WHEN THE 33'S SPIN - Music, Race & a Little Girl - Pt. 1

When The 33's Spin - A poem

Eleven and home alone
with the turntable 
and the shiny liquorice  platter
playing a set
for memories to be made treasures and cuckoo stories
of broken hearts, of lost things found,
of courage liberated
the triumphant fist of blues
the spectrum of emotion played  in those grooves
onyx plates of Soul Food 

Bobby Womack's gravel molasses tones
riffs stretching notes  beyond the elasticity of time
Funkadelic dooloops scoop me on my roller skates:
ripped carpets, broken door handles 

Let's Get It On - big peoples music, it felt new
Marvin understood the expanse of a night for lovers hue 
and why did Anne watch and listen to the rain 
if it made her feel so blue?
I would come to understand, as woman, later
but I know something in my new soul moved
as they crooned...

BEYONCE - A CRITICAL DEBATE

 Beyonce? Am i bovvered? Seriously?

As the most strong-minded and beautiful business woman and Artist of 
colour in mainstream media (after Oprah),who makes highly consumable 
music and is rockinga blond weave, why should we care? Breaking down 
the Girls Run the World vid,we'll examine why the love/hate debate rages on.

HOSTED BY THE OCTAVIA FOUNDATION

http://www.octaviafoundation.org.uk/ 

On Tuesday, July 19, Zena Edwards, a renown spoken word artist, singer, playwright and actress invites you to take part in a critical discussion surrounding Beyonce's 'Run the World' video. This session will take a deep look at the themes, issues and controversy that has been surrounding Beyonce's video since its release.

Topics/issues covered in this session will include:
*Beyonce - a voice for strong women? 

*How do women of all ages connect with Sis B?
*Images of the men in the video
*Sexuality and empowerment
*Popular culture and role models
*Mainstream media representations vs the individuals reality
*and much more......

TRAVELLING LIGHT WORKSHOPS BEGIN

 THE UNPACKING SESSIONS 1 & 2

Erykah told me my bags were too heavy
how did she know?
i never told her
but the cap fit too well
so i started to unpack
to unburden my shoulders
so i could stand upright
i wanted to turn the clock back
or to do the next best thing
i wanted to remember
what it was like
wanted to know what it felt like
to be travelling light...

WHAT?

An exploration of Womanhood and empowerment in the 

21st century and how it manifests in your own lives.

HOW?

Over 2 days of exciting discussion and debate, journal writing,
photography, drawing and scrap-boarding, we will unpack the
baggage around our sex that we carry around consciously and
subconsciously since we were girl toddlers.

WHY?

Why not? So we can ask questions "how much does your
gender really hold you back?"

**********************************************************

THE SESSIONS DATES:  SUNDAY 24TH JULY & SATURDAY 30TH JULY

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Session 1 - UNPACKING  

RESPONSE TO NATASHA THOMAS-JACKSON: THE 'UGLY' SIDE OF FEMINISM

Wow... Beyonce's new vid is rousing some interesting debate and I find myself writing about it again.

Natasha Thomas-Jackson's article in the award winning Alternet Online magazine revealed to me another layer to unpacking the complexities around contemporary feminism.

Natasha is an MC, spoken-word artist, wife, mother, and Executive Director of RAISE IT UP! and she uses a vlog by 9teen% - a dynamic 24 year old woman, outspoken professional youtuber - to back up her sentiments and frustrations on what she calls the 'ugly' side of feminism.

There are a couple of things about Natasha's critique of 9teen%'s youtube post that colour it as an emotional response to a bad experience she had at a feminist conference.

1)  Why is it that Natasha automatically assumes that the women who looked at her with ridicule and disdain, because of of her dress choice, were either 'jealous' of her or that they could not help themselves because of an 'unconscious act of internalized sexism?
2) And why is it  that the STYLE with which 9teen% opted to deliver valuable information is 'thought of as 'snarky, confrontational, biting, sarcastic, and ugly'? Harsh words. An alternative perspective would be 9teen% is passionate, wanting to stamp impact with character (snappy editing cuts and quirky gesturing).

What if  the women at the conference had  been just plain angry with how she was dressed, as they may have held the view of 'you're either with us or against us'. What ever way Natasha was dressed  that day may have roused a frustration in those women that manifested itself in a fashion that made Natasha feel uncomfortable (angry?).  Was she was on the receiving end of 'ANGER AND HURT IN PROCESS'? We know women ALSO have a lot to answer for in perpetuating elements of the patriarchal status quo, for example, over sexualized attire,  anorexic looking fashion models, facilitating forced arranged marriages, female genital mutilation etc. Is her article over reactionary?

Natasha's response is on point in many areas, however, its intention appears rooted in a

THE RED TENT - FIRST BLOOD

My good Sister friend Marcina Arnold posted a vid on Forum Feminina about Menstruation.

Names for the release of menstrual blood  and for those who are a bit squeamish or easily offended , you have been warned - period, the rag, the code red, on the blob, Aunt Flo, the crimson wave, bloody mary, the curse, the devil's juice (eugh). Some talk about feminine sanitary items as vagina diapers, a blood hammock, a crotch bat, a dracula's tea bag - oh it gets worse!

Marcina's post me thinking about a book  I've read called The Red Tent. I lent it to someone and never got it back but when I read the post, I ordered it off Amazon again (£1.50 used. Gotta love it). Anyhoo, the book is set in the biblical time of Pharaohs and is narrated by Dinah, a young woman of a nomadic tribe,  daughter of Jacob (a daughter is Israel). She is supposedly raped by Shechem, son of Hamor (son of Egypt). The controversy that raged through the pages of this book after this occurance is whether she should be blamed for now being a fallen woman and or whether Dinah and  Shechem were actually in love. There would be too much scandal if they were in love because that kind of inter-racial, inter class (him a prince, she a slave)  activity back then was more than NOT COOL.  Has much changed? The story ensues.... have a read if your interested.

However, THIS post is about monthly bleeding.

In the book, the 'Red Tent' is a physical place where the women of Dinah's family who would 'flow' in time with a new moon, sitting on a rag on some straw till their periods had finished. All their cycles peaked simultaneously and they would bleed together.  They were that finely tuned with each other. and time in the Red Tent was quality time spent bonding with each other and communing with the cycle of the moon. They massaged each other, share "the escapades of their youth", "sagas of child birth", shared  their knowledge and craft skills, their sexual antics and tips on surviving as women in that time. I was moved and intrigued how important a first period was back then.  The focus on what it meant to become a fertile young woman was evolution.

"Rachel bled her first blood, and cried with relief. Adah, Leah Zilpah sang the piercing, throaty song that announces birth, deaths and women's ripening. As the sun set on the new moon when all the women commenced bleeding, they rubbed hennah in Rachel's  fingernails and on the soles of her feet. Her eyelids were painted yellow and they slid every bangle, gem, jewel onto her finger, toes, ankles, wrists.They covered her head with the finest embroidery and led her to the red tent. The sang songs to the Goddesses...
....The women sang all the welcoming songs to her  while Rachel ate dates honey and fine wheat-flour cake, made into the three-cornered shape of her sex. She drank as much sweet wine as she could hold. Adah rubbed her legs her back her abdomen with aromatic oils until she was nearly asleep... Rachel was stupid with the pleasure  and wine."

Most of us might remember  a clumsy sex education lesson, a vague or overly explicit description of what to expect (from those parents or guardians who tried too hard) - the embarrassment at the insertion of a tampon or the thought of  wearing that nappy you had to waddle down the street in. Body Form and Always and the wings thing was a blessing (except when you get the sticky bit burn).  Now we have Moon Cups, Soft Cups and reusable sanitary napkins. The business of having a period has moved forward, but not the evolution into womanhood. That line has been well and truly blurred with the hyper-sexualization of young girls as young as 5 years old.

So what happened to  that song and dance over coming into Womanhood? What happened to the pride over a girl child, your child becoming a vessel full of beauty and the potential of bringing ultimate Femininity to the world? And what happened to having a party that wasn't about getting drunk on your sixteenth? What happened to the blessed Rite Of Passage?  Have  our periods become so much of a bother to us that we've neglect to remember it's relevance to those yet to experience it? Have we forgotten the young girl in us who experienced it and the comfort we needed when  that reddy smudge appeared for the first time in our panties? Could paying unprecedented attention to  a girls first blood re-ignite a forgotten innocence? Could it place a revered importance on preserving that innocence in  a world that sexualizes our girls at ludicrously young ages through music, fashion and advertising? The questions need to keep coming before we get too complacent and this hyper-sexualized state of being crystalises itself as 'normal'.

When Rachel, aged 12-ish, got her first blood she was relieved. She was a woman and most of the joy around her coming of age would have been because now she was fertile and marriage would have followed closely behind her ripening. Now-a-days the pressure of pre-teen marriage  may not be such a pressure but that moment will only happen once and should be celebrated, the transition made less frightening and the welcoming of womanhood noted in the annuls of memory as a joyous occasion. An important sensual rite of passage.

What are your experiences of coming of age, your early experiences with your cycle? Post on the Forum Feminia .

WOMANS WORLD

NAILS TO DIE FOR

Late one Tuesday night last September, I was waiting at a bus stop along with a few others, but two young black girls stood out. Not just to me but to a couple of tusty youths going about their business. On auto pilot they began their usually labberish talk to get the girls attention, get their number, get a feel up...  or just get to them if they couldn't get any of the above.
 The girls seemed a little  unsure of themselves, awkward in their tight lycra tops revealing cleavage, and tight jeans exaggerating puppy fat curves... but they held their ground as the boys asked questions in a cool but assertive manner. Not getting the response they wanted, the boys ramped up the volume on the sexual innuendo with a lustful aggression to back it up. The two young women,  stood firm finding support in each others presence. The boy's foolish talk up in the girls faces was getting them no where - the boys stepped.

One girl said to her friend. "Dem boys are so shtupid man. What makes them fink we're gonna gi dem anyfing when dey go on like dat?"

I liked their style. Cool, if a little shakey but holding on to something they knew that those boys didn't. They had a choice.

 Many young girls don't feel they have the choice of refusing to accept  these torrents of testosterone driven assaults because they feel dis-empowered. Some allow and even encourage inappropriate, explicit and aggressive ways of being talked to or touched.  To match that energy, they'll behave in a manner as if they are giving permission for the dignity of their young Womanhood to be disregarded, not just disrespected but totally ignored. This is the symptom  of a dis-ease. They themselves are not aware of their own value. Who has neglected to tell them that these encounters equates to  them being de-humanised as a Female Human Being, as they accept  being spoken to as if they are only  a vagina, no, a 'hole' on legs? They have been trained to believe that their sexual power is all they have in the world to get them through life, and  get them what they want. Some of them get themselves in trouble, get diseases, get pregnant. Some put themselves in  serious danger.

 But these two girls held their corner. What else, besides their ripening puberty and their new found beauty, made them stand out? Their nails. Bright, officious, cutting  slashes of rainbow through the air when they talked with their hands as well as their bright lips and fast tongues.

On the upstairs deck of the bus, with my bags of shopping, I went over and told them that I liked the way they handled 'dem youts' and I had to get pictures of their nails for a 'project'. They remain anonymous.  Love my mobile phone for these moments.

I was then reminded of a poem I wrote many moons ago... Listen, read, explore...

Written By Zena Edwards 2001© 

 

Melanie's nails tip the scales beyond the balanced rational of modern architecture.

Rhinestone encrusted, they arch entrusted to an adhesive, bonding live nail to acrylic

Unifying her in a mirage marriage of sophisticate Ameri-carib elite to brown girl in 
Beauty College from Tottenham high street. 

Mel got her nails from “US GAL, from a real Korean chick with her high heeled,
tiled floor cracking, sling backing tight jeaned or shorted skirt wearing, little tittied,
hair flicking, eye flitting but perfectionist focus for nails building self.

Three Saturdays of her minimum wage slave was the price Mel paid. Her manager points out the impracticality of her newly acquired appendages. Mel points a beclawed index digit retreating, hissing her warning like a lioness, cub protecting, "Don’t you come between her and her ten reasons for living!"

Mel's nails entrap the gaze of the mind ticking the gansta rap on MTV box - big black six packs and guns, undulating brown flesh in thongs... Mel imagines it’s her choice of rhinestones on her thumb that catch the sun and leaves them struck dumb.

Mels nails tell a tale of her clawing her way through a thicket
of charmless males, who liked her thigh, her buttocks tight and high
Her breast pointing to the sky, her clean wet eyes.
Mels nails meant she never washed a dish from that monumental day.
Like a buzz from a passing fly were her mothers the complaints -
Ignored or irritatingly swatted away with a curled lip
Her ears had closed to that voice long ago anyway.
The space between which was not full of air
as  maternal blusters and playground blasts had blown her to believe
from pubescent rebukes alluding to her bodily parts
that chose to round and swell before she had lost
her clumsy schoolgirl gait; those bulges that attracted 

an attention she only knew made her uncomfortable
made want to origami herself in to shape of a boat
or something even less interesting.
Poked at for contemplative visage mistaken for shy
inaccurately diagnosed as "Well She's just stupid, innit."
And her inclination for re-potting plants was not a reflection
on her personality as being an unanimated as a wallflower.
She just liked to help things grow.

 
somewhere down the line she had put down the gardening gloves
and picked up shears pruning that soft touch don't say much

into a loose lip l such and such
it wasn’t enough to just dispassionately exist
scratch the varnished surface and see after the eclipse

You find a small tongue cannot articulate big pain lying under cover, could not choose
which night was dream filled, could not wish away
the rain that fell on Mels small world. Her blamelessness
bent over backwards a rainbow under those dark clouds smelling
of thick mans smell and Tennents Extra unmasked
by the favourite aftershaveof her stepfather seeping
under her door and into her bed.

And between the mothers back teeth laughing, his big hand
her  mothers broad hip stoking and heavy whispering
in ears only open for compliments and good girl pay offs,
mother rationalises blindness for the impossibility
of his preference of her daughter over herself….

Thus after nose, brow, dimple navel and eighteenth ear piercing
through which her frustration escaped, Melanie painted
her nails a shock of colour  She chose herself. Definitively.
Uncompromisingly -  Nefertiti on her left pinkie with a tiny gold ring
punched through representing her vague knowledge of self, a sun setting
on an Island beach and solitary palm tree, firework, stars, explosions of a kaleidoscope 

Mel got her nails and face painted to accentuate the light and shade
of her dreams not to cover up the shabby seams of tear darned recoveries. No…. 

Misadventure was a survivor’s test. She knew this and her promenades into womanhood
Were strewn with the waste of her hurts.

But she prettied them up with polish and flares of yellow brick roads, 
glitterati carnivals, and the lazy sound of droning bees pollinating 
in a park in Tottenham filling 
her body to bursting, shooting out of her fingers tips like car headlights.
She had fine art Picassoed over her nails in the colours she chose 
for herself definitively and uncompromisingly. 
Cos Mel's nails were her dreams manifest. 

Her conquest. What she claimed.

Uncompromisingly.

Blankets and Roses - A Poem for my Mother

for my Mother

Watching Mama crochet
her concentration so profound     clear
seeing beyond the web     stitch
good times    bad times    play time    hard times
moments 

                 of no time
walks to the waters edge of still lakes
the warm smell brown earth sun drying
after a rain fall when she tends her roses
patient silent cooking
deep fragrant bath soaks

Mamas faces drops years when she crochets
the worry lines in her forehead lift          evaporate
like malt whiskey on the tongue
her silvering hair catches the forty-watt        glitter
and a mirror ball
I see her back is straight now
Her shoulders loose
Her feet out of their shoes and her red nail polish sings out
fingers deftly magic up a multicoloured world favoured by high purple

Mama crochets and I watch
My Mama unfold into a creation
spreading over her knees
onto the carpet across the floor
out into the street 
blanketing the earth with her affection
her patience and her passion

Watching Mama crochet
I learn peace

Fighting For Airtime - Travelling Light Extract

Fighting For Airtime

written by Zena Edwards May 2010©

I have been a woman that has
looked out of windows, stood on street corners,

cleaned floors on my knees,  borne children

on my knees and  chased rainbows
wrote my name out loud in a cloud
from a deep sigh on the glass

a silent gale force
that could huff and puff and blow

the houses of patriarch down

The space that my voice was to occupy

my part in the harmony, my heart on the melody

my life woven in the song of life’s symphony

was constricted, my voice,

hollow chest,  shallow depth, suffocating

See when it was my turn to talk
which wasn't very often (because I am a woman)

a child’s voice squeezed out, 

my voice on this tongue, hadn’t a chance to grow

this was lesson one

speaking my mind is a minefield

 trip wires every where,

in the court, where I must have wanted it dressed like that

at work after the sexual harassment case,

at war, after the 17^th rape

disgraced there was no returning

at home, he walked in the door, high, pissed and late,

full of misplaced hate, number 2million and 8 on the jobless list

and still punctuated his demands for dinner with a fist

but I found when it was my turn to talk

(which was not very often)
being black,  my tongue had the weight

of a continent wrapped in chains

fixed to a concrete slab (tied to it)
and a whip crack was all that came out

when I opened my mouth

when it was my turn to talk

 they told me I was to old, that I was too fat ,

that I was too skinny, that I was too fat

 they told me my skin was too dark, that I had to fix the attitude

 that came with it

 the one that asked “why not?”

 the one that said no and meant it

They asked me to tell that voice to behave,

to bury it, in this here conscripted government grave

Where it will be logged and forgotten about  for the next millennium

my input would only upset the equilibrium

you trade my voice, trick it, trap it,

 force it then beat it if it refuses

to sleep with man number 13 at this hour of the morning

stack it up as dirty money, stained. moss green –

bottle fly blue, purple aubergine, mucky yellow mottle

the colour of bruises, the colour of lust,

 the colour of  my  dreams

that stand in the corner stunned

turned, facing the wall

they cannot look at this me,

this scene of my dignity’s carnage

When it was my turn to talk

 It was made perfectly clear that there

was no space for me to talk here

 amongst the men, amongst the testosterone

 because the hysteria that sits below my navel,
it raises the risk of instability

in a system that is evidently working so fucking well

war running smoothly, lining the pockets

of  arms and oil traders

might scupper the race to evacuate this planet made dump,

by fantasy space invaders

the plot the rule the world

 is working thank you very much

to protect herself,  a woman has to know

when to make her presence felt and when to shut up

and stay skinny, stay fat, stay uneducated,

stay at home, stay on your back, stay in the kitchen,

stay under cover of broken wings,

while they sing with tenor, alto and bass

 sonic booms that crack the face of this earth

till she bleeds lava, tsunami whips her hair,

floods the land with her tears

and I am here,

looking out of the window of this body

displaced in my own skin

trapped between brick walls and the corrugated

 sheets of a run down shanty town

called life where I’m barely existing

Bebé del Carnaval

 

 




I was at Burgess Park last weekend a the Latin festival - Carnaval del Pueblo.
I had my camera. My new camera bought because I had lost my voice for 5 solid weeks. I discovered how hungry the eyes are for food and how fickle they are - always searching for the next new scoop, the story that will curb the cravings.
When I got home, they unfurled themselves to me like cheeky strippers, like lucky dips and silent constellations.
My first photo blog. Click pic for full effect.

Her hair is the earth, brown, deep
rich with mineral, a forest
of brand new thought
wind whipped into an ice cream quiff
she nips the familiar arm that cradles her
with gummy jaws, so sensitive, tasting
salt and tracings of some body spray
pursing lips that would speak purity
into jaded eyes that would break
tears imprisoning
any heart: shatter, tinkle - music

her own eyes focus on the resonance of voices
hears the emotion behind the guise of words -
she is that attuned

And one day her hair will fall the height of a great mountain
along her back, ripped from flexing, from wrestling
with the devil
cushioned by the fatty comfort of prayer
a woman's contours emanate
a softness, a gentleness
that cannot be hidden no matter how arduous
the game

because the woman that holds her
will not let her fall, holds herself
in a grip of a mirror gaze   

remembering her own innocence
laced with vanilla and her mothers magnolia plants
this newness that tugs on her hair
to know its texture, wizened
with disappointments and loss , washed 

with accepting, forgiving,

another new beginning

hair meets hair
and the hum of the festival bumps on

Image - copyright Zena Edwards

Poem written by Zena Edwards copyright Aug 2010