Christa Bell

Sunday, May 22, 2005

The First Annual Femme Ball

dorris harris of backbone productions (grown folks poetry) gave the first annual femme ball tonight at the richard hugo house and it was delicious!...i didn't know there were so many black lesbians in the entire northwest let alone seattle!!! it was the hottest event i've performed at all year...amazing and beautiful...more later...cbell

Saturday, May 21, 2005

a poem

poem
(written after presenting yesterday at the nova projects' conference, "talk'n about race."

i am afraid that they will eat
me first

in a famine of soul
i am closest to looking like fried chicken
the brown crust of peach cobbler
fresh baked cornbread

they will slurp my blood
crunch the gristle from my elbows
suck the scant meat
like hamhock
bones

roll slivers of my inner thigh
press the flesh onto tooth picks
muse
stretchmarks make for interesting texture

bellies cramped in starvation
savage hunger of tongues
rifling through clinic dumpsters
for my most tender parts

hidden
in steel green garbage cans
so they can’t devour the seeds that were almost
my eyes

Friday, May 20, 2005

imagine the angels of bread...

tryna digest at least two collections of poetry each week as i feel so behind in my reading of other writers...this week; imagine the angels of bread, by martin espada -intimate and gritty memoir poetry, painful to experience and distinctly masculine. the circumstances of many of the pieces make them very political as well. excellent story/poem crafting. here's a short piece that i love:
my cockroach lover
The summer i slept
on JC's couch,
there were roaches
between the bristles
of my toothbrush,
roaches pouring
from the speakers
of the stereo.
A light flipped on
in the kitchen at night
revealed a Republican
National Convention
of roaches.
One night I dreamed
a giant roach
leaned over me,
brushing my face
with kind antennae
and whispering, "I love you."
I awoke slapping myself
and watched the darkness
for hours, because i realized
this was a dream
and so that meant
the cockroach
did not really love me.

and spring essence, the poetry of ho xuan houng, translated by john balaban -i adore rebellious women!...this is a beautiful book written by an eighteenth-century vietnamese concubine who subtly disses the male order of her day... here's one of her less delicate poems:

male member
newborn, it wasn't so vile. but, now, at night,
even blind it flares brighter than any lamp.
soldierlike, it sports a reddish leather hat,
musket balls sagging the bag down below.

this was the 18th century! imagine!! hahahahaha!!

more later...christa

Thursday, May 19, 2005

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MALCOLM!

el hajj malik el shabazz (malcolm x), you would've been 80 years old today.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

christabellonline.com

opened for saul williams monday night @ western washington university in bellingham and brought up my new beatbox dax jamel (who i just found out can SING!) with jabril electric on guitar...did the "holy" set and RIIIPED IT!... great show and saul was amazing as usual...he read this long ass 20 page poem about everything in the world plus a dream and even when his voice dissolved into mantra, humming for minutes at a time, whenever i pulled my mind back to the individual words, it was like i hadn't missed a beat...his shit is so layered...was great to connect again with the young feminists at wasu who consistently curate the most progressive and philosophically diverse shows! big shout out to afros, shannon, gabrielle and stephanie who love women and who especially support my work!

website is finally up thanks to my boy inye wokoma (www.ijoarts.com) who also took the most AMAZING photographs of me! check/check me out @ christabellonline.com...i wanted it to be zenmystic and super accessible...let me know what you think of the layout.

am exhausted right now but wanted to get a blog out real quick...more later...christa

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Two Poems

(written this morning before i got out of bed)

from the pulpit
my fathers glance could mold you like cheese
all cuttings up scared straight by a look
that promised the meanest greenest switch
ashy legs could imagine once
church was out

(and this one last night, before i went to sleep)

there are three homeless men who camp
in the doorway
outside my window
across the street.

i think of them whenever it rains;

how horrible, how sad to live
in a doorway!
and i'll watch them for a while turning in sleepingbags to find
a soft spot beneath the cardboard and old gum
atop the concrete before turning

to answer the phone
have a snack
read a poem
masturbate.

and this
is what structural violence does;

it overwhelms the heart to disconnection
leaves you shivering and wet, but only theoretically
because inside your room
is cozy
and dry.







Tuesday, May 10, 2005

whatadaywhatadaywhataday

1) now working with art corps seattle.
2) introduced figurative language to students @ seattle urban academy.
3) among other things, had students deconstruct nelly's "tip drill" for the gang rape metaphor that it is. one of the male teachers walked in and commented that he thought "tip drill" was a metaphor for a promiscuous woman.
4) met with alex red to begin planning word medicine tour for fall.
5) went to hugo house to see rajnii eddins, black genius, and the legendary jack mcCarthy feature.
6) reading "pathologies of power" by paul farmer (hard and sad) .
7) reading "my mother's body" poems by marge piercy (AMAZING!)
8) still completely exhausted from weekend of travelling back/forth to portland to lecture/perform.
9) did i tell you the young women in the black feminist/womanist class @ portland state university didn't know that the clit is the center of women's orgasm and that the vagina itself has virtually no nerve endings? that they thought they were weird because they didn't enjoy intercourse? (what kind of crazy and wicked world is this?)
10) teatro del fuego was the hotshit! not just saying that cos i featured...
11) must get to libary tomorrow to return oryx and crake by margaret atwood (i love women's sci-fi but why is it so depressing?) and some other book i can't remember the title of cos i'm too tired....
12) aaron mcgruder is the funniest man alive.

passion is not enough. i must become a better writer.

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

grand slam update

the 2005 grand slam poetry competition was on april 30th at the catwalk in pioneer square and I WON!! it was the biggest crowd ever for a grand slam show in seattle with over 400 people packed into the venue. the two features were seattle's youthspeaks poets who were AMAZING (madeliene cliffords piece on the women of juarez mexico is the NEXT!) and also rives, of def poetry fame, who is at least as brilliant a story teller as my father, who is the best in the WORLD!

we have the dopest team that seattle could possibly have; rajnii eddins of the poetry experience, roberto ascalon-rock poet extroidinaire, matt gano-one of the best writers i know and, hopefully, two-time individual world poetry slam champion buddy wakefield (we'll find out this thursday if he'll be able to come with us this year!) WEST SIIIIIIDE! WHAT???

the nationals will be held in abq, new mexico this year august 10-14 i think.

i'm going down to portland tonight to guest lecture at portland state university on black women and sexuality. it's for a black feminism/womanism class taught by turiya autry. should be interesting.

will be back in portland on saturday for a feature with teatro del fuego.

more later...christa