anthem.
what’s up world? fallin’ off on the blog again, i guess just living and stuff, inspired to write, saturday morning, the humidity hasn’t set in yet, eaten alive by mosquitoes, summer in full swing, so quickly it’s here, and then gone!
so lots been happening, but if i were to work it in reverse — been working on lots of cool projects from straight-up new spoken word pieces (my chapbook of love poems will be out by the end of the summer, an unexpected by-product of everything else i’ve been working on), some songs and lyrics for a couple of music projects (funny how creativity comes anyway it wants to), working on the screenplay (flawed characters are more fun in art than life, ha!) dreaming on the solo show - letting all the pieces settle like snow in july, gonna be shooting two fabulous election-flavored spoken word videos, and everything from hawaii to the netherlands to japan and virtual reality on the tour schedule for the next year or so, so feelin’ extra blessed and inspired…
been doin’ allll of that good new york/brooklyn shit for the last month and a half or so — checked out the video music box celebration at summerstage with nice ‘n smooth, naughty by nature, special ed, retro kids and more, the day before that was junot diaz who broke that shit down — he is the master, i swear, to impact international literature and keep it real, be who he is, what he represents, where he comes from, RELEVANT without pandering, without compromising, on just straight talent and hard work, no translation necessary — now that’s the future, i’m hoping for 
and he’s mad cool…his wiki is here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junot_D%C3%ADaz
last week, got to kick it with the fam at the hip hop theater festival d.c. (i had a little travel snafu, but it all worked out in the end, ha!) steve connell and sekou tha’ misfit were absolutely gorgeous in “the word begins,” bringing today’s spoken word to that shakespearean level, where verse communicates experience from one human to another with urgency and importance, also the youth of dc writerscorps, b-boy morganics from australia, the wild and brilliant nicole klaymoon, and multidisciplinary wunderkind baba israel. and then an 8 HOUR CAR RIDE (ai-yuh! um, did i mention i only drive like twice a year?) back to bk thankfully with the on-some-next-level-shit hip hop social entrepreneur rolando brown, peep what he’s doing here: www.rolandobrown.com — much love to clyde, kamilah, daphne, chinaka, bamuthi, mateo, khalil, regie, hodari, weusi, rha, joanie, james for making hhtf and brave new voices come to life!
been growing moving earth productions with my right and left hand ladies: alli maxwell and jill aguado, and two more powerful sisters to the voltron: amissa miller and doreen kramer. so in a word: unstoppable. lots of july 4th craziness, an AMAZING time at the kundiman asian american poets retreat (group 1 and luv you joseph and sarah!) with bei dao, tan lin, and aimee nezhukumatathil — the tension and confluence between their diversity of styles and approaches have def helped me to push my poetry to the next level, so check ‘em out! also, got to hang in minneapolis with my old posse students at carleton all graduated and stuff as well as bao phi, juliana pegues, david mura and friends for a hot second, which was good to CONNECT.
random thought 1: how much of general dysfunctions in human relationships are due to a) supreme loneliness in all people b) slight societal tendencies towards sado-masochism c) text messaging (ha!)?
random thought 2: thinkin’ on anthems. complex, passionate, driven. i think we need ‘em, lots of ‘em.
blessings,
hot and humid kells about to get some new tattoos before her golden birthday