Poetry Conference

I attended the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets’ spring conference for the first time. An organization begun in the 1950′s by a very dedicated group of poets.

We honored a member with a lifetime membership (she’d been a member for 41 years!) — Fran, a scrappy, floss-haired dame who kept shouting “Keep it moving” during Open Mic.

We heard from special guest B.J. Best (great name!) who seriously looked like a nerdy kid but in actual fact is a very talented poet AND a Professor of English at my alma mater (go figure).

His most recent book of poetry is BUT OUR PRINCESS IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE, a book of prose poems inspired by video games. Here’s one everyone might recognize:

* * *

PAC-MAN

At five, I wanted to believe in ghosts.

A man who had lived in my room, my parents told me, was caught in a storm on the lake, hair now standing shocked for eternity. But Wisconsin summers when the thunder marched in, hushing the thrum of crickets, the lightning was ridiculous as a flashbulb, like the moon throwing a surprise party, but too dumb to know when to stop yelling <em>Surprise</em>.

Then this game, ghosts adorable as orphans, raveling clothes and blue eyes lolling around their big heads. Stammering through blank alleys at night.

O Inky, Pinky, Blinky, and Clyde: Who is God? What is death? Where is Wisconsin? Are you my mother?

A farm was a mile away by bike, corn and cows. I wanted to keep touching that electric fence.

* * *

And the new Poet Laureate of Wisconsin debuted, Max Garland, a former mail carrier.

You can read more about him and experience some of his poems here: http://www.wisconsinacademy.org/content/current-poet-laureate

All reaffirming to me that I need to get out there more… Poetry lives!

Un. Real.

Yesterday my boss (male) sauntered into my office. He said he was taking the three other sales managers (male) to lunch. He wanted me (female) to know that I was certainly invited, but they were just going to talk about sports.

“Way to sell it,” I said reflexively.

After my boss left for lunch, Tom, a salesperson in the next cube, said he thought he was watching an episode of Mad Men.

March Madness Goosebumps

Basketball team manager gets his big shot

Fearless Girls

Ask for a picture of your daughter at a dance, and this is what you get!

Love our fearless girls!

I truly believe they will propel us forward.

Worth all the pack-mule grunt work.

Beautiful Human Being

If you didn’t already love Maurice Sendak, this interview will charm the pants off you.

Inaugural Poem

It seemed everybody held their collective breath while Richard Blanco read his inaugural poem on President’s Day, January 21.

An arresting, accessible poem, here it is in full:

One Today

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors,
each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—
bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,
on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—
to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did
for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:
equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,
the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,
or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light
breathing color into stained glass windows,
life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth
onto the steps of our museums and park benches
as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk
of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat
and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills
in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands
digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands
as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains
mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it
through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs,
buses launching down avenues, the symphony
of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,
the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,
or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,
buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días
in the language my mother taught me—in every language
spoken into one wind carrying our lives
without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed
their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked
their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:
weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report
for the boss on time, stitching another wound
or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,
or the last floor on the Freedom Tower
jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guessing at the weather
of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love
that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother
who knew how to give, or forgiving a father
who couldn’t give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country—all of us—
facing the stars
hope—a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it—together.

– Richard Blanco

Girrl

I love love love the fact that broadsides are coming back in vogue. I have purchased a few so far at poetry readings.

And I love love love this poem. (I’ll try & figure out a way to share the whole broadside… hoping the scanner at work will accommodate.)

Girrl

find one thing to love
inside yourself
carry it like a gun
in guerrilla hands
and when government
defeats you, mountains fall
lovers leave, and the words
of women before come
crashing to the ground
hold this love between
your hands, sing its name
like the alphabet
and shoot woman. Shoot.

Raw

 

 

Exploring a raw diet.

What is RAW?

Raw food is, generally speaking, food that has not been heated above 48 degrees centigrade (117 degrees Fahrenheit). This usually means uncooked foods, or, more specifically, foods in their natural state – nothing more, nothing less.

Why RAW?
50 Reasons to Go Raw

1 “To have unlimited energy”
2 “To reach my natural weight”
3 “To support farmers”
4 “To conserve enzymes”
5 “To rejuvenate/reverse signs of aging”
6 “To detoxify my body naturally”
7 “To re-create a clean shiny new me!”
8 “To strengthen my immune system”
9 “To dramatically reduce my chance of disease”
10 “To extend my life span”
11 “To function at my peak”
12 “To balance my body’s temperature,
regardless of external conditions”
13 “To have eyes that sparkle”
14 “To have clear skin”
15 “To have young-looking skin”
16 “To have shiny, glossy hair”
17 “To improve my eyesight”
18 “Because the food is delicious”
19 “I discovered the durian!”
20 “I like to eat truly natural food”
21 “I want to explore a world of taste I never
knew existed before”
22 “I love fruit!”
23 “I love the beautiful colours of raw food”
24 “I want to learn how to become hungry properly”
25 “Because it will help me grow as a person as
well as better my health”
26 “To increase my clarity”
27 “To improve my memory”
28 “To have sharper concentration”
29 “To raise my vibration”
30 “For spiritual expansion”
31 “To become more vibrant”
32 “To create a sense of balance”
33 “To reawaken my intuition”
34 “I want to use raw eating as a tool to help
me release negative emotions and blocks”
35 “I’ve only been raw for a short while but for
me it’s the biggest high ever!”
36 “I want to reduce my food bills”
37 “I want to break my emotional attachments
to foods”
38 “I want to get back in touch with my body
and myself”
39 “I want to become more calm and collected”
40 “It’s environmentally friendly”
41 “I’m a vegetarian and this is the next step”
42 “I want to use less fossil fuel”
43 “I want those insights people talk about”
44 “Meal preparation is so easy”
45 “It saves time”
46 “I want to meet like-minded people”
47 “To lower my fuel bills!”
48 “It’s an exciting adventure”
49 “It will help me achieve my potential”
50 “Because I love myself”

Copyright © 2010 Karen Knowler. All Rights Reserved | http://www.TheRawFoodCoach.com

Book Club: The Book Thief

Yeah for book clubs. Joined a new one which met tonight to talk about The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak.

A story told by a very overworked Death.

Replete with a stealing heroine (we love her for it), a chain-smoking foster father who teaches our heroine to read by writing words on a wall (literal? Well, yes) and Rudy, the German ideal, who wants to be running races and kissing our heroine.

What it had loads of? Humanity. The horrors of WWII and the persecution of the Jews told from the perspective of one lost, but compassion-hearted girl.

Good for Business

A refreshing take on business by a communications company GOOD FOR BUSINESS.

Essentially how you conduct yourself IN business can be your advocacy.

I especially liked their “Factivist” slideshow.

Read, raise your awareness & bring it to work!

(Click on example to go to slideshow.)