We’re happy to be back – to continue our relationship with you in this absolutely essential space known as the world of literature and art.

And musing around said relationship theme, Anna Salamone, Malkia Charlee NoCry, Suradeep Roy, Nana Nyarko Boateng, give us insight into the complexities of female/male relationships, along with the human’s relationship with environment through their artful verse. Timely, given the plot-line of  the controversial film, Django (the D is silent) and perhaps the film’s director Quentin Tarantino should have been when he suggested that his was finally a serious conversation about slavery in cinema. Really? We’re thinking Haile Gerima’s Sankofa. At any rate, the husband/wife slave relationship is not to be trivialised by a Black superhero action figure exacting revenge. Active slavery resisters like Nanny and Gabriel Prosser (true historical liberators) among legions were seeking justice, not revenge.

In this volume we also explore the artist’s relationship with art through  a warm and wonderful conversation with thespian and painter Michael Marisi Ornstein. We found his intelligence and aesthetic passion both contagious and thrilling! Many surprises here for those who thought all successful Hollywood actors to be self-absorbed air-heads.

The all of this issue we dedicate to the recently departed genius surrealist activist poet Jayne Cortez, who though she’s flown south for the winter, will continue to touch the landings again and again with her revolutionary words, firing the ice until our waters run clear … and her river be Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, Gold, White, and her river be continuous, bright!

Enjoy

Kamaria Muntu