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Product Details

Pub. Date: February 2009
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Format: eBook, 320pp

File Size: 2230 KB
ISBN-13: 9780307565648
ISBN: 0307565645

Synopsis

Bum Rush the Page is a groundbreaking collection, capturing the best new work from the poets who have brought fresh energy, life, and relevance to American poetry.

“Here is a democratic orchestration of voices and visions, poets of all ages, ethnicities, and geographic locations coming together to create a dialogue and to jam–not slam. This is our mouth on paper, our hearts on our sleeves, our refusal to shut up and swallow our silence. These poems are tough, honest, astute, perceptive, lyrical, blunt, sad, funny, heartbreaking, and true. They shout, they curse, they whisper, and sing. But most of all, they tell it like it is.”
–Tony Medina, from the Introduction

Publishers Weekly

To most readers, the hundreds of tightly rhymed, orally friendly poems here will read as "slam." But in his introduction, Medina, a poet and activist, takes great pains to separate the poems from slam's crowd-pleasing limitations, and uses the term "def jam" to describe the political spoken-word poetry he and Rivera, also a poet-activist, have collected. Medina's and Rivera's emphasis is on the poem and its subject matter, not the poet, which makes for a remarkably democratic anthology. Every poet has about the same page and a half of space. The book's design puts the poets' names in a very small type. None of the big names June Jordan, Reg E. Gaines, Edwin Torres, Wanda Coleman, Patricia Smith and Amiri Baraka are given more attention than the less published. Organized by subjects such as "Blood, I Say, Study our Story, Sing this Song," "Drums Drown Out Our Sorrow" and "Seeds of Resistance," most of the poems use urban imagery, tough talk and declaration. Most are identity-centered, anti-racist and pro-activist. Many focus on current events. There are, for instance, at least four poems about Amadou Diallo, the unarmed Ghanaian immigrant killed by New York policemen as he stood in his doorway. All mention the 41 shots; all include the word "mother." There are poems about Shaka Sankofa (convicted of murder at 17, and executed nearly 20 years later under Texas's then-Governor George W. Bush), and homages to Cuban bandleader Tito Puente. Some readers will wish for more variation of theme and for more layered meanings, but the topicality and directness of the poems make this an ideal textbook for introductory poetry classes, especially for urban high school students, and for anyone interestedin poetry as a social art. (Oct.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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Biography

Tony Medina is a poet, professor, activist, and author of ten books, including DeShawn Days, Love to Langston, and Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature & Art.

Louis Reyes Rivera is a professor of Pan African, Caribbean, Puerto Rican, and African American history and literature. A noted poet and essayist, he is the recipient of more than twenty citations, including a Special Congressional Recognition Award for his work as an activist poet. Def Poetry Jam is a multimedia poetry project featuring live showcases and jams across the country, a website, and other projects aimed at bringing poetry to new audiences.

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Great collection!by stocknstuff

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January 30, 2010: New poetry, unlike anything you've read unless you're familiar with the movement. Contemporary genius.

When Spoken Word Comes Aliveby Anonymous

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October 22, 2007: In reading Bum Rush the Page, the reader feels as if being thrown into the audience of an open mic or poetry cipher that Medina and Reyes have masterfully organized. With a powerful foreword by Sonia Sanchez and poetry adorning even the invocation, the subtitle brings no false heat in declaring this work a `def poetry jam?. The first portion of this anthology, entitled, Blood I Say, Sing Our Story, Sing this Song contains pieces that, much like the title, tell a story and have a narrative-like feel for them. Pieces that stand out specifically in this section are An Asian Am Anthem and And the Saga Continues, which capture the title and tell of history and pain. Emotionally charged pieces, such as On the Other Side and Lonely Women tell painful stories of domestic violence and love gone wrong. The accompanying section, Open Your Mouth and Smile, kicks of with poems such as 450 Years of Selective Memory (Smile) that begs the reader to smile amidst all of the reasons in the world to do just the opposite. Following this the sections, Every Word Must Conjure Up and Drums Drown Out the Sorrow both contain masterful works from poets young, old, near, and far. The climax of this anthology is reached in the section entitled, When the Definition of Madness is Love. When the poets of Bum Rush the Page speak of love, it is unlike anything I have ever heard before. The metaphoric content for happiness, love, tears, pain, and heartache is brought to a higher exponential level than ever thought possible. The reader can feel the sorrow and heartbreak in pieces such as The Hardest Part About Love or Bullet Hole Man. Emotion is felt at its highest point in this section, thus making it, in my opinion, the strongest. These poets truly know how to tug on reader?s heartstrings. The sections that come after, We Whose Fathers Are Hidden, Seed of Resistance, Beauty is Moving Us Forward, It Was the Music that Made Us, and Children of the Word provide even more heartfelt work from poets who have captivating stories to tell and complicated emotions to free. Comical pieces, such as Owed to Eminem, show diversity in that these writings can not only make you cry, but they can make you laugh. Specifically, I would recommend this publication to people ages 16 with an open mind Overall, I would recommend Bum Rush the Page to anyone who enjoys poetry and spoken word.

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From the Publisher

Bum Rush the Page is a groundbreaking collection, capturing the best new work from the poets who have brought fresh energy, life, and relevance to American poetry.

“Here is a democratic orchestration of voices and visions, poets of all ages, ethnicities, and geographic locations coming together to create a dialogue and to jam–not slam. This is our mouth on paper, our hearts on our sleeves, our refusal to shut up and swallow our silence. These poems are tough, honest, astute, perceptive, lyrical, blunt, sad, funny, heartbreaking, and true. They shout, they curse, they whisper, and sing. But most of all, they tell it like it is.”
–Tony Medina, from the Introduction

Publishers Weekly

To most readers, the hundreds of tightly rhymed, orally friendly poems here will read as "slam." But in his introduction, Medina, a poet and activist, takes great pains to separate the poems from slam's crowd-pleasing limitations, and uses the term "def jam" to describe the political spoken-word poetry he and Rivera, also a poet-activist, have collected. Medina's and Rivera's emphasis is on the poem and its subject matter, not the poet, which makes for a remarkably democratic anthology. Every poet has about the same page and a half of space. The book's design puts the poets' names in a very small type. None of the big names June Jordan, Reg E. Gaines, Edwin Torres, Wanda Coleman, Patricia Smith and Amiri Baraka are given more attention than the less published. Organized by subjects such as "Blood, I Say, Study our Story, Sing this Song," "Drums Drown Out Our Sorrow" and "Seeds of Resistance," most of the poems use urban imagery, tough talk and declaration. Most are identity-centered, anti-racist and pro-activist. Many focus on current events. There are, for instance, at least four poems about Amadou Diallo, the unarmed Ghanaian immigrant killed by New York policemen as he stood in his doorway. All mention the 41 shots; all include the word "mother." There are poems about Shaka Sankofa (convicted of murder at 17, and executed nearly 20 years later under Texas's then-Governor George W. Bush), and homages to Cuban bandleader Tito Puente. Some readers will wish for more variation of theme and for more layered meanings, but the topicality and directness of the poems make this an ideal textbook for introductory poetry classes, especially for urban high school students, and for anyone interestedin poetry as a social art. (Oct.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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Product Details

Pub. Date: February 2009
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Format: eBook, 320pp

File Size: 2230 KB
ISBN-13: 9780307565648
ISBN: 0307565645

Table of Contents
Read an Excerpt

	Foreword	xv
	Introduction	xix
	Invocation
	We Have Been Believers	xxv
	A Poet Is Not a Juke Box	xxvi
	Nommo	xxvii
	No Jive	xxviii
	failure of an invention	xxviii
	Building	xxix
	The Disdirected	xxxi
	Blood I Say, Study Our Story, Sing This Song
	The Way We Move	1
	... And the Saga Continues	1
	Bad Times	3
	How to Do	4
	Like a Dog	6
	Lonely Women	7
	On the Other Side	9
	N	10
	Her Scream Has Been Stolen	11
	Crater Face	12
	susu	13
	An Asian Am Anthem	14
	Scout	16
	This Old Man	17
	Afternoon Train	19
	Beginning at the End: Capital/Capitol Punishment	20
	Open Your Mouth--and Smile
	A Chinese Man in Smyma	22
	450 Years of Selective Memory (Smile)	23
	the n-word	24
	an open letter to the entertainment industry	25
	Metropolitan Metaphysics	28
	America Eats Its Young	29
	laughin at cha	31
	Rosa's Beauty	32
	Overworked	33
	Nintendo	34
	Stealth-Pirates of Cyberia	35
	The Death of Poetry	35
	Last Visit to Chestnut Middle School	37
	Learning to Drive at 32	38
	Mr. BOOM BOOM Man	39
	Road to the Presidency	40
	For What It's Worth	41
	Every Word Must Conjure
	It's Called Kings	44
	Billy	45
	To Become Unconscious	46
	Letter to an Unconceived Son	46
	The Usual Suspects	48
	Blooming Death ... Blossoms	49
	What the Oracle Said	51
	The U.S.A. Court of No Appeal	52
	on the state-sanctioned murder of shaka sankofa	52
	An Epistle to the Revolutionary Bible	53
	Warrior Womb	55
	Cowboynomics	56
	Demockery	57
	Executive Privilege	58
	Question	61
	georgia avenue, washington d.c.	62
	A Palace of Mourners	64
	Palestine	65
	The Road from Khartoum	66
	A Modern Love Poem	68
	In Praise of the Seattle Coalition	69
	Blood Is the Argument	69
	Drums Drown Out the Sorrow
	Amadou Diallo from Guinea to the Bronx Dead on Arrival	73
	Another Scream	74
	A Well-Bred Woman	76
	Amadou	78
	BLS	78
	after diana died	79
	Dudley Randall (1914-2000)	80
	Hoodoo Whisper	81
	Sammy Davis, Jr.	82
	Glad All Over	84
	Dancing after Sanchez	85
	The 13th Letter	86
	In Black Churches	86
	For Gwendolyn Brooks	87
	tonal embryology	88
	Zizwe	88
	All, Bomaye	89
	Phyllis	90
	Timbalero	91
	Puente	93
	Somalia	93
	epitaph for Etheridge Knight	94
	Farewell Queen Mother Moore	97
	Palenque Queen by Habana's Shores	98
	When the Definition of Madness Is Love
	January Hangover	100
	the hardest part about love	100
	Lies We Tell Ourselves	102
	8 ways of looking at pussy	103
	Temporary Insanity	105
	alone in belize	106
	footprints	107
	Big World Look Out	108
	Bullet Hole Man: A Love Poem	110
	Dreadlocks	111
	Roots	111
	Six Minutes Writing	112
	Diner	112
	Fullness	113
	Wet Dream	115
	foursomes	115
	Wishing You	116
	Shunning an Imperative	116
	January 8, 1996	118
	A Poem for You	119
	Throbs for the Instructress	120
	At the Frenchman's	121
	Mata Hari Blues or Why I Will Never Be a Spy	123
	Yellah	124
	Extremes Ain't My Thing As Salaam Alaikum	125
	13	126
	rock candy	127
	Love Jam	129
	Cocaine Mad-Scream Article #33 LoveSong	130
	We Whose Fathers Are Hidden
	The Elders Are Gods	132
	What the Dead Do	133
	creation is a cycle	133
	Birth	134
	Daughter-to-Father Talk	136
	Tattooing the Motherline	137
	Our Fathers	138
	Mama's Magic	139
	Father's Day	140
	Momma in Red	140
	Wildlife	141
	Chicago on the Day Brother Increases His Chances of Reaching Age 21	142
	Lest We Forget	143
	The African Burial Ground Called Tribeca	143
	fatherless townships	144
	Waiting for the Results of a Pregnancy Test	146
	Sitting in the Doctor's Office the Next Day	148
	Circa	148
	Seed of Resistance
	Cooking	151
	Ben Hur	151
	in 5th grade	152
	Complected	154
	Broken Ends Broken Promises	155
	My Name's Not Rodriguez	156
	Water from the Well	157
	The Tragic Mulatto Is Neither	158
	Beauty Is Moving Us Forward
	I'm Sayin Though	160
	beauty rituals 2000	160
	Medusa	161
	Stariette	161
	exceptions	163
	What the deal, son?	166
	Plain Ole Brother Blues	168
	Why I Be a Goddess	169
	I'm the Man	170
	Dare to Be Different	171
	Thoughts from a Bar Stool	173
	A Blue Black Pearl	173
	runnin	175
	conversations in the struggle	176
	Harvest: A Line Drawing	177
	joseph speaks to gericault in the studio	178
	Entrancielo	181
	New York Seizures	182
	Hey Yo / Yo Soy!	185
	Flying over America	188
	It Was the Music That Made Us
	I'm a Hip Hop Cheerleader	190
	kill the dj	192
	Ms. Cousins' Rap	193
	all up in there	194
	Doin'	195
	The Trash Talker	196
	Owed to Eminem	197
	A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop	200
	rapid transit	201
	hold it steady	202
	Conversation with Duke Ellington and Louis (Pops) Armstrong	203
	For Lady and Prez	204
	breath	205
	The Flow	206
	Bebop Trumpet	208
	conjugation of the verb: to blow	208
	The Creed of a Graffiti Writer	210
	Sonido Ink(quieto)	214
	because I am it's a race thing trip	215
	Grasshopper	217
	Grace	219
	The Low End	219
	rep/resent	221
	2G (Another Millennium Poem)	223
	enter(f*#@ckin)tained	223
	Children of the Word
	Motherseed	226
	Wake Up, My Little Pretties	227
	nommo: how we come to speak	227
	spaNglisH	229
	New Boogaloo	229
	Mi Negrito	232
	News of the World	233
	Much of Your Poetry Is Beautiful	234
	Ginsberg	234
	In Bed with James Tate	235
	soulgroovin ditty #7	236
	Sundays	237
	To Aretha Franklin from Sparkle	238
	Lumumba Blues	239
	All the shoes are shined and the cotton is picked	240
	In this day age	241
	The Trouble I've Seen	241
	Having Lost My Son, I Confront the Wreckage	242
	Bensonhurst	243
	For Michael Griffith, Murdered Dec. 21, 1986, Howard Beach, NY	244
	Lift Every Fist and Swing	245
	TV Dinner	245
	Bluesman	248
	We're Not Well Here	250
	Nickel Wine and Deep Kisses	251
	The Coward	253
	Strip	254
	Sex	255
	enemies	256
	American Poetry	257
	So Many Books, So Little Time	260
	How to Be a Street Poet	261
	The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash	263
	X	264
	The Tradition	265
	There It Is	267
	Contributors	270
	Permissions	281

Read an Excerpt

The Way We Move
the way we move, funk groove
beat the rhythm out some pavement,
our elegant violent attitude, quick
slow motion movement in quicksand
in somebody else's shit house shanty town
shingly jingly chains clamped on our neck,
hang to the floor scrape spark and clink
and we make music out of this cool behind dark
shades, taught to fear the sun, hiding in
beauty parlors and bars draggy face with
hatred and ugliness,
and it only comes when you don't
accept the natural gifts, the fingerprints of a
higher order of peace and simple logic, what makes us
phenomenal is that we can sleep walk in
harmony, never breaking a sweat 'cept in factories
or bars, prisons we even build systems for, our
own street logic and survival, but this is not where
we're meant to be, not on the operating table of
extinction or at the broken doorstep of finality
stumbling drunk confused scagged out on whiteness
and greed and stupidity into the bleeding face of our
dead father, and we are not supposed to move
this way, slow mumbling suicide in quicksand and defeat
we must refocus, we must see again

Tony Medina (New York)

. . . And the Saga Continues
for Gary Graham

From Guinea to Haiti to Brooklyn
And back
From Guinea to Haiti to the Bronx
And back
From Brooklyn to the Bronx to LA
And back
From Philly to Haiti to the New Jersey Turnpike
And back
From village to hamlet to Borough
And back
From LA to Orange to Newark to Guinea
And back
From PR to the Bronx Brooklyn Queens Guinea
And back
From Soundview to no view of the anguish of . ..
Mother Mother why have you forsaken me

Bless me father for they are winning
And my mutter is crying
Bless me father for my mutter is crying
At the sight of my dying
Save me Lord from being vanquished
Save my mutter from this anguish

From Harlem to the Bronx to Brooklyn Queens Newark San Juan
and the nation's highways I languish
In my blood and tears of my mother's anguish
And back

Call the name . . . Call the names I say
you know them better than I

Shaka Sankofa Malcolm Ferguson Patrick Doresmond
Abner Louima Amadou Diallo Kevin Cedeno James Byrd
Matthew Sheppard Anthony Baez Michael Stewart
Earl Faison . . . etc. etc. etc.

And the list gets longer week by week
An African got lynched today
Juneteenth 2000

From Texas to Chicago to Watts to Newark
And back
From PR to Cuba to the Dominican Republic
And back

Africa calls from the bottom of the Atlantic
And back
From Ghanaian fields smooth black skin
Turns purplish under lash under water
And back

Can you hear them gurgle . . . Abnerrrrr
Can you hear them scream . . . Amadouuuuuuuu
Can you hear the windpipe snap . . . Antonyyyyyyyyap

Blessed be Blessed be Blessed be
Dear Lord have mercy Lord have mercy
Have mercy on me
bless me father for I
have sinned . . .
with my mind I daily will demise
of the western ways and all of its compatriots

Bless me father with a bottle of scupernog or
Wild Irish Rose to soften the blow
of this monster's breath upon my neck
And back

in harlem in havana in charleston in Porto Prince
the saga continues . . .
blood blood I say
blood in the rectum bullets in the gut
in the head the chest neck
And back

A rope a nightstick pepper spray
Or a lethal illegal injection
from the State
the state of tex ass where seldom is heard
an encouraging word and the sky is cloudy
all year
how 'bout florida or new jersey or new york
the city so nice they kill you twice

Next stop Ghana to the Congo to Zimbabwe
And back

Ted Wilson (Orange, NJ)

Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam by Tony Medina, Louis Reyes Rivera (Editor), Sonia Sanchez (Foreword by)

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Great collection!by stocknstuff

When Spoken Word Comes Aliveby Anonymous

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Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam by Tony Medina, Louis Reyes Rivera (Editor), Sonia Sanchez (Foreword by)

BUY THIS EBOOK

BUY NOW

Get Free Sample

Product Details

Synopsis

Publishers Weekly

Biography

Customer Reviews

Great collection!by stocknstuff

When Spoken Word Comes Aliveby Anonymous

From the Publisher

Publishers Weekly

Product Details

Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

Related Subjects

More by This Author

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