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.

A 9/11 Commemoration in Collaboration with Studio Gallery

Art, Poetry, Music

A 9/11 Commemoration

in Collaboration with

Studio Gallery

Sunday, September 11

4-6pm

Studio Gallery

2108 R Street, NW

Washington, DC

202-232-8734

Dupont Circle Metro

Artists everywhere have been moved to create work in response to the events of 9/11, both immediately afterwards and over the past 10 years.

By bringing together past and present work, we hope to illuminate ways in which art can help us to process catastrophe and its aftermath. The participating artists have been asked to reflect on their work in this regard, and their observations and insights will be included in the exhibition.

Join Split This Rock and the Studio Gallery for a reception featuring poets Gowri K, Holly Karapetkova, and Gregory Pardlo, artwork by Studio Gallery members, music, and more.

The Poets:

Gowri K is a poet, singer, and lawyer whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Sri Lanka. She has been a featured poet at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Campus Progress's Protest Through Poetry, Busboys and Poets, and Sulu DC and her poetry has appeared in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Bourgeon, and Lantern Review. She was a member of the 2010 DC Southern Fried Slam team and serves as the program director at BloomBars community arts space, where she hosts Poetry in the Morning and Poet-Tree in Bloom.

Holly Karapetkova's poems, essays, and translations from the Bulgarian have appeared in Mid-American Review, Waccamaw, 32 Poems, and many other places. Her first book, Words We Might One Day Say, is from Washington Writers' Publishing House. She lives in Arlington, VA, and teaches at Marymount University.

Gregory Pardlo is the author of Totem (APR 2007). He is recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and a translation grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has received other fellowships from the New York Times, the MacDowell Colony, and the Lotos Club Foundation. He teaches at George Washington University.

For more info:

http://www.studiogallerydc.com/current.shtml