“Conroe, Texas, does not seem, at first glance, a promising spot for poetry,” writes Michael Robertson in his 2008 book, “Worshipping Walt – The Whitman Disciples.” Robertson first experienced our annual celebration of Walt Whitman’s birthday in May 2005.
“ Parsons [Dave] kicked off the 2005 Whitman birthday celebration by inviting members from the audience to come up and read Whitman poems that matter to them,” Robertson continues on. “They had come to otherwise deserted downtown Conroe on a weeknight, not for aesthetic pleasure – or not only for that – but for the chance to testify to this poetry’s meaning in their lives.”
Robertson returned again for the celebration in 2007 and will be making his third appearance on May 20th, 3:00 p.m., in the Lone Star College – Montgomery library. Later in the evening (7:00 p.m.), he will participate in the “Gathering of Poets” reading Whitman poetry at the Corner Pub in downtown Conroe. For those of us who have been a part of the “Writers in Performance Series” and the annual Whitman celebration, and as the Montgomery County disciples of Whitman, it is an honor to be recognized by noted Whitman expert Michael Robertson.
We encourage all to come worship with us on May 20th. You will find that nobody will talk about Whitman as a spiritual leader, but as Robertson wrote, “ . . . that all expressed a deep personal connection to his poetry.”
Earlier this week a book review in The Huffington Post titled “Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel: Surviving and Recording Evil,” got my attention. Why? It was a little over six years ago that Society of the Fifth Cave member, Dave Parsons selected Martel’s Booker Prize winning book, Life of Pi. The book is an excellent read, which I highly recommend. Now Beatrice and Virgil is now on my reading list.
The name Yann Martel not only caught my eye for Life of Pi, but also his involvement in helping to launch onedrop.org last fall in which he wrote a prose poem (What The Drop of Water Had To Say) heard around the globe as part of Guy Laliberté’s Poetic Social Mission in Space. The founder of Cirque du Soleil® and One Drop became Canada’s first private explorer in space, during which time his Poetic Social Mission in space took place.
Parts of Martel’s poem, with each stanza touching one one particular theme to do with water, was read at each of the 14-city performance orchestrated from space orchestrated from space by of Guy Laliberté. Here’s Martel’s first stanza:
Montreal
Sun and Moon were arguing, again.
Brother and sister, they’d wandered the Universe
and found in this corner a good home.
Sun adored being the star of the show,
so many admiring planets spinning in his orbit.
Moon, more modest, was drawn to Earth.
Now Moon was looking at her brother glumly.
“What’s the matter?” asked Sun.
“My planet is drying up,” replied Moon.
“Earth, that speck of dirt? Why do you care?”
“Because it’s my garden. I love Earth,” Moon pouted,
as she slid into a lunar eclipse so she wouldn’t have to see her brother.
“If Earth is drying up,” continued Sun, “why don’t you adopt a nicer planet?
There’s Saturn, for example, or Jupiter, they’re both impressive.”
“You don’t understand anything. You’re the dimmest of stars!” bawled Moon.
“Is that so?” huffed Sun, bursting with solar storms.
“Excuse me,” came a small voice from planet Earth.
“What?” said Sun and Moon together. “Who are you?”
“I’m a drop of water,” said Drop of Water. “I need your help.”
It was almost fifteen years ago that Eve Ensler wrote and performed, “Vagina Monologues.” In the years since then, she has written additional monologues and several other publications. Her latest publication is. “I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World.”
Just a few weeks ago, Eve did a talk for TED – Ideas worth sharing, entitled, “Embrace your inner girl.”
I didn’t get up this Christmas Eve morning thinking about Susan Sontag, that is, not until receiving an email from brother tom.
The book about Eugene Smith reminded me of Susan Sontag and her book: ON PHOTOGRAPHY. Robert Hughes did a splendid review of her book in 1977. You will enjoy how beautifully Hughes captures it. t.
Of course, he knew I would enjoy Hughes’ review of one of my favorite books! Even more so when the title of the review is “Books: A Tourist in Other People’s Reality,” a phase I have used for years to describe my existence. Here’s my reply to tom:
t,
I love this book — it is one that grows with you.
“Recently, photography has become almost as widely practiced an amusement as sex and dancing — which means that, like every mass art form, photography is not practiced by most people as an art,” wrote Sontag — sad but true. For me, it has always been a tool for expressing my vision of existence. The realism of a photograph is superficial since, in truth, it is inherently surreal. As Sontag points out, “Surrealism lies at the heart of the photographic enterprise.”
I don’t know if I should thank you for sending this or not. I already have so much I want to read — now I feel a need to go back and reread this great book on photography.
ken
On Photography is a must-read for any photographer. Thank you, tom, for the distraction!
In July of 1997, Cave member Dave Parsons selected Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow as our book for the monthly meeting of our reading club of the non-discriminating bourgeoise. Since that time Dave’s selection has held the record as the most difficult read for members. A benchmark not surpassed, some argue, till Dick Rohfritch’s selection of William T. Vollmann’s Europe Central.If the bar has not been raised, Europe Central at least equals Gravity’s Rainbow in excellence and difficulty.
Although only one of our members (George Boyle) finished the book, this didn’t lessen the brevity of the discussion. Each of us had completed enough of the book to appreciate Vollmann’s writing on moral extremism and our valuing the opportunity to learn about the good side of bad helping us better understand reality and what is the essence of moral behavior.
We are human beings we are always questioning our own moral calculus as does Dave in his poem “Sounding:”
“last gasp and every mourning parent’s gnashing, “No!”
Standing in the center of this simple kitchen, for the first time
in over forty years of my sloping for light — I am certain
In July of this year, I read a NY Times Book Review of Elijah Wald’s book, How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘N’ Roll – An Alternative History of American Popular Music. Althoughan informative review, I didn’t rush out and buy the book. However, after reading Shaun Mullen’s review on his blog, Kiko’s House, my interest has perked. Here’s the link (click here) to his December 7, 2009 posting.
Wendy Barker , Writers In Performance Series Appearances -by kenne
“We missed you,” I said as we began the drive from the airport.
“It was like missing a major family reunion,” she replied, about her not attending last year’s annual celebration of Emily Dickinson’s birthday. Not having Wendy at our annual party was like not having a birthday cake.
As we talked, we tried to remember how many years she has been a part of the Emily Dickinson panel discussion and the poetry reading at the Corner Pub – most of this decade, we agreed. The conversation continued at a pace driven by so much to share in so little time as if we could make up for time lost.
One might conclude that making up for time lost was why Wendy was arriving the day before the annual Emily Dickinson birthday celebration. To read her own poetry that evening. Even though she had become synonymous with the Writers In Performance Series, Wendy had never read strictly from her own poetry, which was about to change that evening. Now it was going to be Wendy’s turn to do Wendy and not Emily.
On the evening of her solo series performance, Wendy read primarily from her most recent work, Nothing Between Us – The Berkeley Years, a novel in prose poetry published by Del Sol Press. The book focuses on the late sixties, a period of time that was both explosive and exciting in our culture’s history. Before reading from the book, Wendy provided a synopsis of the times, which set the stage for her beautifully penetrating prose poems.
So impressed with her outline of the sixties, the video I have prepared contains a précis of her preface to the reading and the prose poem, “Teaching Uncle Tom’s Children.”
One of my joys over the years of being involved in the Writers In Performance Series has been photographing almost all the series, which includes numerous Wendy images. With each, I have tried to capture the essence of this talented writer – not an easy task since so much of her work is made more elegant with the combination of skill, ease, and grace of her spoken word. Hopefully, this video will allow you to experience the essence of her elegance.
Sheryl Nelms, Holly Hughes, Janet Lowers, Dave Persons and Carolyn Dahl
To experience the slow loss
of brain function before death
is to become disconnected from the sound of the tree
that falls in the forest. No longer able to ponder
the questions of our existence,
rendering silent the sound to others
who will listen beyond the silence.
Still, somewhere in the forest a tree falls
and others continue to collect the sounds
so that no one will forget that there was a time
when your existence recorded the sounds of silence.
It is the nature of poetry to help us understand adversity. For poet, Holly Hughes writing about Alzheimer’s disease helped her deal with the experience of being a caregiver for her mother who was one of over five million people in the US with Alzheimer’s. The experience inspired her to gather and edit a collection of poems and prose, titled, “Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease.”
On two recent evenings in November, Holly Hughes and others read poetry and prose from her anthology, on the campuses of the University of St. Thomas and Lone Star College – Montgomery. All proceeds from book sales went to the Alzheimer’s Association of South Texas. The anthology may be purchased at/or ordered from Good Books in the Woods, The Woodlands, Texas, www.goodbooksinthewoods.com.
Lowell Mick White read from his recently published books, “That Demon Life” and “Long Time Ago Good” at the October session of the Writers In Performance Series at Lone Star College – Montgomery. Lowell, not new to Conroe/The Woodlands audiences having read at several of the Walt Whitman annual birthday parties, entertained the audience with readings from his short sorties and novel. White’s stories reflect his thoughts and images captured from his 25 years in Austin, Texas.
The next Montgomery County Literary Arts Council (MCLAC) event will be in cooperation with Lone Star College-Montgomery and St. Thomas University. The November 4th & 5th events will be presenting “Beyond Forgetting – Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease,” edited by Holly J. Hughes, with all proceeds from book sales going to the Alzheimer’s Association, Houston & Southeast Texas Chapter. Beyond Forgetting to download more information.
The book club to which I belong, “The Society of the 5th Cave,” is made up of members, all-be-it old educated professionals, males who pride themselves in being specialists in many areas, but with the age-accepting reality of being skilled in few. Mostly politically right of center seeking to help me see the light, convinced that those with opposing views are also conducting their act of ministry. Wrong, oh truth sayers! Although I may debate a position, I don’t want everyone to agree with me, and I want each person to think. That’s why I selected Life Inc. How The World Became A Corporation And How To Take It Back by Douglas Rushkoff for the September reading. (Click here to see Rushkoff on Colbert Nation.) It is a book that can help people better understand today’s economic and financial issues, which Rushkoff feels are not a problem of reality or nature but a design problem. Are corporations evil? No! Neither are the people who work within their controlling environments. However, there is a convincing case to be made for redesigning a poorly designed invention of our culture by identifying non-market ways of developing gift-exchange institutions.
We humanize the corporation, so much so that many who may take a road-trip vacation tend to seek out a McDonald’s in which to eat rather than going to a local establishment. If this is your comfort level, you don’t want to travel between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley. According to Stephen Von Worley on the Weather Sealed blog, this is where you will be hurtin’ if you suffer a Big Mac Attack.
Most of us are products of the corporate mentality and lifestyle. I have worked hard to get to an age where I’ve collected enough assets to make money by having money. Even though recognizing that my life and my fortune are controlled and manipulated by our corporate state, I’m now working hard to become part of the gift economy – doing something for nothing and stop behaving like corporations who “… express charitable and community impulses from afar.” A gift economy is a society where goods and services are exchanged without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards.
“By donating to charities in the same manner as our corporate equivalents, we succumb to the proxy system that dissocializes in the first place.” Instead, we can start reclaiming what has been lost by accepting that small is the new big and that through a highly networked world, we can begin making local impacts that it spread. Rushkoff gives many examples of sustainable local efforts that trickle up in profound ways. The more we network doing something for nothing, the more one voluntary act encourages another. Giving is a social phenomenon that should be a fundamental life skill. As Walt Whitman wrote in Carol of Words: “The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him – it cannot fail.”
Rushkroff’s belief that commerce has been separated from the people doing the stuff and his reference to the gift economy brought to mind Lewis Hyde’s excellent book, The Gift – Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. Written over twenty-seven years ago, his insight and guidance are even more apropos given today’s economic and financial challenges. Here is how Hyde summarizes The Gift:
“The main assumption of the book is that certain spheres of life, which we care about, are not well organized by the marketplace. That includes artistic practice, which is what the book is mostly about, but also pure science, spiritual life, healing, and teaching….This book is about the alternative economy of artistic practice. For most artists, the actual working life of art does not fit well into a market economy, and this book explains why and builds on the alternative, which is to imagine the commerce of art to be well described by gift exchange.”
In his chapter titled “The Labor of Gratitude,” Hyde uses the folk tale “The Shoemaker and the Elves,” a tale of a gifted person, as a model of the labor of gratitude. In the tale, the shoemaker makes his first pair of shoes to dress the elves, which is the last act in his labor of gratitude. When Hyde speaks of labor, he refers to human endeavors such as “writing a poem, raising a child, developing a new calculus, resolving a neurosis, invention in all forms,” as distinguished from “work,” that we do by the hour. Labor has its own schedule. Things are accomplished, but often we feel as if wasn’t us who did them. This is always a bit mysterious. It is the mystery Federico Garcia Lorca was referring to when he wrote at the bottom of one of his drawings he did in Buenos Aires, “Only mystery enables us to live.” Invoking the mystery is to invoke the Duende.
Suppose we value the mystery and the categories of human enterprise that invoke the mystery, such as family life, spiritual life, public service, pure science, and artistic practice. In that case, none of which operates well in the corporate marketplace, so we must find non-corporate ways to organize and support them.
We humanize the corporation, so much so that for many who may take a road-trip vacation, tend to seek out a McDonald’s in which to eat, rather than going to a local establish. If this is your comfort level, then you don’t want to be traveling between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley. This is where, according to Stephen Von Worley on the Weather Sealed blog, you will be hurtin’ is you suffer a Big Mac Attack.
Most of us are products of the corporate mentally and lifestyle. I have worked hard to get to an age where I’ve collected enough assets to make money by having money. Even though recognizing that my live and my fortune is controlled and manipulated by our corporate state, I’m now working hard becoming part of the gift economy – doing something for nothing and stop behaving like corporations who “… express charitable and community impulses from afar.” A gift economy is a society where the exchange of goods and services are given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards.
“By donating to charities in the same manner as our corporate equivalents, we succumb to the proxy system that dissocializes in the first place.” Instead, we can start reclaiming what has been lost, by accepting that small is the new big and that through a highly networked world we can begin making local impacts that it spreads. Rushkoff gives many examples of local sustainable efforts that effectively trickle up in profound ways. The more we network doing something for nothing, the more one voluntary act encourages another. The act of giving is a social phenomenon that should be a fundamental life skill. As Walt Whitman wrote in Carol of Words: “The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him – it cannot fail.”
Rushkroff’s belief that commerce has been separated from the people who are doing the stuff and his reference to the gift economy brought to mind Lewis Hyde’s wonderful book, The Gift – Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. Written over twenty-seven years ago, his insight and guidance is even more apropos given today’s economic and financial challenges. Here is how Hyde summarizes The Gift:
“The main assumption of the book is that certain spheres of life, which we care about, are not well organized by the marketplace. That includes artistic practice, which is what the book is mostly about, but also pure science, spiritual life, healing and teaching….This book is about the alternative economy of artistic practice. For most artists, the actual working life of art does not fit well into a market economy, and this book explains why and builds out on the alternative, which is to imagine the commerce of art to be well described by gift exchange.”
In his chapter titled “The Labor of Gratitude,” Hyde uses the folk tale, “The Shoemaker and the Elves,” a tale of a gifted person, as a model of the labor of gratitude. In the tale, the shoemaker makes his first pair of shoes in order to dress the elves, which is the last act in his labor of gratitude. When Hyde speaks of labor, he is referring to human endeavor such as “writing a poem, raising a child, developing a new calculus, resolving a neurosis, invention in all forms,” as distinguished from “work,” that we do by the hour. Labor has it’s own schedule. Things are accomplished, but often we as if wasn’t us who did them. This is always a bit mysterious. It is the mystery Federico Garcia Lorca was referring to when he wrote at the bottom of one of his drawings he did in Buenos Aires, “Only mystery enables us to live.” Invoking the mystery is to invoke the duende.
If we value the mystery and the categories of human enterprise that invoke the mystery, such as family life, spiritual life, public service, pure science and artistic practice, none of which operates well in the corporate market place, then it is necessary that we find non-corporate ways to organize and support them.
“. . . the hurling way in which their talk moves, the way his nostrils flare as he tries with an occasional false shyness to avert his glance makes me think of Coleman Hawkins’ 1939 recording of Body and Soul, the one that took the world’s breath away, . . . ”
This is poetry that possesses the feelings that makes Blues and Jazz the most human of all music, therefore existential.
Michael Robertson Image by kenne
“ Parsons [Dave] kicked off the 2005 Whitman birthday celebration by inviting members from the audience to come up and read Whitman poems that matter to them,” Robertson continues on. “They had come to otherwise deserted downtown Conroe on a weeknight, not for aesthetic pleasure – or not only for that – but for the chance to testify to this poetry’s meaning in their lives.”
The book club to which I belong, “The Society of the 5th Cave,” is made up of members, all-be-it old educated professionals, males who pride themselves in being specialists in many areas, but with the age-accepting reality of being skilled in few. Mostly politically right of center seeking to help me see the light, convinced that those with opposing views are also conducting their act of ministry. Wrong, oh truth sayers! Although I may debate a position, I don’t want everyone to agree with me, and I want each person to think. That’s why I selected Life Inc. How The World Became A Corporation And How To Take It Back by Douglas Rushkoff for the September reading. (Click here to see Rushkoff on Colbert Nation.) It is a book that can help people better understand today’s economic and financial issues, which Rushkoff feels are not a problem of reality or nature but a design problem. Are corporations evil? No! Neither are the people who work within their controlling environments. However, there is a convincing case to be made for redesigning a poorly designed invention of our culture by identifying non-market ways of developing gift-exchange institutions.
We humanize the corporation, so much so that many who may take a road-trip vacation tend to seek out a McDonald’s in which to eat rather than going to a local establishment. If this is your comfort level, you don’t want to travel between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley. According to Stephen Von Worley on the Weather Sealed blog, this is where you will be hurtin’ if you suffer a Big Mac Attack.
Most of us are products of the corporate mentality and lifestyle. I have worked hard to get to an age where I’ve collected enough assets to make money by having money. Even though recognizing that my life and my fortune are controlled and manipulated by our corporate state, I’m now working hard to become part of the gift economy – doing something for nothing and stop behaving like corporations who “… express charitable and community impulses from afar.” A gift economy is a society where goods and services are exchanged without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards.
“By donating to charities in the same manner as our corporate equivalents, we succumb to the proxy system that dissocializes in the first place.” Instead, we can start reclaiming what has been lost by accepting that small is the new big and that through a highly networked world, we can begin making local impacts that it spread. Rushkoff gives many examples of sustainable local efforts that trickle up in profound ways. The more we network doing something for nothing, the more one voluntary act encourages another. Giving is a social phenomenon that should be a fundamental life skill. As Walt Whitman wrote in Carol of Words: “The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him – it cannot fail.”
Rushkroff’s belief that commerce has been separated from the people doing the stuff and his reference to the gift economy brought to mind Lewis Hyde’s excellent book, The Gift – Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. Written over twenty-seven years ago, his insight and guidance are even more apropos given today’s economic and financial challenges. Here is how Hyde summarizes The Gift:
“The main assumption of the book is that certain spheres of life, which we care about, are not well organized by the marketplace. That includes artistic practice, which is what the book is mostly about, but also pure science, spiritual life, healing, and teaching….This book is about the alternative economy of artistic practice. For most artists, the actual working life of art does not fit well into a market economy, and this book explains why and builds on the alternative, which is to imagine the commerce of art to be well described by gift exchange.”
In his chapter titled “The Labor of Gratitude,” Hyde uses the folk tale “The Shoemaker and the Elves,” a tale of a gifted person, as a model of the labor of gratitude. In the tale, the shoemaker makes his first pair of shoes to dress the elves, which is the last act in his labor of gratitude. When Hyde speaks of labor, he refers to human endeavors such as “writing a poem, raising a child, developing a new calculus, resolving a neurosis, invention in all forms,” as distinguished from “work,” that we do by the hour. Labor has its own schedule. Things are accomplished, but often we feel as if wasn’t us who did them. This is always a bit mysterious. It is the mystery Federico Garcia Lorca was referring to when he wrote at the bottom of one of his drawings he did in Buenos Aires, “Only mystery enables us to live.” Invoking the mystery is to invoke the Duende.
Suppose we value the mystery and the categories of human enterprise that invoke the mystery, such as family life, spiritual life, public service, pure science, and artistic practice. In that case, none of which operates well in the corporate marketplace, so we must find non-corporate ways to organize and support them.
We humanize the corporation, so much so that for many who may take a road-trip vacation, tend to seek out a McDonald’s in which to eat, rather than going to a local establish. If this is your comfort level, then you don’t want to be traveling between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley. This is where, according to Stephen Von Worley on the Weather Sealed blog, you will be hurtin’ is you suffer a Big Mac Attack.
Most of us are products of the corporate mentally and lifestyle. I have worked hard to get to an age where I’ve collected enough assets to make money by having money. Even though recognizing that my live and my fortune is controlled and manipulated by our corporate state, I’m now working hard becoming part of the gift economy – doing something for nothing and stop behaving like corporations who “… express charitable and community impulses from afar.” A gift economy is a society where the exchange of goods and services are given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards.
“By donating to charities in the same manner as our corporate equivalents, we succumb to the proxy system that dissocializes in the first place.” Instead, we can start reclaiming what has been lost, by accepting that small is the new big and that through a highly networked world we can begin making local impacts that it spreads. Rushkoff gives many examples of local sustainable efforts that effectively trickle up in profound ways. The more we network doing something for nothing, the more one voluntary act encourages another. The act of giving is a social phenomenon that should be a fundamental life skill. As Walt Whitman wrote in Carol of Words: “The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him – it cannot fail.”
Rushkroff’s belief that commerce has been separated from the people who are doing the stuff
and his reference to the gift economy brought to mind Lewis Hyde’s wonderful book, The Gift – Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. Written over twenty-seven years ago, his insight and guidance is even more apropos given today’s economic and financial challenges. Here is how Hyde summarizes The Gift:
“The main assumption of the book is that certain spheres of life, which we care about, are not well organized by the marketplace. That includes artistic practice, which is what the book is mostly about, but also pure science, spiritual life, healing and teaching….This book is about the alternative economy of artistic practice. For most artists, the actual working life of art does not fit well into a market economy, and this book explains why and builds out on the alternative, which is to imagine the commerce of art to be well described by gift exchange.”
In his chapter titled “The Labor of Gratitude,” Hyde uses the folk tale, “The Shoemaker and the Elves,” a tale of a gifted person, as a model of the labor of gratitude. In the tale, the shoemaker makes his first pair of shoes in order to dress the elves, which is the last act in his labor of gratitude. When Hyde speaks of labor, he is referring to human endeavor such as “writing a poem, raising a child, developing a new calculus, resolving a neurosis, invention in all forms,” as distinguished from “work,” that we do by the hour. Labor has it’s own schedule. Things are accomplished, but often we as if wasn’t us who did them. This is always a bit mysterious. It is the mystery Federico Garcia Lorca was referring to when he wrote at the bottom of one of his drawings he did in Buenos Aires, “Only mystery enables us to live.” Invoking the mystery is to invoke the duende.
If we value the mystery and the categories of human enterprise that invoke the mystery, such as family life, spiritual life, public service, pure science and artistic practice, none of which operates well in the corporate market place, then it is necessary that we find non-corporate ways to organize and support them.
kenne
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