www.kpfa.org
MarvinX and Rashidah on KPFA Monday, 9pm
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MarvinX and Rashidah Sabreen on KPFA Monday, 9pm
Marvin X will be interviewed and perform on the Greg Bridges show,Monday night, 9 p.m., KPFA radio, online www.kpfa.org. The poet will beaccompanied by vocalist Rashidah Sabreen. They will perform materialfrom their upcoming CD The Language of Love, poems by Marvin X,Rashidah's original lyrics, vocals and guitar. Although she's beenwriting and singing since childhood in Philly, Rashidah's in league withher Philly sister's Jill Scott and India Iree.
Folk songs of love, a cry for male/female understanding. Rashidah isjust now breaking out after marriages and child rearing. We expect agenius is at work and about to come forth. Hold onto your hats! Marvinis known to be overwhelming, but Rashidah holds her own with solidlyrics and vocals. You will be shocked at what you hear, the combinationof poetry, lyrics, vocals and music. With only his poetic voice, SanFrancisco poet laureate emeritus devorah major went into a swoon when heread to her graduate students at the California College of the Artsrecently.
When poet/critic Bob Holman called Marvin X the USA's Rumi, Marvinsays it is one of the highest honors any poet can receive. Rumi, ofcourse, lived around 1344 in Persia, but is the best selling poet inAmerica. Marvin is probably the lowest selling, but sales have nothingto do with the quality of his work. Bob Holman reviews his work 2005collection Land of My Daughters and his 2007 essays Beyond Religion,toward Spirituality :
Marvin X--The USA's Rumi
by Bob Holman
Bowery Poetry Club, New York City
Where I’d like to start this 2005 Poetry Roundup is Iraq, as in,how did we get there and how do we get back? The consciousness-alteringbook of poems that tells the tale, in no uncertain terms and yetalways via poetry, is the astonishing Land of My Daughters: Poems1995-2005 (Black Bird Press) by Marvin X.
Marvin X is the USA’s Rumi, and his nation is not “where ourfathers died” but where our daughters live. The death of patriarchalwar culture is his everyday reality. X’s poems vibrate, whip, love inthe most meta- and physical ways imaginable and un-. He’s got the humorof Pietri, the politics of Baraka, and the spiritual Muslim groundingthat is totally new in English –- the ecstasy of Hafiz, the wisdom ofSaadi. It’s not unusual for him to have a sequence of shortish linesfollowed by a culminating line that stretches a quarter page –- it isthe dance of the dervishes, the rhythms of a Qasida.
“I am the black bird in love
I fly with love
I swoop into the ocean and pluck fish in the name of love
oceans flow with love
let the ocean wash me with love
even the cold ocean is love
the morning swim is love
the ocean chills me with love
from the deep come fish full of love”
(from the opening poem, “In the Name of Love”)
“How to Love A Thinking Woman”:
“Be revolutionary, radical, bodacious
Stay beyond the common
Have some class about yaself…
Say things she’s never heard before
Ihdina sirata al mustaquim(guide us on the straight path)
Make her laugh til she comes in her panties
serious jokes to get her mind off the world.”
There are anthems (“When I’ll Wave the Flag/Cuando Voy a Flamear laBandera”), rants (“JESUS AND LIQUOR STORES”), love poems (“Thursday”)and poems totally uncategorizable (“Dreamtime”). Read this one cover tocover when you’ve got the time to “Marry a Tree.”
Beyond Religion, towardSpirituality
by Marvin X
Review by Bob Holman
Last year Marvin X released his magnum opus, Landof My Daughters: Poems 1995-2005 (Black Bird Press), poems that put mein mind of Mawlânâ Jalâl ad-Dîn Muhammad Rûmî. He just publishedBeyond Religion Towards Spirituality, Essays on Consciousness (BlackBird Press, 2006), and all I can say, folks, is this is the Bible ofthe Hood and is bound to stir up plenty of opposition -- and maybe evencut through the BS to move towards God. “Imagine we are the generationof Parker, Coltrane, Dolphy, Monk, Duke, Bessie, Lady Day, Ella,Sarah, what on earth can follow us but the earth shaking children oftomorrow... who will smash the atmosphere with sounds...”
“If the mate leaves, we should be happy. Why would you want to keepsomeone who wants to go? If she wants to be with Joe, let her go --you don’t own her. If she wants, she has the human right to give Joesome pussy. I know you don’t like it but get over it. Don’t kill herand Joe behind the funk. The world is full of infinite possibilities.God will provide wou with the perfect mate... Let go and Let God.”
Poet/novelist Mohja Kahf ReviewsMarvin's 1995 collection Love and War
Love And War
by Marvin X
preface byLorenzo Thomas 1995
Review
by Mohja Kahf
Have spent the last few days (when not mourning with friends andfamily the passing of my family friend and mentor in Muslim feminismand Islamic work, Sharifa AlKhateeb, (may she dwell in Rahma), immersedin the work of Marvin X and amazed at his brilliance. This poet hasbeen prolific since his first book of poems, Fly to Allah, (1969),right up to his most recent Love and War Poems (1995) and Land of MyDaughters, 2005, not to mention his plays, which were produced (withoutroyalties) in Black community theatres from the 1960s to the present,and essay collections such as In the Crazy House Called America, 2002,and Wish I Could Tell You The Truth, 2005.
Marvin X was a prime shaper of the Black Arts Movement (1964-1970s)which is, among other things, the birthplace of modern Muslim Americanliterature, and it begins with him. Well, Malik Shabazz and him. Butwhile the Autobiography of Malcolm X is a touchstone of Muslim Americanculture, Marvin X and other Muslims in BAM were the emergence of acultural expression of Black Power and Muslim thought inspired byMalcolm, who was, of course, ignited by the teachings and writings ofthe Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
And that, taken all together, is what I see as the starting pointof Muslim American literature. Then there are others, immigrant Muslimsand white American Muslims and so forth, that follow.There are alsoantecedents, such as the letters of Africans enslaved in America. Maybethere is writing by Muslims in the Spanish and Portuguese era orearlier, but that requires archival research of a sort I am not goingto be able to do.
My interest is contemporary literature, and by literature I am moreinterested in poetry and fiction than memoir and non-fiction, althoughthat is a flexible thing.I argue that it is time to call MuslimAmerican literature a field, even though many of these writings can beand have been classified in other ways—studied under African Americanliterature or to take the writings of immigrant Muslims, studied underSouth Asian ethnic literature or Arab American literature.
With respect to Marvin X, I wonder why I am just now hearing abouthim—I read Malcolm when I was 12, I read Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchezand others from the BAM in college and graduate school—why isattention not given to his work in the same places I encountered theseother authors?
Declaring Muslim American literature as a field of study isvaluable because recontextualizing it will add another layer ofattention to his incredibly rich body of work. He deserves to be WAYbetter known than he is among Muslim Americans and generally, in theworld of writing and the world at large.
By we who are younger Muslim American poets, in particular, Marvinshould be honored as our elder, one who is still kickin, still true tothe word!Love and War Poems is wrenching and powerful, combining apowerful critique of America ("America downsizes like a cripplewhore/won't retire/too greedy to sleep/too fat to rest") but also acritique of deadbeat dads and drug addicts (not sparing himself) andmen who hate.
"For the Men" is so Quranic poem it gave me chills with verses suchas:
for the men who honor wives
and the men who abuse them
for the men who win
and the men who sin
for the men who love God
and the men who hate
for the men who are brothers
and the men who are beasts"
"O Men, listen to the wise," the poet pleads:
there is no escape
for the men of this world
or the men of the next
He is sexist as all get out, in the way that is common for men ofhis generation and his radicalism, but he is refreshingly aware of thatand working on it. It's just that the work isn't done and if thatoffends you to see a man in process and still using the 'b' word, lookout. Speaking of the easily offended, he warns in his introduction that"life is often profane and obscene, such as the present condition ofAfrican American people." If you want pure and holy, he says, read theQuran and the Bible, because Marvin is talking about "the low down dirtytruth."
For all that, the poetry of Marvin X is like prayer, beauty-full ofreverence and honor for Truth. "It is. it is. it is."A poem to hisdaughter Muhammida is a sweet mix of parental love and pride andfatherly freak-out at her sexuality and independence, ending humblywith:
peace Mu
it's on you
yo world
sister-girl
Other people don't get off so easy, including a certain "blackjoint chief of staff ass nigguh (kill 200,000 Muslims in Iraq)" in thesharply aimed poem "Free Me from My Freedom." (Mmm hmm, the 'n' word isall over the place in Marvin too.) Nature poem, wedding poem,depression poem, wake-up call poems, it's all here. Haiti, Rwanda, theMillion Man March, Betsy Ross's maid, OJ, Rabin, Mumia Abu-Jamal, andother topics make it into this prophetically voiced collection ofdissent poetry, so Islamic and so African American in its language andits themes, a book that will stand in its beauty long after the peoplementioned in it pass.
READ MARVIN X for RAMADAN!
--Mohja Kahf Associate Professor / Dept. of English, Middle East& Islamic Studies,
University of Arkansas-Fayetteville
Comments about Marvin X
….Malcolm X ain’t got nothing on Marvin X. Still Marvin has been ignored and silenced like Malcolm would be ignored andsilenced if he had lived on into the Now.Marvin’s one of the mostextraordinary, exciting black intellectuals living today—writing,publishing, performing with Sun Ra’s Musicians (Live in Philly at WarmDaddies, available on DVD from BPP), reciting, filming, producingconferences (Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness, San FranciscoBlack Radical Book Fair); he’s ever engaging, challenging therespectable and the comfortable.
He like Malcolm, dares to say things fearlessly, in the open (inearshot of the white man) that so many Negroes feel, think and speak onthe corner, in the barbershops and urban streets of black America….
BeyondReligion, toward Spirituality by Marvin X is a dangerous book,for it reveals the inner workings of capitalist and imperialistgovernments around the world. It's a book that stands with and onbehalf of the poor, the dispossessed, the despised, and downtrodden.
He’s a needed counselor, for he knows himself on the deepestpersonal level and he reveals that self to us that we might be hisbeneficiaries. --Rudolph Lewis, editor,Chickenbones
People who know Marvin X already know him as a peripatetic,outspoken, irreverent, poetic “crazy nigger,” whose pen is continuallyand forever out-of-control. As a professional psychologist, I hasten toinvoke the disclaimer that that is in no way a diagnosis or clinicalimpression of mine. I have never actually subjected this brother toserious psychoanalytical scrutiny and have no wish to place him on thecouch, if only because I know of no existing psycho-diagnosticinstrumentality of pathology of normalcy that could properly evaluateMarvin completely.—Dr. Nathan Hare, Black Think Tank, SanFrancisco
He like Malcolm, dares to say things fearlessly, in the open (inearshot of the white man) that so many Negroes feel, think and speak onthe corner, in the barbershops and urban streets of black America….
BeyondReligion, toward Spirituality by Marvin X is a dangerous book,for it reveals the inner workings of capitalist and imperialistgovernments around the world. It's a book that stands with and onbehalf of the poor, the dispossessed, the despised, and downtrodden.
He’s a needed counselor, for he knows himself on the deepestpersonal level and he reveals that self to us that we might be hisbeneficiaries. --Rudolph Lewis, editor,Chickenbones
People who know Marvin X already know him as a peripatetic,outspoken, irreverent, poetic “crazy nigger,” whose pen is continuallyand forever out-of-control. As a professional psychologist, I hasten toinvoke the disclaimer that that is in no way a diagnosis or clinicalimpression of mine. I have never actually subjected this brother toserious psychoanalytical scrutiny and have no wish to place him on thecouch, if only because I know of no existing psycho-diagnosticinstrumentality of pathology of normalcy that could properly evaluateMarvin completely.—Dr. Nathan Hare, Black Think Tank, SanFrancisco
I'm beginning to read your wonderful book (Land of My Daughters, poems) - Aloud! There's no way that thesilence(s) in your poems could remain...quiet. There is a spiritualfaucet of images, an outcry (un grito), humming deep and wild. Andafter I read your poetry, a ring keeps bouncing off my ears. Must bethat preacher in you, that poet who has learned to dance withhurricanes! Un abrazo, Jose Angel
--jose angel figueroa, New York City
When you listen to Tupac Shakur, E-40, Too Short, Master Por any other rappers out of the Bay Area of Cali, think of Marvin X.He laid the foundation and gave us the language to express Black maleurban experience in a lyrical way. -- James G. Spady,Philadelphia New Observer
His writing is orgasmic!—Fahizah Alim, SacramentoBee
He comes in the spirit of Imhotep to bring peace of mindto the world. — Ptah Allah El, Richmond CA
When you listen to Tupac Shakur, E-40, Too Short, Master Por any other rappers out of the Bay Area of Cali, think of Marvin X.He laid the foundation and gave us the language to express Black maleurban experience in a lyrical way. -- James G. Spady,Philadelphia New Observer
His writing is orgasmic!—Fahizah Alim, SacramentoBee
He comes in the spirit of Imhotep to bring peace of mindto the world. — Ptah Allah El, Richmond CA
He’s the new Malcolm X! Nobody’s going to talk about his book, HOW TO RECOVER FROM THE ADDICTION TO WHITESUPREMACY, out loud, but they’ll hush hush about it.—JerriLange, author, Jerri, A Black Woman’s Life in the Media
Marvin X's autobiography Somethin' Proper is one of themost significant works to come out of the Black Arts Movement of the1960s and 1970s. It tells the story of perhaps the most importantAfrican American Muslim poet to appear in the United States during theCivil Rights era. The book opens with an introduction by scholar NathanHare, a key figure in the Black Studies Movement of the period. --JuliusE. Thompson, African American Review
Much of Marvin X's poetry is militant in its anger at American racism and injustice. For example, in “Did YouVote Nigger?” he uses rough dialect and directs his irony at AfricanAmericans who believe in the government but are actually its pawns.Many of the proverbs in The Son of Man (1969) express alienation fromwhite America . However, many of Marvin X's proverbs and poems expressmore concern with what African Americans can do positively forthemselves, without being paralyzed by hatred. He insists that theanswer is to concentrate on establishing a racial identity and to“understand that art is celebration of Allah.”The poems in Fly to Allah, Black Man Listen (1969), and other volumesare characterized by their intensity and their message of racialunity....
--Lorenzo Thomas, University of Houston, Texas
He has always been in the forefront of Pan Africanwriting. Indeed, he is one of the innovators and founders of therevolutionary school of African writing. --Amiri Baraka (LeRoiJones)
--Lorenzo Thomas, University of Houston, Texas
He has always been in the forefront of Pan Africanwriting. Indeed, he is one of the innovators and founders of therevolutionary school of African writing. --Amiri Baraka (LeRoiJones)
I welcome reading the work of a “grassroots guerilla publicist” whois concerned with the psychological/intellectual freedom of his people.I think of Walter Rodney as the “guerilla intellectual” who wasorganically connected to the grassroots. Key book here would be TheGroundings With My Brothers [and sisters].
Or Steve Biko’s I Write What I Like. I think though that Dr. M. isclosely affiliated with Frances Cress Welsing’s Isis Papers: Keys tothe Colors (along with Bobby Wright’s thesis). Of course we need toalso consult that classic: The Black Anglo Saxons, and Frazier’s BlackBourgeoisie. What I am most impressed with is Dr. M’s Pan-Africanistperspective. We all need to “Detox” as Dr. M states, wherever we are inthis world. So the Pan-African element is important. Du Bois knewthis, and many of the other giants.
Coming Soon from Black Bird Press
“Marvin X is Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland.”-IshmaelReed
The Wisdom of Plato Negro Parables/Fables
Marvin X
“He’s the USA’s Rumi!”—Bob Holman
Jeremiah, I presume! –Rudolph Lewis
The Wisdom ofPlato Negro, Parables and Fables
by Marvin X
Publication date: May, 2010
308 pages
Limited edition
Autographed
Suggested donation $100.00
Pre-publication donation $50.00
Black Bird Press
1222 Dwight Way, Berkeley CA 94702
www.parablesandfablesofmarvinx.blogspot.com
jmarvinx@yahoo.com
https://theblacklist.net/
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