Break Word with the World' Oct. 17: Writers Club's 27th Annual Multi-Arts Forum Explores 'Poetic & Social Justice'
Break Word with the World' Oct. 17:
Writers Club's 27th Annual Multi-Arts
Forum Explores 'Poetic & Social Justice'
East Saint Louis, Illinois–The 27th Annual "Break Word with the
World"–a town hall-style "conch/us/nest"-raising evening of poetry,
exhibits, performance art and social commentary–will be held Tuesday,
Oct. 17, at 7:00 p.m., in room 2083, Building B, of the SIUE-East St.
Louis Higher Education Center, 601 J. R. Thompson Drive (62201).
This year's program, sponsored by the Eugene B. Redmond Writers Club
and the St. Louis Brick City Poetry Festival, is dedicated to the
memory of Jeanne Allen Faulkner, 1930-2017, historian, activist and a
former patron of the Club. Family friendly, “Break Word” is free to
the public.
Participants: Club members Roscoe "Ros" Crenshaw, Charlois Lumpkin,
Darlene Roy (president), Jaye P. Willis and EBR. Members will perform
as the Soular Systems Ensemble and individually. Others: poets Pacia
Anderson, Michael Castro, Nik Nicholson, Treasure Shields Redmond and
MK Stallings; commentators Marla Byrd and Atty. Laninya Cason, a
former judge; and musicians.
"Break Word" grew out of an effort by PEN/Oakland (CA)* to bring
attention to victims of racial, sexual, political, cultural, religious
and class-based discrimination via “town hall” meetings in 13 cities.
Headed by poet-novelist and MacArthur ("Genius") Award winner Ishmael
Reed, PEN selected East St. Louis for participation in 1991. Previous
“Break Word” programs focused on Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.
The Oct. 17 event continues observance of the 1917 East St. Louis
Racial Murders (“Riot”). Byrd, Cason, Redmond and Roy are 1917
Centennial Commissioners.
Founded in 1986 and named after East St. Louis Poet Laureate Eugene B.
Redmond, the Writers Club's trustees include Avery Brooks, Haki R.
Madhubuti, Walter Mosley, Quincy Troupe, and Jerry Ward, Jr.
Trustees also serve on the editorial board of "Drumvoices Revue," a
literary-cultural journal co-published by the Club and Southern
Illinois University Edwardsville. [Late trustees: Maya Angelou
(1928-2014), Margaret Walker Alexander (1915-1998), Amiri Baraka
(1934-2014), Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000), Raymond R. Patterson
(1929-2001), Barbara Ann Teer (1937-2008), and Lena Weathers
(1930-2017).] Henry Dumas (1934-1968) is the Club’s patron saint.
A signal achievement of the Club is the kwansaba, a 49-word poetic
form invented in 1995. It consists of seven lines of seven words each,
with each word containing between one and seven letters. Exceptions to
the seven-letter rule are proper nouns, foreign terms, quotations and
neologisms.
Previous issues of "Drumvoices" have featured kwansabas for Katherine
Dunham (2004), Baraka/Sonia Sanchez (2005), Jayne Cortez (2006) and
Angelou/Troupe (2007). Cortez (1934-2012) was the first poet of
international renown to address and workshop with the Club in 1986.
The Club meets the first/third Tuesday, September-May, at ESL Higher
Education Center (address above). For more information, call 618
650-3991; email eredmon@siue.edu; or write EBRWC at P.O. Box 6165,
East St. Louis, IL 62201.
*International organization of Poets, Essayists & Novelists.
