Attended a great Haiti benefit last night presented by the Global Syndicate, in partnership with a dozen other organizations, to benefit the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, Yele Haiti, Project Medishare and others. Apparently they raised $125K before the event even started, which was great since there were no explicit instructions to donate at any point during the night.

GS was started by Bobby Kennedy III, also the emcee, and the evening had appearances by New York Governor David Paterson, Robert Kennedy Jr, assemblypeople (Hakeem Jeffries repping Fort Greene/Clinton Hill), and a few actor types (Anthony Mackie among them).

I've actually never been to an event with Gov Paterson before. He's quite charismatic in his own peculiar way--blind, though energetic, a powerful alpha male. Same day the earthquake hit his son was arrested for playing craps. In true Paterson form, he seems patently unfazed by it.

Even more interesting for me was being surrounded by all that political energy in the wake of Obama's State of the Union address. I purposely didn't watch it and, when my sister asked why, said I was tired of people "blowing smoke up my a*s." She was as shocked as I was that I said it, revealing some of my recent ambivalence/disillusionment with him.

She then berated me, asking what I was doing for healthcare reform and the economy (I thought, what can I do?), indicting people for electing the man and then leaving him to do all the hard work himself without support.

I thought about it the rest of the day, how to stay engaged with the political process, and I came to the conclusion that I'm not really political. I'm not an organizer or activist or lobbyist, not a political junkie. At my last job, working on a political documentary, I got tired of the daily back and forth between the right and left, the play by play of all the petty disagreements, the backroom dealings. I watched it all unfold like a literal movie, unwilling to accept that this is the way democracy really works.

As such, my main interest in Obama was not his politics (I was even a little suspect at the electoral hardball that got him the Illinois Senate seat). I was more interested in his messiah-like ability to inspire millions of people to greater levels of civic engagement.

In many ways his rhetoric echoed the liberation theology I imbibed as a youth (Howard Thurman, MLK, Gandhi, Sojourner Truth). And I thought Obama could mean really great things for America, for foreign policy, for the world. I even almost followed him, and I'm not a follower by nature.

Seeing the liberal/moral backsliding in the past year has left me feeling somewhat betrayed. Maybe I just need to get over it, but I can't help wishing he'd take the hardline for justice (on Gitmo and universal healthcare, among others). I think time will tell what his legacy is, but it's a little problematic that I've disengaged, though still aware, so soon.

I think the real cost of political capital is hope.

Thanks for the comments on the previous blog. I am glad some folks agree with me, but I wanted to be clear about something. To borrow a phrase from my women writer's workshop, I will say that Uwem Akpan's book "didn't work for me." It worked for Oprah and, doubtless, millions of others, just not me. That doesn't make it a bad book not worth reading, it just makes it a book I didn't enjoy. I'm not telling you not to buy it, I'm encouraging you to read it and decide for yourself.

There are no good or bad books. People who say that there are usually have an agenda. I think that each book represents a writer's effort and courage to impart their view of the real or imaginary world. That makes the experience of reading infinitely valuable, allowing us to tap into our shared humanity even if a particular book falls short of our expectations.

Some people question Oprah's choices, and I'm occasionally among them, but I think her choices are valid even though she may not pick the books that I would. What she says is, Hey, this book really worked for me and I think you should read it. So we all go out and buy it, then decide for ourselves whether it works for us or not. (Without her, I would never have known that there was a Jesuit priest from Ikot Ekpene with an MFA who writes short stories! Amazing.) She gets us reading and I think it's a very good thing.

If we acknowledge the prevalence of poverty p*rn and other such literary trends, the answer is not that so-and-so's book should not be published or read, it is for us to read and write more, to language ourselves, to create more alternatives. Bit by bit we will dispel the myths and understand each other better.

I think it can be really dangerous for people (myself included, of course) to criticize what they haven't labored to produce. Making art is not an easy, impartial, or democratic process. It is personal, subjective, emotional, and largely biased by a singular point-of-view. You can't any more criticize it than you can a human being for having a different perspective than your own.

That said, when we look at the larger patterns of mainstream media, the stereotypical perspectives promoted and advanced, we might criticize the powers for their choices. And I definitely think that's valid. But respect should always be paid to the artists.

The courage it takes to write even one word deserves a measure of respect. (And I should have given the man props for being an Akwa Ibomite!) I think his writing is important even if it doesn't work for me. I would be interested in following him over time.

Am I making sense? I hope so. I will try to be more constructive in the future.

I have been trying to fix a particular chapter for about a week now, to submit for a grant application due Friday. This means I have been spending vast amounts of time simply staring into space waiting for the words to appear. Often times it takes reading someone else's work to figure out just what is not working in mine. Unbeknownst to my process, The New Yorker published a short story, Baptizing the Gun, by acclaimed author Uwem Akpan (or at least, let us say, "Oprah's Book Clubbed" author, not sure the level of critical acclaim that affords apart from the NYT bestseller list). What a delight to see mention of Awilo Longomba in the pages of such a stuffy mag.

Last year, Akpan published a collection of short stories, Say You're One of Them, about children growing up in various conditions of social, economic, and political disrepair throughout Africa. I bought the audio book several months ago and have waited to review it here as I have taken long to get through the book. At first I thought it was the poor audio recording (imagine fake, largely caricaturized African accents) that was stopping me in the work, but then my sis, also in Nigeria for the holidays with paperback version in tow, echoed my same impression of the book. I slogged partway through the paperback, silencing my brain's refusal to engage with the characters and settings, ultimately giving up on the whole thing in the end.

It is the kind of text that is unreadable to me, in certain ways, representing in labored, broad, overly historical strokes what should instead be subtler, simpler, and more personal stories. Akpan is a writer young in craft, and it is often apparent in the stories when he tells more than shows what is going on. I find in his stories the same problems I find in my own work, that frustrate me to the point where I cannot read another single word of my not-so-subtly-embedded social commentary, or bold attempts to expose the "rawness" of life. I am well aware that this writing of mine must be refined before it can be presented to the world, or maybe it does not need presenting at all, as it is but an echo of more famous and highly-praised attempts at portraying the rawness of life.

Perhaps there is something more interesting in understanding why certain powers are so captivated by these endless stories of war and starving babies and abuse? For Oprah in particular, whose narrative of the African girl child echoes the one portrayed in Akpan's book by a less than skillful hand. It's not my intention to berate the man, or to question his success, but to attest that it is the desire to refine that matures one as a writer. And that we should all, myself included, continue honing our craft, being truer to our histories and characters and stories especially when others have cosigned them, taking them at face value, baptizing us as writers in a literary landscape languaged primarily by white supremacist imperialism.

But what I really meant to say was, after reading Baptizing the Gun, I had a huge belly-holding chuckle. Three quarters of Akpan's short story take place in a Lagos go-slow, with all the necessary child hawkers and Ndombolo music and food stalls by the roadside. Here I was struggling to edit my own chapter, that starts in a Calabar go-slow, trying to cut back on the amount of visual stimulation and provide more space to make it readable, when Akpan is just piling and piling and piling it on. So perhaps I can consider my job well done?

There are a lot more technical issues with his story that make me wonder why The New Yorker included it. Again, not to berate the man, but simply to understand what it all means.

Some really interesting writing going on at Petina Gappah's blog. She shares the first two sentences of her upcoming novel, The Book of Memory:

"Nyaya yawanditi ndikunyorere pasi haina kutanga nekupondwa kwaLloyd Henderson kwete, asi kuti yakatanga mumwe musi muna Kukadzi, pandaiva kamwana kemakore pfumbamwe, zuva richirova nhongonya yangu nemaronda aiva kumeso kwangu, baba namai vangu ndokunditengesera kune mumwewo mutorwa. Ndinoti zvangu ndibaba namai vangu vakadaro, as chokwadi ndechekuti vaiva mai vangu chete."

I don't speak Shona, and I don't understand a word, but maybe that's okay. Gappah writes:

"As part of my commitment to being a Real Genuine Authentic African Writer, I have chosen to give these sentences to you in the Real Genuine Authentic African language of Shona. And if you don't understand it, well, that could well mean you are not as Real and Genuine an Authentic African as me...to be an African writer is to be proud to be an African Writer and it is all About the Positive Image of Africa and so on. The authentic, positive image. So that's me from now on, Really Genuinely and Authentically and Most Positively African:) And if the meaning of my authentic positive African words is lost to you, too bad, as long as I am authentic:):):) And positive!!"

She is of course joking here, responding to recent criticism of her outspoken desire to not be labeled an "African writer," but there is some truth in it. We had a conversation in one of my writing classes in college, Prof Marvina White, about writers choosing deliberately not to write in English as a political statement, instead using their native languages.

I am always searching the pages of certain books by certain writers to see how they treat this (adichie, achebe, abani), how I will treat this in mine. Adichie tends to explain the phrase right in the text. Or she sometimes writes, in anticipation, that such and such phrase was spoken in Ibo, while then writing the phrase in English.

I wonder what it is lost when these Ibo phrases are written in English? Or Gappah's Shona phrase is translated? When the English itself often lacks sufficient letters and/or meanings to represent the language of origin. I think there is something lost in the translation.

And then we can look at issues of dialect and how to represent English spoken by a non-native speaker. Or pidgin, in the work of Adaora Lily Ulasi. (Can someone please explain to me what Abani's doing in Graceland? It took reading a critical essay to learn that I am not the only one not vibing his imaginary dialect.)

There is nothing worse than writing that should sound familiar, but intead sounds foreign or false. Reading Secrets by Somali Nuruddin Farah, who has been racking up awards left and right, I couldn't help but wonder why this man is writing in English at all when it is largely useless at communicating his characters' feelings and thoughts.

And I think Achebe's English reads perfectly well, but sometimes it is overly aggressive and forceful, anti-poetic, unable to transmit the warmth or emotion he might find in his native tongue. He wields English like a sword, or perhaps that is just my impression of the man.

So many languages, so many choices. How to write them? I am having big thoughts today. Here is another perspective from Emmanuel Sigauke.

so much reading and re-reading this week. bone black (bell hooks' memoir), coffee will make you black (novel by april sinclair), the joy luck club (amy tan's acclaimed novel), a collection of poems on the MOVE bombing by one of my hedgebrook sisters, daughter's mother (a play by amy evans, also a Hedgebrook alum). so i have been shedding tears on the 5-train home to the Bronx after work.

bell hooks writes prose poetry full of mystery and myth and a clarity i've never found in her nonfiction. i think, if i never read another "love" book of hers i will have learned all i need to know in this. she embeds a child's hope, terror, and frustration in each chapter, reminds me of that helpless feeling i am still shedding. amy tan reminds me of my mother's investment club, the susu women, who would break bread at each other's homes after a long meeting.

she reminds me that my mother is forever gone and i am left with a stack of black and white photos, the trails of the few stories she told, most locked tightly away in her soul's memory. and the MOVE poems. lives and loves burned up in fire. these poems haunt me, stories beg to be told.

lately i have been seeking coming-of-age stories to give some perspective on my novel. there was a collection of stories i read at hedgebrook, coming of age around the world (ed. by Faith Adiele, also an alum), which lead me to some really great writers. each one i read offered something i had forgotten or never considered.

and i now ask myself why i am writing this novel the way i am writing it, why i am not turning the bucket upside down before pouring in the water. there is something in soaking the floor, in seeping into all the hidden crevices that you can't even see. without conclusion or direction like the stories my father tells, one long thread running from my childhood up til now.

hoping to spend some good time this weekend just staring into space and letting the words appear. applying for a bronx council of the arts writing grant due next week. but really the application is just an excuse to sit with my writing. we have been too distant lately.

i rarely blog real-time, so this is a rarity, but just watched the hope for haiti benefit concert on tv. it was a long day at work finishing up the invites to the un screening that my boss is taking with him to sundance, but in effect haiti's been on my mind all day today.

at first i thought it was the most unparalleled cast of characters i've ever seen--bill clinton, madonna, denzel--and then i thought half the actors were probably on a detour from sundance and would be flying off in a matter of hours. but i have to say the song choices were excellent--J-Tim on Hallelujah? brilliant. but to the point of this blog, watching wyclef rap up the show (dug his haitian flag/scarf), caught my homie Tiga backing him up on percussion. this dude plays about fifteen instruments, including the dijeridoo, and I didn't even recognize the horns he was blowing after he dropped the djembe.

i've been thinking abt him and all my other haitian friends, wondering how their families are doing, and failing to pick up the phone. busy busy busy, i always stay, but it's a nervous energy. i have a feeling that huge holes have opened up in people's lives that will never be filled. even my coworker lost a college friend at home for the holidays with family in Port-au-Prince.

big ups to the little boys and girls rescued from the rubble who never gave up hope. we're all praying for you.

Things are really crazy at work. We're scrambling to write a proposal for potential funders to complete the UN documentary--now moving beyond a story about peacekeeping missions in Haiti, among others, to also include footage of the post-earthquake recovery/rebuilding process. It wouldn't be so hectic if my boss weren't leaving for Sundance on Saturday and wanting something in hand to give to folks.

I brought a designer in today who seems really on point, the kind of high-level concept woman I've always wanted to be from a communications standpoint. Wait a minute, scratch that. The kind of woman I would want to be if I weren't already committed to my life as a writer/filmmaker. (That sounds a lot better.)

I started off in global communications outside of college, then started freelancing as a writer and editor, then worked with private clients in my own communications consultancy, before becoming gainfully employed as a Communications Director. It sounds really linear now, but was nothing of the sort--in fact, it was only by sheer tenacity that I made anything of myself at all. I was a biology major in college, a pre-med, and I learned firsthand that the worst thing you can ever do in college is earn a degree you don't want to use.

I think the fact that I'm a storyteller is the only reason I made it. It was my ability to relanguage myself--in resumes, interviews, and grad school--that allowed me to imagine and create something different for my life. The whole marketing/design thing? Pure invention. I started off doing odds and ends for an indie magazine in Brooklyn, for free of course, took a few useful courses in a year of film school, and here I am.

But most days, I'd rather be writing than dealing with the business of art.

I think to myself, what is it really gonna take to reinvent myself as a full-time writer? And I wish I could wave a wand and it would be done. But it's about sitting down every day and confronting my real self, not the one I have imagined and created for public consumption. Damned if I haven't tried to cut corners, to sell the book without writing it (can't tell you how many proposals I've written), but it's the only thing I can't imagine, can't fake.

In every way, I believe that books, films, and plays are real things--durable goods that are essential to the functioning of society. They must be made, and each is an act of love and generosity. Each one, regardless of aesthetic value, is a repository of culture, language, and history.

I think that this makes art and artists vitally important. I thought it was really interesting that, in a speech capping a yearly wrap-up of the economic successes and failures in Akwa Ibom, a political leader praised Chimamanda Adichie for her many awards, saying that more Nigerians should be writing. At first I thought, Wait a minute, she's not even from Akwa Ibom! Then I marveled at how quickly the leader wrapped himself in her success, how central writers in fact are to the history of the world, when so many continue to see art as merely derivative or tangential.

Funny how more and more those of us living in developed nations are coming to realize that these economies are based on derivatives of virtual goods with no real value whatsoever. (I don't know if that made sense, but it sounded good.) All we want at the end of the day is something to hold on to -- maybe even a good book.

I'm tired and I'm not going anywhere with this, so I'll stop here. I also realize I have been jumping around from topic to topic. I will definitely write more about my trip. Later.

I had to go to work today, on MLK Day no less, and there was some petty foolishness going down at the office. I got so caught up in it that, in a call on my lunch break, I started yelling at a switchboard operator about why the doctor's office was closed before 5PM when I needed to make an appointment. She reminded me that it was a holiday, and I responded apologetically, saying I was stuck at work and stressed and could she please forgive my temper. She didn't.

When I got back to my desk, I found a "sip of living water" in my inbox. A writer friend of mine sends these weekly prayers, nondenominational, drawing from Rumi, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Gospels and Vedas, or her own verse when the spirit moves her. I can't tell you how much I look forward to this water for my mind every week, especially when I get bogged down in the physical realm -- caught up in my job, the things I have or don't have.

It's so easy to lose sight of the agape that MLK spoke about, the universal love that envelops and nurtures us all the time. Every day is a struggle to grow in that love and peace and resist the temptation toward inner spiritual violence. I apologize again for displacing my frustration on this woman. Tomorrow, by grace, I will be better.

This is a prayer for Haiti, but also for any and everyone, myself included, who needs a gentle reminder.

Senye, ede nou pa atache ak batanklan.
Nou ka gen kat wob jodi a,
men petet l’a gen yon jou
ke nou pa gen ditou.
Ede n’ atache nou a pawol Bondye.

Lord, help us not to connect ourselves to things.
We may have four dresses today,
but maybe there will be a time
when we won’t have any.
[Instead] help us to connect ourselves
to God’s [unchanging] Word.

- Haitian Kreyol Prayer

I'm in a really terrible place with my writing right now. It feels like a Lagos go slow in my brain--nothing's moving, plus it's about eighty degrees and the air conditioning is shot. I want to get out of the car, but I can't abandon it or else I won't get where I'm going. All of a sudden I'm trying to figure out how I got in the car to begin with and whether I really want to go anywhere at all.

Lately my writing has been all surface--I don't want to go any deeper, get any truer, though I know there's a whole lot that's missing. Forgive the additional reference, but I was watching No Country For Old Men tonight, and it's like that scene where Tommy Lee Jones's character is outside the motel room staring at the blown out lock and a part of him knows that the killer is standing inside the room and he has to go in after him. So what does he do? He takes his gun out of its holster and pushes the door open.

For me, I've been writing up until the edge of the door for ages, and now I'm supposed to open it and get to the heart of the matter and I suddenly want to run and hide. It's an excruciating feeling, really, like being a liar or a coward. It sounds childish, but I really wish someone would just sit and hold my hand while I write. Tell me it's okay to bust open all the locked doors. (I even emailed a writing coach last week who, unfortunately, only works by email.)

I think to myself, who gave me the authority or audacity to write anything about anyone? I think that I don't have a clue what I'm doing. That maybe it's best I leave it alone for now. Only it's my book and I'm the only one who can write it.

Maybe it's just some boiled over anxiety from the last few residency applications I turned in -- Fine Arts Work Center, Jentel and I-Park -- with half-ass edited chapters that I didn't work on until the last minute. (I actually turned one in where half the chapter was in first and the other in third person.)

A part of my brain just doesn't seem to be working at the moment. Likely the part that sat amidst the dahlias and cedars at Hedgebrook and was so eerily authentic it was like meeting some other version of myself. I want her back, but to meet her again I have to open so many emotional doorways completely blind to the boogeymen within.

Only God knows what they're packing and I have only a pen. In life, I suppose, unless you push yourself beyond where you think you're capable of, you never grow. So maybe I am only growing and, every day, I will wonder how I got here.

I work at a theater company that is producing a documentary on the United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti. The UN lost a bunch of peacekeepers in the earthquake, and also in a plane crash in Haiti last October. Again, I really have to hand it to the folks who maintain peace and stability around the globe for their courage and bravery. It has always been my secret dream to be a peacemaker--not a peacekeeper, per se, with a blue helmet and a gun, but someone who travels the world sowing seeds of peace in a global culture of violence, mistrust and hatred.

Before posting any links, I will disclaim by saying that my company's mission is to use art/culture as a tool for diplomacy. I find that the daily implementation of that mission falls far short of the lofty vision, which is often a source of frustration for me--especially when my boss is the type fond of walking about with his chest puffed out about how much he's changing the world. At any rate, he met with the Secretary General on Friday to discuss the company's continued relationship with the UN, which is a very positive thing given how busy the SG is with Haiti right now.

If you visit our YouTube channel, you will see clips from the concerts we produced for them last year (most either before I worked there or while I was away at my writer's residency) in addition to the trailer for the documentary--which may or may not be useful to watch, given that much of it is unnecessarily self-serving.

I'm posting a clip of Angelique Kidjo from our Tribute to Peacekeeping concert. I love love love her, and she talks a bit about her goodwill mission to Haiti with UNICEF last year. Please keep in mind that: The views represented in the trailer and the vids are not representative of my own, but rather those of the company and our creative partners. Wish I didn't have to say that, but I guess until I work for myself I'll have to. :)

There's a really amazing thing happening with Wyclef at the moment surrounding media reports about his NGO Yele Haiti, saying that the money may be a little funny.

Wyclef posted a heated response vid on YouTube denouncing the accusations and saying how he's been digging up children's bodies, and how could anyone question his integrity. I know he is doing great work, but the donations will still likely take awhile to get to work on the ground given the online/cellphone donation system he's using.

It's a shame that it had to get so dirty, though.

Clef performed at Calabar Carnival...I heard Akon was there too...although I didn't get to see the show. I was so heated since we spent the better part of the day waiting for the damn parade to start. In the end, my cousins just wanted to go home and not cap the night off with a show. Only problem was someone blocked our car in on the street and my cousin Mimi had to break in (they left their Mercedes window open), put the car in neutral, and have me and my cousin Yaya push it out of the way. By the time we got on the road and I started talking about going to the stadium, nobody was trying to hear me.

I caught this vid online though, looks like the show was FIYah. He's always been one of my favorites.

I am saddened and stunned by the magnitude of the Haitian earthquake disaster. Port-au-Prince is in near shambles and some 300,000 of its residents are displaced. I'm not sure what role global warming plays in all of this, but I like to think the entire world is slowly ending and we are all bearing witness, standing dumbly by.

Ushahidi is doing great coverage, and I've been following some live tweets from the ground. Some are really horrifying. I try to stay away from raw video or news reports, still get shivers from the vids I saw of the Ninth Ward and the tsunami, bloated corpses floating in the water.

It's clear that hundreds and thousands of people are buried under piles of rubble. I give thanks for relief workers because it takes a special person to look devastation in the eye and soldier on--I'm simply not that strong.

Just learned that you can donate relief money to Haiti at the Whole Foods checkout counter. I'm not entirely sure what AmeriCares does, but I was so excited to give my $5 that I barely paused to ask whether or not the money will simply pad some administrator's pocket. Wyclef is also taking money through his Yele foundation. If you have some other great relief links, feel free to post.

There are several hoaxes floating around online, namely that JetBlue and American Airlines are flying nurses free to Haiti--which is NOT true, however AA is reportedly flying Red Cross relief workers free of charge to nearby DR. I don't know what social underbelly creates hoaxes around natural disasters. Humanity.

I am back in New York and it's freezing. Literally. Back a week and haven't stopped asking myself why I left the tropics for this.

I could have blogged while away, but I decided to take a break. In fact, I didn't write much of anything at all the whole time including the book or my journal. I bought this amazing Flip video camera though, and felt so hip because I've always been one of the slowest tech adopters I know. You just whip it out, turn it on, and you can record up to two hours. So I took a bunch of silly vids and not nearly as many photos. The power thing was definitely a pain in the butt. I don't have nearly as much patience for NEPA as I did when I was younger.

I had a really great trip. Went to Calabar Carnival, although we sat in the wrong section and folks were doing a lot less dancing and a lot more walking by us; went to a cocktail party thrown by Governor Godswill Akpabio, AKS in full effect; visited Le Meridien (try the grilled fish and chips), EEMJM (terrible name for a hotel), and Green Olives; inhaled one too many secondhand cigarettes at Lounge Uno (can someone say smoking ban?); and generally enjoyed myself despite my aunt's attempts to thwart my fun and keep me caged behind the gate away from kidnappers. I will get to all of this (I think), but first let me touch on my fainting spell at JFK on my way out of town.

I caught a stomach bug shortly before departure that had me laid out right up until the moment I was supposed to board the plane. I didn't eat much that day and things turned a little woozy and black waiting in the security bag check line. I have fainted a handful of times in my life and they all involved too much physical exertion and too little food. I always feel it coming on, the overheating, clammy palms, the sensation of television fuzz in my brain.

My greatest fear, of course, was that they wouldn't let me on the plane. I actually didn't care if I had to be wheeled on in a gurney, there was no way I was staying in NYC for the holidays. So I tried to fake like I was all good, but I ultimately lost consciousness. And when I came to, I heard from several passengers that I was toppling and weaving for several minutes, though I managed to stay on my feet. The airport security, flight attendants etc couldn't have cared less, in spite of H1N1 scares and eco-terrorism.

If it wasn't for a few kind folks, also on the flight to Lagos, who advised me to sit down and helped push my bags along while I munched saltine crackers, I would not have made it at all.

Just one note of digression before I end this: Don't move to New York. It's a cold city (literally and figuratively, in many ways). There is so much cooking in Nigeria right now, and other global hotspots, that it's a shame so many people come struggle hand over fist in the Big Apple. It really isn't worth it. New York is a place to visit, to meet people, make connections, and present yourself. It isn't a sustainable place to live, and it will not nurture you.

So glad I took some time away to realize that.