One Poem A Day Won't Kill You in April National Poetry Month

One Poem A Day Won't Kill You project started showing on McMinnville Community Media Monday April 1st.  I have begun to post the readings on our Youtube channel today.  We started asking folks about their favorite poems and filming in May 2012.  Most of the readings were completed by mid-September.  By the end of February, 2013 the editing was done.  Seeing it in motion after all these months of putting it together gives me a feeling of lightness, of youth, of anything is possible.  Those pleasant delusions we give ourselves when we complete a "job of work" as my dad used to say.

  

One Poem A Day Won't Kill You is the idea of poet Phoebe Newman.  She explained to Arts Alive host Lynda Phillippi during a recent appearance on the show that the origins of the phrase came as a personal exhortation.  She had recently received her Master of Fine Arts degree in writing (primarily poetry) and she and her husband had moved to Ketchican Alaska.  She began to struggle to maintain her motivation to continue writing regularly.  She began to say to herself, "One Poem A Day Won't Kill You" as a way to tell herself to write a poem a day. 

In the mid-1990s as a way to encourage poetry in KetchiKan she went to the local public access radio station (cite, call and web) and put out several public service requests for local folks to sign up to read their favorite poem on the radio during the month of April, which is National Poetry Month.  The response was over whelming.  She called her radio show "One Poem A Day Won't Kill You".  She produced the show for ten years.  The show is still going on in Ketchican.  This will be its 18th year.

We have been filming poetry readings and last year we filmed Phoebe reading selections from her books of poetry.    She asked us if we would like to do video of Yamhill County folks reading their favorite poems.  I had to think about it.  The studio approach of bringing people in to the studio Phoebe used for her radio program.  Bringing people into the MCM studio (cite) to read was very doable.  Using the studio has some advantages.  It is efficient.  People are scheduled in, maybe several in a day, they are taped reading, little editing and it is done.  The TV studio also has some disadvantages.  The studio can be pretty intimidating with the lights and cameras.  There needs to be a crew for cameras and control room.  And most importantly it can be visually boring and for a visual medium that is not a good thing. 

We decided to film people reading poems where ever they felt comfortable.  We filmed in gardens, back yards, kitchens, living rooms, city streets.  Each location was a challenge for lighting and for audio.  I learned a lot about camera settings. Then it sometimes got complicated in editing.  Overall, the filming the readings in field locations added to the uniqueness of each reading.

The other lesson this project has helped me learn about is copyright permissions.  Just finding out whom to ask to get permission is a lot of work and can be very frustrating.   Since I volunteer and consider our video endeavors as completely non-commercial and educational, I am not always generous in my thoughts about those who want money to allow us to use the poem or music in what amounts to free advertising for them.   They say things get easier as you do them.  I hope so.

I will be posting the readings the day after they have been aired on MCM and thinking about a follow up show reflecting on the making of One Poem A Day Won't Kill You.

Poetry Post, A random act of poetry

Poetry Post, NW Yamhill, McMinnville, Oregon

Walking four or five mile each day around McMinnville allows you to learn the little idiosyncrasies of each neighborhood, each street and sometimes individual yards.  A couple of days ago toward the end of our walk  we found ourselves walking down NW Yamhill. There was a Poetry Post.   Two or three years ago I had read about Poetry Posts in Portland neighborhoods in the The Oregonian.  Ever since I thought it would be great to put one up in our McMinnville yard, when we finally move in. We stopped to read the poem.

Portland, being Portland, the Poetry Post idea has expanded across neighborhoods.  Laura Foster in her blog  Portland Walks and Urban Hikes talks about touring the many Poetry Posts around Portland.  Yes there is an 'App' and map for finding Posts in Portland.

The poem was by Emma Wheeler Wilcox.  The poem was her most famous  'Solitude' .  As we stood there the poem seemed to lift us from ourselves. The first four lines,
 "Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone; 
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own."  stopped us.

We stood on the sidewalk and read the entire poem aloud alternating every four lines.

We walked away from reading feeling we had been given a gift, a gift of kindness, a gift of unexpected poetry.  Our world and McMinnville was a better place.  

Do It Yourself: Pork Chops to Ham Hocks

Lisbon, Portugal Meat Shop

When we were in Portugal a few years ago we discovered meat for sale did not have to be fattened down in styrofoam trays with clear plastic wrap like in our local supermarkets.  We feel fortunate to be living in the Yamhill County, Carlton and McMinnville, Oregon area because along with the emergence of vineyards and wineries, it has a "foodie" focus.  Food is a big part of our culture here.

Maybe it is our personal experiences as native Oregonians growing up in a time when it was okay and kind of expected that friends and families would cut up their own deer, elk, beef or hog and put it in the freezer, we were excited when we heard the Friends of the   McMinnville Public Library Explore Oregon Series was going to feature a talk by Chef Eric Ferguson of Nick's Italian Cafe  and Fino in Fondo.

We thought Eric was going to give a straight ahead discussion of the Fino in Fondo Italian sausage process.  When we talked with Eric a few days before his Explore Oregon presentation he told us he planned on cutting up a half a pig.  Okay.  The Library was an interesting venue for cutting up a pig.

Eric did a great job of explaining what he was doing and why.  He demonstrated various cuts and he gave advice from holding a knife to where to cut.  He made wonderful suggestions for cooking various cuts.

He was asked if the Italian style sausages he makes a Fino in Fondo are raw.  He explained the sausages are ground meat, spices, good bacteria stuffed into casings and fermented.  The Italian style sausages are not cooked, they are fermented product like wine.

Eric is eloquent in his enthusiasm for food and the need to be connected to the food we eat.

Stephanie Lenox, Exploring strangeness in the voice of the other

In November 2012 Stephanie Lenox was one of the featured poets at Linfield College Nicholson Library's “Readings at the Nick” events.  She talked about and read from her book “Congress Of Strange People” recently published by Airlie Press.

Lenox co-edits Blood Orange Review and teaches poetry at Willamette University.  She is a member of the nonprofit publishing collective Airlie Press which is dedicated to cultivating excellent contemporary poetry

Lenox says her book “Congress Of Strange People” is about her ascination with strangeness of all types.  One of the methods of her exploration of strangeness is to write in the persona of the stranger. This poetic exercise in empathy provides an extraordinary gift.  Lenox seeks to push her empathetic powers to the extreme by choosing to engage the personas of Guinness World Record holders.   

Lenox projects her poetic voice to the perspective of some familiar and some very strange people. Empathy is an essential human quality.  Lenox’s poetry moves into the center of another human experience.  She brings us along with her.  We connect to that strangeness, we feel empathy and we recognize our common humanity, all of which are the real gifts of the poems in “Congress of Strange People”.

After talking about her book, Lenox reads “The Heart That Lies Outside the Body”.  Watching and listening to her read this poem brings you the full gift of her poetic empathy.

Chris Anderson: Poetry as Spiritual Practice

Poet Chris Anderson read from his book “The Next Thing Always Belongs” at a Reading At the Nick series in the Linfield College Nicholson Library. Anderson is a member of the cooperative press Airlie Press. 

It seems poetry is almost exclusively read on a page (paper or electronic) in the privacy of our own minds.  The poem comes to us in the sound of our voice and to our personal cadences and rhythms. The experience of poetry has not been and is not now a solitary internal affair of reading.  Throughout history poetry has been a literary performance art.  Seeing and hearing a poet present their work gives an appreciation and an understanding of the person and their poetry which a page cannot approach.

Chris Anderson demonstrates there can be a fusion of prose and poetry.  He took a break from reading from his book to say he has been thinking about what poetry means.  He moves from that question to saying that for him poetry is a kind of spiritual practice.  He then begins spiral up catching rhetorical thermals by Anthony DeMello and keeps going up with lifts from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, until he is at the apex.  Still.  Ready.  Then he folds his wings, an Osprey plunging towards a glimmer just under the surface.  He concludes “the moment is precious because it is so fragile, so small, so fleeting.”  

Anderson shows all of the poet’s art.  The value of filming is that you can experience for yourself Chris Anderson taking you from wondering about the value of poetry to the fragility of the moment.  He follows his homily, as he called it, with a new poem "Crazy Cake".    

Signs and Symbols: Flat weaving of nomadic Turkish herders

At the edge of Willamette University campus the Hallie Ford Museum has a show of Turkish flat weaves.  The exhibition includes examples of 19th and 20th century rugs, saddle bags, storage bags, dowry pieces made by the nomadic herders of Turkey.  For centuries the nomadic herders lived in black goat-hair tents and traveled with their sheep and goats from winter to summer pastures.  The bold geometric symbols reflect the hops, fears, dreams and aspirations of the nomadic people, ranging from a happy marriage, having many children and getting protection from the evil eye.

Going through the exhibit you can feel the sense of time and the quiet of the weavers as they expressed their hopes into patterns and colors.  The culture of the nomads seemed to express in things, in cloth and weaving.  Symbols, motifs, color and color combination for a non-verbal communication.  Talismans: giving families protection from evil, ensuring good luck and security.  They might define land, or be used in courtship, in birth and various rites of passage including death.

There is movement in the patterns and the colors and beauty in simple things.  The nomads carried their homes with them.  They learned to cherish a few well made things that spoke to them of their life.  I wonder what I carry with me to protect me and my family from the evil eye.

Yamhill Valley Vineyard's Mural video

This spring our friend John Stromme asked if we would like to do a video of the mural he and Eddie Johnson were painting at the Yamhill Valley Vineyard's tasting room.  A beautiful drive to a beautiful vineyard and winery.  We grabbed the camera the tripod and microphones.  We were there before lunch.

We filmed and interviewed John and Eddie.  We came back about a month later and filmed Denis Burger, Yamhill Valley Vineyard's owner.  Then the summer happened and some technical struggles with color.

Towards late summer, John and Eddie and another idea.  When the mural was finished they wanted to bring the wall to life.  Ariel Eberle, the assistant wine maker at the Yamhill Valley agreed to be painted into the mural.  We filmed her being painted and her emerging from the mural.

Back to the editing bay.  We did the best we could and finally the video of the mural was ready.

Over two hours of film for a 5 minute story.  I guess by industry standards that is pretty efficient.  Every story we work on, I get to learn something new.  Something new from those we are filming and something new technically about the production and editing process.

It makes for a challenging avocation.