Volume 2, set 5 of NEWARK REVIEW comes together as other issues have:  mixing NJIT student/professor work, submissions by comrades known only via Internet, and contributions solicited from people I've met in the NJ literary/arts community.  When enough work accumulates, it is presented as evidence for a pluralized (i.e. eclectic) local vocalization of the "quixotic mind" Allen Ginsberg sensed in "almost all New Jersey poets."

Two fantastic events, both involving the work of NEWARK REVIEW contributor Amiri Baraka, happened in October at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.  First, Baraka's Remembering WeSelves:  Black Renaissance in Harlem, was staged by the National Black Touring Circuit.  In this production the words of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, and others, are blended with the sounds of Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, et al. performed by live musicians, along with the actors' movements and slide projections, to portray the powerful cultural expression and social message generated during the Harlem Renaissance.  A week later, as part of the Sacred Circle/Spoken Word Festival, a musical ensemble organized by David Murray, known as Fo deuk Revue, performed on a bill which also included Mutabaruka and Roger Bonair-Agard.  Fo deuk Revue consists of Murray, a half dozen brilliant Senegalese musicians including Doudou N'Diaye Rose (who composed the national anthem of Senegal), and members of the groups Positive Black Soul and Dieuf Dieul), the always phenomenal bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and Baraka.  Of this group, Murray writes:  "Every accomplishment and step that I have made in music throughout my life has been a stairway to what I believe will be my most significant achievement:  to be the leader of Fo deuk Revue."  Those who are familiar with Murray's already prodigious artistic output should be impressed by this statement (and will not be disappointed upon hearing the group).  To get a sense of the magic of Fo deuk Revue, I highly recommend tracking down a copy of the group's eponymous recording (1997, Justin Time Records).

Volume 2, set 6 of NEWARK REVIEW will feature a selection of work by artists associated with the Verse-4-Verse Poetry Cafe, curated by Juba Dowdell, who is co-MC, with Ras Baraka, at Verse-4-Verse.  This set will be available online later in the year.

NEWARK REVIEW is sponsored by NJIT's Department of Humanities and Social Sciences.  Contributions of poetry, prose, and images are welcome for future issues, as are hypertexts, reviews and critical writing.

Writers and artists from New Jersey and the NJIT community:  please contact us if you have work to contribute.

Each issue of NEWARK REVIEW appears in print, and online.

                        for now, yours

                             Chris Funkhouser, ed.
                                Oct.-Nov. 1999