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What did Jesus mean by: “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the...
Alice Walker (born 1944, Eatonton, Georgia, U.S.A.) “Blessed are the poor in spirit (for theirs is the kingdom of heaven)” . Did you ever understand this? If my spirit was poor, how could I enter...
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“Bright Horizon” by Ahmad Shamlu احمد شاملو
ZP_Untitled, Doves_painting by Skip Noah احمد شاملو Ahmad Shamlu (1925-2000, Tehran, Iran) ZP_Doves of Peace Quartet by Asbjorn Lonvig Ahmad Shamlu (1925-2000, Tehran, Iran) “Bright Horizon” . Bright...
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Pauline Johnson / “Tekahionwake”: “Let her be natural”
ZP_E. Pauline Johnson gathered together her complete poems, though others have since been discovered, for publication in 1912, the year before her death. In her Author’s Forward to Flint and Feather...
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Mi’kmaw I am: Poems of Rita Joe + We are the Dreamers
ZP_Portrait of Rita Joe drawn by Tylesia Rita Joe (Mi’kmaw poet, 1932-2007, Whycocomagh, Nova Scotia, Canada) . “A Mi’kmaw Cure-All for Ingrown Toenail” . I have a comical story for ingrown toenail I...
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Alootook Ipellie: Artist, Writer, Dreamer !
ZP_The agony and the ecstasy_illustration for a short story in Arctic Dreams and Nightmares_Alootook Ipellie, 1993 Alootook Ipellie (1951-2007) “It Was Not ‘Jajai-ja-jiijaaa‘ Anymore – But ‘Amen’” . It...
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Poems for Earth Day: Rita Joe’s “Mother Earth’s Hair”, “There is Life...
ZP_Mother Earth as seen by modern science (Mercator projection) Rita Joe (Mi’kmaw poet, 1932-2007) “Mother Earth’s Hair” . In August 1989 my husband and I were in Maine Where he died, I went home alone...
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Poems for Earth Day: “The earth of my blood”: O’Connor, Ben the Dancer, La...
ZP_Mother Earth_stonecut from 1961 by Kenojuak Ashevak (1927-2013) Lawrence William O’Connor (Winnebago poet) “O Mother Earth” . Never will I plough the earth. I would be ripping open the breast of my...
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Earth Day poems: “I’ve wanted to speak to the world for sometime now about you.”
Maurice Kenny (Mohawk poet and teacher, born 1929) new song . We are turning eagles wheeling sky We are rounding sun moving in the air We are listening to old stories Our spirits to the breeze the...
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“Yeah Bro, I should say we do have Eskimo Lies”: the poetry of Inuit writer...
. Eskimo Pie I . Found on Wikipedia under “Eskimo Pie”: . My response to the ad: . YEAH BRO I should say we do have ESKIMO LIES Not only in N. Canada and Urban centers, but in combina- tions of...
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Mosha Folger: “Leaving my Cold Self behind”
Mosha Folger “Ancient Patience” . If you look back to the North A couple of thousand years ago To where the Atlantic ice fields Battle the granite shield of the Arctic coast You’d find a man staking...
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“Nêhiyâwin” / “The Cree Way” – as told by Harry Blackbird
Cree Elder Harry Blackbird (born in the 1920s at Waterhen Lake First Nation, roots in Makwa Sahgaiehcan (Loon Lake) First Nation, Saskatchewan, Canada) “Nêhiyâwin” . Pêyakwâw êsa mîna ê-nanipât awa...
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Nous connaissons le secret de la petite épinette / We know the secret of the...
. Margaret Sam-Cromarty (née à l’île Fort George, La baie James, Québec, 1936) “Un étranger très élégant” . Un jour, dans un village nordique, tout le monde se préparait en vue du départ pour la chasse...
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Hydro-Electricity and Eeyou Istchee (The People’s Land): a Cree poet’s...
A segment of the massive James Bay hydroelectric project in Québec_ photograph © David Maisel . Margaret Sam-Cromarty (born 1936, Fort George Island, James Bay, Québec) “Rivers” . Tears are like...
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Nakamowin’sa kahkiyaw ay’sînôwak kici / Wordsongs for all human beings
Gabriel Dumont, Métis Leader, photographed by Orlando Scott Goff, around 1886-1888 . Rita Bouvier ( Île-à-la-Crosse (Sakittawak), Saskatchewan ) that was a long time ago, and here we are today . that...
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O Festival Internacional do Tambor Muhtadi: “Quero ser tambor” / “I want to...
A performer deeply involved in the energy of The Drum_Muhtadi International Drumming Festival in Toronto_June 9th 2013_photograph by Elisabeth Springate . José Craveirinha (1922–2003, Maputo,...
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Melvin Dixon as poet: AIDS, Love, Community
ZP_Phill Wilson, now a Thriver_HIV positive for more than a generation_Activist and founder of The Black AIDS Institute . Melvin Dixon (1950 – 1992) “One by One” They won’t go when I go. (Stevie...
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Melvin Dixon as translator: a handful of “love letter” poems by Léopold Sédar...
Melvin Dixon in 1988_photograph from the collection of the New York Public Library . Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906 – 2001) “What are you doing?” . “What are you doing? What are you thinking about? And of...
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“And Don’t Think I Won’t Be Waiting”: Love poems by Audre Lorde
ZP_Solar Abstract_© photographer Wilda Gerideau-Squires Audre Lorde (1934 – 1992) “Pirouette” . I saw your hands on my lips like blind needles blunted from sewing up stone and where are you from you...
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Audrey Lorde and Essex Hemphill: Mothers and Fathers
. Audre Lorde and Essex Hemphill… Two Black-American poets: one a New Yorker from Harlem with family roots in Grenada and Barbados, the other growing up in Washington D.C. with roots in Columbia, South...
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“That poem which lay in my heart like a secret”: Juliane Okot Bitek reflects...
Our warmest thanks to Juliane Okot Bitek for the following Guest Editor post at Zócalo Poets: . Okot p’Bitek (1931 – 1982) Return the Bridewealth (1971) . I . I go to my father He is sitting in the...
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