Letters to the Editor, Journal of Black Studies Poetry Issue

Letters to the Editor: Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry Issue

abdulsbry said...

Thanks Bros. Marvin and Lewis for the excellent historical narrative of Dingane,the Journal of Black Poetry and West Coast Black Arts Movement(BAM).
.I worked closely with Dingane as editor of Black Dialogue and I. have always known him to be a dedicated and focused person.He single-handedly edited and published the Journal to the sacrifice of family and expanded income. The Journal did’nt have patrons or commercial backing. That is why Digane could be so candid and forceful.. He was also a pioneer entrepreneur with the New Day Bookstore on Divisidero St. in one of the historic black commercial sections of “old” San Francisco which has greatly demised with the coming of the “new” San Francisco and Urban (Removal)Development..The only surviving black commercial section of San Francisco is the Third Street corridor and it is shrinking daily. Dingane would be in for a cultural shock if he walked the streets of The Fillmore( the traditional black commercial strip) today.
Dingane is such a low-keyed and unassuming person that one would not suspect so forceful and powerful words to come from such a quiet person, but as the “Four Tops” sang, “Still Water Run Deep”.Dingane had the vision to see the lack of Black community consciousness in the-San Francisco Bay Area and relocated to Lo vely Atlanta a center of Black southern culture-An area we should we should consciously act to preserve and expand-especially the economic base.Digane,we miss you out West, but I know the pull of Atlanta. W.E.B. DuBois had a similar experience.The best to you and your family.

Abdul K. Sabry

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IMZ said...

Thank you brother Lewis for that history of The Journal of Black Poetry, a journal I read with great excitement during my youth until it became Kitabu Cha Jua. And New Day Bookstore with the always honorable brother Jose Goncalves was how I got my copy. From the man himself. I was in the mist of the BAM and I didn't know it at the time, wow.

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Hello Marvin:

You may want to pass on to our contributors and our potential contributors that since January we have had 127,389 visitors to our site, with 14,993 visitors this month. So quite a few people access and read our content. The top five nations who access our site is the U.S., the U.K., Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya (data for September 2010). This info may encourage more contributors.


Itibari M. Zulu, M.L.S., Th.D.
Senior Editor, The Journal of Pan African Studies (www.jpanafrican.com);
Provost, Amen-Ra Theological Seminary; First Vice President, The African Diaspora Foundation;
Founding Member, The Bennu Institute of Arizona (P.O. Box 20151, Phoenix, Arizona 85036-0151).

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Although I am not a poet, I have been greatly influenced by Black Arts Movement poets , writers and editors particularly, Haki Madhubuti, Kalamu Ya Salaam, Sonia Sanchez, Toni Cade Bambarra and Joe Dingane Goncalves. I visited Dingane often... when I first moved to the Bay Area in 1981 over on Divisadero Street at his New Day Bookstore. We were beginning to publish our journal, Foresight: A Holistic View of African- American Struggle. He was very supportive and saw it vital that I knew the link between all of the earlier grassroots publications that had existed such as SoulBook, Umbra, Liberator, Black Theater, Black Art and of course, his own Journal of Black Poetry and our project. He wanted me to know and understand that they along with the Black Scholar, Negro Digest/Black World, Black Books Bulletin, Nkombo, Muhammad Speaks and other independent outlets for black thought should not be taken for granted and be supported. He understood that a free ex-change of ideas, especially different ones, encouraged growth and enlightenment. We have a treasure trove of brilliant thinkers that are professional scholars, 'organic thinkers,' or individuals blessed with 'mother wit,' young and old who have always produced work and actions of depth and quality. Congratulations to Marvin X, who like the ones mentioned earlier is a keeper of the 60's Black Art Movement flame and one of our brightest scribes and Itibari Zulu, who knows the inherent importance of rigorous scholarship and art dedicated to freedom.

Peace,
K. Tutashinda, D.C.
Imhotep Chiropractic & Wellness Center
http://www.imhotepchiropractic.com/

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This looks great. Somewhere in my papers I have a (1970's?) rejection slip from Gonzales. I didn't write my first poem until 1968. It was a response to being a social worker. When I started to work with black male incarcerated adolescents... addicted to heroin, the poet in me awoke...

I'm sending you two more unpublished poems.

Jeannette



Author, Poet, Visual Artist