"IT STARTS WITH ART" POEM FOR IMAFRICANAMERICAN.COM

On Tuesday, February 16th, www.imafricanamerican.com is hosting a panel, "It Starts with Art," at the Countee Cullen NYPL @ 6 PM. Bryan Hanley, proprietor of the website, commissioned a poem from me a couple of months ago to use on the website. On Tuesday, Bryan has asked me to read the poem, or the revision, or whatever I have. Bryan has also been nice enough to allow me to sell my Hinchas de Poesia press zines, especially Ruberrooom and Bestias Inberbes. I just wanted to thank Bryan for this opportunity...


WHEN I CAME TO HARLEM


I came to Harlem a piquant divorcee
with half my illegible sexistence

in Goya cardboard boxes begged at bodegas for
and spools of duct tape. (I don’t even member

closing the door on my old space in Yorkville.)

I came broken-hearted dullard, dragging my alone-home,
like some alien snail in a second-hand tome.

I came lugging packing peanuts quilt
& two fireproof boxes of Spinoza certificates.

I came with a retinue of pink slips and madcap contracts.
I came with a body unaccustomed to sore; I came lugging
no audio speakers.

In an expensive box of my tremulous unmaking
I became very conscience that I was now in the World
(utilities included).

I came, how you say, come se dice, capice, an ellipses
of speak fortified with diodes of slang and the crucible
of many modern tongues.

I came to rent a flat from Canadian vixen teacher
& Haitian textile buyer for Macy’s. I came to live in a six by eight.

I came holding two pair, a coffer of crinkly dollar bills, a Styrofoam range
bean pies swaddled in cellophane, and a boulder of Shea butter.

I came asking, where the nearest Yemeni bodega gouger was?
Which Dominican chicken spot spares you a corra?

I came with security grates outside my window, Ashanti crescents—
hinges that groan like vuvusellas; I came concerned with my personal security
detail.

I came with a southern view of Adam Clayton, my very own Strivers' Row
Tarmac; I came with a proscenium the planners had designated
One Hundred Thirty-Seven Street.

I came not being black nor African-American. I came feeling like maybe
I don’t belong in Harlem throng.
I came to Harlem, black like it is, African-American as it is, pro-Black, over-Black, through-Black as it is, and I was embraced.

I came reminding Spanish speaking peoples that love to play amnesia,
there was a period when Berbers crossed ocean and conquered Spain.

I came wanting to be kissing blood cousins with the African continent;
I came wanting to learn Wolof, while at the same time knowing
Eddie Murphy is the real prince of Zamunda.

I came wanting to tease a treatise on what it means to be Black in the U.S.?
I came curious, studious, dubious of intention, asking questions, and calling
everyone sir.

I came to moderate the Harlem Y Indoor Soccer League, borrow books
from the Countee Cullen, traffick my laundry past the 32nd precinct.

I came walking up the same stairs to City College that Langston used,
came seeking notes to be stuck in the crevices of the dilapidated stairs.

REVISION OF "KENT,OHIO" BY ABEL FOLGAR (AND YAGO CURA)

COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES ARTICLE ON SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION

I just wanted to let my readers know about an awesome article I ran across in the February 2010 issue of College & Research Libraries on Scholarly Communication. The article, written by Adrian K. Ho and Daniel R. Lee, is titled, "Recognizing opportunities."

The article presents several scenarios that librarians can use when asked poignant questions by faculty (and students) about open-access, dissertation copyright, and research updates. What I like specifically about this article is that the authors give the readers specific scenarios that arise in the course of a librarian's day, and the way they should react when they do. I have often run across this scenario at the schools where I have worked, and think that librarians should not run away from these types of conversations.

When you engage with your constituents and address their gaps in access, patrons get to see that library as an organization that has its strengths and weaknesses. They understand that no library has every thing, that they have collections which have been purposefully developed. And, especially, that they have been developed with a specific intent, but subject to the contingencies of budget, taste, and human error. This article intends for it's readers to engage with it's users about issues which are impacting academic libraries at the current moment: access, budget, and idea ownership.

Possibly the scenario that I had to deal with the most, be it with faculty or students, is the problem of "limited journal access." This is a huge problem because most people just assume that libraries will automatically have access to everything. If this scenario pops up, the writers suggest that, "The librarian could take the chance to talk about the access barrier created by the spiraling costs of journal subscriptions...She could also bring up the concept of open access peer-reviewed journals" (83).

DEFINITION: BIO

Yago is an Argentine-American poet and librarian, fútbol cretin, and the poetry editor of Hinchas de Poesia, an online literary journal. His poetry has appeared in Lungfull!, Borderlands, COMBO, LIT, U.S. Latino Review, Exquisite Corpse, Field, Slope, and The New Orleans Review. He moderates the Spanglish blog, http://spicaresque.blogspot.com, and the Harlem Y Indoor Soccer League. Pressure Up, mongrels!

REVISION OF "KENT, OHIO FOR ADAM RISTOW"

The CAK is a godsend
because it makes sure
we don't have to Cleveland
The heathens of Ravenna
with their backwards ways
and their yokel hovels
The death of four students
embossed in the parking lot
with mystery cairns and quartz
headstones of ire yore
The Galley Boy at Swenson's
hamburger jerk rattling off
the 17 thick milk shake flavors
The Peanut Butter custard
at Stoddard's and the Triple XL
shirts with rustic lettering
Darlene, lonesome social
worker, in her gruesome milieu
at the heard-it-all-before
Robinson Hospital
And the Friend of friends
shape-shifted and converted
by ions of radiation
little chemo waves
that decimate the body
into reckoning.