Have Your Say (Part 2): Worth a Thousand Words

All artists, writers included, are inspired to one degree or another by the life taking place all around them. Zora Neale Hurston and writers of the Harlem Renaissance (known at the time as the “New Negro Movement”) paid attention to many dimensions of life and based their work on what they saw and felt. They, in other words, allowed culture to serve as their muse.

With this in mind, we've put together a Power Point presentation called "Drop Me Off In Harlem," named after a once-popular jazz tune written by Duke Ellington and Nick Kenny. Our presentation features images drawn from the New Negro Movement/Harlem Renaissance. We'd like for you to study the images, and then select one that you like best. Try not only to explain what you see happening within the frame, but imagine and create a scene or story based on what it brings to mind and makes you feel.

Write no more than one thousand words, roughly three pages. Post an excerpt of about 250 words from your essay/creative response as a comment beneath this blog entry. Also, be sure to include your e-mail address. The first ten posts will be automatically win a Harlem Renaissance-related book or Learning and Tutoring Center gear such as book bags and umbrellas.

Keep in mind that we are not judging essays, as such. We just want you to flex the muscles of your imagination.

Have fun and good luck!

Above image of three flappers strolling on Seventh Avenue taken by unknown photographer

Book Picks for 2010 African American Read In

Stumped about what to buy or check out for the upcoming African-American Read In? Here is a quick list of suggestions (click on the book titles for descriptions):

Abouet, Marguerite and Clement Oubrerie/Aya of Yop City

Baszile, Jennifer/The Black Girl Next Door: A Memoir

Brice, Carleen/Orange Mint and Honey

Carson, Ben/Take the Risk: Learning to Identify, Choose and Live with Acceptable Risk

Chisolm, Shirley/Unbought and Unbossed

Coates, Ta-Nehisi/The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood

Conde, Maryse/Segu

Davis, Ossie and Ruby Dee/With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together

Ellis, Normandi/Awakening Osiris: The Egyptian Book of the Dead

Gray, Farrah/Reallionaire: Nine Steps to Becoming Rich from the Inside Out

Lee, Spike/Black Genius: African American Solutions to African American Problems

Luckett, Jacqueline/Searching for Tina Turner

Nunez, Elizabeth/Anna In Between

Perkins-Valdez, Dolen/Wench: A Novel

Pitts, Byron/Step Out on Nothing: How Faith and Family Helped Me Conquer Life's Challenges

Powell, Kevin/The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life

Senna, Danzy/Where Did You Sleep Last Night?: A Personal History

Skloot, Rebecca/The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Somé, Sobonfu/Welcoming Spirit Home: Ancient African Teachings to Celebrate Children and Community

Whitehead, Colson/Sag Harbor

Still don't see anything of interest? Click here for a longer book list to browse.

Have Your Say (Part 1): Quotable Zora

Zora Neale Hurston appreciated plain-spoken wisdom. Sometimes the source of this wisdom was her personal observation and reasoning. Other times it was adapted from the mouths of the everyday people to whom she felt deeply connected.

Hurston was like a geologist and gem cutter rolled into one. Much of her creative energy was spent extracting the precious material of folk speech and philosophy and then carefully cutting away so that light and beauty shined through.

As true as this is, a careful reading will reveal that Hurston was concerned with far more than lyricism or dazzling her readers with pretty words. She wanted her work to say something and speak truth. “It’s no use talking,” she once said, “unless people understand what you say.”

In honor of Black History Month, we’ve gone hunting for more from Hurston. Here’s what we found:

• Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.
  
• The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell.
  
• There are years that ask questions and years that answer.
  
• I had hundreds of books under my skin already. Not selected reading, all of it. Some of it could be called trashy…[a] whole slew of dime novels in addition to some really constructive reading. I do not regret the trash. It has harmed me in no way. It was a help, because acquiring the reading habit early is the important thing.
  
• She didn’t read books, so she didn’t know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop.
  
• Merely being a good man is not enough to hold a Negro preacher in an important charge. He must also be an artist. He must be both a poet and an actor of a very high order. Negro preachers…are…artists, the ones intelligible to the masses. A voice has told them to sing of the beginnings of things.
  
• Laugh if you will, but that man in the gutter is the god-maker, the creator of everything that lasts.
  
• Once you wake up thought in a man, you can never put it to sleep.
  
• Faith hasn’t got no eyes, but she’s long legged.
  
• I’ve been in sorrow’s kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountains, wrapped in rainbows with a harp and sword in my hands.
  

We want to hear from students: which quote is your favorite, and what do you read into it? When you post your reply be sure to include the whole Zora quote somewhere in the body. If you select one of the longer quotes then feel free to condense. We’re looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

French Films at Clarkston Campus

Enjoy a first-class vacation without leaving Atlanta!

Georgia Perimeter College will host the 2010 CERCLE FRANCOPHONE MARDI GRAS FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL beginning Monday, Feb. 15 through Friday, Feb .19 on the Clarkston Campus in the Jim Cherry Learning Resource Center Auditorium, 555 North Indian Creek Drive, Clarkston.

This multicultural assortment of English-subtitled films include many Cannes Film Festival award-winners and Oscar-nominees. The screenings are free and open to the public. All films start at 5 p.m.





Monday, Feb. 15: La Vie en Rose is a film about the legendary French singer, Edith Piaf, and named after one of her most famous songs. It explores the bends and twists of Piaf's life, including her unstable childhood and her gradual climb to stardom.


Tuesday, Feb. 16: Entre Les Murs (The Class) Based on a semi-autobiographical novel by a French language and literature teacher, the story focuses on tension and eventual respect that develops between the main character and his students whose families have migrated from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.


Wednesday, Feb. 17: Un Conte de Noel (A Christmas Tree) is a dramatic tale of how a family navigates one loss after another and the messy business of life.


Thursday , Feb. 18: Reves de Poussiere (Dreams of Dust) set on the African continent, the alternate American title of this film is Buried Dreams. It tells the story of a Nigerian peasant who seeks to unburden himself of memories of the past by migrating to a gold-mining town in Burkina Faso.


Friday, Feb. 19: La Graine et le Mulet (The Secret of Grain) centers on a Franco-Arabic family and their determination to adapt to life on the southern coast of France and in the process open a restaurant serving comfort food from their native country of Tunisia.


The event is sponsored by GPC Student Life, the Alliance Française d’Atlanta, the Consulat de France d’Atlanta and the GPC Center for International Education. For information contact Genette Ashby-Beach at 678-891-2385.