Begin The Begin

Welcome, Hola, Assalaam Alaikum, Shalom, Jambo Habari, Shanti, Bon Soir:
Yes, my name is Ian Close Moore(ICMOORE).
This blog will be about my cultural adventures, my travel writings and my vision of changing the world through poetry and artistic expression.
I'll be sharing with you peoples stories that I have on my radio show, and the authors who talk about their passion for writing.
I'll be giving tips about publishing, from my experiences of having published 5 books.
As a poet I'm inspired daily by poetry and its rejuvenating powers.
I'm also a student of political history and I hope to stimulate some thoughtful discussions about the state of American political history today. Because the future is made by our actions of today.
As a Afro-Caribbean man of color, I'm intensely concerned about the experiences of the African diaspora and will share my thoughts about the politics of 'Blackness' and 'Africaness'
worldwide, as well as reflect on the obsessive hold that race ( black & white ) has on America.

I'm a great believer in taking responsibility for my own happiness and I will share some of my observations about happiness, and the lack of it, in this blog.

To kick off this blog, then, I'd like to share this poem I've been learning to memorizing all week.

Where the mind is without fear
and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into
fragments
by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms toward
perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-
widening
thought and action ---
Into that heaven of freedom, my [friend],
let my [soul] awake.

Tagore