LaTasha Diggs
LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs is a poet, writer, vocalist, and sound artist. She also serves as a poetry editor for the online journal “exittheapple” and a founding editor of “YoYo/SO4” magazine.
Early life and education[edit]
Diggs was born and raised in Harlem, New York. She began her studies at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and later proceeded to get her Master of Art degree (MA) at New York University. Diggs later received her Master's of Fine Arts (MFA) at California College of the Arts.
Career[edit]
Poetry[edit]
In 2013, Diggs published three poems "black herman’s last asrah levitation at magic city, Atlanta 2010," "My First Black Nature Poem,™" and "the originator." Diggs is also the author of the poetry collection TwERK (2013) and several chapbooks including Ichi-Ban, Ni-Ban (MOH Press), and Manuel is destroying my bathroom,[1] as well as the album Television (2003).[2]
Latasha Diggs is most known for her poetry collection “TwERK” which was published in 2003. Her work has been published in LA review among others, featured in Yale University, The Museum of Modern Art and many more.[2] In addition to TwERK, Diggs was associated with poetry collections including Television and exittheapple, with writer Greg Tate. Diggs' poetry has been published in Ploughshares, Jubilat, Fence, LA Review, Palabra, and Black Renaissance Noir.
Performance art[edit]
Her performance works have been featured at The Kitchen, Exit Art, Recess Activities Inc, the Whitney Museum of American Art and MoMa (Poets & Writers).[citation needed]
Style[edit]
Being diverse and complex in her poetry, LaTasha Diggs incorporates languages and modes to fulfill a specific quality and tone that is unique to her. Diggs connects her poetry with the history and languages that are carried throughout numerous cultures. Fiercely and powerful, Diggs' poetry can be described as a visible weapon, a tactic simultaneously offensive and defensive, a wargame for the human body.[2] Through this technique and style of writing, Diggs connects and attracts the readers to works, using different elements such as history, voice and ear, and language.
Contributing to an online interview project, Diggs talks about her inspirations found in one of her most popular work, TwERK. The ability and desire to communicate with people of other languages was the foundation of her poetry and artistic choices.
Critical reception[edit]
In a review of TwERK for the online literary site Montevidayo, poet Joyelle McSweeney writes,
“Language is not a neutral tool, and the history of the peoples who belong to these language[s] and the hegemonic forces that would distress, suppress or obliterate both the languages and their peoples is what makes these poems so fierce, fraught, bladey and mobile. The showiness and flaunt of these poems are like the fierceness of the drag balls Diggs salutes in one poem: a visible weapon, a tactic simultaneously offensive and defensive, a wargame for the whole body. Diggs’s poems truly work the whole body of the poem, the whole body of sound, the whole body of history, the whole body of voice and ear, the whole body of language and the ability of the page to be its own sonic syntax; they articulate and rotate joints that seemed fixed; they are bawdy and triumphant and they more than work. They TwERK.”[2]
Awards and recognition[edit]
Diggs is the recipient of numerous awards, including the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, the Laundromat Project, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Japan–United States Friendship Commission, and Creative Capital.[3]
References[edit]
- ↑ "LaTasha Diggs". Black Earth Institute. January 9, 2015. Retrieved December 1, 2018.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs". Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation. November 30, 2018. Retrieved December 1, 2018.
- ↑ "LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs". www.whiting.org. Retrieved December 1, 2018.
This article "LaTasha Diggs" is from Simple English Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:LaTasha Diggs.
