Posted in 100,000 Poets, Musicians, Artists and Activists for Change, The BeZine Table of Contents

THE BeZINE’S Virtual 2019 100TPC Event…Poetry, Music, Art for Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice

Posted on by The Bardo Group Beguines

The BeZine’s Live 100TPC

Poetry, Music, Art
for
Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice

Poetry. It’s better than war! —Michael Rothenberg, co-founder of 100,000 Poets (and friends) for Change

It is time once again for The BeZine live 100TPC event, this year at the end of a week when over 7 million people around the world participated in various climate crisis strikes to demand action now, according to 350.org.

Today, under the banner of 100,000 Poets (and friends) for Change (100TPC), for the 9th year, people the world over are gathered to stand up and stand together for PEACE, SUSTAINABILITY and SOCIAL JUSTICE. There are over 700 100TPC events worldwide scheduled for 28 September 2019, and many others throughout the year. This year, a large number of these events focus on the climate crisis, the urgency of which has been well expressed by Greta Thunberg:

When our house is burning we cannot just leave it to the children to pour water on the flames – we need the grownups to take responsibility for sparking the blaze in the first place. So for once, we’re asking grownups to follow our lead: we can’t wait any longer. —Greta Thunberg, 15 March 2019 (age 16, Swedish)

Our themes for your contributions, as every year, are Peace, Social Justice, and Sustainability. As I wrote in the introduction to the September 2019 issue of The BeZine, these three issues intertwine with each other. With a month of climate actions, this week just past of focused action through 350.org, and Greta Thunberg’s #ClimateStrike, #FridaysForFuture, and #schoolstrike4climate efforts, the climate crisis has been a central focus of many this month. The BeZine blog has been running daily posts related to the climate crisis throughout September.

Even so, we welcome your work on any of the three themes. We need action and change in all of these areas, we need it now, and we need to keep calling for action and deep, cultural change, every day.

Right now, the youth are urgently calling on adults and governments to act, and especially on issues of sustainability. Thunberg boldly told the gathered world leaders at the UN:

People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you! —Great Thunberg, 23 September 2019

While Thunberg may be the most well-known youth on the issue of the climate crisis, other youth have worked on related issues, especially clean water. Clean water should be a human right—it is an issue of social justice, wars are fought over water, and sustainable practices are needed to clean our waters and keep them clean.

Autumn Peltier (age 14), an Anishinaabe living in Canada, is one of those other youth, who, as did her aunt before her, lives her life as a water protector:

No one should have to worry if the water is clean or if they will run out of water. No child should grow up not knowing what clean water is, or never know what running water is. —Autumn Peltier, 22 March 2018 (age 13 at the time, Canadian Anishinaabe)

Seventeen year-old Xiye Bastida, a Mexican American living in New York, speaks to the need for deep-rooted change:

We need to change our culture and change our narrative. For too long, the narrative has been that this is some big distant thing that will happen in the year 2100. But pollution is here. Heatwaves are here. Wildfires are here. Melting ice caps are here. Floods are here. Category 5 hurricanes are here. It’s here already. —Xiye Bastida, 19 September 2019 (age 17, Mexican-American from New York City)

Mari Copeny, a 12 y.o. African American also known as “Little Miss Flint,” at the age of 8 brought attention to (and grant money for) the water crisis in Flint, MI, by writing to then President Barack Obama. Now aged 12, she calls on us to not just act today, nor this week, nor this month:

No, our fight to save the planet didn’t start today with the #ClimateStrike and it doesn’t end today either. Many of us have been putting in the work for years to save our planet. Don’t just amplify our voices today, but every day and support our solutions to save us. —Mari Copeny on Twitter, 20 September 2019 (age 12, African-American from Flint, MI, also known as “Little Miss Flint”)

I return to Thunberg, who proclaims “change is coming”:

You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not. —Greta Thunberg, 23 September 2019

Last year on our 2018 Live 100TPC page, Jamie Dedes, our managing editor, wrote about 100TPC:

Think on this when you are tempted to lose all hope for our species. Remember that—not just today, but everyday—there are ripples and waves and tsunamis of faith and courage crossing borders in the form of poetry, stories, art, music, friendships and other acts of heroism. Hang tough. And do join with us—The Bardo Group Beguines—today to share your own creative work and to enjoy the work of others. All are welcome no matter where in the world you live.

I say, think of these youth, their messages, and their leadership—”ripples and waves and tsunamis of faith and courage.” Think of these precious, perceptive youth—

—Michael Dickel, Contributing Editor

these precious perceptive youth, a poem

“Providing food, shelter, clothing and education is not enough any more, because all of this would have no meaning in the end, if your children do not have a planet to live on with health and prosperity.” —Abhijit Naskar, The Constitution of The United Peoples of Earth

this perfect blue-green planet, her youth
dream among the strains of their hope,
dream of us like our sun and moon,
coordinating  … if only we would,
sowing the rich soil with right-action,
cultivating a greening of our compassion,
acting on a commonsense vision

the fruits of our being-ness plant their
ideals, shared values, a call for accountability,
for a re-visioning unencumbered by insanity,
rich fields to harvest, color, sound, textures,
rough and smooth, the deep rootedness of
their stand and stand for, their wise demands
casting a spell that we might see with one eye,
splendor hidden behind our irresponsibility,
their effervescent call, blossoming unity, vision –
bright spinning planet gently graced with these
wildflowers, these precious perceptive youth.

Dedicated to the young people of the world who teach us many lessons as they reach across borders in their stand for climate action. 

© 2019, Jamie Dedes

Jamie Dedes’ poem originally appeared on her blog, The Poet by Day.

Read more about Autumn Peltier, Mari Copeny, and Xiye Bastida here.

POST YOUR WORK HERE TODAY

TO SHARE YOUR POEMS, ART, PHOTOGRAPHY AND MUSIC VIDEOS FOR OUR “LIVE” VIRTUAL 100TPC TODAY, PLEASE USE MISTERLINKY FOR URL LINKS. JUST CLICK ON THE ICON BELOW.  YOU CAN ALSO SIMPLY PASTE YOUR COMPLETE WORK OR THE URL TO IT INTO THE COMMENTS SECTION.

REMEMBER THE THEMES ARE PEACE, SUSTAINABILITY, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE.

as of OCTOBER 2, 2019, this event is closed for sharing

YOU CAN STILL READ

thank you everyone who participated

we’ll open an all-new virtual event next year, Sept. 28, 2010

Mister Linky meme: The BeZine Live 2019 100TPC
Click on Mister Linky above to add a link to your work!

 

Author:

The focus of "The BeZine," a publication of The Bardo Group Beguines, is on sacred space (common ground) as it is expressed through the arts. Our work covers a range of topics: spirituality, life, death, personal experience, culture, current events, history, art, and photography and film. We share work here that is representative of universal human values however differently they might be expressed in our varied religions and cultures. We feel that our art and our Internet-facilitated social connection offer a means to see one another in our simple humanity, as brothers and sisters, and not as “other.” This is a space where we hope you’ll delight in learning how much you have in common with “other” peoples. We hope that your visits here will help you to love (respect) not fear. For more see our Info/Mission Statement Page.

43 thoughts on “THE BeZINE’S Virtual 2019 100TPC Event…Poetry, Music, Art for Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice”

  3. A Sad State of Freedom

    You waste the attention of your eyes,
    the glittering labour of your hands,
    and knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves
    of which you’ll taste not a morsel;
    you are free to slave for others–
    you are free to make the rich richer.

    The moment you’re born
    they plant around you
    mills that grind lies
    lies to last you a lifetime.
    You keep thinking in your great freedom
    a finger on your temple
    free to have a free conscience.

    Your head bent as if half-cut from the nape,
    your arms long, hanging,
    your saunter about in your great freedom:
    you’re free
    with the freedom of being unemployed.

    You love your country
    as the nearest, most precious thing to you.
    But one day, for example,
    they may endorse it over to America,
    and you, too, with your great freedom–
    you have the freedom to become an air-base.

    You may proclaim that one must live
    not as a tool, a number or a link
    but as a human being–
    then at once they handcuff your wrists.
    You are free to be arrested, imprisoned
    and even hanged.

    There’s neither an iron, wooden
    nor a tulle curtain
    in your life;
    there’s no need to choose freedom:
    you are free.
    But this kind of freedom
    is a sad affair under the stars.

    Translated by Taner Baybars

    – Nazim Hikmet

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  4. Pingback: “Letters from a Man in Solitary” and “On Living,” poems by Nâzım Hikmet | THE POET BY DAY

  7. The planet has a plan

    Do you know that the Pacific Ocean is compromised?
    That clean running water is less and less
    The desert gets larger and larger
    The artic ice is melted entirely
    The air is toxic
    And the madness is higher then ever
    Do you know? Have you digested this message?
    Yes, the planet is saving itself
    It fights back once again as it did with the dinosaurs
    Then, it called for help in the deep space and a huge rock came
    This time it has a different approach
    But neithertheless, the planet will survive
    These bugs, toxic bugs, called humans, after their canibalization will meet their extinction
    Not even their words, their big, fancy spell, won’t leave a trace…
    The Planet has a plan
    It will win using our weapons against us
    Our greed, our stupidity are its tools
    Keep doing what you are doing, soon the planet will be free!

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  8. Pingback: The BeZine, Vol. 6, Issue 3, September 2019, Social Justice – The BeZine

  9. The Planet Speaks

    the Amazon burns no one
    quells the fires
    air, knowledge is lost in the fire.

    Waters run polluted no one
    seeks to free fish
    or children drinking poison.

    Air spins in cyclones
    destroying all under its twisting cloud
    flooding the earth.

    Metal is used to make war
    peoples flee
    are called predators by those who’ve only known comfort.

    Are we but people
    whatever language colour, creed
    we came from one source?

    But will expire
    in our own detritus
    unless we care for our planet

    which will spin
    into the void of extinction
    unless we care for it and others.

    ©2019 Carolyn O’Connell

    Liked by 2 people

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  11. Coming Back: Franco not here no more, 1988

    I go blind from then I go
    here now so into Franco-free light
    where I don’t know
    how to turn my eyes,
    spent scars of second skin,
    years of no and fury,
    now the clean air breaking in
    to be real in this to breathe it
    all in and then to die in Madrid.
    Tempt it not—I surely do not
    Not too. No Franco and his cops
    Nor his tiny stamps, unwritten laws
    And truncheons at the ready.

    I did not come here to die
    but to be home here
    where I can get lost again free
    in a landscape of
    words drifting oh words!
    Hombre que te pasa
    la Republica Zaragoza libertad.

    Find the bridge, the path,
    to cross over to some-
    where the verdict words cannot.
    Qué bonitas son
    Son las flores
    No, not just pretty. Knot not.

    When I go blind,
    “good I cannot see them”
    (as the words once were cords
    even to touch their fury)
    The pain of sound.
    Clackety clack.
    Let the air out
    of this flat tire.

    I’m breaking in
    to be real again—
    the Guadarrama mountain range
    splendid low about the horizon
    white-scarred muses
    women scarring Fascism.
    Late afternoon glory with them in Madrid.
    The air so pure it stings to settle.

    originally published in The BeZine, September 2018

    copyright 2018, Linda Chown – and shared here with her permission

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  12. What they said

    At the beginning of before.
    Here it is: are we in the right
    spindle bobbing away?
    Are you a fable resting in the sun and wanting?
    Tell me how your dreams are.
    Tell me what you might mean to yourself in their fury,

    Now, skirts forever in a night wind
    Yesterday spins yellows around tomorrow
    Whatever did your mother tell you about
    late at night when you put your book down
    on the bed and she came in soundless
    with a tight face to sit in the dark with you
    while you wheezed and you waited.
    Violence in the coal mines.

    They always told me
    La Pasionaría was brave
    no pasarán, she said. With her vision
    she was defending Madrid’s mountains
    they told me and I heard her when
    she spoke with that spike of passion
    indomitable: she said no pasarán
    and in the foothills there were cheers all dressed in black.

    Your father I learned took a gun with him
    there at the beginning of before
    to protect himself at midnight
    on the picket lines in the dark
    to protect himself from hit men
    who hated his vision out west
    in the fog in those long flat parking lots .

    Low in his left cheek a muscle quivered
    within, at the end of a smile that wasn’t.
    He took a gun and she went kitten silent on your bed.
    The quiet of her heavy sitting
    at the beginning of before
    reminds me of an old dream,
    her telling you of crossing the street
    because of the scar on her skin
    because she wanted to hide it from all eyes

    Was this a mingled message
    to fight with all the passion the rains pour
    or to scurry away from feeling?
    To hold the front line or to flee into a hole?
    Camus who believed in solitude as his struggle
    And Aragon whose masses were transcendental
    Tell, tell me more please before the end is over.

    Isidora Dolores Ibárruri Gómez, aka “La Pasionaria,” a Spanish Republican leader of the Spanish Civil War

    originially published in The BeZine, September 2018

    copyright 2018, Linda Chown … and shared here with her permission

    Liked by 2 people

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  14. Resistance Poetry Wall 100Tpc.org

    by Benedicta Boamah
    28th September, 2019

    running helter-skelter
    in a sense of confusion
    shields of refrains
    an opted referendum of subtle serenity
    the patterns of a judicial reform

    ©Benedicta Boamah 2019

    Liked by 2 people

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  18. In Mster Linky, the link to poem, “this floe of ice,” for Cesare Pavese and Salvatore Quasimodo, by Dennis Formento, from his book, Spirit Vessels (FootHills Publishing, 2018.) Simone Bottasso, organetto. Recorded August 20, 2019, in Plan Felinaz, Valle d’Aosta, Italy. Music based on a melody by Marco “Mammo” Inaudi. Reza Mirjalali, videographer. Good stuff. Check it out. Worth your time. Thanks to Dennis Formento.

    Liked by 2 people

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  19. Gayle Walters Rose (Bodirose’s Blog) asked me to post this for her. The direct link is:https://bodhirose.wordpress.com/2019/09/19/a-lightness-of-being/

    A Lightness of Being

    to witness your pain
    and to take it in
    where it stirs my heart
    and compassion reigns
    connects our humanity
    eloquent and deep
    we meet in the middle
    and clasp our hands

    tears fall freely
    without feeling vulnerable
    knowing we’re loved
    with no hesitation
    reaching around
    our embrace enfolds
    and healing begins
    from the warmth
    of our emotions

    there is no weakness sensed
    I will hear what you grieve
    held in a space of safety
    where love always lives
    I will be there for you
    as you are for me
    our pain will diminish
    as the two of us reveal
    let me shore you up
    through life’s sufferings
    bring you ease, a smile
    and a lightness of being

    copyright 2019, Gayle Walters Rose

    Liked by 3 people

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    1. Thank you for linking me up here, Jamie, I appreciate it. After reading all the quotes from the young people speaking out, I’m amazed at their poise, intelligence and awareness of the issues at hand. Oh, how we underestimate our youth’s insight! They’re cutting through the BS and holding adults accountable for their harmful choices. I’m so impressed! I do have hope.
      Gayle ~

      Liked by 2 people

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  20. Machinery

    Sun blasts the black gully
    Seethes the road rocky
    Shaped like a refugee
    Adrift in a hodgepodge.
    This burnt lost shrine of pure nothingness
    In this sunlit black stew where
    We beggars tell of yesterday’s
    Hot fires and lyres. How to make beauty
    in this year’s wilderness?
    Even the flowers look withered and unseen
    In this year’s lying, like lovers grown out of themselves.

    ©️2019, Linda Chown

    Just now “hot off the press” so to speak!

    Liked by 4 people

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  22. Pingback: To write a peace poem – Meta/ Phor(e) /Play

  28. Progress To The Future.. Ode To An Oderus Anarchist.

    When I was a child I was sold a flag and a map.
    A map that said progress on it and that’s a fact.
    I can see it now with definite sign.
    Follow us it’s gonna be fine.
    When I got older they sold me another map and a flag.
    a flag with some stars on, better cars and cheaper gas.
    As we all march you and me, two by two, and hand in hand.
    “Eeee”, it were marvellous the future were grand.
    Now I am older and wiser I have an atlas at last.
    My own moral compass and an extra fine reading glass.
    Step by step as we traverse this globe.
    With sure gate and a black and red robe.
    Nick Yaya Hayward 25/01/2017

    Liked by 1 person

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  29. An Owed to our lost sense of tribe.
    A tribe is a group of girls and guys that get together and grow old and wise.
    A tribe is a group that look out for each other and check your well supplied.
    A tribe is a group that takes care of your loved ones while you’re otherwise occupied.
    A tribe is a group that’s got your back your front your left and your right side.
    A tribe is a group that sees beyond lifes petty slights likes and dislikes.
    A tribe is a group that fall or stand together no matter the weather or outsiders appetites.
    A tribe is a group that only now do I miss when I am away from my friends majestic flight.
    Nick Yaya Hayward 25/01/2017

    Liked by 1 person

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