nothin Spoken Word Keeps Dixwell “Lit” | New Haven Independent

Spoken Word Keeps Dixwell Lit”

Maya McFadden Photos

In a Dixwell parking lot, literature came to life and spoken words about loss, faith, injustice, family, and self-love filled the air.

Those words were heard Saturday and Sunday at the second annual Elm City Lit Fest behind the Stetson Library on Dixwell Avenue.

More than 100 community members joined the family-friendly festival’s first-day seven-hour session Saturday for a celebration of literature and the literary arts with dozens of local talents.

The back parking lot was filled with more than cars Saturday. Vendors of small businesses and artists from New Haven and beyond joined for this year’s Harlem Renaissance-themed festival. The inaugural festival last year was virtual, via Zoom.

Festival organizers Shamain McAllister, and Julius Stone Jr, IfeMichelle Gardin, RevKev, Emalie Mayo, and Eamon Linehan.

Elm City Lit Fest founder IfeMichelle Gardin organized the festival with the help of Emalie Mayo, Shamain McAllister, and Julius Stone Jr. to promote awareness of Black artists, businesses, and community voices.

The festival flowed with the spirit of the historic art movement’s cultural revival and recognition of Black talent. Performers and vendors ranged from showcasing music, dance, art to fashion, literature, and theater.

Ashleigh Huckabey sells affordable fashion at Empath Vintage boutique stand Saturday.

Black Lives Matter New Haven organizer and Empath Vintage boutique owner Ashleigh Huckabey helped to line up the event’s 12 vendors Saturday. Huckabey helped the festival organizers to find and invite local vendors that are Black-owned, promote health and wellness, and provide neighborhood literacy and literary art resources.

Dozens of guest speakers told the stories of their upbringings, parents’ lives, and personal life lessons. The lineup of authors, poets, and artist was billed as ubuntu storytellers.” The African term ubuntu means I am, because you are.”

New Haveners picked up Georgia hots from King Hot Dog stand. Fruit-based mocktails came courtesy of floating bartender Justin Hernandez, who works at the Westville wellness center Bloom. Free children’s books came from Literacy Volunteers of Greater New Haven.

Bestselling author Niyah Zuri studios founder Anna Nyakana read a chapter from her newest book Niyah Zuri and The Mayan Eclipse, which drops Sept. 13.

The main character of the children’s book, Niyah Zuri, is based on herself. In her newest book she is joined by a group of heroic friends who travel together back in time to ancient Maya. They trek their way through jungles and ruins, and away from a hungry jaguar, all in one chapter.

Anna Nyakana

Nyakana’s voice echoed over the parking lot with details of snacking on fresh and sticky papayas and swinging on jungle vines. Children in the audience listened attentively along with parents. (Watch the reading here.)

The Niyah Zuri book series was created to connect children with ancient history and their true selves Nyakana said. As a young girl, Nyakana grew up in an Ugandan family in Stamford. There was no celebration of culture in my neighborhood or my school,” she recalled.

She was an ESL student and dealt with bullying during middle school. I was lost as a child. In school I was the weird foreign girl with the crazy hair,” she said. My school and community failed me.”

Through theater, choir, and storytelling Nyakana found her voice and gained self-confidence.

Niyah Zuri and The Mayan Eclipse list of affirmations.

Nyakana is working on getting the Niyah Zuri series into local school curriculums to teach students about history and to develop a love of literacy. A family can’t be expected to do all the work. We have to expose children to all cultures into the classroom, because that’s where they spend half of their day,” she said.

Carla Cherry.

Carla Cherry, a poet and high school educator from Manhattan, recited her poem Ode to Harlem,” which she wrote about her father. Cherry first took up poetry after the passing of her father in 2005 as a way to grieve.

Darryl Huckaby, DJ Dooly-O, and DJ Prime

Cherry wrote Ode to Harlem” based on a series of interviews she did with her father before he died from multiple myeloma. She asked him about his life and gathered his perspective of Harlem throughout his life.

Literacy feeds your soul and helps you get through hard times. If we want to lift the spirts of the community, we need to do more of this,” Cherry said.

A Cupid Shuffle break…

…and a hula hoop lesson from Hood Hula.

Community children played hopscotch, hula hooped, and danced at the center of the Saturday festival.

New Haven native and rapper Kevin Walton Jr., also known K.Dub, performed seven songs alongside his brother, who also raps as Kaleb Kay Dot” Walton.

K. Dub moved back home to Fair Haven after graduating from Howard University last year. Since then he has released three music projects: Higher Learning, Elm City Trees, and The First 24. He performed songs from each project Saturday to introduce himself to the community. Each project was like a different phase I had and perspective that I show,” he said.

Brother rappers Kaleb and Kevin Walton.

Music making has help K. Dub deal with hard situations like losing friends to gun violence. It’s not just negative stuff in New Haven. I want to be a role model and help people express themselves with music,” he said.

K. Dub is co-founder of the music label Elm City Records. He hopes to help other New Haven artist start up their music careers. (Watch his performance here.)

Final lineup of poets.

Day one of the festival concluded with performances from Connecticut and New York-based poets Shavon Gales, Sun Queen, AnUrbanNerd, T’Challa Williams, Nzima Hutchins, Frederick Douglass-Knowles, Joy Harris, and Brother Bear, and ArnStar.

Watch Hartford native T’Challa Williams perform below. Williams is the founder of Hartford’s L.I.T. Book Festivalwhich will celebrate its second annual festival in October.

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