Causes to Celebrate: Poetry Coaltion and Inernational Women's Day

I am so excited to start off this week by highlighting not only environmental projects, but also to be celebrating International Women's Day.  And today I get to highlight a woman whose poem has inspired this year's Poetry Coalition AND their mission to explore the theme of Poetry and Environmental Justice.  This is a trifecta for me, as it includes three things that really embody this week's theme but also includes one of my true loves: poetry.

The poem is called "Map" and was written by Linda Hogan, an acclaimed poet and teacher.  She is also a member of the Chickasaw Nation, a Native American Indian tribe, and she's written several essays, books, and even wrote the script for a PBS documentary on American Indian religious freedom titled Everything Has a Spirit.  I'd definitely recommend checking out her Biography page on her website if you're interested in learning more about her.  On this International Women's Day I feel she is the prefect embodiment of what it means to be a woman here in America.  She is part of our cultural past, but also a thriving member of that cultural present.  She is striving to create a space for her people in this world while sharing with us the spirit of what it means to be a woman through her own perceptions and also through Chickasaw traditions.  It is a powerful legacy that lends a greater meaning to womanhood in the world, and I find myself bolstered by her love and her passion for her native culture and traditions that are a part of this nation's own history--something I am grateful she is striving to preserve for future generations.

Her poem, Map, was chosen as the inspiration for this year's Poetry Coalition theme of Poetry and Environmental Justice.

Map
by: Linda Hogan

This is the world
so vast and lonely
without end, with mountains
named for men
who brought hunger
from other lands,
and fear
of the thick, dark forest of trees
that held each other up,
knowing fire dreamed of swallowing them
and spoke an older tongue,
and the tongue of the nation of wolves
was the wind around them.
Even ice was not silent.
It cried its broken self
back to warmth.
But they called it
ice, wolf, forest of sticks,
as if words would make it something
they could hold in gloved hands,
open, plot a way
and follow.

This is the map of the forsaken world.
This is the world without end
where forests have been cut away from their trees.
These are the lines wolf could not pass over.
This is what I know from science:
that a grain of dust dwells at the center
of every flake of snow,
that ice can have its way with land,
that wolves live inside a circle
of their own beginning.
This is what I know from blood:
the first language is not our own.

There are names each thing has for itself,
and beneath us the other order already moves.
It is burning.
It is dreaming.
It is waking up.

Linda Hogan from her Biography page

Causes to Celebrate: Get Lit

I don't remember where I was or what I was doing that brought this organization to my attention, but I jotted down a note several days later intending to go back and take a look at it sometime last month.  That, of course, didn't happen.  But I was so intrigued by the idea of a youth poetry program that involved spoken word poems and offered a venue for learning about poetry that today I finally got a chance to settle down and take a look at Get Lit.

There were so many high points and then a few low points as I realized that the program is only offered here in Southern California, though the curriculum is available for purchase so that schools and teachers in other states can use it.  But what an amazing way to not only promote literacy, but also to teach invaluable skills while doing so.

Get Lit is a vehicle for enabling kids to find their own voice in the world.  The curriculum appears to offer students the chance to learn poetry and then also to perform it.  And it brings the spoken word of poems back into the classroom.  I remember one of my high school English teachers bringing in a record to play us some of Robert Frost's poems, and hearing them spoken aloud, rather than just reading them on the page, leant those words new life and new meanings to me.  Had I known then that there were opportunities to speak and perform poems back then, I imagine I might have done just that.

Thinking on that makes me wonder just how much we as parents, educators, and mentors can miss out on these kinds of programs and opportunities for kids.  I often wonder how teachers and school counselors manage to keep up with everything that's available out there.  I expect there are plenty of organizations out there that help with this, but if you're a  grades 4-12 drama, English, or arts teacher, or if you know someone who is, I hope you'll consider sending them this way.  

Now, from everything I'm seeing, this is not a cheap program, but I don't actually see the prices listed anywhere on their site or elsewhere.  I did check out their book on Amazon, however, and it was $11ish dollars just for the Kindle version.  So yeah, without some serious support from the school district, parents, or private donations, you're going to likely be unable to afford the school program on your own.

BUT, it does look like most of the youth programs they have available online don't cost anything for kids to join and be a part of; so, for those homeschooling their kids, this might be worth the time and effort of looking into to see if it's something worthwhile.

From every review that I've seen so far, there is no one who is dissatisfied with the program, and while I am skeptical of that (surely -someone- must have had a bad experience somewhere, right?) ...what I have seen and heard so far leads me to believe that Get Lit is the real deal.  Just looking through their current staff and board members, I find myself incredibly daunted by the sheer amount of creative talent working for the organization.

All the rest aside, though, this is something that I wish were everywhere and existed for every child.  The ability to meet with, read through, and talk about diverse ideas and cultural norms other than our own is so powerful, and the fact that this group exists to do not just that, but also to educate and inspire kids to read and find their own voices is phenomenal.

And that is why I chose to make them my first "Causes to Celebrate" post this month.  I hope you'll consider sharing this.

The video below is from their Facebook page, and I see it as a testament to their desire to inspire hope--not just in the lives of the children they teach, but also in the rest of us as we listen and see the vision and voices of future generations.

Day 7 -- Where I'd Rather Be

"He lay in the tall summer grass, gazing up at the sky.  He saw worlds there, in the sky.  Worlds of dragon fire, castles, and knights in shining armor...."

So as you may have noticed, I haven't written anything in the past few days.  That's because John and I were down visiting some of our friends who are about to move rather far away.  They wrote a book, by the by, and if you haven't had a chance to read it, I highly suggest checking it out.  You can find it here.

That said, today's challenge has actually given me a bit of trouble.  I've been thinking about it off and on for the past several days, and it hasn't gotten any easier thinking about it.  Part of the reason for that is that children's voices, when written by adults, tend to be a great deal more intelligent or insightful than they should be.  I have a harder time considering children's ideas and motives because, while I was once a child myself, there are a lot of things I have forgotten since then; also, I don't have any children in my life right now.  So, writing a child's voice is...more difficult than it may at first appear.

That is one of the few criticisms that John and I tend to consider when we're looking at children in other peoples' novels, namely because it's terribly obvious when children aren't quite as they should be.  Of course, writing about all of this makes me think I need a good dose of Roald Dahl, or perhaps some Dr. Seuss.

Today's prompt, however, leads me to believe that this young boy isn't five, six, or even seven, but somewhere in that awkward preteen stage--somewhere between 9 and 12 by my estimation.  It's that time in life that I sort of recall being more or less awkward.  You don't really know who you are; you're trying new things--a lot of which don't work.  There's a lot of jealousy, a lot of unkindness from other kids, and a lot of unconscious fear (which accounts for some of that meanness).  But there's also this self-centeredness that some people never really outgrow.  When you become a teen, there is a greater realization of the world around you--which causes its own host of problems; but 9-12 is that magical time when you can kind of--if you were like me--shut out the rest of the world and make it all about you.

I think, honestly, this is where a lot of writers get into trouble.  While children do have a sense of consequence for their actions, they don't really have a self-awareness that's related to the rest of the world around them.  They've only just started defining themselves by the other people and things around them, and that process becomes a nightmare right about the same time that hormones kick in--which is where I see our young dreamer from today's prompt.  Luckily, he's a boy; so, his hormonal changes aren't as drastic as it would be for a girl.  Still, this is definitely that point in life where girls are talking about bras (and making fun of other girls for not having them; oh, Ramona Quimby!--how you helped me survive my preteen years with your wisdom--though I did sort of read you before you were actually relevant to me;) boys and girls start relating to one another romantically (again, something I started really early;) and a child's sense of self begins to be explored in the sense of other kids' senses of themselves (sexuality, intellectual prowess (or lack thereof,) coordination (and lack thereof,) etc.)

So, ...now that I've gotten a basis for where to begin, do I write about a boy who is just realizing that he's gay?  Do I write a poem torn from a notebook page of youth?  Or do I poke at the bear of normalcy and see if it comes up dancing?  I'll admit, I'm excited about all three possibilities, but the first two are things I haven't seen much of at all in books--the first, obviously, because I grew up in a mostly heterosexual world.  It's only recently that fear and bigotry have started to give way to something resembling acceptance around the world, sadly.  BUT,...I don't think I can aptly portray that kind of childhood.  I have a lot of ideas and theories, but not having lived through that, or gone through that, I don't think I would do the mental psychology of that child justice.  I do hope, however, that gay, lesbian, transgender, (and all the other alternative ways of loving someone or being a human being) kids have their own Ramona Quimby one day--because, honestly, it's bad enough being different as a kid without having an imagined (if not real) hero to relate to.

So that leaves me with a poem--an interesting thought exercise, one I'm not sure I'm up to the task of doing well.  But let's see if we can find the poetic voice of our childhood boy....

Are We Shadows?

We Are

Shadows...

Draping the world in a formless gray
Of rain-cloud stories that promise
Storms--the cold and heat swirling
Until they collide, twisting the
Hearts and minds of the people

Into darkness.

She beckons:
"Come inside, and take a look,"
The drapes parting to show a glimpse
Of a hell that man has made
With lies--false words
That can never be taken back;
Apologies are too late.

And some speculate...

That they were spoken with intent--
Truth was known but overlooked
For greed, or thoughtless cruelty;
How could it not be known?--after all....
Believing the worst--choosing to fear--
It's easier than wading through
The arguments--trying to find

Common ground.

"It's complicated."
It always is; there's nothing simple
Any more; it's a web,
And the spider's waiting--
Just waiting until we become
So wrapped up in intricacies
That its work is done for it.
It only needs to tend to the broken threads.

And so... shadows--

The places we neglect,
The places we can no longer see
Because it's easier to shine the light
On ourselves--to become blind,
Willingly, so that we might seem

Beautiful

In our futile struggle.

-- Argentrose  May 9, 2014