The BeZine’s Live 100TPC Event
(Asynchronous)
Poetry, Music, Art
for
Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice
Poetry. It’s better than war!
—Michael Rothenberg
Co-founder of 100,000 Poets (and friends) for Change
Welcome to the 2020 Virtual (Aschronous) Live Event
Dedicated to Jamie Dedes
Editor Emerita
Our focus here is on positive change in the areas of Peace, Environmental and Economic Sustainability, and Social Justice. The BeZine approaches these issues in the context of spiritual practice and through the arts and humanities.
This year will have a few differences, here at our Virtual 100TPC event. The largest change that we in the core team of writers and editors feel is that Jamie Dedes, our Founding Editor and Editor-in-Chief emerita, has stepped down (read more here, Jamie in her own words). Jamie modestly called herself the Managing Editor, then eventually added Founding. She did more than “manage” us (like herding cats, trust me), she lead, inspired, supported, counseled, and loved us. And we love her back.
Jamie, I assume that you are reading this. We miss you. And we dedicate this 100TPC live event, and every issue and blog post, to you. We hope that you live and rest comfortably in the remainder of your time here surrounded by love and spiritual light.
When we started online, we were the only online event. Now, in the Time of Coronavirus, we are one of many. The others are streaming live, something we never did before. We have more of an asynchronous approach—writers, artists, musicians drop by the page and post something throughout the day. Others come, view, respond, perhaps add their own work.
In addition to our asynchronous / live virtual event on this page, The BeZine this year co-sponsors with Miombo Publishing-African Griots the live All Africa Poetry Symposium in Celebration of 100 Thousand Poets for Change 10-Year Anniversary, on Zoom and streaming on Facebook (see details below).
The Poet by Day
From last year, we again celebrate youth activists—our future:
these precious perceptive youth
this perfect blue-green planet, her youth dream among the strains of their hope, dream of us like our sun and moon, coordinating … if only we would, sowing the rich soil with right-action, cultivating a greening of our compassion, acting on a commonsense vision the fruits of our being-ness plant their ideals, shared values, a call for accountability, for a re-visioning unencumbered by insanity, rich fields to harvest, color, sound, textures, rough and smooth, the deep rootedness of their stand and stand for, their wise demands casting a spell that we might see with one eye, splendor hidden behind our irresponsibility, their effervescent call, blossoming unity, vision – bright spinning planet gently graced with these wildflowers, these precious perceptive youth. Dedicated to the young people of the world who teach us many lessons as they reach across borders in their stand for climate action.
Read more about Autumn Peltier, Mari Copeny, and Xiye Bastida, young people changing the world, here.
All Africa Poetry Symposium
in Celebration of 100 Thousand Poets for Change
10th Anniversary
Saturday, 26 September 2020 at:
- 3 PM (Jerusalem, Kenya
- 2 PM (Botswana, Egypt, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe)
- 1 PM (Nigeria)
- 12 Noon (Sierra Leone)
- 8 AM (US-East Coast)
You are welcome to attend and we look forward to presenting an exciting, dynamic and vibrant Poetry Symposium, where Africa speaks of itself through poetry.
The 100 Thousand Poets for Change Movement was founded 10 years ago by Editors, Poets, and internationally acclaimed Artists Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion —in order to speak change, to speak truth—against racial injustice, wars, poverty, corruption, the demise of human rights and smothering of human freedoms. The movements speaks through literary arts activism and social change-activism arts.
The Poetry Fête is co-hosted by African Griots and The BeZine in coordination with 100 Thousand Poets for Change. Poets in this All Africa Poetry Celebration are from Sierra Leone, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Egypt, and Zimbabwe. Co-host and Emcee, Mbizo Chirasha, has worked tirelessly with 100 Thousand Poets for Change since its inception a decade ago, through literary arts projects GirlChildCreativity Project and the Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign. Internationally renowned Jerusalem-based poet and The BeZine editor Michael Dickel will co-host the streaming events and attempt to wrangle the technology. This mega event will be streamed lived on several digital platforms.
The event will Live Stream in The BeZine 100TPC, 2020 Facebook group page.
ALUTA CONTINUA
—Mbizo CHIRASHA
Co-Host and Coorinator for All Africa Poets
The All Africa Poetry Symposium was a great success earlier today! We had poets and registered audience from these countries:
- Botswana
- Israel
- Kenya
- Machakos
- Morocco
- Nigeria
- Pakistan
- Sierra Leone
- South Africa
- Uganda
- United Kingdom
- United States
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
The Zoom events was recorded, and will be made available online after processing and editing, date to be determined. Meanwhile, most of the event live-streamed and is available still on Facebook here.
We are trying something new this year!
To view the virtual, asynchronous poems, art, photography and music videos, scroll down to the comments (scroll down the page to see comments).
To share your poems, art, photography and music videos for our “live” virtual 100tpc today, please add your work or link to it in the comments section below (scroll to the bottom of the page to add to comments).
Remember the Themes
Peace, Sustainability, and Social Justice
Follow us on Twitter.
The BeZine 
Again
The world has gone mad. Again.
And again voices incite—then hoarse leaders
pretend to have been polite. They did not shout
fear and hatred to explosive tension, to a thin-
wire stretched, first sounding a note then cracking,
snapping in two, each piece twisted. The world goes
mad. Again. The leaders call for calm, like arsonists
who work in the fire department. The fires burn
in the streets at night. The checkpoints flow
with blood and tears. And most of us just want
to go to work, have coffee with friends, teach
our children something other than this craziness
in a world gone mad. Again. And most of us want
to turn away and not see the burning, the smoke,
the arsonists lining up toy soldiers at borders
ready to pounce, to attack, to burn. Again.
—Michael Dickel (from War Surrounds Us)
Also published on Haaretz online, with a discussion of the poem by Vivian Eden.
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My heart echoes the frustration you so eloquently share here. Thank you.
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Thank you, Chrysty.
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on the ground of battle
it’s just your old soul and mine and
this intuition we share on the ground
of battle, witnessing the foment of hate,
anger feeding disenchantment in the street,
the acquisitive tendencies of the elite,
cowardly saber-rattling, cut off from authority,
from that innate expressively honest power
of our erotic selves, our instinctive selves,
the non-rational knowing that embodies
strength, nothing weak or pornographic
in its expression, a profound antithesis
to the pornography of war and hate that,
in the end, is about impotence, about an
emboli of narrow minds, grasping politicians
stirring tribal dissents for their own ends
or dropping bombs like a child bangs pots –
to overwhelm the fear of thunder, a game
of chicken, of a hawk-hawk play toward
a mutually assured destruction, just a
matter of time . . .
as we stand the ground of one another’s
battles where peace would be radical and
the unholy alliances of conflict might
burn themselves out, find their way into
calm, but here we are, once again, in thrall
the sociopaths have us bloodied and bound ~
their eyes in the aging face of a clockwork orange,
numb to the obscenities of maim and murder …
time now for change, for new ways to be in this world
–Jamie Dedes
© 2013, poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved
From Jamie Dedes, our EDITOR EMERITA for whom this year’s event is dedicated.
Jamie Dedes’ poem appeared in The BeZine 100 Poets for Change 2014 edition which you can find here.
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A very beautiful poem in its use of language, sound, rhythm— and a very moving poem in its calling out of injustice.
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SALAAM MY MOTHERLAND AFRICA
Last night I dreamed of arm stretched Africa
Last night I dreamed of borderless Africa
Last night I dreamed of brothers and sisters living in harmony
I dreamed of thriving vitenge industries in Africa
Salaam, Salaam my mother land Africa, Salaam
Last night in Kenya I saw spears and arrows turned into farming hoes
Last night cotton, coffee and tea industries steamed
I saw genuine smiles with sparkling white teeth in Sudan
I saw brothers in Nigeria disarming and disowning Boko Haram
I saw a serene Somalia soldiering on building Al-Shabaab ruins
Salaam, Salaam my mother land Africa, Salaam
Last night, Africa in unison echoed political stability
Last night, Africa in unison echoed social cohesion
Last night, South Africa was umbrella for all blacks in the rain
Ethiopia in black mourned Hachalu Hundessa raising a white dove
Salaam, Salaam my mother land Africa, Salaam
Last night black trader bought jewellery from Djibouti
Last night black trader bought oils and perfumes from Tunisia
Last night black trader sold exquisite African style fabric from Dakar
Last night black trader sold beautiful baskets from Zimbabwe
Salaam, Salaam my mother land Africa, Salaam
Last night African leaders kissed Africa, we loaned west
Last night Africa imported and exported within
Last night African industries revived, African sweat streamed
Last night corruption was hanged we sang freedom songs
Salaam, Salaam my mother land Africa, Salaam
Last night P.L.O Lumumba reminding us of modern slavery
We condemned vestiges of slavery in Sudan and Libya
He paved path for Pan-Africanism and asked pertinent questions
Last night we asked why African conflicts are manufactured outside Africa
Last night I saw one Africa, one heritage loving our language and culture
Salaam, Salaam my mother land Africa, Salaam
Today rise Africa, from the grave W.E.B Dubois chant RISE
Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah, George Padmore chant RISE
Haile Selassie, Mwalimu Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda chant RISE
Aime Cesaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Nelson Mandela chant RISE
Bob Marley and Miriam Makeba melodies echo Africa unite
Salaam, Salaam my mother land Africa, Salaam
—Jerusha Kananu, Kenya
Hear on FB
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This is such an amazing poem, Jerusha Kananu.
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Touching lyric bring us home to who we truly are.
Salaam my brothers and sisters
Salaam
Jambiya Kai
(Beulah Kleinveldt)
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Bound by Bitterness
The trauma of injustice
lives in our soil and soul ;
we die of dreaded disease –
bitter toxins contaminate
the human flesh we consume
as our staple diet.
Vigilante barbarians and
self seeking justice
has destroyed our humanity;
we have forgotten how to
feel and feed others.
We are too wound up in
our own pit of despair
and inflected ferocity to listen.
Our ears are open but our insight shut –
Hate has infested our enslaved auras
and calcified our bones.
We use our words to
slay not save;
we observe not that
we kill the wounded
who suffer our same fate,
for we are too tightly strung.
ironically stuck to a mental rung
in our arbitrary frenzy
to unseat the sachem.
We cannot be healed
by intro-focus but by feeling;
feeling the fear and pain
of those who travail
as we too endure
and wail in our trouble
We must feel not as fools
but as the freed.
We reason not as slaves
but as saints.
We fight as victors not victims
for a soldier who fixates on death
is already defeated.
He who conquers has trained
his eye on the living.
We overcome when our swords are raised against pain not people;
for what shall we do with our own rant that obssesses with vengeance;
to rip the heart of
the cantankerous viper
who halted our treasured lineage –
are we too then not killers.
We only truly heal once we embody
the writhing and wounding
of massacred souls around us
who are colourless in death;
once our hearts are touched
by injustice not race.
Our fight for freedom
is about them;
It is in looking through the panes
and pangs of a wider world
and knowing we have been called
to carry the dying and to
uplift the frail and falling.
Only then will we be free.
When we believe that
only those black like us
suffer the fiery furnace –
we become the masters
of our own bondage.
Hatred has never liberated a slave –
it is his thinking and
awakened sense of worth
that snaps the chains from his feet.
it is his hunger for peace
that has him walking free.
There is deliverance for those
who find peace in pain –
it takes time to die to self
but that is what we must fight for;
for Madiba’s wisdom.
A wisdom that pierces
the darkness not the dead;
for our eyes are trained
on our victory
not our war;
Let our mourning therefore
birth a madonna that
portrays a triumph
wrought in toil.
(C) Jambiya Kai
#100TPC
#africa
#war
#peace
“The power of words”
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Such a strong cry for justice, in a powerful poem.
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Echo Michael’s comment, Jambiya. These are powerful words, in the true spirit of our common language, Poetry. We can only come close to the truth through poetry … and poverty … and death! We must hear more from the voices of Africa, which is after all the cradle of human life.
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A repeat, but worthy message: Hundreds and Thousands.
—John Anstie
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Reblogged this on Meta/ Phor(e) /Play.
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One of my favorites of hers, it speaks volumes of past, present, future. ❤
Out of the Womb of Time, a poem…
out of the womb of Time they slide
peasants and kings, artisans and queens
murders, warriors, healers, peacemakers
the grandfathers and grandmothers
on whose shoulders we stand
they are with us, their spirits sensed
. . . . though unseen
their hearts are in our mouths
as they guard and guide
feet rooted in the mud of Earth
we drink the wine, eat the roots
and sing the songs we inherited
their sayings are our sayings
their voices are our voices
carried on breezes
like the music of cathedral bells
like the call of the muezzin
they chime and summon
they sum what came before
from their gnosis
whispered in the ear of silence
we learn: we are nameless but not lost
we too shall echo
shall be the shoulders
shall be the great progenitors
shall hold the Vision and the Light
along the path . . .
. . . . beckoning
Originally published in Brooklyn Memories
© 2012, Jamie Dedes
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A beautiful poem. These lines strike me:
“…their hearts are in our mouths
as they guard and guide…”
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The stench of horrific pain
Uproars in unknown ruthless measures,
the missing piece of debilitating outrage in
hurdles of jerks & untoward precepts;
An unending inner cry for social justice & change-
Anticipation the veto strength of a sustained shrouded past!
-Benedicta (Akosua) Boamah 2020.
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It captures the feeling of the uprisings, the despair from which they rise, the lack of hope for the change they hunger for.
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Exactly Michael Dickel! That’s a sense of immense states of pain in an era for change! 👌
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One of my early favourite poems by Jamie Dedes … https://soundcloud.com/poetjanstie/the-view-from-my-place-by?ref=clipboard
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