{"id":2454,"date":"2016-12-15T19:26:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T01:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.wnpt.org\/arts\/?p=2454"},"modified":"2021-08-02T13:57:10","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T18:57:10","slug":"ciona-rouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.wnpt.org\/arts\/ciona-rouse\/","title":{"rendered":"Artist Profile: Ciona Rouse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ciona D. Rouse is a poet, living in Nashville. She curates many poetry readings in the city, including the monthly <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/atmalogy.com\/calendar\">Writings on the Wall at Atmalogy<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LyricalBrew\/?fref=ts\">Lyrical Brew reading series<\/a><\/strong> at Barnes &amp; Noble at Vanderbilt. She is the author of <em>Like Breath &amp; Water: Praying With Africa<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_7Q0eNMMlJw\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>the cotton museum curator applauds blackface for paving the way for michael jackson<br><\/strong><strong>(memphis, tenn., 2011)<br><\/strong><em>by Ciona Rouse<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Praises for cotton<br>for fields too long for delicate Madonna lily feet<br>for buds that pricked precious white fingers. for blood.<br>for finding ways to not spill any wealthy white blood<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Praises for the middle passage<br>for vessels of black bodies packed<br>shackled and stacked\u2014cargo bound for new<br>land, lying in everything black bodies tried to excrete<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Praises for slavery<br>for the price of black hands, the cursed black skin<br>for mothers sold and separated from black babies<br>for lovers divided, black lips, aborted kisses<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For the field negro<br>oppressed so hard, how did he stand?<br>for hollers, for call and response, for whips and wails,<br>blood singing through cracks on backs<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Praises for forced Jesus<br>for Israel in Egypt land<br>for stuttering Moses and the hollowed Red Sea<br>for the tales that made people believe they could fly and sing<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">and sing themselves to freedom<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Praises for the blues<br>for the heartbeat\u2019s walking bass<br>how loud it pounds when black eyes behold<br>fallen black bodies,<br>the bass, the bass, the base of the blues<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Praises for blackface<br>for nigger makeup<br>for burnt cork, bucked teeth<br>for a bit of shuck, a little jive<br>for big lips on blackened faces<br>belly laughs from white lips<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Praises for ragtime<br>for jazz. Praises for swing-<br>ing in branches of Poplar trees<br>for Emmit Till\u2019s open casket:<br>the deep blue note across America<br>for white eyes finally seeing his<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">broken black face<br>Praises colored minstrel tune.<br>Praises Zip Coon.<br>Praises Jezebel, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Praises banjo.<br>Praises Sambo.<br>Praises Jump Jim Crow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thank you, plantation talk.<br>Thank you, cakewalk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ciona D. Rouse is a poet, living in Nashville. She curates many poetry readings in the city, including the monthly Writings on the Wall at Atmalogy and Lyrical Brew reading series at Barnes &amp; Noble at Vanderbilt. She is the author of Like Breath &amp; Water: Praying With Africa. the cotton museum curator applauds blackface&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":3890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":301,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[{"url":"","title":"","desc":"","thumbnail":"","duration":"","rating":"","view_count":"","tag":"","cat":""}],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":null,"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,455],"tags":[559,622,638,647,617,642,645,641,540,541,639,640,643,646,644],"class_list":["post-2454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artist-profile","category-arts-break","tag-artist-profile","tag-arts-break","tag-ciona-rouse","tag-ingram","tag-mnac","tag-nashville","tag-nashville-poet","tag-nashville-poetry","tag-nashville-public-television","tag-npt","tag-poet","tag-poetry","tag-tennessee","tag-tennessee-poet","tag-tennessee-poetry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.wnpt.org\/arts\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/ciona-rouse-poet.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7wWI3-DA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wnpt.org\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wnpt.org\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wnpt.org\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wnpt.org\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wnpt.org\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2454"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wnpt.org\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3892,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wnpt.org\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454\/revisions\/3892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wnpt.org\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wnpt.org\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wnpt.org\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.wnpt.org\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}