Busboys and Poets Getting Some Love

What does it mean to say that Busboys and Poets has been getting a lot of love from a lot of corners lately? It means that the great events that take place here are receiving favorable mentions from various writers and press outlets.

St. Patrick's Day has already come and gone-- or one could say that we're now approximately 354 days away from the next one-- but that's no reason not to note that the Progressive Democrats of America gave us a shout-out in conjunction with the holiday's happenings:

National radio commentator, author, and speaker Jim Hightower will bring his unique combination of political insight and down-home humor to Busboys and Poets Restaurant on March 17 to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with Capital Area members of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) and help kick off PDA's "Healthcare NOT Warfare" national campaign.

Another thing that's recently taken place is, of course, Split This Rock: the four-day festival wherein poets and activists from all over the nation converged on the Capital City to collectively protest the Iraq War on the fifth anniversary of its inception. David Montgomery at The Washington Post wrote about it, and he didn't forget to mention us:

In long, disheveled columns, they are prowling Langston Hughes's old neighborhood around U Street NW. They are eating catfish at Busboys and Poets (where else?) and quoting Hughes, Shelley and Whitman back and forth -- "Through me many long dumb voices" -- over the hummus and merlot.

Catherine Andrews at the Washingtonian wrote about Split This Rock, and Busboys, too:

Timed to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq, the Split This Rock Poetry Festival brings in writers from all over the world. They’ll be reading in a variety of locations along the U Street corridor. (Definitely check out Busboys & Poets, where several readings will take place.)

That's a lot of love. Thanks, everyone-- right back at you!

Obama: A Poet in the Langston Hughes Tradition?

John Lundberg, a contributor at the excellent news & opinion collator Huffington Post, has written movingly and presciently about Barack Obama's recent Philadelphia speech in an article entitled Poems About Racism.

Beginning with an analysis of Obama's deft delivery-- highlighting the ways by which the Senator defused the media's tendency to reduce the best oratory into a collection of damning sound bytes-- the article moves forward to draw parallels between the life led by Hughes and the one led by Obama.

It gets better: the piece then quotes Hughes' poem "I, Too, Sing America", Michael S. Harper's "American History", Claude McKay's "The White House", and Robert Lowell's "For the Union Dead", threading these American artifacts together into a narrative that culminates with Obama's address to the nation.

Perhaps the following lines from McKay's poem might serve as a fulcrum for the argument:

Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour,
Deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw,
And find in it the superhuman power
To hold me to the letter of your law!
Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate
Against the potent poison of your hate.

This may all seem counter-intuitive in the abstract-- after all, Obama never bussed tables and Hughes never ran for President-- but Lundberg makes the case convincingly, so please do check it out.

Great Article in the Washington Post today

Poetry takes front and center during this week of protest against the Iraq war (or any war for that matter). Great programming throughout the weekend. Check out www.splitthisrock.org for more details and visit www.busboysandpoets.com for the complete schedule of events.

David Montgomery of the Post writes: 'The politicians have had their say, and the veterans, the military families, the kids getting arrested in the streets this week -- now it's the poets' turn".

"People in this society are starved for meaning," he says. "In a time of war, the government divorces language from meaning. . . . They drain the blood from words. Poets can put the blood back into words." Martin Espada -poet and professor at University of Massachusetts

folks can turn their lives around if they are given an opportunity

"People need to know that just because you are incarcerated does not mean you are not a productive member of society... folks can turn their lives around if they are given an opportunity... We have to reintegrate people back into society... Those released need to be helped to become active politically - their involvement can get them to feel connected back to their community."

"Poetry Kept Me Alive"

"Poetry is a way of keeping alive and keeping emotionally vivid .... you need to keep feeling ... without it you forget you are a human being ..." prisoner

"I was a very young angry child ... I marched for civil rights as a child... I got angry and militant... I got in trouble - not being able to read and write - I got locked up ... then Martin Luther King Jr. died and got angrier - they took away my reading in prison ... I got more angry and I did not stop until someone gave me back my book... I started reading and writing... I later formed a writers club"

"Poetry is much more important than food"

I am sitting here in the Langston Room at Busboys and Poets listening to prison poetry. What an incredible panel. This is the second day of "Split This Rock" poetry festival.

What an incredible collection of poets and artists. Yesterday Sonia Sanchez took center stage in the main dining room. There were over 300 poets - artists - dreamers - activists and friends sharing their humanity - together. All of us were there to mark the 5th anniversary of the war in Iraq. All of us struggling to make sense of the senseless - to make sense of the depravity - to make sense of the devastation - and ask ourselves - why?

We are all here to bare witness - to speak the unspoken - to hear the unbearable - and to express our collective rage.

We are all here to connect and reconnect with other artists and poets... to provoke and challenge "conventional wisdom".