WILPF Fresno Library Committee

Why you should read Ta-Nehisi Coates’s new book THE MESSAGE
’m not worried…. I have to do what I have to do. I’m sad, but I was so enraged. If I went over there and saw what I saw and didn’t write it, I am fu***ng worthless." Ta-Nehisi Coates

CUBA OFF THE SSOT!
Here's an interesting fact: it is easier to get people to donate money than it is to get them to take action, even action as simple as writing or calling Biden and insisting that Cuba be taken off the US State Sponsors of Terrorism list.
We can be an exception: please tell the president and vice-president of the US that Cuba must be removed from this list.
Need more information?
https://acere.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/este.pdf
besos,
Leni

Now that I am revealing my adolescent poetry-loving past, let’s talk about PABLO NERUDA. July 12 is the day of his birth. The date of his death was September 23, 1973, which is 12 days after the Pinochet coup in Chile. This brilliant communist writer (and diplomat), whose “Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada” was a landmark of so many people’s youth, was killed, poisoned by Pinochet’s goons, probably with botulinus toxin.

Here are the closing lines from Neruda’s “Los enemigos”
Para los que defendieron este crimen,
pido castigo.
No quiero que me den la mano
empapada con nuestra sangre.
Pido castigo.
No los quiero de embajadores,
tampoco en su casa tranquilos,
los quiero ver aquí juzgados
en esta plaza, en este sitio.
Quiero castigo.

As long as we are talking about the brilliant Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén (and his successor Nancy Morejón, about whom he wrote a poem) here is the companion photo taken in the garden of the Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba - UNEAC Yoa took the picture of me and I took the picture of Yoamaris Neptuno Dominguez

July 10 is the 122nd birthday of my favorite poet of all time, Nicolás Guillén. Sóngoro Cosongo, El Son Entero, La Paloma de Vuelo Popular! "Fell in love" with Guillén´s poetry when I was about 15 and feel the same today.

Pedro de la Hoz. President of the Aponte Commission. Vice President of the UNEAC. Insightful intellectual, great writer, leader in the struggle against racism and great revolutionary. I can't believe he's gone.
When the US government put him on the "prohibited and sanctioned list" in 2019, he wrote: " ¡Caramba, si estoy en la lista negra...!
Ese optimismo no se nubló cuando también en la mañana del 26 supe que una parte de mí –el escritor– había ingresado en la lista negra con la que el Presidente de Estados Unidos pretende ahogarnos y obligarnos a ser una neocolonia –o acaso una estrella más de la bandera– de su país.
"Damn, I'm on the blacklist...!" But my optimism wasn't clouded when on the morning of July 26 (Cuba's celebration of the start of the Revolution) I found that part of me -- the sriter part -- had been enrolled on the blacklist with which the president of the United States tries to suffocate us and force us to become a neo-colony, or perhaps another star in their flag."
In Santiago, when he presented at the Aponte Conference and exhibit, he signed a copy of África en la Revolución Cubana for me.(I also have Durban 10years after.) Although not in this photo, he often wore a black T-shirt with the words "Las razas no existen -- El racismo sí" (Races don't exist -- but racism does."

Here's the article you are not supposed to see. Harvard and Columbia showing overt and open censorship; US fascism showing its whole ass.

May-2024-1-Eghbariah.pdf

¡Nancy Morejón! Great poet, great person. "La 30 Festival Internacional Poesía de la Habana cuenta con la Presidencia de Honor de Nancy Morejón, Premio Nacional de Literatura." Currently the 30th International Poetry Festival of Havana is taking place, with Nancy Morejón as the Honorary President. Cuba is women of the African Diaspora leading the way; Cuba is culture, and so much more.

WILPF Fresno's great event March 16 at Central Library!
Women Who Advocate for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion was our theme, and our speakers were leading examples, as they gave eloquent and insightful answers to questions about equity diversity and inclusion.