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"i carry your heart" by e.e. cummings

7/31/2011

Have you ever experienced or helped to create public art? Poetry on buses? Murals like the new one in Marshall on the wall outside Johnson's Paint and Wallpaper? Poetry read over the public address system in high schools?

That last idea was hatched by Billy Collins when he was U.S. Poet Laureate. He created "Poetry 180: a poem a day for American high schools." On the web site he explains, "Poetry 180 is designed to make it easy for students to hear or read a poem on each of the 180 days of the school year. I have selected the poems you will find here with high school students in mind. They are intended to be listened to, and I suggest that all members of the school community be included as readers. A great time for the readings would be following the end of daily announcements over the public address system."

Here's an excerpt from "Pinwheels of Memory," a story about public art in last Friday's Marshall Independent:

"Barb Hawes is a guerilla artist, and on Friday morning after weeks of careful preparation she led a guerilla raid on the green traffic island across from Liberty Park in Marshall. A group of seven local artists created 77 pinwheels using a variety of media, planted them in the grass, and chalked the text of the e.e. cummings poem "i carry your heart," on the sidewalk in front of it.

"Barb asked people to paint pinwheels and she set them out this morning," watercolor artist Jane Balch said. "She was waiting for a beautiful day."

And here's a Marshall Independent blog by Elaine Zarzana in response to the Pinwheel Project : "i carry your heart."

What do you think of guerilla art? Public art projects?

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Prayer for the Small Engine Repairman

7/30/2011

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When you live in Minnesota and own a home, you need a lawn mower, a snow blower and possibly a weed whacker. You also need a skilled small engine repairman to keep everything in good running order.

In Marshall, we're grateful to have Pete's Small Engine down on Highway 59. Here's a link to the poem of the day on The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor, "Prayer for the Small Engine Repairman." I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I'm heading out to our raspberry patch to pick the ripest of the juicy, ruby fruit. It's been a great summer for the berries, and it's been fun to share our bounty with friends.

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Zac Hammer Dances in Marshall: NYC Shines in Fly-over Country

7/22/2011

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Every summer the Southwest School of Dance in Marshall, Minnesota holds a week-long dance camp at Southwest Minnesota State University. Zac Hammer, one of our daughter's friends, took lessons at the dance school in town for five years, 10 to 15 years old, went on to study dance at Southern Methodist University, and now dances professionally in New York. Last winter he danced in the renowned Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular, and he'll do so again this year. For the past four summers he's returned to Marshall to teach at the dance camp. At the end of the week, the dancers present a showcase of dances, and the dance teachers each perform as well, always a treat, a bit of NYC right here in fly-over country. Tonight Zac performed a modern dance duo with one of the other teachers. The artistry and intensity were beyond amazing, one of those "out-of-Marshall" experiences.

Phil Dacey, poet and SMSU professor emeritus of English, who now lives in Manhattan, loves the art of dance and loves to write about it. While Jim and I were at a writing conference in NYC, we introduced Phil to Zac. Later Phil interviewed Zac and wrote the poem below (published in The Raintown Review, Dec. 2008), which he gave me permission to post here. He captures Zac's spirit and energy, and the form he chose makes the poem move like modern dance, creates great music. Enjoy!

I recently found a quote by Voltaire that encourages us to read and to dance, two of my favorite things: "Let us read and let us dance, two delights that will never do any harm to the world."

ZAC HAMMER

“A peanut butter bagel,” he orders. “Breakfast
for a dancer. Protein.” We’re midtown, 8th Avenue,
near where he’ll rehearse at noon. But first
his dancing’s all in words for this interview:

“I can eat like a pig, and drink like a fish--
water, that is; by the gallon jug in the studio.”
Outside the cafe window, the morning rush
does its own dance, a classic of color, noise, and flow.

“Ballet, modern, post-mod--I like it all.
But I’m at home with modern, how it gets down
on the ground, so much so even a crawl
can be part of it. That feels more human

“to me than ballet, which favors the vertical,
transcending the earth. But modern’s bare feet bring
us close to the source, the mother. Sole on soil.
My god is gravity; let it do its thing.

“Still, I remember my first ballet shoes.
I bought them at K-Mart in Marshall, Minnesota.
I thought they were beautiful. And they were. But I was
no aspirant to the world of Anna Pavlova--

“to my sister’s, yes. One day she’d come home from class
and shown off her developee. One leg held straight out
at right angles to the other, arms raised. The stress
made her tremble; I trembled in awe at the sight.

“I want to do that, I told my parents, who
weren’t surprised, given the shows--song and dance--
I mounted for them in their bedroom all through
childhood (I was now ten). My first audience!”

Pause for coffee, bagel, and fond thoughts.
Then a turn: “The smokers in dance are what I don’t like.
Whole corps de cigarettes, trashed lungs. I don’t get it.
The smell of sweat sure beats the smell of smoke.

“And there are the jobs one takes to make ends meet.
For many summers, I performed at Mary Kay
conventions. Once I was hired to impersonate
a dancing bottle of champagne--Veuve Clicquot!

“But the pleasures make the struggles all worthwhile.
You wouldn’t believe the endorphin rush. It’s addictive.
And to pursue the same line of work as Angel
Corella...Well, it’s not a bad way to live.

“Corella’s great because he combines the virile
and the tender, the muscular and the lightest of
touches. As to the dead, Nijinsky rules:
his Rite of Spring pissed everybody off.

“I’d love to dance it someday. To throw myself
percussively to the floor as the music pounds.
To hulk and make the most of the body’s heft.
Beauty’s not what’s pretty but what offends.”

That’s Whitman, too, I say. “Yes, he wore his hat
indoors or out, right? If I could dance in the role
of Walt, I’d portray him as both athletic and sweet.
Hey, a poetic version of Angel Corella!

“In fact, I’ve long believed the arts should serve
each other. What fun, and more, to blur the line
between arts! If I had two lives to live,
I’d live one as an art historian.”

A book about dance? “What influenced me most
was Zen in the Art of Archery. It taught
me to see that the dancer at his or her best
is all at once archer, arrow, bow, and target.”

The clock’s hands are doing their usual soft-shoe.
“Dancing with the David Parsons Company
has made going to work--what I’ve got to do
now--a pleasure. My one-year anniversary

with them is coming up soon. I’m riding a wave.”
Goodbyes, and then the wave and he are gone
down 8th Avenue--a stage where every move
he makes is spotlit by a midday sun.

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Telling Post-Storm Stories in Fly-over Country

7/6/2011

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Last Friday afternoon the town of Marshall and our surrounding region got hit with a devastating storm. When the sirens began wailing and the sky turned a nasty green, we headed for our basement with flashlights and candles. After the 80-mile/hour winds had passed, after the hail stopped beating on our house, and after the rain let up, we stumbled outside, amazed to see our neighbor's tall old elm tree pulled out by the roots and stretched on its side, totally blocking our street. Dazed, we wandered around talking to neighbors, all of us assessing the property damage, picking up chunks of hail the size of golf balls. Almost immediately, we all began cleaning up downed tree limbs, and buzz saws whined. (For disaster photos and storm stories, see www.marshallindependent.com)

Since then, the clean-up has been constant with pick-ups, dump trucks and large flat-bed trucks rumbling by stacked high with tree limbs on their way to the city compost site. The other constant activity? Storytelling. We ask each other the same questions. Where were you? How's your home? Did you lose any trees? Did you have any damage? And then the stories start. The retired doctor who was driving in his van when the storm hit and had to dodge falling trees. The honeymoon couple who returned to their farm to discover all the outbuildings along with the ducks, geese, chickens and cows had disappeared, only their farmhouse left standing. On and on.

In 1993 when Marshall was pounded by torrential rains and hail, the storm sewers were overwhelmed and many people had sewage back-up in their basements. As we were cleaning up from that storm, a writer friend gave me a copy of the wonderful novel Labrador by Kathryn Davis. This quote from a slice of dialogue stuck with me: "Luck and disaster are the same thing, and that thing is the gift of motion." It ended up on our fridge door, giving us a sense of hope as we sloshed around our basement in our Wellies. That storm brought loss to many, but it also gave us "the gift of motion" in countless ways.

What memorable storm stories, poems or essays do you tell? What storm stories have you found to be compelling reading? Storm stories have built-in tension, conflict, trouble, strong images, intense dialogue, colorful characters. And there's a sharply defined story arc, a "before-during-and-after" sequence. We may have survived, but we're changed, sometimes in ways we don't realize for quite a while.

Just as much as we need to clean up the tree limbs in our yards, we need to tell each other our storm stories, our stories of loss, of devastation, of mourning and letting go, of survival. It's an essential part of being human. One of my favorite storm poems is "How to Tell a Tornado" by Howard Mohr, former SMSU professor, (from his book with that same title,) which I post here with his permission (thanks, Howard!). The shape of this poem on the page, the vivid images, and the technique of treating a "hot" subject, such as a tornado, with understatement allow the reader to absorb the full impact of such an event.

HOW TO TELL A TORNADO

Listen for noises.
If you do not live
near railroad tracks,
the freight train you hear
is not the Northern Pacific
lost in the storm:
that is a tornado
doing imitations of itself.
One of its favorite sounds
is no sound.
After the high wind,
and before the freight train,
there is a pocket of nothing:
this is when you think
everything has stopped:
but do not be fooled.
Leave it all behind
except for a candle
and take to the cellar.
Afterwards
if straws are imbedded
in trees without leaves,
and your house--except
for the unbroken bathroom mirror--
has vanished without a trace,
and you are naked
except for the right leg of your pants,
you can safely assume
that a tornado
has gone through your life
without touching it.

(Published by Minnesota Public Radio, Inc.)

Howard Mohr wrote the must-read (especially if you live or travel in Minnesota) best-selling book How to Talk Minnesotan, which is approaching its 25th anniversary of publication by Penguin/Putnam, with another printing imminent. It was also turned into a wonderful musical with all original music, which was performed at SMSU and then up in the Twin Cities for a long time. We love to play the soundtrack on CD, and two of my favorite songs are "Hotdish Hallejuah" and "Minnesota Men."

Mohr also wrote the entertaining book A Minnesota Book of Days (And a Few Nights), which I highly recommend.

For the past month, I've enjoyed taking a sabbatical from the blog, traveling, gardening, biking and doing other summer activities, but it's good to be back posting on Fly-over Country. Thanks much to all of you who have visited the blog and emailed me your comments. I appreciate your feedback!

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"i carry your heart" by e.e. cummings

Prayer for the Small Engine Repairman

Zac Hammer Dances in Marshall: NYC Shines in Fly-over Country

Telling Post-Storm Stories in Fly-over Country

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"i carry your heart" by e.e. cummings

Prayer for the Small Engine Repairman

Zac Hammer Dances in Marshall: NYC Shines in Fly-over Country

Telling Post-Storm Stories in Fly-over Country

Author

Archives

BlogrollArts BeatA Year of Being HereBearded VeganBecky's BlogBetter World BooksBirth Breasts and BeyondCarrie EtterChristine Stewart-NunezDana YostHeroic Yes! ProductionsJames A. ZarzanaLanding on Cloudy WaterNicole HelgetNo Ideas But in ThingsStory GuruThe Marsco SagaWrite Right

Categories

Blogroll
Arts Beat
A Year of Being Here
Bearded Vegan
Becky's Blog
Better World Books
Birth Breasts and Beyond
Carrie Etter
Christine Stewart-Nunez
Dana Yost
Heroic Yes! Productions
James A. Zarzana
Landing on Cloudy Water
Nicole Helget
No Ideas But in Things
Story Guru
The Marsco Saga
Write Right