Posts Tagged ‘Hurricane Katrina’
STORMWASH is an inter-arts program presented by the Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington, Artists for Climate Awareness, the Writers Guild at Bloomington, Windfall Dancers, Inc., and musicians Julian Douglas and Kyle Quass.
Tony Brewer, Zilia Balkansky-Sellés, Peter Kaczmarczyk, Ray Zdonek, Lara Tokarski, Walter Biskupski, and Arizona will perform climate conscious poems as spoken word with expressive dance accompaniment by Erin Strole, Joanne Shank, Maxime Werk, Corinne Jones, Kay Olges, Kara Lynn Hayes, and Nonie Daniels. Julian Douglas and Kyle Quass will provide musical interludes.
Thus the announcement. The event: The official debut of STORMWASH: ENVIRONMENTAL POEMS (see March 11, February 12, 5, et al.), courtesy of the Arts Alliance Center in Bloomington’s College Mall.
Spoken word performers, dancers, and musicians advance the goals of this year’s ACA opening program for the gallery show Depictions: Earth, Life, and Our Shared Responsibility, a guided meditation to elevate consciousness about earth’s vicissitudes, and our role in counteracting them through our personal practices of sustainability.
In STORMWASH: ENVIRONMENTAL POEMS (The Grind Stone, April 2024), 40 poets address the climate crisis and its various effects.
With me one of the poets with “The Drowned City,” a reaction to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina and the consequent flooding of New Orleans, originally published in THE MAGAZINE OF SPECULATIVE POETRY. Though, having not been matched with a dancer, one not read this night (as other poems — with dancers — but out-of-town poets or poets that couldn’t make it this evening had substitute readers. One does what one can).
For others, though, copies of STORMWASH were available at the Arts Center, and can be found on Amazon as well by pressing here. (Hint: my poem is on pages 27-28.)
A quick note today from Editor Hiromi Yoshida: STORMWASH ENVIRONMENTAL POEMS will be released as an imprint of The Grind Stone, thanks to Jonathan S Baker & Snow Mathews.
Stormwash poets include: Riley Anspaugh, Michael Joseph Arcangelini, K Ann Sea (Arizona), Zilia Balkansky-Sellés, Jeffrey Bean, Walter Biskupski, Josh A. Brewer, Tony Brewer, Michael Brockley, Mary Brown, Nancy Chen Long, Marlena Chertock, James Dorr, Dina Elenbogen, Marjie Gates Giffin, Ian Uriel Girdley, Peter Kaczmarczyk, Jenny Anderson Kalahar, Patrick Kalahar, David Keppel, Joseph Kerschbaum, David Alec Knight, Nate Logan, Doris Lynch, Antonia Matthew, Devin McGuire, Lylanne Musselman, Linda Neal Reising, Patsy Rahn, Jessica Reed, Eric Rensberger, April Ridge, Terry Sloan, Peggy Squires, Thomas Tokarski, Nick ‘Frick’ Wentzel, Sheri Wright, Ray Zdonek.
And so the path to publication continues. STORMWASH, we may recall (cf. February 12, et al.), is a compilation of environmental poems, sponsored by the Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington and the Bloomington Writers Guild. To quote the call: [a]s global warming continues to trigger severe climatic patterns, consider how we can manage the harm that results from the continuous release of carbon emissions, and enable the survival of future generations. Nature today is neither simply pretty nor merely furious. Instead, it is something that requires judicious management and legislation, while it begs for consecration through the arts.
And mine in the mix? A reaction, originally, to Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans first published in THE MAGAZINE OF SPECULATIVE POETRY for Spring 2006, “The Drowned City,” now soon to be reprinted with details to come here as they become known.
For today, a quick trip on the wayback machine — but not too far back! — courtesy of Facebook (see also just below, February 5): Tentative front cover design for STORMWASH: ENVIRONMENTAL POEMS (ed. Hiromi Yoshida, March/April 2024), to be independently published by Ray Zdonek, author of Poems of Love and Protest, and Lake Effect: Selected Poems, among numerous other titles.
In STORMWASH, 40 poets uniquely address the climate crisis and its various effects. From the Foreword:
“Invariably, these poems suggest an uncanny attunement with nature: Something in the air, a shift in carbon molecules foreshadowing an ominous onslaught, an accumulating avalanche, some kind of storm—the stink of destruction. In either case, these poems enable us to hope that the survival of future generations is not so tenuous after all.”
My dog in the hunt (cat in the chase? Yes, Triana), a single poem, “The Drowned City,” written as a reaction nearly twenty years back to Hurricane Katrina’s trashing New Orleans, placing it into a broader context. And not exactly a hopeful one either.
But I’m just one of forty, as noted above, and most of the others with more than one poem, so there’s plenty for contemplation, as well as a currently planned multi-media presentation of some of the contents later this spring — for which more here as well.
This from the original post (see below, November 13 2023): The subject was STORMWASH: ENVIRONMENTAL POEMS, a project sponsored by the Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington, and the Writers Guild @ Bloomington. And this was the call, via Facebook from Writers Guild member Hiromi Yoshida: As global warming continues to trigger severe climatic patterns, consider how we can manage the harm that results from the continuous release of carbon emissions, and enable the survival of future generations. Nature today is neither simply pretty nor merely furious. Instead, it is something that requires judicious management and legislation, while it begs for consecration through the arts.
And so (I explained), given a somewhat solarpunk vibe, I’d noted to the editor that as a general thing I don’t do “hopeful.” That would be okay, I was told. Then I thought back to 2005 New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina and noted, if horror-writer-type attitudes could be accommodated, I thought I might have something I’d written back then. . . .
And so it was accepted, “The Drowned City,” originally published in THE MAGAZINE OF SPECULATIVE POETRY in 2006 — and now, in a PDF proof of the nearly completed STORMWASH, I’ve gotten to see it, check it for errors, and also sample surrounding poems in what looks to be an extremely interesting publication. Lovely!
And, no mistakes found, I sent back my “okay” earlier this evening, with more to come here as it becomes known.
The subject was STORMWASH: ENVIRONMENTAL POEMS, a project sponsored by the Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington, and the Writers Guild @ Bloomington. And this was the call, via Facebook from Writers Guild member Hiromi Yoshida: As global warming continues to trigger severe climatic patterns, consider how we can manage the harm that results from the continuous release of carbon emissions, and enable the survival of future generations. Nature today is neither simply pretty nor merely furious. Instead, it is something that requires judicious management and legislation, while it begs for consecration through the arts.
Email up to 5 poems, no more than 40-50 lines each, in a single Word document . . . by 23 December 2023. Selected poems from the anthology will be choreographed by Joanne Shank, and performed by Windfall Dancers, Inc. at the Flex Space, Arts Alliance Center in April 2024, National Poetry Month.
It was by then an extended deadline. And noting a sort of solarpunk ambience — that is to say, aimed toward a hopeful sustainable future — I mentioned that I might be interested myself, though rarely writing new poetry these days, except that in general I don’t do “hopeful.” This was to Hiromi who noted that reprints might be okay, and maybe something on past disasters could be worth considering. So, thinking, I mentioned I might have done something in 2005 on New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.
So, cutting to chases, I searched over the next few weeks for earlier work, and found it along with three other poems (I especially liked the one about roses turning carnivorous, “American Beauty,” originally published in STAR*LINE in March-April 2010, but that might have been a bit more drastic an environmental change than STORMWASH was looking for — in fact, as we’re about to see, the New Orleanian one is really the only that probably was truly suitable) which I sent along with it. And then, yesterday evening, came the result: Thank you so much for your interest in submitting to STORMWASH: ENVIRONMENTAL POEMS. I am pleased to notify you that I would like to publish “The Drowned City.”*
.
(*Originally published in THE MAGAZINE OF SPECULATIVE POETRY, Spring 2006)
jamesdorrwriter 