THE WOODS HAVE WORDS

Cover painting: Charmed Silent by Hannibal King
THE WOODS HAVE WORDS: poems of tribute, my first collection of poetry, is now available from Ibbetson Street Press. Thank you for supporting small-press poetry.
http://lulu.com/ibbetsonpress
 
Review by Gloria Mindock, Cervena Barva Press

With poetry so honest and images so powerfully quiet, Mignon will be your guide to the many areas of Boston. [...]

Black History Month Series (V)

Q: What are the dangers for a Black woman writer of writing first-person-narrator poetry?
A: The White-male-authored “I” of a poem is often seen as a universal spokesperson, a representative of the “human condition”; the White-female-authored “I” is viewed as the puppet of a man-bashing and very self-obsessed girl; the African-American male “I” is [...]

Black History Month Series (IV)

Removed for publication in MoJo! Issue # 2 (my online journal).  Check Publications page.

Black History Month Series (III)

Q: Why is “different” still a dirty word?
A: Because of the normalcy fantasies of the skin privileged.
I am not a member of mainstream-, middle class-, Judeo-Christian-, WASP-modeled society. That is one of the major differences between being a “truly multicultural artist” and being “a multiculturalist.” Multiculturalists are usually skin privileged, thus [...]

Black History Month Series (II)

Q: What does it mean, really, to be a multicultural writer?
A: I write as I live, through all of my valued private and public traditions and experiences…as an American. There’s no pie chart for my cultural percentages, and 9 times out of 10, the Black part is not open for discussion.
Blackness is a [...]

Black History Month Series (I)

In honor of Black History Month and the impending publication of my first collection of poems, which are autobiographical, I will be posting a series of personal essays.
Q: What does it mean to be Black, and multicultural, and a woman writing into the 21st century?
A: It’s a race, class, gender tale of [...]

It’s all about the ball

Man, the second and third quarters were snoozeable—but the first and fourth, well, they are why football keeps winter hot.  The 100-yard TD dash, the Fitgerald sprints that said “I’m making you old boys run for your money today!” and that gorgeous Baryshnikov-worthy, tippey-toe TD catch in the end zone.  Aw, baby!
Add music—lip-synch away, JH, [...]