applying for a another nysfa

that 7000 will pay down a lot of credit card debt
sent in my 1st and last movement, godhead
nysfa has been a lifesaver in the past, lets do it again

so anyway, they ask for a work statement
excerpt statement and a cultural statement

i dont think they will be unhappy w/m
publishing my statement on my blog
i dont want to give them any reason
to say no on me:

starting to feel guilty about being so divorced
from the tragedy of trump but im in the woodshed

driven in part by his ascendency, let me get my
work done and i will get back in the saddle in the fall

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NYSFA WORK SAMPLE

The Hoodoo Book of Flowers is my attempt to write an AfricanAmerican sacred text.  Originally conceived as a wouldbe Afroam holybook, I now think of it as a griotic text patterned on African epic traditions.  It is structured as a book of divination in 81 movements representing life as initiation.  It is also a hoodoo training manual for the hoodoos of the future, an attempt to train them to high magic over the folk magic that currently defines hoodoo. I have tried to use fictional technique to insure that my sacred text is not a boring read, as so many of them are, by telling it through a narrative storyline using the mythic Highjohn the Conqueror, first mythworked as a returning culture hero by Zora Neale Hurston. A major concern of the text is do I speak for black people, as I was trained, or do I speak for all humanity, which is a more evolved posture but leaves blackfolk leaderless. Since it’s has been a tension I have not been able to fully resolve I have allowed that tension to shape the text while advocating a vision of humanity’s eternal struggle to evolve, to be greater than we are.



EXCERPT EXPLANATION

Of the 81 movements in the text, I decided to give you the 1^st one (consciousness) and the last one (godhead). There are 81 beats in 9 major movements representing different challenges of life as initiation. The 1^st four movements are Living Life Well movements, Initiation, Lifeworks, Struggle and Changes.  The 2^nd grouping are political movements, Service, Empowerment and Destinywork. My 3^rd grouping is my Illuminated set, Ilumination and Irie Grace. Though in broken lines, what I’m calling griotic poetry, I consider it a prose work of creative nonfiction. It’s based on the epic works of African griotic (storyteller) traditions.  The fragmented, apparently nonlinear, style reflects how I think future generations will process ideas. My attempt to maintain the primacy of literature in a media age. Trying to create a work that will stand the test of time and evolve w/the interpretations of future generations.  A work that will grow as needed. The narrative strategy is segmented fusions of precepts, wisdom stories and historical/destinical beats inspired by Galeano’s Memory of Fire trilogy.  They are intended to convey a wisdom tradition structure and be a divine history of the world told through a narrative lens of African American history, culture and destiny.

CULTURAL STATEMENT

I am a practitioner of literary hoodoo in the griotic school of African American literature.  I was trained by Babajohn Killens, the great griot master of Brooklyn. Hoodoo is traditionally a folk magic system, part of a family of Afrospiritual retentions in the America.  The others, Vodou, Santeria, etc, are conventional religious systems, but African culture was repressed harder in the US and the African Way of God took root here as folk magic. Around the turn of the 20^th century African American writers started using hoodoo as literary ground, starting with Chestnutt’s Conjure Womans tales thru the works of Zora Neale Hurston and Ishmael Reed. I am attempting, with this work, to reform and illuminate the hoodoo tradition, move it from a folk magic to a high magic tradition while using it to reform and illuminate African American culture in an act of cultural custodianship and political redemption - a standing trope of the griotic school of African American literature.  From my studies with the Babajohn I was trained that the cultural role of the committed artist and ideological orchestrator is shaping generations. Fiction is my heart but fiction suffers if you use it to attempt direct influence.  My best shot at generation work in my limited time on the planet is to try to write an African American holybook. A good holybook would shape many generations, one hopes even a middling holybook will suffice