The next show will air on Sunday January 13, 2013 from 11:00pm – 1:00am Eastern Standard Time Monday on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. On Friday, December 28, 2012, Jayne Cortez left this world. As a tribute to her life and spirit, we will rebroadcast our exchange with this writer, poet, performance artist, and co-founder of Yari Yari, an international conference on literature by women of African descent. You can hear a 30-second preview of the show below.
Jayne Cortez was born in Arizona, grew up in California, and currently lives in New York City and Dakar, Senegal. She is the author of ten books of poems and performer of her poetry with music on nine recordings. Her voice is celebrated for its political, surrealistic, dynamic innovations in lyricism, and visceral sound. Cortez has presented her work and ideas at universities, museums, and festivals in Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, the Caribbean and the United States. Her poems have been translated into many languages and widely published in anthologies, journals, and magazines. She is the recipient of several awards including: Arts International, the National Endowment for the Arts, the International African Festival Award, The Langston Hughes Award, and the American Book Award. Her most recent books are “The Beautiful Book” Bola Press 2007, “Jazz Fan Looks Back” published by Hanging Loose Press, and “Somewhere In Advance of Nowhere” published by Serpent’s Tail Ltd. Her latest CD recordings with the Firespitter Band are “Taking the Blues Back Home,” produced by Harmolodic and by Verve Records, “Borders of Disorderly Time” and “Find Your Own Voice” released by Bola Press. Cortez is director of the film “Yari Yari: Black Women Writers and the Future,” organizer of “Slave Routes the Long Memory” and “Yari Yari Pamberi: Black Women Writer Dissecting Globalization.” Both conferences were held at New York University. She is president of the Organization of Women Writers of Africa, Inc. and is on screen in the films: “Women In Jazz” and “Poetry In Motion.”
Hosted, Produced, and Engineered by Arts Producer Joyce Jones.
Editors note: Here at Suga’ in My Bowl, we already miss Jayne a lot. We saw her often at various events and feel fortunate to have known her and heard her perform live. We’ve heard that plans are underway for public tributes and will post them on the site and via our Facebook and Twitter streams when we get concrete dates for these.
Web Extras
Read Jayne’s obituaries at the New York Times and The Guardian.
Watch Jayne perform live with drummer (and son) Denardo Coleman
Suga' in My Bowl 
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