3 days agoMember-onlyA Ghetto Nerd's Notebook: Why Marilynne Robinson Is One Of James Baldwin's Most Faithful Readers.In Jack, the great novelist of the Gilead tetralogy pays a beautiful tribute to Baldwin and compels me to reassess his best-selling novel. ( Pic By Gelinas James) Lionel Trilling and Edmund Wilson are most known as intimidating literary patricians, fathers that loom large in the artlessly personal memoirs of…James Baldwin7 min read
3 days agoMember-onlyA Ghetto Nerd’s Notebook: A Misanthropic Appraisal Of CaesarOn Derek Walcott. 1: If-as John Updike once said-“Fame is the mask that eats the face,” one can argue that Derek Walcott’s casing began at his boyhood house. In book 2 of Another Life, his autobiographical epic poem, he arrives at his old door an acclaimed yet struggling poet. …Poetry10 min read
3 days agoMember-onlyWriters Notebook: On Rushdie.A tribute, lament, and then-via the wire-a glint of hope regarding his health. The Satanic Verses was the last novel my aunts and momma bonded on before their relationship went south. Coming from an extended family of lower working class book nerds, I viscerally remember Rushdie( and talks about his…Salman Rushdie2 min read
Aug 9Member-onlyPoem: No Country For An Old Thug( After Yeats’ Byzantium) . The Homie Pours His Liquor An aged homie is but a paltry thing. A tattered jersey, chain, and doo rag. A tattered life plays shadow tag in bombed-out streets and buildings. …Poetry2 min read
Published in The Riff·Aug 5On Kendrick Lamar And His Gilded Crossroads.Review: Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers. — The artistic race man, an archetype whose fate Kendrick Lamar tries to escape in Mr. Morale and The Big Steppers, could make an atheist ponder the Devil (or at least the idea of pacts with him). The artists who have assumed — or had hoisted on them — the mantle…Kendrick Lamar8 min read
Jul 29Since I Been Down Postscript: Y’all Should Leave NowThe radical chic cruelty of Since I Been Down’s supporters was painful enough before babies started getting gunned down in Tacoma again. One of the sadder aspects of Since I Been Down, the documentary on Kimonti Carter and criminal justice and Tacoma, is that there were opportunities for its champions…5 min read
Published in The Riff·Jul 28Homecoming: An AppreciationAlong with D'angelo's Black Messiah, it's my pick for the best soul album of the 21st century. — After spending a decade contorting her art and her personage on the cultural aesthetics/ rules that made mass market Black music run in the first decade of the twentieth century, Beyonce Knowles-Carter spent the second setting them on fire. Beyonce’s “Lemonade” was a radical fusing and smelting of black music…Music4 min read
Published in An Injustice!·Jul 11Member-onlySave The ChildrenThe murder of Iyana Ussery broke open Hell for a community that I love more than life itself. — ( photo by Pete Caster) When I was with my grandparents off 15th and Sprague in Tacoma, Washington, I was Eulalah McDaniels’s “little store man.” I would accompany my grandfather to the Portland Avenue Nursery if she needed seeds, fertilizer, or a garden tool. When she wanted something in town…Tacoma4 min read
May 19Member-onlyHow Albert Was BornI can only describe I Never Dreamed You’d Leave In Summer as something that I had to let every fear, inhibition, and sense of control over a narrative and work to finish. It is a protest novel that breaks every single solitary rule of protest novels. Though Albert Robinson is…Serial Fiction4 min read
Apr 24Member-onlyI Come From A People Who Do Not Die Easy(Postscript On Since I Been down).I come from a proud, beautiful block that Since I Been Down slandered. I’m going to keep spending the rest of my life letting people know that on the page. I always reference three places when I talk about my education as a writer. The first: Ms. Virginia Lee Joakum’s house that used to be on 41st and McKinley. The second: Ms. Eulalah McDaniels’ house on 27th Street and I. The third is Miss Helen Washington’s house off 15th Street…4 min read
