Author Archives: deborahdibari

Escape from the human realization of earthly and bodily confinement has inspired greatness and savagery. My conflict often gives way to delight in each twist and turn of narrow cobbled streets despite my rejection of foundational narratives supporting the systemic oppression by the church and state. My experiences in Europe, living in Rome and extensive visits for work, leisure and exploration are the frame for my writing.

PAPER INK WRITER and DISCOVERY

I am very much a paper and ink writer. The liquid ink flowing on the page materializes thought. I write with a fountain pen, not as an affectation. The letters move organically across the page in plowed ruts where weeds strangle sprouting possibility.

This morning I received the print issue of the Weekend New York Times. I stopped delivery of the weekend print issue out of environmental guilt. Trash suffocates the globe – children live and work on it. Their survival depends on and is threatened by toxic trash heaps. I went through the sections, ambivalent until I opened the Sunday magazine.

The tangibility of manifest presence of material objects feeds my awareness of my physical temporality. My hand moves the pen across the page my being in the world interacts with the many forces supporting my existence, a very different experience from my fingers clicking keys. The cursor absent from the thought process liberates my mind to dally.Continue reading “PAPER INK WRITER and DISCOVERY”

The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass-A speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852

David Remick’s essay, “AmericanDiginity on the Fourth of July” in The New Yorker led me to search, read and post Frederick Dogulass’ speech in its entirety. One Hundred Sixty-Five Years after Douglass gave his speech Raoul Peck made the documentary I Am Not Your Negro based on James Baldwin’s unfinished work. Unfinished is an understatement.

Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens:

He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling hasContinue reading “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass-A speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852”

TRUMP the CATALYST for LITERARY RESISTANCE

The catalyst for breathefreepress.org. was Trump’s election to the presidency of the United States considered at the most powerful office in the world. A revelation with a “sudden” biblical force saved my personal ecosystem from collapse. A rebel since my teen years I hold two concepts “dear:” freedom and equality.

I grew up in the aftermath of World War II with the ideals of the US founding documents.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [hu]man[s] are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.Continue reading “TRUMP the CATALYST for LITERARY RESISTANCE”