According to baritone saxophonist Alex Harding, if you want to know jazz, you must first know the blues. “The blues is what this music is about. Period,” he said during rehearsal for City of Asylum/Pittsburgh’s 2010 Jazz Poetry festival. In this video, Harding explains how the sound of the sax emanates from the same place as the human voice and reflects on the rich jazz legacy of rust belt cities like Pittsburgh and Detroit.
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Voices of Cave Canem Photo © Renee Rosensteel It should come as no surprise to readers of Push, Sapphire’s bleak and unsettling novel about a Harlem teenager impregnated by her father and abused by her mother, […]
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Photo: © Nancy Crampton Yusef Komunyakaa captivates his audience with his distinct reading style. It’s not showy; he reads quietly, yet his sonorous voice fills the room with a distinct cadence. He may read some lines […]
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Sampsonia Way is pleased to present a series of interviews with writers from all over the world who have participated in International Cities if Refugee Network (ICORN). By way of introduction we present this interview with ICORN Executive Director, Helge Lunde. Here he tells the story of ICORN’s founding, how it has provided support for persecuted writers, and what inspires him to do this work.
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Visiting Khet Mar, I am often greeted by the smells of sour soup or stewing fish. While working on my article on the Burmese refugee community in Pittsburgh, she accompanied me to a monastery where we were served spicy curry, dried fish in oil, and mounds of rice. It was my first introduction to Burmese food and I was eager to return the favor.
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Carl Phillips on Sampsonia Way Photo by Renee Rosensteel In his poem “Aubade: Some Peaches, After Storm,” Carl Phillips writes “how your hands clear/ easily the wreckage; how you stand–like a building for a time condemned,/ […]
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In March, 2010, both Terrance Hayes and Lynn Emanuel published new collections of poetry. While very different works, their books share an urgency of voice, something Emanuel characterizes as “social rage.” At the center of Emanuel’s […]
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