Perigee

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Reason to Give #6: Writing in the Margins

21 Sep 2015
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  Our 6th reason to give: we want to reclaim the margins, and we are committed to help others do so with words. Check out our Writing in the Margins Workshops.      There are too few spaces that allow writers and artists to grapple with their complex social and political identities, and use that interrogation to expand the scope and relevance of literature. This was the aim of Writing in the Margins, our 8-week writing and critical discussion group in Brooklyn. We demand relevant literature! We are working to create it, are you?   Read some of the incredible writing by the workshop participants on Perigee:   I remember the immediate bond we felt as young widows whose husbands had been taken from us by the AIDS epidemic. Mari’s husband Reinaldo had returned from the war in Angola in 1985, around the same time that my husband Clarence had finally kicked a 13 year heroin habit that started when he served in Vietnam. Different wars, different countries…two women unknowingly at risk. Every time I visited with Mari I had the same unspoken thought––why her, why not me? I was painfully aware of the different route the virus had taken through each...
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Tibetan Resilience: an interview with Jamyang Norbu

21 Sep 2015
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  Apogee Benefit Preview #1   This week we’re posting interviews and previews for our annual benefit on Friday September 25th. Today’s interview features Tibetan writer and intellectual, Jamyang Norbu, one of our four benefit readers.   Tibetan resilience: an interview with Jamyang Norbu by Tenzin Dickie   I talked to Tibetan writer and intellectual Jamyang Norbu, who lives in Tennessee, on Skype the other night. His Skype handle includes the numbers 59, referring to the year the Chinese army consolidated its occupation of Tibet, an event that radically changed the trajectory of JN’s life. As a teenager growing up in the Indian border town of Darjeeling where a substantial Tibetan refugee community had resettled, JN dropped out of school to join the Tibetan resistance forces based in the Himalayan kingdom of Mustang in Nepal. Still in his late teens, he taught the Khampa guerillas Nepali and military history. The CIA had been covertly supporting the Tibetan resistance but when they began pulling out, the Tibetan government sent JN to Paris. He was successful in his mission and French intelligence supported the guerillas for two more years. Coming back to Dharamsala, the Tibetan capital of exile in northern India, as...
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Reason to Give #5: We praxis what we preach

18 Sep 2015
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  Our fifth Reason to Give is simple: We praxis what we preach   Apogee staff is committed to the power of merging literature and social justice, not only in our journal but also in classrooms, writing groups, and community centers. Thanks to NY Writer’s Coalition and the amazing students at Benjamin Banneker Academy, Apogee editors worked side by side with the after school writing program to produce the first ever edition of GUMBO: Great United Minds Believing in Ourselves.   Over the course of a semester, editors met weekly with youth to discuss creative writing, revision and editing. We cultivated individual mentorships, fostered leadership and group accountability. Most importantly, we all had the most fun ever doing it.   By supporting Apogee, you support not only our publication but also our project to grow literature and social justice in our communities. Make a tax-deductible donation through our fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas.  
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Reason to Give #4: Social Justice and Social Change

16 Sep 2015
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  Our September funding drive continues with Reason to Give #4: Social Justice and Social Change.     Michael Brown. John Crawford. Eric Garner: black men killed in the street by cops that spawned the #blacklivesmatter movement. Since then many more names have been added to the list of those indiscriminately killed, or forcibly arrested without cause.   We have marched and protested. We have seen the #SayHerName movement bloom to acknowledge the violence committed against women of color. Officers have been indicted in Baltimore. Confederate flags have been pulled down from government buildings. So too has there been a backlash against the #blacklivesmatter movement: churches have been burned; politicians have capitalized on white American fear.  Police camera vests (for good or for bad) have been purchased by countless police departments. The gains and losses in the past two years have functioned to bring this subject to the forefront of American minds.   On August 19, 2014, Apogee penned “We stand with Ferguson,” in order to show our solidarity with the black and brown bodies under attack from an oppressive and indifferent government (and its proxies, the police). We offered our journal, and blog, Perigree, as a platform for discussing...
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Reason to Give #3: Issue 03 #TBT

10 Sep 2015
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  Here’s another reason to support Apogee Journal: Because it takes up space that would otherwise be occupied by more of the same. Instead, Apogee brings unabashed, scarce, lyrical truth. Never was this more evident than in Issue 3.     Morgan Parker: Sometimes I don’t shine / and I see, how a mirror / makes me two. Wake up / in stings, black / Radiohead. Black Sylvia / Plath. On those days I am / only an idea. A broom / sweeping. A constellation. Rich Benjamin: Racial issues can differ in the center of the country, but I don’t think it’s better on the coast. It’s a different set of racial issues, and a different set of ‘race phobias’ … there can be a level of self-satisfaction on the coasts that says they’ve handled their race related problems. Christopher Soto: lorde know(s) that cis-hets don’t like me / baldwin know(s), how white homos exoticize me / i hope that heaven got a gay ghetto / where my qpoc family don’t feel shame / don’t feel too brown or black / or femme and phat Kaitlyn Greenidge: Her mother fights for good things but can’t hold onto money. She never...
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Nonfiction

NONFICTION: The Living, by Melissa Valentine

04 Sep 2015
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  The Living Melissa Valentine   Oakland, CA  1999   A letter addressed to me has been slid under my bedroom door. In the return address corner is Junior’s real name, Christopher Valentine, followed by a long number. His handwriting is of the precise, practiced sort that has never written much except from prison, as if his life depends on it. For many days I do not even touch it. It lies on the floor in a heap of my teenage life: graded papers, glossy fashion magazines, photos taken with friends, books, clothes, a letter from my brother. He mostly writes to Mom and Dad, promising things that make them boast for a week, that he’ll get his GED in prison, that he’s reading one of the books Dad sent, that he plans to go to college when he gets out. But this letter has my name on it. I crank open my bedroom window and step out onto the roof. With a cigarette, a lighter, and the letter, I sit on the warm shingles of the roof and stare out over the neighborhood into a sea of rooftops and trees. I light up a Marlboro red and look at...
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PoetryUncategorized

POETRY: Two Poems by Kassy Lee

02 Sep 2015
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  THESAURUS dot COM Kassy Lee   Claret, maybe? A simple Kool-Aid rued hue. Inside, the body of someone who hates me. Outside, a tree muscles out its raw fruits. The gentle arc of the moon laps up the blood. A puddle of which is subject to the same forces as the tidal ebb and flow. The bay window chafes my outer thigh as we make love. The goldfish knows. He doesn’t grow jealous. I was charmed by sweet kernels of corn between your gap-tooth, the boy with the Dead Sea cosmetics booth, the ripples of a wound. Even if you believe that the horizon is a snake with its tail on its own tongue, a kid on my Chrome browser will still be dead. You’ll go on trying to overanalyze my texts. I’ll go on with my cellphone camera, recording my nephew killing roaches with Raid in order to play it back in reverse. Death happens only once, and then all is rewound. God can make a rusty revolving chamber, like your heart. God can make a military grade tank on a sunflower-hugged highway. That’s within his means. God can make pies as wide as July, a silvered token...
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Poetry

POETRY: Made in China, by Wale Owoade

19 Aug 2015
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    Made In China Wale Owoade   Buried dreams wear mirrors in their grave They split with solace like this child: Wear frugal wings, fly through Dark ages, through KhakiMenAndBlockades Through SixBootsStainedWithBlood To watch future scenes before they are shown But what use are future scenes When dreams are Made in China? Buried hopes wear mirrors in their grave They split with solace like this mother: Wear head gears, dance through Sacred grounds, through BringBackOurGirls Through IbadanForestOfHorror To sow future seeds before its night But what use are future seeds When hopes are Made in China? Buried truths wear mirrors in their grave They split with solace like this father: Wear eagerhearts, hew through Shabby oaths, through PayOurPension Through SomeFathersAreStillUnemployed To pleat future talks before they are done But what use are future talks When truths are Made in China?   * In Nigeria and probably in Africa or anywhere else, when something is said to be made in China, that thing is either fake, or has poor longevity, that is, it can be spoilt or damaged easily and quickly.   WALE OWOADE is a Nigerian poet. His works have appeared or forthcoming in publications like: Radar Poetry Journal, The...
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Poetry

Fort Greene Summer Literary Festival this SATURDAY, 8/22

19 Aug 2015
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This Saturday, August 22nd, NY Writers Coalition, Akashic Books & Greenlight Bookstore will be teaming up to host the 11th Annual Fort Greene Summer Literary Festival. Launched in 2005, the LitFest serves as an end-of-summer reading for the talented young writers who have been taking summer youth workshops with NY Writers Coalition. Feature artists include Apogee contributors (!) Mahogany L. Browne (Dear Twitter: Love Letters Hashed Out On-line), Morgan Parker (Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night), and Tiphanie Yanique (Land of Love and Drowning). Join Apogee at this *FREE* event, led by Chris Prioleau & with music by tubafresh. Afterparty to follow. Saturday @ 2    /    August 22nd    /    BRIC    /   647 Fulton Street     xoxo, Apogee
PoetryUncategorized

POETRY: Two Poems by Cristine Brache

13 Aug 2015
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  safe words Cristine Brache   i’d like to hear some safe words satin blouse, string of pearls, neck brace make more secure sounds, say a prayer, and really care tell me to go stand in the corner play the recorded sound of a dog panting from the beginning of july till the end of august between each dog’s pant i want to say i am a beautiful piece of property erect and etched in stone       tfw you can’t wear chanel to your own systematic humiliation   dramatization, waterbed city sappho’s expression while you klonopin you can cry as much as you want or write down the dates you’ve felt scared like a woman of good pedigree or latinas in the dark       CRISTINE BRACHE is an artist and poet, she lives and works in London, England. You can find her online here: cristinebrache.info.            
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