Poems come out of wonder, not out of knowing..

—Lucille Clifton

The OctoGenarian Tour 24-25—September & November, Fort Wayne IN; March, Ithaca NY; April Boston, Framingham MA, & Cleveland OH; May Comer, GA, & Washington DC; June, Fort Wayne IN; July, the Pacific Northwest—Olympia, Tacoma, Bellingham.

People of Afrikan Descent in Cleveland require egress & agency to open doors to the coming decades. In the best Afrikan tradition, the people who made a way out of no way in Cleveland for OGT25 are aligned for that egress & agency. Already what’s required is growing. The intentional collective process with young people willing to work & learn with their Elders.

Visiting artists traveling thru Cleveland looking for a taste of the city, would do well to make arrangements to lodge at Parkers Guesthouse on Rosalind Street in East Cleveland. 43 years ago, Elder Edward E Parker carved a path in East Cleveland to the intentional process of Afrikan American identity that lives today as part of the community arts practice he began developing as a child in Toledo.

Parker taught art in the Cleveland public schools for nearly two decades. The Guesthouse is just one piece of a vision he began putting together in 1982, when he bought a 25,000 square-foot empty building on Euclid Avenue near Rosalind. The Guesthouse is Parker’s home, & where I stayed during my week in Cleveland.

The Edward E Parker Creative Arts Complex, includes the EEP Museum of Art, established in 2014. It’s a combination of Snickerfritz Cultural Workshop for the Arts Inc. that Parker set in motion in 1974. Now 84, Parker is widely known in Cleveland for his artwork & community arts advocacy. In his 40s, Parker understood that if you wanted to build something, you had to do it yourself. That’s exactly what he did. The empty building became the Edward E Parker Museum of Art, & neighboring properties on Rosalind were his home & income properties rented to community residents to keep the growing complex afloat.. Parker is a legend in his own time & neighborhood. His workshop hosts weekly art classes for community folk.

Sitting on Ed Parker’s porch on a warm spring afternoon, catching conversations & relationships with neighbors & visitors, is in itself a rich East Cleveland experience that shouldn’t be missed.

There’s a lot happening in Cleveland & even more will be possibble as a devoted practice of collective identity & organization takes hold among People of Afrikan Descent. With young Poetz like Calil Cage, & entrepreneurial venures like Third Space, the promise of Ed Parker’s four-decade long practice is being carried forward by the two Robinsons & Fuqua to succceeding generations. These examples & practices we’ll take to Washington DC & on.  . . .