San Jose State’s Diasporic Peoples Writing Collective (DPWC) featured Tureeda Mikell, long-time Oakland poet and performer, in a roundtable webinar Monday afternoon.
The DPWC is a San Jose State student organization, established around 2018-19, that showcases underrepresented artists and builds platforms for people of color.
“We have a platform to communicate and to voice our experiences, our pain and our hurt,” DPWC president Ume Ali said during the webinar. “We are also very open and vulnerable to criticism not just from people who disagree but also within our own community that may not have the same experience or same opinion.”
Mikell reached deep in her life to tell stories right through the computer screen to more than 18 people, who consisted of SJSU students and alumni.
Mikell is a story-medicine woman. She combines life sciences that seal to reveal holism that heals relationships of body, mind and spirit through storytelling, poetry and history.
“Body, blood and memory can evoke things out of you at a certain time,” Mikell said. “Where I believe past life can intercept present time and just make you aware of something.”
Her book,“Synchronicity: The Oracle of Sun Medicine,” is a poetic-prose journey into sun medicine. It’s filled with a plethora of questions for spiritual journeys and questions for elitist patriarchs, political satirists and those interested in interspecies communication, according to Mikell’s publisher Nomadic Press.
Her literary style includes wordplay such as changing “son” to “sun” or “joule” to “jewel,” as in her poem “Spell’s Labyrinth,” according to Mikell’s publisher.
“Professor Mikell is a veteran poet and performer. I emphasize ‘performer’ because a lot of us in the Master of Fine Arts program have poetry readings,” DPWC managing editor Carmen Kennedy said. “I think the differentiator for Professor Mikell is that she brings life.”
Mikell is known for her vivacious poetry readings that consist of ripe expressions, gestures and lively storytelling.
She’s taken part in events including the Black Panthers’ 50th anniversary and Octavia Butler’s 70th birthday celebration.
Octavia Butler was a renowned African American science fiction author who wrote multiple award-winning novels including “Parable of the Sower” and “Parable of the Talents,” novels of hope and terror in a post-apocalyptic world, according to her estate’s webpage.
Butler passed away on Feb. 24, 2006.
Mikell is currently a founding director of the Tree of Life Foundation, a health literacy project.
Organizational health literacy is the degree to which organizations equitably enable individuals to find, understand and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others, according to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services website.
While the audience may have thought of homophones as separate entities, Mikell whirred words.
“You have these words that sound alike but have different meanings,” Mikell said. “But at the same time, when these come forward to show themselves . . . it becomes very visceral, very tactile, very visual for me.”
Mikell said she channels power through her performance, wringing anger out but also letting it go.
"I know I’m told that I’m a performance poet, but if you feel strongly about what you’re writing, memorize it and share it, people will call it a performance,” Mikell said. “I will call it reciting. I just recite what is there to be shared because it is a vision and its purpose is to make people see something that otherwise have been seen or realized.”
The audience looked mesmerized throughout the webinar, especially when Mikell’s performance compelled an audience member to seek the power she spoke of in her poetry.
“This is a new concept to me from the place I come from,” SJSU student Phuong Pham said. “People just read. They don’t perform. When I see you, you actually perform.”
San Jose State’s Diasporic Peoples Writing Collective (DPWC) featured Tureeda Mikell, long-time Oakland poet and performer, in a roundtable webinar Monday afternoon.
The DPWC is a San Jose State student organization, established around 2018-19, that showcases underrepresented artists and builds platforms for people of color.
“We have a platform to communicate and to voice our experiences, our pain and our hurt,” DPWC president Ume Ali said during the webinar. “We are also very open and vulnerable to criticism, not just from people who disagree, but also within our own community that may not have the same experience or same opinion.”
Mikell reached deep in her life to tell stories right through the computer screen to more than 18 people, who consisted of SJSU students and alumni.
Mikell is a story-medicine woman. She combines life sciences that seal to reveal holism that heals relationships of body, mind and spirit through storytelling, poetry and history.
“Body, blood and memory can evoke things out of you at a certain time,” Mikell said. “Where I believe past life can intercept present time and just make you aware of something.”
Her book,“Synchronicity: The Oracle of Sun Medicine,” is a poetic-prose journey into sun medicine. It’s filled with a plethora of questions for spiritual journeys and for
elitist patriarchs, political satirists and those interested in interspecies communication, according to Mikell’s publisher Nomadic Press.
Her literary style includes wordplay such as changing “son” to “sun” or “joule” to “jewel,” as in her poem “Spell’s Labyrinth,” according to Mikell’s publisher.
“Professor Mikell is a veteran poet and performer. I emphasize ‘performer’ because a lot of us in the Master of Fine Arts program have poetry readings,” DPWC managing editor Carmen Kennedy said. “I think the differentiator for Professor Mikell is that she brings life.”
Mikell is known for her vivacious poetry readings that consist of ripe expressions, gestures and lively storytelling.
She’s taken part in events including the Black Panthers’ 50th anniversary and Octavia Butler’s 70th birthday celebration.
Octavia Butler was a renowned African American science fiction author who wrote multiple award-winning novels including “Parable of the Sower” and “Parable of the Talents,” novels of hope and terror in a post-apocalyptic world, according to her estate’s webpage.
Butler passed away on Feb. 24, 2006.
Mikell is currently a founding director of the Tree of Life Foundation, a health
literacy project.
Organizational health literacy is the degree to which organizations equitably enable individuals to find, understand and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website.
While the audience may have thought of homophones as separate entities, Mikell
whirred words.
“You have these words that sound alike but have different meanings,” Mikell said. “But at the same time, when these come forward to show themselves . . . it becomes very visceral, very tactile, very visual for me.”
Mikell said she channels power through her performance, wringing anger out but also letting it go.
“I know I’m told that I’m a performance poet, but if you feel strongly about what you’re writing, memorize it and share it, people will call it a performance,” Mikell said. “I will call it reciting. I just recite what is there to be shared because it is a vision and its purpose is to make people see something that otherwise have been seen or realized.”
The audience looked mesmerized throughout the webinar, especially when Mikell’s performance compelled an audience member to seek the power she spoke of in her poetry. “This is a new concept to me from the place I come from,” SJSU student Phuong Pham said. “People just read. They don’t perform. When I see [Mikell, she] actually perform[s].”
