Callaloo最新文献

{"title":"Belonging in the Kingdom","authors":"Jasmin Pittman","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935719","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935719","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Belonging in the Kingdom <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Jasmin Pittman (bio) </li> </ul> <p>As the story goes, a Black kingdom once thrived in the mountains of southern Appalachia. Concentrated in the lush, biodiverse land of the Green River in Henderson County, North Carolina, the \"Kingdom of the Happy Land\" provided refuge for newly liberated African Americans after the Civil War, quietly emerging as something yet to be seen on American soil—an attempt to create a Black utopia.</p> <p>The story of the Kingdom of the Happy Land exists at the intersections of scant written records, memories, and oral tradition passed down from the \"firstcomers,\" and archeological evidence offered by the land itself, documented in Sadie Smathers Patton's 20-page monograph, <em>The Kingdom of the Happy Land</em>.<sup>1</sup> Patton, a white North Carolina historian, published the Happy Land story in 1957 and details the skeletal remains of the Kingdom: a crumbling chimney, the decaying logs of cabins long unoccupied, and cadaverous pits marking the spots of former root cellars. The document itself is a product of its time, full of language and assumptions that settle uncomfortably in an era of Black Lives Matter and continued cultural revolution. There's tension in the telling, despite Patton's good intentions to document and preserve the story living in the breath of Black elders in Henderson County.</p> <p>I turned to Ronnie Pepper, a Black storyteller in Hendersonville today. His voice settled into a familiar rhythm as we chatted, and something about it reminding me of my childhood attending North Carolina family reunions and porch sits stretched long into summer afternoons. I consider him the keeper of the Kingdom story. The Happy Land \"goes beyond the surface of things in history we've been told…I think it shows proof of what type of a people we are. We have that endurance, spirit, knowledge, and skills,\" Pepper said. \"So many times, in history you hear of the pilgrims coming over, or the explorers from Spain, and England, France…but you never hear stories of Blacks and how they pulled together.\"<sup>2</sup></p> <p>For roughly thirty years after the Civil War ended, the commune existed as a place where freshly emancipated men and women were said to live by the rule, \"One for All, All for One\" (Patton 2). In interviews with Patton, Ezel Couch and his sister Mary reminisced about their early childhood growing up in the Kingdom. Couch's parents believed so strongly in the Happy Land, it's said they named Couch after the Kingdom's unofficial itinerant evangelist, an enigmatic man known as Reverend Ezel. Born in 1872,<sup>3</sup> Couch would know only the spectral shadow of slavery, unlike most of the adults in his life who'd experienced it firsthand. When his parents George and Maggie answered Reverend Ezel's call to journey to the Happy Land ","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142223947","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Affrilachian Sankofa","authors":"Dorian Hairston","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935728","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935728","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Affrilachian Sankofa <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Dorian Hairston (bio) </li> </ul> <p><span>Excuse me, sir, but with all due respect</span><span>my ancestors are buried here underneath</span><span>this willow tree in the cemetery that was</span><span>designated Black and is still because that</span><span>is how integration always goes: Black stay</span><span>in the annals of time and space and play</span><span>like we ain't dig, pick, carry, ship, steal,</span><span>make none of this thing we call country.</span></p> <p><span>I understand—Mr.—that you believe</span><span>my mother birthing me somewhere</span><span>other than the peak or even underneath</span><span>some mountaintop, that has since been removed,</span><span>means that I may not claim these hills too</span><span>I may not participate, prohibited to dance</span><span>in some diasporic ritual that we each make</span><span>because it is only my Uncle who dresses</span><span>in a ghillie suit and cares for the headstones</span><span>of our ancestors and when the sun goes down</span><span>he and the snake that slinks over his boots,</span><span>spray-painted makeshift camouflage</span><span>in the barn where some of the deer</span><span>from last season stains the floor,</span><span>set their sights down by the rusted</span><span>wrought iron fence where this coyote,</span><span>that is, I am sure, a reincarnate</span><span>of the Hairstons that owned us,</span><span>and my Uncle, this snake, and his rifle</span><span>do a little good under the night's cloak. <strong>[End Page 85]</strong></span> <span>I am so sorry, sir, that you—and I mean</span><span>this with none of the respect I faked</span><span>at the beginning of this poem—believe</span><span>that when I carry gloves to pull back</span><span>weeds on the grave of my Greats</span><span>and hold the arm of my aunt who</span><span>unsteadily walks down to my lonely</span><span>grandfather who is buried a whole</span><span>white cemetery away from my</span><span>melanated grandmother, and all the women,</span><span>my aunties, they sing some gospel</span><span>that I don't believe in anymore</span><span>but still cry because up the hill is a weeping</span><span>willow, and we all listen, even the squirrels,</span><span>and the wind, and the man in the red truck</span><span>visiting his ancestors, too, and when they finish,</span><span>my Aunt Ivy says <em>that's his favorite song</em></span><span>and no one corrects her use of present tense,</span><span>because he is here now and so too all them</span><span>other Black Appalachians them Affrilachian Folks</span><span>that be my entire family tree and you, sir,</span><span>have the audacity to say that when I return</span><span>to this place I am anything other than welcomed? <strong>[End Page 86]</strong></span></p> Dorian Hairston <p><strong>DORIAN HAIRSTON<","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182616","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"All Ourselves and One","authors":"Lynette Ford","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935716","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935716","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> All Ourselves and One <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Lynette Ford (bio) </li> </ul> <p><span>Africa's memory speaks from Appalachian hill</span><span>old earth the Grandmother of Mother Africa</span><span>coal here was born there</span><span>where traces of now began as dreams</span><span>the promise of diamonds hidden in land massed as</span><span>the core of continents</span><span>rifts and breaks and slow collisions celebrated</span><span>the World's Grandmother</span><span>When we walk the Appalachian Trail</span><span>we touch earth that was Africa</span><span>memory set in stone</span><span>eons of heritage</span><span>that time</span><span>once</span><span>when the continents were one</span><span>rifts and breaks and slow collisions</span><span>transformations and separations</span><span>Grandmother's heart quivering shuddering</span><span>shaping mountains</span><span>Grandmother's tears flowing forming</span><span>rendering criks runs rivers oceans</span><span>in time before time</span><span>ancestral elevations of sacred homeland</span><span>are soft blue-shadowed mountains</span><span>low green hills</span><span>some misformed and misinformed</span><span>by human minds and hands</span><span>yet still they whisper</span><span>the labor of their birth</span><span>the history bleached nearly white except for the coal</span><span>Once these mountains were</span><span>the edge of Africa</span><span>Stand here now and know these hills</span><span>are still</span><span>Our Blessed Grandmother <strong>[End Page 38]</strong></span> <span>She who waits here to uplift us</span><span>Spirit of that place of birthing beyond generations</span><span>We who are Affrilachia must speak testaments</span><span>stories formed in the Soul of the Grandmother of</span><span>Mother Africa</span><span>We may be ignored by others</span><span>but we are not forgotten by the earth</span><span>We must stand here now</span><span>all ourselves and one</span><span>Africa's memory speaks from Appalachian hill</span></p> <p>The birth of the Appalachian mountain ranges marks the first of several tectonic-plate collisions that culminated in the construction of a supercontinent given the Greek name Pangea (\"all earth\"). Pangea's development was completed when Africa (designated \"Gondwana\" by Austrian scientist Eduard Suess and first used in a geological context by Irish geologist H.B. Medlicott in 1872) drifted into the continental clustering. The \"Appalachian-Oachita\" mountains and neighboring Little Atlas Mountains (now in Morocco) rested near the heart of the supercontinent 480 million years ago. Known as the Central Pangean Mountains, their present-day family of mountain ranges include the Appalachians, the Scottish Highlands, and the Anti-Atlas or Little Atlas Mountains of Morocco. (Clark 4; <em>Conde Nast Traveler</em>).</p> <p>Although plant lif","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"122 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182582","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"In Spades, and: How Nature Calls Me, and: Start Here, and: Even in Nature, and: How Yesterday Holds Today, and: The Gift That Keeps on Giving","authors":"Glenis Redmond","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935714","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935714","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> In Spades, and: How Nature Calls Me, and: Start Here, and: Even in Nature, and: How Yesterday Holds Today, and: The Gift That Keeps on Giving <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Glenis Redmond (bio) </li> </ul> <h2>IN SPADES</h2> <blockquote> <p><span><em>\"Black Wealth is Black Love</em>\"</span></p> –Nikki Giovanni </blockquote> <p><span>Black Love is a bed. Firm or soft.</span><span>Whatever it is, Black Love is pure.</span><span>Struggle and beauty both come in Spades.</span><span>You know what I mean, the card game.</span><span>We played every day 'cept Sunday. Mama's rule!</span></p> <p><span>Black love is a table with us gathered 'round.</span><span>Partners picked. Rules set at the top.</span><span>Deuces wild. Both jokers are in. Don't reneg.</span><span>Yes, we know what it sounds like.</span><span>We Black as we want to be.</span><span>No talking across the board.</span></p> <p><span>Shuffle the deck. Cut right. Deal left.</span><span>Talk is always trash.</span><span>If you can dish out,</span><span>you better be able to eat it.</span><span>With words and with books.</span></p> <p><span>When the getting got good</span><span>Daddy plastered his next card to his forehead</span><span>three moves before.</span><span>Then, hack!</span><span>He made his spades</span><span>cut twice–</span><span>on the table</span><span>and everywhere else. <strong>[End Page 25]</strong></span> <span>Don't get set</span><span>or go in the hole.</span><span>You can dig your way out,</span><span>but you gotta have the hand.</span><span>Spades is life: like air like water like be all in.</span><span>We all play,</span><span>but everybody knows</span><span>ain't nobody playing. <strong>[End Page 26]</strong></span></p> <h2>HOW NATURE CALLS ME</h2> <p><span>Glazed eyes, I go into a poem</span><span>or into the woods</span><span>places no one can find me</span><span>except myself</span><span>amongst the wild. <strong>[End Page 27]</strong></span></p> <h2>START HERE</h2> <p><span>Upon my diagnosis that I was dying,</span><span>I wanted to be amongst the living.</span><span>Doctors didn't order nature as a cure,</span><span>but my lungs craved crisp, clear air.</span><span>My face wanted to feel the sun.</span><span>I traveled to Paris! Mountain, that is.</span><span>Every blade of grass helped me fight. <strong>[End Page 28]</strong></span></p> <h2>EVEN IN NATURE</h2> <p><span>The color lines were drawn back then.</span><span>Schools too. It's held in the name:</span><span>Fountain Inn Colored High School. My parents'</span><span>alma mater. Bull Dog's last class: 1954.</span><span>Mama recalls, \"We went to Paris Mountain</span><span>for our Senior Class trip. I research.</span><span>Correct her. \"You went to Pleasant Ridge.\" <strong>[End Page 29]</strong></span></p> <h2>HOW YESTERDAY HOLDS TODAY</h2> <p><span>at Paris Mountain State Park</span></p> <","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"[Every War in Our House Started with a Song], and: Plantersville, South Carolina Gives an Oral Her-Story, and: Arrival, and: From a Voice","authors":"Marlanda Dekine","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935720","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935720","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> [Every War in Our House Started with a Song], and: Plantersville, South Carolina Gives an Oral Her-Story, and: Arrival, and: From a Voice <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Marlanda Dekine (bio) </li> </ul> <h2>[EVERY WAR IN OUR HOUSE STARTED WITH A SONG]</h2> <p><span>Every war in our house started with a song,</span><span>Earth, Wind and Fire while I slept,</span><span>olive-oiled crosses on my forehead</span><span>placed there by my mama's</span><span>blue-black silhouette,</span></p> <p><span>sliding in after dark. Daddy never came home on time.</span><span>I'm from their quiet loving, muted</span><span>by vinyl scratching out \"After the Love Has Gone.\"</span><span>My daddy doesn't think I remember his lying,</span><span>but I do.</span></p> <p><span>In the dead-keeping ground, Ma buried her savings.</span><span>If we had to leave him in our mile-of-cousins' town,</span><span>pine trees between us, village roads connecting us,</span><span>we'd be ready for her gods. <strong>[End Page 54]</strong></span></p> <h2>PLANTERSVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA GIVES AN ORAL HER-STORY</h2> <p><span>His ma went to people</span><span>who coiled a jar into keeping you</span><span>like a child keeps a snail,</span><span>to get Thelma fixed up with their boy.</span><span>Oh, how she stood there smiling,</span><span>her eyes shined like wet paint on a baby doll.</span></p> <p><span>This is how he took her. The preacher man said,</span><span>\"Will you leave your sisters,</span><span>be faithful</span><span>to him as long as you both shall live?\"</span></p> <p><span>Her blue sky became a lid filled with holes</span><span>after she said \"I do.\"</span><span>She says now she don't know</span><span>what she said. She woke up one day</span><span>married and ironing that man's clothes,</span><span>encircled in crystal.</span></p> <p><span>With things getting out of hand,</span><span>Ms. Lou planted a wall of wisteria vines</span><span>where Old Gunn died</span><span>after he fell from the church he was building.</span><span>She added mud to that structure</span><span>until they each were here.</span></p> <p><span>She used old ways.</span><span>Before they'd heard of marriage,</span><span>their power was in the clay and water-</span><span>filled orb, waiting to be listened to for</span><span>a travailing song, a ring-shouting circle,</span><span>rippling out a way things worked together. <strong>[End Page 55]</strong></span> <span>A moon and a sun, a sun and a moon,</span><span>a bear in the sky, rusty railroad spikes</span><span>buried deep into the earth. They were a building,</span><span>building their new home,</span><span>strong as what folk call an ivory tower,</span><span>darker and old as blooming morning</span><span>glories, so much it could smother a lively oak.</span><span>Blue and purple-like,</span><span>they took themselves back. <strong>[End Page","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"156 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Miss Marguerite's Blueberry Jam","authors":"Shannon T. Smith","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935732","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935732","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Miss Marguerite's Blueberry Jam <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Shannon T. Smith (bio) </li> </ul> <p><span>Miss Marguerite say she grow up hard,</span><span>say she a sharecropper's daughter, niece, granddaughter.</span><span>Say when her momma die, her daddy bring her to his sister,</span><span>cause he wouldn't know nothing about raisin' no girl children.</span><span>Say one time she got oranges and raisins for Christmas.</span><span>Say she know what picking cotton do to hands.</span><span>Say soft and white as it look, it got all that blood in it.</span><span>Say she was getting too big for that shack,</span><span>so, she say she went and found herself a man,</span><span>but say she had to take her babies and run North,</span><span>not for fear of lynching or crow, or nothin like that,</span><span>(although she say they'd string you up</span><span>if you even look 'em in the eye)</span><span>but on account of that man's hands.</span></p> <p><span>Say she found somewhere full of folks with that</span><span>supposed Appalachian indifference,</span><span>and say she found some work, but it wouldn't do.</span><span>So, Miss Marguerite buy her a batch of blueberries,</span><span>boil em down with lemon to cut through all the sugar,</span><span>and a dash of something she say don't tell nobody</span><span>(say she only telling me cause me and her spirit agree).</span><span>Say she sell what she could and give a jar here and there</span><span>to anybody who ain't had no sweetness in a long time.</span><span>Say she make a name for herself, and a life for them children</span><span>just like Black folks always do—making something sweet</span><span>outa something so, so blue. <strong>[End Page 101]</strong></span></p> Shannon T. Smith <p><strong>SHANNON T. SMITH</strong> is a Jamaican poet currently living in Japan, where she teaches English. Her poems have appeared in <em>Susumba's Book Bag, sx salon, Sand Journal, Interviewing the Caribbean, The Caribbean Writer</em>, and the anthology <em>New Voices</em> (selected by Lorna Goodison, Poet Laureate of Jamaica, 2017–2020). Smith was shortlisted for the 2018 Small Axe Literary Competition, as well as the 2020 Edward Baugh Prize for poetry. Her debut poetry pamphlet <em>Sandbound</em>, is forthcoming with New Walk Editions.</p> <p></p> Copyright © 2024 Johns Hopkins University Press ... </p>","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"122 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182620","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Tryon, 1943","authors":"Leah Hampton","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935735","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935735","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Tryon, 1943 <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Leah Hampton (bio) </li> </ul> <p><span>for all we know</span><span>back then there were apples, offerings of bright fruit—</span><span>fine horses bent their necks, hills played her sonatas</span><span>as she walked by the white houses to piano lessons;</span><span>perhaps all the church eaves echoed her strange hum</span><span>until the whole town sighed, swooned; maybe</span><span>our unwritten histories breathed her in;</span><span>it could be we held her, knew precisely what she was—</span><span>a holy growl, a perfect scale, our sharpest knife soaked</span><span>in sourwood honey. But then again listen, recall:</span><span>Nina never spared a good word for the Blue Ridge,</span><span>plus we don't make it easy for a Black girl to rise</span><span>out of Appalachia and sing. Would I have earned</span><span>a note, would my neighbors do right by her these days,</span><span>or do the white houses still only watch good music go—</span><span>for did we not tear down her school and pave</span><span>the lot; did we not hide her true name, put up no plaques,</span><span>pretend afterwards to have no record? I wonder now,</span><span>mourning home from a distant cedar grove: orchard-rich</span><span>highlands incapable of jazz, I ask you, I beg you</span><span>to say what we did to deserve her, lift her high,</span><span>because when did the holler ever</span><span>help a voice so fine to soar? <strong>[End Page 117]</strong></span></p> Leah Hampton <p><strong>LEAH HAMPTON</strong> is the author of <em>F*ckface and Other Stories</em> (Henry Holt). An Appalachian native, she currently lives in the Pacific Northwest and teaches creative writing at the University of Idaho.</p> <p></p> Copyright © 2024 Johns Hopkins University Press ... </p>","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"88 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Artist's Statement","authors":"Jason Flack","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935742","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935742","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Artist's Statement <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Jason Flack (bio) </li> </ul> <p>Jason is an \"Urban Folk\" expressionist artist, community leader, speaker, and a native of Johnson City, Tennessee. His work has been heavily influenced by personal life experiences as well as many cartoons, comic books, and music. He has been drawing for over thirty years and painting for over ten. Jason has entrenched himself in an all-things-art lifestyle, being a part of local art advocacy and bridging the gap between self-taught and academia. He was called to start painting after the sudden death of his twin sister, Jessica, in 2010.</p> <p>Johnson City is where Jason was born and where he has made a name for himself as an artist. He is a keen observer of society and community. He has always represented \"both sides of the tracks,\" being half Black, half white, and having both a rural and an urban upbringing. He creates his paintings from his experiences being biracial, feeling positioned between two races, and growing up in different neighborhoods around various cultures. Every piece tells a story either by the colors and images depicted, or through the exposition and exaggerated characters portrayed.</p> <p>Jason's work elicits energy by using bright colors surrounded by bold black lines. From the start, he has used painting as therapy to direct grief into movement and thoughtfulness and to hold a mirror to society. Jason believes that the best way to indicate your community is healthy is by supporting, promoting, and showcasing its local talent. He is influenced by the work of many artists, including Jean DuBuffet, Margaret Kilgallen, Allen \"Big Al\" Carter, Chris Johanson, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. <strong>[End Page 131]</strong></p> <br/> Click for larger view<br/> View full resolution <p><strong><em>Aunts and Uncles and Stories about Mamaw</em>, Jason Flack</strong></p> <p></p> <p><strong>[End Page 132]</strong></p> Jason Flack <p><strong>JASON FLACK</strong> is an artist from Johnson City, Tennessee. His accolades include Best in Show at the Kingsport Art Guild's Appalachian Art Show in 2021, the Network of Advocates for Promising Practices in Education Award (NAPPE) in the FL3TCH3R Exhibit at the Reece Museum at East Tennessee State University for 2022 and 2023, the Art Alliance Mountain Empire Art Achievement Award for 2023, and selection as a visionary speaker and demonstrating artist for TEDxJohnsonCity 2023 and 2024.</p> <p></p> Copyright © 2024 Johns Hopkins University Press ... </p>","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Introduction to the Special Edition: Black Appalachia, Parts I and II","authors":"Crystal Wilkinson","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935709","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935709","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; Introduction to the Special Edition:&lt;span&gt;Black Appalachia, Parts I and II&lt;/span&gt; &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Crystal Wilkinson (bio) &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;p&gt;My voice, my spoken voice, with its lilt and twang is my birthright, straight from my geographical origin—the hills of Kentucky. When you hear me speak, you hear where I'm from. When I was a young writer, it made me angry. I wanted to be taken seriously, and I was more concerned with the ways that I held Black life up to the light in my stories, poems, and essays more than I was concerned with a discussion about region and what it meant to be from where. After all, the Black experience has never been one-eyed, and we are all rural if you go, at the least, two generations back: we all country, if we admit it.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;My career was well under way before I claimed Appalachia; it's a word that, at least in its early usage, was defined as \"white people indigenous to the Appalachian region.\" But when I met the Affrilachian Poets this notion changed. When Frank X Walker coined the phrase \"Affrilachia\" so many of the writers in our circle felt a new sense of identity. Up until then, we'd felt ill-fit in our existence as writers with one foot in the city and one in the world of our ancestors' American homelands. In the group, we felt a new sense of belonging. In &lt;em&gt;Belonging: A Culture of Place&lt;/em&gt;, my dear friend bell hooks says, \"I dreamed about a culture of belonging. I still dream of that. I contemplate what our lives would be like if we knew how to cultivate awareness, to live mindfully, peacefully; if we learned habits of being that would bring us closer together, that would help us build beloved community.\" In Affrilachia we found beloved community and have been doing so for more than thirty years.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;But that community is bigger than my personal history or the Affrilachian Poets, and it always has been. Black people in rural areas and in Appalachia with our talk and our talk back, with our folkways and foodways, with our downhomes and over yonders, make art, provide critical commentary, and give meaning to our lives and the lives of our ancestors. On these pages, you will see myriad representations of Black rural life. You will see Appalachia held up to the light to shine in all its complexity and all its beauty.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Beloved community is here on these pages. This pair of special issues is a record of the unique value and contribution of Black Appalachian life and art as well as a demonstration that we have existed for generations, long before we were ever named or called Appalachians. These volumes are to be shared and taught. Our first issue is creative, highlighting the contributions of writers writing out of and paying homage to the region. The second issue is a critical study of what it means to be from the region—past and future. I am immensely proud to have edited","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Back Cover Artist's Statement","authors":"Tiffany Lawson","doi":"10.1353/cal.2024.a935748","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2024.a935748","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> Back Cover Artist's Statement <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Tiffany Lawson (bio) </li> </ul> <p>My art is created from items and images that are at hand and previous drawings collected over time. The practice of collecting and rearranging material acts is an archival process that recovers the past, secures the present, and expects the future. Anchored in my spirituality, culture, and womanhood, I use songs, lyrics, and scripture as mechanisms to create my work largely on brown paper bags, which gives life to my pieces, in that they are recycled, alive. From that base, I build multi-dimensional, layered mediums while employing the use of bricolage. The fabric used is mostly comprising my mother's <em>Wauhtuka Doll</em> scraps. By using multiple disciplines, I create assemblages that explore form and color, unified by the spirit of Black life.</p> <p>The use of bricolage symbolizes the Black experience and involves and demands the ability to \"use what you got.\" In seemingly insurmountable ways, the spirit of Black life adapts in the most brutal conditions, making beauty, holding sacred, and celebrating Black resilience.</p> <p>My work also embodies the Japanese aesthetic of <em>wabi-sabi</em>. It is a view employing imperfection and impermanence that requires unbound acceptance to create an appreciation for beauty. I explore <em>wabi-sabi</em> with a focus on relationships and community. Imperfection and impermanence are understood in nature, but humans desire perfection and resist change—a posture that lends itself to hatred, injustice, and inequality. I create value-based work: love, joy, peace, comfort, grace, and mercy, with heavy doses of resistance and empowerment. By accepting imperfections, humanity can evolve, relationships can be reconciled, and communities can be rebuilt by reflecting on the past, acknowledging failures, and expecting new outcomes. <strong>[End Page 163]</strong></p> Tiffany Lawson <p><strong>TIFFANY LAWSON</strong> is a professional multidisciplinary artist, born and raised on the Southside of Columbus, Ohio. Literature, art, and music were anchors in her household, formulating ideas and an undeniable affinity for creativity. Exposed early on to local influences such as Aminah B.L. Robinson, Grandpa Smoky Brown, and Richard Duarte Brown through programs her mother managed at the church across the street from their home, Lawson was also mentored by Gilda Edwards. In 2014, she became a resident artist at Millworks Studios, where she began to show her work professionally. A master urban farmer since 2019, she also holds a certificate as an art therapy life coach. In 2021 she was awarded the inaugural residency at the Columbus Cultural Arts Center. She is currently artist in residence at Streetlight Guild in Columbus, Ohio.</p> <p></p> Copyright © 2024 Johns Hopkins University Press ... </p>","PeriodicalId":501435,"journal":{"name":"Callaloo","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182641","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}