First International Festival of Poetry of Resistance In Honor of the Cuban Five

Poet Allison Hedge Coke ( a featured poet at Split This Rock's next festival) attended the International Festival of Poetry of Resistance in Toronto recently and sent us some photographs and insights.

For those who don't know, the Cuban Five are a group of artists who are imprisoned in the United States after being accused of and convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. More information about them can be found here. The intent of the festival was to celebrate resistance, to promote the end of the culture of war, and to promote an end to racism and discrimination. The festival's statement of principles and further information can be found here.

During the festival, many poets and musicians turned out in support of the Cuban Five.


Allison Hedge Coke tells us that the crowd was "absolutely mesmerized by poet and co-organizer Asoke Chakravarty on tabla and Anwar Khurshid on sitar. Anwar's hands moved so fast at one point, they were difficult to see.


Osaze Dolabaille played some Calypso and drummed as he read poetry.


Poet Carlos Angulo was one of many poets to read, including co-organizer Maria Elena, Allison Hedge Coke, Nancy Morejon, Pablo Armando Fernández, and many more.



Thomas Maracle, musician and flautist, Mohawk of the Six Nations Confederacy of Tyendenaga, played several songs on various (very beautiful) flutes.



Elizabeth Palmeiro, wife of Ramón Labañino, one of the Cuban Five was present. She spoke about her husband's imprisonment, about the four other families affected, and the two wives who were denied US visas to visit their husbands. The crowd cheered with support when she appeared on stage.


Dan Doreen, War Society of the Mohawk of the Six Nations Confederacy of Tyendenaga, gifted Elizabeth with a solidarity gift at Innis Hall, Innis College, U of Toronto, on Wednesday night for the 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.

We are inspired by this sister festival and grateful to Allison for her report and photos. Please keep the news of poetry and resistance coming.

Panel Proposal Deadline Extended to June 30

Dear Friends,

We've extended the deadline for proposals for panels, workshops, and sundry exciting festival events. Please spread the word - and send us your fabulous ideas. Thanks! The "Call" is below, for your convenience, with a link to the full guidelines.

- Split This Rock Team
**

Call for Proposals: Split This Rock Poetry Festival 2010

Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness invites poets, writers, activists, and all concerned citizens to Washington, DC, March 10-13, 2010 for four days of poetry, community building, and creative transformation as our country continues to grapple with two wars, a crippling economic crisis, and other social and environmental ills.

The festival will feature readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programming, film, activism -- opportunities to imagine a way forward, hone our community and activist skills, and celebrate the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for social change.We invite you to send proposals for panel discussions, group readings, roundtable discussions, workshops, and small-scale performances on a range of topics at the intersection of poetry and social change. Possibilities are endless. Challenge us.

NEW DEADLINE: June 30, 2009.

Details and guidelines are online at: www.splitthisrock.org/documents/2010_panel_proposals.doc

Discussion and community building are at the heart of Split This Rock. We value diversity, creativity, and new ideas. Check out last year's schedule for inspiration: www.splitthisrock.org/schedule.html.

Please join us!Help Split This Rock Spread the Word

Forward this email, post it on your blog, send a message to all your Facebook friends. We are a grassroots movement and need your help to reach a wide variety of poets and poetry lovers. Thanks!

Regie Cabico Video Profile by DC Commission on the Arts

The fabulous poet and Split This Rocker Regie Cabico profiled in the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities May 2009 Newsletter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbt744J30zk

Marion Kingston Stocking, 1922-2009

This is news from Lee Sharkey at Beloit Poetry Journal:

Marion Kingston Stocking, long-time editor of the Beloit Poetry Journal, died peacefully on May 12 after a four-month bout with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. During her 56-years with the BPJ, a tenure unequaled, we believe, in small-press literary publishing, Marion wrote 198 reviews and helped to shepherd 225 issues of the journal into existence.

Since the hole she leaves as editor, friend, engaged citizen, and mentor is too big to fill, we’ll have to carry her with us as we go about living fully and generously.

Call for Proposals: Panels, Roundtables, Workshops, and More

Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness invites poets, writers, activists, and all concerned citizens to Washington, DC, March 10-13, 2010 for four days of poetry, community building, and creative transformation as our country continues to grapple with two wars, a crippling economic crisis, and other social and environmental ills.

The festival will feature readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programming, film, activism -- opportunities to imagine a way forward, hone our community and activist skills, and celebrate the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for social change.

We invite you to send proposals for panel discussions, group readings, roundtable discussions, workshops, and small-scale performances on a range of topics at the intersection of poetry and social change. Possibilities are endless. Challenge us.

The deadline is May 30, 2009.Details and guidelines are online at: www.splitthisrock.org/documents/2010_panel_proposals.doc

Discussion and community building are at the heart of Split This Rock. We value diversity, creativity, and new ideas. Check out last year's schedule for inspiration: www.splitthisrock.org/schedule.html.

Please join us!

Help Split This Rock Spread the Word

Forward this email, post it on your blog, send a message to all your Facebook friends. We are a grassroots movement and need your help to reach a wide variety of poets and poetry lovers. Thanks!

Call for National Action for Peace in Afghanistan

From our friends with United for Peace & Justice
(Split This Rock and DC Poets Against the War are long-time members of this national coalition of peace and justice organizations.)

Today, President Barack Obama announced his plans to send another 21,000 troops to Afghanistan: he is girding the nation for a long and costly military occupation there.

While he also made some good statements on increasing diplomacy and economic aid to Afghanistan and Pakistan, the emphasis is clearly on military operations. Predictably, the Pakistan and Afghan factions of the Taliban are already uniting to oppose our escalation of troops. As the spring fighting season approaches, only one thing is certain -- more death, destruction, and misery in a desperately poor country that has had little respite from war for decades.

Here in the U.S., Obama's escalation in Afghanistan and the continuing occupation of Iraq threaten our nation's urgent economic and domestic agenda. Now is the time for more diplomacy, not more war!

United For Peace and Justice calls for immediate action for peace in Afghanistan. Here are three things you can do:

1) Call the White House today - 202-456-1414
Make sure President Obama knows that you disagree with his plans to send more troops to Afghanistan. Call the White House comment line at 202-456-1414 between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM ET.

2) March with UFPJ on April 4!
Building on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we are marching on the anniversary of his historic speech against the war in Vietnam and the anniversary of his assassination. On Saturday, April 4, we are taking our message to Wall Street in NYC: addressing this country's economic crisis must include drastic cuts in military spending and that means ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The last thing our country needs is a new quagmire in Afghanistan - it is time to bring the troops home, not send more.

3) Help organize local actions April 6 - 9
Congress will be in recess so this is a perfect time to meet with your representatives while they are home. Actions can also be community or media-focused -- vigils, rallies, public education forums with local speakers, film showings or other events to educate and mobilize support in your community. This is an important time to educate people about Afghanistan and the urgent need to change U.S. policy.

UFPJ calls for the following:

- A halt to the planned escalation of 21,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. We need to bring all our troops home now, not to send more into a country where military solutions have never worked.

- A strong commitment to diplomacy as the only solution to the conflict in Afghanistan. The U.S. must support negotiations already underway among various actors in Afghanistan, and must also engage all countries in the region with a stake in a peaceful Afghanistan. The announcement that Iran will join negotiations over Afghanistan is a positive development. We need to share more cups of tea for negotiating rather than more weapons where military solutions have never worked.*

- A dramatic shift from military spending by the U.S. to funding for Afghan-led humanitarian community development and reconstruction projects to enable Afghan communities to improve daily life for their own people. Our goal is to put an end to U.S. war funding.

Please let us know of the actions you are planning by posting them on the UFPJ calendar.

*The reference is to the work of Greg Mortenson as described in his New York Times #1 best-selling book, 'Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time', by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.

Help UFPJ continue to do this critical work: Make a donation to UFPJ today.

UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
www.unitedforpeace.org 212-868-5545PO Box 607; Times Square Station; New York, NY 10108

To subscribe, visit www.unitedforpeace.org/email

Happy Birthday, Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Ferlinghetti is 90 today!

Read a lovely tribute at the LA Times website: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/03/happy-90th-birt.html

Here's an excerpt to whet your appetite:

And he was also a poet, driven by a sense of both art and political engagement. "Besides molding an image of the poet in the world, he created a poetic form that is at once rhetorically functional and socially vital," the critic Larry Smith wrote. "His work exists as a vital challenge and a living presence to the contemporary artist, as an embodiment of the strong, anticool, compassionate commitment to life in an absurd time."