The WordForge Reading Series Features Antoinette Brim & Kenneth DiMaggio

The WordForge Reading Series features Two Poets from Capital Community College: Antoinette Brim and Kenneth DiMaggio on February 13 at 7 PM. The WordForge Reading Series features local poets along with an open mike. All events are scheduled on Monday nights with a 7 p.m. start time. The location is Studio @ Billings Forge, 563 Broad Street, Hartford, CT 06106. Parking is available next to Firebox restaurant or along Broad Street.

For more information about the WordForge Reading Series, click here.

"Black Enough" included in "Villanelles." Anthology now available for pre-order!

Antoinette Brim's villanelle Black Enough is included in Villanelles edited by Annie Finch and Marie-Elizabeth Mali. The anthology is now available for pre-order through Amazon.com.

Description: The first of its kind--a comprehensive collection of the best of the villanelle, a delightful poetic form whose popularity ranks only behind that of the sonnet and the haiku. With its intricate rhyme scheme and dance-like pattern of repeating lines, its marriage of recurrence and surprise, the villanelle is a form that has fascinated poets since its introduction almost two centuries ago. Many well-known poets in the past have tried their hands at the villanelle, and the form is enjoying a revival among poets writing today. The poems collected here range from the classic villanelles of the nineteenth century to such famous and memorable examples as Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle into that good night," Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art," and Sylvia Plath's "Mad Girl's Love Song." Here too are the cutting-edge works of contemporary poets, including Sherman Alexie, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Rita Dove, Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, and many others whose poems demonstrate the dazzling variety that can be found within the parameters of a single, strict form.


Click here to order.

2012 Split This Rock Poetry Festival Panels

Antoinette Brim will participate in two panels during the 2012 Split This Rock Poetry Festival in Washington, DC. These panels are:

Continuous Fire: A Panel on the Work of Sonia Sanchez

Friday, March 23, 2012 @ 2:00 PM

Description: Although her protest efforts and activism began as an architect and central figure in the Black Arts Movement, Sonia Sanchez’s poetry is not limited to that historical context. Over the last fifty years, her work has shaped and been in dialogue with several social movements: multiracial and third wave feminism, anti-militarism, the lesbian and gay movement, and the global peace movement. As an elder, her work spans several genres: poetry, drama, children’s books, eulogies of key national and world leaders/artists, articles, and essays. This panel allows the participants to illustrate Sanchez’s influence on a wide range of contemporary artists and activist initiatives.

Panelists include: Becky Thompson, DaMaris Hill, Antoinette Brim, Lita Hooper, Danielle Hall, Patricia Biela, and Sandra Staton-Tiawo.

Even in Polite Company: Women Write Their Own Truths

Saturday, March 24, 2012 @ 9:30 AM

Description: As young girls, many women were told that some things were not to be discussed in polite company. Subsequently, women’s issues and/or truths were discussed only amongst themselves in hushed whispers in hot kitchens, over scrub boards or on playgrounds. This resulted in shame and isolation. While networks of women are affirming and necessary to the mental, emotional, physical and financial health of women as a whole, the absence of open, plain talk about women’s issues leaves a void in the social and political dialogue. Issues left out of the national dialogue are left out of the legal, legislative and budgetary dialogues, as well. Subsequently, as a demographic, women are often left unprotected. This panel discussion will focus on the necessity of writing about feminist/womanist issues in a nation leaning toward conservatism; teaching women’s issues in co-ed classrooms and the perils for women writers who unreservedly write and speak their truth in polite company.

Panelists include: Antoinette Brim, Lita Hooper, Demetrice Anntia Worley, Niki Herd and Renee Simms.

For more information about the Split This Rock Poetry Festival, visit: http://www.splitthisrock.org/festival2012/festival2012.html

Read Split This Rock's Poem of the Week

Let Daylight Come (Little Rock, circa 2008) by Antoinette Brim is the Split this Rock Poem of the Week. Read the poem on http://www.blogthisrock.blogspot.com - or listen to the poem read on the radio during Jo Reed's show On the Margin in the DC area (or on the internet on Thursday morning at 10am at: http://www.wpfw.org/index.php?db=content/WPFW_Radio&tbl=WPFW_Radio&id=1).

Antoinette Brim to read at Cave Canem's Willow Books Showcase

Willow Books authors showcase their dynamic range with readings by Tara Betts, Antoinette Brim, Curtis Crisler, Reginald Flood, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Derrick Harriell, Lita Hooper, Randall Horton, Alan King and Karen Williams. Willow Willow Books develops, publishes & promotes work by African American writers. Learn more about Willow Books at willowbookspoetry.homestead.com.

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Date: May 6, 2011

Time: 6:30 p.m.

Where: Cave Canem, 20 Jay Street, Suite 310-A, Brooklyn, NY. Click here for more info.

The Tide is In! - The Tidal Basin Review publishes Brim's essay "Passing in the Age of Obama" & poem "We, on the Ground"

In The Black Issue (Spring 2011 E-Issue), enjoy the creative works of 30 talented writers, 18 of them responding to the national phenomena of Post-Race and Post-Blackness. Also, catch up with poet, photographer, and Featured Artist, Thomas Sayers Ellis, as he and 17 other contemporary writers touch base in a collaborative interview. “Down Atlantis” by Rickey Laurentis, the center-featured Series Poet is available only in the Print Issue available for purchase now. View the full E-Issue and order your print copy of The Black Issue Tidal Basin Review at http://www.tidalbasinpress.org/#/spring-2011/.

Spring 2011 Contributors: Makalani Bandele, Janee J. Baugher, Antoinette Brim, Lisa Cheby, Desiree Cooper, Mitchell L. H. Douglas, Leola Dublin MacMillan, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Jonterri Gadson, Hoke S. Glover (Brother Yao), Rain C. Gomez, Niki Herd, Ailish Hopper, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Cole Krawitz, Rickey Laurentiis, AJ Ong, Jeremy Paden, Maya Pindyck, Khadijah Queen, Ed Roberson, Tacuma Roeback, Sally Rusk, Claude Clayton Smith, Bianca Spriggs, Enzo Silon Surin, Tammy L. Tillotson, Norman Waksler, Afaa Michael Weaver, and Leon Weinmann.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Three Black Barbies Anthology (Deadline extended)

Recently, on a shopping trip to Toys R Us, I (Antoinette Brim) came across a display of Barbies in the Basic Black series. Each doll was clothed in a little black dress inspired by legendary designer, Diane Von Furstenberg. In the front row of the display, there were three different black Barbies in three skin colors and with three different hair textures in three different little black dresses. My dear friend was immediately drawn to the doll known as "Goddess." She picked up the doll and said softly, “I have never seen a Barbie [with] my color and with my hair.”

Educators, poets, artists and now co-editors, Antoinette Brim, Lita Hooper and Demetrice Worley will be compiling an anthology of poetry, fiction, non-fiction (essays), and ten-minute plays surrounding the notion of beauty as it relates to black girls and women. Use Deidre, Goddess and/or Mbilia (the three black Barbies) as your muses. However, while the three black Barbies are the catalyst for this project, they need not be represented directly in your work. Consider how the standard of beauty impacts the way girls groom, envision, present, value and devalue themselves and each other. Consider how the larger community judges black beauty. Consider how the media depicts the black body. Visual Artists interested in submitting artwork for the anthology cover, should also submit.

The submission deadline is June 21, 2011. This call is open to all races and genders. Previously published work is welcome. Presently, a publisher is being sought.

Please e-mail poetry submissions to: threeblackbarbiespoetry@gmail.com
Please e-mail fiction submissions to: threeblackbarbiesfiction@gmail.com
Please e-mail essays and ten minute play submissions to: threeblackbarbiesessays.plays@gmail.com
Please e-mail cover art submissions to: threeblackbarbiescoverart@gmail.com