I'm pleased to announce the release of Our Bones Sing of Salt by JT Stewart, in both print and paperback editions. It is available now from Aqueduct Press at www.aqueductpress.com. You can read a sample from the book here at https://www.aqueductpress.com/books/samples/978-1-61976-294-7.pdf.
Our Bones Sing of Salt: The Collected Poems
collects one hundred poems by Stewart, a 98-year-old Black feminist
poet who has been a significant part of the Seattle literary scene
since her arrival there in the 1950s.
Stewart is a resonant poet of the Black experience in the US,
especially of the daily lives of Black women and the weight of the
past, recent and ancient, that presses upon them. Her poetry,
published over six decades in magazines and chapbooks, moves fluidly
from jazz to blues, from now to then, from New Orleans to the Great
Zimbabwe. It is striking in its relevance and emotional depth.
“Stewart’s use of language is needle-like, sharp and bright and clean,
capable of stitching together such images and truths as make me
gasp.”
— Amal Al-Mohtar, in Stone Telling: The Magazine of Boundary-crossing Poetry
I use poetry (primarily non-linear) to free myself from the shapes of prose w/its sentences, its Aristotle based logic/its punctuation rules, its grammars. With this freedom I can create/explore imagined worlds.… Plato didn't trust the poets. Why should we?
JT Stewart
Stone Telling magazine
http://stonetelling.com/issue9-feb2013/rios-st9-roundtable.html
Long influential and respected in the Seattle literary arts community, JT Stewart has served as teacher, mentor, and inspiration to many hundreds of poets and writers.
Originally from the Bronx, she commuted by subway as a teenager to attend the High School of Music and Art in Harlem––the same school that later nurtured Samuel R. Delany, Janis Ian, and Jonathan Lethem. She attended Fisk University, a historically Black liberal-arts land-grant college in Nashville, Tennessee, where she was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, one of the “Divine Nine” historically Black sororities. At Fisk, she studied with Robert Hayden, an outstanding poet of the African-American experience. She graduated Fisk in 1949 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. After Fisk, she attended Wellesley College and then Fordham University, where she earned a Master of Arts degree in 18th Century Literature. As a young woman, living and working in New York City, she was a member of the Harlem Writers Guild.
JT moved to Seattle with her then-husband, a minister, in the early 1950s. She taught there at the University of Washington and Seattle Central Community College, and has for many years been a respected member of the literary and theatrical communities. She worked as a playwright with three small theaters that have long-since since shut their doors: the Alice B Theater, the Empty Space Theater, and the New City Theater, guided by director Susan Finque and artistic directors Ricky Rankin, Kurt Beattie, and John Kazanjian. In addition, she studied with two influential playwrights, both women of color: Cuban-American Maria Irene Fornas, and African-American Susan Lori-Parks, a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize.
As an administrator, JT directed and named the Langston Hughes Cultural Arts Center and, with Vonda McIntyre and Ursula Le Guin, co-founded the Clarion West Writers Workshop. She was a curator of the Jack Straw Writers Program, and served as a teacher for many years at Richard Hugo House, a gathering spot for in central Seattle for both writers and readers. She was also deeply involved with the Hedgebrook community of women writers, where she served on the board of directors. A distinguished-writer’s scholarship was established there in her name. She later taught at Fairhaven College, part of Western Washington University in Bellingham. After retiring from Fairhaven, she continued to mentor and encourage younger writers in Seattle.
JT’s poetry has been published widely in poetry magazines and in the chapbooks Nommo, Promised Lands, and Love on the Rocks – Yet Again. Her collaborative work includes co-editing two books: Gathering Ground: New Writing & Art by Northwest Women of Color (Seal Press), and Seattle Poets and Photographers: A Millennium Reflection (University of Washington Press). She also was a member, with artists Carl Chew, Ron Hilbert, and Mare Blocker, of the artistic team commissioned to create Raven Brings Light to This House of Stories, a permanent installation at the University of Washington’s Paul Allen Library.
