FLASHBACKS
_____________________________________________
Click on the picture-frame to view an old-fashioned photo-collage (assembled by Diem Jones) of Al Young with such friends and acquaintances as Toi Derricotte, Ernest J. Gaines, Lawson Fusao Inada, Wallace Stegner, Nikki Giovanni, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Amiri Baraka, James D. Houston, Jane Hirshfield, Quincy Troupe, blues great Charles Brown, Ishmael Reed, Elmaz Abinader, John Handy, Dana Gioia, and Wynton Marsalis
_____________________________________________
The Look and Feel of Dreams Remembered
With Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger, Sacramento, 2006
With novelist and sculptor Barbara Chase-Riboud at the American Academy in Rome, 2004. We hadn’t seen one another since Paris 1992, when she hosted a gala crowd at her atelier to honor that year’s International Conference on Richard Wright at the Sorbonne.
Al wraps up an after-dinner talk on poetry, technology and democracy at the American Academy in Rome.
Rome in rain, Spring 2004 | Â Al Young
Side street, Naples, 2004
Al Young
Gemini in Naples, 2004 |Â Al Young
Signage, Cagliari, Italy 2004 | Al Young
Two Paolas: Paola Pierini and Paola Boi in Cagliari (Casteddu in the Sardinian language), 2004
Al Young
Coastal restaurant, Cagliari
Al Young
Morning by the sea with Paola Pierini.
Dinner in Cagliari, 2004
Scholar Radhouan Ben Amara (co-editor and husband to Paola Boi), Paola Pierini of the U.S. Embassy, Rome, and Professor of English and African Americanist Paola Boi. Yet another lovely meal with caring friends.
Salerno snack | Al Young
With author Mei Nakano at Santa Rosa Junior College, 2004
Al “Hassan” Wardlow at his Mission District digs in San Francisco. The former Sun Ra and salsa band trombonist had just flown in hours before from his residence in Guangzhou, China to play the gig with me at Santa Rosa Junior College. Zooming home from Italy, I’d barely beaten my old high school buddy back home to our beloved Bay Area.
Al Young
Poet and former Howard University professor Sam Hamod at the San Francisco Book Fair and University of Poetry, 2004 | Al Young
With Sonia Sanchez at the SF Tenderloin Book Fair and University of Poetry
Sonia Sanchez inset photo: Indigo Moor
With Amiri Baraka at the SF Tenderloin Book Fair and University of Poetry
With former student Chittra Divakaruni at the 20o5 Sun Coast Writers Conference, St. Petersburg, Florida
With Nashville songwriter Rick Carnes at 2005 Sun Coast Conference
With Norman Mailer (1923-2007) at Sun Coast Writers Conference
Things about to disappear | Al Young
Sharon Doubiago, Carolyn Forché, Al Young relaxing at Split Rock; Duluth, MN 1994
Original photo: Harry Mattison | Re-take: Al Young (Courtesy of Sharon Doubiago); postcard preview from Al Young’s America, a forthcoming collection.
_____________________________________________
