Watershed Environmental Poetry 2017
Date: October 2, 2017
Categories: Inspiring Voices, Uncategorized
Comments Off on Watershed Environmental Poetry 2017
Wednesday, 1 of May of 2024
Date: October 2, 2017
Categories: Inspiring Voices, Uncategorized
Comments Off on Watershed Environmental Poetry 2017
In February of 2014, I shared a beautiful dream I had. My beautiful dream is for every plant and animal species on earth to have at least one human spokesperson, at least one human advocate, at least one human singer of that species.
When I shared that dream, I had no idea whether this dream was possible or not. Between that time and now, I have encountered some numbers regarding this dream.
Let’s suppose the number of species is 10,000,000. The earth’s population is 7,137,000,000. That works out to 713 people for each and every species on earth. Some of these species already have advocates, like ducks and pheasants. Many of them do not.
A. D. Chapman said about 10% of the 60,000 vertebrate species were threatened. Perhaps it would be a good thing to focus on those 6,000 species. There are over a million people in the world for each one of those species.
If you’re thinking about advocating for one of those species, this might be a good time to start advocating. Which species will you sing?
Spring is fast approaching and Armed with Visions is planning for some early blooming. Our warrior poet society is rapidly increasing in numbers of ecopoetry lovers and many of them want to help us present more ecopoems to you.
So we’d like to introduce two new people who have joined us in helping make recordings of poems. They are our first members of Warrior Poet Voices. Here’s a little more information about each of them:
British Actress Jane Allighan: has 20+ years in theater and movies in UK and she’s helped us with recordings of DH Lawrence’s Snake, as well as Joanna Macy’s Bestiary.
Stay tuned for more poem recordings from Jane in coming months. Also below is a poem she recorded that we’re soon to post:
Douglass Bass: is an enthusiastic poetry reader that we met on Soundcloud. He has 66 poem recordings uploaded to his profile so far.
We are most grateful for Douglas allowing us to use his recording for William Stafford’s Roll Call, which is a primary message inherent in most all ecopoetry.
Additionally, Douglas did a really soothing Brian Eno remix to the voice of Philip Levine in our most recent poem posted called: Our Valley in recognition of the passing of poet laureate Philip Levine.
Douglas’ thoughts are also feature in our most recent blog post here: What Species Will You Sing?
Publishing Party – Nanao Sakaki- Blackberry Books
The Poetry Center at San Francisco State presents:
Friday, May 10, – How To Live On The Planet Earth – A Celebration of Nanao Sakaki
on the publication of his collected poems by Blackberry Books (Nobleboro, Maine)
featuring Gary Snyder, Joanne Kyger, Michael McClure, Malcolm Margolin and Gary Lawless
with guest emcee Patricia Wakida
7 PM at McRoskey Mattress Company
1687 Market Street (at Gough) San Francisco
$20 admission includes a copy of Nanao’s selected poems
General admission $10/$5
Free for SFSU students and Poetry Center members
co-sponsored by The Poetry Center and The Green Arcade
Date: March 19, 2013
Categories: Uncategorized
Comments Off on Publishing Party – Nanao Sakaki- Blackberry Books
I get usually along with most people, at least after I get to know them. Here in Rock Creek, I get along with my neighbors, many of whom are coal miners. The local activists, who are mostly older, many even older than I am, are a scrappy bunch, don’t always get along with each other, and yet I remain on good terms with pretty much all of them. I even get along with the cops, who have arrested me six times for trespassing on the same mine site, a blast zone that is so close I could walk to the action. But the anarchists who have made their camp here in West Virginia seem to hate me. Why?
Well, I have a few theories. They must think I’m their father, an authority figure. Or maybe it’s my age. Or the fact that they are something of a clique and I dress differently. Or maybe I done them wrong somehow. Perhaps. Whatever it is, there are a number of them going around trying to make the case that I’m a bad guy. It’s character assassination, plain and simple, and it’s being done with malice.
Now if you know your Earth First! history, I was in East Texas in 1985, where I helped set up Earth First! groups in Austin and Nacadoches. Texas EF! waged a bruising and ultimately successful non-violent campaign to stop old growth logging in the Four Notch Wilderness on the Davy Crockett National Forest. This involved occupying the site by locking down to the logging machines, immortalized in Bill Oliver’s great song “Bugis and the Beast”.
I worked on a shrimp boat in Freeport in 1972 and I went to Abraham Lincoln High School in Houston in 1970, and I’ve run the Lower Canyons of Rio Grande twice, launching on New Year’s Day once in zero degree weather. So I know a little about Texas.
Yet early this month I responded to a call to action, which I’ve done many times over the years (even decades) by offering to risk arrest at the Tar Sands Blockade in East Texas. Now mind you when Greenpeace asked me to go to the Beaufort Sea in April of 2001 I went, and was arrested for stoping work on BP Northstar Pipeline by driving a snowmobile with three other activists on board into the pipeline. (Two of them were in a sled being towed behind.) I totaled the snowmobile, but we dismounted and climbed the world’s largest back hoe. I was charged with a felony.
I hung a banner on a draggling line when they mined the Bisti Badlands in New Mexico for coal back in 1982 during one of the first such EF! demonstrations. I could go on. Yet because I’m being bad mouthed by some disgruntled activists, I’ve been asked to stay away from the tar sands blockade down in Texas. I’ve been told it’s because of “tensions in the coal fields”– yet I’m the only one being sanctioned here.
Naturally, I have a thing or two to say about this. The anarchist group of whichI speak are called RAMPS, which is an acronym for Radical Action for Mountain Peoples Survival. They’ll tell you that they formed by splitting off from Climate Ground Zero, a campaign I have been working on for over twelve years. What they won’t tell you is that when they split, (which was OK by me), they hacked into the CGZ website and sent out a poison pen to all of my subscribers and locked me out of the site. Not content, RAMPS posted the letter on another web site, even before they had shown it to me. It was an ambush.
Here on Coal River the letter went viral.The core group then swiped CGZ property, saying “they” were CGZ, not me. Childish. Some members of the core group continue to circulate this letter, and are making additional accusations that I had mishandled funds, harbored a violent thug, yell a lot and drink too much. Go figure.I have only one thing to say to them: Stop it.
Judy Bari once said the FBI didn’t need to infiltrate and disrupt Earth First! as we were pretty good at doing so ourselves. This behavior is childish. In my opinion, RAMPS are snobs. Two of the people who went to the Hobbit Protest this summer organized by RAMPS posted articles that you can find on the web. I don’t want to bring them into this so you’ll have to search for them. The articles these two seasoned activist posted, one a man, the other a woman, had a few things in common. One: that it was obvious that the core group was running the show, and they were suspicious and secretive and decisions seem arbitrary. Both thought the core group was self important, elitist, even snobbish. And both writers were over 50 years old and dressed and groomed themselves moderately. We used to call these “straight people”. This last mobilization on the Hobbit Mine has left so many bad feelings that RAMPS have themselves become a controversy here, the subject of many meetings and a least one mediation. I won’t even recount my mediation with RAMPS. That is a story for another day. (Suffice to say that it was a farce).
I did not want to write this letter, much less post it. But enough is enough. I’m asking RAMPS to back off. The only people who benefit from this are the real bad guys. Non violence requires openness and honesty. Eschewing property destruction does not make you non violent. In the end, it’s how we treat each other. Shouldn’t matter if you’re part of the in-crowd, a visitor, the police, the media or a coal miner. We must respect everyone we encounter for non violence to be effective, and this sort of behavior is bad for the campaign to end Mountain Top Removal (MTR). RAMPS has learned a lot about Appalachia and MTR since they arrived on this river two years ago. It’s now time for them to learn some southern manners.
For the Earth.
MIKE ROSELLE is Campaign Director of Climate Ground Zero and author of Tree Spiker!. He can be reached at: mikeroselle@hotmail.com
Date: October 20, 2012
Categories: Uncategorized
Comments Off on Mike Roselle on Anarcho-Enviro Hate Cliques
See the full presentation of the above mentioned poem here:
http://armedwithvisions.com/category/ef-warrior-poets/christina-wulf/
Date: October 11, 2012
Categories: Uncategorized
Comments Off on Comments like these keep Warriorpoets Alive
Have them scan this code…
It will send them to our website in one click!
Date: October 8, 2012
Categories: Uncategorized
Comments Off on Help promote Warriorpoets with QR codes…
The permanent installation of poetry at the Olympic Park is one of the central aspects of Winning Words (http://www.winningwordspoetry.com/) – a nationwide poetry initiative inspired by London 2012. But Winning Words also invites communities around the country to engage with poetry in new and dynamic ways, and to this end it is collaborating with a host of specially selected ‘Beacon Towns’ this summer.
From presenting poetry in exciting and innovative ways – think bringing the words off the page, literally – to encouraging community participation around poetry, Beacon Towns like Weymouth and Brecon are reaching out to encourage participation, celebration and creativity.
The value of that connection between the arts and our communities has been argued by countless directors and creative practitioners. It brings people from all walks of life together in something collaborative – it crosses all social and economic divides, cultures and classes so that local areas become stronger socially.
But what about our communities that aren’t Beacon Towns? How can we embed poetry in local areas to bring people together and encourage creative collaboration?
What does a ‘poetry town’ even look like? From Guardian
Tips from Winning Words Poetry:
There are lots of ways that you can bring poetry to life in your day to day life with very little trouble at all.. and maximum results!
Why not try one of the following….
Date: June 12, 2012
Categories: Uncategorized
Comments Off on UK’s Nationwide Poetry Initiative: What does a ‘poetry town’ even look like?
The Telegraph newspaper in the UK is reacting to the education secretary Michael Gove’s promise to make school kids more literate. Part of his plan includes getting kids as young as 5 years-old to memorize poems. So the newspaper is asking if this is appropriate? So far the voters are saying yes it is! Click the link above if you want to vote too.
Date: June 11, 2012
Categories: Uncategorized
Comments Off on Telegraph in UK has poll asking if it’s appropriate to make 5 year olds memorize poems