Jayne Cortez and LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs: October 30, 2007

Steve Dickison introduces the event and giovanni singleton, who in turn introduces Jayne Cortez and LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs. Diggs reads "Cinta y marcu mi mukin" and "Gamab click the bedouin remix." Cortez reads "Everywhere Drums" and "These New York City Pigeons." Both artists respond to singleton's questions on their backgrounds as writers, influences on their writing, the collaborative process and visual arts, and working with musicians. Cortez comments on her activism, and Diggs on working internationally. Cortez, on request from the audience, reads and discusses her poem "Rape." Diggs elaborates on her work with different instruments, while Cortez discusses how she selects and delivers poems during readings, focusing on her interest in the sound of words and in ancestral memory. Hafez Modirzadeh, who was guest performer with Ornette Coleman and his band just previous, discusses heterophony vis-a-vis call and response with Cortez and Diggs. Diggs begins to discuss experimentation with these styles of improvisation between poets and musicians [break in tape]. Video resumes with Dorothy Tsuruta discussing the value of exposing younger poets to veterans, and a younger poet asks Diggs about her experience as a student at Naropa University. The young poet reads an untitled poem of her own. Cortez turns down a request to read a certain poem, and discusses her poetry which reminds people of Cuban artists who, she says, are easily forgotten. Cortez speaks about her long history of publishing under her own Bola Press imprint, and Diggs discusses self-publishing chapbooks and starting a record label. Cortez and Diggs discuss their senses of community. Cortez discusses the relationship between poetry and politics in the 1960s, during the Civil Rights Movement, and differences in the concerns of people at present.