 This is a subject that inspires me to write, teach, and love. By this bill being passed, it is one step in the direction to minimize the systemic problem of domestic violence. I am thankful for legislation which promotes justice for survivors, especially children, effected by domestic violence and child abuse.
Domestic Violence in the Presence of a Child – SB337/HB306 — PASSED Permits an additional 5 year penalty for those who commit a crime of violence in a residence when they know or reasonably should know they are within the sight or hearing of a child. The child must be at least 2 years old. Lead Sponsor: O’Malley/Brown Administration (Delegate Luiz Simmons and Senator Bobby Zirkin filed similar bills).
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National Poetry Month Celebration
Junior H started writing poetry in high school. It started out when he wrote for friends on issues relating to his life. Now, he is working on a book of poems and is excited about breaking into the industry as an up and coming artist. He loves poetry and is inspired by other artists self expression. The InterviewWhere do you draw your inspiration from to write poetry? The world brings so many different things to life. Why not embrace it and write it. Poetry is my way of venting and speaking what I cannot say with my mouth. What advice do you have for someone that is threatened by poetry? Poetry is nothing to be threatened by- its a thing of expression just like dance and even hip-hop. Poetry gives you permission to speak your mind, to display the heart and mind of the writer and more than anything else it highlights the beauty of expression. What is an interesting fact about you? I really don't tell anyone this, but I walk around my house in socks. I have two toes that are stuck together on both feet. I am not shy about it. It's something I've come to accept and love either way even though I think its weird. Where are you from/Where do you live? I am from Washington DC, but I now live in Maryland. Who is your favorite poet? I guess I am an old head, but I really like Edgar Allan Poe. Its something about his poetry and writing that intrigues me. Perhaps it is the subtle darkness that pulls me in. I love it. A PoemUNCONDITIONAL
I want to live within your heart There is no other place I would rather be, then your arms Wrap me with an embrace that cannot be separated No conditions, no stipulations, this is my interpretation Believe in what we have within our look of eye and eye This is where I am lost and found as I bare my soul Whole hearted; I lose control in the moment Confessing the love that resides behind the door of my heart As you reach for the knob to enter Remember that there are no conditions or stipulations I bare a true me, an open book for you to read National Poetry Month Celebration
Photo by Les Talusan
Gowri K. is a Sri Lankan Tamil American poet, performing artist, and lawyer. Her advocacy has addressed animal welfare, the environment, and the rights of prisoners and the criminally accused. She has co-authored two peer-reviewed scientific journal articles and her poetry has been published in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Bourgeon, and Lantern Review. Gowri was a member of the 2010 DC Southern Fried Slam team and has performed at Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and the Capital Fringe Festival. She serves as poetry coordinator at BloomBars and senior poetry editor with Jaggery: A DesiLit Arts and Literature Journal. She tweets on-the-spot haiku @gowricurry. What exciting things have you accomplished in 2013?
My most exciting artistic accomplishment from the past year was the birth of "Yasmeen." Last month, Palestinian composer Huda Asfour and I debuted this original full-length show (that we've been dreaming about producing for years) at the Intersections Festival at Atlas Performing Arts Center. It was also an honor to be invited to present on arts and advocacy at two conferences this past year -- the South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) annual conference in DC and the South Asian Awareness Network (SAAN) annual conference in Michigan. What can we look forward to in the future from you? There is little we/ can count on in the future./ But I'll keep sharing... #onthespothaiku Favorite inspirational quote: "I have had my invitation to this world's festival and, thus, my life has been blessed." -- Rabindranath Tagore National Poetry Month Celebration
Cindy Rinne creates art and writes in San Bernardino, CA. She is a Reader for “Tin Cannon” by PoetrIE and a Poetry Editor for the “Sand Canyon Review,” Crafton Hills College; CA. Cindy is a Guest Author for Saint Julian Press. She is a founding member of PoetrIE, an Inland Empire based literary community. Her work appeared or is forthcoming in Artemis Journal, Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, Pirene’s Fountain, The Poetry Bus (Ireland), ORANGELANDIA: The Literature of Inland Citrus Anthology, Phantom Kangaroo, Lyre, Lyre, Cactus Heart Press, The Wayfarer, Twelve Winters Press, The Lake (England), Revolution House, Soundings Review, and others. She has a poetry manuscript, The Feather Ladder and has written and illustrated a chapbook called, Rootlessness. www.fiberverse.com. What exciting things have you accomplished in 2013? 1) “52” Visual poetry workshop and group reading sponsored by the Inlandia Institute and the Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA 2) “between the tables,” collaboration of my poetry with modern dancers, choreographed by Crystal Sepulveda, Back to the Grind, Riverside, CA 3) Redlands 125th Anniversary Reading with PoetrIE, by invitation, Ed Hale Park, Redlands, CA 4) “Runes of Time,” two-person reading with Shali Nicholas, Buddhamouse Emporium, Claremont, CA 5) “Art in the Alley,” readings by PoetrIE members, Redlands, CA 6) “Beyond Baroque,” invited to read, Venice, CA 7) “Singwyrd,” self-published chapbook in collaboration with Michael Thomas Cooper What can we look forward to in the future from you?
Trying to get books and chapbooks published. Collaborations with dancers, poets, and artists. PoetrIE becoming a non-profit – scholarships, speaker series, etc. I am being featured in two readings in 2014. Teaching visual poetry. Favorite inspirational quote: “Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.” Eckhart Tolle National Poetry Month Celebration
Ashley Hayes is a professor at Crafton Hills College where she is currently the faculty advisor of The Sand Canyon Review, Crafton Hills College’s annual literary magazine. However, before she began working with intelligent and charismatic students in order to flood the Yucaipa community with fresh poetry, fiction and art, Hayes received her MFA in poetry from CSUSB because she couldn’t resist the urge to be herself and a poet simultaneously. On three separate occasions, Hayes has given true stories about why she is a poet: “Honestly, I often find myself writing poems when phrases seize my pen and my lips fumble pictures of like sounded words or shapes in a kaleidoscopic past or present series.” “True story: I am highly susceptible to distracting occurrences like brake lights illuminating smudges on a windshield. More often than not, I can be found on the side of some road doodling in tongues.” “Of course I like the whole romance of poetry thing, but, and this is between you and me, I really just like to see poetry naked.” It is also important to note that Hayes is an incredibly happy person because not only does she feel fulfilled and inspired by her profession and poetry, she also has three ridiculously amazing womb creatures, Harley, Veyda and Calliope, who she is most certainly cuddling with at this very moment. The InterviewWhere do you draw your inspiration from to write poetry?
As a confessional poet, I draw my inspiration from my life: from those seedy little moments that I just can’t weed out of the windowsill. It’s tricky to name which part of me feels so compelled to press the ink firmly into an innocent sheet of paper, but whichever cell is responsible for the neuron firing my hand mobile must move because it cannot not move. It’s a helpless compulsion, really. The mere sight of some unexpected noun shivers on a memory or shakes an emotion out of me, and I am wide awake as the fervor causes words to stutter on the images my eyes only see when heard. What advice do you have for someone that is threatened by poetry? Poetry is scary. It requires a constant state of vulnerability. You sit in some cozy corner and open a book of short lines trailing down a page, broken little lines that are meant to manipulate your emotions, to trick your mind into seeing things that are not really there, to force your foot into another person’s dirty shoe. I get it, really I do. And to write a poem? Well that’s just torture. You start fully overwhelmed by an intensity that quivers your hand into the throes of artistic expression, and while your squiggling out the feelings, you fight with each word because there is always a word that fits a little better, and then each scratched out word sets aflame self-doubt because really the poem is only a few stranded word islands surrounded by a sea of ink blobs at this point, but you push (the pen) on even though it kind of hurts to keep going, and you rarely know when it will end or where it should end until all of the sudden it comes to an end, and the intensity leaves you lonely and confused because best case scenario, somewhere in the pen flurry, you end up with a couple lines that you like, so you read those lines over and over in a love/hate relationship until you are able to abandon fears of rejection long enough to find some person to show those lines to, and then the first thing you do is apologize to that person, saying things like: “Oh man, this poem is a mess,” “I’ll probably just throw it away as soon as you’re done reading it,” or “Nevermind,” and if they like it, you don’t believe them because why would someone else like your silly scribbled out expression of what it means to be a sentient being, and if they don’t like it, well then you rarely gather the courage to ask someone else to read it again, and those words that you found captured a potent moment in your personal experience of living gets buried in a drawer until you decide you want to give the poem another go. No, poetry is absolutely threatening because you have to come face to face with the whole world at once through the eyes of human existence at its greatest and most powerful state. You have to admit that you feel and that you like feeling, and I do not deny how scary that can be, but in the words of my first mentor and best friend, “Grow a pair, pal.” What is an interesting fact about you? If I had to pick one entity to be my favorite for all of the five senses, it would be water. Also, I completely agree with Heraclitus. Where are you from/Where do you live? I came from a warm womb and live in the present tense as often as possible. Who is your favorite poet? They all are in one way or another. Emily Dickenson changed my life, and I always think of her first when someone asks the favorite poet question. So if you are uncomfortable and need a finite answer, stop reading because for you, my favorite poet is Dickenson. For all of you crazy adventurers, those who rogue off the binaries, rejecting the fork in the road completely to follow some trail of shrubs instead, poetry is my favorite. Don’t get me wrong, poets are my favorite people hands down, but if given the choice between being in a room with one poet and being in a room with a dozen poets, I’d almost always choose the dozen because each would add a personal spunkiness to my running understanding of what poetry is capable of. And I don’t have a favorite type of poetry either because quite frankly, poetry isn’t cheese; it’s everything that matters most to me. Poetry makes me feel more human and more alive. Poets are my favorite, and if you’ve written a poem or are going to write one, you are my favorite too. National Poetry Month Celebration
Deanna Nikaido is the author of two collections of poetry, Voice Like Water and Vibrating With Silence and holds a degree in Illustration from Art Center College of Design. Voice Like Water was selected in the Small Press Bookwatch July 2009 by Midwest Book Review. Her poems have appeared in several anthologies and journals and in 2006 she was a guest poet for Rumi’s 800th Birthday Celebration at the Visionary Art Museum. She continues as a senior coach and design consultant for Bookinday(www.bookinaday.org), a non-profit hands-on literacy project that teaches students the fundamentals of creative writing, through poetry and book publication and is in her third year as Maryland’s North and Western Regional Coordinator for the national recitation program, Poetry Out Loud(www.poetryoutloud.org. She also freelances doing book layout and cover design as well as other design layout needs. For more info or to contact: Visit www.deannanikaido.com What exciting things have you accomplished in 2013:
This year, actually the last two years have been about diversification. I continue to write poems mostly on small scraps of paper which I am trying to make some semblance out of into a third book of poems. Thematically I am not sure where these words are taking me just yet or what they are wanting me to hear so I continue to listen. It is always an interesting unforced process that I love watching unfold. In the area of navigating uncharted waters I am currently working on a childrens book that I was challenged to write 2 years ago by my colleague and friend Kwame Alexander during a writing retreat in Brazil. At the time it was stressful and uncomfortable and I didn’t know where to begin. I’ve never written a poem much less a prose work on demand—and after many days of blank paper meditations Kwame said to me, “Think of it as one long poem with breaks.” I could wrap my head around that and at the end of last year I had two sets of serious eyes review the manuscript and give me some encouraging feedback. The book is a novel in verse titled, Kintsugi-A Golden Tale of Friendship that I see as a picture book. I am quite encouraged and at the same time know the patience it will require to see it to fruition. It has been exciting to see my writing stretched in a new way. One of my most treasured highlights this year was with my work as coordinator for Poetry Out Loud. It is such an important program particularly at this time in the world where communication particularly with our young people is becoming mostly virtual with face to face interaction becoming nearly optional. The generation behind this will barely if at all know the difference—or care. This program reinforces the vibrational quality of being in the same space, real time with the person you are communicating with. This year I’ve had the opportunity to work with some exceptionally talented high school students that completely took this notion to heart. They rivaled any peer I’ve ever heard recite in the poetry world and I am so proud and completely excited to say that the young man from my region took first place at the Maryland state competition this past Saturday! Akash Menon from Frederick County will advance to the National competition next April 29-30 at George Washington University/Lizner Auditorium. TIf you can’t make it to DC the program will be live-streamed and I strongly encourage everyone to watch it. (Recitations are divided into 3 grouped regions. MD is in the first grouping which begins promptly at 9am) For more info visit: www.poetryoutloud.org. And last but not least, I became a certified practitioner for a Japanese healing art called Jin Shin Jyutsu. I have been studying for over 2 years and am quite excited about this! For me it is poetry for my hands. A listening art. If you are interested in learning more about this contact me on my website (a new page will be up shortly but I will still get the message). Wow, it’s funny how you don’t realize what you’ve done over the year until someone asks you to write it down. Thank you Yvonne! What can we look forward to in the future from you? Doing what I love. Whether it be with words, voice, hands or any other means through the heart that is where I’ll be funneling my energy. With the projects I have in the works, there is plenty to keep me happily busy. I am very grateful to work with people and on projects where I am able to utilize my gifts. A Favorite passage: Until We Live We come with all these parts and no instruction how they go together. It is so tempting to want the answers before we begin the journey. We like to know our way. We like to have maps. We like to have guides. But we are more like a breathing puzzle, a living bag of pieces and each day shows us what a piece or two is for, where it might go, how it might fit. Over time, a picture starts to emerge by which we begin to understand our place in the world. Unfortunately, we waste a lot of time seeking someone to tell us what life will be like once we live it. We drain ourselves of vital inner fortitude by asking others to map our way. At the end of all this stalling, though, we each have to venture out and simply see what happens. The instructions are in the living, and I confess that of all the times I thought I like this or didn’t care for that, not one was of my choosing or yours. For as the Earth was begun like a dish breaking, eternity is that scene slowly reversing, and you and I and the things we’re drawn to are merely the pieces of God unbreaking back together. -Mark Nepo National Poetry Month Celebration
Uptown Hunter is a rapper and writer born and raised in Northwest Washington, DC. His passion for music sparked at a young age when the late Notorious B.I.G and Tupac Shakur were at the prime of their careers. Inspired by these two rap heavy weights, Uptown Hunter works hard to display a versatile form of word play that does not go unrecognized. He established his music career in 2006 at the historical Takoma Station Tavern where his community, a tough crowd to please, embraced him with open arms. After completing his first album Time for a Change in February 2011Uptown Hunter has graced the stage at Time Square Arts Center, Hard Rock Café, and various community organizations citywide. In 2013, he released Self Promotion Vol. 3. Currently, Uptown Hunter is working on an anti-bully campaign. The InterviewWhere do you draw your inspiration from to write poetry? I get inspiration from listening to R & B/ Hip Hop like Biggie and Tupac, life experiences, and lessons I’ve learned. What advice do you have for someone that is threatened by poetry? Poetry is a powerful form of expression. Poetry is the truth and some people are scared and threatened by the truth. But when you add melody to the truth, people can accept it easier. The truth becomes less threatening. What is an interesting fact about you? I have a hearing loss. Since I was a child, I was told that I would have difficulty completing school and playing basketball. I beat all the academic odds placed against me. Plus, I played basketball. What everyone said I could not do, I did and excelled. The same with my music. In the world, it makes no sense for someone with a hearing loss to make music. But, anything and everything is possible when you put your mind to it. Where are you from/Where do you live? Born and raised in Washington D.C. in North West (Uptown) Who is your favorite poet? Tupac Shakur. He motivates me to use my words and inspire others. Connectwww.youtube.com/uptownhunterp36
www.twitter.com/uptownhunter www.mtv.com/uptownhunter www.instagram.com/uptown3phunter www.reverbnation.com/uptownhunter www.facebook.com/uptownhunterdmv National Poetry Month Celebration
Jamila Reddy is a writer, director, and facilitator of dreams. As a director, she creates multimedia theatrical experiences for diverse audiences; infusing live music, movement, and spoken word poetry into traditional theatre. As a poet, she draws heavily on narrative storytelling, each poem an intimate lens into a moment from her personal and collective history. At the heart of all her artistic work is an insatiable curiosity about the human condition. Jamila's poetry has been featured at La-Ti-Do, the premier musical theatre/spoken word cabaret series in the District, “The Garden” open mic series at Bloombars, and Busboys and Poets. Recent directing credits include Bodies (an original devised piece that explores the way the Western world regards illness, diagnosis, and flaw) for the Hangar Wedge, James and the Giant Peach for the Hangar KIDSTUFF season, and Greg Keller’sThe Family Play (reading), all during her 2013 Drama League Director’s Fellowship. Previous directing credits include Danielle Mohlman’s Stopgap at the Capital Fringe Festival (Field Trip Theatre), Ntoztake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf at the University of North Carolina (Lab!Theatre), and several devised productions with Ebony Readers Onyx Theatre, a spoken word/theatre collective at UNC. Currently residing in Washington, D.C., Jamila is a teaching artist for Split This Rock, a non-profit collective of poets, artists, and activists. She is currently co-devising The Archeology of Whimsy [Working Title], a multi-disciplinary storytelling spectacle with director and experiential architect, Lian Walden. Together, they curate artistic and social ventures (from guerilla tea parties for strangers in the park to immersive art parties) that aim to transform not only people’s perspective but also how people engage with one another and the world around them. Jamila is an alumna of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, (BA: Sociology, Theatre). The InterviewWhere do you draw your inspiration from to write poetry? Almost all of my poems are born from [real and imagined] moments from my own life. I am inspired to write because I am curious about the world and my place in it. My poetry comes from a hunger to understand. In the process of writing, I often discover things about myself that I didn’t even know. For example, “my sister” becomes “a book I do not know how to write.” “My name” becomes “the music of loose change.” By using this heightened language, I am able to uncover some truths. My dad used to always say, “you can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’re coming from.” My poetry is this mantra in written form. I am inspired by the complexities of human existence—of my existence—and by telling the parts of my story that I already know, I am able to better understand how my story will continue. What advice do you have for someone that is threatened by poetry? "Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is freedom." - Marilyn Ferguson What is an interesting fact about you? My first time out of the country, I almost drowned in the Nile River. And I got malaria. Needless to say, it was a pretty uninformed venture…But says a lot about my personality. I tend to the waters- no pun intended- with both feet. Where are you from/Where do you live? I’m from Charlotte, North Carolina, and I live currently in Washington, D.C. Who is your favorite poet? Rachel McKibbens. ConnectTo learn more: http://jamilareddy.wordpress.com/
To engage/banter: https://twitter.com/jamilareddy To find the poems: http://jamilareddypoetry.wordpress.com/ To learn more about the show I'm working on: http://devisingwhimsy.weebly.com/ National Poetry Month Celebration
Drew Law is a nationally touring spoken word poet and teaching artist. Passionate about his American and Palestinian roots, he looks to bridge the gap between the two cultures using his spoken word and music.. A two-time member of the D.C. Beltway Slam team, and a member of D.C’s team “Treat Yo Self,” who took first place at the 2013 Southern Fried Poetry tournament. As a spoken word poet, he has shared stages with artists such as Sunni Patterson and Andrea Gibson, and as a hip hop artist, he has opened for artists such as Slick Rick and Method Man. He has featured at prestigious venues such as the Nuyorican Poetry Café in Manhattan, and the Green Mill in Chicago, IL
As a teaching artist for Split This Rock, an organization that uses written and spoken word as an agent for social change, and Poetry Now, a nonprofit that creates spoken word curriculum for high schools and government entities in the Northern Virginia and D.C. area , he has facilitated workshops and coached several youth poetry slam teams in the D.C. Maryland, and Virginia area. He is also a curator for the American Poetry Museum. Accomplishments Was apart of the first northern team to win the Southern Fried poetry tournament as apart of the DC Treat Yo Self team. That was one of those moments where I was just like "whoa did that happen in real life or nah..." I featured at the Nuyorican poetry slam which has always been a dream of mine. Great resume builder as well. Kind of lets people know you've made it in the spoken word scene. Dropped my first chapbook entitled "My Father the Giant." Poems about family and growing up, something that I think comes very natural to me. I was an assistant coach for the DC youth slam team that finished second in the country. Watched one of our kids group poems reach 1.5 million views on YouTube. Amazing to see something like that and remember the exact moment it came to fruition. I watched that poem go from idea to polished piece of spoken word. Was an honor to be apart of those kids process. Up next I am very interested in playing live music as I perform spoken word. The ultimate goal is to do a one man show. I am in the process of edits for my book "Fully Clothed and Always Leaving" I plan to drop at the end of the year. As well as a spoken word/ hip hop album that would feature my own live music as well as corresponding hip hop song. We're going back to Southern Fried as defending champions and am very excited to compete again. I am passing the Torch to Jamila Reddy she is a fantastic conveyor of ideas as well as vastly progressive on art in open spaces. She's a poet and director and does both with conviction and flare. She's a North Carolina native (so many good poets are). And needs to have her voice heard. Favorite Quote “We artists are indestructible; even in a prison, or in a concentration camp, I would be almighty in my own world of art, even if I had to paint my pictures with my wet tongue on the dusty floor of my cell.” - Pablo Picasso National Poetry Month Celebration
Carlin Pierce, poet, author, and blogger, has almost made it through her senior year of high school. She is planning on attending college in the fall of this year, with hopes to continue writing, branching out from poetry. She has published two collections of poetry, Stone like Wind, and Pear Trees and Starlings, and is currently working on a third. Her blog about sustainable agriculture, Maslow’s Ambrosia, and her projects in the fiction world have kept her extremely busy this past year. She is always looking for new experiences, new ideas, and new authors, and is hoping to collaborate this year on some new pieces!
What exciting things have you accomplished in 2013? Well, making it through first semester of senior year in high school alive and unscathed was quite the accomplishment, and I published my second collection of poetry: Pear Trees and Starlings. I finished an early reader manuscript, and I finished my Young Adult manuscript! What can we look forward to in the future from you? Hopefully I will be going to college this fall, finding another circle of poets and artists, and writing in every spare moment! I'm looking forward to the new experiences that will give me fuel for my pen! I hope to have the first installment of my children's series out this year, as well as my Young Adult Gaslight Fantasy. I am also working on a third collection of poetry that I hope to publish soon! Favorite inspirational quote: And this above all, to thine own self be true ~Shakespeare, Hamlet |
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