Essays
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.
Toilets
Eric Robertson
Question: What do people use thousands of gallons of fresh water for each year? Washing dishes? Cooking meals? Watering gardens? All of these answers are correct. But I was thinking of flushing toilets. That's right, we use thousands of gallons of fresh, clean, drinking water just to flush our feces and urine down the commode. It's pretty nifty and hands free, but it is an awful waste of good water when other methods are just as good.
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Not by Bread Alone
B. Jesse Clarke
A Perspective on the Tenderloin Reflection Education Center
In 1981, a group of activists associated with the Franciscan peace and justice movement came together in San Francisco's Tenderloin to create a reflection and education center that would "take into account the perspectives of the underside of history, the experiences and struggles of the 'jagged edge'-- all those in our society who are not treated as full human beings." Beginning with a Bible discussion group organized on the model of liberation theology activists in Latin America, the Tenderloin Reflection and Education Center has evolved into one of the Bay area's longest lived cultural and spiritual organizations of and for homeless and dispossessed persons.
In 1981, a group of activists associated with the Franciscan peace and justice movement came together in San Francisco's Tenderloin to create a reflection and education center that would "take into account the perspectives of the underside of history, the experiences and struggles of the 'jagged edge'-- all those in our society who are not treated as full human beings." Beginning with a Bible discussion group organized on the model of liberation theology activists in Latin America, the Tenderloin Reflection and Education Center has evolved into one of the Bay area's longest lived cultural and spiritual organizations of and for homeless and dispossessed persons.
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September 11 and the U.S.War; Beyond the Curtain of Smoke
Edited By Roger Burbach and Ben ClarkePublished by City Lights and Freedom Voices
Essays providing the essential information needed to understand the origins and consequences of the September 11 attacks, US policies in the Middle East and Southwest Asia and strategies for organizing resistance to the U.S. war.
Don't Abandon Us!
Zapatista National Liberation Army--EZLN
Interview conducted by Matilde Pérez and Laura Castellanos, published in La Jornada's special supplement for International Women's Day, March 7, 1994 Translated by Clifton Ross.
"Don't abandon us!" is the desperate cry of the women of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, hoping that their cry to be heard, both within and beyond their communities, won't die.
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TREC History
A Report on the Tenderloin Reflection and Education Center
The Tenderloin Reflection and Education Center (TREC) has long been a model community organization for political activism and organization.
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Until We Are Strong Together: Women Writers in the Tenderloin
Caroline E. HellerPROLOGUE
IT TURNED INTO SOMETHING TRUE TO YOU
I lived an ordinary life among down-to-earth routines. And yet I felt two things very strongly:
I felt, however ordinary those routines, that I stood at the Iyric center of my experience, and that
I wished to make a visionary claim for that experience.
Eavan Boland, "When the Sprit Moves"
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Voice of Fire
Communiques and Interviews from the Zapatista National Liberation ArmyEdited by Ben Clarke and Clifton Ross
"Voice of Fire presents the critical communiqués and perspectives of the first guerrilla movement to emerge in Latin America in the post-Cold War era. This book puts us inside the minds of Indigenous peoples and Mexicans who are raising fundamental questions about the current political and social order in North America. Subcomandante Marcos' commentaries are written with a passion and commitment reminiscent of Eduardo Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America."
Roger Burbach
Author of Fire in the Americas
William Everson: The Light the Shadow Casts
Clifton RossThe Street Writer's Manifesto
George Wynn
I bring to your notice that I exist to chronicle the plight of the outsider. With this affirmation the street writer joins the humanistic community in striving to improve social conditions. It does not matter whether the writer is a beginner or experienced. What matters is that you sit entranced over your journal. It will do you good. After concentrated reflection, the street writer, with pen or pencil, must advocate a charged passion for the homeless and the underclass.
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