Friday, April 29, 2011

Graffiti DC vs. DC Youth Slam in the DAVID vs. GOLIATH SLAM 5/4/11


Graffiti DC vs. DC Youth Slam

in the

DAVID vs. GOLIATH SLAM

Wednesday May 4th

7 - 9 PM

Betts Marvin Theatre

George Washington University

800 21st Street, NW

Washington, DC


Sliding Scale:

$5 with student id

$7 suggested donation

$10 much appreciated donation

$20 we love you too! donation


David vs. Goliath ... Adults vs. Kids ... Rookies vs. Pros ... Teachers vs. Students ... but who's gonna teach whom?

The 2011 DC Youth Slam Team is going up against the illustrious Graffiti DC Slam Team in an ultimate battle of performance poetry. Who is really the best in DC? Is it the next generation of young poets?

This poetic entertainment is a fundraiser for the DC Youth Slam Team, raising money for their upcoming season of ...regional and national travel to represent DC at competitions like the Brave New Voices International Poetry Festival this summer in San Francisco, CA. Please give generously at the event or online at http://splitthisrock.org/dcyouthslam.html



Graffiti DC Slam Team: Pages, YaYa Bey, Rasheed Copeland, and Drew Law


DC Youth Slam Team: Kosi Dunn, Rachel Sanni, Poetic Hyst, Zuma, and WordPlay (filling in for Selina Maria)


Hosted by Droopy the Broke Baller (2010 Best Host - NUSPA)
With special guest poet judges

Email slam@splitthisrock.org for more info.


Can't make it? Donate online here or send a check made out to "Split This Rock" with "DC Youth Slam Team" in the memo line to:

Split This Rock

1112 16th St. NW

Suite 600

Washington, DC 20036

Many thanks!

WS Merwin Reading at the Library of Congress May 4

Dear friends of Split This Rock,

Hello! I'm just sending along an announcement about our upcoming reading with the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress -- it's our last reading of the season, and we would love to invite you and your family/friends to attend.

Thanks so much, and I hope to see you next Wednesday.

Yrs. Rob Casper

-----

Robert Casper

Head, Poetry and Literature Center

Office of Scholarly Programs

101 Independence Ave., S.E. | Washington, DC 20540-4860

P: (202) 707-1308 | F: (202) 707-3595 | E: roca@loc.gov

www.loc.gov/poetry


Wednesday, May 4th, 7:00 PM

POET LAUREATE SPRING READING

W. S. Merwin, the 17th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress, will read selections from his extensive work. A book signing and reception will follow the event.

Admission is free, and seating is offered on a first-come first-serve basis.

Coolidge Auditorium

Thomas Jefferson Building

10 First Street S.E.

For directions to the Library visit http://www.loc.gov/visit/directions.html.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Poem of the Week: Kim Jensen











And Even George W. is out of a Job

You know the economy's bad

when people are lined up around the block

to apply for the job

of the wicked witch.


They've been lined up all night

waiting for their chance to prove

it's nothing at all


to climb a broom

and cackle like a wall-street speculator

just before the crash


to whisk....into the starry suburban night

and fly fly fly...

.....................and all without benefits

.....................of body armor.


I saw them -- huddled masses

waiting for the chance to make

an impression

............on their one circut

........................on autopilot around the moonlit sky.


Even I took a stab

and found it's not so hard

to zoom out above the cul-de-sac of cape cods --

............a surprisingly predictable circle.


But just when I was ready to take the job

I had a vision


of some wind-blown

foreclosed home swirling in from Kansas

.......tumbling from the sky and landing forever on my face.


No.

It wasn't worth the price.



-Kim Jensen


Used by permission.


Kim Jensen's first novel about a turbulent love affair between a Palestinian exile and an American student, The Woman I Left Behind, was published in 2006 by Curbstone Press, and was a finalist for Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year. Her first book of poems, Bread Alone, was published in 2009, and her new collection of poems, The Only Thing that Matters is forthcoming from Syracuse University Press. Kim currently lives in Maryland where she serves on the editorial board of the Baltimore Review and teaches English at the Community College of Baltimore County.


Jensen was on the panel Women & War/Women & Peace: International Voices at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2010.


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!

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

Arts Advocacy Update - Keeping the Pressure On!

by Sarah Browning, Split This Rock Director

This morning I had the privilege to meet with Kilin Boardman-Schroyer, Legislative Director of City Coucilmember (city-wide) Michael A. Brown, asking the Councilmember to support restoring a little over $1 million to the appropriation for the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities (DCCAH), which has been cut so drastically in recent years. (See the two entries below for more details.)

Mr. Boardman-Schroyer was quite forthcoming and straightforward. He told us that Councilmember Brown will be fighting to restore some of the cuts to essential human services in the Mayor's budget, ahead of restoring DCCAH funding. He urged the arts community, as a long-term strategy, to look to job creation and education funding as a way to supplement direct appropriations for the arts.

Given the threats to services to our city's most vulnerable citizens, I am sympathetic to Councilmember Brown's position. But those of us who work in the arts know that for a homeless child, an arts program may be the only thing keeping her in school. And we know that the arts help drive the city's economy, attracting tourists and visitors and residents who pay taxes, returning $7 of economic growth for every $1 invested. We know that the arts are not a frill but a necessity, as essential as bread.

I urge all DC residents to continue to bombard the mayoral and council offices with calls and emails calling for the restoration of DCCAH funding to the FY2010 level of $5.16 million. In the scheme of things, it's a tiny investment, yielding a huge impact. Many thanks!

Also - the mayor has proposed a very modest increase in the tax rate for DC's wealthiest residents. Council Chairman Kwame Brown opposes that increase. I believe that the city's most privileged can pay a little more to help feed and house our neighbors who have been devastated by this economy. If you agree, please contact the Chairman to urge him to change his position.

Many thanks to Robert Bettmann of the DC Advocates for the Arts for setting up today's meeting. Sign up for their alerts to stay up to date!

Support Split This Rock on Arts Advocacy Day – April 27, 2011

- by Robert Bettmann

Local artists in DC are like the character in the movie Hustle and Flow who says, “I’m sitting here trying to squeeze a dollar out of a dime and I ain’t got a cent.”

Funding for the District’s arts agency – the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) - has been gutted in the last three years, from over $14 million just three years ago to under $5 million in FY 11. Federal arts funding through the National Capital Arts program has also been cut - two weeks ago - from $9.5 to $2.5 million.

And now DC’s proposed FY 12 budget contains further cuts. The proposal is $3.92 million for the DCCAH to support all of the arts organizations, artists, and arts education providers in the District.

Will the District be the home to only the National Gallery and the Kennedy Center, or will we have local artists and local arts organizations in our communities? The outcome of the current budget fight will provide some of the answer.

A recent report from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies notes, “The arts comprise a very small portion of state spending, less than one tenth of one percent. Reducing expenditures that modest won’t appreciably affect state budgets, but will damage the cultural sector’s ability to provide jobs, goods and services to communities.” DC arts support is now just $3.92 million within a total District FY 12 budget of $10.8 billion. Like homeless services, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and general education funding, arts and arts education funding must be protected.

And that is where the DC Advocates for the Arts find ourselves as we prepare for Arts Advocacy Day – April 27, 2011. We are not asking for a bailout, but when financial supports are removed, opportunities for artists disappear, and our communities suffer. In FY 11 the DCCAH gave out over 500 grants. This is money that does a lot of good for a lot of people, and because no one group benefits in particular, this is easy money to cut.

To support Split This Rock and the artists and community it serves please take a minute on Wednesday April 27, 2011 – Arts Advocacy Day – to ask policy-makers to support the arts in the District’s FY 12 budget.

Contact Mayor Gray via email at eom@dc.gov or by phone at (202) 727-6300, and Council Chair Kwame Brown at kbrown@dccouncil.us or (202) 724-8032. Please ask the Mayor and the Council Chair to support the arts in the DC budget by restoring funding for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities to the FY 2010 level of $5.16 million. Together we can protect this essential and vital asset for our city.


Robert Bettmann is the Board Chair of the DC Advocates for the Arts. Incorporated as a non-profit in 2010, the DC Advocates for the Arts provide informational and administrative resources facilitating advocacy and public policy solutions for the District of Columbia. To become a member, please visit http://www.dcadvocatesforthearts.org

Robert is also Artistic Director of the dance company Bettmann Dances (http://quis.bettmanndances.com), managing editor for Bourgeon, a DC arts magazine written by artists (http://www.bourgeononline.com) and a consultant. You can contact him at rob@dayeight.org.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

April 27 is Arts Advocacy Day in DC - Please Contact Mayor Gray & the City Council!

Funding for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities has been gutted in the last three years, from over $14 million in FY 09 to under $5 million in FY 11. The District’s FY 12 proposed budget contains further cuts; the current proposal is $3.92 million to serve all of the arts organizations, artists, and arts education providers in the District. That is $3.92 million within a total District FY 12 budget of $10.8 billion.

Contraction in the non-profit arts community is to be expected in this economy, but policy-makers need to protect those least able to bear additional burden.

To support the agency that we all benefit from, on Wednesday April 27, 2011 – Arts Advocacy Day – please take a minute to ask DC policy-makers to support the arts in the District’s FY 12 budget.

Contact Mayor Gray via email at eom@dc.gov or by phone at (202) 727-6300, and Council Chair Kwame Brown at kbrown@dccouncil.us or (202) 724-8032 and ask the Mayor and the Council Chair to support the Arts, and to do that by restoring funding for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities to FY 2010 level – $5.16million.

--

"While no government can call a great artist or scholar into existence, it is necessary and appropriate for government to help create and sustain not only a climate encouraging freedom of thought, imagination, and inquiry but also the material conditions facilitating the release of this creative talent." -- National Arts and Humanities Act of 1965

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Poem of the Week: Alan King




















Uprising

after W.S Merwin



The president of pride's been overthrown

by a coup.

The president of humility shakes his head.

"If only he had listened," he says.

But it's too late. Pride's flag is burned

in front of government buildings.

The money marked with his face

has been tossed into a bonfire.

A pile of ashes collects

under Pride burned in effigy.

The president of sympathy

is nonexistent. It's a kingdom

in a mirage. Its citizens are dazed

by thirst. Hunger's as abundant

as air and trampled sand.

Hindsight's mistaken for the babbling

village idiot. He staggers through

the troubled kingdom and spots Pride

with its wrists and neck in the guillotine.

The wise man takes a swig from his flask,

shakes his skinny finger, and goes away

tsk tsking.


-Alan King


Used by permission.


Alan King is a poet and journalist, living in the DC metropolitan area. He's also the senior program director for DC Creative Writing Workshop, a Cave Canem fellow, VONA Alum, and MFA candidate at the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast program. King's been nominated for both a Best of the Net selection and Pushcart Prize. His first collection of poems, Drift, will be published January 2012 by Willow Books.


King attended Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2008 and 2010.


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!

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

A Variety of Calls for Participation, Proposals, Art, and Volunteers!


Save Our Safety Net DC (SOS) is in the midst of a campaign to raise upper income taxes in order to prevent cuts to safety net programs like homeless services and childcare subsidies. We would like to add a cultural/art arm to our campaign to help tell the stories that make our case for why DC needs to protect its safety net services. We would like to partner artists with the social service organizations that we work with to tell the story of how the drastic budget cuts of the past few years have impacted them and their clients.

The medium for this storytelling can be anything the partnering artists would like to use. Photography, theater, puppetry, poetry, music, painting, prose... anything! The idea is that as artists we can present the human face of these proposed budget cuts and show that the cuts from the last 3 years have hurt people enough--we can't afford any more.

We would need to present whatever is created sometime in early May. It's a short timeline, so simple projects are fine. The important thing is that these stories get out there.

To participate contact Save our Safety Net at SaveDCSafetyNet at gmail dot com

********
The Aesthetica Creative Works Competition is internationally recognised for identifying new artists and writers and bringing them to international attention. Previous finalists have achieved success and recognition with accolades including: writing commissions from Channel 4, selection to represent Australia in the Florence Biennale, exhibitions at DACS (London), John Martin Gallery (London), Flores Fine Art Gallery (New York), inclusion in the International Drawing Competition exhibition (Poland) and the National Geographic International Photographic exhibition. The Aesthetica Creative Works Competition represents the scope of creative activity today, and provides an opportunity for both new and established artists to nurture their reputations on an international scale.

There are three categories: Artwork & Photography, Fiction and Poetry.

For more information, click here.
*******

Roots Fest 2011
Art empowers communities. That’s why Alternate ROOTS, Culture Works, and others introduce ROOTS Fest, an empowering national arts celebration in West Baltimore. Join us!

Art unites communities. The “Highway to Nowhere” in West Baltimore bulldozed a thriving community 40 years ago, splitting it into two halves. ROOTS Fest is a catalyst to bridge the gap between the community’s divisions, and start new conversations about what people in a community can do and what they want.

Art heals communities. Communities that come together around their culture are strong, resilient communities. ROOTS Fest will re-wire West Baltimore to help it overcome its challenges.

For five days in June, tens of thousands of people will make history at ROOTS Fest, an empowering national arts celebration in West Baltimore. Joined by nationally-renowned artists and performers, the West Baltimore community will take over the 52 acres of green space that sits atop the Highway to Nowhere, and fill it with new life, color, and music. It will serve as an example for other communities around the country who face the same challenges as West Baltimore.

For 35 years, Alternate ROOTS has been empowering people and communities through art. This June Alternate ROOTS is joined by Culture Works and other organizations in celebrating with ROOTS Fest, a festival of empowerment in West Baltimore.

Be a part of ROOTS Fest 2011: Many Communities, One Voice on June 22- 26 in Baltimore! Volunteer for ROOTS Fest! – There are many opportunities to lend a hand before and during this groundbreaking festival! Contact Baltimore-based volunteer coordinator Jai Brooks (reverendjaibrooks at gmail dot com) at 443-413-2577. If you are interested in Artistic Programming, contact Cheles Rhynes (staff at mason-rhynes dot org).

*******

Friday, April 15, 2011

Poem of the Week: Persis Karim

















Other Mothers


Their sons who speak of a cause

As if it were their two feet

beneath them. That they could hold an idea

and a weapon at the same time.


The way they could fool themselves

Into thinking they were pure

And righteous, that the great stories

of God or country could keep them safe.


When my son handed me an Israeli army shirt,

asking me to sew a button on its collar, I knew

my refusal would be the beginning

of a long goodbye, of steeling myself


for an angry boy with an inkling

of manhood, undeterred

by what I said or didn't say.

His determination grew

in his shoulders,

in sharp silences.


I thought of those other mothers--

their sons, who, whether with a gun or a car,

could find the white light of belief

that would sow the seeds

of an incalculable grief.

-Persis Karim


Used by permission.


Persis M. Karim is an associate professor in the Department of English & Comparative Literature at San Jose State University where she teaches world literature, comparative literature and creative writing. She is the editor and contributing poet of Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora (2006) and co-editor of A World Between: Poems, Essays and Short Stories by Iranian Americans
(1999).


On March 31, 2010, Persis's stepson Kyle Strang (16) and their neighbor Prentice Gray, Jr. (19) were killed in a car accident. To learn about Kyle and the trip his father, Craig Strang, recently took to Israel and Palestine with thirteen of Kyle's Berkeley High School classmates to honor Kyle's memory, go to thekyletrip.blogspot.com. She can be reached at persisk@yahoo.com.


Karim was on the panel The War is Not Over: Writing About Iraq and the Case of the Mutanabbi Street Coalition and was part of the We Are All Iran group reading by Iranian-American poets at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2010.


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!

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

Monday, April 11, 2011

The New Sound: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Art & Literature Seeks Submissions

The New Sound: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Art & Literature
publishes short fiction, poetry, essays, drama, art and book reviews.

Writers at all stages of their careers are invited to submit.
Undergraduate students are especially encouraged to submit, as each
issue will feature undergraduate writing and art. If you are interested
in submitting your work for consideration, please refer to the
guidelines below.

Reading Period: The New Sound: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Art &
Literature will be published in January 2012, and we ask that writers
submit no more than once a year. Our inaugural reading period will be
from March 15th to May 31st. Manuscripts received from June through
August will not be read.

Manuscripts: Manuscripts must be paginated and clearly labeled with the
author’s name on every page. Please limit your submission to no more
than 5 poems, 2 short plays, or 7,000 words of prose, either critical
or creative. Simultaneous submissions are encouraged, but we ask that
you notify us if the work is accepted elsewhere. Do not send the only
copy of your work, as we do not accept responsibility for unsolicited
manuscripts.

Visual art and design submissions should be submitted in jpg format at
72 dpi and not exceed a file size of 2MB each. Each file should be
titled with your name and the number of the submission (ex/
john_doe1.jpg, john_doe2.jpg). A maximum of four works may be submitted
each year. Black and White and Color work is encouraged.

Book Reviews: Please note that we do not accept unsolicited book
reviews. If you are interested in reviewing, please write to the editor
describing the kind of books you would be interested in reviewing and
enclose one or more recent samples of a review.

Response Time: We try to respond to submissions within 6 months;
however, it may occasionally take longer for a manuscript to be read.
We ask for your patience, as we do make every effort to read all the
submissions we receive. Unfortunately we are unable to respond to
status inquiries.

Although The New Sound: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Art & Literature
is a print journal, we will feature excerpts from each issue on the
University of New Haven web site. Thus, please note that if your work
is accepted we may ask your permission to include your work on our
website as well as in the print journal.

Send submissions to the following email address:

unhenglish(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @ in sending e-mail)

Hard Copies will be accepted as well. Please send to
The New Sound: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Art & Literature
University of New Haven
English Department
300 Boston Post Road
West Haven, CT 06516-1916

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Poem of the Week: Margit Berman


















The Day Obama Decided


The day Obama decided enough was enough

and turned off his TV and slept well for the first time since 2007,

and Nancy Pelosi decided enough was enough

on a weekend in Vermont, when she threw

the Times and the Post into the woodstove unread,

and Congress decided enough was enough

staring into the mirrors of their sleeping consciences:

They began by ordering all the troops home.


You should have seen the parades.


They marched past boarded-over buildings

and threw grenades

made from tulip bulbs and tomato seeds

into weedy empty lots.


They pulled trailers down the highways

past the cornfields

and wheeled hot tubs up to the doors

of arthritic old ladies,

presented bottles full of bubble bath

stamped "Courtesy of U.S. D.O.D."


They rode ferris wheels with teenagers from Guantanamo,

passed baklava, pupusas, and mangoes on sticks

down the streets to anyone who wanted them.


Then they marched down Pennsylvania Avenue.

The doors of the White House were flung wide open.

Anyone who wanted to could stream in

for a handshake and a plastic flag.


The air was thick with confetti

from all the shredded fear laws.

Open your mouth: You can still

taste the jagged edges.

"SB1070" and "USA PATRI"

melt away on your tongue.


-Margit Berman


Used by permission.


Margit Berman is a writer, activist, psychologist, and faculty at Dartmouth Medical School. These days she's fasting for a morally just budget, meta-analyzing Big Pharma, organizing a Park(ing) Day event in Minneapolis in September 2011, and blogging about body image and size acceptance at http://thefullybelly.wordpress.com. Berman is published in If Poetry Magazine and has won awards at the Poetry-Free-For-All and Garrison Keillor's Green Light at the End of the Dock Festival of Romantic Poetry.


Berman attended Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2008 and 2010.


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!

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

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

April Sunday Kind of Love: Kevin Coval & the DC Youth Slam Team


April Sunday Kind of Love
Featuring Kevin Coval
& the DC Youth Slam Team

Sunday April 17, 2011
4-6 pm

**PLEASE NOTE: Contrary to previous announcements, April's Sunday Kind of Love will begin at 4 pm. The new starting time of 5 pm will begin in May. We apologize for the inconvenience.**

Langston Room, Busboys and Poets
2021 14th St. NW
Washington, DC

Hosted by Sarah Browning and Katy Richey
Co-Sponsored by
Busboys and Poets and Split This Rock

Open mic at each event!

Kevin Coval is author of the forthcoming, L-vis Lives! (Haymarket Books, Fall 2011), Everyday People and Slingshots (A Hip-Hop Poetica), an American Library Association Book of the Year-Finalist and the new chapbook, What I Will Tell My Jewish Kids And Other Poems on Palestine (Haymarket Books April 2011). Coval is the Co-Founder of Louder Than A Bomb: The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival, the largest youth poetry festival in the world, and subject of the award-winning documentary by the same name. Coval is Artistic Director of Young Chicago Authors and teaches at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago.


The DC Youth Slam Team, coached by Jonathan B. Tucker, is a collective of teenage performance poets who write, perform and practice together, with coaching from professional poets. The DC Youth Slam Team has a rich history of providing young poets in our nation's capital with a chance to develop their art in a supporting, caring environment. Read more and support the team here.

Friday, April 1, 2011

April Events - Split This Rock Keeps Busy During National Poetry Month

SUNDAY APRIL 3

DC Youth Slam Team Semi-Finals
5:00-7:00pm
Busboys and Poets
1025 5th St, NW
Washington, DC 20001
Chinatown Metro
$5


FRIDAY APRIL 8

A Tribute to Lucille Clifton
Woodstock Writers Fest
4:00-5:30pm
Kleinert/James Arts Center
34 Tinker St.
Woodstock, NY 12498

Featuring Sarah Browning, Cornelius Eady, Aracelis Girmay, & Patricia Smith. Hosted by Gretchen Primack.


TUESDAY APRIL 12

Global Day of Action on Military Spending
at the White House
12:00pm

Six Split This Rock poets join the Institute for Policy Studies in drawing attention to the grossly bloated spending on the military worldwide. Featuring: Jonathan B. Tucker, Kim Roberts, Dan Vera, Sarah Browning, Mark Nowak, and Esther Iverem.


THURSDAY APRIL 14

DC Youth Poetry Slam Team FINALS
6:00-8:00pm
True Reformer Building
1200 U St. NW (12th & U)
U Street Metro
$5.00


SUNDAY APRIL 17

Sunday Kind of Love
Featuring Kevin Coval and the DC Youth Slam Team
NEW TIME! 4:00-6:00pm
Busboys & Poets
14th & V St. NW
Washington, DC

**$5 suggested donation - none turned away
**Open Mic follows


WEDNESDAY APRIL 20

A Reading to Celebrate She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems
6:30-9:30pm
555 12th St. NW
Washington, DC

With poets Sarah Browning, Donna Denize, Hermine Pinson, and Kim Roberts

Join Poets & Writers, Barnes & Noble, and Hyperion/Voice as we celebrate National Poetry Month with a series of readings inspired by She Walks in Beauty.

Sponsored by Hyperion/Voice


SATURDAY APRIL 30

"Breaking Silence: Poetry of Sexual Violence" a free writing workshop led by Kim Roberts
Sponsored by Split This Rock
and the Humanities Council of Washington's "Live to Read" Program
1:00 to 4:00 pm
at the offices of the Humanities Council of Washington, DC
925 U Street NW

April is both National Poetry Month and Sexual Awareness Assault Month. To mark this convergence, the Humanities Council of Washington, DC is partnering with Split This Rock to present a workshop on writing poems about sexual violence.

Writing is an important tool in healing. In this afternoon seminar, we will look at model poems on the topic, and discuss how we can transform traumatic personal experiences (of our own or those we have witnessed) into art. We will examine point of view, tone, and the balance between the told and the implied.

Limited to 12 participants. Open to men as well as women. Admission is free but pre-registration is required. To register, email Alicia Gregory at Split This Rock at: gregory@splitthisrock.org.

This workshop is presented as part of "Live to Read," an annual program to encourage DC residents to read literature for pleasure. The 2011 book is the Pulitzer-Prize-winning play "Ruined," by Lynn Nottage. For more information on "Live to Read" see: www.wdchumanities.org.

Poem of the Week: Dan Wilcox















Chatham Peace Vigil


The lunch counter TV is busy.

My sandwich is slow, but

sitting feels good after standing

the hour in the village square.

Freight trains going by, waves

& honks from cars for the graying crowd

at the peace vigil on the 8th

anniversary of the invasion of Iraq

the knit caps & scarves, even two dogs
(they put the "pee" in "peace").


But it didn't work: on TV

a fighter plane tumbles out of the sky

over Libya, "more war" the pundits say

(while we said "no more war").


I eat in peace, for now

while the killing is televised.

Tomorrow I will be back on the street.


-Dan Wilcox


Used by permission.


Dan Wilcox is a poet & peace activist who also hosts the Third Thursday Poetry Night at the Social Justice Center in Albany, NY. He is a member of the poetry performance group "3 Guys from Albany" & is an active member of Veterans for Peace. You can read his Blog at dwlcx.blogspot.com.


Wilcox was on the panel The Public Role of Poetry: How to Build a Poetry Reading at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2010.


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!

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