Welcome to The BeZine’s online,
virtual 100,000 Poets for Change event!
This past week, an international aid convoy in Syria was attacked with devastating results, during a ceasefire. Bombs went off, as usual, in Iraq. They also went off in New Jersey and New York. There were terrorist knife attacks in Jerusalem. And knife attacks also in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Police shot (at least) two unarmed African-Americans in the United States. Police shot “terror suspects” in Israel. Iran arrested dissidents. China gave a dissident’s attorney a 12-year sentence.
Climate change has reduced the arctic ice sheets at record levels, this summer just ended. The Fertile Crescent, where Western civilization began, has suffered such a devastating drought that farmers have fled it for years now—a contributing cause to the Syrian civil war and the refugee crisis. The hardened, drought-stricken soil in the region, broken up by heavy war-machinery, artillery shelling, and bombs, has turned into dust that the wind picks up—a contributing cause of record dust storms throughout the region.
It is time for global change
For the past six years, 100,000 Poets for Change (100TPC) has inspired and supported events on a Saturday in September. This year, there are over 550 events scheduled throughout the world. This blog/zine is one of them. The goal is for poets (artists, musicians, actors, even mimes) to band together and perform / exhibit their work in a call to change the world for the better.
The 100TPC themes are peace, sustainability, and social justice. The September 2016 issue of The BeZine, edited by Priscilla Galasso and Steve Wiencek, focuses on environmental justice. This focus relates to social justice and sustainability, but is a necessary part of obtaining peace.
If we still have poverty and homelessness, what is sustained other than inequality? And, without social justice and a sustainable environment, could there be peace? Could peace be maintained without both social and environmental justice alongside environmental and economic sustainability?
Share your work here, today, as part of our 100TPC online event—help us create a space for change. As in past years, the event will be archived and made available later on The BeZine’s website and will also be archived at Standford University in California.
Here’s how to post your work
For today’s online event, our choice is not to put one of the three themes—peace, sustainability, and social justice—above the others, but to recognize that all of these three necessary areas of change interrelate in complex ways.
We invite you to participate. Share your writing, art, music, videos, thoughts that relate to these themes on our website today.
It’s actually easy to do.
- Click on Mr. Linky below and follow instructions for posting a link to a post on your blog:
- You can also post a link or writing directly into the comments below!
Come back during the day
Please return often today (Sept. 24, 2016) to read what others have posted, follow links, like, and leave comments—and to see and reply to what others have commented on your own posts and links. We would love to see an active dialogue!
Just joined in from Sharjah UAE. Glad to be a part of this. Reading all the posts ! Thanks Jamie and Michael.
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A song based on a poem written by John Cornford during the Spanish Civil War.
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New to me, Michael. Thank you!
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It’s a lovely song. A new edition of his book is drawing attention to him once again.
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I’ll have to check it out.
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Have linked on Mr Linky…..
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Yes! I saw and shared the link 😀. Thank you!
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Sonja Benskin Mesher posted a link to Sunday Morning on Mr. Linky. Go to Mr. Linky to share links to your 100TPC works!
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thanks
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“Mock mockers after that
That would not lift a hand maybe
To help good, wise or great
To bar that foul storm out, for we
Traffic in mockery.”
—W B Yeats, Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen
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I’m inviting people to read this—allies should join this boycott in support of calling attention to the police shooting-lynchings of People of Color. https://www.facebook.com/isaiahwashington46
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Good one to link in here. Thank you, Michael.
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My pleasure.
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Syedah Maryam Iqbal shares a link to her blog here—and on Mr. Linky. Go to Mr. Linky to share links to your 100TPC works!
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Jamie Dedes shares a poem and writing prompt on her blog here—and on Mr. Linky.
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Robin Baldwin shared Obsession on Mr. Linky
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This puts me in mind of the song from “South Pacific” … you’ve got to be taught to hate and fear … thank goodness some are taught to love …
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“What a strange thing!
to be alive
beneath cherry blossoms.”
― Kobayashi Issa, Poems
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And here’s Carolyn O’Connell’s poem from this issue of “The BeZine” … she sent it for the event and I jumped the gun and published it … read on …
The bark of the old oak shows its wrinkles, scars
written on the vellum of its years, a new ring
spans the finger of its heart, a summer’s history
almost soldered as its sparse leaves crinkle;
sap withdraws in August Drop before painting
the oak then falling to mulch and feed the tree.
This oak has seen our planet change with time
its rivers tamed, fields, and its villages and coasts
redrawn, kings’ rule and die as all men do
their legacy and palaces razed or democratized.
Its seen Sahara’s sands creep to the sea,
ice thicken or melt around the pole’s,
jungles spread, retreat and species change
men flee from famine, war, women weep
and children starve or die upon the sea.
Encased within the chrysalis of power
oligarchs, dictators wield transient decrees
with the cold eyes and furrowed faces age bestows;
for gold and power strips their hearts, yet
their bones will lay with poor men in the earth.
Whose riches can sustain both man and beast
if kindly managed like this ancient oak,
tending to all a share that gives food and cloak
and with respect shelter from the storms of life.
Stripped bones give no hint of state or faith
when they rise with movement of the plant’s shell?
Ground by magma, rock, wave or fire to dust
they may well blow upon the wind to fall
on foreign fields forgotten by their folk.
Each of us is but an oak leaf in Earth’s time;
life a summer’s span before September’s age,
precursors November’s fall to earth and death’s
transformation to mulch to feed the oak afresh.
© Carolyn O’Connell
CAROLYN O’CONNELL lives in Ham, Richmond, Surrey in South London and started to write poetry after working in the Civil Service and the RNIB. She is a member of the Ormond Poetry Group and also a member of her local W.I. She works with Richmond Libraries to promote poetry and has lead workshops, hosted at The Tea Box in Richmond and been a Guest Read at Rhythm & Muse. Having worked on the poetry pRO project her poems have been translated into Romanian and broadcast on Romania radio via the Translation Café of the University of Bucharest.Her work has been published in America. Publications: Envoi, Interpreter’s House. Poetry Space, Snare’s Nest, I am Not a Silent Poet. Her collection “Timelines,” is published by Indigo Dreams (2014, ISBN 978-1-9093575-3-2) Carolyn lives in Richmond, Surrey, on the outskirts of London. Collection Timelines was published by Indigo Dreams http://www.indigodreams/co.UK/bookshop in 2014. ISBN 978-1-9093575-3-2) She works with local groups and libraries. Further information and website http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/carolynoconnellpage.shtml
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M. Zane Mcclellan (The Poet Channel) and Mike Stone (uncollected works) have already put work in Mister Linky for all to read and while you’re there, don’t forget to share a link to your own work.
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Central Station
people decently dressed
wait for trains
for connections
for new termini
new chances
longed-for visitors
or just sit around
watching
impassive pigeons
picking at crumbs –
the man with the robe
the colour of
scorched earth
nips off bits of bread
fancying
it tastes better
than the one stuck
in a corner of his mind
across the rails
huge screens rotate
images of prosperity
shiny roadsters
faces, clean shaven like marble
breasts shimmering
through high-tech lace
a sudden thought
a shiver
the intimation of a silhouette
that could be his daughter’s
the bread in his hand
feels like earth
like the scorched earth
he had left behind
callous fingers
knead it to crumbs
the hand opens
but the pigeons are gone
and the Supervisor
rebukes him
with an uncompromising gaze
(c) Aprilia Zank
Aprilia is a friend of the Zine and also a guest contributor. This is her contribution to this years’ 100TPC. Aprilia is also a lecturer for Creative Writing and Translation in the Department of Languages and Communication at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, where she received her PhD degree in Literature and Psycholinguistics for her thesis THE WORD IN THE WORD Literary Text Reception and Linguistic Relativity. She’s a writer, poetry and photographer. Thanks, Aprilia!
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“The Emperor’s New Changes”
(Raanana, September 11, 2016)
A hundred thousand poets for change
That’s us.
That’s what we called ourselves last year
And the year before.
So they’ve stopped lynching the poets in Arabia?
They’ve stopped stoning the raped women in Kabul?
What about the mutilation of genitals of young girls?
So they’ve stopped burning down Black churches in Bama?
Stopped desecrating the lands of our Sioux brothers?
How about the carbon they’ve dumped in the atmosphere?
Did they stop that?
Do they believe now the earth is too warm to live on?
Are philosophers kings yet?
Are kings philosophers?
I don’t mean to be cynical
But it doesn’t seem like much has changed since last year.
We’ve read a few poems,
That’s all.
Come to think of it,
Have we really changed,
Except for getting a year older?
If that’s change
Then we better change change
So that it’s palpable
So that we can feed people with it
So that people can walk tall from it
So that people can protect themselves with it
So that people can make love to it
Until change is done changing
And the world is all the Republic we need.
Mike Stone
Raanana Israel
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Thank you, Mike and Raanana! Point taken and perfect to kick us off …
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Thank you for this, Mike!
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Thank you, Michael Dickel. And here we go …
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Reblogged this on The Poetry Channel.
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Michael McClelliann, thank you and your group so very much for your support and participation. Much appreciated. Nothing better than to be united in peace and for the sake of our environment.
Warmest regards,
Jamie Dedes
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Proud to be a part, Jamie. This is when and where we all need to come together for Peace.
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Indeed yes! I’m going to mention you in a comment in a minute Michael. Perhaps you would respond. Thanks!
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Mike’s blog should interest others: https://uncollectedworks.wordpress.com/bemused/#_Toc461439654
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Michael M. Perhaps you’ll tell us a bit about Poetry Channel. I feel like you are a sort of brother effort to ours.
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Well we are definitely in tune with the Peace movement. I think the collaborative poem just added to the Standard University 100TPC archive says it best.
https://forgottenmeadows.wordpress.com/2016/09/20/and-we-are-published-poetsforpeace/
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Thanks, Michael. Bravo!
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How did you happen to start The Poetry Channel and how long ago.
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You’re welcome, Jamie. Thank you. We are all very proud of the collaboration. All but 1 of nearly 200 Poets consented to being included in Praxis Magazine online’s publication of their contribution.
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So pulling that together was the intention to begin with. You didn’t start a site and then move on to publication.
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Publication was not even the intent, no.
Lauta Kaminski, curator for the magazine approached us. We just wanted to do a collaborative poem.
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So “The Poetry Channel” is Michael’s site and the collaboration is not attached to a website or blog.
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If you’re interested, you can download the PDF here:
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Always interested and hope readers are. I’ll be there when 100TPC is over.
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Interest has been high since the poem published. I am looking forward to the fruits of tomorrow’s 100TPC global events.
Peace,
Michael
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Me too. 550 events per Michael Rothenberg. Wonderful. By the way, I grew up by Adelphi. Lovely area.
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I grew up in Uniondale mostly.
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Nassau County. I went to St. Joe’s in Brentwood.
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I know it. Played lacrosse against St Joe’s in HS
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Actually I went to the St. Joe’s that is part of the convent. All girls. 🙂 … and novices. So we didn’t wrestle except with our souls. 🙂
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St Joseph’s in Brentwood? So I would have remembered that. I graduated in 1978 and am obviously thinking of another school. The Catholic schools were great wrestling teams, Chaminade being the best.
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Oh, I do remember Chaminade. And the miliary school … I can see it in my mind but don’t remember the name. Of course the military school and St. Joe’s H.S. are closed now.
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I Googled to see why I was confused and still have no idea, but my younger brother & sister grew up in Bayside (different foster home). St. Joseph’s was the name of a.vrojp foster home in Sea Cliff where we lived before being placed in foster homes ourselves.
Sorry, I had to niggle that out of my brain. Hate being confused.
Have a good night, Jamie. Good chatting with you.
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Ditto that. 🙂
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Which is something like the meaning of Israel — (one) who wrestles with G-d.
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No, wrestling.
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No.
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A great idea, Jamie!
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Thank you!
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