tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64508314902526242322012-01-30T13:09:46.325-06:00From New Orleans, La., that icon of our need for renewal and to rebuild American cities--meditations, poems, and prayers for urban mothers after hearing news at 11.Vérité Parlant is Nordette Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09033679321805951686noreply@blogger.comBlogger481100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6450831490252624232.post-80438262383147873492012-01-28T15:19:00.005-06:002012-01-28T15:38:28.787-06:00

Nina Simone's version of "House of the Rising Sun." According to Wikipedia:"Alan Price of The Animals has pointed out that the song was originally a sixteenth-century English folk song about a Soho brothel, and that English emigrants took the song to America where it was adapted to its later New Orleans setting."I liked The Animals version (they begin with the English pronunciation of the city's

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I discovered this video today, the song "Six Feet Under the Pontchartrain" that Phil Parnell uploaded to YouTube on Aug 25, 2010, with the following note:From the CD "Callin The Children Home" by Denny IlettI wrote this song to document the rage I felt and still feel when I, and the rest of the world, watched in disbelief while the US government turned it's [sic] back on [...] citizens and turned

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Written in 2005, the poem "Silk and Flour" was originally entitled "Silk and Flowers," but while creating the video, I changed the title to one I had considered nearly seven years ago. I don't remember what incident inspired the poem. It may have been nothing but a muse in my head, but I feel like I had seen something in the news that caused me to think about the dark side of ego that reveals

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The above video features a poem by Janet Caldwell called "Dear Diary."

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This last week in New Orleans has me rattled, and so crime's returned me to this blog, to poem prayers. We began the year here with a deadly crash on I-10—a 40-vehicle pile-up near the Michoud exit that officials blamed on fog and marsh fires. Compared to the last 12 days in New Orleans, the crash was a blip in consciousness: fog and marsh fires happen; natural forces slam humanity as survivors

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As my mother would have said, "They laid that!" Afro-Blue, Howard University's Jazz a cappella group competed on NBC's The Sing-Off, but the group was eliminated right before the finale. I loved this group. Here they are again singing their good-bye song, the Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun."

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Last night, June 25, MSNBC's Dateline aired an interview with the mother of Michael Jackson as news organizations, bloggers, and fans around the world commemorated the first anniversary of his death. Katherine Jackson, who is raising Michael's children--Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr. aka Prince; Paris Michael Katherine; and Prince Michael Jackson II aka "Blanket"--has written a coffee table book

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Here is the official "Dance with My Father" video from Luther Vandross, including other celebrities. My father is living, and living with me, and so, the story in this song does not represent my story. However, the song and video still touch me because the story is beautiful. My father is 89, and he uses a walker. We gave him a new "deluxe" walker for Father's Day, and my brother and his wife

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Detroit television stations, such as WXYZ, as well as the city's newspapers, report a story that chills parents' and grandparents' bones: A 7-year-old girl asleep in her grandmother's home Sunday was shot in the head by police. The child is dead. ... Please read full post with videos at BlogHer.com.

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 Hold OutBy Nordette N. AdamsEach day slips into darkness like dwindled hope when a child loves street lifetoo much.Each night settles on the city with a mother's prayers for wayward babes who think they knowenough.Each prayer rises to Heaven's ear until faithfalls away like the dayas dust.If you seek a child who's lost his way,hold fast to hope, hold faster faith.You must.© 2010 Nordette N. Adams

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From the Chicago Tribune:The entire senior class at Chicago's only public all-male, all-African-American high school has been accepted to four-year colleges. At last count, the 107 seniors had earned spots at 72 schools across the nation.Another blogger passed this along and I'm glad she did. Don't we need some good news? And that it's from Chicago, the same city that last year had me weeping

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This story from Norwalk, Ca., is gut wrenching. As passed on by Yemmi Agbebi on Twitter, the USA Today news story, "7-year-old thwarts gunmen by calling 911 from locked bathroom." Listening to the audio may make your blood run cold with fear for this child. The USA Today story quotes little Carlos, who took his 7-year-old sister into the bathroom with him, telling the 911 operator, "There's some

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Van Jones said all the right words accepting the NAACP's President's Award at the organization's Image Awards show Friday night, Feb. 26. He reminded viewers of the impact going green can have on the American economy and families, and he sent a message of love to Glenn Beck, the man who McCarthyed Jones out of his White House post.Maybe through extending a hand in love to Beck, Jones can move

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the timesBy Lucille Cliftonit is hard to remain human on a daywhen birds perch weepingin the trees and the squirrel eyesdo not look away but the dog ones doin pity.another child has killed a child and i catch myself relieved that they arewhite and i might understand exceptthat i am tired of understanding.if thisalphabet could speak its own tongueit would be all symbol surely;the cat would hunch

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A lazy Saturday, listening to Ms. Erykah aka @FatBellyBella on Twitter.

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A little reflection from 2006 on how knowing history and heritage impacts us.Music Playlist at MixPod.comRead poem's text at this link: "Time Travel at Newark International Airport" by Nordette Adams, Music by Rahkyt © 2006   

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Gaining YardageBy Nordette N. AdamsNew Orleans, where we have struggled together,now dance together, and weep in joy and leaptogether. We have huddled,together,having seen our future shimmer in the gleam of football helmetsblack and gold.We have believed to see our city not drowning in canal and Pontchartrain waters,not broken like the levees,not shamed forever naked to the worldat woe in a

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Sunni Patterson, who will perform tomorrow night at Soul Series spoken word event with Saddi Khali in New Orleans, has appeared on HBO's Def Poetry and prestigious venues around the world. She is a New Orleans native. In the video below from 2Cent TV she gives her "2 cents on" social justice and people living below heritage.Read about Soul Series at the New Orleans Literature Examiner.

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First published 2006May God Bless You Exceedingly   (a sonnet for the sweet and humble) By Nordette Adams Friends, may His grace and mercy shine sweet light upon your lives this day and times beyond. May His wings shadow you when you take flight. With your fresh dreams, let not a thief abscond. Let love from dawn to dawn reign in your world. Let peace know home within your heart always. Let no

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Sounds like Raheem DeVaughn is channeling both Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye on "Bulletproof," one of his relatively recent releases. The song features rapper Ludacris, and both the video and the lyrics follow this paragraph. BulletproofRaheem DeVaughnLoad It, Cock It, Aim and ShootLoad It, Cock It, Aim and ShootLiving like we bulletproofWe bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bangI say we load it,

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In my post on the young girl who was gang raped victim during her high school's homecoming dance in Richmond, California, Lara Colvin left the following information in comments about how to help the victim.If you would like to donate to the fund specifically set up to benefit this young woman and her family, you may send a check to Richmond High School, 1250 23rd St., Richmond, CA 94804. Checks

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Mothering By FaithBy Nordette N. AdamsIf I wake in the morning, I will bless Your name.If sleep keeps me, then too will I praise You.In the mornings, I step to your rhythm.In the evenings, I hum with the Seraphim.Each moment is blessed by Your grace.When the baby cries I will soothe her with Your Psalms.When she giggles, I will marvel at the breath of life.If I stay home with my children, I will

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With many other Americans, I continue to struggle with the details of the homecoming dance gang rape in Richmond, Ca. The gang rape is enough horror of its own, but the crowd watching, some cheering and taking cell phone photos but doing nothing to stop the atrocity, is a twisting of the knife. If you've visited this blog before, then you know that I write poetry and prayers related to youth

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Every Off the Wall ThingBy Nordette AdamsWhat I say, I say in draft because minute to minute my heart updates itswrath, sorrow, shame with a ripping of veinslike hair from an undone mind.With each new crime against a young oneby a young one, my heart bleeds an ugly puswith raped rhyme that misses the joy of Hallmark Cards. Misses the forward liftof a literary bard's song.The news is wrong! We

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Democratic Rep. John Murtha got into hot water duiring the 2008 presidential election saying "There is no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area." With today's NBC story from Pennsylvania, "Pool Boots Kids Who Might 'Change the Complexion,'" perhaps Murtha's real error was that his assessment excluded other parts of the state. Read full post with commentary at BlogHer.com. 

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Sometimes I go days ignoring the news in New Orleans because I don't want to hear stories with headlines like these, "17-year-old charged with murder, rape of 8-month-old." I don't if Arnold Ross did what they say he did. He is the boyfriend of the murdered and raped infant's mother, however, and sadly that makes it more likely his confession is valid.Nevertheless, New Orleans and also deputies

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Whatever the world may say about the importance of children's books as an influence on children's lives, that saying may go double for African-American children. Black children have not always had positive images of themselves or their families in literature.Children's Book Week, May 11-17, offers an opportunity to spotlight progress in books written for African-American children or books that

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Almost immediately after news broke that the daughter of Pastor Olander Cassimere Sr., 79, and his wife, Alphatheda Cassimere, 77, found the couple shot to death in their New Orleans Pontchartrain Park home, relatives told police that they believed the murders are connected to the alleged kidnapping of the elderly couple's grandson. The young man also witnessed an armed robbery.Witness

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author Toni MorrisonShe Maketh Us to DreamBy Nordette AdamsJealous of the stories you tell. You scooped gold from our people's marrow,preserved blood in the genie's lamp.Rubbing up resurrection should come easy like lavender wildflowers'cuz you've marked us with a her-storyand a his-story and fiction for our babies' futures.You be a mother and I be a mother and we be womenenvisioning a wondrous

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I remember how scared I was years ago when an elderly neighbor around the corner from my parents' home in the New Orleans 7th Ward was murdered in her home. It was the first time I'd known someone who died by violence. Today I'm deeply saddened by the murder of an elderly couple in NOLA, people I do not know but who feel familiar."Olander Cassimere Sr., 79, and Alphatheda Cassimere, 77, were

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Mama's hands working graceBy Nordette AdamsSometimes we sink, sorrowful, and eyebrooding skies for blessings.   They have skin like black pearls,   eyes deep with wisdom, the light that honors   the broken and burdened. We wrestle in the brown clay of frailty,claw up from mud, wearing our brokenness like rusted armor,and we seek beauty dark like us--hair roped or kinked like ours,lips burning

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Mom's Rising, a nonprofit, has a cool computer application that let's you send your mother a high tech card of sorts. The group's produced a "news" video that you can customize to include your mother's name or the name of the woman who's been a mother to you, or the name of your wife who's a mother that dubs her "Mother of the Year." Click here--http://news.cnnbcvideo.com/index2.html--to insert

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Mother of the Stubborn ChildBy Nordette AdamsI sag like a muggy morning drenched in a swamp's summer mist,my bones feel as ancient as its mud when I seeyou teeter on the brink of a ruined life,prowl dark streets with wild seed.Come back to me, my son; hear my voice, my daughter.A mother's love should know no bounds.What bounds there are my heart spills overas it did the day I first saw your face,

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Anderson Cooper sent a link out on Twitter directing surfers to a story by David Mattingly on the rising number of school-age children dying violent deaths in Chicago, Ill. I posted the video at WSATA and wrote my thoughts in relation to New Orleans youth violence. Read post and watch video at this link.

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Song of the Near Empty Nesta poem by Nordette AdamsSome mornings I get happy.I remember old mothers shouting in church.They hopped, heads back, faces up to God,palms outward and the swell ofGlory! Glory!My spirit's jumping in its cage,in this old body the soul leaps.Sometimes I get low.I remember old mothers wringing hands,Jesus! Jesus! the child's hard-headed.Heads bowed and a swell of

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I have written a poem-prayer that came from my trying to process the senseless deaths of Calyisse Perkins and Fitzgerald Phillips, both 19 and students at Southern University New Orleans. They pair dated, and in the wee hours of Sunday morning, April 19, two thugs abducted them and sent a request for $10,000 ransom via Phillips' cell phone to the parents. Today NOLA police discovered the

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Having read yesterday that rapper Lil Wayne was sexually assaulted as a child and recalling that he is from New Orleans, I've been mulling him over. Whether we approve of rap or not, think it's art or don't, rap lyrics still fall within poetic literature. So, how has Lil Wayne's life informed his art? Looking at some of Lil Wayne's lyrics, such as those for "A Milli," off his CD Tha Carter III, I

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When John and Maggie Anderson of Oak Park, Ill., started The Ebony Experiment on January 1 of this year, they thought of it as "an academic test about how to reinvest in an underserved community and lessen society's burden." For one year the family has pledged to buy everything they possibly can from black-owned businesses--health and beauty supplies, gas, clothing, food, books, medical services

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The poem-prayer that follows this introduction and news excerpts is written in response to a horrific multiple-murder case in Terrytown, a New Orleans metro area suburb. Here are excerpts from stories about the tragedy.Fortunato said authorities believe two unidentified men entered an apartment in the area and "executed" a 23-month old male toddler and the baby's 19-year old mother. Wielding

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The blues has come knocking at my door, dour-eyed and dressed up in its finest death suit, drenched in children's blood. I speak of the Revelus family tragedy, horror in Milton, Mass., this past weekend. We step into April, the month of foolish jokes and poetry, just in time to see a 5-year-old's head, severed from her body, rolling through a living nightmare to the slashed body of her 17-

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Embedded video from CNN VideoI decided to post this video not because I have anything to add to U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder's blunt commentary about this nation's racial issues but because of his comments featured later in the video about Black History Month. You can scroll down and read Holder's entire speech in the second half of this post.Earlier this month, after reading the "do we

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When I first posted on Ciara Monique Craig, the 20-something NOLA mom who tossed her newborn baby into Lake Pontchartrain, I said I had no words yet and said I would have to revisit the matter later. Today words came to me.Young Mother in ChainsUrban Mother's Prayer #2They are babies themselves God, as we have chained themto our concept of You and our concept of loveand our concept of

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The below video is from CNN, but this story has been all over in local news down here, a young mother from Kenner tossing her baby into Lake Pontchartrain. Kenner is part of the metropolitian New Orleans-Metarie-Kenner area."Ciara Monique Craig, 20, has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of her infant daughter," reports WDSU. WWL TV has a longer story, and posted

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I'll be watching TNT's Gifted Hands, the story of renowned black neurosurgeon Ben Carson (pictured) tonight. Carson's story is also mentioned at CNN today. His life has intrigued me for a while, a beautiful man with so much to share beyond saving physical lives. I bought his biography for my son when the child was about 10 years old, and did an internal happy dance when I saw trailers for the

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This is a cross-post of sorts from my other blog, expanded with a poem on "Mother Africa" because without the diaspora, the ripping of black people from Mother Africa's womb, we wouldn't need to have a "Black History Month," the topic of this blog post. And it seems appropriate to speak of Mother Africa with allusions to African Eve in The Urban Mother's Book of Prayers because all mothers,

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The Story ...From The Times Picayune: Late on the night of Jan. 18, just 24 hours after the murder of Wendy Byrne in the French Quarter, New Orleans police released a pair of computerized composite sketches of two teenagers suspected in the crime.In one, a doe-eyed youth with a buzz cut and pointy ears peers out from the page. The other features a teen with twists in his hair that fall to the

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For the last ten years, possibly, I've felt I should devote more time to prayer, and as a poet I've frequently felt too much time is spent on romantic love or lust. When do we arrive at a place of offering our words for something bigger than us?I know it sounds hokey, to some it even sounds mad, but at my age it's time to do what I feel led to do not what others expect me to do. And so, here I

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