Prince of the Perennial

By Bobbi Booker The Book Report

...I love my 'ladies'

James Stanley is not your ordinary gardener. Whether he’s cleaning up and beautifying vacant lots in West Philadelphia or planting flowers throughout the Mann Center’s 13-acre property, Stanley gives more than 100 percent to his passion. As a result, his gardens flourish along with the community around them. Stanley owns S-Kids Auto Body in West Philadelphia, but more than anything he’s committed to his community. Having grown up on a farm in Macon, Ga., he says working in the soil makes him most comfortable. “That has escalated into what it is now,” he explained. “I started with a little lot beside my shop, and in doing this little lot it sort of got to the point that every time I see a little space I wanted to beatify it.” In 1991, Stanley moved to his new home in the Parkside community. Although he sought to maintain his business as an auto body professional, he encountered resistance from the neighborhood. “When moving to Parkside I had made some promises of the things that I would do to win the people over, because they did not want a body shop in here,” he said. “So I had to fight for it.” In the course of his battles he met and befriended Ella Francis, then the founding president of the Parkside Association. Stanley committed to a beautification plan for the neighborhood. The plan literally blossomed into a series of formerly blighted lots that Stanley transformed into magnificent gardens. In addition to landscaping the Mann Center, Stanley has two other standout gardens. The Ella Francis Garden at 5200 Parkside is semi-private, while another plot at 52 nd and Jefferson is open at all times. Stanley started on the Jefferson Street garden first in 1993, but when a neighboring building collapsed and partially destroyed it he started working on the Parkside location. Both locations have won first-place awards from the Horticultural Society, and Stanley is proud to note that one of the three gardens he created on Parkside Avenue is featured on a city tour list. “I call him ‘The Father of Parkside,’” said the garden’s namesake, Ella Francis. As a community activist Francis spent years helping the residents of Parkside renovate their neighborhood. She also served as a board member of Philadelphia Green, the nation’s largest urban greening program, supporting community gardens, urban parks and public landscapes. The vacant lot that was converted into the Ella Francis Garden in the 1980s initially was a senior citizen vegetable garden and sitting area. When Stanley agreed to take over its care, Frances said she was delighted. “Since then it has been out of sight, because his imagination and creativity have made it most outstanding,” said Francis. “It is now a place we can proudly say to people who come in the area to go by and take a look at it. It was the garden’s outstanding beauty that caught the eye of a Parkside area businessman five years ago. When Peter B. Lane, president and CEO of The Mann Center for the Performing Arts, met Stanley at a West Parkside Culture and Opportunity Center board meeting, he shared with him the needs at The Mann. Stanley responded immediately by walking the grounds of the Mann Center and making a landscape proposal. Lane was so impressed, he hired him immediately and has been singing his praises ever since. “We are so lucky to have Mr. Stanley as part of our team at the Mann. He has made a tremendous impact on the center by adding so much beauty to our grounds,” said Lane. “His passion for horticulture has been shared with thousands of visitors, and his contribution to the West Philadelphia community is invaluable.” Stanley formed another company – Urban Scapes Inc. in West Philadelphia – and hired a crew to assist him as the sole landscaper at The Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Fairmount Park for the last five years. He and his crew maintain the center’s sprawling lawns; he designs and plants flower beds and places large flowerpots along the walkways and dreams about the lushness he can maintain on this vast property. It’s a year-round job for Stanley, too. In the winter he plows snow and even helps out doing handyman’s work. It is apparent that gardening is his first love. “I would buy something to plant, before I would buy food,” Stanley said. And as proof of his dedication, he has been known to stay at the Mann Center past midnight on many occasions to water his greenery. “I love my plants. And water is the life of them!” he said. Stanley’s passion for gardening is matched only by his commitment to the community. Over the last 15 years, he has taken it upon himself to beautify several vacant lots in his Parkside neighborhood. He also has mentored many youngsters, who have worked for him by keeping the neighborhood clean –picking up trash and planting in the empty lots – to earn a few extra dollars. “A lot of the kids were not used to the beauty here,” said Stanley. “For me, giving something back to the neighborhood, bringing the kids in here to work with this beauty, gives them something else to do besides walking back and forth to the store.” Stanley, 59, is no stranger to hard work. In Georgia he and his family grew corn, peanuts, potatoes and other crops, and raised pigs, chickens and other animals. In 1967, he followed his sweetheart to Philadelphia, where they were married. Although now divorced, he’s a dedicated father to six children. At his body shop at 52 nd and Heston streets in West Philadelphia, Stanley specializes in custom paint jobs. When he’s not juggling the work of two businesses, he travels to Georgia, where he helps care for his elderly mother. “As I was thinking about this, I figured it was coming out of me in my late age,” mused Stanley. “But the love of gardening has always been there; the love of flowers and the beauty of flowers.” Today, to step into the Ella Francis Garden is like a stepping into a wonderful picture book. There are colors and fragrant blossoms everywhere as yellow and white butterflies flutter about. Two ponds full of lily pads and frogs sits at the garden edge and are home to dozens of goldfish and koi – as well as ally cats which, if they can avoid the traps, like to fish there. A peach tree bearing dozens of the fruits is also home to a gaggle of Junebugs suckling on its sweet nectar. The formerly uprooted weeping willow has been restored, offering cool shaded comfort to visitors. “It’s a beautiful sanctuary and it’s transformed our community,” said longtime resident Yvette Smalls. “As you go by you get this sense of peace and feel in touch with nature. I’m impressed with it. I’m in awe every time I see it. Stanley’s gardens are home not only to the usual annuals and perennials, but exotic plants as well, including 12-foot-high elephant’s ear plants that have been recognized as the city’s tallest. “There’s a lot of hidden beauty that people don’t even know is here,” said Stanley. The gardens give him comfort from the stress of his regular workdays. “I need something to play around with and let off my frustrations,” said Stanley, who has nicknamed the flowers his “ladies “I love my ‘ladies,’” says Stanley as his stands amid the flowers. “I try to be good to them and they’re good to me.”

Remembering Rufus Harley: The Chief Musician

Musicians remember one-of-a-kind colleague

By BOBBI BOOKER

Tribune Staff Writer

The haunting drones of bagpipes were silenced on August 1st, 2006 when pioneering jazz artist Rufus Harley, 70, died of complications from prostate cancer. Regionally, residents recognized him for the countless funerals and parades he led as the world’s first jazz bagpiper. Globally, he is known for his skills as a world-class musician and tireless ambassador for his city and country. Harley was on a lifelong spiritually quest that often manifested itself in his presentations of miniature Liberty Bell replicas to dignitaries and blasting his gospel of unity through the international language of music. “I could hear the sound of the bagpipe through my soul,” said Harley to an earlier interviewer. Born May 20, 1936 in Raleigh, NC, of African-American and Cherokee descent, Harley was a unique man and longtime Germantown resident.. Harley’s career as a promising young jazz saxophonist and flutist was transformed during the November 1963 funeral of President John F. Kennedy when he heard the solemn sounds of regimental bagpipers of the Black Watch, a Scottish infantry division of the British Army. The continuous sustained and haunting sounds of the instrument intrigued him and he went looking for bagpipes, and finally found a set in a New York pawnshop for $120. His initial performances on the traditionally Scottish instrument brought a mixed reaction from jazz lovers who had watched him blossom under the tutelage of Dennis Sandole, who also taught several other Philadelphia jazz musicians. “The bagpipe was sort of a novelty thing that brought him to the attention of the public, but he was a master musician on the other instruments also,” WRTI-FM’s Bob Perkins. “I really appreciated him as a musician,” said the longtime jazz radio host. “He played the saxophone and the flute fabulously.” “Not only was he a great bagpiper, he was a great musician,” said Lovett Hines, Director of Education Program at the Clef Club. “Rufus could have gone anyplace and he elected to stay here in Philadelphia. Harley fathered 10 children, including his protégé, trumpeter Messiah Harley 31. “He was a true soldier in terms of making people happy and traveling the world,” recalled Messiah. “He never cried or complained about his situation. He always did the gigs on time.” The younger Harley recalled how his father prepared him to be a musician at age twelve, when he first started playing trumpet with his father. “The one thing that impressed me with Rufus was his relationship with Messiah, his son,” recalled Hines. During Harley’s last two weeks, father and son spoke every day. From 1965 to 1970 Harley released several recordings as leader on the Atlantic label, also recording as a sideman with Herbie Mann, Sonny Stitt, and Sonny Rollins in the 1960s and 1970s. During the height of Harley’s career in the late 1960s and early 70s, he traveled the world performing and was a frequent guest on the poplar talk and games shows of the time, including “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,” “The Mike Douglas Show and “What’s My Line. 30 years later, Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson of The Roots saw Harley’s appearance on television and told MOJO magazine he was stunned. “I was watching the Arsenio Hall Show one night. He had Rufus up against a juggler, treating him like a freak. The next day we were recording and I mentioned it. My manager said, ‘Rufus is probably in the phone book.’ I called, and an hour later he was in the studio. Hearing the pipes played in person was damn near religious.” It is the evocative drone of Harley’s bagpipe that is recorded as the opening notes to the title track of The Roots 1994 hit album “Do You Want More?!!!??!”. Harley’s innovation use and playing of the bagpipe has been heralded universally for both its technique and simultaneous merging if disparate cultures. “Rufus was a mystic. He was our brother and our ancestor at the same time while he was here,” explains international saxophonist Foster Child. “To play an instrument like the bagpipes you have you had definitely had to come from a different time. I believe he was incarnated to bring bagpipes into modern day times. For instance, he extended the language of the bagpipe by trick fingering--creating different fingering--to come up with different notes that normally would not be played on the bagpipes.” Harley had become visibly thinner in recent months, but still maintained a busy playing schedule. The jazz bagpiper played until last Monday afternoon, just mere hours before his death the next day from a cancer he had disclosed to no one--not even his son. Until the end, Harley was only concerned about the next gig, even instructing his son to pick him up from the hospital on time. “He never tuned down a gig or a show for anybody,” said Messiah. “He was American icon,” said Kenneth Gamble, co-founder of Philadelphia International Records. “He’ll be missed all over the world, and especially in Philadelphia. When you think about him you can hear those bagpipes playing.”

Former gang member reaches teens through sports

Oxford Street reunion ignites team spirit

Former gang member reaches teens through sports

By Bobbi Booker

Tribune Staff Writer

The street gangs that proliferated in North Central Philadelphia in the ’70s had a huge impact on residents and left a mammoth legacy. Many of these gangs were enormous and meticulously organized. Today, as political leaders and residents tackle the murder epidemic, one former gang member says the solution is easy: sports. “We may be able to stop some of the violence that is going on in the city if we focus on a lot of physical things like baseball, basketball boxing and all the sports where there’s physical contact with our youth,” said Fred “Herk” Jenkins. Jenkins and some of his fellow former gang members organize an annual reunion in what was formally enemy territory. Tomorrow, the highlight of their community picnic will be the baseball games featuring “Old Heads vs. The Young Bucks.” Although the longtime Oxford Street area resident has only recently learned the sport of baseball, he sees its overall benefit to the neighborhood youth he counsels at the Athletic Recreation Center. “Baseball is a way to build neighborhood unity and decrease violence among the youth,” said Jenkins, 50. “I’ve come to find out it is one of the best sport you can have when dealing with kids personality-wise because they have to be patient; they got to hold their frustration in and they got to perform and deal with the ups and downs of the game without lashing out.” As a young teen, Jenkins was a member of the Oxford Street gang, one of nearly a dozen area gangs surrounding the Athletic Recreation Center at 26th and Master streets. Eventually, the sports programs at the center appealed to Jenkins more than his gang clique. “I started in the recreation center first as a gang member causing trouble, then as a student of amateur boxing,” recalled Jenkins. Jenkins went on to coach a couple of world boxing champions including Olympian David Reed, Zahir Rahim, Charlie “Choo Choo” Brown and “Rockin’” Rodney Moore. “I basically raised all these guys and a whole lot of other kids who come out of this recreation center,” Jenkins said. Jenkins says many of the former gang members have mellowed over the years and have all committed to a sense of personal and community responsibility. “When you read the newspaper you only read what’s negative that’s going on in that area. For one negative thing in our area, there’s a hundred good things that’s going on,” said Jenkins. “There’s a whole lot of champions in our community that nobody talks about. “

Jack Franklin passes the torch...

By BOBBI BOOKER

Tribune Staff Writer

Born in North Philadelphia in 1922, Jack Franklin began taking photographs at age 10 at his sister’s suggestion. “In 1932, my sister (Eloise) went to the Chicago World’s Fair and brought me back a camera,” he said, “and I been stuck with a camera ever since.” His sister was not pleased with Franklin’s first job. “My sister never liked the idea of me being a junkman,” Franklin recalled. “But I was a good junkman. I was making money. And I learned through knowing how to pick out junk what was good and what was bad. “I knew how to sort stuff in my head, so when I started shooting pictures I knew what was good and what was bad. So it segued from that to being a photographer.” The half-million photos and negatives Franklin has donated to the African American Museum in Philadelphia document national celebrities as well as ordinary folks. He photographed key moments during the Civil Rights movement, including the activities of Martin Luther King, Sidney Poitier, Julie and Harry Belafonte, James Baldwin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Andy Williams and the Rev. Leon Sullivan; the March on Washington in 1963, the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965 and the Girard College protests in Philadelphia that led to its desegregation. He took photos for periodicals such as Sepia, Nite Life and The Philadelphia Tribune, where he documented the region’s Black social life and its lively music scene. Franklin developed what he calls a “third eye,” and was lauded for his photographic work from the start of his career. “The way I treat photography is different from how other people treat it,” he explained. “Most of the time people go and get up in their faces and take pictures of them. The idea is to photograph what they’re doing. “The atmosphere of the surroundings is very important because that’s telling you what year, so when you see a picture you can say, ‘Oh that was taken in the ’30s.’ That’s the purpose of photography: the main reason is to identify. “ And that’s why instead of being a writer I chose to be a photographer. ’Cause you can write anything you want, but sometimes we flavor things to set our feelings at that particular time. With the camera, you can make it lie, but you can tell the truth with it too.” Today, Franklin is recognized as one of America’s greatest living photographers. He continues to be known for his vast body of work now housed at the African American Museum of Philadelphia, Currently the museum is presenting an exhibit of 14 young photographers entitled “Shootout: Reverberating the Sprit and Legacy of Jack T. Franklin”. These photographers had eight-weeks to follow in Franklin’s footsteps by capturing images from their communities. “It is through his sprit and legacy that these young people shoot, and they document what’s going on, not just in the African American community as it relates to Philadelphia, but the African Diaspora community,” explains exhibit curator Shantrelle Lewis. At the exhibit’s preview, the 84-year-old Franklin proved that he still had a sharp eye. As hr reviewed each of the images on the wall, he offered gentle advice and guidance to each of the young exhibitors. One of the first images he praised belonged to first-time exhibitor (and Tribune staff photographer) Marissa Weekes. “I think we can credit Jack with breaking down barriers,” said Weekes, 27. “Barriers is race and barriers is also gender and the fact the that 12 of the 14 photographers in this exhibit are female speaks to the struggle that Jack made so that we could be here.” Freelance photographer Sarah Stefana Smith, 24, was drawn to photography by “a desire to articulate what I couldn’t say in words.” Smith studied sociology at Spellman University and applies her study to her craft of photography. “A lot of my interest lies in doing social documentation and that would be using photography as a means to document what’s going on,” she explained. “What people do, what we sort of take for granted and using that as a way to speak to different communities.” Ayana Jackson, 29, was just back in the U.S. after spending three years traveling the globe documenting the stories of African descendents, especially those in South America. “Since 2002, I’ve dedicated myself to looking at and discovering increasing visibility amongst Afro descedents in Latin America,” said Jackson, who usually pairs her exhibits with photography workshops. “I’m teaching photography to young Afro-descendent youths with the hopes of trying to get more photography coming from the first-person perspective as far as these communities are concerned. “You have photographers, like myself, who are always going to be an outsider, so I want to get some of these young people to start documenting their own culture.” Although the exhibit will not feature Franklin’s work, Lewis says the exhibit’s overall goal is to create intergenerational dialogue. “Oftentimes we hear about the accomplishments of so many people from past generations, so the question then is, What is your generation doing?” said Lewis. “It’s just very exciting to see young people documenting what’s happening in 2006 in our communities so it can serve as a living legacy for that are to follow.” When it comes to photography, Franklin may be sitting on the sidelines, but he’s not out of the game. During the course of his career he’s worked with various formats and is anxious to start shooting digital pictures. “I got to learn how to do digital. I understand it. I just don’t do it yet.” “Shootout: Reverberating the Sprit and Legacy of Jack T. Franklin” will be on exhibit at the African American Museum of Philadelphia, 701 Arch St. through Nov. 19. For more information, call (215) 574-0380

Ni**a, Pleeze!! Part III

Actor Tries to Trademark ‘N’ Word

By Rogers Cadenhead
AP/Reuters

The actor Damon Wayans has been engaged in a 14-month fight to trademark the term “Nigga” for a clothing line and retail store, a search of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s online database reveals.

Wayans wants to dress customers in 14 kinds of attire from tops to bottoms, and use the controversial mark on “clothing, books, music and general merchandise,” as well as movies, TV and the internet, according to his applications.

But, so far, his applications have been unsuccessful. Trademark examiner Kelly Boulton rejected the registration dated Dec. 22, citing a law that prohibits marks that are “immoral or scandalous.” A previous attempt by Wayans was turned down on identical grounds six months earlier.

“While debate exists about in-group uses of the term, ‘nigga’ is almost universally understood to be derogatory,” Boulton wrote to Wayans’ attorney, William H. Cox, according to the application.

Cox and other representatives of the actor did not respond to interview requests about the registration.
Wayans can appeal the rejection, but experts in trademark law differ on his chances for success.
Lynda Zadra-Symes, a trademark lawyer in California, said Wayans may be successful. She compared “Nigga” to the successful registration of Dykes on Bikes. The San Francisco Women’s Motorcycle Contingent fought the Trademark Office for three years to overturn an initial rejection of a Dykes on Bikes trademark. The mark was published Jan. 24.

“Because the application was by a group of lesbians it was eventually allowed to publish,” Zadra-Symes said.

“This is a great victory,” the group proclaimed on its website. “It affirms our right to determine who we are and how we present ourselves to the world.”

However, Tawnya Wojciechowski, another trademark attorney practicing in California, compared Wayans’ application to the ongoing legal case where Washington Redskins trademarks have been challenged by seven Native Americans. “They’re going to have a really tough time,” Wojciechowski predicted.

The word “nigga” is ubiquitous in hip-hop music, where it provides half of a rhyming couplet radio listeners never get to hear in the Grammy-winning song “Gold Digger” by Kanye West. Ol’ Dirty Bastard used the term 76 times in the 1999 album Nigga Please, not counting repetitions in a chorus. In January, an episode of the late-night Cartoon Network series Boondocks was criticized for putting the word in the mouth of a fictionalized Martin Luther King Jr.

The effort to commercialize “nigga” drew a sharp response from a black school official who participated in a forum about the word earlier this month at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.

“I don’t care for it in any form,” said Dr. Lonnie Williams, associate vice chancellor for student affairs. “Either way you pronounce it, spell it, anything associated with it — I find it offensive.”

If Wayans succeeds in persuading the Trademark Office to permit the mark, he may have to deal with Keon Rhodan, a 29-year-old entrepreneur in Charleston, South Carolina, who has been using “Nigga” on a line of T-shirts, hoodies and other attire for six years in a part-time, trunk-of-his-car business. Rhodan attempted to register “Nigga’Clothing” as a trademark in 2001 and was denied by the Trademark Office.

“They said it was disparaging,” he said.

Rhodan, who is Black, said that he’s sold around 2,000 of the shirts at events. When he began selling the shirts, emblazoned with the term “Nigga,” he thought he would take criticism, especially from older people.

“I was in the mall with one of the shirts on, and an old lady said, ‘Where did you get that shirt from?’” he said, expecting the worst. “She followed me to the car and bought five shirts for her grandchildren.”

Rhodan believes that affectionate use of the term within the Black community should make it an acceptable mark, but the Trademark Office has thus far has not been persuaded by that argument.

“The very fact that debate is ongoing regarding in-group usage, shows that a substantial composite of African-Americans find the term ‘nigga’ to be offensive,” Boulton wrote in rejecting Wayans.

Though attempts to commercialize “Nigga” coincide with a generational shift in how the word is perceived, the clothing is still likely to test some boundaries, as Rhodan demonstrated in a phone interview.

“You couldn’t wear it,” he said.

The Good Sun is Here

By Bobbi Booker
Tribune Staff Writer


Word Count: 761
Inch Count: 25


As an artist, Rah Crawford's combination of his love of pop imagery coupled with his keen intuitive insight has created a new form that required a new name to describe it. Using his trademarked style, Neoteric Pop-Iconic Clairvoyance, Crawford creates art for the high-speed information and multimedia culture by using inking techniques that date back to the ancients. Crawford, 33, says his work speaks the modern language of this generation in a way that great artists of the past have done for theirs.

"My goal as an artist is to define our modern generation through visual art. That sums up my mission as an artist on this planet. To define our modern generation you're dealing with everything from technology, politics, pop commercials is what my goal is as an artist. We haven't had an artist to do that since Andy Warhol. That's the connection that I share with Warhol is that it was his goal to define the 70s and 80s period through his art. He pretty much captured many of those elements from the pop culture to the sexual tensions of the time to the politics to marketing. It's been 20 years since we've had an artist to come from that angle and here I am 20 years later coming from that angle."

Crawford is much akin Warhol's approach in his approach to art and creativity. Like Warhol, Crawford has been an underground magazine publisher and has been involved in the multi-media aspects of music and video. He wants his unique visual approach to lead viewers deeper into the human psyche of life, love and culture. "Art isn't limited to the gallery walls. I like to call art shows art experiences because people come to them and experience them and they leave with a little something."

After last season's "Deus Ex Machina" exhibition, Crawford destroyed several paintings that weren't purchased and caused a strong reaction in both himself and the observing audience. "A couple of people were crying in the audience and I never experience anything like that in my life. As an artist I'm trying to go there, to that place, and reinvent what visual art is and as an artist, how we touch the public in general versus simply walking into a gallery and looking at paintings on the wall."

Crawford, a Germantown native, credits his parents as the impetus to his art career. His mother exposed him o he arts at a very young age and his father was an illustrator. "I knew that (art) was my calling since I was very young. I was always drawing, had sketch books, always kept a journal, always painted, ever since I was very young.

Crawford's fate as an artist was sealed when at age seven he saw his father do a quick sketch of his mother while she was cooking in the kitchen. "I was just blown away. I looked at her and I looked back at the paper and I couldn't believe that he had captured her right in front of my face on paper. That's when I knew I wanted to be an artist."

After studying for two years at the Arts Institute, Crawford modeled for a few years before turning his attention to his craft fulltime. Over the course of a decade he would go on develop his signature style. "The one thing I knew with my artwork was that it had to be a unique look or style. So unique that when you saw it after a while I didn't have to put my name on it.


Crawford creates powerful imagery like an ancient craftsman, primarily relying on ink and brush to develop his colorful, yet cryptic, work. Closer inspection of his work reveals coded messages and admonitions, words and phrases intertwined to form complex labyrinths of shape nestled within the figures delicate spaces. His work has inspired local fashion designer Belahshehu to create a men's fashion collection based on his paintings. In addition to several galleries world-wide, his work also hangs on he walls on some noted celebrities, including Outkast's Andre 3000, Jill Scott, and Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson.

"One of Warhol's famous quotes is that in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes," says Crawford. "I'm not looking for fame. My goal is to define our modern generation through my visual art. I believe time will tell. I have a strong work ethic and I believe it's about putting in the time and doing the work. I'm going be here for a while creating and looking to connect with people in unique and interesting ways."


-30-

--

Lifestyle/Leisure/Literature

Leaving Saturn

By Bobbi Booker
(Originally published in The Philadelphia Tribune)

The ghetto: strong and determined, but sad in its struggle, has always suffered the agony of those who have viewed it as society's wasteland. But the urban essence of Philadelphia is beaming in "Leaving Saturn" from The University of Georgia Press, a powerful piece of work by poet and Philadelphia native Major Jackson.

Through both formal and free verse, Jackson renders poetic justice to the mechanism of everyday living. Jackson cut his teeth in the gritty streets of North Philadelphia where he witnessed the underbelly of the urban society.
In "Hoops" and "Euphoria" Jackson is brutally honest in his depiction of his street buddies and family. Jackson reminisces about girlfriends and dance steps in the three-part exchange entitled "Rock The Body Body." "Mr. Pate's Barbershop" elicits the memory of Saturday's spent in a barbershop waiting for a fresh do.

Jackson is now an English professor at Xavier University of Louisiana and was awarded the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for this ambitious and honest collection of verses. He has also earned degrees from Temple University and the University of Oregon.

A member of the Dark Room Collective, his poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, Boulevard, Callaloo, and The New Yorker, among other journals. He is the recipient of many awards, including a Pew Fellowship in the Arts and commissions from the Chamber orchestra of Philadelphia.

The title of this collection is in honor of the deceased Sun Ra, an esoteric jazz performer who settled in Philadelphia to share his intergalactic view of the world. Music lovers are transported back in time to the pivotal performances of Sun Ra & Arkestra at Grendel's Lair or Don Pullen jamming at Zanzibar Blue.
Jackson demonstrates that he has the literary sensibilities to make the images of his life dance in your head. His poems hauntingly reflect urban decay and violence, yet at the same time they rejoice in the sustaining power of music and the potency of community. "Leaving Saturn" is a return to the poetry form made famous by the likes of Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez. As only a poet has the ability to do with just a few words, the resiliency and determination of a community clearly seeps through in this must-read collection.

Dig it.