Books
Freedom Voices Announces New Novel: Sugaree Rising by J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Freedom Voices
For More Information
February 1, 2012--San Francisco, CA Freedom Voices announces this week the acquisition of publishing rights for Sugaree Rising, Bay Area author, journalist, and political columnist J. Douglas Allen-Taylor's first novel.
A publication date has not yet been set, but is expected sometime in late 2012.
Set in the South Carolina coastal area Lowcountry in the late Depression years, Sugaree Rising is the story of community resistance to a massive community relocation forced by a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)-style dam building and rural electrification project. The novel also details the struggles of a unique group of Lowcountry African-American people-commonly known as "the Gullah"-to maintain a religion and culture largely based in their ancestral African homeland.
Allen-Taylor's novel is loosely based upon the Santee Cooper Project, the 1930's era initiative that carved out two major lakes in the heart of South Carolina, brought electrification to scores of rural communities, but in the process dislocated more than 900 families, most of them African-American.
Hobos to Street People
Art HazelwoodArtists’ Responses to Homelessness from the New Deal to the Present
Hobos to Street People offers a comparison of the culture and politics of homelessness as seen through artwork since the Great Depression. The book is based on the touring exhibition of the same name that first opened in early 2009-the time of the greatest economic downturn since the 1929 Stock Market Crash. As the numbers of people living in poverty continues to swell, this book looks to the past for lessons for today. A wide range of artists have brought attention to the issue, including historical figures such as Rockwell Kent, Fritz Eichenberg, Jacob Burck, Dorothea Lange and contemporary artists Kiki Smith, Sandow Birk, Eric Drooker and many more. The text, written by artist and curator Art Hazelwood, places the artwork within the history of social and political responses from the New Deal, through McCarthyism, to the rise of modern homelessness in the 1980s. Sections of the book focus on different aspects of homelessness including day to day life, displacement, rural poverty and political struggle. Emphasis is also given to the means by which artists have been able to get their message out whether through publications, government programs of the New Deal, street posters, exhibitions, or alliances with activist groups.
A portion of the proceeds from the sales of the books will be donated to homeless advocacy groups. Donors can direct the donation using the comment box above. (enter: WRAP, COH or Spirit)
The book is based on the traveling exhibition of the same name.The exhibition is on tour until 2012 and began at the California Historical Society in San Francisco in February of 2009. California Exhibition Resources Alliance (CERA) is the touring company. The next exhibition date for the tour is below.
July 29, 2011 – December 4, 2011
de Saisset Museum University of Santa Clara,
500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053
The exhibition is online at Western Regional Advocacy Project.
Reviews of 'Hobos':
The Never Ending Tale: Images of Despair and Hope from the Great Depression to the Great Recession
by: Paul Von Blum on November 29th, 2011
Tikkun Daily
Hobos to Street People: Artists’ Responses to Homelessness from the New Deal to the Present
by: Harvey Smith
Hobos to Street People: Artists Uncover Hidden History of Poverty
by: Margot Pepper, on September 1, 2011
Street Spirit
Homelessness in Art from the New Deal to the Present
by: DeWitt Cheng on September 1, 2011
Street Spirit
Translations from Silence
Clifton Ross Winner of the 2010 PEN Oakland poetry book award.
with an introduction by Jack Hirschman
“Clif Ross is among the most highly respected activists of the Left
Coast… His own poetry, a generation of works, is here warmly presented
in the context of a maturation of tone and voice that is quietly
remarkable--and very much like himself. Ross is a fusion of a lyric
realism and the power of metaphor. His voice isn't of the plosive kind.
He writes an organic lyric, resisting any attempt on the part of the
"Poet" in himself to overcome himself by a kind of verbal oblivion. His
poems are expressions of his determination that friendship triumphs
through beautiful communications that make one feel solidarity without
feeling one's being indoctrinated or recruited.”
Jack Hirschman
Poet Laureate of San Francisco
from the introduction to the English edition.
Song of the Flies
María Mercedes Carranza[An Account of the Events]
Translations by Margarita Millar
Translations by Margarita Millar
Available now!
Canto de las Moscas (Song of the Flies), by the late Colombian poet María Mercedes Carranza, was published for the first time in 1997, following a decade marked by extremely high levels of violence in Colombia. At this point the country had already endured nearly half a century of armed struggle between government and rebel groups, and had more recently experienced the emergence of paramilitary forces and warring drug lords.
Carranza wrote these twenty-four poems, each bearing the name of a town or city that had been the site of large-scale violence, as a sort of chronicle and commemoration of the tragedies the people endured. The titles reflect a contradiction characteristic of Colombian reality: the beautifully-musical and whimsical place-names stand in cruel contrast to the events that marked them as massacre sites. Written in a form similar to Japanese haiku but not adhering to its strict line-and-syllable counts, the poems are short and spare.
Man Offbeat
Rhett StuartThis collection of poetry and prose tells the story of one man's liberation. Reading it, we join him as he spirals outward from the sound of the word, to the sound of the street, from a story of everyday life, to the inner magic of creative transcendence. His love of language and of people vibrates almost musically on each page. Stuart finds himself always out of sync. Offbeat. . . articulating hope in a place where sleeping on the streets is as common as being housed.
ISBN: 0-9625153-5-3
60 pages
Perfect bound paperback
$9.95
Image and Imagination
Ben Clarke, Editor; Photographer, Dorothea LangeWriter-in-residence at the Oakland Museum of California and the Oakland Public Library, Ben Clarke, re-examines Dorothea Lange's photographs along with collaborating artists including: A.K. Black, Scott Braley, Lucha Corpi, Kitty Costello, Maketa Groves, Richard Oyama, Margot Pepper, Eric Robertson, Clifton Ross, Abena Songbird, and Rhett Stuart. Using poetry, personal essay, rap and contemporary photography the artists explore the intersection between Lange's documentary photography and current realities.
Stories from El Barrio
Piri Thomas
Reviews
“Stories From El Barrio is a crystal clear reflection of the general facet of Piri Thomas’s literary power. It is tender, powerfully compassionate, humanely provocative.”
Claude Brown, author of Manchild in the Promised Land
Through the Wall: A Year in Havana
Margot PepperMargot Pepper's memoir propels us through the blockade to post-cold war Cuba. It's a surreal world where high-ranking officials are required to pick up hitch-hikers. Root canals, cosmetic surgery and graduate school are free, but toilet paper is exorbitant. There's no income tax nor homelessness, yet no house-paint either. As the story unfolds, Margot pursues a passionate love affair with a penniless Mexican poet who shakes up her views about Cuba.
Translations from Silence by Clifton Ross wins PEN Oakland Award
Freedom VoicesWe are pleased to note that Translations from Silence by Clifton Ross has won the 20th annual PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles National Literary Award outstanding book of poetry published in 2009, awarded in 2010. Please join us at the PEN Oakland Awards ceremony and booksigning.
PEN OAKLAND
20th Annual 2010 Literary Awards
Oakland Public Library,
Rockridge Branch, 5366 College Ave.
Saturday, December 11, 2010, 2 PM – 5 PM
Goddesses We Ain't
Edited by Lucy Bledsoe
This anthology offers
poetry, short stories, performance pieces and autobiographical memoirs
that were developed in the Tenderloin Reflection and Education Center's
Women Writers Workshop. A dozen women from different cultures explore
the landscape of love, language, literacy and liberation. In forms as
diverse as the personalities of the participants. Edited and introduced
by workshop facilitator, Lucy Jane Bledsoe, the collection cuts to the
heart of women's concerns today.
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