My Open Minds students are writing poems this week that bridge our units on spaces and on biographies. We met Tuesday to talk read some works that do a great job of questioning how physical context reframes the people who inhabit (even temporarily) those spaces, and vice versa.  My favorite examples, at least this week, came from Moja Kahf and d.a. levy. Our class had a great discussion of these poems, but moved very quickly into a discussion of Richmond history and urban planning. It’s possible, because that is all I ever talk about, that I bear some responsibility for this.  It reminded me how much of Richmond’s history can be seen from an aerial view of the city’s data.  —- Bloch, Matthew, Shan Carter, and Alan McLean. “Mapping the 2010 US Census.” Projects.nytimes.com. The New York Times. n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2011. 
Zoom Info
My Open Minds students are writing poems this week that bridge our units on spaces and on biographies. We met Tuesday to talk read some works that do a great job of questioning how physical context reframes the people who inhabit (even temporarily) those spaces, and vice versa.  My favorite examples, at least this week, came from Moja Kahf and d.a. levy. Our class had a great discussion of these poems, but moved very quickly into a discussion of Richmond history and urban planning. It’s possible, because that is all I ever talk about, that I bear some responsibility for this.  It reminded me how much of Richmond’s history can be seen from an aerial view of the city’s data.  —- Bloch, Matthew, Shan Carter, and Alan McLean. “Mapping the 2010 US Census.” Projects.nytimes.com. The New York Times. n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2011. 
Zoom Info
My Open Minds students are writing poems this week that bridge our units on spaces and on biographies. We met Tuesday to talk read some works that do a great job of questioning how physical context reframes the people who inhabit (even temporarily) those spaces, and vice versa.  My favorite examples, at least this week, came from Moja Kahf and d.a. levy. Our class had a great discussion of these poems, but moved very quickly into a discussion of Richmond history and urban planning. It’s possible, because that is all I ever talk about, that I bear some responsibility for this.  It reminded me how much of Richmond’s history can be seen from an aerial view of the city’s data.  —- Bloch, Matthew, Shan Carter, and Alan McLean. “Mapping the 2010 US Census.” Projects.nytimes.com. The New York Times. n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2011. 
Zoom Info

My Open Minds students are writing poems this week that bridge our units on spaces and on biographies. We met Tuesday to talk read some works that do a great job of questioning how physical context reframes the people who inhabit (even temporarily) those spaces, and vice versa. 

My favorite examples, at least this week, came from Moja Kahf and d.a. levy. Our class had a great discussion of these poems, but moved very quickly into a discussion of Richmond history and urban planning. It’s possible, because that is all I ever talk about, that I bear some responsibility for this. 

It reminded me how much of Richmond’s history can be seen from an aerial view of the city’s data. 

—-

Bloch, Matthew, Shan Carter, and Alan McLean. “Mapping the 2010 US Census.” Projects.nytimes.com. The New York Times. n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2011. 

I am officially recruiting for my summer class on prison writing!

English 391: Topics in Literature: Political Prisoners, Political Literature 

Summer Session: 5/21/13-7/11/13, MW 1:00-3:40pm

The course engages the most enduring dilemmas facing prisoners globally in 20th century; it will survey people whose lives are interrupted by incarceration as a result of political upheaval. Our course will question how they overcome the isolation and injustice in order to write and publish. We will explore what their writings can teach us about the individual’s relationship to the community once they have been ostracized from that group. Our readings may include selections from the works of Reinaldo Arenas, Leonard Peltier, Nawal El Saadawi, Jean Genet, Evgenia Ginzburg, Wole Soyinka, and Liu Xiaobo.

This course is a part of OPEN MINDS, a partnership between the Richmond City Sheriff’s Office and Virginia Commonwealth University offering dual enrollment classes held at the Richmond City Jail. Students must apply in writing to be considered for this course.

To apply: in 2 -3 paragraphs explain what you hope to learn from this course and what you hope to contribute. Send your application essay to Professor Reed at kreed@vcu.edu by Friday April 26 2013.

All OPEN MINDS students must pass a background check and comply with the rules and expectations outlined by the Richmond City Sheriff’s Office.  

See the program’s website for more details. Direct any questions about the program to Dr. Coogan at dcoogan@vcu.edu.

Richmond Passes "Ban the Box." This is huge!

“I have never had rights in my life,” said Kevin Hunter, 46, who said he was convicted of a felony when he was 18. “I have found myself resorting back to my old ways at times because I felt it was hopeless. … I’ve never gotten a job when I’ve checked the box.”

Many said they didn’t expect the measure to end the difficulty that convicted felons face finding employment and housing after release, but added that the city could set a powerful example.

Richmond did the right thing; I hope other businesses will follow their example. Conviction screening does not make workplaces safer or more reliable. Instead, it keeps people with prior offenses from starting over when they are qualified and willing to work.

People who find work are less likely to return to jail; they are able to make child support payments, to find housing, to pay court costs, to reinstate their licenses—in short, to become active and valuable community members. 

Thank you Richmond City Council!

In short, to say we are concerned with poverty is to say we are concerned with improving the quality of life of those amongst us whose lives are made more difficult, more deprived and more dangerous by a persistent lack of adequate material resources. Putting the matter this way is crucial, because it indicates a concern not just with the poor as statistics, but the poor as holistic human beings who need and deserve to be recognized as whole persons

The Mayor’s Anti-Poverty Commission Report

You too can stay up late reading the report, which is posted online here.

In which I use a national holiday to recruit for my favorite local causes.

It’s Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is observed by many as a day of service. On wikipedia, Dr. King appears on lists of both civil rights leaders and prominent Americans who were incarcerated. 

Honor Dr. King by targeting some of the issues surrounding incarceration in our community! Volunteer at Offender Aid and Restoration of Richmond, where we need tutors for a variety of classes: cooking and life skills, GED prep, computer use, you name it. Contact our volunteer coordinator, Sara Eddleton, at (804) 643-2746 or via email at volunteerservices@oarric.org . We also accept volunteers interested in working directly at the city jail leading classes or providing transitional support for people anticipating an upcoming release.

There are some ways to volunteer at the jail independent of OAR, but I’m still learning how this works. You can contact the chaplin or john Dooley, who coordinates the education program (contact the jail directly to speak with john). If you teach at VCU you can volunteer to teach a course through Open Minds. Info is at the website.

Read King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Take some time today to add your favorite overlooked civil rights leader to Wikipedia’s weirdly short list, which includes, for example, almost no leaders concerned with the rights of indigenous peoples. This list needs some serious revision if you’re so inclined.

GSEX: Generation Dream 2013 to Honor Dr. King’s Legacy January 25 and February 1

Via vcu-gsex:

The public is invited to join the Richmond Youth Peace Project in commemorating the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with our eighth annual Youth Educoncert, Generation Dream 2013.

Two shows are scheduled this year: The first will be held Friday, January 25, 7 p.m. at Richmond…

  • 10 Plays

There is just enough wind for our porch to sound like this today.

A message from the Richmond City Jail:

Poetry waits for no one. 

Our seminar on poetry is set to begin in late January, but john began hosting readings in the jail almost immediately after we agreed to the course. Today the men were kind  enough to let me sit in while they read. I was there three hours; there wasn’t an awkward silence to be had. 

The writers are incredible, the enthusiasm is higher than anything I’ve ever seen in a classroom, and “reading” is not an adequate word for their performances. And when I say enthusiasm is high, I mean the participants showed up with notebooks full of writing, and wrote poems in the margins throughout the reading, all while giving supportive comments to others as they read their own work. Then they read the poems they’d written in the margins. The men appear to be writing constantly and about everything.  I will write more on this soon.

If you read this site (about 100 of you these days), you know Poetry is one of the few periodicals I read consistently and on repeat. For years I’ve relied on Poetry as a connection to contemporary writing that is portable, accessible to students, and geographically unfettered. I left the jail this afternoon with the overwhelming sense that to see poetry as it is today, at its most immediate and innovative, one has to be willing to go local and to confront the ways we fetter the few bright clear young voices that exist in American letters. 

David Biespiel is wrong. Americans are reading. More than that: they are writing, and they have everything to say about their local and national landscapes. He simply doesn’t have access to them, and they don’t have access to means of publication. 

As a writer and reader I’m incredibly inspired. As a teacher, very intimidated. Our VCU students are going to show up the third week in January and have their asses handed to them on the page. I hope they’re ready.

What matters in History?

Here’s a quick summary of our posts inspired by the What Matters in History project. We’re posting this semester alongside our current unit on Richmond’s history and how we’re teaching local history and contemporary issues in our “Evolving Ideas” seminar this year. While we have a more coherent list of professional posts over at What Matters…, we split our writing on this unit between three blogs, so some collation is in order. Links below for details: 

Enjoy!

Scenes from a recession

On our morning walk my dog and I make our way down the slope of a highway bridge embankment. Two men sleep on the upper ridge of the abutment, in the narrow shelf between the bridge’s support structures and its ceiling. They are still wrapped in blankets and jackets and are having their first cigarette of the day. We exchange hellos and waves. “Welcome to our Lexus dealership,” the first man shouts, sweeping his arm in a grand arc encompassing the bridge, the city, and the river, “for we are rich.”