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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200409
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200427
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SUMMARY:12 Angry Lebanese
DESCRIPTION:Zeina Daccache is making her documentaries available for free during this difficult time\, starting with 12 Angry Lebanese. It’s a great documentary feature about a production of the play 12 Angry Men at Roumieh Prison in Lebanon. Zeina directed the play and the film. This is a rare opportunity to see this remarkable film. Don’t miss it!
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/12-angry-lebanese/
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20200409
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20200416
DTSTAMP:20260503T134658
CREATED:20200409T093045Z
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SUMMARY:peace\, love & happiness: Walt Whitman Issue 4/9/20
DESCRIPTION:painting of Walt Whitman by Rick Bartow \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love & happiness newsletter \nApril 9\, 2020 \nThe Walt Whitman Issue \n  \nMiracles \n  \nWhy\, who makes much of a miracle? \nAs to me I know of nothing else but miracles\, \nWhether I walk the streets of Manhattan\, \nOr dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky\, \nOr wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water\, \nOr stand under trees in the woods\, \nOr talk by day with any one I love\, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love\, \nOr sit at table at dinner with the rest\, \nOr look at strangers opposite me riding in the car\, \nOr watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon\, \nOr animals feeding in the fields\, \nOr birds\, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air\, \nOr the wonderfulness of the sundown\, or of stars shining so quiet and bright\, \nOr the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring; \nThese with the rest\, one and all\, are to me miracles\, \nThe whole referring\, yet each distinct and in its place. \nTo me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle\, \nEvery cubic inch of space is a miracle\, \nEvery square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same\, \nEvery foot of the interior swarms with the same. \nTo me the sea is a continual miracle\, \nThe fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the ships with men in them\, \nWhat stranger miracles are there? \n  \n–Walt Whitman \n* \nThis issue is devoted to one of my best friends: Walt Whitman. I read “Song of Myself” when I was 18 or 19 years old and it changed my life. It continues to transform the way I experience and understand the world. I’ve been performing an abridged version of “Song of Myself” for many years. It’s written in the first person\, and if you recite it aloud\, and feel it and mean it as you say the words\, something good happens to you. If you do it often enough\, over time\, it changes you. A famous line is: \n“I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars.” \nYou could read that line and think: “Walt Whitman thinks that a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars…and that a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.” Or you could say it and feel it and mean and believe it to be true. And it will be true for you in that moment. \nWhen I performed the poem in Marfa\, Texas\, a few years back\, I was interviewed on Marfa Public Radio. Here’s a link to that interview: \nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0D6WmHaSE8&t=237s \nWalt Whitman has inspired a LOT of poets. Many have acknowledged their debt to him\, including Allen Ginsberg and Pablo Neruda. Here’s a poem I wrote in 2010: \n  \nTeach me to see\, Walt! \n  \nI was driving up Burnside \nand I saw a man standing\, waiting for the bus \nhe was not four feet tall \nmeanwhile\, I was listening to a Modern Scholar lecture\, “where great professors teach you!” \na lecture about Walt Whitman \nI was on my way to Romeo & Juliet rehearsal \nat Catlin Gabel High School \nthe small man is the center of his own world \nthere is such infinite variety! \neveryone I see is a world \nI noticed this man—his seriousness \nhe is a miracle \nand it is a miracle that I see him \nand I wished that\, like Walt\, I could be amazed by everyone I see \nI thought to myself: “I’ll write a poem called ‘Teach me to see\, Walt!’” \nI scrawled a note to myself\, while driving\, to remind me \nthat was yesterday \nI just looked at the note \nand was reminded of a moment that I had forgotten \na moment where I saw this man \nand felt something that I wanted to find words for \nmore than six billion people on this earth (we are told) \neach one amazing \neach one with their own subjectivity \nlooking out at the world \nseeing it\, feeling it \neach understanding it in her or his own way \nand the world itself—vast! \nendless variety \nthe trees standing \nthe clouds floating and changing \nthe frantic swimmers in a drop of blood seen through a microscope \nthe stars in the night sky \nWalt\, you taught me a lot about wonder \nbut I’m still learning how to see \nbecause if I knew how to look at the world with my eyes open and my heart open \nif I wasn’t such a sleepwalker \nsuch a daydreamer \nwouldn’t my cheeks be always wet with tears? \n  \nsitting on the couch now \nwriting down these words \na little while ago a squirrel sat poised on a branch of the old pear tree in the back yard and scratched its head \nthe squirrel is gone now \nthose squirrels stay busy! \nI guess that’s enough for this poem \n  \n—Johnny Stallings \n* \nI’ll close my portion of the newsletter with some great quotes from “Song of Myself”: \n  \nAll truths wait in all things. \n* \nI believe in the flesh and the appetites\, \nSeeing\, hearing\, feeling\, are miracles\, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. \nDivine am I inside and out\, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from\, \nThe scent of these arm-pits\, aroma finer than prayer\, \nThis head more than churches\, bibles\, and all the creeds. \n* \nWhoever degrades another degrades me\, \nAnd whatever is done or said returns at last to me. \n* \nDazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me  \nIf I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me. \n* \nIn all people I see myself\, none more and not one a barley-corn less. \n* \nThis minute that comes to me over the past decillions\, \nThere is no better than it and now. \n* \nEach moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy. \n* \nWhy should I wish to see God better than this day? \nI see something of God each hour of the twenty-four\, and each moment then\, \nIn the faces of men and women I see God… \n* \nPerrin Kerns sent a link to an amazing website for a film called Whitman\, Alabama: \nhttps://whitmanalabama.com \nIn it\, many of the sections of “Song of Myself” are read by a wonderful array of human beings. The accompanying texts about the people are deeply moving. \n* \nHere’s a story from Oregon’s Poet Laureate\, Kim Stafford: \n  \nHow could I not love Whitman\, as his poetry saved my father’s life? It was the spring of 1942\, and my dad was interned as a conscientious objector in a small town in western Arkansas. One Sunday\, he and two pacifist friends were surrounded by a mob\, threatened for their perceived “support of Hitler\,” and someone shouted “Get a rope!” As the sentiment that these three “slackers” should be strung up rippled through the crowd\, the decision turned–improbably–on whether poetry had to rhyme. One piece of evidence seized by a hothead in the crowd was a poem written by my dad’s friend Chuck\, was a poem Chuck had written–which didn’t rhyme. “That’s not a poem\,” the hothead shouted. “It doesn’t rhyme!”      \n“And you\, what are you holding there!” My father held out his copy of Leaves of Grass\, which he had been reading.      \n“I’ll show you what poetry sounds like\,” the hothead shouted\, and he open the book to read a passage at random…but soon his voice trailed off. “Well I don’t know what that is\, but it aint poetry\,” he muttered.      \nThis pause allowed time for someone in the crowd (“a saint\,” my father said) to shout “Call the Sheriff!” And when the sheriff arrived\, he cooled things down\, and drove my father and his friends away to safety.      \nSo\, if Whitman’s poetry had rhymed\, my father would have become a statistic\, and I would not be here\, reading the story of this encounter in my father’s book\, Down in My Heart: Peace Witness in Wartime. \n–Kim Stafford
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-walt-whitman-issue-4-9-4-15/
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