The Valley Advocate: The Public Humanist

Antigone in Boston

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:04:00 AM MST

I was a Creon until I realized that it put me against Antigone. Now I'm not so sure. Last week, listening to public radio, I heard about the protests against the burial of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. I nodded in agreement as various voices denounced the alleged Boston Marathon bomber and felt disgust at the thought that his corpse would pollute our state. Then, an undertaker was interviewed and he did not argue that Tsarnaev deserved any special treatment, but said that we debased our own humanity by denying his body burial rites.

That's when I realized that I was living through Antigone, the classical Greek play by Sophocles and first performed around the time the Parthenon was being built in Athens. As the Academic Director of the Clemente Course in Dorchester, I work to provide college-level instruction in the humanities to a couple dozen low-income adults every year. Antigone is one text that we read regularly, either with our professor of Literature or with our professor of Moral Philosophy.

To review: Antigone's brother had tried to overthrow the ruler of Thebes, Creon. Creon declares that the traitor should not be honored with burial -- and anyone who attempts burial will suffer capital punishment; Antigone disagrees with this edict and disobeys Creon, her fiance’s father. Like any great Greek tragedy, various characters commit suicide and Creon is left feeling miserable.

In class, the students raise and discuss many questions, among them: Is a decent burial really that important? When a moral law is in conflict with a political decree, which should take precedence?

Often the discussion is somewhat abstract, but last week analogies became unnecessary. On Monday night, at the very end of class, I threw out the idea to a few students, “This argument about burying the bomber reminds me of...”

“Antigone!” W finished.

On Wednesday we continued the conversation as a group. Students were already pretty entrenched in their feelings. The continuum ran from M who was totally against burial, through B who thought burial was all right -- but not in the US -- to L who said we should show mercy and let God judge Tsarnaev.

In the middle was W. He had discussed the case with his co-workers and had been thinking a lot about the parallels with Antigone. It sounded like W’s thinking followed my own path.

I was firmly on Creon's side, until I thought more about Antigone. Because when I read the play, I'm incensed with Creon for taking things too far, for wanting the state to act inhumanely to satisfy his own emotional needs. I’m glad Tsarnaev received a burial, because of what it says about our society that we can treat even the hated dead with dignity.

And next year, when we read Antigone, I’ll have more empathy for Creon’s position, even if I still disagree with it.

When people learn about the Clemente Course, they often ask me why our course values the humanities over more "practical" subjects. What relevance does moral philosophy or literature or history have for our students today?

Turns out our students have a leg up on the discussion everyone has been having this past week. Or to put it another way, we study the humanities to review and affirm our common humanity.

Community, Ethics, Emulation and Terrorism

Tue, 14 May 2013 1:09:00 PM MST

Patriot’s Day and the Boston Marathon celebrate American values and resilience, which were tested on April 15, 2013. Many people in Boston felt violated by those bombs, but, ultimately, the terrorists lost, not because they were killed/captured relatively quickly but because within an instant of the first bomb Boston and the nation responded as a community.

There is no perfect security against such insidious attacks. But it is possible to maintain and even increase the probability of similar heroic responses by EMT’s, police, and citizens to future attacks. The bonds of community can be strengthened; unfortunately, they can also be weakened. The social fabric which forms a critical foundation for the American dream has frayed in recent years because of gross misinterpretation of the meaning of Adam Smith’s free market capitalism and of American ideals. If that fabric frays too much, the terrorists who can always maim and kill will begin to win.

One major factor weakening the social fabric is the excessive individualism of American capitalism. This individualism is supported by laissez-faire, which, in broad strokes, describes an economy in which transactions are free from government oversight and restrictions, an idea which is a gross misinterpretation both of Smith’s capitalism and of American ideals. Individualistic laissez-faire severely impedes the pursuit of happiness for millions of Americans; in recent decades the laissez-faire approach has resulted in a very small number of Americans becoming very wealthy while many hard-working, poor Americans struggle to make ends meet.

Anna Bernasek, an author who appreciates the strengths of capitalism but was disheartened by the excesses which caused the Great Recession, writes in The Economics of Integrity of the costs all of us have to bear because of the excessive individualism and greed of Wall Street in recent years. She argues that the financial sector became a giant casino where the gamblers enriched themselves while destroying economies around the world and leaving enormous liabilities for taxpayers and future generations. But her critique is context for a message of hope; she also argues powerfully for the value of integrity and trust in market relations, and that our economy would be stronger if we returned to those values.

Bernasek is not alone in this argument; D. W. Haslett, author of Capitalism with Morality, states that critics of capitalism conclude that it is immoral. Indeed, he agrees that current capitalism is immoral but argues that it is possible to have capitalism with morality.

What might capitalism with morality look like? It would include Adam Smith’s emphasis on justice and community standards. In Theory of Moral Sentiments Smith argued for the “impartial spectator,” whom one would feel confident would endorse one’s choices, as an ethical check on individual actions. This idea emphasizes behavior that is acceptable to the community, somewhat like the Kantian categorical imperative, which asserts that there are some absolute requirements for action that avoid subjectivity. The impartial spectator is often ignored, but was a critical aspect of the justice that Smith argued, in Wealth of Nations, was a necessity for efficient free markets. Smith also argued that the wealthy have an important function in society as models for the lower classes to emulate.

To be better models for emulation, businessmen might consider applying the Hippocratic Oath, with its do no harm principle, to free market transactions. And the MBA Oath, which includes among other things, a pledge not to advance personal interests at the cost of either the enterprise or society, a pledge to protect the human rights and dignity of all people, concern for future generations and a healthy planet, and a pledge of honesty and transparency, might provide an ethical model that would improve the free market for all its stakeholders (which includes everyone alive today and future generations as well). Both these oaths combine individual action and the common good; that combination was crucial to the success of the American Revolution and is central to Adam Smith’s capitalism. Similarly, the founders, all strong believers in free markets, emphasized the importance of virtue in the people, if the new United States were to maintain its democratic system.

Unfortunately, in recent years too many business people (not all of them, by any means, but too many of them) have been gamblers in that financial sector casino, white-collar criminals convicted for spreading insider information to favored friends, Ponzi-scheme artists, greedy people who gullibly feed the Ponzi-schemes, and tax avoiders. Where is the morality that Haslett claims is possible? Where are the trust and integrity that Bernasek advocates? Smith would certainly cringe at such terrible models for lower class emulation.

The more common unethical behavior becomes, the more the social fabric frays. Why should the ordinary citizen have integrity when the malfeasance of so many wealthy people has been so richly rewarded? This is not to say that all wealthy people gained their wealth illegitimately; nor is it to say that all poor people are virtuous. Even very egalitarian systems, such as Denmark’s, have had problems with welfare cheats. The point is that unethical behavior at any socio-economic level is a self-reinforcing cycle, but such behavior by the wealthy is more visible and more often emulated. People do look at the wealthy as models, and most of us, reasonably, share a desire for financial security and material comfort. So, that vicious cycle must be replaced by a self-reinforcing virtuous cycle of ethical behavior.

We can continue to defeat the terrorists if we remember that our founders wanted a government of laws, not men. The founders and Adam Smith emphasized the importance of having the same standards for all. The same standards meant, to them, not only laws, but also ethics, values such as integrity, trustworthiness, concern for the common good. That combination of values and laws will keep Boston and the United States strong for decades to come. But we will only aid and abet the terrorists if we forget that, while we are indeed individuals, no one stands alone.

At the Table

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:30:00 AM MST

Last Friday night, I went out to eat at Bela in Northampton. I got there early on my trike, so I leaned on it and watched from a little way down the sidewalk as people went in. Bela is a small, warm vegetarian restaurant with lovely food, and I’ve had some really gorgeous moments there. (For instance, my friend Sally Bellerose took me out there to celebrate when my first novel was accepted for publication in the mid-nineties.) Lingering on the sidewalk to wait for my companions was made even more sweet than gathering for a good meal at the end of a very rough week would usually be because there was a poem I had written hanging on the front door.

It’s a poem about a garden, some marigolds, sunflowers, tomatoes, basil, kale, birds and a donkey. The garden belongs to my companions, who start seedlings in February and have just been finishing a new fence to try to keep bears and rabbits out. I get to weed a little every now and then. The warm dirt and the scents on my fingers as I do that are so sensual and elemental that they often move me to poetry. Often enough, maybe, to give the impression that I work more in the garden than I actually do.

Forty-odd restaurants, bakeries, ice cream parlors and bars are currently displaying poems by local poets as part of the Nourish the Body/Nourish the Soul project organized by Rich Michelson, Northampton’s Poet Laureate. It is a rare and specific pleasure to get to stroll through the streets of the town where I live, browsing poetry hung in so many windows. It brings me such a sense of celebration and wholeness to have one of my poems among them, to have the work of my heart be a part of the daily lives of neighbors and people passing through. It is a writer’s dream, so strangely elusive, so satisfying when reached.

Bela had given the generous gift of a meal in exchange for the poem. So we ate, my hard-working companions and I. The server’s face lit up when I told him that the poem on the door was mine. “It’s a good poem,” he said.

He brought us beautiful food: a salad with sweet peas, spicy tofu with collards in red curry sauce, rice noodles with gorgonzola and asparagus. We drank beer we had brought from chilled glasses, and I got to watch a few people, waiting, reading my poem. The time, work, patience, inspiration, commerce and love that had gone into the garden, the poem and the meal were palpable at the table.

Then, we hurried up the street to the Parlor Room to hear cellist and singer Ben Sollee, performing with percussionist Jordon Ellis. They were doing about a third of their tour on bikes, Ben with his cello strapped on and Jordon pulling a trailer full of gear. Solee is influenced by bluegrass, R&B and his own engaged sensibility. It had, it had been a hard week, and it was a perfect moment to hear his songs “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Panning for Gold,” in which God says, “Son, I used to know where I put things, I used to know.”

When Jordon got up from banging and brushing his box and drum to play the body and strings of the cello with his sticks while Ben played, too, we were invited to hear a song rising from having pedaled forty miles and hit a groove. I heard it. I heard movement. I heard possibility and life.

Here’s the poem:

Garden

My fingers are scented

from pushing through marigolds

to reach the tomatoes

and stripping flowering basil

of puckered leaves.

Birds thrash the air

on sharp paths to the sunflowers.

It’s a tall year for corn.

The donkey is

insisting, strenuously, on breakfast.

I take one leaf of kale

– early, bitter, lush–

to eat in the valley,

once you drive me home.

Photos top to bottom:

Moffat the donkey, by Susan Stinson

Susan Stinson in front of Bela and her poem, by Jeep Wheat

Johnny Got His Gun: Thoughts on Art, War, and Community

Mon, 06 May 2013 9:56:00 AM MST

Arts writer Phillipa Pitts recently contributed a blog column that resonated with me; here’s an excerpt:

Art plays many roles in society and, at different times, can speak to issues in areas such as religion, science, politics, and history. Whether introducing an international form of movement to the dance scene, putting a modern spin on Mozart or Bach, or providing a visual interpretation of the effects of war, the arts can provide thought-provoking commentary and innovative perspectives on a vast array of global ideas. Arts organizations should, therefore, play the part of illuminator, conveying the power of art in the discourse of complex subjects. In doing so, arts organizations can exist to broaden the horizons of their communities by encouraging analytical thinking and fostering understanding of different opinions and ideas. Moreover, arts organizations can be more participatory in their own communities by bringing art into the public.

I think a lot about the role of art in community. When Kevin Maroney came to Old Deerfield Productions with the idea to present Johnny Got His Gun I felt the potential of art connecting with society in a healing way. I think we all have feelings about war and an awareness of the plight of returning soldiers from wars, past and present. Here was the opportunity to open our work to new audiences and create bridges between folks that might not connect otherwise. Johnny is an emotionally powerful, tour de force play that will have a deep impact on an audience. What would happen if we invited a group of friends to talk about the issues that arise from the experience of the themes of the play?

I immediately thought of our dear friends, Bob and Lee Woodruff who have a unique perspective on those themes. Bob is the former ABC World News Tonight anchor who was wounded while reporting from Iraq and sustained the same kind of brain injuries that are so prevalent among returning soldiers now. He is also the founder of The Bob Woodruff Foundation, a national nonprofit that helps ensure our nation’s injured service members, veterans and their families return to a home front ready to support them (remind.org). His wife Lee Woodruff, is a best selling author (Those We Love Most and In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, co-written by Bob Woodruff), a well known public speaker, and a CBS Morning Show correspondent. It's beyond our dreams that Bob and Lee somehow found a single day in their busy, world-traveling lives to come to the Valley for this event.

What would it be like to have a diverse panel of folks with very different experiences of war sharing their points of view? Kevin and I got together and thought of whom among our friends who might be right for the task. In addition to Bob and Lee we were honored that David Pakman, progressive radio and television program host; Buz Eisenberg, attorney for detainees at Guantanamo; Kathy Belanger, whose son Greg was one of the first soldiers killed in Iraq; Lieutenant Colonel Hank Detering, USMC Vietnam veteran; and Rev. Andrea Ayvazian, Senior Pastor of the Haydenville Congregational Church and an activist in movements for social and political change since 1970. All agreed to participate.

Bob has said of his role on the panel, “I will take the opportunity to talk about journalism and the new kinds of asymmetrical wars that have become part of modern warfare. We have many new powerful weapons fighting insurgents on the sand and because of that we don't know where the danger is. When Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and killed we changed our approach. For realistic safety we need to embed with the military to witness the war but it is still unclear if that means either balanced reporting or unfairly influenced. I’m also interested in the question of how we define the word ‘victory.’"

Hank Detering brings his years of reflection on the effects of war as a Vietnam Vet, “Many of them [returning soldiers], like Joe Bonham, are amputees, double, even triple amputees. Today's veterans are volunteers and almost all are high school graduates. And, unlike Johnny, many of today's severely wounded veterans are proud of their service and want to remain in the military. A few will get their wish, but sadly most of them will not. Many of them will be living out their lives in our Veterans' Hospitals. Initially they receive a great deal of attention and support, but over time that will fade away. I would like to talk about the challenges they face and what we can do to help them in the long-term.”

Let me share a little about the play itself. This is a hard-hitting piece by Dalton Trumbo, the black listed anti-war writer that has as deep an impact today as it did in 1940. Perhaps more, as we face the challenges of so many more of our soldiers coming home with injuries. The protagonist Joe comes back from WWI a shattered person alone in his shell of a body. The visceral experience of seeing the world through his sensibilities is one that is hard to forget. Nico Lawson, who plays the tour de force leading role of Joe, is an actor I worked with 12 years ago when I directed The Cure at Troy by Seamus Heaney as our offering to the community in reflection of the events of September 11. Nico was just 17 years old and played the young soldier Neoptolomus in Heaney’s retelling of the Philoctetes myth. I hadn’t had contact with him for twelve years but knew that he was made for the role. Sure enough, he moved from Montague, MA to New York where he is a successful actor now. He gives the role the passion and power it needs and he is one of our own.

So we offer this event to our community in the spirit of connection and healing. As Bob said so well, “These troops will be forgotten unless we keep giving them love and attention.”

Johnny Got His Gun takes place on May 11 at 7:30 pm at the Wesley Church at 98 North Maple Street in Hadley MA.

Tickets are available at www.olddeerfieldproductions.organd are $10, $12, and $20. Free tickets for Veterans are available at www.vettix.org

Making Media Now Conference on Friday!

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 7:04:00 AM MST

Filmmakers Collaborative, a national media industry leader and fiscal sponsor, is hosting its acclaimed MAKING MEDIA NOW (MMN) conference on Friday, May 3 at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. MAKING MEDIA NOW’s challenge-the-assumptions approach has made it a must-attend event for filmmakers, new media producers, distributors, funders and journalists. It is cited as a creative forum that interactively “tackle(s) the big questions” (IndieWire) with presenters who are “knowledgeable, articulate and generous with their time” (MMN 2012 filmmaker attendee).

This year’s theme, Living the Connection Economy, explores how tapping both creative and business connections presents new models for storytelling, distribution, financing and engagement. In addition to five panels and two workshops, MMN will feature one-on-one consultations, an exhibition hall filled with industry businesses, a networking lunch, open mic opportunities, and a cocktail reception to end the day.

“Independent filmmaking is one of the most creative – and decentralized – industries in America,” observes Filmmakers Collaborative’s executive director, Kathryn Dietz. “Producers tend to work either alone or with the same groups of people again and again. One of the greatest needs is for people to connect with each other – for inspiration, encouragement and practical help. MMN 2013’s goal is to be the forum for these connections.”

The opening plenary, NEW FORMS – NEW OPPORTUNITIES, will examine short and interactive documentaries, two key trends that are transforming the industry and connecting subjects, filmmakers and audiences in new ways. Filmmaker and blogger David Tamés will moderate the conversation with Natasha Deganello Giraudie, the CEO and founder of Micro-Documentaries in San Francisco, and Sarah Wolozin, Director of the MIT Open Documentary Lab. “We can never predict what’s going to happen next,” says Tamés, “but by facing the future with fascination rather than fear, we become receptive to opportunities and find the positive side of change.”

Anne Zeiser, transmedia and impact producer, journalist and founder of Azure Media, will lead a panel on THE DOUBLE BOTTOM LINE with Sheila Leddy, executive director of mission-driven funder, The Fledgling Fund, along with a broadcaster and corporate panelist. “Today, successful enterprises are pursuing the twin objectives of making money and promoting social good – and film is no exception,” notes Zeiser. “In this session, foundation and corporate funders and distributors will show filmmakers how to think like a CEO to achieve both financial and social impact success.”

A panel on MEDIA COMMUNITIES will explore some old and new models of connection and collaboration among filmmakers. Moderator Bestor Cram, founder of Northern Light Productions, is a member of the International Quorum community and notes, “It’s the physical meetings we have that make the virtual connections work.” Panelists will include a longtime member of the New Day Films distribution collective, plus leaders from the online collaborative filmmaking communities.

Because of the increasing challenges of funding historical documentaries, this year’s MMN will include a panel on WORKING WITH SCHOLARS, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and Mass Humanities Foundation. “We want to see filmmakers include scholars from the earliest planning stages through production, making films that are true collaborations,” notes NEH program officer David Weinstein. Kathryn Dietz will moderate this panel, which will examine best practices in integrating great storytelling with great scholarship. Panelists will include Pleun Bouricious, director of grant programs at Mass Humanities, veteran filmmaker Nancy Porter, and a scholar.

One of the liveliest and most popular panels at MMN is ART OF THE PITCH, moderated again this year by WGBH executive producer Judith Vecchione. “Pitching your project effectively is one of the most important skills you can develop if you want to be successful at fundraising and audience building,” notes Vecchione. In this session, five filmmakers will pitch their projects to a panel of industry experts, including Ty Burr, Boston Globe film critic, Nicole Gregg, executive director of the New Hampshire Film Festival, and Sheila Leddy of The Fledgling Fund. Judges will critique the pitches and the vote on a winner, who will go home with a cash prize.

Rounding out MMN’s sessions is a reprieve of last year’s standing-room-only KICKSTARTER CASE STUDY workshop, encouraging film and media makers to ask questions and learn some new tips on the crowd-sourced fundraising platform. The workshop will be led again by Filmmakers Collaborative’s associate director, Laura Azevedo, who will be joined by seasoned filmmakers Richard Beyer and Jordan Salvatoriello. And another new offering: ELEVATOR PITCHING, with Elise Simard, President of SpeechComm Communication Consultants, who will teach filmmakers how to pitch their ideas in one minute or less.

“Whether it’s asking questions during panels, sharing experiences at workshops or networking over lunch and cocktails, everyone gets to speak at MMN,” says Azevedo. “That’s what I love about this conference.”

Photos top to bottom: Tom Phillips, composer at OBT Music, demonstrates how his film library works.

Panelists like Paola Freccero, co-founder of CrowdStarter, make time to chat with attendees. Photos by Allana Taranto.

Filmmakers Collaborative was founded in 1986 to provide fiscal sponsorship to independent filmmakers, enabling them to stay independent. Its mission is to foster opportunities for learning and collaboration among a wide range of media makers, and to educate the public about media skills and literacy. Connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter!

This article appeared previously in IMAGINE April 13 and is reposted here with their permission.

An American Storyteller in Ghana, Part 2

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 7:05:00 AM MST

[Part One appeared previously]

When we left Kumasi, we were already tired of traveling in our hot van, but we were still two or three days away from our next major destination of Sirigu, in the north. By the time we arrived there, we had traversed all of Ghana from south to north. Everywhere people were friendly and helpful and everywhere we saw poverty. Most people live in mud huts with thatched roofs. Some have electricity but many still get their water from a common well and use outhouses. Women spend whole days chopping and grinding food.

As we traveled I saw not one single store of the kind that we mean when we use that word: these stores were open to the outside with two or three wooden sides and a roof of corrugated tin or thatch. Inside was everything from toilet paper to radios to bras. Just outside women fried up food at lunch time. At the occasional “pottery village,” wooden shelves by the side of the road made a beautiful display of black, brown, and grey pots by placing them next to baskets of red palm nuts.

And then we arrived at SWOPA, Sirigu Women’s Organisation for Pottery and Art. It was 100 degrees and the Harmattan, a fierce dry wind from the Sahara desert, blew down the dusty dirt road and engulfed the small farms. In this “dry season” it was hard to imagine that anything ever grows or turns green here. Children smiled and waved at our van as we drove by. Each family has a mud wall around a compound within which there is a house with an extended family of maybe fifteen people, two granaries where seed is stored, an outhouse, and a shed for animals. In each family’s small courtyard, cheek by jowl with the people, are chickens, roosters, goats, and sheep.

Here, just across the dirt road, my travel companion, Ann, and I were shown to our accommodations in marvelously painted mud huts. Long ago most people in Sirigu painted their own houses, but now everything on the tourist side is beautiful and adorned with traditional paintings while, to me, everything on the native side seemed bleak. We were greeted with utmost friendliness and individualized programs were set up for us.

For five hot days my companion Ann studied traditional pottery, while I spent time with Faustina Ayambire tape recording stories.

Faustina is a woman in her 30s who has made it her habit since she was a young girl to sit with the elders and listen to folktales. She can tell more than 100 stories by heart and she told me at least fifteen. She is also a wonderful singer and almost every story has a beautiful song which is sung by some character several times during the tale.

“The old lady took the orphan in and told her she could stay for three days. Then she asked the girl to make a meal. She gave her a bone, one grain of millet, and one bean.

“‘I’m sorry, grandmother, I don’t think I can make dinner with this.’

“But the girl tried her best and added some water to the pot. Soon the pot was filled with grain and chicken and beans. They sat down to their delicious meal. And the old woman was pleased.”

After passing three other tests, the orphan girl has proven to the old lady that she has a good and a kind heart. As in a story collected in “The Magic Orange Tree” by Diane Wolkstein in Haiti in the late 1970s, this girl has to sometimes disobey her host to prove that she is kind. One time she opens the door and feeds an old beggar woman after she has been told never to open the door at all. It turns out that the old lady is the beggar woman and “She is well pleased with the girl.”

At the end of the story the old lady says “Open my backup and take what you

want.” The girl waves her hand over the old lady’s back. When it opens, she sees clothing and sandals and jewels. She takes only what she needs in order to enter acontest to marry the most handsome and wealthy boy in the village. She proved what a good person she is, the old rewarded her, and she marries the boy. The orphan girl lives happily ever after.

And so do I, back at home with all of these magnificent folktales. But now I have a full time job listening to the tapes, getting some of them translated, learning the songs, and deciding which stories will work for young children, and which for older children and adults.

The very best part of collecting stories is what you learn about the culture and the people who tell them. I won’t be telling the stories exactly as I heard them. I will be “making them my own” as every storyteller does. But now I understand these tales and the people who tell them and the milieu they come from in such a different way than when I was just reading them in books.

As I sing the orphan’s song I hear Faustina’s voice and picture her face. I see the dusty road and the whole landscape this story comes from. I remember things she told me about her mother and her daughter and they all go into the story.

I will never forget the people I met in Ghana and I’m hoping to share the wit, wisdom, and wonder of their folktales with many audiences here.

All photos by Sharon Kennedy, except for that of Faustina Ayambire and Sharon Kennedy, taken by Ann Schunior

To learn more about Sharon Kennedy's body of work, visit her web site at
http://sharonkennedy.com.

Where Poetry and Plot Meet

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:34:00 AM MST

It’s National Poetry Month, and while we could drink our way through an entire month of pure poetic delight without the well ever running dry, we (whisper) might not want to stop reading stories. Or, we might feel more at ease reading stories. Poems might be for us, as a friend of mine described recently, those things that don’t make sense.

“Grief calls us to the things of this world,” says the poet, and a love for words, for the sounds they make when pressed against each other, for the shock of surprise or recognition certain juxtapositions create, calls us to more words. Once we’ve tasted the joy of poetic language in our mouths, once we’ve heard words sing into our open ears in the voice of a beloved parent or friend, we want more.

But where does the first taste come from? One way is to fall into poems from fiction. Not just any fiction, but the sort in which the writer cares for every word and its place among its cohorts. I present you with four books. Each, while seducing you with the story it tells, will appeal to your ears and eyes, will seduce you into desire for poetic language, for more, more, more!

I believe fervently that if we want happy, brilliant, empathetic children we must read to them early and often (and talk to them endlessly, too—the studies are in). But beware the myriad dumb boring books read to kids in the misguided belief that they can’t yet understand anything more complex. They never will if that’s what you read them! Pish, Posh, Said Hieronymus Bosch, by Nancy Willard and the Dillons, is a book with pictures that will thrill and delight kids of any age while their ears learn to love the sound of words and grow toward understanding the meaning behind them. What kid doesn’t want to ride to school on the back of a pickle-winged fish? In the meantime, you, the reader, get to weep and sigh over beautifully spoken truths:

They’re not what I wished for. When women are young

they want curly-haired daughters and raven-haired sons.

In this vale of tears we must take what we’re sent,

Feathery, leathery, lovely, or bent.

Once the kids are old enough for chapter books, read them Habibi, by poet Naomi Shihab Nye. Her love and feel for language inform every sentence she writes. In Habibi—darling, sweetheart, in both Arabic and Hebrew—you get not just a moving and profound story of a 14-year-old Palestinian-American girl transplanted from her American life in Saint Louis to a house between Jerusalem and Ramallah, a school in the Armenian section of Jerusalem, but writing that will make your mouth and ears happy as you read. Each chapter starts with a title, like the clang of a bell, and then a brief phrase—the resonance that carries in the air long after the bell has been rung. Her sentences are short and crisp, and her paragraphs are precise as poems.

But I’m a grownup, you say. Well, start with Pish, Posh and Habibi, anyway—you will always remember both. But for adults, with lives that we complicate so necessarily or unnecessarily, we have The Golden Gate. Vikram Seth, bless his mad heart, has written a whole novel in Onegin stanzas—sonnets with an ababccddeffegg rhyme scheme. I read it for the first time just after rereading Forster’s Aspects of the Novel, and so approached it with the question in mind: if it’s verse, can it really be a novel as Forster defines it? Yes, it has story, people and plot, fantasy and prophecy, pattern and rhythm. And such joy in language!

Directly to the morning after.

The sun shines brightly in. The birds’

Aubade replaces last night’s laughter,

Professor Pratt’s impassioned words,

The broken glasses, the emetic

Sheep music, even the splenetic

Yowls of the vengeful Charlemagne;

And all is quiet once again.

Slack, honey-humming weekend morning,

Sweet sanctuary from a world

In which we’re whipped and whisked and whirled!

John sloths in bed awhile, then, yawning,

Attends to coffee. Liz sleeps on,

Though once or twice she murmurs, “John.”

One of my persistent sensations reading John Crowley’s Little, Big: or, The Fairies’ Parliament is that if he can write this well, if he can put such care into choosing just-right words, string them into extraordinary sentences, weave those into knock-my-socks off paragraphs, arrange those into lay-me-bare chapters (you can see I am naked by the time I set the book down), then why aren’t more of us getting in bed with language in this way and having the best sex of our lives? “Like a centrifuge, with infinite slowness accelerating, spring flung them all outward in advancing circles as it advanced, seeming (though how it was possible they couldn’t tell) to untangle the tangled skein of them and lay their lives out properly around Edgewood like the coils of a golden necklace: more golden as it grew warmer.” It’s National Poetry Month. Indulge. Poetic delight!

An American Storyteller in Ghana

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 8:11:00 AM MST

In January this year I went to Ghana in West Africa for three weeks. I am a professional storyteller and I perform many kinds of stories including folktales and historical stories for children and adults. Sometimes the desire to collect folktales instead of just reading them in books leads to an urge to travel. This is what brought me to Ghana.

And so the story starts: we were on a rooftop in Nungua, a suburb of Accra, at a place called Aba House, a cultural compound for visiting and native artists and educators. One visiting sculptor had carved giant crocodiles all around the periphery of the roof. The night was hot and humid and the light was from the moon and the stars and one hanging lantern. The ocean waves provided part of the soundtrack.

The cook at Aba House, Talk True, had arranged for three nights of storytelling. He invited two friends from the Ewe tribe “And then,” he said, “I will tell on the last night. I will be the ‘last killer.’”

When storyteller Big Joe told his tales in the original Ewe, Talk True translated, but the sounds of the Ewe language were so much more musical and intriguing than the English. Two Africans and three Americans, all drinking Talk True’s delicious, cold hibiscus drink (made with a dash of hot pepper), formed an appreciative storytelling audience and we all laughed and laughed at the punch lines. The translation was certainly conveying the story’s main message.

“Pig and Tortoise went into business together thinking they could make money. They did well until Tortoise and his new wife got greedy and started skimming the money off the top of every deal. When Pig realized that he was being cheated, he came to Tortoise for his money. Tortoise put Pig off for weeks with all kinds of tricks.

“One day Tortoise had a new idea. He folded his legs and hid inside his shell. He told his wife, ‘This is your new granite stone so you can grind pepper on it.’ Then Pig came and said, ‘Where is your husband? Where is your husband? If you don’t answer me I will take your stone and throw it into the bush.’ The woman didn’t answer, so Pig grabbed the stone and threw it away. A few minutes later Tortoise appeared and heard his wife and Pig arguing.

“‘Oh, Pig, there is no need for arguing. Your money is ready. Just go and get that stone wherever you threw it. Your money is safely hidden inside.’

“To this day Pig is still looking for that granite stone. After searching for days, he decided it must have sunk into the earth. So if you see Pig digging and digging in the ground, now you know why.”

By the end of my third night at Aba House, I had heard fourteen stories. Cephus Mensah Amabale told a story about a beautiful woman from a wealthy family with more suitors than she could count. Her family constructed a series of tests to determine which man really loved her for herself rather than for her money or her looks. Ben Kwao Adipah told a story about a chief’s wife who is unable to give him a boy child so he keeps marrying more and more wives, all of whom have girls.

But it was time to leave Nungua and travel along the coast to Kopeyia, another cultural compound specializing in drumming. On the way we stopped at Keta for lunch outdoors on the beach: fried tilapia caught that morning and fou fou (pounded cassava) with “red red,” a spicy sauce made with vegetables and red peppers. I pictured Tortoise’s wife pounding those red peppers on her granite stone.

At every beach we passed in our un-air conditioned van, we watched fishermen in brightly painted wooden fishing boats bobbing on the waves and women sorting many different kinds of fish in wooden baskets. We went to market day in Denu and everything was for sale from shoes to auto parts to towering piles of mangoes. We saw what amounted to a “fish aisle” with twenty or thirty women selling every kind of fresh and dried fish from their baskets. It had the feel of an auction as men yelled out types of fish and their prices, but not in English!

In Ghana most people speak English but when they speak to each other they use their native language. And also, although most people are Christian or Muslim, many of them practice a much older, animist African religion as well. In the small villages, the native culture--fetish priests, traditional health cures, drumming, dancing, singing, storytelling, and pottery making--is still very much intact.

Happily for tourists, friendliness in Ghana is abundant. In Kopeyia, Kofi Agbeli, our guide at the “Dagbe” compound, organized an evening of storytelling just for us. He told three stories and then I told one. Everyone sang and danced and drummed, for his stories, and for mine as well.

After we left Dagbe, Kofi called the next day to make sure that our travels were going well. At the time we were visiting two “Kente cloth villages” and buying some of the famous (and gorgeous) fabric. We told Kofi that everything was great, little knowing that we would arrive later that day (a Friday afternoon) in the city of Kumasi to find that every hotel was booked. We were hot and tired and getting a little desperate when the third hotel said “no.”

I used my storytelling skills to describe how much we needed a room and this brought quick results. Within ten minutes the hotel clerk introduced us to a former employee who hopped in our van and led us to “The Pink Panther Hotel.” There we were shown to the “Executive Suite.” It had two huge rooms, red velvet couches, an exercise bicycle, a stereo, a microwave, and best of all, air conditioning and two beds.

(End of Part 1)

Next, a fascinating women’s artist cooperative: painted houses, pottery, and more stories.

Top and bottom photos by Ann Schunior; others by Sharon Kennedy

To learn more about Sharon Kennedy's body of work, visit her web site at
http://sharonkennedy.com.

Margaret Thatcher's Caricatured Career

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:05:00 AM MST

The first woman leader of a twentieth-century Western superpower died on Monday, April 8 at the age of 87. A conservative politician having been trained at Oxford as a chemist, Margaret Thatcher was a woman who described herself in uncompromising terms: “I am not a consensus politician, I am a conviction politician.” There is an appealing confidence to that statement. She was loathed at least as much as she was admired and respected. She served three terms as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, and in that time had an enormous economic and cultural impact on England and the world, wrenching the British economy from union-fortified socialism to unapologetic capitalism. Cartoonists in England were there lending their unique strain of commentary and derision from beginning to end. Here is a sampling.

“Prime Ministerial Scream,” by Ralph Steadman, published in New Statesman, July 6, 1979

Ralph Steadman, probably the most well known of this group of illustrators to Americans, became a regular contributor to Punch magazine in the 60s, while he was also attending London College Printing and Graphic Arts College and East Ham Technical College. In 1969 Steadman covered the Kentucky Derby, on assignment, with Hunter S. Thompson. Their collaborative work appeared in Scanlan’s Weekly and marked the beginning of their Gonzo journalism adventure, the most famous product of which is the novel (written by Thompson and illustrated by Steadman) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

* * * *

The congenial relationship between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan has been well documented; Thatcher, who had privately voiced her scientific skepticism about Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (popularly known as “Star Wars”), publically supported it with the knowledge that British businesses would get a piece of the action with research and development funding. Still, she was none too pleased with the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983, Operation Urgent Fury. Grenada had been a territory of the British Commonwealth until 1974.

By Nicholas Garland, published in the Sunday Telegraph, October 29, 1983

Nicholas Garland, born in 1935, spent most of his childhood in New Zealand but studied art at the Slade School of Art in London. He became the Daily Telegraph’s first political cartoonist in 1966, and is best known for illustrating the comic strip lampooning the adventures of an Australian vulgarian abroad, “Barry Mackenzie,” written by Barry Humphries, published in Private Eye.

* * * *

Thatcher’s second term as Prime Minister was marked by the strike of the National Union of Mineworkers. Union president Arthur Scargill called a walkout on March 6, 1984, illegally, resulting in the workers not being eligible for benefits during the long, violent strike. The strike lasted a year and was unsuccessful—this was a defining moment in labor history and the privatization of industry.

“The Winners” by Wally Fawkes (“Trog”), published in the Observer, January 27, 1985

Wally Fawkes (born in 1924—one year before Thatcher) was both a jazz musician and a political cartoonist. His career as an artist began in 1942 when he was hired by the Daily Mail to draw column-breakers and decorative illustrations, and there he eventually became a political cartoonist. He illustrated the Daily Mail’s famous “Flook” cartoon, which ran from 1949 to 1984. He contributed political cartoons to Private Eye and The Observer, eventually becoming disillusioned with the Daily Mail’s growing conservatism and caution about criticizing political figures like Margaret Thatcher and the queen. He was replaced by the milder Stan McMurtry (“Mac”). Here’s a Mac cartoon about the Mining Strike, depicting Scargill’s head on a platter.

“Head on a Platter,” by Stan McMurtry (“Mac”), published in the Daily Mail, March 4, 1985.

* * * *

A recurring theme in the political cartoons of Thatcher is the popular “Iron Lady”-with-a-lethal purse:

By Gerald Scarfe, famous for illustrating Pink Floyd's The Wall, and a long-time illustrator for the Sunday Times and the New Yorker.

In contrast, Leslie Gibbard's cartoon of Ronald Reagan tossing a brick at a beehive captures antoher recurring theme in the cartoons of Thatcher and Reagan: Thatcher's strong regard for Reagan. The cartoon below is referring to England giving permission to the U.S. to launch American war planes from British bases to attack Libya in April, 1986. The bombing resulted in the destruction of Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s home, where one of his children was killed.

The cartoonist, Leslie Gibbard, another New Zealander, began his career in the early 60s contributing cartoons for the Auckland Star and the New Zealand Herald. He eventually moved to London and freelanced regularly for the Guardian, which he describes with fondness: “The Guardian I joined was a dream shop-window for any cartoonist, using the cartoon on either the front or back pages. The cartoon was drawn at the very last minute, long after most other Fleet Street cartoonists with their allocated inside spaces had gone home, and the drawings complemented, summed up and competed with the latest news coverage. I was able to draw to any shape I fancied, the page being designed around the drawing. In time special shapes were requested.”

* * * *

The role of Britain in the European Community, which was beginning to unite and discuss a common currency, was defined by Thatcher and members of her cabinet at the end of her time in office as Prime Minister. Thatcher was staunchly opposed to abandoning the pound and joining a European monetary system (and of course, this independence has held). This position split the Conservatives, some of whom favored integration with a European system.

By Nicholas Garland, published in The Independent, June 22, 1990 (the figures pushing Thatcher are John Major, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Douglas Hurd, then Minister for Europe)

Growing turbulence in the British economy and a recession led to the erosion of Thatcher’s popularity and trust in her economic policies. In the late 80s, the introduction of a “poll tax” on all individuals, not just property owners, which replaced the income tax, caused protests and riots.

By Kevin Kallaugher (“Kal”), published in Today, July 8, 1987 (note Kal’s self portrait)

Kevin Kallaugher is a Harvard-educated American artist who moved to the UK in 1977, where he originally found work playing semi-professional basketball. After that he worked the streets of Brighton doing caricatures of tourists and shopped his portfolio, eventually landing a gig with the Economist, a magazine with an international readership.

Caricatures of Thatcher were by no means confined to two dimensions—the work of Spitting Image, a puppet-show that was televised in England, was an international sensation at the time (1984-1996). The principal puppet designers were Roger Law and Peter Fluck, both illustrators and sculptors. Their Thatcher was a masterpiece.

For additional images see the accompanying gallery slide show.

Marriage Lessons from the Funeral Home

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 6:58:00 AM MST

My uneasy feelings about marriage became even more complicated this past November when I got the call that no one wants to get.

“He didn’t make it.”

The police officer was telling me that John, my partner of 12 years, had died in a car accident in Montana where he’d been working, 2,500 miles away from the home we shared in Massachusetts.

He had to repeat what he was saying a few times. When I digested the news, tears came out of me in waves. I’ve never been so out of control of my emotions. This release was the best thing to do in that moment for so many reasons, but especially because the police officer got visceral proof of the primary nature of our relationship.

That relationship wasn’t clear when the police officer had made the call. John’s wallet must have fallen out during the crash and with it his license and the “Who to Call in an Emergency” card that he’d made and kept there (hey, he’d been an Eagle Scout). Fortunately, our mortgage company must have decided to marry us off at some point because John comes up in some databases with my last name, as John Cushing. The police officer called the number listed there and it was the home phone I answered.

“Does he have other family?”

John’s father left the family when he was 2 years old. There was a period of contact in John’s 20s, but that ended. When John’s mother died in 2011, his father didn’t call though he had heard the news.

But John’s father was legally the next-of-kin because we were not married.

In these first moments on the phone with the police officer, I was already planning to get on a plane to Montana as soon as possible and claim John’s body. I would do anything to make that happen.

I told the police officer the story of John and his father’s relationship and that I – truly – did not have his contact information, but I knew that he lived in North Carolina.

The police officer gave me the name of the funeral home to work with and, though he didn’t say it directly, I feel pretty certain he slowed down the search for John’s dad to allow me to get to Montana.

Would he have done that if my name had been Charles instead of Carolyn? This man showed me such compassion that I want to believe he would, but I tend to doubt it. As part of the legal system, there would have been various problems with his doing so. Even if John and my masculine alter ego Charles had been married in Massachusetts, they wouldn’t have been married in Montana. Montana has some of the nation’s steepest restrictions on same-sex marriage, banning it by constitution and by law.

While my sister worked on getting us tickets to Montana, I talked with the funeral home. They would receive John’s body and wait for me to arrive. Could I please bring some documentation of our relationship? They were gentle in making this request, but in the background I knew they had to face some legalities to release the body to me.

Ok, what documentation? I had mortgage statements and that had already linked us together today. But I wondered how compelling they would be. I was worried.

I called a co-worker and asked if she could give me a letter saying John had been my domestic partner since 2000 and list the dates when he was covered by my health insurance. Connie e-mailed me a copy, sent me a hard copy, and faxed to the funeral home. There would be no stopping that message.

And this is just what they needed. When I arrived at the funeral home directly from the plane, we did our business first. The funeral director took out the faxed version of the letter and said the information it contained would satisfy the requirements they had to meet. Thank you, Connie! Thank you, Massachusetts!

The week in Montana was stunning. I was stunned by my loss and stunned by the support given to me by all sorts of people from John’s wonderful co-workers to the woman in the post office who helped me and my shaky hands fill forms to forward John’s mail back home. No one questioned my and John’s relationship. Might the kindness have been there if my name was Charles? From some people, yes, because they are good-hearted and don’t want to see people in pain. Would things have been as easy for me if my name was Charles? I doubt it. People assumed our relationship as one of marriage, or just about the same thing.

At the end of the week, I returned to the funeral home to pick up John’s ashes and the death certificate. I slipped the certificate from its manila envelope and look sadly at the stats: date of birth, date of death, mother’s name, my name. I stopped short looking at the slot to list the type of our relationship, it said, “Married.”

“Ah, we aren’t married," I sputtered to the woman who’d handed me the envelope. “We are partners. I don’t want to misrepresent us.” I said.

And in truth, I didn’t want to be married. Neither of us felt comfortable with marriage for our own reasons of observing less than optimal relationships unimproved by marriage. But also because why should we be able to marry when others couldn’t? I used to say, “We’ll get married 10 years after gay marriage is allowed in all 50 states. The institution will need at least that much time to recover from its bad habits of putting males and females in little boxes of traditional and dreary roles. ” And I’d laugh.

“There is no option for domestic partner in Montana so we picked married.” The woman smiled at me.

And so I was married there in the funeral home. No flowers. Just ashes, but they were mine to take home.

Would this have happened if my name was Charles? Absolutely not.

This piece was previously published in Carolyn Cushing's blog, Unstoppable Wholeness.