DEY OF THE PHOENIX/ BLOG

“Hope at the Center: Poetry Show” takes place on April 15, 2010, at 8pm at SCENE Metrospace of East Lansing.  I am performing poetry from a collection of the same name to be released  in tandem with the event.  My partner is the Michigan Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, which will receive half of the proceeds.  More info soon to come!

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Press is picking up about The HerStories Project including an interview with Bonnie Bucqueroux from Lansing Online and a plug by Bill Castanier published in LON and the Mittenlit Blog. LON also invited me to write from the perspective of organizer, and my thoughts are published as “Creating Spaces”.

Stay tuned for more coverage of the program!

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I look out the second-story window of my home and smile at the snow atop bushes, across lawns, streaking rooftops. I am grateful for this Michigan winter, the season I missed most while in Belgium. Normally Belgian winters are mild, much like the coastal-side of the Pacific Northwest, where the grass stays green during the shortest days of the year, where snow infrequently falls and rarely sticks around. So the irony is not lost on me to hear from my partner that Belgium is running out of salt due to this year’s abundant snowfall. His mother recalls that it’s the first time in many, many years since the snow covered her country’s ground for longer than a month.

This morning I’m reflecting upon my Valentine’s weekend, when I joined writers for a winter workshop with Laura Apol at the Leaven Center in Lyons, Michigan. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve named a new endeavor of mine The HerStories Project, which kicks off in March to celebrate stories about women during Women’s History Month. If you live in or are near the greater Lansing area of Michigan, be sure to join the free program!

On Saturday afternoons in March at the Everybody Reads bookstore (2019 E. Michigan Ave.), the program offers storytelling, writing workshops and author readings. The final event on March 27 is the Benefit Show and Open Mike, a fundraiser for the Women’s Center of Greater Lansing. The public is welcome to join events without registration except for participation in workshops and the open mike.

Check out the press release for the full program, and email herstories.project @ gmail.com to volunteer, ask questions, or register.

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nothing of substance split
an irrevocable rift

these small things
potential chemical cocktails

are consequential
we are responsible for the ripple

behold its reach
as the full moon wanes

the goddess forewarned
but was denied

so it is time to bury
those gifts in the earth

for mother
transforms ill will

while the tree of life
divinely truth-bearing

warms rose quartz
in an open palm

as love
overcomes

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Full Moon reflects
what New Moon says
to Old Ways
….Begin again

***

on the dark night
of a new moon
my soul is as the snow
.. full….of….silence

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I am home, birthplace of winter, childhood of snow tunnels, adolescence of Christmas carols, adulthood of whiteouts,

home for the lengthiest, coldest, darkest season, greeted by the longest night, a joyous birth, an annual novelty,

home, no matter the wind chill.

December 14, 2009 – Lansing, Michigan, USA

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These are poems I’ve been working on in November. Observations and ideas are most welcome!

digging trenches

encircled by expired leaves
pink earthworms wiggle
while the novice digs
crooked trenches remembering
droughts and weeds

foot plunges spade
hand heaves handle
ideas swivel a season
of surviving sprouts
into this harvest

rough gourds
hairy ears
and fiery globes
more precious than
any ideal

Note: I have more material for a longer poem but wonder if this length fits.

*

storm

my feet are lead
the air is glass
and my soul is a cloud

great and gray
pierced by bolts
rocked by booms

there is no navigating
this open storm
pulsing

Note: The final two lines are what leave me wondering.

*

5 years from now

projections will fail
nothing will be as expected
as planned
there is no thread long enough
strong enough to withstand
the span

so why are we crazed with
5 years from now
an image a demand
that strings us along
and leaves us undone

a tasty little phrase
a futuristic gaze
a preoccupation
a distraction from now
the moment
the tangible
the potential
of today

Note: Does the repetition lend to the poem or add excess weight?

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Regina Holliday is a health-care reform activist. She is powered by love for her late husband Fred, who was diagnosed with stage IV kidney cancer last spring and died on June 17 at the age of 39. A week after his death, Holliday blogged this self-portrait:

I am a liberal democrat raised in Oklahoma by conservative republicans. I am a Lutheran whose best friends represent many faiths. I am a mural artist in Washington DC and was Oklahoma State Champion in Original Oratory in 1990. I have worked in a factory, in food service, in retail, as a teacher, and served briefly in the US Navy. I am a mother of a special needs son and am the widow of a good man. I am the perfect storm. (See The Battle Begins.)

And Holliday’s words ring true with media coverage of her mural painting from her home base in the US Capitol with the Washington Post to foreign outlets including the BBC and Al-Jazeera. So far her public murals include Medical Facts and 73 Cents.

Besides painting, Holliday blogs about health-care news, media coverage of her advocacy efforts, and real-life stories. She succinctly fuses the political and personal. For instance, Holliday compares her experience as a childhood survivor of violence at the hands of an alcoholic parent to how people are coping with today’s health-care system. (See “The Abuse in the Medical System”.)

Through her blog, we learn that Holliday spoke by invitation at a conference alongside health providers, her flesh-and-blood story dispelling the anonymity of bar charts (see “Thoughts on Medicine and Social Media”). We also find original poems like “The Cleaning of the Brush”, which traces how “art defines life” from her childhood to becoming a marriage partner.

Holliday welcomes people to join her health-care reform efforts. She also invites firsthand stories about tragedies with medical care for her murals. Holliday can be reached by email reggieart123[at]yahoo.com, through her blog, and via social media like Facebook and Twitter.

What especially inspires me about Holliday’s art-advocacy is how she’s following her own vision, carrying out her own contribution. She’s willing as an individual to express her views through creation in the middle of the public eye. She’s enriching community spaces with art that speaks to the everyday struggles and hopes of onlookers. May Holliday’s truth-speaking command a humanitarian response from parties with their hands crammed down the cookie jar of US health care.

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Today I learned about Regina Holliday, a health-care activist who’s painting murals. She’s spurred by the recent loss of her husband Fred to renal cancer. Check out her powerful and huge mural 73 Cents, which depicts her family’s story in the context of the US health care system.

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