Friday, September 28, 2012

Poem of the Week: Tim Seibles


Poet Tim Seibles
Photo by: John Doucette

Faith        

Picture a city
and the survivors: from their
windows, some scream. Others
walk the aftermath: blood
and still more blood coming
from the mouth of a girl.

This is the same movie
playing all over
the world: starring everybody
who ends up where the action
is: lights, cameras, close-ups--that
used to be somebody's leg.

Let's stop talking
about God. Try to shut-up
about heaven: some of our friends
who should be alive       are no longer alive.
Moment by moment death moves
and memory doesn't remember,

not for long: even today--even
having said
this, even knowing that
someone is stealing
our lives--I still
had lunch.

Tell the truth. If you can.
Does it matter     who they were,
the bodies in the rubble: could it matter

that the girl was conceived by two people
buried in each other's arms, believing
completely in the world between them?

The commanders are ready. The gunners
go everywhere. Almost all of them
believe in God. But somebody should

hold a note     for the Earth,
a few words for whatever being

human     could mean
beneath the forgotten sky:

some day one night,
when the city lights go out for good,

you won't believe how many stars   


-Tim Seibles

Used by permission.

From Fast Animal (Etruscan Press 2011)


Tim Seibles is the author of several books of poems including Hurdy-GurdyHammerlock, Buffalo Head Solos, and, most recently, Fast Animal. He is Professor of English at Old Dominion University and teaches in the Muse Writers Workshop, the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast MFA in Writing Program, and Cave Canem. He has received fellowships from both the Provincetown Fine Arts Center and The National Endowment for the Arts. He also won the Open Voice Award from the 63rd Street Y in New York City. 
          
Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.    

Split This Rock
www.splitthisrock.org
info@splitthisrock.org
202-787-5210

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword



Massive global arts movement mobilizes to change the world
                   Over 800 Events Planned in 115 Countries for
                          100 Thousand Poets for Change

Santa Rosa, Calif. (September 19, 2012) – September 29, 2012 marks the second annual global event for 100 Thousand Poets for Change, a grassroots organization that brings communities together to call for environmental, social, and political change within the framework of peace and sustainability. An event that began primarily with poet organizers, 100 Thousand Poets for Change has grown into an interdisciplinary coalition with year round events which includes musicians, dancers, mimes, painters and photographers from around the world.

Local issues are still key to this massive global event as communities around the world raise their voices on issues such as homelessness, global warming, education, racism and censorship, through concerts, readings, lectures, workshops, flash mobs, theater performances and other actions.

But these locally focused events have taken on a more continuous and expansive form through the new disciplines represented this year. For example, photographers are making a long-term project out of the event; they will document the involvement of their communities and explore connections with the broader global issues to turn into future exhibits. More and more organizers and participants of the one day, annual event are making plans to continue their actions after September 29. Many have formed groups in their cities that will continue to work year-round towards the goals their community seeks.

“Peace and sustainability are major concerns worldwide, and the guiding principles for this global event,” said Michael Rothenberg, Co-Founder of 100 Thousand Poets for Change. “We are in a world where it isn't just one issue that needs to be addressed. A common ground is built through this global compilation of local stories, which is how we create a true narrative for discourse to inform the future.”

More than 200 hundred bands will be performing around the world, from Los Angeles, New Orleans and Detroit to Serbia, Nigeria and Italy. The musicians involved in this movement are once again using their songs and performances to try to communicate their concerns to the world. As Ross Altman, singer-songwriter, activist and educator, reminds us: “from Plato, who banned [musicians] from the Republic, to Putin, who had Russian punk band members of Pussy Riot arrested, charged, tried, convicted and sentenced to two years in prison for a song prayer, musicians throughout history have been regarded as a danger and threat to change the social order.”

In addition to the hundreds of musicians expressing themselves through song, numerous Mimes for Change events in Egypt, Turkey and Uruguay will take place in addition to the day long poetry festivals in Los Angeles, Guatemala City, Pune, India, La Plata, Argentina and Genoa, Italy; thousands of musicians, poets and artists are participating around the world, totaling nearly 800 events globally, including:

• 25 different events in the San Francisco Bay Area, the birthplace of 100 Thousand Poets for Change, including poetry readings by Beat Legend Michael McClure, former US Poet Laureate Robert Hass and other major poets at the famed Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival

• In New Orleans, 15 live bands will perform to raise funds for the APEX Youth Center and Homegrown Harvest Music and Arts Festival

• In Hollywood, Florida, Global Vibes will host an event called, “War Destroys Children’s Lives” at two venues and feature over 15 “Bands for Change”

• Peace On Streets, R.O.A.D., Tasker Elite and SHARP will host performance artists, poets, musicians, hip hop artists and various youth and parent groups who will perform and lead workshops throughout Philadelphia to bring awareness to the ongoing problem of street violence in their city

• Wordstock, a 3-day festival at the Bamboo Arts and Celebration Center in De Leon Springs, FL will include poetry slams, concerts, and an art exhibition focusing on images of war and peace

• The Occupy Wall Street Poetry group kicks off a weekend of events in New York City with a poetry reading at the famous St. Mark’s Poetry Project

• In Jamaica, a week long Street Dub Vibe series called “Tell the Children the Truth” will include concerts, spoken word performances, art exhibits, lectures and workshops to bring attention to the damaging culture of secrecy and denial surrounding the abuse, poverty and illiteracy impacting the nation’s children and destroying their future.

• Poetry and peace gatherings are planned in the strife-torn cities of Kabul and Jalalabad, Afghanistan 

• In Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt, poets, musicians and mime artists, in response to violence in the world and the major changes taking place in the Arab World, will perform in public spaces and theaters and explore new ways to communicate their concerns, and their roles as artists, in influencing the future of their country

• In Volos, Greece, there will be 5 days of poetry and music events, including an exhibition of photography looking at the new phenomenon of homelessness in Greece

• An event in Blackpool, England will celebrate activist poets and writers of past generations through a special performance of Bullets and Daffodils, a play about the life of peace poet Wilfred Owen

Organizers and participants are hoping through their actions and events to seize and redirect the political and social dialogue of the day and turn the narrative of civilization towards peace and sustainability. Those that want to get involved can visit www.100tpc.org to find an event near them or sign up to organize one in their area.

About 100 Thousand Poets for Change 
100 Thousand Poets for Change began in Sonoma County, Calif. The official Headquarters’ Event will take place at the Arlene Francis Center in downtown Santa Rosa and will feature poetry readings, group meditations, workshops, and music and dance of various styles including hip hop, flamenco, African drums, reggae, salsa, folk and more. The HQ event will also live-stream other 100 Thousand Poets for Change events worldwide. This 3-day event is sponsored by the Peace & Justice Center of Sonoma County and the Sonoma County Arts Council. 

Immediately following September 29th, all documentation on the 100TPC.org website, which will include specific event pages with photos, video and other documentation compiled by each city coordinator, will be preserved by Stanford University in California. Stanford recognized 100 Thousand Poets for Change in 2011 as an historical event, the largest poetry reading in history. They will continue to archive the complete contents of 100TPC.org, as part of their digital archiving program LOCKSS.

Co-Founder Michael Rothenberg (walterblue@bigbridge.org) is a widely known poet, editor of the online literary magazine Bigbridge.org and an environmental activist based in Northern California. Terri Carrion is a poet, translator, photographer, and editor and visual designer for BigBridge.org.

100 Thousand Poets for Change
P.O. Box 870
Guerneville, Ca 95446
Phone: 305-753-4569

###

Friday, September 21, 2012

Poem of the Week: Jonathan B. Tucker


JBT


The Sign       

pardon our appearance
as we grow to better serve you
says the sign on the fence

and i wonder how the 'you'
in that sentence
can mean both the young mother of three
carrying past
and me

is who they serve clear
is it up for debate
is it ever stated

it is widely accepted that
the police here do not 
protect and serve everyone equally

and the schools aren't too different
digging the pipeline
to drain the shit out of the way
of these new luxury condos

and the teens who grew up here
are told daily that they ain't shit
ain't gonna be shit
worthy of digging, planning, and pardoning our appearance for
while we redevelop

no
their development gets arrested
by the same school-to-prison pipeline
the same separate and unequal
the same united states, uncaring 
and suspicious
bribed and malicious 

way past the sequel
this story has been told on a continuous loop
for hundreds of years

different characters
same plot
different costumes
same shot

please pardon our appearance
as we grow
to better serve you

says the sign
letting us know we're getting served
being handled
taken care of

-Jonathan B. Tucker

Used by permission.

Jonathan B. Tucker is a writer, actor, poet, DJ, and activist. Coach of the DC Youth Slam Team and Youth Programs Coordinator for Split This Rock, he uses performance poetry to raise issues of social justice and inspire dialogue and action. Born in Washington, DC, and raised in Crofton, MD, Jonathan has twice represented DC at the National Poetry Slam. His book, I Got the Matches, and other poems are available at jonathanbtucker.com.
     
Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.    

Split This Rock
www.splitthisrock.org
info@splitthisrock.org
202-787-5210

Friday, September 14, 2012

Split This Rock & Hamiltonian Gallery Present: 100 Thousand Poets for Change DC




New Voices for Change
Tim Seibles & The DC Youth Slam Team

Saturday, September 29, 2012
3-4:30 pm
Hamiltonian Gallery
1353 U Street NW  Washington, DC
Free and open to the public

Let’s take this one chance and be terribly
kind to each other. I’m sick of wafting around
like a fart in the attic. Leave the money
to the morticians and their cadavers.
Let’s make the most noise with our hearts.

by Tim Seibles, from “Bonobo”

Tim Seibles is the author of several books of poems including Hurdy-GurdyHammerlock, Buffalo Head Solos, and, most recently, Fast Animal. He is Professor of English at Old Dominion University and teaches in the Muse Writers Workshop, the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA in Writing Program, and Cave Canem. He has received fellowships from both the Provincetown Fine Arts Center and The National Endowment for the Arts. He also won the Open Voice Award from the 63rd Street Y in New York City. 

The DC Youth Slam Team, a program of Split This Rock, uses spoken word poetry to teach and empower DC teens to speak up about issues of social justice. With free weekly writing workshops, monthly open mics, poetry slams, and annual travel to regional and national competitions, the team provides training and a platform for talented District youth to develop their poetry and public speaking skills with guidance from mentors and peers.

Split This Rock calls poets to the center of public life and fosters a national network of socially engaged poets. From our home in the nation’s capital we celebrate poetic diversity and the transformative power of the imagination. Split This Rock’s programs integrate poetry into public life and support the poets who write and perform this vital work.

HAMILTONIAN GALLERY is a dynamic space in the heart of Washington, DC contemporary art district. The gallery focuses on works by emerging and mid-career artists. In conjunction with Hamiltonian Artists, the gallery advances the professional development of emerging artists and broadens the dialogue on contemporary art and culture through its exhibitions and public programming.


Split This Rock
www.SplitThisRock.org
info@splitthisrock.org
202-787-5210

Poem of the Week: Kamilah Aisha Moon

Kamilah Aisha Moon
Photo by: Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Notes on a Mass Stranding      


I.
Huge dashes in the sand, two or three
times a year they swim like words
in a sentence toward the period
of the beach, lured into sunning
themselves like humans do--
forgetting gravity,
smothered in the absence
of waves and high tides.

II.
[Pilot whales beach themselves] when their sonar
becomes scrambled in shallow water
or when a sick member of the pod
heads for shore and others follow

III.
61 of them on top of the South Island
wade into Farewell Spit.
18 needed help with their demises
this time, the sharp mercy
of knives still the slow motion heft
of each ocean heart.

IV.
Yes--even those born pilots,
those who have grown large and graceful
lose their way, found on their sides
season after season.
Is it more natural to care
or not to care?
Terrifying to be reminded a fluke
can fling anything or anyone
out of this world.

V.
Oh, the endings we swim toward
without thinking!
Mysteries of mass wrong turns, sick leaders
and sirens forever sexy                                              
land or sea.
The unequaled rush
and horror of forgetting
ourselves
 
-Kamilah Aisha Moon 
     
Used by permission.

Kamilah Aisha Moon's poetry collection She Has A Name is forthcoming from Four Way Books. Her work has been featured in Harvard Review, jubilat, Sou'wester, Oxford American, Lumina, Callaloo and Villanelles, among other journals and anthologies. A recipient of fellowships to Cave Canem, the Prague Summer Writing Institute, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, and The Vermont Studio Center. Moon received her MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College.  
     
Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.    

Split This Rock
www.splitthisrock.org
info@splitthisrock.org
202-787-5210

Monday, September 10, 2012

Poem of the Week: María Luisa Arroyo

María Luisa Arroyo


barreras     

para Martín Espada (1993)


Mami called us away from the roach trap line
where novice factory workers, fresh from the island,
and I, fresh from Germany, poked
protruding yellow chunks of roach bait
into black traps with long-stem Q-tips
we dunked in alcohol.

Another safety meeting. My first.
El jefe de la factoría faced us
and heard nothing by the silence
of women hablando y bochincheando
in Tidy-Bowl blue uniforms. "Safety shoes should....
Factory goggles are .... Hairnets must...."

All the Spanish he knew could have fit
into one of those trampas, too little to translate
what Flora, Aida, and Teresa needed to know.
A heavy box fell and crushed a few of Flora's
dedos del pie. Alcohol splashed into Aida's ojos.
The uncovered motor yanked out one of Teresa's trenzas.

I broke rank and stood. "If safety is first, then why
aren't your updates translated into Spanish?"
How all uniforms blue shrank away from me,
from my nasal twang, from that language that sounds as if
I were chewing papas calientes o mucho chicle.

For once, though, my mother was proud of my English.

El jefe told me I could have been promoted
to the shampoo line.

-María Luisa Arroyo
 
Used by permission.

Originally published in Gathering Words: Recogiendo Palabras (Bilingual Press 2008)  

Multilingual award-winning poet María Luisa Arroyo enjoys facilitating poetry workshops and has performed her poems widely, including in Chicago and Puerto Rico. Academically trained at Colby, Tufts, and Harvard in German, Arroyo has published poems in many journals, including CALYX, and PALABRA. Her publications include the poetry collection, Gathering Words: Recogiendo Palabras (Bilingual Press 2008) and the multicultural anthology about bullying, Bullying: Replies, Rebuttals, Confessions, Catharsis (Skyhorse Publishing, 2012) co-edited with Magdalena Gómez.


Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.    

Split This Rock
www.splitthisrock.org
info@splitthisrock.org
202-787-5210

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Fall for the Book Festival: Annual Reading Celebrates Contemporary Poets

Poet Tim Seibles - photo by John Doucette
Split This Rock & Fall for the Book Present: 

For the fifth consecutive year, Fall for the Book will host a poetry reading at the Old Firestation #3 — this year with a special focus on poets of distinction throughout the immediate region.

Elizabeth Arnold, David Keplinger, Christopher Nealon, Mel Nichols, Tim Seibles, and Rod Smith will be sampling their works on Saturday, September 29, at 8 p.m. at 3988 University Drive in downtown Fairfax, VA.

The year’s reading is sponsored by Split This Rock.

Elizabeth Arnold, who teaches in the MFA program at the University of Maryland, has published three books of poems, The Reef, Civilization, and Effacement. She has received numerous awards for her work, including a Bunting Fellowship and Whiting Writers Award.

David Keplinger

David Keplinger is the director of the creative writing program at American University and the author of three collections of poetry: The Rose Inside, which won the 1999 T.S. Eliot Prize; The Clearing; and most recently, The Prayers of Others, which won the Colorado Book Award.

Christopher Nealon is the author of two books of poems, The Joyous Age and Plummet, as well as the books Foundlings: Lesbian and Gay Historical Emotion before Stonewall and The Matter of Capital: Poetry and Crisis in The American Century. He teaches at Johns Hopkins U.

Mel Nichols’ books include Catalytic Exteriorization Phenomenon, a finalist in the 2007 National Poetry Series; Bicycle Day; The Beginning of Beauty (Part 1: hottest new ringtones mnichol6); and Day Poems. With Rod Smith she curates the Ruthless Grip Poetry Series at Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center. She is a professor at George Mason University.

Tim Seibles, who teaches at Old Dominion University, is the author of seven books of poetry, including Body Moves, Hurdy-Gurdy, and most recently, Fast Animal. His poetry has been featured in Best American Poetry and he has been the recipient of an NEA grant for poetry and Open Voice award. He also teaches in the Stonecoast MFA program and for Cave Canem.

Rod Smith is the author of poetry collections including Deed, Music or Honesty, Poèmes de l’Araignées, and In Memory of My Theories. He edits the journal Aerial, publishes Edge Books, and manages the independent Bridge Street Books in Washington, D.C.

Other poets appearing at this year’s Fall for the Book Festival — September 26-30, with events at George Mason University and at locations throughout Northern Virginia, DC, and Maryland — include Rita Dove, Jane Hirshfield, Tom Pow, Cathy Park Hong, Carmen Giménez Smith, Jonathan Kryah, Jonathan Stalling, Brian Brodeur, and Danielle Cadena Deulen, among others.

For complete information on the festival, please bookmark Fall for the Book’s website at www.fallforthebook.org.