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~An Ode to Hugh Hefner on the Day of His Departure
Where the hell were the grown-ups
that blissful afternoon
when Geoff and I unburied
that stack of Playboys
in a Canadian closet?
We spent that balmy midday
draped over twin beds, hunkered
down to learn what adults had
refused to tell us
from those glossy pages –
the airbrushed women,
the naughty cartoons,
the articles that everyone
claimed to read.
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for Martin Espada and the other 1% on July 4, 2017
I read somewhere, long ago,
That in an orbit of the sun, four seasons,
Past birthdays, holidays, and one-quarter
Of an election cycle,
99% of Americans fail
To buy books of poetry. Yet,
We wonder what’s gone wrong with this country.
In 2006 then Senator John Kerry made a comment that was insulting to our military. While addressing students at Pasadena City College, he stated, “You study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” (Hillary Clinton Joins Criticism) I was so upset by the underlying, negative assumptions Kerry’s statement made about those who serve in the military, that I quickly came home and removed my “Kerry 2004” bumper sticker from my car. Those who know me, know that this is no small gesture for a woman who still has her “OBAMA 2008” sticker proudly displayed on her station wagon.
Lately, however, it seems politicians have learned nothing from Kerry’s “botched joke.” Just last week, while trying to justify the cruel budget cuts suggested by the White House, politicians were throwing insulting assumptions all over the place. The budget director explained, “When you start looking at places that we reduce spending, one of the questions we asked was can we really continue to ask a coal miner in West Virginia or a single mom in Detroit to pay for these programs? The answer was no. We can ask them to pay for defense, and we will, but we can’t ask them to continue to pay for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.” (Single Mothers Shouldn’t Have to Pay) The National Endowment for the Arts was also included in that assumption.
I am here to take offense at that assumption. I was a single mother for the first five years of my son’s life. During that time, although cash was quite limited for us, we visited art museums, I enrolled my son in arts programs. Both of my children are artists. They’ve taken music lessons and sculpting. My son took VLACS Economics, so that he could take Advanced Art and still graduate high school on time. Both my son and daughter intend to go to film school. I am a poet and a writer. I’m writing this now and I wrote a poem this morning.
Art is an integral part of our lives and just because we were poor for a while didn’t mean that we forgot about the importance of art to the human experience.
Today, the National Endowment for the Arts is more important than ever. Six giant corporations are the gate keepers for publishing most of our music, films and literature. They also control what and who gets promoted. The current climate in the United States is not one where someone who is an artist can easily make a livable wage doing such. The NEA offers grants and programs that allow artists to flourish. They offer schools the opportunity to pay artists to bring their experience into schools. They help to fund educational programs like Poetry Out Loud.
I don’t know of any mother, single or otherwise, who wants her children to grow up in a culture that doesn’t value art and artists. I am offended that any politician would suggest such a thing. I vote for my tax dollars to go to artists and to PBS and to Meals on Wheels, before a single dime of it builds a bomb. No matter what those who currently hold power may tell me to be scared of, I am much more afraid of living in a world that doesn’t value art and artists than I am of the terrorists they constantly tell me to fear.
And, while we’re on the topic of insulting and down right ignorant assumptions, what parent, single mom or coal-miner, hasn’t relied on Big Bird? As my students often say, “When you assume, it makes an ass out of you and me.” Maybe we should have an artist design a bumper sticker with that phrase on it.
a Valentine’s Day poem for Ruth Coker Burks
Flowers photographed
And posted on Instagram;
A selfie with
Heart-shaped hands.
Write love on your arms
To remember. She
Buried the young men,
Skeletons of their former
lives with love and sex
Dinner parties and
Dancing parades-
When their families
Would not face
Who the boys they’d
Raised were. She was
More than a marble
Spectre in Arkansas.
No real nurse’s training,
Just what she’d watched
From a vinyl, hospital
Chair. But she knew
How to take that
And mop a forehead
Or change a bed pan.
How to use her own
Savings at the crematorium
And to find cracked cookie jars.
How to transform a plot bought
Out of spite
Into the grave for 43
Dead men, abandoned
by judgement and health.
Hull of old memories,
Bebop and slow dances,
Soda-shoppe sundaes
After school, you-
DJ’d them all
With a quarter request
And the push of some buttons.
Records dropped
45 rpm and the long arm
Lowered itself onto each
Groove like a gentle
Lover. Scratching
Melancholy moods
And soft air.
Where your records are now
Melted ashtrays, ornaments
Hanging on diner walls, and
Skeet targets,
Digital music – so pure
And perfect, convenient –
Will never be
As romantic as
Standing arm
And arm above
The Wurlitzer choosing
Our favorite song.
~June 7, 2016 – Poem almost every day
Image credit: AP NEWS.MIC Senate Republicans voted to silence Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) Tuesday night after she read a letter Coretta Scott King wrote in 1986 disavowing U.S. attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions, who, at the time, was being considered for a federal judge position. Warren read the letter on the Senate floor during debates over President […]
via People are turning “Nevertheless, she persisted” into a feminist rallying cry — The Fifth Column
Great film + Obama’s legacy = love.
“Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins (photo via Variety.com)
article by Kristopher Tabley viaVariety.com
In celebration of Black History Month, Barry Jenkins’ Oscar-nominated film “Moonlight” is partnering with My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, a mentoring program initiated by President Barack Obama’s Administration. The organization focuses on empowering young men of color with the resources and support they need in order to achieve their full potential, regardless of circumstance.
The series kicked off Monday night with a screening in Los Angeles, attended by dozens of young men from local schools. Following the screening, Mike Muse of My Brother’s Keeper moderated a talk-back session with the students and the film’s Oscar-nominated talent: Jenkins, stars Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris, and writer Tarell Alvin McCraney. Another screening is set for New York next week.
To read more, go to: ‘Moonlight’ Partners With Barack Obama’s Mentoring Initiative | Variety
Alaska Airlines Flight Attendant and Hero Sheila Fedrick (photo via clutchmagonline.com)
article via clutchmagonline.com
Sheila Fedrick by all accounts should be considered a hero.
Fedrick, 49, a flight attendant working for Alaska Airlines, said she noticed a disheveled girl who looked to be 14-15 years old, with a well-dressed man, and something told her the scenario was wrong. So she jumped to action. Fedrick said she tried to talk to them, but the man became angry and rude.
“I left a note in one of the bathrooms,” Fedrick said. “She wrote back on the note and said ‘I need help.’” Fedrick says she called the pilot and told him about the passengers. When the plane landed, police were waiting in the terminal. Fedrick was correct, the girl was a victim of sex trafficking, and now more flight attendants are being trained on how to spot them.
Nancy Rivard…
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