The collection has a dose of meditative poems and others that reflect on the colonial and neoliberal foundations that permit willful disconnect from nature and allow rapacious extractivism. They also speak to the criminalization of environmental defenders and burdening of victims with survival struggles with no life boughs. These are poems that call for action.

Truth be told, I never thought I would write another volume of poetry after the last, I will not Dance to Your Beat (2011). The reason was that my previous volumes were reactive to circumstances of the times. Patriots and Cockroaches (1992) was a reaction to the socio-political corruption that had engulfed Africa and dimmed the enthusiasm that had been built by the years of struggle for independence. Whereas we thought we were stepping into a post colonial era, what we stepped into was a vicious neo colonial times. The next collection, Poems on the Run (1995) was a reaction to military autocracy and the repression that followed. The volume was literally written underground. This was followed by Intercepted (1998) all written while detained at Kalakuta Republic of Alagbon Close. We Thought it was Oil But it was Blood (2002) responded to two things primarily – extractivism and the accompanying human and environmental rights abuses in the Niger Delta and elsewhere. The massive erosion of biodiversity and attacks on food sovereignty through the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into our agricultural system inspired I Will not Dance to your Beat. 

What you have in your hands, or on your screens, is a compilation that is largely more meditative than the previous collections. There are moments of reflection on the colonial and neoliberal foundations that permit a willful disconnection from nature and the resultant destructive extractivism. 

Some of the poems came through conversations and poetry writing sessions with Peter Molnar,  Maryam al-Khawaja — Rafto Human Rights laureates and Salil Tripathi, a member of the board of PEN International, in August 2017. The sessions held at a beautifully rustic  location in Celleno, Italy, were documented on celluloid by the duo of Maria Galliana Dyrvik and Anita Jonsterhaug Vedå of SMAU, a multimedia firm in Norway. Poetic relationship with Maria and Anita has continued over the years and their work continues to inspire more and more poems. 

We have also had time to ponder on the criminalization of environmental defenders and burdening of vic

The Weaving Our Stories: Return To Belonging Anthology includes poetry, essays, visual art, and narratives penned by authors and artists identifying as Black, Indigenous, and people of color from Hawaiʻi and beyond. While our contributors span a diverse spectrum of experiences and identities, they all share a common commitment to individual and collective well-being. Our contributors astutely showcase how their expressions of resistance and liberation, whether through visual art or written text, align with one or more of the central themes of Weaving Our Stories: resistance through cultural memory, accountability, resisting false binaries, and countering Hegemony. In tandem with the community collection of stories that revolve around resistance, this anthology also highlights the remarkable achievements of our six accomplished Black youth organizers. These young individuals dedicated a year to the Weaving Our Stories Youth Series during the pandemic, delving into the power and relevance of storytelling in our journey of resistance and liberation. Each of the six youth activists overviews their Community Impact Design Projects by proposing interventions that harness our resistance themes and our three Pillars of Liberation—namely, the institutions, structures/methodology, and people who can

Lenin: The Heritage We (Don’t) Renounce brings together 100+ authors and visual artists from 50+ countries across the world – from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe – in order to critically commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, aka Lenin, on 21 January 2024. Combining academic, journalistic and more personal-political texts, including poetry, theatrical skits and fictional writing, the books’ contributors aim to identify and constructively engage with the living legacy of Lenin’s life and work before, during and after the October Revolution. Concretely, the 100+ texts deal with a great variety of “old [Leninist] truths that are ever new” (Lenin), both historically and in today’s times: Imperialism, the National Question and the Right to Self-Determination, the Vanguard Party, Trans Liberation, Ecological Leninism, Dialectics, Artificial Intelligence, Military Marxisms, Black Liberation, Communist Feminism as well as Revolutionary Dreaming and Organising, among many others. Also, Lenin is put into dialogue with a number of revolutionary comrades-in-arms: Amílcar Cabral, Mao Zedong, Julius Nyerere, José Carlos Mariátegui, Juan Antonio Mella, G.F.W. Hegel, Antonio Gramsci, Qui Quibai, Alexandra Kollontai and Rosa Luxemburg, to name but a few. In sum, the book aspires to help liberate the old Ilyich from the musty, petrifying solitude of his mausoleum and to invite him back into the “real movement, which abolishes the state of things” (Marx & Engels) in the here and now, i.e. our multiple, intersecting struggles against all types of capitalist-colonial-heteropatriarchal-ableist oppression and for the rekindling and strengthening of the new Communist horizon. While many on the contemporary Left continue to openly disavow any association with Tovarish Lenin, Lenin: The Heritage We (Don’t) Renounce affirms the opposite – that there will be no revolution without Vladimir Ilyich among our rank-and-file comrade-ancestors. Or in the words of one of the book’s authors, Himani Bannerji, “We neglect Lenin’s voice at our own peril.”

A society born of white supremacy and patriarchy must, by definition, ignore the voices of Black women. We know that unfortunately, such an attitude will also naturally seep into every stratum of that society

Part of the contribution to correct that was the centering and airing of Black women’s voices through Some of Us Are Brave: A Black Women’s Radio Program that aired on Pacifica’s Los Angeles radio station (KPFK) from 2003 until 2011.

The program covered a myriad of issues by amplifying the voices of a broad cross-section of Black women. Some of those voices have been preserved here in this volume. In addition to capturing various moments in time with a ­variety of women, this is also a means of taking the intellec­tual production of and about Black women out of the hands of institutions that are both fundamentally ­anti-Black and anti-woman.

Volume 1 contains interviews under the headings The Shoulders on Which We Stand and Black Lives Have ­Always Mattered.

Volume 2 will cover Black Women’s Health, Bruthas on ­Sistas, and Sistas in Struggle.

Audre Lorde’s now classic, “The Uses of Anger,” was first delivered at UCONN, Storrs in 1981. One of two keynote lectures, it offered Lorde’s address of the National Women’s Studies Association conference topic of “women responding to racism.” In their introduction, Gordon, Orozco Mendoza, and Zane reflect on the inheritance, lessons, and responsibilities that UCONN Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies must grapple with if it is to deepen and fulfill its radical mission. Guided by the imperative to look backward to understand the present and forge a future, the book closes with a sankofic interview with M. Jaqui Alexander and Beverly Guy-Sheftall, conducted by Briona Simone Jones.

Two talented girls, who are best friends, have resolved to eat bananas every day. Together with their devotion to the truth and idealistic spirit, this addiction slowly propels them far into the lands of ideas and action. From reserved science students, they evolve to be steadfast activists for justice, and ultimately fi¬nd themselves behind bars, convicted of terrorism related charges.

This action packed novel traces that evolution through a wide cast of characters that range from schoolmates, teachers, family members, street vendors to state officials and businessmen, both national and international

It is a story based in Africa, of true friendship and the struggle for a decent human existence in the face of powerful adversaries. Though entirely fictional, it derives from existent and historical realities. Interspersed within its pages, you will find enticing entities from the plant kingdom as well as songs, photos and mathematical ideas relating to bananas. The supplementary material at the end provides an introduction to the factual basis of the story.