Important Announcement about School of Our Lorde Distance Learning!!!!

(School of Our Lordeians in Chicago!)

Greetings loved ones,
You are so inspiring. Thank you for being part of the School of Our Lorde distance learning community and social network. I am so proud and thrilled to be accountable to you!!!
So this is a major announcement. Because of some very useful feedback (I love it when you speak up) I have decided to shift the distance-learning method to the web-cam webinar! Yay! We'll be using tinychat.com (you don't have to sign up or register for anything...I will email you all the link before the webinar :) Because I crave the sight of you and several of you crave a more sustained and tangible engagement with the School of Our Lorde process our next unit PUBLISHING will consist of 3 webinars. Please save the dates:
Mondays in May (10, 17, 24) at from 7:30-9:30 EST

and meet us at http://tinychat.com/schoolofourlorde again there is no sign up required or anything. If you don't have a web cam you will still be able to see and hear me and to ask questions via live chat. If you want to gather more folks in front of your computer that is much welcomed. Everyone will be invited to donate what they can/want to via paypal. Sponsorships from other folks who will benefit from your amplified brilliance are also welcome to sponsor you and absolutely everyone who makes the commitment to participate by emailing an application with their goals and intentions is welcome.

You can find the applications for each unit here: http://summerofourlorde.wordpress.com/registration/

Can't wait to see your faces!!! Yay!

AND this summer I will re-run the Poetics, Pedagogy and Politics Unit Via Webinar (also a great chance for those who missed out in Durham to participate while I'm on the road with the MobileHomeComing Tour)...

save the dates and tell your friends same times same place...consider this the new online version of the Inspiration Station http://tinychat.com/schoolofourlorde!

POETICS-Wednesdays in June broadcasting on the road with the MobileHomeComing Tour (6/2, 6/9, 6/16) 7:30-9:30 EST
PEDAGOGY- Wednesdays (6/30, 7/7, 7/14) broadcasting live from Anguilla 7:30-9:30 EST
POLITICS- Wednesdays (7/28, 8/4, 8/11) 7:30-9:30 EST

This site www.schoolofourlorde.ning.com will continue to exist as a repository for documents and a place for School of Our Lorde participants to continue to connect and build with each other until further notice.

What do you think? Let me know!
I'm so excited.
Your love transforms me!!!

Always!
Lex

Combahee Survival Revival Week: Durham NC May-22-29

SAVE THE DATE! COMBAHEE SURVIVAL REVIVAL WEEK IN DURHAM, NC MAY 22-29th

In honor of Sakia Gunn and the Combahee River Collective, Combahee Survival Revival Week in Durham, NC will be a week full of trainings on how to live, eat, work and think sustainably and radically! Featuring fieldtrips, farm workdays, experiments, video making, poetic games, political discussions, writing workshops, healing demonstrations, backyard camp-outs, singing, dancing and bonding, this week will be a preview of Black Feminist Heaven…what our community looks like when we share what we know, turn towards each other and nurture and amplify our exciting interconnections!!!! This process is inspired by the brilliance and legacy of Black feminists on the universe, and everyone of every background who is inspired by that legacy is encouraged to participate!

If you’d like to support the Combahee Survival Process and you live in or near Durham here are some ways you can be part of the village! Email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com and let me know how you want to participate!!!

*COME! Participate in the activities, fieldtrips, discussions, backyard camp-out and shared meals. Bring the whole family!

*FOOD!!!! This is the most crucial way that most people can participate…cook a dish, donate food, donate a gift card to the grocery store or hook us up with goodies/leftovers from the restauraunt that you work for!

*Parental Support-all activities are designed for all ages to participate, but in order to model a parent supportive community we’d like to have non-parent volunteers to help support and look out for the youngest among us so that parents can fully participate in the sessions they attend.
*Rides to fieldtrips..we’ll be going to the Eno River, to Tierra Negra Farm, to the Museum of Life and Science and more. If you can help drive when we carpool that would be awesome. And you’ll get a copy of Lex’s reading Audre Lorde poems on CD to listen to in the car!
*Documentation-THIS is going to be the Best Week Ever!!!! Help us document by taking pictures or video.
*Photocopies-if you can make photocopies at your job as an official or unofficial inkind donation…let me know!

***Much needed supplies:

For out of town guests, sleepovers and the backyard campout we’ll need to borrow

air mattresses

sleeping bags

tents

*This event is designed for Durham residents and with Durham at heart, but some members of the Durham diaspora and potential Durham recruits will be in town for the festivities. Let me know if you’d like to host someone from out of town.

We’ll also be using a lot of
*DV tape (digital video tape)
*Medium trash bags
*Toilet paper
*misc. art supplies
*big post-it paper
*pens and pencils
Email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com to volunteer or to find out more!!!!!

Essex Hemphill Sunday School

Beloved Community! This week marks what would have been the 53rd birthday of Black Gay Poet, Activist, Publisher, Lover, Friend, Comrade, Prophet Essex Hemphill. Please join us to remember Essex Hemphill, reflect on his poetry, watch a video of him speaking about the role of the writer in the age of AIDS and center our spirits on what the legacy of Essex Hemphill means for our lives today.

Meet us at the Inspiration Station at 2:30 pm on Sunday April 18th (two days after Hemphill's actual birthday). Children are welcome.

love,

lex and justin

Get the 12 Days Digital Video When you Sign Up to Sustain the MobileHomeComing Project

Hey Family!

Hear and see and feel the love between Lex and Julia when you sign up to sustain the MobileHomeComing project and get your own digital copy of the 12 Days video Lex made from 12 of love poems to Julia. (So far only Lex's mom and the audiences of Mangos with Chili's Love, Sex and Disaster Show in the Bay Area have seen it!)

Because we know you believe in the MobileHomeComing project we have created a way for our chosen family to become monthly sustainers of the MobileHomeComing Project. If you have $5, $10, $15, $20, $25, $50 or $100 or if you know a secret about Oprah and can get her to donate a grand a month...etc. etc. etc. then YOU can be one of our monthly sustainers providing MobileHomeComing Pocket Money so that our project can be consistently sustainable and ACCOUNTABLE TO YOU directly! Monthly sustainers will allow us to prioritize the intellectual labor of creating media and events to amplify Queer Black Community across generations across this land mass! It will also help with regular costs like sustainable fuel, art supplies, stamps, huge sheets of paper, bandwidth, DV tapes, C47s (aka clothespins) etc.

As a monthly sustainer you will also be a MobileHomeComing VIP for life which means you will get preview video footage and audio samples from our journey sent directly to your inbox, special goodies as we pilot MobileHomeComing fashion line (oh yes....hats, t-shirts, buttons and sneakers inspired by Queer Black resilience!) AND special access to celebrations and screenings when the film comes out!!!!!

YAY!!!!!! So to become our favorite relative pocket-money providing chosen family member today by becoming a monthly sustainer click on the button below that makes sense to you and you'll get your digital copy of the video in your inbox!!!!!:

OF COURSE we also welcome one time gifts to make a one time gift visit: http://mobilehomecoming.wordpress.com/donate/. (And if you do it in April we'll send the 12 Days Audio track to you digitally!)

And to find out more about our (often hilarious) journey to find an RV check out this video:
http://vimeo.com/8639900

Revolutionary Vehicle: The Field Trip http://vimeo.com/8639900 About this video: "Help Lex and Julia find a free RV. Share this video with everyone you know! love, Lex and Julia"

Also, in case you haven't gotten a chance to check out the project in motion:
Here is a video overview of the project:
http://vimeo.com/7018543

MobileHomeComing: Here We Go! http://vimeo.com/7018543 About this video: "The divine and delicious journeys of Lex and Julia!"

Click here to see video of participant feedback from the Release and Renew Healing Cirlce/Replay Event in Atlanta:

Renew and Release: The MobileHomeComing Presents A Healing Circle http://vimeo.com/9117049 About this video: "The beautiful people of Atlanta gathered at MotherHouse for a beautiful New Year's day healing circle...brought to you by the MobileHomeComing, here is what folks had to say during the afterglow. :)"

and Click here to check out our first audio documentary with Salsa Soul's Harriet Alston and Carolyn Gray in Durham NC: http://brokenbeautiful.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/salsa-soul-audio-documentary.mp3


LOOOOVE,
lex and julia

Audre Lorde and the Poetics of Survival (dissertation excerpt)

Happy Monday family!!!! This is not the excerpt that I was planning on sharing from chapter one (I was planning on sending a part of the section on June Jordan's theory of children's literature..which chronologically comes first...), but the Lorde makes her presence knows in many ways.

This excerpt is from a section of my first chapter which is entitled "Survival: An Intervention into Meaning" this section of the chapter looks at poems by Audre Lorde that use survival as key terms (A Litany for Survival, The Brown Menace, On My Way Out I Passed Over You and the Verazzano Bridge, and Prologue) and has a major loving shout out to the reinvocations of A Litany for Survival by the UBUNTU family and the Be Bold Be Red crew!

Enjoy!!!

Audre Lorde and the Poetics of Survival Excerpt

direct link:

http://brokenbeautiful.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/audre-lorde-and-the-poetics-of-survival-excerpt.pdf

love,

lex

Sign Up for the School of Our Lorde Politics Unit: April 14, 21, 28!

School of Our Lorde Politics Promo from Alexis Gumbs on Vimeo.

The politics unit (which will run on Wednesdays at 6:30-9:30 pm at the Inspiration Station on April 14, 21 and 28th) will draw on letters, meeting agendas, notes and published and unpublished essays by Audre Lorde that focus on her approach to organizational politics, responding to violence against women of color, and her approach to transnational solidarity work. Of course I strongly believe that Audre Lorde's work can provide a space for us to explore and gain clarity about our own approaches to these and other issues as we transform the world!

Exciting poetic childcare will be provided for every session by Beth Bruch!!!

Apply now! (Applications due by Monday, April 12)

If you live near Durham!

School of Our Lorde Politics Application (pdf)

School of Our Lorde Politics Application (doc file)

Fill out an application and email it to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com or drop it by the Inspiration Station.

Anywhere else in the world? Sign up online:

www.schoolofourlorde.ning.com