One Mo' Time!

I need to tell you that I am am simply elated with the contributions submitted to this new and improved edition of Asili. We've got more great stories and and some wonderful poetry. We reprise some of Master Poet Eugene Redmond's lusciously lusty love poetry that always has a cosmic barb in its belly. Check out two of my all-time favorites, O Where Has Night Flown O! and HeartWounds Do Not Heal. Pulitzer Prize winner Quincy Troupe's poetic narrative Can You Chain Your Voice To A River simply smokes, especially when contrasted with his evocative poem Song. Master Poet Al Young gives us a powerful Statement of Poetics along with sensuously adroit blues/Jazz/tapestries, Blues Ad Infinitum, Prez in Paris and Depession, Blues, Flamenco, Wine, Despair.

We get another posthumous look at the incredible artistry of the Master Poet Felix Morriseau-Leroy whose poem Se Bon is a Kreol blues and the epic God is Good picks up the sundry religio-spiritual themes feature in this issue. We are grateful to the Morriseau-Leroy family for giving us permission to keep the works of this great poet alive and in front of us.

The Asili editors and writing family are not to be outdone. Preston Allen is back with another provocative tale told only as he can tell it. You will enjoy Goomba (though it might make you suirm) and chuckle at his poetic parody, Florida the Beautiful. Geoff Philp's "The Captain" is a must read as are his poems Prelude,Moon Shadow, Laureate Blues and what may become a Florida anthem this year, Poem for Winsome.

Joann McNair has hit a homerun with Francis Olafunde. Her poems My Mother's Glasses and For My Daughter link and pass on the generations of womanwisdom with preserve the human race as effectively as mitochondrial DNA.

Your editor and yours truly is pleased to offer you Oba Ko So, the third in a series of stories about spiritual transformation and take you to church with four poems about growing up in church. I hope you enjoy.

From the poet/ Babalawo, Adrian Castro we get the first three cantos of his epic, Cantos to Blood and Honey. His work is beautifully crafted; his poetic voice, a beautiful tenor that carries on its wings a plaintive Afro/Latin freedom song.

Akwasi Agyeman has returned to our pages with evocative story of love, making amends and moving on. Be sure to read Please Forgive Me for the Wrong I've Done...  Bob Moorman has returned as well with  elegy to flying, A Pilgramage High

Joyce McNair provides us with an interesting look a central Californian City and its impact on the formative development of a young African American woman. Read Stockton

Fred Wolven brings his etheric and often whimsical poetry to Asili for the first time. He is a wonderful poet and after you read Mozart Probably Wouldn’t Approve, or Questions: It Just Me All Alone, Individual Here, or One Leaf and Then Another and Another...I guarantee that you will be clamoring for more.

Eunice Tate is as effective as always with her submissions, For the Record, The Wonder of You and History Mourns. You will miss much if you do not read these solid offerings by this gifted and accomplished poet.

Prize winning poet, Michael Hettich lives up to his stellar reputation with poems Flocks and Shadow and Her Imaginary Moths. These are excellent pieces.

Zarifa Muhammad-El makes her Asili debut with a striking piece on domestic violence, especially violence agains women and children. Clarence St Hilaire also is appearing for the first time in Asili with four poems from his new book, Coeurs d' Extase.  And last but not least, twenty-one year old Evelyn Escoto graces our pages for the first time.  There, I can take a breath now. You are really going to enjoy this issue.