, outside of a major city, working several years at a job I loved, was qualified for, and couldn't imagine not doing. But, as fate would have it(or, as was often said in the churches and the Christian college I attended, "it's all part of God's plan for your life"), the dream gave way to certain realities of life. Like John Lennon so eloquently put it in song: "Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans." Job instability, unemployment, a succession of dissatisfying jobs in three different states, missed opportunites, a series of failed relationships including one that ended in divorce, the fatal loss of a best friend--the list goes on and on, leading me to where I sit now.

Yes, there have been a few bright spots along the way--a second marriage to a woman who wanted to make a life with me; a young daughter who, though she was spawned by another, could've been of my own making, and who, in spite of the evil that's called "teenage", makes me proud and swells my heart everyday; I just recently released a complete volume of 20 years worth of poetry. These are things that I do not take for granted or consider lightly.

But I hunger for more and I'm not talking about wanting to belong to a certain class or attain to a higher status. I've rekindled my dream of wanting to be a writer, full-time and successful, like so many of the ones that I look up to and whose works have inspired me. I would love to see something of mine on the big screen(and it wouldn't even have to be a blockbuster--just knowing that people are watching and enjoying something that I created--there's nothing like it). I've even dreamed, from the time I was a child, of walking the red carpet at the Oscars, nominated for an award that everyone has buzzed I was certain to get.

I still would like to get that house, though maybe not necessarily in the suburbs, but maybe close enough to walk to the ocean. I'm envious of people who get to do that. And I've always wanted to be the son, who having attained success, is able to parlay some of that into the form of a house for his mother. I'm also envious of those who get to do that.

I would love to travel more--there are scores of places that I've never been to, that I would love to visit--Africa, Paris, Rome, Australia, the Holy Land, just to name a few. I'm envious--you get the picture.

To boil it down, I would love to be able to live beyond my expectations and my life experience up until now. To have my life account for more than what it has at this point. There has to be more to my life than working jobs that I hate, paying barely a living wage or one that can hardly sustain a family, and never being able to venture beyond one's parameters or environment. To know that people, other than your family and friends, are benefitting from the fruits of your creative labor. To live a life worth celebrating and remembering. To become that guy, who at a certain age, is able to look back and say, what a life I've lived and what a difference I've made.

Re:Joby, Uninterrupted...

If any of you have bought a copy of my book, Joby, Uninterrupted:Bittersweet Symphonies and Bohemian Rhapsodies(1989-2009), please leave a review at the site of purchase(whether Amazon, Lulu, or Barnes & Noble). I'd certainly appreciate it. And for those of you haven't purchased a copy...what are you waiting for?!

We Are The World 25 For Haiti - Official Video

This is as amazing as it was 25 years ago, with a few additional twists and changes. 'Nuff said!

Joby, Uninterrupted:Bittersweet Symphonies and Bohemian Rhapsodies(1989-2009)

This is my baby. The culmination of 20 years of blood, sweat, and tears. Of words found and lost; of love found and lost and found again; of lives lived and lost. Just shy of 80 poems depicting my ever-evolving worldview; my love of jazz and black history; celebrating the dichotomy and paradox we call life, in all its beauty and ugliness--in all its truth. I would even be so presumptuous as to call it my masterpiece. If I never wrote another book, and I hope that won't be true, I would be satisfied with this one.

I'm hoping as we say goodbye to 2009 and hello to 2010, that this book will be the start of something big, not least of which, my goal of becoming a full-time writer and not a slave to people who want to work me to death, yet pay me so little for busting my ass doing the best possible work that I'm capable of. While I hope to write more poetry, I also want to venture forth into writing screenplays, short stories, and maybe even a novel or two... Not to mention continuing this blog, which I realize, given the date of the last entry here, I've been rather lackadaisical in doing. But anyone who knows me, knows that I've not always been the most disciplined when it comes to this sort of thing. As always, I hope to be become better at this, as with other areas of my life.

In a society where seemingly anyone who draws breath can become a celebrity for doing virtually nothing, I at the very least want to put myself out there as trying to contribute something meaningful into the ether--something profound and creative and inspirational; in short, art, that will hopefully stand the test of time. An unobtainable goal? I don't know--those who we consider to be great artists, thinkers, etc., all started out with a dream and the desire to be something greater than themselves--many of them never getting to reap the benefits of their work before they passed on. I at least want to try; I at least want to become more prolific, like some of my favorite writers, both living and dead. To get to the point where I am able to write something, anything, every day, even if it's crap. To continue spilling my blood and guts on the page; to create characters that come alive in people's minds as they read my words; to hopefully inspire kids and adults alike to create and to dream bigger than themselves.

I'm not one for resolutions--they never seem to be kept anyway. But my goal for the new year is what I've just written and I hope whoever reads these words(and-- shameless plug--buys my book) will encourage and spur me on to continue putting words to paper--to speak truth into the wilderness; to show us ourselves; provide a different way of seeing, which is what great art does. If I may one last time, please consider starting your new year off by getting a copy of my book of poems. I can guarantee that you won't be sorry.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Thought For The Week

"...As I grew older I questioned a great many of the things that I knew very well my grandmother who had brought me up had taken for granted. And I think I might have been a quite difficult person to live with if it hadn't been for the fact that my husband once said it didn't do you any harm to learn those things, so why not let your children learn them? When they grow up they'll think things out for themselves.... And that gave me a feeling that perhaps that's what we all must do--think out for ourselves what we could believe and how we could live by it."

--Eleanor Roosevelt

Thought For The Week

"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."

- Abraham Lincoln

Thought For The Week

"God has made of one blood all nations under heaven. No man can suddenly become my enemy just because he happened to have been born on the other side of a river or a boundary line, and his government has issued an ultimatum against mine. Is it not time that we refused to fight?"

- Muriel Lester,
social reformer and pacifist (1883-1968)

Prodigal--A Poem

I remember the sound of joyful noise
When I cried out your name,
The smell of your perfume;
The tears I shed
As I laid my head
At your feet.

I remember the smile on my face
As you spoke my name,
As if I was just hearing it
For the first time.

I remember,
Lord, do I remember,
Though your name rarely crosses
My lips anymore;
My eyes are dry,
And your fragrance,
A distant memory.

And the noise I hear now,
Are the voices,
The voices,
Coming at me from all directions,
From within
And without,
Deafening,
Deafening.

And yet,
And yet,
They do not drown out
What I remember
Of you;
That which has brought me,
Stumbling,
To your doorstep,
For another whiff of your perfume,
To hear you say my name,
To lay my head at your feet;
Because I’m afraid,
I might not remember
For long.


© 2009 Joseph Powell

Thought For The Week

"If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large."

- William Wilberforce,
British abolitionist and social reformer (1759-1833)

Manifesto--Why I Write (A New Poem)

Because I must;
Because I can;
Because it's akin to breathing
And the alternative is unthinkable.
Because the love of Christ compels me.
Because the love of mankind compels me.
Because, sometimes, I can never say what I feel.
Because the truth needs to be read
And newspapers are slowly going out of business.

Because a 10-year old black boy,
on the South Side of Chicago,
wearing glasses, chubby and
with crooked teeth,
needs to know it's possible.

Because a 40-ish white writer I met
at an art show near downtown L.A. the other night,
needs to know it's possible
and needs to give a shit
and come out from his shell.

Because I'm getting better at it, even though
no one pays me a dime for it.

Because James Baldwin did it.
And Langston Hughes did it.
And Gwendolyn Brooks did it.
And so did Maya Angelou.

Because it's the closest I'll ever come
to singing.
Because it's the closest I'm ever going to come
to playing jazz. And I love jazz!

Because I still have stuff to say, even if
I don't know what that is just yet.

Because being a writer
is the best thing in the world,
second only to being a teacher...
Or maybe a firefighter...
Or maybe even a cop...
Or a doctor, but that's it.

Because, aside from never recognizing
another person's talent, it's a damn shame
to allow one's talent to be squandered;
for one's light to be hidden;
a gift to be kept to one's self;
for words to never be written, even if
they've been written before.

And that is why I write.


© 2009 Joseph Powell

Thought For The Week

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it."

– C.S. Lewis

Lo, How Two Roses Not Yet Blooming(for Martin and Marvin)--A New Poem

On this day in April
I saw two roses,
not quite in full bloom
just yet,
fall to the ground.
And cried
blood-red tears.
Screamed,
'What's going on?'
Wailed,
'How long?'
Why do the good
always die young?
Always at the hand
Of those who don't understand
or who have not ears to hear
or eyes to see
beauty
and truth
in flesh beholden.
Even God must weep,
I hope,
for creation yet incomplete,
interrupted,
is most assuredly
a tragedy,
for which
there are never enough tears,
blood-red or otherwise
and all we are left with
after the crying and the weeping
is the remembering
and wondering
what might have been?

© 2009 Joseph Powell

Thoughts For The Week

"My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black. "

--Robert F. Kennedy

Thoughts For The Week

We are afraid of religion because it interprets rather than just observes. Religion does not confirm that there are hungry people in the world; it interprets the hungry to be our brethren whom we allow to starve.

- Dorothee Sölle,
German theologian and writer, Death by Bread Alone (1975).


When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.

- Dom Helder Camara,
former Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Brazil.

Thought For The Week

"When peoples care for you and cry for you, they can straighten out your soul."

- Langston Hughes

Thought For The Week

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Uncomfortably Numb

I wish I could allow anger to fuel my writing passionately and prolifically, the way that anger fuels Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers to score 40+ points in a basketball game. Because I am angry and not a little frustrated at my current state of affairs. You see, I'm one of the millions of people dramatically affected by what's been going on in our nation's economy. Two months ago, I was laid off from a job that paid me less than $500 a week basically delivering packages and media-related items for one of the world's largest film studios( who I shall leave nameless, though they just recently made over $1 billion on the biggest hit movie of last year, which shall also go nameless). In the interim of those two months, I have had to contend with an unemployment office that has basically left me in the dark as to when I might receive my benefit checks, even after numerous phone and email attempts; having to seek alternative work whereever I might be able to find it(after about a month, I did finally manage to find a part-time job as a non-emergency medical shuttle driver); needless to say, also contend with the fact that my bills were going to have to be delayed or put off and that rent would have to be paid incrementally as I somehow managed to scrounge and scramble to cobble together enough money to put towards it; and also, along with my wife(who I'm supporting while she's in cosmetology school), have to apply for food stamps and accept donated food from a local food bank. And all this, after being laid off a year ago, for nearly five months, from the same job due to the WGA strike(which, as a writer who initially supported them in principle, seemed to me to be especially ironic!).

So, yes, I'm angry. I'm angry, because at 44 years of age and looking back at my life and the promise I believe I had both before I entered college and after I graduated, I certainly did not see myself here(which, I'm sure, is a sentiment I share with a lot of people in probably not dissimilar positions, though that's no consolation). I look back at a lot of poor choices and mediocre jobs; on avenues of opportunities that I should have pursued and now regret that I didn't. I also find myself wavering in belief in a God that I know has seen me through a lot of these things, both good and bad. I know that I have been blessed by moments of grace, especially during my college years, that left me with little doubt that there was someone watching over me who was more than just merely benevolent, but was and seemed ever-present. Even now, I have, on occasion, experienced not dissimilar moments of grace as well. But the little doubt has grown exponentially in spite thereof, which I try to fight against and find myself failing miserably--which scares me, because as I became an adult, I became constantly of the mind that believing in God was akin to believing in breathing and that the alternative was unthinkable. And yet...here I am, wondering if God still watches and listens, even in spite of myself.

I want so much in my life and out of my life that I can't see straight. I still harbor the goal and dream of being a successful writer. Of being able to provide my family a comfortable and suitable home and bills that are paid in full and on time. Being able to travel to see family and friends at will or take a vacation or two. Again, I wish that knowing that there are other people out there with similar dreams and goals and aspirations were a consolation to me, but unfortunately, it is not, though I do hope that they are able to see their dreams realized, as do I. And, lest I forget to mention, that I am also angry at those who profited on the dreams of millions of struggling and working people only to turn around now and ask us to support them being bailed out, mostly with money that was taken out that now we could ill-afford to live without(not to mention the fact that they blame us for this mess we're in!). And yet, when someone comes along to say that I'm going to try to fix this mess, that I want to do something about it so that everyone benefits, and then actually does it, they want to be the first ones to shoot that person down and claim failure even before they've enacted their attempt at rescue. It's like telling a firefighter--'no, thank you, sir, I'd rather you didn't go in and save my burning house; I'm waiting for someone better to come along to do it.' Give me a f$&@%#' break!

I'm not looking for a sunny resolution. And I'm not even sure what getting back to normal is or if I even want that. As a black man, I still celebrate the fact that this nation justly and rightly elected a black man to be president, even though that celebration is tempered with everything that I just wrote above. My mother and older sister continue to tell me to 'stay encouraged', and, as I've said, that continues to become increasingly hard to do. But I will try and I will continue to fight and kick and scream my way through my life, for however much longer I'm given to do so. Becaue the alternative... is unthinkable. 'Nuff said.