Help Split This Rock Bring Poetry to the Capitol

Poetry In The Streets: Torn Between Bitterness and Hope, Poets Bring Inspiration
to Our Nation's Lawmakers

All are welcome!

The United States has now spent $1 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, our public schools and universities are facing massive cuts, millions of Americans are without health care, the earth is desperate for loving
attention. Clearly, our lawmakers need the poets to tell them how to spend the next $1 trillion.

Bring your vision for the country and the planet to the Capitol!

When: Thursday, March 11
4:30 - 6pm
Where: Upper Senate Park,
U.S. Capitol Grounds

Click here for a map.

We will create and read aloud a collaborative Cento poem at Upper Senate Park. Please bring a line from a poem (up to 12 words), by you or by someone else, that articulates your vision of a dramatic reordering of our nation's priorities. Write or type your line on a piece of paper. Include the name of the poet, your name (if different), and your home town.

Feel free to bring signs, but no poles bigger than ¾" around and no signs offering anything for sale.

The Cento will begin with these lines sent to us by Adrienne Rich, from "An Atlas of the Difficult World":

I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn between bitterness and hope
turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse ...

How to Get There

We will meet at Upper Senate Park on the U.S. Capitol Grounds, near Union Station, on Metro's Red line (or Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter on the Green/Yellow lines).

The #96 bus leaves from the northwest corner of U and 14th Street NW near the festival workshop and panel sites and goes right to the park, stopping at the corner of D Street NW and Louisiana Avenue NW.

Split This Rock in Street Sense

The following is an excerpt from an article by Sonja Doty in Street Sense newspaper. The full article can be found here.
On March 12, writers and contributors from Miriam’s Studio will present the case for poetry workshops building community at the Split This Rock Poetry Festival. From March 10 to 13, the festival will ask that people consider the benefits of poetry.

“People have been dehumanized in some profound ways that affect daily functioning,” said Kate Baasch, art therapist at Miriam’s Kitchen. “The studio is a safe place to be.”

The Studio, an art outreach program of Miriam’s Kitchen, has had a writing program for over 15 years. Originally called the After-Breakfast Program, the name changed on January 18 with the addition of the Evening Program.

Split This Rock Poetry Festival was first introduced in 2008, as a way of celebrating poetry used for social change, according to Sarah Browning, co-director of the festival.

“We wanted to praise these unsung heroes who are restoring vitality to our language,” she said.

Poem-of-the-Week: Jeffrey McDaniel

Air Empathy

On the red-eye from Seattle, a two-year-old

in the seat behind me screeches

his miniature guts out. Instead of dreaming

of stuffing a wad of duct tape into his mouth,

I envy him, how he lets his pain spurt

into the open. I wish I could drill

a pipeline into the fields of ache, tap

a howl. How long would I need to sob

before the lady beside me dropped

her fashion rag, dipped a palm

into the puddle of me? How many

whimpers before another passenger

joined in? Soon the stewardess

hunched over the drink cart, the pilot

gushing into the controls, the entire plane:

an arrow of grief quivering through the sky.

-Jeffrey McDaniel

from The Endarkenment (University of Pittsburgh Press 2008). Used by permission.

Jeffrey McDaniel is the author of four books of poetry, most recently The Endarkenment (University of Pittsburgh Press). His work has appeared in dozens of journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry 1994, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. He has won several awards, including an NEA Fellowship. He teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Jeffrey lived and wrote in Washington DC throughout the 1990s, working for DC WritersCorps and co-hosting a mainstage poetry series at the Black Cat called Blabbermouth Night. He studied at George Mason University, where he edited Phoebe and was active in Poetry Theater. He represented DC at the National Poetry Slam from 1993 to 1995.
….

McDaniel will be featured at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness, March 10-13, 2010 in Washington, DC. The festival will present readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programming, film, activism—four days of creative transformation as we 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. For more information: info@splitthisrock.org.

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

Help Promote Split This Rock at These Upcoming Events!

Wednesday March 3
R. St Speaks Open Mic! 6pm, Duke Ellington School of the Arts, 3500 R St. NW. Hosted by Maimouna Youssef, featuring Allantra Lewis. $5 general admission. $3 students.

Reckoning with Torture: Memos and Testimonies from the "War On Terror", 7pm, Georgetown Law Center's Hart Auditorium, 600 New Jersey Ave. NW
Members of Congress, artists, writers, and others read from recently declassified documents in a public event to call attention to the abuse and torture of detainees in U.S. custody. ADMISSION FREE. www.pen.org

Open Mic Poetry! @ Busboys & Poets (5th & K St.) 9pm, 1025 5th St. NW.

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Monday March 8
GPI Open Mic: Featuring a GPI Reprise, 7-9pm,
2463 18th St. NW - With some of your favorite seasoned vets! Bring out your tributes to Howard Zinn, your musings on war, the over-saturation of star-based media (think Tiger Woods)...

Poetry Out Loud Finals - NEA's POETRY OUT LOUD -State Recitation Contest -
Come to Gala Hispanic Theater to cheer on DC students as they perform to compete in the NEA's Poetry Out Loud finals. One student will be chosen to represent DC on the national stage .
Monday | March 8, 2010 | 5:30pm
Gala Hispanic Theatre at Tivoli Square
1333 14st., NW, Washington, DC 20010
RSVP by March 3, 2010
For more information, Contact Ebony dot blanks at dc dot gov

Dancing to the New Music: Upcoming Article in The Nation

The following is an excerpt of an upcoming article by E. Ethelbert Miller in The Nation. The full preview of the article, which will appear in the March 15 edition, is available here.

The first Split This Rock Poetry Festival was held in 2008. I was a participant, along with poets like Martín Espada and Naomi Shihab Nye. I consider us to be believers in the expression of speaking truth to power. On the last day of the festival a number of writers walked down to the White House to protest the war in Iraq. I'm certain that poets visiting Washington in March will have something to say about the foreign policy of the Obama administration and the war in Afghanistan. Our poems--and yes, our chants--always seem to be on call. Once again, our New Year's resolutions contained prayers for peace. The year 2010 represents not just the start of a new year but also the beginning of a new decade. Might it be a prelude to the "terrible teens" of this century? If so, what might poets and writers be doing? What do the times demand?

Reckoning With Torture

Photo of the Week: Naomi Shihab Nye

This new feature will highlight a different photo each week from the 2008 festival. For more photos from the last festival, check out Split This Rock's Flickr.



Featured Poet Naomi Shihab Nye reads at the 2008 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.

Photo Credit: Jill Brazel