Thank you, Courtney Gillette....

I did a search with the names
Grace Paley
Adrienne Rich
and this was not the first in the list,
but oh so worth reading & sharing.

I heard Adrienne Rich read once at RISD many years ago.
Mostly, I remember the collective joyful anticipation & some disagreement on how to pronounce, *Adrienne*.
Long A vs. short A...

My condolences to her family & all who knew and loved her...

"A wild patience has taken me this far..."

Happy Birthday, Alice Walker !

It's thanks to a Howard Zinn page on facebook, the Zinn Education Project, that I realized this birthday.

I will post that link later today.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
This is the page that Howard Zinn page offered, an interview of Alice Walker by Amy Goodman from Democracy Now....

Ok, I am going to try to post the interview on its own....--

I was either in high school or college when I first read Ms. Walker's fiction & poetry.

Her poem, *Expect Nothing*, was introduced to me by a colleague when I was a counselor at Indian Brook, one of the Farm & Wilderness Camps in Vermont. I was 18 or 19. Those lines have helpfully danced in my head for 30 years!

* Live frugally on surprise. *

Alice Walker: *Democratic Womanism*

I was thrilled yesterday to find these poems on Alice Walker's blog.

Her writing teaches me so much.

Thank you, Alice Walker, for Everything !

RI has a Peace and Justice Rally Happening on Saturday

I tried 4 times to download the flyer, but without success...

Here is the info from a recent message about the speakers and schedule...

Speakers list announced! Down Town Meet up pointed added!

Saturday, March 19th: TWO DAYS AWAY

1:00 PM: Rally at Armory Park/Dexter Field: Music, Poetry, Speakers (Located at the corner of Division St. & Dexter St.)

2:00 PM: March For Peace from Armory Park to downtown: Anti Weapons Manufacturing Demo at Textron, Inc!

3:00 PM: Meetup point at City Hall: "Money for Teachers Not For War Demo!" Then to Recruitment Center for Victim's Of Occupation/Bradley Manning Vigil.

4:00 PM: Community Dinner at DARE Community Action Center *(Located at 340 Lockwood Street)

5:15 PM: Workshops: “From Activism To Organizing” with Camilo Viveiros! “Boycott, Divest, Sanction" with Students for Justice in Palestine!

6:30 PM: “Know Your Rights” Legal Clinic with members of the National Lawyers Guild and the D.A.R.E. Behind The Walls committee *Childcare available during workshops & clinic.

Note: Those who wish to attend the Armory Park rally but not the march are welcome to meet at DARE (340 Lockwood Street) for the Community Dinner at 4:00 PM.

RIMC has released the following updated list of speakers:

*Alysha Aziz: Brown Students For Justice In Palestine

*Shaun Joseph: Rhode Island Mobilization Committee to Stop War and Occupation

*Mary Kay Harris: Lead Organizer at Direct Action for Rights & Equality

*Dia Barghouti: R.I. Student raised in occupied Palestine. "Dia has lived through the immediacies of occupation of a people and her current work supports all movements that reinstate human dignity in the face of injustice."

*Rev. Duane Clinker: Open Table of Christ

*Steve Rabson: Brown Coalition Against Special Privileges for R.O.T.C. / Retired Brown University Professor / U.S. Veteran of War

*Chris Murphy: International Socialist Organization

*Joyce Katzberg: RI folk legend / singer-song writer

*Roz Raskin: 2010 Best Local Act in Providence Phoenix Music Polls

*Laura Brown-Lavoie: 2010 Brown University College National Slam

*Fatimah Asghar & Amina Sheikh: WORD Poetry Crew


*Additional anti-war / peace poems from Brown University WORD crew & the Providence Poetry Slam

MARCH ROUTE (From Dexter Field)
*Left down Cranston St., Right on Fricker, Left on Broad St., Over Highway to Weybosset, Downtown, Left to Kennedy Plaza, Left to City Hall, Straight on Washington St., Left on Empire, Right on Weybosset, Over the highway, Straight on Broad Street, Left on Lockwood to D.A.R.E.

The chief sponsor is
the Rhode Island Mobilization Committee to Stop War and End Occupation.

Grace Paley: Collected Shorts (Lilly Rivlin, Director)--Will be shown in Denver, Colorado

Lilly Rivlin's Documentary about Grace Paley is playing there this weekend.

Here is a link to the Film Festival site's description of the film.

If the link works, there is a clip of Grace, and people speaking about Grace, and, of course, it brings me to tears.

It is a very short youtube video.

I am very much looking forward to seeing this documentary.

Although I have not met Lilly Rivlin, we have exchanged emails, and she lives in the same building in New York City that my Aunt Sue and Uncle Peter live.

It's an enormous building for artists and so they may have never met, but then again probably entering or leaving .... And my relatives have lived there a long time, and I have visited, so perhaps I "met" Lilly once holding a door for me ( or vice versa )...

I love Small World stories.

Grace Paley's birthday is in one month and a couple of days.

Where in Rhode Island?...

...can I find a copy of The Massachusetts Review? (See last post for link?)?

It's not in the Brown Bookstore, which is experiencing major renovation. The good thing is that people are employed: painting and sawing, drywalling, nailing, et cetera.

"En este mundo hay más religiones que niños felices"....Ricardo Arjona

"En este mundo hay más religiones que niños felices."
Ricardo Arjona (Cantante guatamalteco.)

"There are more religions in this world, than there are happy children."
Ricardo Arjona, Guatemalan singer
(translation by Nomi, open to improvements)

I receive Spanish quotes (often translated from other languages) from this group:
http://groups.google.com/group/citadeldia?hl=es

oops! Here's another link:
http://www.citasyrefranes.com/

Slave Trade Remembrance at WaterFire will be OCT 4, not Sept 27

Dear all,

The weather forecast for tomorrow is for a big storm to hit
Providence, and so we've decided to postpone the A Thousand Ships
observation until next Saturday, October 4th. The symposium on the
following day is being postponed to October 5th.

Meanwhile, our prologue, the screening of a thought-provoking
documentary about one particular Rhode Island slave trading family,
will go ahead as planned. This is great opportunity to learn more
about some of the issues we're addressing with A Thousand Ships, and
the filmmaker and many of those who appear in the film will be
attending. After the screening, there will be a discussion / q+a.

Traces of the Trade
3.30pm-6pm

I received the above letter from Dawn at Rites & Reason Theatre, [Thank You, Dawn!]. I imagine more information is at http://www.waterfire.org/

Mahmoud Darwish (1941--2008)

I suspect Grace Paley and Mahmoud Darwish read each others' poetry. They may well have been friends and correspondents...

Here is a link to a piece by Fady Joudah on Mahmoud Darwish. I pray the link works.
http://penamerica.blogspot.com/2008/08/fady-joudah-on-mahmoud-darwish-1941.html

This is one FUN name: BOOF BONSER

Full Name: Boof Bonser Born: 10/14/1981 Birthplace: St. Petersburg, FL Height: 6'4" Weight: 245 Bats: Right Throws: Right College: N/A MLB Debut: 05/21/2006

This information is gleaned from the http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=425818

Better Late Than Never?

Now that National Poetry Month has been over for 4 solid weeks, I think it is high time that I acknowledge the Block Island Poetry Project.

I suspect there will be future workshops and readings. Someday I will meet Lisa Starr and Champ and maybe even the kids.

Here's the link:
http://www.bipoetryproject.com/

It took me 25 years to set foot on Block Island (B.I.) and I sure plan on returning as soon as I can. Said my son, let's spend a week or two there this summer...ah would that it were possible...but the drive to the ferry from Providence is shorter than the drive to New Haven...even the ferry ride was lovely. I don't even think there are mosquitoes on Block Island. The library was extraordinarily friendly. The place is teeming with amicable dogs and moped drivers whose bark was not all that bad. I always preferred lakes to salt water, but then I never appreciated dogs until recently either. Block Island is divine.

Vogon Poem Generator: On Lilacs

I (Bugzita) generated the following poem on BBC's Vogon Poem Generator:

See, see the accomplished sky
Marvel at its big white depths.
Tell me, Nomi do you
Wonder why the pug ignores you?
Why its foobly stare
makes you feel sugary.
I can tell you, it is
Worried by your floomer facial growth
That looks like
A cookie dough.
What's more, it knows
Your lexiconist potting shed
Smells of caterpillar.
Everything under the big accomplished sky
Asks why, why do you even bother?
You only charm lilacs.
_________________________________

I used the following keywords: accomplished, white, lilacs, Nomi, sugary, caterpillar, floomer, lexiconist, cookie dough, and pug.

What do you think of computer-generated poetry as art?