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.

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.

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

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