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SABLE NIGHT @ Nuyorican Poets Café, FEBRUARY 8, 2006 SABLE LitMag live & off the page at another international venue. SABLE, the LitMag for New Writing: is a Black British-based international journal for writers’ of colour. SABLE LitMag Poetry Editor,
DOROTHEA SMARTT Dubbed 'Brit-born Bajan international' [Kamau Brathwaithe], receives critical attention in Britain, Europe, the Caribbean, and the USA. Shaping poems for the twenty-first century "...a master artist who sculpts both Standard and Caribbean English into a variety of poetic forms...capable of boldly crossing cultural boundaries…[Caribbean Writer]. Her collection "Connecting Medium" is published by Peepal Tree Press.—DOROTHEA SMARTT—britbornbajan@earthlink.net INTRODUCING: New York’s lyrical, vivid and surreal poet RACHEL ELIZA GRIFFITHS, featured in the SABLE’s “Katrina Poetry Special” [Autumn/Fall 2005, Issue 7]. This African-American photographer and painter has performed at various venues Downtown, including the Bowery and Bar 13.
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Summoning angels and slapping us awake with her magical combinations, KAMILA AISHA MOON, featured poet in SABLE’s Women’s Issue [Spring 2006, Issue 7]. This Cave Canem alumna has performed at numerous venues, and was a featured reader at the Langston Hughes Centennial.
As Jose Marti, (Poet & Essayist, 1853-1895) said, "Literature is the most beautiful of countries." SABLE believes there should be no physical boundaries to people of colour to dialogue and collaborate in order to build stronger global and sustainable communities. One of the most powerful ways to do this is through the spoken and written word. SABLE LitMag provides a space for new writers to showcase their work and to receive critical feedback in their chosen written language of expression.
DOROTHEA SMARTT
Q & A Q. As a young teen, did you think about what you wanted to do for a living when you grew up? What was that? A. I LEFT SCH. AND STARTED IN A NURSING PROGRAM - THAT HAD BEEN MY CHILDHOOD GOAL.I LEFT AFTER 3 MONTHS! SIGNED UP FOR A DEGREE IN SOCIOLOGY THAT STARTED IN THE FALL. OVER THE SUMMER I WROTE MY FIRST ARTICLE FOR A FEMINIST MAG. "SPARE RIB".
I THOUGHT I WAS GONNA BE A NURSE….AFTER LEAVING THAT BEHIND I WASN’T REALLY SURE WHAT TO CALL WHAT I WANTED TO DO – BUT IT HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH PEOPLE (INDIVIDUALS & GROUPS), LEARNING/TEACHING, PASSING ON INFORMATION; HELPING OTHERS; POLITICIZING/RAISING CONSIOUSSNESS; CREATIVITY; & BEING UNCONVENTIONAL!
Q. How different is it from what you are doing now? A. MAYBE, (NURSING OR HEALING IN ITS BROADER SENSE) ISN’T ALL THAT DIFFERENT TO THE CREATIVE WORK I DO.
Q. Did you accomplish your goal? A. “IVE COME A LONG WAY…AND STILL HAVE A WAY TO GO…”
Q. If not, why not and what happened? A. I’M STILL BREATHING, AND ENGAGED WITH BEING FULLY ALIVE (ALAFIA!)
Q. Are you happy with what your life’s work has turned out to be? A. DELIGHTED & HUMBLED.
Q. Did you ever think that you could earn a living doing what you are now ? A. NO – EXCEPT IN MY DAYDREAMS & FANTASIES.
Q. Was the road to where you are the result of conscious steps to seize opportunities or did everything in your path seemed to be a series of “accidents”? A. HONESTLY, I THINK ITS BEEN A COMBINATION OF BOTH. BUT THEN SOMETIMES I LOOK BACK & I CAN NOW SEE, HOW SOME THINGS WERE ‘ACCIDENTS’ WAITING TO HAPPEN (!) OR THAT MY ‘CONSCIOUS’ STEPS WEREN’T AS FULLY CONSCIOUS OF ALL THE POSSIBILITIES, AS THEY MIGHT HAVE BEEN. (PERHAPS THIS PERSPECTIVE IS A BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT).
Dorothea Smartt has achieved International acclaim for her performances in Hungary, Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Bahrain, The United States, Egypt, Jamaica, the Shetland Islands, Wales and throughout England.
This one part Capricorn, one part Taurus, two parts Aquarius, two parts Scorpio, one part Leo, one part Pisces and two parts Virgo poet and live artist was born in South London and grew up in Battersea of Barbadian parents. She combines, creativity, vision, magnetism, sensuality, inspiration, drama, sensitivity, a commanding presence, individualism, intensity, passion, determination and the showmanship aspect of her innate personality to actualize her soul mission and to captivate her audience with a voice like butta. Her “evocative and spirited voice “coils up your feelings, around granite chips of truth…unwinds solace, in the most soothing volleys”-Caribbean Times.
Dorothea credits her sister with getting her involved in writing poetry. She started writing in a diary as a way of coping with the loneliness and trauma of her sister leaving home at the age of 18. Along the way, she became involved with the Black Women’s Movement in the 1980s which presented opportunities for writing early on. While there, she was encouraged to engage in the performance aspect of poetry reading. Her poetry was subsequently integrated into a live art piece performed at the Brixton Art Gallery and she was named a Poet in Residence at Brixton Market and Attached Live Artist at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Her participation in the London based agency, Spread the Word and it’s newly created Afro-Style school workshop with Kwame Dawes has also helped to hone her writing and performing skills.
Connecting Medium is a collection of her poems that was published by Peepal Tree Press in 2001. Reflections of growing up in London and her Barbadian heritage, the poems are written both in what she describes as her “London voice” that she acquired growing up in London and the “Bajan voice” that she heard spoken from her Bajan parents. “Poetry saved my Bajan voice” – Poetry Society News, Fall 2001
Teased in school as a child by being called Medusa because of her locked hairstyle, Dorothea was inspired to write a series of Medusa poems. In them she explores and addresses the correlation between Medusa’s head of snakes and today’s black women’s self-image issues in relation to their hair. As Lizbeth Goodman writes in her introduction in Connecting Medium, “reclaims Medusa’s hair as a source of power and symbol of strength, always linked to the possibility of loss”. –Laura Griggs, Sable Magazine
The Medusa project, a combination of poetry and visuals, got her first commission at the Institute of Contemporary Arts with photographer Sherlee Mitchell in London, premiered at the British Festival of Visual Theatre and was named Outstanding Black Example of British live art.
Ms. Smartt is currently the Poetry Editor for Sable Literary Magazine, is an inspirational and experienced workshop leader, a former part-time lecturer in creative writing at Birkbeck College and Leeds University, a visiting writer at Florida International University in the United States, studied at Hunter College in New York City, conducts workshops for London based Survivor’s Poetry, Apples and Snakes and Spread the Word agencies of artists. In addition, she performs reading and writing workshops for teens from all ethnic backgrounds in schools both in the U.K. and in the U.S.A. she regularly mentors aspiring and resident poets and is a member of Black Arts Alliance.
WHAT ELSE HAS SHE DONE?
· Conducted prison workshops such as Bull Wood Hall Prison for Women in England. · Was commissioned in 2000 to write her first play Fallout which toured primary schools in the London area. · Poetry appears in several groundbreaking anthologies, including Bittersweet (Women’s Press, 1998), The Fire People (Payback Press, 1998), Voice Memory Ashes (Mango Publishing, 1999), and Mythic Women/Real Women (Faber, 2000). -Sherry Taylor Gibson
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