Page 5 - Poetry Book-John-sims

Introduction

Ablazing Grace is a small of collection of poems, meditations,
declarations and lyrics that follows the journey of the Recoloration
Proclamation, a project sixteen years in the making, which explores
the compexity of identity, cultural appropriation/remixing, white
supremacy, and visual terrorism in the context of Confederate
iconography and African-American culture. This multi-dimensional
project illuminates and challenges these national issues through the
creative process of art, text and performance.

We begin with A Poet's Visual History of the Confederate flags,
which traces the flag's symbolic development. Next we present the
Confederate Redress--a text that was performed at the hanging of the
Confederate flag from a 13-foot gallows at Ohio University on October
25, 2017. This is followed by Burn and Bury: Let it Go, a meditative
eulogy written to lead the annual call to burn and bury the Confederate
Flag across the country, a call I began making after the mass murder of
nine people at an A.M.E church in Charleston, South Carolina, June 17,
2015.

Ablazing Grace—both the entire book and the featured lyrics, which
rewrite the iconic Amazing Grace—offers an invitation to move
beyond the space of reflection to a place of action, transformation and
healing, each of which is necessary if we are to move forward as a
nation in peace, justice and humanity.

The text presented here, counterparts a collection of corresponding
video-poems, as well as serves to accompany the annual Burn and
Bury Confederate Flag Memorial Day event.

So, on the occasion of the exhibition Reinterpretation as Resistance:
Artists Questioning Normative Iconography, Natalie and James
Thompson Art Gallery, San Jose State University, October 2 - November
2, 2018 and the associated City Lights video-poems/AfroDixieRemixes
presentation on November 4, 2018, I am deeply honored to present to
you this limited edition artist-chapbook, Ablazing Grace.

Confederate Gothic, 2004 - John Sims

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