There are two Open Minds events going on this Saturday if you’re free:

Floodwall at The Camel
 
Floodwall will be performing a free show at The Camel on Monday, June 17th with Houdan The Mystic, The Kindling Kind, and Mynah (Evan Hoffman). Come out and enjoy a collage of local sounds from post rock to indie acoustic to ambient electronic. See details on Facebook. 
 
This event will include Open Minds participants performing work they created during the program. 

Doors at 7PM, Show at 8PM.
 
———-
 

Poetry in Prison with WTJU

Open Minds collaborator Mark Strandquist will be hosting an event at The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative. As a part of the “Some Other Places We’ve Missed” exhibition at the Bridge, Poetry in Prison will create a direct feed between a local jail and the gallery.  During this time Prisoners and the audience will engage in discussion and the reading of poetry.  This will be simulcast with WTJU. Find out more at The BridgePAI. If you can’t make it, stream it live at WTJU.net!

At the Bridge Arts Initiative in Charlottesville, 1-2pm. 

"Some Other Places We’ve Missed" at the Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative

An ongoing photo project by Mark Strandquist is opening this weekend at Charlottesville’s The Bridge. For the project, titled “Some Other Places We’ve Missed,” Mark asked people who were incarcerated to write in response to the question, “If you had a window in your cell, what place from your past would it look out to?” Participants then received a photo of the site they described to hang in their cell.

This exhibition will pair the writings with the photos produced in response. The writing is very moving; the images are beautiful. 

The opening reception is June 7th (6-9pm), and there are ongoing events scheduled throughout June. I will be on hand Saturday, June 8th, in support of a prison letter writing workshop and a screening of Herman’s House. 

If you’re not available this weekend, on Saturday, June 15th, the exhibition will host “Poetry in Prison with WTJU:” 

As a part of the “Some Other Places We’ve Missed” exhibition at the Bridge, Poetry in Prison will create a direct feed between a local jail and the gallery.  During this time Prisoners and the audience will engage in discussion and the reading of poetry.  This will be simulcast with WTJU. 

I won’t be around for the broadcast on the 15th, but I will be listening in from Ohio. A recording will be posted online for later streaming.

Hope to see you there!

The Brooklyn Bridge opened for use 130 years ago today.  Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars, Beading thy path—condense eternity: And we have seen night lifted in thine arms. Under thy shadow by the piers I waited; Only in darkness is thy shadow clear. The City’s fiery parcels all undone, Already snow submerges an iron year … O Sleepless as the river under thee, Vaulting the sea, the prairies’ dreaming sod, Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend And of the curveship lend a myth to God. —— Image: “Plan of One Tower for the East River Bridge, 1867,“ National Archives, ARC ID 594709. Date: 1867. Crane, Hart. “To Brooklyn Bridge” from The Bridge, Black Sun Press, 1930. Available online at poets.org.
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The Brooklyn Bridge opened for use 130 years ago today. 

Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift
Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars,
Beading thy path—condense eternity:
And we have seen night lifted in thine arms.

Under thy shadow by the piers I waited;
Only in darkness is thy shadow clear.
The City’s fiery parcels all undone,
Already snow submerges an iron year …

O Sleepless as the river under thee,
Vaulting the sea, the prairies’ dreaming sod,
Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend
And of the curveship lend a myth to God.

——

Image: “Plan of One Tower for the East River Bridge, 1867,“ National Archives, ARC ID 594709. Date: 1867.

Crane, Hart. “To Brooklyn Bridge” from The Bridge, Black Sun Press, 1930. Available online at poets.org.

VCU and RVA: Things to do tomorrow Night

Contribute a Square to the Year of Freedom Commemorative Quilt

VCU’s Year of Freedom Celebration, marking the 150th anniversary of Emancipation and the Civil War (http://www.yearoffreedom.vcu.edu/), has been sponsoring the creation of a North Star Freedom Quilt.

Students can come make their own quilt squares on Friday April 12 8pm-11:30 pm in the VCU Student Commons, Virginia rooms A-D. 

Supplies will be provided, although students should feel free to bring fabric (old t-shirts, etc) to personalize their squares. No knowledge of sewing or quilting is needed.

Refreshments will be provided. 

co-sponsored by Student Activities and the YoF Committee

Join ROOTS and ASPiRE for a Poetry Reading

Members of ROOTS (Reinventing Ourselves Outside the System), a re-entry program born out of the Richmond City Jail, and a seminar through VCU’s ASPiRE program will be reading poetry written during their shared seminar this year at VCU. Join us:

Friday, April 12th, between 5 and 7pm, in the fireside lounge of the ASPiRE building, 835 W. Grace Street, at the corner of Grace and Laurel. 

A Message from Dave Coogan: For the past few months, I’ve had the great privilege to sit and write poetry with some inspiring people who once sat in jail but now sit with us on campus alongside more inspiring people, fellow seekers, the students of ASPiRE, the whole group of us writing toward a shared understanding of our lives and life.  And now, as our community studies seminar, the writing workshop between VCU students and members of the nonprofit, ROOTS (Reinventing Ourselves Outside the System) comes to a close, we’d like to offer up a little of what we came to know and to feel together; what we could only discover together as writers.  Join ROOTS and ASPiRE for the reading! Here are the details:   Friday, April 12th, between 5 and 7pm, in the fireside lounge of the ASPiRE building, 835 W. Grace Street, at the corner of Grace and Laurel.  The poetry starts at 5, the Texas BBQ at 6.
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A Message from Dave Coogan:

For the past few months, I’ve had the great privilege to sit and write poetry with some inspiring people who once sat in jail but now sit with us on campus alongside more inspiring people, fellow seekers, the students of ASPiRE, the whole group of us writing toward a shared understanding of our lives and life.  And now, as our community studies seminar, the writing workshop between VCU students and members of the nonprofit, ROOTS (Reinventing Ourselves Outside the System) comes to a close, we’d like to offer up a little of what we came to know and to feel together; what we could only discover together as writers. 

Join ROOTS and ASPiRE for the reading! Here are the details:  

Friday, April 12th, between 5 and 7pm, in the fireside lounge of the ASPiRE building, 835 W. Grace Street, at the corner of Grace and Laurel. 

The poetry starts at 5, the Texas BBQ at 6.

Why have I been reblogging so much Soviet paraphernalia? Because I am still reading Ian Frazier’s Travels in Siberia, which I absolutely love.

I feel guilty, because it’s National Poetry Month, and my field of study is poetry, and I should be blogging poetry (which I am, actually, but over at OAR). In lieu of a great post on poetry today, here is a passage from Frazier’s book:

Telling us again that her name was Galina, she pointed down the hill to where she said she lived in her own izba (cabin) with a small black dog and a milk cow. She asked us if we liked poetry. She wrote poetry herself, she said; now we would hear her read her poems. The next we knew we had been walked from the church down to her cabi, which was a tiny, rustic affair with grass growing on the roof and a door frame barely taller than she was…Galina began to declaim her poems after first announcing to us the quality of each one. Some she described as “very good,” some as merely “good.” The sonorousness of her reading reverberated pleasantly in the little open-air roofed shelter where we were sitting, but the poetry’s style was antique and I couldn’t understand a word. After each poem she nodded her head appreciatively while we smiled and murmured praise. 

and here is the poem by Blok that it brings to mind:

Девушка пела в церковном хоре
О всех усталых в чужом краю,
О всех кораблях, ушедших в море,
О всех, забывших радость свою.

Так пел её голос, летящий в купол,
И луч сиял на белом плече,
И каждый из мрака смотрел и слушал,
Как белое платье пело в луче.

И всем казалось, что радость будет,
Что в тихой заводи все корабли,
Что на чужбине усталые люди
Светлую жизнь себе обрели.

И голос был сладок, и луч был тонок,
И только высоко, у Царских Врат,
Причастный Тайнам,- плакал ребенок
О том, что никто не придет назад.

It is the first poem I memorized in Russian. More poetry posts soon, once I catch up from my conference weekend.