...Con los manos

Just rolled in to LA from San Diego about 9 a.m. Cruised down last night with Otim to make our  presence felt at the 7th Annual Illfonix soiree (KSDS 88.3 FM)  hosted by DJ Sachamo and crew. We arrived right before midnight and entered Kadan's on 30th and Adams in Normal Heights. The joint was jumpin' and we made our way over to the sidebar to get Sach Boogie's attention. A big smile lit up his face when he realized me and Otim were in the house. Later

...back at Kadan's ranchero, I hugged Sach ( ain't seen him in a coon's age) and he pointed over to a spot near the dance floor where Michelle was standing. I went over and in one swoop grabbed her and hugged her tight. She had just blown in that evening from Chicago O'Hare for the weekend celebration. No doubt, she was h-a-p-p-y to see me and Otim as we she--and we did our best to dance the night away, which you couldn't help but get your groove on listening to the dope dj's Sach had assembled. We caught up and got down on the dance floor along with Tinquer, Kanesha and none other than Zach Kolo from Cameroon--sportin' a Cameroonian national jersey and (you gotta love it) white patent leathers. Sandra was cuttin' up the dance floor and later that night I told her when the dj's play she becomes the music. Much flava that gyrl has in her petite mainframe. Yukimi strolled in looking like Oxun in an ankle length tank top dress. The talent in the room was overflowing and all the party people got their groove on until the bartenders shut it down.  Lovely...

We got a few zzzz's before getting back on the road. I drove (so Otim could sleep) listening to Toni Allen's Lagos No Shaking and Laila Hathawy's newest joint thinking about the beautiful things we do with our hands: Snap shutters, draw designs, vibrate vinyl, caress keys, create change. At our highest we are creators in and of the universe. How is it then that the world is mad chaotic? Our challenge, as the great late artist Romare Bearden said of his fragmented assemblage technique, is to "order chaos." I believe that and take up the challenge to compose and produce from the ashes. Think bird: Charlie Parker, fried chicken and the Phoenix rising from the cleansing fires that have direct purpose in transcending madness. Look at your hands. Create.

Yu Gef fo Creep*...

Delila hovers seamlessly/drapes over crowded streets

in twilight dance/burgandy brown

face stoned/a burden revealing 

unknown/ silent lines

slumped sillouette singing

window pains/catches morning corner stress

she 

hums away the weariness

in stuttered sound and

muted beat

song slips around periphery/discordant sounding

un able to pass

subtly seeming

she says 

what 

of this tension teasing her

back to this place...

 

l.g. kanga

*Yu Gef fo Creep befo yu tenap: Krio for You got to crawl before you stand

Me Dirty Dirty Love

I thought I was going batty until I hung out with my gyrl LG and threw back some Hennesey on Baltimore Ave in the Illadelph. I was feeling a bit disoriented because the faces in the city of brotherly love seem bent and broken. She taught me the Krio phrase "Don't look me by the looking," which is similar to "Don't judge a book by its cover." Maybe its the fact that for two years in a row Philly heads up the list of urban centers in 'merica with the highest murder rate. Why are black folks killing each other? This is especially true when it comes to young black men in Africa's diaspora. This time back home I realize I am "just come" another Krio phrase for people coming back home from studying or living abroad. I also realize the true meaning of the words home is where the hatred is...for more reasons than not it's good to air our collective dirty laundry, even if it means breaking fragile bonds that hang by a single thread on a sagging clothesline, then reordering that chaos into an artistic expression that gives shape, form and meaning. Me, LG and Michelle met online today and discussed the forthcoming anthology. We are trying to contain the excitement and channel our energy into the work. If you stumble across this page and are inspired to write your poem, your story please send them to lavanderiazspot@gmail.com. Sometimes love's so downright dirty dirty that it repeats its own name. But if we ain't lovin' then how we livin'?

Call for Submissions

Anthology, Lavanderia: A Mixed Load of Women, Wash and Word seeks submissions: fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction signifying the metaphor of sorting, washing, ironing, folding laundry and life. www.cityworkspress.com for submission guidelines. Deadline: December 15th. Maximum 5,000 words or 5 poems. Include a bio. Email word doc submissions only to lavanderiazspot@gmail.com. 

"Take me to the dirty depths, show me a fresh face amidst the hollow masses decayed in dampened dirt, musty smells discarded as she cascades down narrow steps. I need the red dress to hand to her as she passes by, whisping away the only hope I have left, as my smile disintergrates into a dusted oblivion."

- Michelle Sierra

Dangling Darlings

"Dangling Darlings" is a poem submitted by Michelle. Whimsy is the first thought that came to mind when I looked at the text and picture side by side. It reminds me of laundry days and the freshness that only sun and wind can bring. Or of times when I'd lay on the lawn as a kid and watch clouds morph into patterns. That's how I knew without knowing that whoever lives in the sky had to be an artist's artist.

Between Folds

@ Michelle's we rehearsed the timing of the poetic narrative and slide show. Yukimi had this picture (which I dubbed "Two Men") blown up into poster size. I had written a poem that fit perfectly with the image. It begins with the line, "He folds her French cut panties on a table at the laundrymat..." and reflects loss and longing as the unknown man in the frame folds his lover's garments. For further reading check out Lavanderia.

Washing Statement

Lavanderia was conceived at the ZSPOT writer’s workshop in San Diego California.

In critique mode, we discussed the revision process, joking about how it compares to doing dirty laundry. Our faces blazed in that moment of possibilities. We developed a showpiece using words and photos of wash scenes that illustrate the weekly task common to most. 

Everybody does the dirty deed. Although after researching history, we found that the practice falls mainly on the shoulders of women. 

Over time we collected stories--our own and those of our mamas, tias, daughters, abuelas and great grand mamas—the women who mended, washed, ironed, and folded garments for their families and their employers’ families for pennies a day. Like laundry, the stories are soiled, funky, faded and tattered, and even after pre-soak, bleaching and softening with the best products money can buy, some leftovers of the original stains remain.

Clothes unmake the woman. Driven by fashion and advertising, we often imitate rather than create from the richness of our grind. Especially for those of us caught in stress cycles of corporate-mania or the high maintenance of poverty, (both sure to kill any inkling of creative energy) we spark, surviving through our labors. Safeguarding the integrity of our families and ourselves, we refine words and distill images that rejoice those headragged fore-mamas, who, in the womanist words of Alice Walker speaking of history’s unspoken wisdom, "knew without knowing a page of it themselves." 

Lavanderia is a small harvest of our labor. Our hope is that women around the world continue to imagine and maintain their creative vision while balancing the common tasks embedded in our daily survival.

Lavandería is taking SUBMISSIONS...

Calling all laundresses...the ad hit 

Poets & Writers 

Magazine, and the submissions are rolling in by the washload. Michelle and Lucia and I met in cyberspace to strategize about upcoming dirty deeds including the soon to be launched website--in particular, the gallery of photos taken by Michelle and Yukimi in San Diego, Tijuana and Los Angeles. There is 

mucho trabajando

 ahead, but the magnitude of the anthology calls for nonetheless than the Wash House collective to roll up our sleeves, tie up our heads and get busy with the many facets of pre-production. It's a labor of love, much like the thankless job of keeping our families in clean threads. But the focus here is to unbind voices that might not ordinarily be heard. I see bubbles, like the kind I used to blow from a blue wand on my back porch when I was a little girl.  Voices, I imagine, bubbling up, out and over the top of the container. They are fragile yet full of stories and poems that are structurally sound, well crafted--encasing a spectrum of colors in all of their lovely convexity.