IBWALA

Click here to attend the long-awaited June Literary Salon! 

On the IBWALA Stage

this Month:

President’s Column:

De-stressing Blues

an excerpt from the spring/summer edition of our members-only newsletter,

Black Expressions.

By Wayne French (IBWALA President)

I’ve got to keep movin’

Gotta keep movin’

Blues fallin’ down like hail

So wailed the legendary guitar master Robert Johnson back in the 1930’s in the delta blues classic Hellhound On My Trail.  Back when hard times were so brutal that the “D” in the word depression was capitalized and preceded by Great to describe the level of misery prevalent then.  I once asked my grandmother about her memories of the Great Depression in rural east Texas, and she recalled things being so tough back in the day that folks were feeding their families bones.  Yes, that’s right … no meat.  No cartilage.  Just bones!  Such as those found on sun bleached animal skeletons on the side of country roads.  They would cook the bones in a soup pot and for a main course crack them open and eat the marrow inside.  All right, so the economy isn’t quite that bad today.  We’re not scrounging around the shoulder of the freeway hunting down road kill for supper.  At least not yet.  President Obama says we are only in a recession.  Not a depression with even a lower case “d”.  There, feel better?

You don’t?  Oh, why not?  All we have to contend with these days is corporate bankruptcies, massive layoffs, home foreclosures, rising prices and wages that are sagging lower than a teenager’s waistband.  I’d like to be optimistic, but I’ve got to admit that I’m stressing right here in mid 2009.  Been doing so since GW Bush was in the White House.  For months now I’ve been a court order away from homelessness being a personal reality, instead of an abstract social cause.  That aside, though.  What is the role of the artist in hard times such as these?  Do we serve best to chronicle the depths of pain gripping our community?  Or should we labor instead to paint double rainbows of optimism in the age of Yes We Can? 

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     The International Black Writers & Artists/Los Angeles is a network of authors, publishers, artists and community members including readers and arts enthusiasts dedicated to making sure our writers and artists are published, read, seen and heard.

     We provide workshops, seminars and conferences designed to improve skills, promote literacy, increase knowledge and enhance career opportunities, with an emphasis on mentoring youth and students. We offer scholarships to emerging writers and artists. We keep members informed through our quarterly newsletter and Web site.