Tajh Ahmad Taffari Eldridge
Description
Product Description
meandthesedreamingeyesofmine: a novella is a collection of poetry, prose and images that tries to make sense of the current emoti
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onal state that men all across the inner cities, prisons, and high-rises are experiencing - right here, right now. dreamingeyes is an attempt to witness the birth of two brothers and question the existence of what has engulfed many of our young men. To make sense of this self-fulfilling theory that is an enigma, since many of us do not know ourselves - sleepwalking in a crazed daze with our souls wide shut.
The bold, truth-filled images of this novella bring forth the issue of the origin of masculinity (feMALE|woMAN) and contemplates if this creation is intended to be somehow existent of one another. Maybe we came from what was already there?
The striking, heavily referenced poetry shows a myriad of thoughts and the processes of such, as the younger brother in the novella tries to grow - ultimately realizing the images he dreamt about were leading him to the magnetic path of love.
The poignant, touching Soledad essays|poems show the older brother's steps to self-rehabilitation, steps to liberation -- all the while damning these "mad houses" that separate the bond that woman and man naturally have. The boundaries of these "mad houses" extend far beyond the cold floors and steel bars of his world, yet sometimes we are too blind to realize it's borders.
With each chapter of the novella as a period in life, the novella sways to and fro between fantasy and reality yet bring us full circle. Elements of William S. Burroughs, Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault and Popular Culture are intertwined in the title poem to somehow connote this dream-like state that the characters (like their parents) are in -- wishing for something better, having nothing less, believing all is well.
The flow of the novella also has interpolations of a modern musical CD; as a popular culture, music engulfs us, surrounds us, and brings us closer to the word(s). With poems like the "obligatory remake" and the "hidden track", dreamingeyes is more than just paper on words, it is life - this life that moves us. Could the term LP possibly mean "liberation piece"? We wonder as we hear both brothers lament their innermost thoughts to us -- the strange thing is that we sometimes hear our own voices in their longing battle cries.
God is...Love is...We were...and still are...the revolution this novella speaks so boldly of.
dreamingeyes is an endeavor, an attempt, to give us the sustenance that we need. To make those who wait to exhale and those who long to inhale simply learn how to breathe - together, naturally. The state of us is in our art, the revolution is within us all, we are as timeless as it is...the mission impossible is Isaiah 32:3...
-Ahmir Khalil Gibran [email protected] Mile7Publishing Group 2000
Review
"
meandthesedreamingeyesofmine: a novella is...a look inside America's black youth and it is representative of the current pop culture..." --
Shaka Sankofa Solomon, Les Negres MOVEment (France)
From the Publisher
meandthesedreamingeyes: a novella was a risky involvement for us because we were unsure how to classify the work. It combined poetry, conversational prose, and images to envoke a ritualistic look at this thing called love and revolution. We took great consideration in the fact that many of the novella's interest lie in the text of Jean Toomer's CANE (1923 Bon Ami Press) as the feminist criticism was estracted from a man's soul and poured unto the pages. It too had the distinction of being what it was, unable to be classified as a poetic piece or as a novel.
As we looked deeper into the words, phrases, sentiments of this work, we discovered that it was much more. We discovered that maybe we are actually years behind. The work took us to a world where the air lingered with the sweet sounds of the song "Climb" by Mos Def and Erykah Badu's incense was intertwined w
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