Kentucky Writers to Bevin: Take Your Award and Shove It

They see through you, motherfucker, and will not be condescended to, co-opted, bribed or otherwise disrespected by your Trumpist, austerity-loving, white privileged ass.

From Rich Copley at the Herald:

The Affrilachian Poets, a diverse Lexington-based collective of writers directly or indirectly connected to Appalachia, has rejected its 2016 Governor’s Award in the Arts, citing Gov. Matt Bevin’s positions on education, the humanities and other issues.

“It is the opinion of the group that the governor’s comments, positions and actions regarding education in general, the Humanities specifically, universal healthcare, criminal justice reform, and the LGBTQ community have been reprehensible and go against the core of who we are as writers and educators and as artists committed to resisting oppression,” the group said in a statement posted on Facebook. “It is in the spirit of Kentucky’s rich literary tradition reaching back to William Wells Brown, that we vehemently reject any award given in this governor’s name.”

No comment from Gov, Lying Coward.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/entertainment/books/article95320137.html#storylink=cpy

Science and Art

ummagumma.co:

"A Great Human Library Has Burned to the Ground"

Kentucky writers on the death of Maya Angelou:

"There is no way an obituary can say poet and stop there," said Frank X Walker, Kentucky Poet Laureate and winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry. "Poet is much too small a word."

Angelou took risks by unveiling so much of her past, a life filled with tragic events early on. After she was raped by her mother's boyfriend and he was later found dead, "I thought my voice had killed the man," Angelou said years later. "And I thought if I spoke, my voice might just go out and kill anybody, randomly, and I stopped speaking for six years."

That eloquent voice and poetic words of wisdom are now quite familiar. Both command respect.
"She could tell and sing a story in the same sweet dazzling breath," said Nikky Finney, 2011 National Book Award winning poet who taught at the University of Kentucky for 20 years before returning to her native South Carolina.

"It didn't matter who or what you were, when she walked in the room, even the silverware got quiet. She was a queen. She was majestic. She was our great humanitarian."
 Finney said she learned about survival, struggle and the resilience of the human heart from Angelou's example. "In this moment of stunning loss, it feels like a great human library has burned to the ground," Finney said.

She was a radical, as all artists should be.