Poem of the Week: Patricia Monaghan

Red-Tailed Hawk    

Just past dawn in early fall,

a sparrow screamed at me

as I walked into the woods.

I did not grasp the warning.

Beside the dry creekbed,

I stopped at the shore

of a dark pool of silence.

At its center, a hawk.

Five feet away, chevrons

and arrows on his chest,

talons and beak like knives.

He stared at me. I stared at him.

At that moment, to the east,

men were debating ways to kill.

In the forest, deadly beauty.

I had never seen a hawk so close.

He looked left and right, his beak

a cruel and graceful curve.

His chest heaved in a breath, a sigh.

He flew straight at me.

I could not move. His wings

were as wide as I am tall.

I simply stood and waited.  

He veered away,

alighted in a nearby tree.

Wonder filled me, rushing in

like water down a dry streambed.

Hawk, I whispered, hawk,

and stared straight at him,

into his hard eyes.

Hawk, my heart sang, hawk,

a word of death and life

in balance, a word of death  

and hunger and fierce pain

and beauty and devouring.

I spoke the name of one

who wastes no life, who knows no

anger, whose strength is pure, whose

only weapon is his feathered self.

Hawk, I whispered, hawk. 

-Patricia Monaghan

from Homefront (WordTech Editions, 2005). 

 

Used by permission.

Patricia Monaghan (1946-2012) died on November 11, 2012 in her Wisconsin home, Brigit Rest, in the arms of her beloved husband Michael McDermott. Homefront is a collection about the effect of war on veterans' return to their families and the damage to both. Patricia was a poet, scholar, spiritual pioneer and practitioner, activist, gardener and endlessly energetic creator. 

Patricia co-founded the Black Earth Institute with Michael and recently co-founded the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology. The Institute is dedicated to artists serving the causes of inclusive spirituality, healing and protecting the earth and social justice. Patricia published over 20 books including many of poetry.  She was awarded a Pushcart Prize among many others. She was also an active supporter of Split This Rock.

  

 

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.   

Save the Date: February 17, 2013 - 10 Years of Mourning & Protest

In early 2003, millions of people all over the globe took to the streets to oppose President George W. Bush’s plan to invade Iraq. Poets responded by organizing a great uprising, Poets Against the War. 

In DC, Sarah Browning organized an open mic reading at All Souls Unitarian Church on February 12, hoping that poets of all sorts would join together to speak out for peaceful alternatives. Sarah didn’t know what to expect, though, as she’d only recently arrived in the city. 

To her astonishment, over 175 people turned out, with 60 signing up to read and perform. DC Poets Against the War was born. Five years later, in 2008, the group presented the first Split This Rock Poetry Festival, giving birth to a national movement bringing poetry to the center of public life, where it belongs! 

Join us for Sunday Kind of Love at 14th and V Busboys and Poets February 17, 2013, 5-7 pm, as we mark the 10^th anniversary of DC Poets Against the War and protest and mourn the great tragedy of the Iraq War. We will raise a toast of gratitude to Sam Hamill, the founder of this great movement of poets.

Poets active in the group will read their own work and the poetry of the missing voices: Iraqi poets, Afghan poets, and essential US poets we’ve lost since 2003, such as Adrienne Rich, Lucille Clifton, Grace Paley, Ann Knox, and Dennis Brutus. 

Featuring: Sarah Browning, Michele Elliott, Yael Flusberg, Leah Harris, Esther Iverem, Joseph Ross, Melissa Tuckey, and Dan Vera.

Here's a poem from that time, by Ann B. Knox, a DC poet whose loss we feel keenly still:

This Moment

            Read in front of the White House February 12, 2003

We meet in this wind-harsh square

            with some expectation,

some hope our presence will count,

            our voices be heard.

We speak from what we know

            and we know no poem

stirs from a closed mind.

            Has the mailed fist

so closed on its own purpose

            we speak to stone?

Pay attention, our words matter,

            these bare trees matter,

the Potomac flowing black

            under white ice matters,

kids, woods, a leashed dog,

            poems matter.

All our lives converge

            on this moment

and what follows tonight,

            tomorrow, next week

will change our whole

            desperate earth.

We are grateful to Busboys and Poets for lead sponsorship of this event and others marking the 10th anniversary of the war in Iraq and the fifth anniversary of Split This Rock!

Latino/a Poetry Books Published in 2012

Letras Latinas : A Year in Poetry American Copia: An Immigrant Epic (Arte Publico Press) Javier O. Huerta Al Norte (UNAN-Leon) Leon Salvatierra ¡Ban This! The BSP Anthology of Xican@ Literature (Broken Swords Press) Ed. by Santiago J. Rivera City of Slow Dissolve (University of New Mexico Press) John Chavez Codex of Journeys: Bendito Camino (Mouthfeel Press) Liliana Valenzuela Conjuro (Mammoth Publications) Xánath Caraza Corazón Pintado (TL Press) Xánath Caraza Crazy Chicana in Catholic City (Conundrum Press) Juliana Aragón Fatula Culture of Flow (Monkey Puzzle Press) Tim Z. Hernandez The Foundling Wheel (Four Way Books) Blas Falconer GHOSTLINES (Radioactivemoat) Lucas de Lima The Glimmering Room (Four Way Books) Cynthia Cruz Goodbye, Flicker (University of Massachusetts Press) Carmen Giménez Smith In the Company of Spirits (Press 53) Carmen Calatayud How Fire is a Story, Waiting (Tía Chucha Press) Melinda Palacio Looking for the Gulf Motel (University of Pittsburgh Press) Richard Blanco The Lust of Unsentimental Waters (Shearsman Books) Rosa Alcalá This Side of Wonder (Ambermoon Press) Marcelo Hernandez Slow Lightning (Yale University Press) Eduardo C. Corral South Pole / Polo Sur (Settlement House) María Teresa Ogliastri The Seed Bank (Mouthfeel Press) Gabriel Gomez Rebozos (Wings Press) Carmen Tafolla Twitching Heart (CreativeSpace) Matt Méndez When My Brother Was an Aztec (Copper Canyon Press) Natalie Diaz The Wind’s Archeology / La arqueologia del viento (Vasos Rotos Ediciones) Luis Alberto Ambroggio

Poem of the Week: Gowri Koneswaran

Photo by: Les Talusan          Hold     we're taught to hold hands  when we cross the street or walk with our mothers in parking lots or navigate crowds with a friend and don't want to come out alone  hold hands with whomever is closest when the power goes out  when the sirens come near when the moving of men marches silences into the corner  hold hands when they come calling,  when they threaten,  "this is necessary to teach you a lesson" or "this is necessary  to protect you"  hold hands when we stand still, when we walk, when we run when they tell us to surrender  when they tell us to do anything  hold hands when we fall from the sky, with or without parachute when we leap from tall buildings, with or without the ability to fly  hold hands with the ones who don't look like us, talk like us, believe like us  hands like fragile boxes or bombs,  things that could break or explode  each finger a troop in the human army  each gesture a shield  -Gowri Koneswaran Used by permission. Gowri Koneswaran is a Sri Lankan Tamil American poet, singer and lawyer. Her advocacy has addressed animal welfare, the environment, and the rights of prisoners and the criminally accused. She was a Lannan Fellow of the Folger Shakespeare Library and a member of the 2010 DC Southern Fried Slam team, and has performed at Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Gowri’s poetry has appeared in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Bourgeon and Lantern Review. She leads poetry and communications workshops and hosts open mics at Busboys and Poets and BloomBars in Washington, DC, where she serves as poetry coordinator. She is also a poetry editor with Jaggery: A DesiLit Arts and Literature Journal. Gowri tweets on-the-spot haiku @gowricurry. 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.

Poem of the Week: Brian Fanelli

Photo by: Susan Jaffer

        

Political Soundtrack   

  

  

Every Sunday, I came dressed in punk rocker black,

checkered pants, steel-toed Docs.

No tie dye on me when I joined

the Chester County Peace Movement.

I lined up at the corner of High and Market,

still and silent, even when City Hall suits sneered hippies,

the Chester County Victory Movement chanted troop-haters,

the families in SUVs blared horns and shouted unpatriotic.

High-gel hair attorneys glared.

Some protestors stepped back and whispered,

Is he here to join us or blow up the courthouse?

But my combat boots hadn't marched on the sands of Iraq.

I was always the one to break up brawls,

mute my guitar if circle pits exploded into fights.

As protestors marched and sang

Dylan's prophetic "The Times They Are A Changin'"

and Lennon's piano-laced "Imagine,"

I heard the words of Joe Strummer:

You'll be dead when your war is won,

and Dead Kennedys' singer Jello Biafra:

There's easy money, easy jobs,

especially when you build the bombs

that blow big cities off the map.

I stood still even when pushed

by a Victory Movement thug jabbing

his finger in my chest and screaming,

You don't have the balls to fight in Iraq!

I plugged my ears with my I-pod and listened

to Henry Rollins roar over sloppy Black Flag chords:

Try to stop us. It's no use.

We're gonna rise above, rise above.

  

-Brian Fanelli

 

Used by permission.

Brian Fanelli resides in Pennsylvania and teaches creative writing at Keystone College. His poems have appeared in Boston Literary Magazine, Harpur Palate, The Portland Review, Solstice Literary Magazine, San Pedro River Review, Red Rock Review, and elsewhere. He is the author of one chapbook, Front Man, and his first full-length collection will be published in 2013 through Unbound Content. A contributing editor to Poets' Quarterly, Brian has an M.F.A. from Wilkes University and has done readings throughout the tri-state area.   

 

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.   

Poem of the Week: Rachel M. Simon

 

        

Postmark from the Transition  

  

  

the name altered from parent's choosing

the threshold of a home

white gloves on the windowsill

costumes of our drama

soup stock of animal and stone

thigh, syringe

non-ninety degree staircase

redistribution of fats

your mother's voice in the next room

orphaned pair of pants

disappearing ink dots

recollections of family hot fudge

rigid posture attempts

dude descending a staircase

handclasp, handshake, embrace

 

-Rachel M. Simon

Used by permission.

Rachel M. Simon is the author of the poetry collection Theory of Orange and the chapbook Marginal Road. She teaches writing and gender studies courses at Bedford Hills Maximum Security Correctional Facility, SUNY Purchase College, Pace University and various libraries. She's currently at work on a collection of sports poems. 

 

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. 

Celebrate Sarah Browning & Split This Rock on 12/15

Tis the Season...to Give!

Top 10 Reasons to Support Split This Rock

1. Split This Rock Poetry Festival is transformative—poetry by and for the 99%We put Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, and Rachel McKibbens, Women of the World Slam Champion, on the same stage, bringing together poets from across the spectrum—young and old, LGBT and straight, all races and ethnicities, all poetic styles. Affordable, accessible, inspiring, rich, and community building—this festival is a ‘must-attend’ event for ALL. – Maria  Luisa Arroyo


2. Split This Rock is revitalizing poetry as a living, breathing art form
We promote poetry that awakens us from our slumber and welcomes us to the table of creative democracy—poetry by America’s new voices, wild voices, essential voices. Our curated Poem-of-the-Week series brings this jagged, glad music to thousands across the country.

3. We’re helping DC youth raise their Brave New Voices
Split This Rock Teaching Artists work with students at the intersection of creative writing and social justice, reaching over 300 students through after-school poetry clubs, weekly writing workshops, and monthly open mics and poetry slams. This year the DC Youth Slam Team doubled the students we sent to the Brave New Voices International Poetry Slam Festival, finishing in the top 10 of over 50 teams!


4. Split This Rock weaves poetry into movements for social change
Our mantra, by Martín Espada, is: Let the blasphemy be spoken: poetry can save us. We publish poems in conjunction with Foreign Policy in Focus and the Institute for Policy Studies and present them during the Global Day of Action on Military Spending, the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award, the Abortion Care Network’s annual conference, Metro Teen AIDS programs, and more.


5. We build audiences for provocative, visionary poetry
What do Richard Blanco, Mahogany Browne, Tarfia Faizullah, Aracelis Girmay, Terrance Hayes, Brenda Hillman, and Patricia Smith have in common? They’ve all read at Sunday Kind of Love, Split This Rock’s monthly series, now celebrating its 7th year! Presented in partnership with DC’s premiere poetry venue, Busboys and Poets, Sunday Kind of Love is the most diverse reading series in the city—and perhaps in the country—showcasing poetry that tells the true stories of our time.

6. Split This Rock’s youth voices speak for justice!
Split This Rock’s Youth Programs are building partnerships around the city and around the world. The young poets speak out against police brutality, economic inequality, and homophobia. Their What Are You Afraid Of? Campaigns challenge their peers to identify and resist oppression, bridging divides between communities. Whether performing at the Kennedy Center or working with artists from Brazil, our students are raising their voices for justice and peace.

7. Split This Rock poets tell the true stories of our time
Hundreds of poets submit each year to our annual contest, judged by such luminaries as Naomi Shihab Nye, Patricia Smith, and Mark Doty. Their poems cut through the stultifying language of political propaganda to tell the complex stories of how we live today: how race and gender and history shape our identities; the enduring legacy of slavery and colonialism; the devastation of war and its aftermath; how we might save ourselves and our home, this earth.

8. We learn from one another every day
Workshops, discussions, roundtables—Split This Rock sponsors workshops on writing from the body, writing in response to photographs, writing in the voice of another. We discuss the poetry of our foremothers and fathers. We gird one another for the hard work of changing the world, one poem at a time.

9. Adrienne Rich did!
When our hero Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) sent a donation on the eve of Split This Rock’s 1st festival, she included this note: May this gathering inspire and affirm the spirit of many, especially younger poets and teachers, who have felt betrayed by… broken promises and opportunism. Thank you for your belief in the freeing power of language and action.

10. Because we are the ones we have been waiting for
2013 is the 5th anniversary of Split This Rock. Who would have imagined we’d come this far in such a short time? Split This Rock has grown and developed because you were hungry for it: a platform for poetry of provocation and witness, a home for the vital poets who write and perform this indispensable work. Please join us in building this strong, vibrant home. When we split this rock, we hope you'll stand by our side!

Donate online at SplitThisRock.org/donate or send a check to:

Split This Rock
1112 16th Street, NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036

Your gift is fully tax-deductible. Thank you!

Split This Rock | info@splitthisrock.org | 202.787.5210 | www.SplitThisRock.org