Performance poet Glenis Redmond travels the nation sharing her passionate, lyrical musings with appreciative audiences in schools, festivals, conferences, camps and even prisons. In one of her best-known poems, "Mama's Magic," she praises her mother's miraculous virtues: "My mama didn't study at no Harvard or Yale/ The things she knew/ you couldn't learn in no book! Like …/ How to make your life sing like/ sweet potato pie sweetness/out of an open window/ How to make anybody feel at home/ How at just the right moment be silent/ and with her eyes say/ 'Everything's gonna be alright, chile, everything is gonna be alright.'" This weekend at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Redmond presents Monumental: Soaring on the Wings of Love, an homage to the people who "raise us up" with unconditional support — sisters, brothers, mothers, grandmothers, and everyone in the world "who dares to write, speak, dance and sing for us all." Through Feb. 3, 4 p.m. Sun., Shimberg Playhouse, 1010 N. MacInnes Place, downtown Tampa, $24.50, 813-229-7827, tbpac.org.
This article appears in Jan 30 – Feb 5, 2008.