Split This Rock with Me - Part 2

(Photo: Poet/Yogi Jeff Davis)

I took the “Yogic Path to Poetry and Conscious Action” Friday morning and found the poets both stunningly beautiful and flexible. Jeff Davis was so conscientious about sharing time that I didn’t get nearly enough of his words and presence. He left me wanting more, as a poet should. Kazim Ali, Susan Brennan and Jeff complimented one another’s styles wonderfully and I am only waiting for Jeff’s book From the Center to the Page to be re-issued in print so I can turn my friends onto the power of combining yoga practice with writing practice.

(Photo: Poet/Yogi Kazim Ali)

At “Off the Page and Into the Streets” Nathaniel Siegel regaled us with ways to reach the regular folks as they go about their everyday days, walking to and from work or heading to the local grocery. He offered great ideas about reaching out, keeping your protest and your activism “human-sized” which made so much sense to me. Put a small poem in someone’s hand and they’ll find it in a pocket later. Offer a strip of tape with “Peace and Love” printed on it. Who doesn’t want a little peace and love in their lives, right? Nathaniel delivered his ideas and comments with a grace that serves him well in the streets and makes me want to be THAT kind of activist.

(Photo: Poet Nathaniel Siegel)

I found Elijah Imlay’s “The Healing Role of Poetry in Wartime” to be particularly moving and the kind of workshop I myself like to lead. There we listened to some of Elijah’s experiences as a Vietnam veteran (a veteran myself, I appreciated this) and he read us some poems written by other war veterans. They were hard to hear and they were why we had come. He then had the class do a freestyle writing based on a painful memory of our own pasts.Those of us who cared to, were allowed to share. Again I found myself not ready to leave when this workshop ended. Our hearts had been opened and we had bled. It was good and it was necessary fodder for future work, but I found it difficult to return to the Washington streets. I needed to take a break and I missed the 5 pm readings while my friend Path and I returned to our rooms to rest.

(Photo: Poet Mendy Knott & Poet/Artist Path Walker)

We made it to Bell Multicultural HS in time to hear Jimmy Baca, Brian Gilmore, Semezhdin Mehmedomovic, Patricia Smith (one of my all-time faves) and Susan Tichy read. Then it was back to homebase at Busboys and Poets where the first open mic was being held. Slam-jam packed, it was, with a list an arm-long of poets waiting their turn to read. I signed on and it was good to look around that room and see so many active poets and their supporters. And it was good to see Naomi Nye, Alix Olson, Patricia Smith “in the house” as our host, Regie Cabico, continually pointed out one world-renowned poet after another who was there to hear US read! We ate the body politic, passed the cup of sorrow, shared our many stories and walked away fortified, everyone with a hammer the size of their writing hand, knowing we would never have to split this rock alone again. People, we rocked the house!

(Photo: Poet Patricia Smith)

(Photo: Poet Regie Cabico)

(...To be continued in Part 3)