Susan Rich's Blog, page 59

Are You Interested in Brazil? In Hip-Hop? In Helping Two Young Women Filmmakers and Dancers?

One last call today for my favorite project of the moment "Believe the Beat" produced by Jocelyn Edelstein whom I had the pleasure to meet through the anthology Best Women's Travel Writing.

Jocelyn graduated from Western Washington University and was honored with a grant to go traveling somewhere in the world to pursue her dreams. Edelstein majored in Dance and so decided to head to Brazil. There she met young and creative hip-hop dancers whom were forming troupes and trying to dance themselves into a better life.

This documentary film showing off the dancers, of Brazil, and even of Croatia where one dancer ends up, needs to be made. Why not make a donation today in the name of hip-hop dancer you know? My donation was my chance to be part of the dance and the film worlds -- and I get invited to the after party when the movie premieres. You know that will be one wild dance party!


PS If you want to donate (you can even donate a $1) you need to do so by Sunday! The time is now.

The Gardenia - Thanks to Billie and Cornelius Eady

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The Gardenia
by Cornelius Eady

The trouble is, you can never take
That flower from Billie's hair.
She is always walking too fast
and try as we might,

there's no talking her into slowing.
Don't go down into that basement,
we'd like to scream. What will it take
to bargain her blues,

To retire that term when it comes
to her? But the grain and the cigarettes,
the narcs and the fancy-dressed boys,
the sediment in her throat.

That's the soil those petals spring from,
Like a fist, if a fist could sing.

Hurray for Occupoety - "American History"

Gees Bend Quilt - HouseToday I'm officially an Occupoet. The sight Occupoetry is run by folks at UC Davis and I'm really happy to have "American History" up today.

Here are the first few lines --



American History


Someday soon I'll be saying at school


there were chalkboards, at school
we read books made of paper, 


we drank milk from small cartons. We drew.
At school we liked children unlike us


studied evolution, enjoyed recess, plenty of food.


At school we made globes of papier-mache,
built solar systems democratized in sugar cubes.


click here to finish reading "American History" at the Occupoetry site ..

Happy Birthday William Blake! Visual artist, poet, thinker...

"Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow."
William Blake



And for just a little more information ...


William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language".[1] His visual artistry has led one contemporary art critic to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced".[2] Although he lived in London his entire life except for three years spent in Felpham[3] he produced a diverse and symbolically rich corpus, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God",[4] or "Human existence itself".[5]Considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have been characterised as part of both the Romantic movement and "Pre-Romantic",[6] for its large appearance in the 18th century. Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the Church of England - indeed, to all forms of organised religion - Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American revolutions,[7] as well as by such thinkers as Jakob Böhme and Emanuel Swedenborg.[8]Despite these known influences, the singularity of Blake's work makes him difficult to classify.

Poems of Thanks and Praise for You - Escape into Life

Thanks to Kathleen Kirk for inviting me to be part of Escape into Life's Thanksgiving Edition. Four beautiful poems with beautiful art work are included. Click here to read poems by Robert Lee Brewer, Maureen Doallas, Richard Jones, and me.

The art work here is from a previous issue of Escape into Life by Weibes Rauchen.

May you spend this holiday with people you love --- or at least people you like a whole lot.

Poetry and Cartography: The Center for Geospatial Poetry; Another First for Washington State

I love it when my different obsessions converge. Not only is there a website where poetry and maps shack up together, but they are doing it for free. If you click here and then go to "A Sense of Place" and wait for the page to load, you will have the first of its kind -  a Google poetry map of Washington State -- or any state that I'm aware of. Hover the cursor over the region of Washington State you want to read poems about and be rewarded with poems by Elizabeth Austen, Ann Teplick, Oliver de la Paz, Dan Peters, and Peter Pereira to name but a few great state poets.

My friend Katharine Whitcomb (superb poet)  and her friend, Bob Hickey (real cartographer) have collaborated to create a map of Washington State on google maps and they've also curated a wonderful anthology of poems on place. If you search the sample poems on the left hand side of the map you will find poems about White Swan, WA (Allen Braden), Richland, WA (Kathleen Flenniken) and Seattle's Museum of Flight (Susan Rich).

Creative projects that emerge from unusual collaborations make me incredibly happy. The world of poetry becomes rooted in the particular coordinates of place and in turn, cartography becomes a thing of art. Katharine Whitcomb is a genius of collaboration having worked this summer with an artist in San Diego to create miniature poems for new museum "scents." (More on this soon).

In the meantime I would love to hear about other artistic collaborations between poets and others. I'm on the lookout for something brand new. Thank you Kathy and Bob for making this project available.http://www.katharinewhitcomb.com/geospatial.html

Turkey anyone? No not the bird!

This is my idea of beauty
I wish I could justify taking Spring Quarter off and visiting Turkey to write in cafes, visit the Blue Mosque, walk through market streets, but unless I win the lottery or marry a millionaire before May, it might not be in the cards for me. At least not this year. My friend Sheila Bender is co-leading a writing group to Istanbul and she still has a few spots left. The trip is ideal for prose writers and poets alike because Sheila is both a published poet and prose writer. Read below and then click on more information. And really, why not go to Turkey this May? You know you want to!

[image error] [image error] Writing Istanbul Writers' Conference
May 11-15, 2012 in Istanbul, Turkey with
Sheila Bender, Yeşim Cimcoz and Susan Bono
Optional 3-Day Trip Extension to Ephesus May 16-19Susan Bono, editor of Tiny Lights, and Sheila Bender, publisher of Writing It Real, are joining Yesim Cimcoz of the Writing Istanbul Project in guiding poets and writers of personal experience in writing and touring the amazing city of Istanbul. We have an optional add-on trip following the workshop for those who want to see more of Turkey. Spouses, friends and partners are welcome to join us in activities surrounding our writing groups work.For Writing Istanbul, we have a fabulous residence in the old city to stay in, cafes to meet in, tours and in-city transportation arranged as well as help booking your room and airport pick up and drop off.  The three-day add-on trip will be a wonderful customized tour  easy to book.During our time in Istanbul, we'll be touring, writing, and meeting together, in groups led by our three instructors and aided by Turkish members of the Writing Istanbul project. We'll meet all together, too, for workshops, sharing writing, and learning about personal writing in Turkey.Some of our special activities include a whirling dervishes performance, a visit to a hamam (a Turkish bath), and a celebration dinner cruise down theBosphorus.Yesim, Susan and Sheila are very excited and hope you join us! For more information, click here![image error]Kadikoy Market on the Asian Side[image error]Rug Bazaar [image error]
Inside the Blue Mosque

Tonight's the Night: 7 pm at the Redmond Schoolhouse; Please Come

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The wonderful Harold Taw and the lovely Annette Spaulding-Convy are reading tonight with me at 7pm in Redmond, WA. Why don't you come too? I"ve heard this venue has fantastic audiences! The event is hosted by RASP - Redmond Association of Spoken Word. Click here for more information.

"I am now officially speechless" from Nikky Finney, Award Winner

"'A fine of $100 and six months of prison will be imposed for teaching a slave to read and write,' Finney began her speech, reading from the 1739 slave codes of South Carolina. She talked about how blacks were forbidden to be literate in her home state and across America for a part of history.


'I am now officially speechless,' Finney said, ending her speech with a pun to her literacy.

Professor wins National Book Award for Poetry : The Kentucky Kernel

Huge Congratulations to Nikky Finney!

Professor wins National Book Award for Poetry : The Kentucky Kernel: