Poem for Today

April 13, 2016 / Juliana Lightle / 4 Comments

Inspired by a friend’s poem, I decided to take a look at some of my book stacks and write a poem from their titles–in honor of National Poetry Month.

Now Is the Time to Open Your Hearts

the tongue’s blood does not run dry

The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love

A Simple Havana Melody

Alejandro Blue

The Spirit of Indian Women

Still Life With Bread Crumbs

Ring of Fire

Gardens in the Dunes

Daughters of Fortune

The Way to Paradise

The Bingo Palace

Uppity Women

How We Became Human

Close Range

Native Guard

Things Fall Apart

Gone Home

Poem for Today

April 13, 2016 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Rewriting Religion: the radical poetry of Aemilia Bassano Lanier by Mary Sharratt

March 23, 2016March 23, 2016 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

This illustrates how recently in history English speaking women have gained the right to openly display their talents, how hard won these gains have been. These rights can just be as easily be lost unless we remain vigilant.

Feminism and Religion

Sharratt_DarkLady-hi

Aemilia Bassano Lanier (also spelled Lanyer) is the heroine of my new novel The Dark Lady’s Mask. Born in 1569, she was the highly educated daughter of an Italian court musician—a man thought to have been a Marrano, a secret Jew living under the guise of a Christian convert. She may have also been the mysterious, musical Dark Lady of Shakespeare’s sonnets, although most academic scholars dispute this. What we do know for a fact and what really matters is that she was the first woman in England to pursue a career as a published poet.

In Italy women such as Isabella Andreini published plays and poetry on a wide variety of secular subjects, but in England Lanier effectively had only one option—to write devotional Protestant verse. Her English literary predecessors, Anne Locke and Mary Sidney, wrote poetic meditations on the Psalms.

But Lanier turned this…

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2016 Africa Reading Challenge

January 30, 2016January 30, 2016 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Want something new to read, what to expand your knowledge of the wider world, read literature from Africa, Latin America, anywhere that is not your culture.

Kinna Reads

Welcome to the Africa Reading Challenge.

This will be the fourth time that I’m hosting the Africa Reading Challenge. Details and requirements are the same this year as for the 2012 Africa Reading Challenge, which started with: “I have absolutely no reason for hosting nor urging you to participate in this challenge save for the joy of discovering and reading African literature!” Here are the details:

Challenge Period

January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2016

Region

The entire African continent, including its island-states, which are often overlooked. Please refer to this Wikipedia “list of sovereign states and dependent territories in Africa”. Pre-colonial empires and regions are also included.

Reading Goal

5 books. That’s it. There will be no other levels. Of course, participants are encouraged to read more than 5 books. Eligible books include those which are written by African writers, or take place in Africa, or are…

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My 27-Book Haul from @AkeFestival #AkeFest15

November 25, 2015November 25, 2015 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

This perfectly fits my goal to expand awareness of literature from non-western cultures. Reading remains one of the best ways to expand intercultural awareness especially if you cannot travel there.

Kinna Reads

I didn’t do badly this first time at Aké; I come home with 27 books!

Books I Bought:

Ake Books I bought

The Birth of Illus by Jumoke Verissimo. This is Jumoke’s second collection of poetry. I’m a fan of her work.
Bound to Secrecy by Vamba Sherif. A detective novel set in Liberia. A new-to-me writer.
Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor. The first of Okorafor’s books that I own. It’s been a long time coming.
Minaret by Leila Aboulela. She has a new book, The Kindness of Enemies, out. I’m trying to catch up.
Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett. I”m behind on my reviews but I loved Igoni’s Love is Power or Something Like That. This is his newest book.
A Killing in the Sun by Dilman Dila. Speculative fiction. I first came across his work in Jalada’s Afrofutures issue.

(In a special category) The Etisalat Prize Longlisted Books

Etisalat Prize-longlisted books

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E Pluribus Unum: The Woman From Africa by Stuart Dean

October 3, 2015October 3, 2015 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Source: E Pluribus Unum: The Woman From Africa by Stuart Dean I am sharing both this post and also where I found it because both are filled with fascinating information about ancient history and how so much applies to our lives now.

Sunday Haiku

September 21, 2015 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Watching sunset and storm clouds

Great Cosmic Mother

Weeping for lost and lonely women

Haiku–Publications and Submissions

May 26, 2015May 26, 2015 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

Because a substantial number of my readers seem to like haiku, I thought I would provide this information. Two journals exist to which writers can submit haiku. The first is “Haiku Journal” at http://www.haikujournal.org. If you are not an expert, but want to try your hand at getting your attempts at haiku published, you probably will have a better chance here. Their main criteria is the 7-5-7 syllable count and not the other aspects of haiku. Some claim this really is not haiku and that the syllable count may work in Japanese but not in English. See the comments by Michael Dylan Welch. He claims it is the content, not the syllable count that matters.

The other is the journal, “Modern Haiku”, at http://www.modernhaiku.org. Their criteria for publication are much more stringent than in “Haiku Journal”. If you are interested in publishing in either, I suggest taking a look at work already published to get an idea regarding what they like. Supposedly, “Haiku Journal” publishes the first fifty submissions as long as they meet their criteria which basically appears to be the correct syllable count.