Be-Side

From NY to NJ to NM … beats, bards & baked goods in Santa...

Sun, 05 May 2013 21:14:00 -0600

From NY to NJ to NM … beats, bards & baked goods in Santa Fe

A night of poetry with a pair of world traveling hip hop scholars at the home of the Big Pun Waffle

for immediate release – What happens when you put together a native New Yorker with an affinity for baked goods (bordering on obsession) with a hip hop theater expert and a poet laureate? You have to go to Momo & Company at 5:30pm on Friday, May 24^th to find out!

New York native Leslie Thompson is one-half of the genius behind Santa Fe’s only gluten-free bakery and Boba Tea bar. With a menu that is as entertaining as delicious, Leslie is known for flavoring the names of some of her lunch and menu breakfast items with her love for hip hop culture. Thompson’s relationship with hip hop is not limited to her naming of her newest breakfast item after the late, platinum selling, Latino, hip hop pioneer Big Punisher; she also is a good friend of renowned hip hop theater director, choreographer and scholar Daniel Banks, PhD.

A Santa Fe resident, Banks has served on the faculties of the Dept. of Undergraduate Drama, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and is currently on the faculty of the M.A. In Applied Theatre at City University of NY. The co-founder of DNAWORKS and co-director of Theatre Without Borders, Banks has worked extensively in the U.S. and abroad, having directed at such notable venues as the National Theatre of Uganda (Kampala), the Belarussian National Drama Theatre (Minsk), The Market Theatre (Johannesburg, South Africa), the Hip Hop Theatre Festival (New York and Washington, D.C.), and the Oval House (London). Banks and Thompson had been conspiring to put literature in the air for some time at Momo & Co., however it would be the intersection of another Northeasterner that set their plan into action.

Banks met Hakim Bellamy in January of 2013, after years of hearing about each other’s shared interests in hip hop and theater in New Mexico. Shortly after Bellamy returned from South Africa, the two met at a Littleglobe Creative Transformation Workshop that Banks was co-facilitating. A Littleglobe affiliate and New Jersey native, Bellamy is also the inaugural poet laureate of Albuquerque. Weeks later, Banks and Bellamy met at Momo & Co. to become better acquainted. Out of that meeting, Bellamy, Banks and Thompson decided to bring every “New” state except for New Hampshire together.

On Saturday, May 25^th at 5:30pm Momo & Co. will host a reading of the two authors in Santa Fe. The reading is free to all those who attend and the bakery will remain open with Thompson’s addictive, yet gluten-free confections for sale. Banks and Bellamy will also be signing books underneath the New York City subway signs that adorn the bakery walls. Though Banks will be reading poetry from his soon to be published collection Shades, he will have copies on hand of his recently released Hip Hop Theatre anthology titled Say Word!: Voices from Hip Hop Theater for the University of Michigan Press (available in Santa Fe at Garcia Street Books). Bellamy will read from his new book, SWEAR, by West End Press and distributed by University of New Mexico Press (available in Santa Fe at Collected Works). Both men will host a Q&A and book signing after the free reading.

A week ago, CakeSpy Undercover (ireallylikefood.com) “secret-shopped” Momo & Co. and reported: “While eating gluten-free may be a necessity to some, it need not equal suffering – for anyone. So it makes me so glad places like Momo and Company exist.”

Bellamy, Banks and Thompson feel the same way about poetry. No suffering needed.

###

contact Banks (daniel@dnaworks.org) & Bellamy (tirods@gmail.com) for Interviews & Inquiries

Big Thanks to Creative Albuquerque and this video that they...

Wed, 01 May 2013 13:33:26 -0600

Big Thanks to Creative Albuquerque and this video that they produced for the Creative Bravos Award Ceremony in March. I am honored to be the 2013 Emerging Creative Bravos Award recipient. Thank you. - hb

Hakim Bellamy is Albuquerque’s inaugural Poet Laureate (2012-2014), and a nationally recognized poetry slam champion. In early 2013, his first collection of poetry will be published by West End Press. For three consecutive years, he has been named “Best Poet” by Local iQ and the Weekly Alibi. He is the co-creator of the multimedia, hip hop theater incubator Urban Verbs; and facilitates performance-writing workshops for schools and community organizations across the country.

To learn more about Hakim please visit: http://hakimbe.com/

To learn more about the Creative Bravos Awards please visit:http://www.creativeabq.org/

Video/Music: Kamio Media

Thank you to Robert Woltman, the Albuquerque Journal, West End...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:19:49 -0600

Thank you to Robert Woltman, the Albuquerque Journal, West End Press, UNM Press and the people of Albuquerque. The second of two book reviews. Both positive. Humbled, blessed and thankful.

See Don McIver’s review of Swear in the Local iQ.

Read this Albuquerque Journal Sunday Book Review in its entirety.

Catch me LIVE at the Opening Plenary for the National Conference for Media Reform

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 03:13:35 -0600

Catch me LIVE at the Opening Plenary for the National Conference for Media Reform:

NATIONAL CONFERENCE FOR MEDIA REFORM starts NOW! Opening Plenary BRINGIN THE JUSTICE! Craig Aaron, Staceyann Chin, Mary Alice Crim, Juan Gonzalez ( Democracy Now!), Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock, David Sirota, Joseph Torres, Rinku Sen, Robert W. McChesney, Carlotta Walls LaNier (Little Rock Nine), Ilyse Hogue (NARAL Pro-Choice America), Kim Gandy (National Network to End Domestic Violence) & me! Follow us on Twitter #ncmr13 or watch the live stream at FreeSpeechTV @ 3:30pm (April 5th) MST http://www.livestream.com/freespeechtv

New event added to my schedule. You won’t find this under...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 11:27:04 -0600

New event added to my schedule. You won’t find this under the “What’s Next?” tab. I get to introduce my sister Jessica Helen Lopez, who gets to interview Jimmy Santiago Baca, AND YOU GET TO WATCH IT!

Get your tickets here at www.KiMoTickets.com or call 505.886.1251 to order by phone.

Reserve Seats: Adults-$10 Seniors-$8 Students-$5

Written for Women in Creativity Month performance at Tricklock...

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 22:50:17 -0600

Written for Women in Creativity Month performance at Tricklock Theater Company’s Reptilian Lounge in March 2013

Crea+ivi+y … for Mae Jamison

Quote

“For some reasons of reason, it is overwhelmingly apparent that the female brain does not rival a man’s brain when it comes to math and science.”

so she grabbed a telescope

to see

what kind of god

would not make space

for her

what kind of idiot

savant

would phrenologize uterus

with iQ

in a respectable scholarly journal

and call his self

scientist

an alchemist

is much more

than a palmful

of snake oil

more than scales

and skin sales

more than the atheism

we cook

and crack

in the crosshairs of that scope

she saw pimps

standing on the corner

of crea+ion and nativi+y

selling acrylic

on canvas, no prints,

of Mary

and manger

sky

blacker than universe

than womb

in it

stars look like asterisks

like X, X

on top of each other

one tick-tocked clockwise

90 degrees

“Like you don’t know what time it is!”

she says

under lapcoat collar

like impo’tent men

will put their dick in

test tubes to

try and reproduce

the laboratory inside of her

futile

those same men,

however important,

will fit firearms into mouths

of mothers

on a crusade

to barren nations

frustrated

that their black magic

will never match

her birthright…

they will say

“God made Adam first.”

She will thank’em kindly

for the compliment

and call herself

evolution

smile

and tell them to adopt

while she adapts

“We are in clinical trials,

trying to reproduce a miracle.”

she belches

“The future of this species rests in an aberration.

Inconclusive, yet well-documented, evidence that one

Of their gender was able to regenerate without the other…”

she is between homo habilis

and australopithicus

she is time travel

nine months of present

and future

at the same time

she is pregnancy without penis

he is penis without progress

he is original man

primitive

she is Es-class

opposable thumb

she has made man

without man

he has tried

to clone her miracle

jealous

of how she plays god with herself

one day,

he will worship her

for the nucleus she is

instead of the warfare

he wet dreams her

to be

til then,

he will dismiss this report

file it away in the annals

of science

and tell her

this sort of study

this sort of research

is heresy

he will unbend

his lips and innuendo

his brow

as he lets her know

what is at stake

shrug it off

by trying to diffuse

a lawsuit

with a joke about sausage

and how she is

missing link

he is not

cute

or scientifically correct

he is cocky

not cunning

he is over the line

and over confident

she is over head

and over

he will discharge

one last shot

at her sisterhood

laughingly, ask her

if she thinks

she can fly

and she will

look him in the eye

and say

“Yes”

“Now,

ask me…

which broomstick

to prove it with.”

© Hakim Bellamy March 21, 2013

Dear Weekly Alibi (and Albuquerque), There is no such thing as...

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:07:00 -0600

Dear Weekly Alibi (and Albuquerque),

There is no such thing as “Best Poet.” But THANK YOU for reminding me that I am not a “fad.” I love you 4X too!

Truly yours,

Hakim Bellamy

P.S. HUGE thanks to all of you who thought it was worth your time to log in, full your ballot with at least 20 things that make our city awesome, and actually include me.

P.S.S. Mad love to Levi the Poet, Zachary Kluckman and every other poet in this city as well! WE make this a cool place to be a poet.

Read the results of the Best of Burque 2013 Readers’ Poll.

Send your teenager to Bernalillo County’s Two-Day Digital...

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 20:27:00 -0600

Send your teenager to Bernalillo County’s Two-Day Digital Workshop. It costs nothing, and could be worth their future. No pressure. More details and updates at http://www.bernco.gov/KRS or @urbanverbs on Twitter.

Look what landed on ye olde desktop today! SWEAR gets a book...

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 10:06:33 -0600

Look what landed on ye olde desktop today! SWEAR gets a book review in Local iQ. But this endorsement from a young, Black & gifted 7 year-old is like a badge of BADASSERY “My hero is Hakim. He is my tallest best friend. This is some of his line from Roots Revival: ‘Brother you will not sleep brother. The revolution will not be televised.” Love you to Levi, all apologies to Gil Scott-Heron. #GOODGoodFriday

Read the Local iQ book review by Don McIver here.

Crea+ivi+y … for Mae Jamison

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 21:49:51 -0600

Quote

“For some reasons of reason, it is overwhelmingly apparent that the female brain does not rival a man’s brain when it comes to math and science.”

so she grabbed a telescope

to see

what kind of god

would not make space

for her

what kind of idiot

savant

would phrenologize uterus

with iQ

in a respectable scholarly journal

and call his self

scientist

an alchemist

is much more

than a palmful

of snake oil

more than scales

and skin sales

more than the atheism

we cook

and crack

in the crosshairs of that scope

she saw pimps

standing on the corner

of crea+ion and nativi+y

selling acrylic

on canvas, no prints,

of Mary

and manger

sky

blacker than universe

than womb

in it

stars look like asterisks

like X, X

on top of each other

one tick-tocked clockwise

90 degrees

“Like you don’t know what time it is!”

she says

under lapcoat collar

like impo’tent men

will put their dick in

test tubes to

try and reproduce

the laboratory inside of her

futile

those same men,

however important,

will fit firearms into mouths

of mothers

on a crusade

to barren nations

frustrated

that their black magic

will never match

her birthright…

they will say

“God made Adam first.”

She will thank’em kindly

for the compliment

and call herself

evolution

smile

and tell them to adopt

while she adapts

“We are in clinical trials,

trying to reproduce a miracle.”

she belches

“The future of this species rests in an aberration.

Inconclusive, yet well-documented, evidence that one

Of their gender was able to regenerate without the other…”

she is between homo habilis

and australopithicus

she is time travel

nine months of present

and future

at the same time

she is pregnancy without penis

he is penis without progress

he is original man

primitive

she is Es-class

opposable thumb

she has made man

without man

he has tried

to clone her miracle

jealous

of how she plays god with herself

one day,

he will worship her

for the nucleus she is

instead of the warfare

he wet dreams her

to be

til then,

he will dismiss this report

file it away in the annals

of science

and tell her

this sort of study

this sort of research

is heresy

he will unbend

his lips and innuendo

his brow

as he lets her know

what is at stake

shrug it off

by trying to diffuse

a lawsuit

with a joke about sausage

and how she is

missing link

he is not

cute

or scientifically correct

he is cocky

not cunning

he is over the line

and over confident

she is over head

and over

he will discharge

one last shot

at her sisterhood

laughingly, ask her

if she thinks

she can fly

and she will

look him in the eye

and say

“Yes”

“Now,

ask me…

which broomstick

to prove it with.”

Honored to be the recipient of the 2013 Emerging Creative Bravos...

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 09:21:00 -0600

Honored to be the recipient of the 2013 Emerging Creative Bravos on Saturday evening. Each Creative Bravos award recipient got the opportunity for a 30 sec. acceptance speech. In my absence (I was completing my role as Albert/Kevin Fusion Theatre Company’s 10-show run of Bruce Norris’ award-winning play Clybourne Park), My son hit it out the park with “Thank You for my daddy!” Better and shorter than anything I coulda come up with. Proud of my lil’ man. A huge thanks to his mother, Tracey, for escorting him.

Here is my social media “acceptance speech” (status update) from before my 7:30pm call to the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe:

Thank you Creative Albuquerque and all those who daily make it their job to honor & empower artists in ABQ. My son will be accepting my Creative Bravos award tonight as I create art in Santa Fe this evening. But THANK YOU to my fellow Bravos honorees and all behind the scenes that make sure EVERY Burqueno has access to art regardless of cash or class.

And from this article about the Creative Bravos award in ABQ Arts & Entertainment:

Selected as this year’s Emerging Creative award recipient, Albuquerque’s inaugural Poet Laureate (2012-14) and nationally recognized poetry slam champion, Hakim Bellamy, is one whose body of achievements continues to grow alongside his artistic ambitions. “I’m a little young for a lifetime achievement award, but this is what the Emerging Creative Bravos feels like. It feels like a humble validation and acknowledgment of my art as ‘professional,’ which is important for up and coming artists who do what I do and look like me but may have never thought of declaring themselves a poet, until they witnessed me doing the same,” says Bellamy.

This article about the 2013 Creative Bravos Award recipients was published in the Albuquerque Journal.

Thank you, thank you, thank you … I mean it.

Join me, Poet Manuel Gonzalez, Reel Fathers and the 9th Grade...

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 12:25:59 -0600

Join me, Poet Manuel Gonzalez, Reel Fathers and the 9th Grade Class at Capital High School in Santa Fe as we present the work we’ve developed as part of the Fathers in Focus Intensive for the past two weeks. This FREE event at Warehouse 21 on Sunday, March 24th at 3pm will include an originally written GROUP POEM, as well as individual poems by 10 of the 200 9th Graders that we had the pleasure of working with as they read Homer’s Odyssey in their English Classes. There will be refreshments provided, you WILL NOT be disappointed. There will also be a poetry slam to win a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0!

Had a “Welcome Back” party with my New Mexico Style...

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 22:34:00 -0600

Had a “Welcome Back” party with my New Mexico Style family (Nikki Stanzione and Kristen Van Dyke). We talked “SWEAR” on the air at KASA FOX 2. See the instant replay and we’ll see you at UNM Bookstore, Bookworks or the Southwest Book Fiesta! (Details at “What’s Next?” tab here at www.hakimbe.com) Thank you Nikki & Kristen!

The Creative Bravos Award Recipients are in and I am truly humbled to win the Emerging Creative...

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:23:00 -0600

The Creative Bravos Award Recipients are in and I am truly humbled to win the Emerging Creative Bravos Award. So please come and join me and my fellow award recipients on this night of honors and arts! You can enjoy the article and find out more about the awards ceremony here: http://abqarts.com/?p=11794

It is truly an honor!!

ONE MORE WEEKEND LEFT TO SEE THE 2011 TONY AWARD WINNING,...

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 02:43:41 -0600

ONE MORE WEEKEND LEFT TO SEE THE 2011 TONY AWARD WINNING, PULITZER PRIZE WINNING, OLIVIER AWARD WINNING CLYBOURNE PARK IN SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO!

Get Tickets HERE!

See reviews by Broadway World and the Albuquerque Journal!

Join us at the Historic Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe! - hb

Inaugural Poet Laureate of Albuquerque Releases His First...

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 14:00:00 -0700

Inaugural Poet Laureate of Albuquerque Releases His First Collection of Poems

A 35 year-old press helps get the 34 year-old author into the history books.

With more than 35 years and 100 titles to its credit, West End Press is fiercely independent publishing house founded in New Your City and now based in Albuquerque, NM. Joining a roster of distinguished West End Authors (such a Pablo Neruda and Meridel le Sueur), Albuquerque Poet Laureate Hakim Bellamy was also founded in the Northeast and now based in Albuquerque.

Though West End Press invited Bellamy to submit a manuscript many months before Bellamy was selected as Albuquerque’s first poet laureate, SWEAR is in print eleven months into his two-year appointment. With a book release party and reading announcement coming soon, here is what West End Press had to say about its newest author:

In his debut collection of hard-hitting poems, Albuquerque Poet Laureate Hakim Bellamy addresses the issues important to our day—politics, work, and art. Bellamy moves from a free-thinking attitude of deliverance to a provocative new space where the reader can reflect on the poet’s inquisition of the 1%, working class life in urban and rural America, and the transcendent value of hip hop as one of our top exports and global contributions.

Here are a few endorsements of the book:

SWEAR politicizes the human condition in a manner that balances the abstract with the concrete. Bellamy’s work is polemic like Amiri; satiric like Nietzsche; iconoclastic like Mao; passionate like Neruda. Ministering without preaching, Bellamy’s sense of metaphor whistle-blows on the top-down without fear of consequence.

Bruce George

Co-Founder of Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on HBO

Hakim Bellamy is a man engaged with the world. His words are more direct than lyrical. His poems are warning signs, headlines and prescriptions. From government to Occupy-the economic and political blues finds Bellamy wearing Langston’s hat and coat. Here is the same type of urgency Hughes felt in the 1930s after the Harlem Renaissance. Today our eyes turn to Albuquerque. SWEAR will tell you what’s coming next.

E. Ethelbert Miller

Author, activist, and director of the African American Center at Howard University

SWEAR is the physical embodiment of life in the digital age. Bellamy leaves no modern experience undisturbed. His observations, calling upon historical documents, economic structures, and political games, work to examine social and cultural norms that aren’t so normal. Swear’s themes cut through cultural, ethnic, and gendered models to thread together the human occurrences that binds us all while unveiling a pattern of institutional and systemic change. Bellamy creates an active reading experience, compelling the reader to envision how each word, clause, and statement speaks to a 21st century world, without the blinders of complacency and with an eye towards hope. Beyond simple rhetoric and a pithy turn of phrase, Bellamy takes the time to give voice to an America that is often overlooked. He embeds himself in each work, without making the works about him. I highly recommend this book.

Sonia Gipson Rankin

Director of African American Studies, University of New Mexico

For more endorsements and information (including the electronic press kit) about SWEAR, visit www.beyondpoetryink.com. Distributed by University of New Mexico Press, review copies and author interviews can be requested from West End Press by contacting Amanda Sutton at Amanda@westendpress.org. For more information on Hakim Bellamy, please visit www.hakimbe.com.

Went to sleep in Albuquerque and woke up in Africa … as a...

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 07:26:28 -0700

Went to sleep in Albuquerque and woke up in Africa … as a featured poet on Badilisha Poetry! Here’s what my Executive Assistant Ronica Brooks had to say:

“Take a look at one of the latest main page poetryfeatures on Hakim Bellamy. He makes an appearance on the Badilisha Poetry Radio Show and recites his poem entitled “Place Matters”. See him as he paints a portrait of life deeply affected by what place we are in, out of, or sometimes kept from.

Go to http://badilishapoetry.com/ to see the page feature!! Enjoy!”

Thank you to Linda Kaoma and the rest of the Badilisha family! Thanks to Diles and Atom Ortiz for helping me with the audio track!

I am proud to be recognized by the New Mexico State Legislature...

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 01:51:40 -0700

I am proud to be recognized by the New Mexico State Legislature on the floor of the State Senate, thanks to Senator Tim Keller. I am equally proud to be part of the International Day/Asian American Day at the State Legislature festivities…where politics and poetry play nicely. Thank you New Mexico!

It is a distinct honor to represent the city I now call...

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 11:21:00 -0700

It is a distinct honor to represent the city I now call “HOME” in my hometown paper! Humbled, that a readership of 70,000 in the Philadelphia/South Jersey area is proud of how I serve community 2,000 miles away. Thank you Kim Mulford, the City of Albuquerque, my parents, the Albuquerque Poet Laureate Program, and the Courier Post! Read the article here.

Stand: For Every Teacher I Ever Had or Hadn’t was written...

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 16:17:00 -0700

Stand: For Every Teacher I Ever Had or Hadn’t was written for and premiered at TEDxABQED on January 11th, 2013. I want to thank the great folks at TEDxABQ (& the badass team of volunteers), the African American Performing Arts Center, and every teacher that has set out to change world one child at a time. Find out how you can be part of TEDxABQED at http://tedxabq.com/education.html.

Listen to the audio of the poem here.