The Cage Finally Open | A Tribute to Maya Angelou

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Chrycka Harper, Poet & Literary CriticLast Modified: 00:07 a.m. DST, 31 May 2014

Maya Angelou - March 28,2008 - St. Sabina African American Speaking Series, Photo by Saint Sabina Photos

Not too long ago, Mandela joined the small community. He reunited with memorial friends, met with known ancestors, and joined the others to patiently wait for the next neighbor.

Eyes immediately focused on the glorious caged bird. Her songs send warm, comforting nostalgia to millions worldwide.

Our ears rejoice when she shares her wisdom, Our eyes rejoice when she graces the page with exceptional stanzas, Our mouths rejoice in smiles within her presence.

Maya Angelou, your songs kept us in remembrance of our history and heritage. But God said its time to unlock the cage So that the phenomenal bird can fly to its home.

Maya Angelou flew to her home, with Zora, Brooks, Wheatley, Aesop, but her spirit will never allow us to forget for the world.

Thank you, from an aspiring storyteller to a modern griot.

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Gabriel Garcia Marquez Battles Dementia

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Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-ChiefLast Modified: 02:51 AM EDT, 7 July 2012

Gabriel Marcia Marquez, Photo by Ricardo LiteraturasCARTAGENA, Colombia - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian writer and winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature is reportedly suffering from senile dementia.

Born in 1928 in the small town of Aracataca, Colombia, he began his career as a journalist and throughout the 1950s he published numerous short stories.

In 1967 he wrote his first book in his native Spanish titled Cien años de soledad. It was later translated into English and published under the title One Hundred Years of Solitude. This book would become the cornerstone and seminal work for the movement that is known as magical realism.

German art critic Franz Roh is credited with first using the term magical realism in 1925, although the Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier in 1949 coined the term "lo real maravilloso." Like surrealism in art, magical realism is a literary device in which the line of demarcation that separates the real from the magical is blurred.

Marquez is the iconic patriarch of a literary tradition which yielded celebrated authors like Isabel Allende who wrote The House of the Spirits, Laura Esquivel who penned Like Water for Chocolate, Toni Morrison and her haunting tale Beloved, and Salman Rushdie’s daring novel The Satanic Verses.

What makes Marquez body of work magnificent is that his literary landscape is not limited to “the Latin American experiences, but to larger questions about human nature. In the end, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a novel as much about specific social and historical circumstances—disguised by fiction and fantasy—as about the possibility of love and the sadness of alienation and solitude.” (Source: Spark Notes)

The decline of a brilliant man with a mind capable of weaving intricate worlds serves as a stark reminder of the transience of life. Marquez, now in the twilight of his years remains inextricably trapped in the landscape of dementia as if he were a character in one of his novels.

Jaime Garcia Marquez reported to media that his brother, who is 85 and lives in Mexico, has increasingly lost touch with reality. It was a slow decline which is why the author hasn’t made any public appearances in recent years.

"It is a disease that runs in the family," said Jaime Garcia Marquez. "He is doing well physically, but he has been suffering from dementia for a long time but he still has the humor, joy and enthusiasm that he has always had."

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The Prophet's Children | Khalil Gibran

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Child at Water Fall Wall, Photo by Cuba GalleryYour children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you, they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite. And He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hands be for happiness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, So He loves the bow that is stable.

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Human Destiny | Noam Chomsky's Challenge

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Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-ChiefLast Modified: 01:52 AM EDT, 31 October 2011

There are many voices within the global and American landscape that continually challenge us to peek behind the veil, to question authority, and practice free thought.

In past decades,  authors, philosophers and even filmmakers provided the impetus for us to dig deeper beneath the surface.  Movies like Fahrenheit 451,  Soylent Green, Animal Farm and 1984 are but four examples of an entire genre of intellectual activism that seems increasingly on the decline.

Ray Bradbury, Richard Fleischer, and George Orwell are the epitome of visionaries whose prophetic voices warned society of the perils a mid-20th Century society would face should it recklessly continue its pursuit of manufactured pleasures and myopic fiefdoms.

Today, Michael Moore, Eric Schlosser and Al Gore through their films  "Capitalism: A Love Story," "Food Nation," and "An Inconvenient Truth," risk the wrath of the system by unveiling the truth of the "man behind the mirror."  Truth is available in every age at all times if we but have a desire to hear and the fortitude to change our corner of the world.

At first glance it would seem that the gods of materialism, distraction and avarice have successfully vanquished our society.  It was cunningly accomplished with our tacit complicity because we willingly yoked ourselves to the technology designed to anesthetized us. We are 24x7 plugged into the system, living vicariously through handhelds, tablets and laptops, we are more in touch but less connected.

We complain about starvation in the break room but can't summon the energy after leaving work to volunteer or participate in some form of activism that would demonstrate our genuine concern.  We complain about the disparity between the wealthy and the poor but given a choice between donating half or even a quarter of a paycheck to help the poor or upgrade our vehicle to the latest model, we routinely choose the latter.

We have bought into the system with eyes wide open.  We know we are the hamster on the wheel, we joke about being the cog in the wheel, but deep down we believe if we run fast enough and row hard enough, we will somehow dislodge ourselves from the system and retroactively become its architect.

We are ghosts in the machine and we equate our invisibility with powerlessness, when in truth it is exactly the opposite. Though we cannot architect a system that is constructed and humming on high, we can rearchitect our function within the system.  In this era of increased apathy, powerlessness, and somnambulism, it is crucial to remain vigilant and engaged.

Revolutions are effected by individuals with the fortitude and desire to improve not only their lives but those of the society in which they live. The first step for us is to continue to challenge and question all forms of propaganda manufactured by the triumvirate of Globalization, Corporatocracy and Democracy.

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