 Welcome everyone. Hello. I'm Lisa Viejos and on behalf of Meade Public Library and 100,000 poets for change and myself, I'd like to welcome you today to Poetic Pairings How Poetry Speaks. Thank you for coming out on this beautiful spring day. I know you won't regret it. So as you probably know, April is National Poetry Month and what better way to celebrate that than with today's program? Poetic Pairings is in its third year. This is the third time we've done it and what it is, we start by inviting Sheboygan community members to share a poem, pick a poem that has meaning to them from sometime in their life and to share it and they are paired with a poet who responds to the poem and the response can take different forms. Sometimes it's a poem by another poet in the world. Sometimes it's a poem they've written especially in response to what the first person is sharing. Sometimes the two people actually go back and forth together and read one poem and that will happen today. If you've ever seen this event before, you've heard me say that this event is kind of like dancing with the stars but in word form. So as you listen to the pairings today, I hope that you see the power that poetry brings forward. It can be transformative, healing, raising awareness. Poetry does all these things when we listen and let it do that. I think that's because poetry slows us down, makes us look at things in a new way. So we listen and we hear things that we might not have heard before when we listen to poetry. So before we get going here, I just want to give a heartfelt thank you to Mead Public Library and the friends of Mead Public Library for their support. To Jeannie Gartman for all her help in making this event go as smoothly as it will. Thank you to WSCS for being here to tape us and the link to the event will be available on their website after a little bit. We'll get it up there and I'll send it out, make sure you know it's there. And huge thanks to all the participants today who are going to be sharing and to all of you for listening. One thing, so in your program, the first pair was going to be Janet Ross reading a poem by Wendell Berry and I was going to respond but I don't see Janet here. Are you hiding Janet? No, she's not. So she maybe she'll get here and this is all very informal. We'll weave it back in. What I'm going to do with each pair is invite the two people to come up and stand next to me and I'll introduce them and then the community member will go and then the poet will respond. And you can, while your other person is reading, why don't you sit in the chair and sort of be part of the conversation together, okay? So everybody's up here while it's happening. Does that make sense? Teams? Okay, good. All right, so could the first pair please come forward and join me here at the lectern and don't be nervous, Jose. So Jose Gonzalez is a CAD designer at Kohler and the owner of his own business, Enterprise Global, where he creates long-term business partnerships that foster personal aspirations, social well-being and community development. He's also a task force member of Sheboygan Well County, a movement that works to improve the health and well-being of the Sheboygan County workforce. So he's being paired today with Leanne Metter Jensen and Leanne, I didn't run your bio by you so if I say something wrong you got to speak up. A teacher at Central High School where she brings her passion for writing and learning to at-risk youth. Okay, Leanne is a volunteer gardener at Bookworm Gardens and she's been a long time member of the Mead Poetry Circle, which meets here once a month and many of the poets in the room today are part of that circle. So without further ado I will turn it over to Jose and Leanne. So I just want to thank everyone here for coming especially to Lisa and the great group of people who made this possible. I have a lot of voice so it's pretty cool. Hello? Is that good? Okay. So yeah I just want to thank you Lisa and everyone who made this possible because poetry is very important to me. It's something that I feel like I'm able to connect and express. I express myself from the poets perspective as well and I learned a lot about myself through poetry. So the poem I decided to share with you is called The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost and this isn't a poem that impacted me. It was a poem that reinforced my belief and this poem was shared to me by one of my good friends Luke Worth who's from Sheboygan and that's who I saw I first saw this poem from. So this poem to me it's a poem about choices right? We all come into a point in life where we have to decide we have we're placed in a critical situation where you know our choices can lead us a certain way but once that choice has been made you keep moving forward but there's times where you stop and you think and you look back and you reflect and you contemplate on how different your life could have been if you kept on going the other way but you know that you're you made a choice and you got to keep on keeping on and so you move forward and you know one thing I learned is that sometimes the detours in our lives teaches more about our destination and I've also realized that a man and woman's greatest achievement to their dedication to excellence is not what they get from it but rather from what she and he become through it and this is what this poem is all about it's about the journey it's not about the destination so the poem goes two roads diverged in a yellow wood and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler long I stood and look down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth then took the other as just as fair and having perhaps the better claim because it was grassy and wanted where though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same and both that morning equally lay and the leaves no step had trotten black oh I kept the first for another day yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence two roads diverged in a wood and I I took the one less traveled by and that had has made all the difference I'm gonna learn from my students and read from my phone yeah so one thing that Lisa didn't mention is that I also like to sail so you'll see that in my poem and I also wanted to mention that when Jose and I first talked we talked about this poem in that it really was kind of a joke right so that Robert Frost wrote it to his friend because they would go out hiking and he was so into safe like oh why didn't we take that path we took the week oh you know so he's always really like we should have gone this way but we went that way and I guess it's okay so he was kind of mocking himself right so my response poem brings in that and it brings in a bit of the sailing aspect too it begins that way a joke designed with care a knowing smile caught across two currents of air a sail fills with promise and the shore begins to fade a decision made the waves tickle and delight and the path seems right oh there we go then Augusta merges the spray stings and bites like a distant cry penetrating the solace of night the harbor beckons a blanketed embrace but beyond there's so much spark in that space what difference will it make this take the end all right thank you thank you Jose and Leanne team number two could Caleb and Scott please come forward and all right closest to me Caleb cleansing is a senior at a tood high school and he's heading to Ripon College after graduation with a plan to double major in music performance and English secondary education Caleb's worked throughout his high school years at the Northside Pigley Wiggly where I shop and he has been known to recite poetry at the service desk and at the register when the mood strikes Scott Schmidt is an executive recruiter in the construction industry and has been a poet actor singer and songwriter most of his adult life and maybe some of his teenage life I I might have gotten this detail wrong so correct me he's the lead singer he was the lead singer for ten years for the band Benson Clemmie and he's been a regular participant in the hundred thousand poets for change events that we've had here in Sheboygan and he is also a blossoming ballroom dancer which I know because he's in my ballroom dance class on Thursday nights so I'm gonna turn it over to Caleb and Scott hello okay so the poem I'm going to read for you is called mind by Richard Wilbur I first heard this poem in my freshman year when my creative writing teachers had read it out to the class and it instantly captured my imagination there was just something about it that clicked with me and one of the things that we have to do in that class is we have to memorize poems and I've taken that class every single year of high school and this one is the one that was the most important to me that I've memorized so here we go mind in its purest play is like some bat that beats about the caverns all alone contriving by a kind of senseless wit not to conclude against a wall of stone it has no need to falter or explore darkly it knows what obstacles are there so it may weave and flutter dip and soar in perfect courses through the blackest air and as the simile like perfection the mind is like a bat precisely save in the very happiest of interaction a graceful error may correct the cave so it's really cool meeting Caleb and we sat down at a coffee shop and we talked a little bit about the poem and why he chose it and a couple of things stood out to me one in particular was that he liked the way it sounded when he recited the poem and then you look at the poem you say yeah you know it's it's pretty concise and it's kind of a perfect little picture of best-case scenario of what a mind looks like right so one line in the poem by Richard Wilbur stood out to me not to conclude against a wall of stone right that picture of the bat fluttering around and and its sonar doesn't allow it to smack up against a wall but in reality in real life there's lots of there's lots of instances in which our minds don't work the way they're supposed to right there are minds that do conclude against a wall of stone so I wanted my poem to reflect the opposite side of what Richard Wilbur reflected and that the inspiration for me was I have a couple of people in my life currently who are struggling in with some form of mental illness whether it be from age or just from things not being wired properly right so my poem is entitled my mind my mind is a riverbank sleeper just before the spring waters rise but it doesn't wake me up in time to avoid the icy tide so my mind is helicopters and rescue boats and men shouting out my name it is teeth chattering and shivering so hard that i'm afraid my bones might break and only because my mind lets me sleep by a riverbank my mind is a broken down bike tied high up in a tree to avoid the rushing waters its wheels they spin and spin and spin and never wonder once why they even bother they're up there searching for attraction that is long been out of reach because my mind is a broken down bike in a tree my mind is a dented up 40 ounce can half filled with warm liquid and held in my hand and I hold on to that can with all that I've got because it's all that I've got and it has ties behind all that I am and am not try to take it from me I will kick scream and bite with a rage like a devil in the blacks tonight I will fight in the ways of a depraved and lonely man because my mind is a dented up 40 ounce can my mind is it my mind if so then why in my own mind's eye can my own mind and I not see eye to eye my mind my mind my mind is a second hand pair of old boots that can no longer keep the water at bay they fit as if it might have been mine at one time but that's getting fuzzier and fuzzier each day I'm tired of my feet getting wet I'm tired of these voices that keep messing with my head I'm tired of not having food or shelter or even a bed I'm tired that riddle with holes and worn out from use my mind is a second hand pair of old boots my mind my mind my mind is a riverbank sleeper thank you that's wonderful thank you both ah we have an arrival Janet Ross is here yay we're gonna back up to the beginning of the program would you come up okay all right wait and I'm losing all my pieces of paper oh it's okay you're good we're good we're gonna I'm gonna introduce you all right and then we're gonna share our offering so Janet Ross is an artist a weaver a community activist and a former docent are you still docenting or former okay a former docent at the John Michael Kohler Art Center which is where I first met Janet probably 15 years ago in 2017 Janet founded the granny caucus of Sheboygan a grassroots group dedicated to promoting peace justice environmental sustainability and women's rights and I hope that when I'm in my 90s I am exactly like Janet do you want to come up she's gonna share a poem and then I'm I have the response so take it away it so happened that Lisa and I both went to the documentary at the art center about Wendell Berry and I've been a fan of his for many years when she told me about this event I said well I there is a poem that was in my head while I was watching the documentary and that's what I will read words what is one to make of a life given to putting things into words saying them writing them down is there a world without words there is but don't start don't go on about the tree and qualified standing in light that shines at times and beyond its summoning name don't praise the speechless starlight the unspeakable dawn just stop well we can stop for a while if we try hard enough if we are lucky we can sit still keep silent let the Phoebe the sycamore the river the stone call themselves by whatever they call themselves their own sounds their own silences and thus they know for a moment the nearest of the world its vastness its vast variousness far and near which only silence knows and then we must call all things by name out of the silence again to be with us or die of namelessness thank you and when Janet gave me the poem the line that resonated for me was calling things what was that I can't uh wait I have it here hold on everybody it was the line um and then we must call all things by name out of the silence again which is why we write poetry maybe why we speak to each other so what um resonated for me was I I remembered a poem called remember by the poet joy hard joe I got this book so long ago and uh I thought and I hadn't looked at it in quite some time but there's a poem called remember and it you'll see I think why it resonated for me with what you shared of windowberry remember remember the sky that you were born under know each of the stars stories remember the moon know who she is remember the sun's birth at dawn that is the strongest point of time remember sundown and the giving away tonight remember your birth how your mother struggled to give you form and breath you are evidence of her life her mothers and hers remember your father he is your life also remember the earth whose skin you are red earth black earth yellow earth white earth brown earth we are earth remember the plants trees animal life who all have their tribes their families their histories to talk to them listen to them they are alive poems remember the wind remember her voice she knows the origin of this universe remember you are all people and all people are you remember you are this universe and this universe is you remember all is in motion is growing is you remember language comes from this remember the dance language is that life is remember thank you thank you thanks janet um you may go back to your seat now let me see where i need my program who's the next thank you oh oh good sam okay so could we have sam gapmeyer and his two responders jody harrison and daniel janishek come to the stage and be ready okay sam gapmeyer is the director of the john michael kohler art center and he's leading the charge right now to build the new art preserve on indiana avenue which will open to the public in 2020 sam has a long career leading museums through times of change most recently as president and ceo of the peoria riverfront museum in illinois and sam led us in on a secret he wrote his first and only poem at age six and it was about going fishing next to sam is jody harrison jody's a senior at lakeland university where he's majoring in communications with a minor in writing he's originally from pontiac michigan yay michigan that's where i'm from and he's been writing poetry for 12 years jody is president of the black student union vice president of beta sigma omega fraternity at lakeland and they're also a member of a group known as gentlemen of virtue his colleague from school his classmate is daniel janishek daniel grew up in random lake he's a junior at lakeland university majoring in creative writing he's been writing poetry for a little over three years and his hobbies are weightlifting and being a personal trainer and in the future he envisions himself writing and publishing poems stories scripts novels and teaching so watch for that and now i'm going to turn it over to sam to start off this is actually a triad you may have noticed not a pair so i truly did write my first poem at the age of six and it was awful so i'm going to spare you that poem and read for you a poem that my freshman english teacher introduced me to it it was a time in our country when we were just extricating ourselves from the vietnam war it was a time when every night uh the nightly news would report the american deaths as well as the deaths by our enemy soldiers at the time it was a time of protest my cousin was in the war and and i was focused on that i was too young to serve myself but it was a big part of my life and so when my english teacher introduced me to the poetry of wilfred owen who wrote poetry during the first world war it seemed just incredibly relevant and it was the first time that i became aware that poetry was about more than beauty and the lyrical aspects of life and love and all of those truly worthy things but that it could also address complex difficult and challenging issues as well the poem i'm going to read was written by wilfred owen in 1917 as an account he sent his mother of a time when his unit was retreating from enemy soldiers and in that process of retreating the germans were lobbing mustard gas bombs at them and so he writes the account he sends it off to his mother in 1917 and then he dies the following year in action so the poem is called dolce et decorum est which is the first part of a couplet by Horace the poet the full couplet is dolce et decorum est pro patria mori which means tis honorable and proper to die for one's country and it was a popular phrase used by propagandists urging young men to join the the army and to serve in world war one so dolce et decorum est bent double like old beggars under sacks knock need coughing like hags we cursed through sludge till on the haunting flares we turned our backs and toward our distant rest began to trudge men marched to sleep many had lost their boots but limped on bloodshod all went lame all blind drunk with fatigue deaf even to the hoots of gas shells dropping softly behind gas gas quick boys an ecstasy of fumbling fitting the clumsy helmets just in time but someone still was yelling out and stumbling and floundering like a man in fire or lime dim through the misty pains and thick green light as under a green sea i saw him drowning in all my dreams before my helpless sight he plunges at me guttering choking drowning if in some smothering dreams you too could pace behind the wagon that we flung him in and watch the white eyes writhing in his face his hanging face like a devil's sick of sin if you could hear at every jolt the blood come gargling from the froth corrupted lungs obscene as cancer bitter as the cudd a vile and curable sores on innocent tongues my friend you will not tell with such high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory dulce et decorum est pro patria mori uh jody and i thought it was appropriate to utilize our dual response to write an original poem utilizing our two respective characters whom you'll be hearing from it also takes the the experience of wilfred owen and and sam experiencing the world wars which jody and i have not we we've lived in the time of after and that's that's the essence of our poem is what happens after it's called weekends my glass hydro planes across the bar top surfing the condensed water molecules that escaped the drink i try to watercolor your face with my wet glass long strokes extending from your chin your small mouth one line below your drooping nose your eyes are big and i imagine them green as they look brown on the bar top i start on rows of lines your hair that always hung and stuck to your sweaty forehead but the water retracts into itself ruining my water memorial i feel you can hear my thoughts in your new ethereal status but i can't explain it and i won't happy birthday ura whiskey on your breath dirt on your hands no time to wash them in the corner of your mouth a cigarette content as it slowly burns to his death pain deeper than depths where there is there is life but no man can never go i remember your birthday so i asked for a double shot of four roses you loved your bourbon that bourbon as it was as it was what you wanted on your casket wife two children and your best friend thoughts of you shatter away as the bartender says you look like you just lost your puppy i respond yes am i platoon i noticed the guy slowly sitting his empty glass down on the other end of the bar the ice cubes married as they cling to the gap to the glass that once was full of life his dog tags wink at me were you in us army oh yeah where were you stationed fort drum new york i was staff sergeant there who was yours staff sergeant murdoch ura soldier you were one of mine who was in your squad did you drive gun driver sergeant you may have known our squad gunner who he was always thirsty in the humvee so he would bring along and eventually spill his purple gatorade that young man was deployed and deployed with me to iraq he said we would go together the driver and gunner duo always talked about overseas like the target and our humvee would shoot out the army cannon landing down range at the enemy's feet i crouch in the humvee cramped his hot gatorade breath makes me sweat wet like last i saw him his forehead is sticky with brunette icicles sticky there's a grenade in my hand heavy pull the pin hold the safety lever and throw pull hold throw pull sticky hold hold heavy hold hold heavy throw throw throw at the enemy's feet scanning the rocky terrain ahead our radio possible i eat boom the humvee in front of me stops ambushed the gunner firing in every direction one shot the gunner slowly disappears into his humvee bullets screened past our ears carrying the voices of his shooter i tried to recover men from the humvee as it took fire one with a grenade in his hand looking into the lifeless eyes of his gunner i jolt awake it is monday morning i sort of got goosebumps you guys we were just so many of us were at a conference of the wisconsin fellowship of poets this weekend and the theme of the conference interestingly enough was poetry in conversation and collaboration and i cannot tell you like everything i've heard today is just making giving me shivers because you know we're taking things that have been written or that are shared already and then creating these amazing new works of art and expression and i'm just i can barely speak i'm so excited so thank you thank you all for this amazing outpouring of creativity and expression so all right oh the next pair could kyle and georgia come up here please i'm getting goosebumps again okay kyle welton is a graduate of marquette university where he majored in political science with a double major in history and classical studies i'm sorry yeah minor that would have been a lot of majoring right there he's been a project manager at epic in madison a business analyst at acuity and this is where i met kyle he was the field organizer for the democratic party of wisconsin in the 2016 election cycle he'd send me out on canvassing he was very kind kyle serves on the serboygan areas district school board and he's the president of habitat for humanity lakeside and as if all this isn't enough kyle is currently running for state senate in the ninth district he's got my vote so but we'll yeah we'll keep doing poetry georgia georgia resmeyer an east coast native has lived in wisconsin since 1974 she was a defense lawyer in another life and her poetry has received two push cart prize nominations and was awarded honorable mention in the 2017 laurene nedeker poetry contest which is sponsored every year by the council for wisconsin writers georgia has three chat books published and her newest which is at the back of the room there is a full-length collection called home body and was published by public press in 2017 so take it away kyle and georgia thank you lisa so um i want to give a little bit of an introduction about why i chose the iliad and why we're doing it this way so for most of you who know me know that i'm unabashedly nerdy but easily the nerdiest thing about me is my love and passion for dead languages and and i find them fascinating and i continually it's the the way it forces your mind to think and i think there's really a beauty to language that expresses the full range of human emotion and there's something that you can it's really hard for us to think about connecting with people who've been gone for 3000 years but all of it comes to life when you start to think in their language and and and get that and so at marquette university i took ancient greek and latin and in my fourth semester we did nothing but translate homer and homer is often considered some of the most difficult greek because not only is it ancient greek um it's in dactylic exameter and so there's pieces of it that are merged in peace all for poetic license and so we translated 11 books of the iliad and seven books of the odyssey and i absolutely fell in love with both poems but particularly the iliad and the reason for that is that the iliad um has captivated us for 3000 years right think about this that homer composes this just about 3000 years he composes it orally he's a blind poet he's known as the muse he composes this uh in 700 bc and we still have it to this day there are several other epics about the trojan war none of them have survived but we have both of homers and they're revered and studied and actually pretty historically accurate through everything that we can find through archaeology and so here we have homer who composes these epics and he focuses on 47 days in the 10th year of the war we've got 10 years of war and he focuses just on 47 days but through that 47 days we have this beautiful brushstroke of human emotion and the struggle with the question is why do we fight war and that is something that has has resonated throughout generations and the iliad is retold in many different stories and so as part of our final exam in that class we had to memorize in dactylic examiner the first eight lines of the ancient epic the iliad and then recite it for the class for some reason i still remember that and so i offered that to lisa when she approached me and i said why this had meant so much to me and then got to to pair up with georgia and georgia does a really nice job of presenting a different side to homer that is often not not not brought there so without further ado i will recite for you the first eight lines in greek and then i will read you the translation which oddly enough i don't have memorized but i still have have the greek so so achilles wrath to greece the dire full spring of woes unnumbered heavenly goddess sing that wrath which hurled to pluto's gloomy rain the souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain whose limbs unburied on the naked shore devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore since great achilles in a tree day's strove such was the sovereign doom and such the will of jove achilles took great pleasure in being called sacker of cities and he took great pride in all the treasure and and the women he was able to seize on his raids all throughout the agency and the women were enslaved both sexually and otherwise the beautiful got to be concubines to the great warriors and kings and the less beautiful got to work in the flax fields doing terribly backbreaking work and led short lives they and their children this poem is my response both to the iliad and the fact that homer makes so little of the suffering of the women the slaves and also the fact that these the abuse of women and the rape and enslavement and harassment and other objective objectification continues to this day throughout the world including in this country my poem is titled what homer failed to say of women's pain in their enslavement speak oh goddess let the earth and heavens shriek with bitter cries as women spoils of wars are raped and sent to toil on foreign shores the beautiful made concubines to men of wealth and power their charms imagined by warriors and kings to be sincere not stratagems of those who held life dear oh muse declare the greed and vengefulness of ruthless men the cause of wars to best retaliate enslave plunder inflict pain and fear on others backbreaking hunger and backbreaking work on those who survive just to keep them their children half alive homer slighted the sufferings of women today we must fight to end all oppression i just want to add that i know that kyle welton agrees with everything i just said after this day is over i have to get all the pairs standing together because it's very hard for i i need to hire a photographer for these things because i keep missing the great photographic moments because the poetic moments are blowing me away okay moving on we're going to shift gears a bit now and one thing so when i invite people in the community to do this often there will be someone who isn't you know identifying as a poet and regularly but they do write poetry and once when i give them this opportunity to share something they ask me could i share something i wrote and of course i can't say no you must not you must go find something else so the next two pairs actually are going to um highlight community members who are sharing something that they themselves have written and then we have a poet also responding so yes so could reberda and catherine please come up so closest to me here reberda filiki paneski reberda is retired as a financial advisor and vice president at robert w barrett and company after 19 years in the industry she chairs the shabuigan redevelopment authority and has served in five mayoral administrations she serves on numerous boards including the wisconsin academy of sciences arts and letters which is how we first met and reberda has a great affinity for poetry and gardening and and she surprised me one day at the art center she's a master gardener there and she takes care of our plants beautifully and reberda will be paired is paired with catherine gall catherine lives in appleton she is limber courageous addicted to dark chocolate a story catcher ballroom dancer and the grief queen a deep sleeper funny her multi genre works are widely published and she's won numerous awards for both her poetry and her short stories her book of poems life drawing class appeared in 2009 and includes watercolors that were created by her late husband so please welcome reberda and catherine and this really is a shift um a couple of years ago i attended attended a workshop in madison uh and it was sponsored by the academy actually and robin Chapman who is a published poet um that was in charge of the workshop and uh she's a an emeritus professor from uw before we sat down at our workshop we all walked in and there was a table arrayed with a number of things piece of yarn a gourd a pan and she said just pick something from the table so i walked in picked something from the table sat down after a little bit of instruction robin said okay now write a poem about what you have selected i said oh swell i began halfway through my writing i realized that the pruning shears had conjured for me memories of my mother who was an avid gardener and a garden club member in her later years mom had all timers she lived for a while in an assisted living center and then on into a nursing home to keep her engaged the staff often asked what's your mother interested in what can we do to help her and i said well betty loves flowers and she used to do flower arranging one of the staff people said great we get florals deliveries here all the time so i give you pruning shears pruning shears such a lousy name pruning shears they are not prunes nor are they sheer plums are prunes before they dry sheer is the organza white kitchen curtain pruning shears maybe rainbow liberators freeing daily alike purple from its fragile green perch or clipping daffodil yellow from a brown earth pruning shears creative tools from my vibrant mom arranging a garden club entry multi snipping her way to yet another blue ribbon pruning shears her last tool in the community dining room as her wisened and rheumatic hands cut colorful funeral flowers arcing heaven word to a new arrangement reberta and i have known each other for over 30 years and i haven't seen her in a long time because i left this community and when lisa paired us number one i wasn't surprised number two we weren't surprised that we both wore a red dress without planning that you know there's something about synchronicity and simpatico and all of that she sent me the poem that she was going to read pruning shears and it took me about two seconds to realize what i was going to pair with it i'm happy to say that it appears in the current issue of wisconsin people and ideas and because we are contemporaries our mothers are clearly contemporaries from a time that was more gentle people focus not so much focus on stuff and that's enough to say why my poem is called my mother's kitchen beneath the butcher wrap paper lay for mica of gray with black flecks and after my mother and her sidekick Anita finished wrapping t-bones round steaks sirloins blade roasts and pot roasts they logged in a 20 gallon pail of ground chuck and slapped and laughed the meat into patties placing thin squares of paper between each patty for ease of separation when the burgers would go from freezer to frying pan before they taped an outer wrap and dated it in black my father's job would be to rotate packages in the freezer designate which heifer in the barn could not be bread or milked or sold but by next year would end up dead in my mother's kitchen while she and Anita yacked and yacked grateful for the homegrown kill the time to restock the freezer for 10 mouths slaving till sweat circled their arms the little caves between their bellies where they found space to gossip about the sweltering summer the upcoming dance with a polka band a shotgun wedding i love lucy and the growing pains of children none of whom had yet gone vegetarian thank you thank you for those memories of mothers all right our next pair could yur and jean come up yur yang is an educator by trade a community leader by default and a mentor to young leaders by her passion she's been an ELL teacher and youth leadership development advisor for 23 years in sheboygan area school district and it's her mission to not only teach her students how to read and write but also help them realize their power and potential to seize the opportunities in front of them dr gene tobin is professor emerita of english with the university of wisconsin colleges and a co-founder of glacial lakes conservancy she's both a poet and a painter and recently had a solo show of her watercolors called in celebration of trees at the fine arts gallery at uw sheboygan and so we will begin with yur's poem when lisa invited me and i said me reading a poem um being an ELL teacher i don't read poems a lot although by trade i'm an english teacher or as well but poem is my weakness so i should not reveal any more than that i can tell you that um when i decided to write this poem um you know that in life you write what what is it that is important to you and i know that i lived through the vietnam war i lived through a lot of trauma traumatic experiences in my life and i thought about it and i said um i don't want to write about depressive stuff what is it that is ingrained in me and that's what's what is that is memorable to me and and those are the childhood experiences that i endured or experienced and they don't leave you right even after the the days over even even though after your experience is gone and done with but what remains is the memories in the history and so um my poem is called a day to stay here you go i apologize because i got the cold so i used to crawl ever so loudly at dusk mom and sister know where to be found brother gripes brother gripes about the branch in sight run run jungle run monsters beast and goblin lurking under the settlement cloud underneath the sunray penetrate trees fast walk across the jungle floor hovering fog tiny legs slicing white puffs float piercing eyes stairs laughter's glare and conversation peers the silent air tears low as the black troll dare to show sun up high beating on the open field not a cloud in sight but a gust of breeze on a human day on a hilltop blades of rice and gross way to the wind ears of corn listening patiently to sounds that say vines of squash cucumbers and beans intertwined in a mountain size crisps and sweet cucumbers snacks ginger roots hot peppers and rice in water on a hot for a hot lunch no i apologize rice in water on a hot day lunch bamboo shoots black and white mushrooms and palm trees jungle treasures for a night stay swish swish scrunch scrunch chop chop on the jungle floor for days a river spring seeps and drips from the mountain sides fish crabs snails shrimps for it for the mainstay sugar cane juicy sweet a chewy oh what a treat jungles breeze sweet and cool horizon deems red orange and green ginger roots mushrooms palm hearts bamboo shoots what delicious soup fire crackling flame flare foot to war of the beast monsters and couplings in the dark moons and star twinkle forever bright up high cricket chirps hours hoot beast and monster roar all the noises in mom's embrace the night is here to stay away day stay thank you the poem that i would read the poem that you should read in response which is a perfect response to this wonderful poem of childhood is fernhill and it's by dylan thomas and it begins and it would have been this wonderful rolling welch accent very deep voice as i was young and easy under the apple wows and he goes on this tour of the landscape this magical landscape of his own childhood on a farm in wales but the poem is very long so i'm not doing it it's here i'm not going to do that one i'm going to do one that i wrote and i'm picking up just a little bit of yours poem um the cucumbers those crunchy and sweet cucumbers in my case peas garden peas my sister and i loved them at that time they didn't have pods that you would eat particularly you threw away the pods the poem says mopey grandma mopey and that's just us lisping it means more peas and then later on i talk about those downed helicopter propellers and what i mean are the the pods the peas you know you split them open you threw that away and then ate the peas so this is for my sister it's called of peace and childhood for marlis joy craigar 1937 2017 these sibling memories mopey grandma mopey we said and hid under her back porch sunlight playing bright slats over our treasure the long thin green gold of early garden peas or older sat on her own front steps shopping bags filled with booty between us sharing the bounty splitting pods with small strong fingers tipping over the green canoes ripping out by a trick a quick flick of our tongues a row or two single and straight or divided and alternating of plump paddlers little green clones downed helicopter propellers piled up on either side of us and we felt so fine eating those endless suites of spring we knew we would live forever through fadeproof green june days or in the evening excited to be out after dark at the summer band concerts in our local park we sat on a blanket peas brought in paper bags and better than buttered popcorn and once when you were very little you thought christmas carolers were singing sleep in heavenly peas heavenly peas it was beautiful all right our next team is another triad actually so i'm going to invite ali and marcos and maryland to come to the front of the room alexandra mayer de guavara is a communication strategist at the idea works a marketing communications agency here in sheboygan a new one she serves as a board member for many things nourish the john michael kohler art center and planned parenthood wisconsin she's part german and part bolivian and ali that's her nickname ali was raised in lapaz at 12 000 feet above sea level surrounded by some of the most beautiful mountains in the world marcos guavara is the husband of ali and he is the code switcher and script flipper try to say that five times fast at the idea works he helps colleagues and clients connect more deeply more humanly to the key members of their communities maryland zelke window has written poetry since she was 13 and she was for many years an art teacher she grew up with stories to hold her by her wisconsin born parents and her father recited the poetry of longfellow to her as a child her poems have appeared in many printed and online venues and several anthologies and her fourth chapbook called hiccups haunt wilson avenue has just been released by kelsey press so today that what this team is going to do is share a poem that's in spanish so it will be in both languages and then maryland will respond with her poem good afternoon everybody so this poem is written in a form called a decimal which was invented in the early 16th century in spain today that form no longer exists in spain but flourishes all over latin america i recommend highly that you look up this poetic form it is used a lot nowadays between the simetos they're called throughout like i said throughout latin america in a sort of battle kind of way impromptu back and forth uh this this particular poem that we'll be reading is by a singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler who's Uruguayan and he kind of went crazy when he found out about decimas i was going to start with the spanish i'll follow with the english translation hi so um this poem came to me in the format of facebook even though i've been loving Jorge Drexler for a long time now he's uh Tuvador and this specific uh piece speaks a lot of the something we latin americans are feeling and thinking about right now especially in the u.s. it's called movimiento apenas nos pusimos en dos pies comenzamos a migrar por la sabana siguiendo la manada de bisontes más allá del horizonte a nuevas tierras lejanas los niños en la espalda y expectantes los ojos en alerta todo idos olfateando el desconcertante paisaje nuevo desconocido somos una especie en viaje no tenemos pertenencias sino equipaje vamos con el polen en el viento estamos vivos porque estamos en movimiento nunca estamos quietos somos transumantes somos padres hijos nietos y bisnietos de inmigrantes es más mío lo que sueño que lo que toco yo no soy de aquí pero tú tampoco yo no soy de aquí pero tú tampoco de ningún lado del todo de todos lados un poco atravesamos de ciertos glaciares continentes el mundo entero de extremo extremo empecinados supervivientes el ojo en el viento y en las corrientes la mano firme en el remo cargamos con nuestras guerras nuestras canciones de cuna nuestro rumbo hecho de versos de migraciones y ambrunas y ha sido así siempre desde el infinito fuimos la gota de agua viajando en el meteorito cruzamos galancia galaxias vacío milenios buscábamos oxígeno y encontramos sueños apenas nos pusimos en dos pies y nos vimos en la sombra de la hoguera escuchamos la voz del desafío siempre miramos al río pensando en la otra orilla en la otra ribera i changed the world somos una especie en viaje no tenemos pertenencia sino equipaje nunca estamos quietos somos transumantes somos padres hijos nietos y bisnietos de inmigrantes es más mío lo que sueño que lo que toco yo no soy de aquí pero tú tampoco yo no soy de aquí pero tú tampoco de ningún lado del todo y de todos lados un poco lo mismo con las canciones los pájaros los alfabetos si quieres que algo se muera déjalo quieto all right motion by Jorge Drexler as soon as we stood on our two feet we began to migrate through the savanna following the herd of bison beyond the horizon to new lands distant the children on our backs and expectant eyes alert all ears smelling the baffling new landscape unknown we're a traveling species we don't have belongings we have luggage we traveled with pollen in the wind we're alive because we're in motion we are never still we're transoment we're parents children grandchildren and great grandchildren children of immigrants my belongings are what i dream more so than what i touch i'm not from here but you're not either i'm not from here but you're not either not from one place entirely from everywhere a little we cross deserts glaciers continents the entire world from end to end stubborn survivors our eye to the wind and to the currents the hand firm on the ore carrying our wars our lullabies our journey made verse of migrations of famine and that's how it's always been from infinity we were the drop of water on the meteorite we crossed galaxies the void millennia we were looking for oxygen we found dreams as soon as we stood on two on our two feet and saw ourselves in the shadow of the bonfire we heard the voice of challenge we always look at the river thinking of the other side we're traveling species we don't have belongings we have luggage we are never still we're transoment we're parents children grandchildren and great grandchildren of immigrants my belongings are what i dream not so much what i touch i'm not from here but you're not either i'm not from here but you're not either not from one place entirely but from everywhere a little the same for songs for birds for alphabets if you want something to die let it be still my children for christmas bought me the ancestry kit and uh you take out this little tube and you spit in it and then you plug it up and you mail it first class mail and they offer you a two-week free use of their website i was brought up by parents that talked a lot and lots of stories about grandmothers and grandfathers and cousins etc so i pretty well knew where i was coming from a little and everywhere a lot so when when this song came to me it was like oh yeah i can get into this so my my response is called united in dream sing sing the song of birds that rested you from slumber from aching feet following animals for food from those tired arms which carried your child in dream state be the dream state praise and fear the mountains you travel glory in the miles of savannah you tread imagine in your mind the birth of crops of sustenance of life ongoing for family we are united in these wishes yours from the south of our earth mine from the northeast from a different sea to cross from a different route to take but with the same mindset the same lyric of hope the immigrant baggage we hoist is heavy our families our families know that burden we share that journey sing the troubles sing the trials sing the sickness cry the infant buried at sea then listen again listen to the survivors of the wind and the currents and the wars we are united as genetic travelers on that water droplet on that rock of ages that meteorite we seek the vapor of life oxygen our cattle know the barriers they stretch their noses beyond fences they forever seek the sweet grasp always beyond their grasp we could learn from our animals but here's the difference between us we dream for more than sustenance of body we see not grass but a river and dream about the other side we know no barriers we dream for more than we can touch our dream unites us we are the dream thank you that was beautiful so we are coming into our last two pairs and we're doing well and we do have some refreshments after so i hope if you don't have to rush off you'll you'll stay and talk to each other i feel just like there's so many friends and people and new things to talk about in this room so let's we'll try to we don't have to zip out do we genie like okay good all right the library is not closing at 335 we'll be okay the next pair could betsy and maryanne come up to the stage or the stage whatever this is the front of the room the table betsy alice retired in january from the shabuagan county chamber of commerce she did an amazing job she and her husband bike fly hike and travel the globe betsy is hosting a trip to vietnam and cambodia next spring and she and her husband also host nationally acclaimed singer songwriters in her home in their home and they're both madly in love with the great lakes so they live in the right place maryanne hurt was a hospice nurse in another life and now she's a poet a traveler and an avid outdoor enthusiast her chapbook river came out from aldrich press in 2016 and she's just now completing a 20 year writing project called once upon a tar creek mining for voices in which she tells the story of diverse voices in rural oklahoma so please welcome them thank you yes and i have read her chapbook river and i highly recommend it it was really just some lovely moments for me to read that as some of you know my daughter ali is in the midst of trying to eradicate a particularly aggressive cancer and she lives and works and plays a lot in denver every day with all the joy that she can muster when she got the news that the cancer had metastasized early this year it was about the time that lisa invited me to share a poem with this group and i just couldn't connect even thoughts together at that time as i wandered her apartment i hurried there wondering somewhat helplessly what i could do or say in these moments i noticed she had a copy of desiderata on her fridge along with hundreds of other things i read it again with new eyes after 45 years that number just came to me today and i was amazed i am certain of one thing that each day each moment for all of us is new and full of love everywhere to be found so i read desiderata which appeared in my college dorm on many many walls and was read by um uh uh uh uh nemoi lennard nemoi i couldn't remember his first name i tried his voice it didn't work so i'm going to use my own he wrote this in 1927 it has endured all these years not 3 000 years but all these years it was by max airman desiderata it means desired things go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence as far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others even the dull and the ignorant they too have their story avoid loud and aggressive persons they are vexations to the spirit if you compare yourselves with others you may become vain and bitter for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself enjoy your achievements as well as your plans keep interested in your own career however humble it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time exercise caution in your business affairs for the world is full of trickery but let this not blind you to what virtue there is many persons strive for high ideals and everywhere life is full of heroism be yourself especially do not feign affection neither be cynical about love for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass take kindly the counsel of the years gracefully surrendering the things of youth nurtures strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune but do not distress yourself with dark imaginings many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness beyond a wholesome discipline be gentle with yourself you are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars you have a right to be here and whether or not it is clear to you no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should therefore be at peace with god whatever you conceive him or her to be and whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul with all its sham drudgery and broken dreams it is still a beautiful world be cheerful strive to be happy thank you i had never met Betsy before two weeks ago and i think we were supposed to meet each other and i think i really need to meet your daughter now okay and i think this poem kind of fits for your daughter actually the poem is called a brave and daring life i have a little epigraph a little introduction from a book called solidary places by Joan van der dal schrader and she has a line in her book that says real love obligates us to live a brave and daring life it is a fire this is a brave and daring life there are rules you break and wait for the infernal shoe to drop but dance in the fire anyway sparks flying chasing but still knowing your deepest heart the flame will be enough to save your life full of blaze and light i love when the partners become friends this has happened every year so makes me really happy before we go to our last pair a couple housekeeping things i mentioned the snacks already i'm going to be turning on some music at the end of this and it's the Jorge Drexler song that we heard the lyrics to so it's going to be on the screen with a little really cool little animation oh no we have the actual well we'll have something they'll be music and also i want to say this now to invite you to an event on saturday may 19th at 10 in the morning at Maywood this is a the eighth annual language of nature poetry reading and discussion that Mary Ann Hurt who was just up here and Georgia Russ Meyer and Marilyn's Elkie Wendau have been organizing for the last seven years and they bring people together at Maywood and everyone shares nature poetry and you sit in that beautiful room and see the trees and it's lovely and after and there's good snacks Marilyn is an excellent baker and they do a walk around Maywood afterward if you can stay so it's a great morning again it's 10 to noon on saturday may 19th the language of nature and we hope that you'll be there i'll be there all right could our last pair come to the stage and i'm excited about this pair because this is the one that to me is the most like dancing with the stars because they're going to share one poem together and so we have David Benton David has spent nearly 15 years serving the community by running mentoring programs for at-risk and disengaged youth between the ages of 10 and 18 in 2016 David founded Dream Big Academy a project that supports young people to get out of their comfort zone invest in themselves and follow their dreams Sylvia Kavanaugh is originally from Pennsylvania and she's now a teacher at North High where she teaches african and asian cultural studies she's a push cart prize nominee and a contributing editor to verse virtual and her second checkbook which is at the back of the room called angular embrace is just out from Kelsey Press so i will let David introduce the poem oh and i know one other thing i wanted to say when you're meandering around having snacks check out the back table because all the different books that the poems have come from today are back there and you'll find some really great stuff including a children's book version of the poem that you're about to hear so just wanted to say that thank you lisa um as lisa stated um i've been in uh this area for about 16 years i'm actually a rigid i originally came from uh arora katarato so i'm very familiar with denver katarato and i think a lot of my story ties into the reason why i selected the poem i selected um is because i think we all come from different aspects of life and we're all searching for our belonging our sense of compassion love growth um and you know in this day and age where we're riddled by wars our constant controversy our turmoil oftentimes we just need to look to the person next to us to find our our peace and comfort um and so i selected a poem by richard blinko one day originally written in 1968 and then was reused by uh for president barack obama's presidential inauguration january 21st 2013 one sun rolls on us today kindled over the shores peeking over the smokies greeting the faces of the great lakes spreading a simple truth across the great plains then charging across the rockies one light waking up rooftops under each one a story told by our silent gestures moving behind windows my face your face million of faces in the morning mirror each one yawning to life cursing into our day pencil yellow school buses the rhythm of traffic lights fruit stands apples limes oranges a rate like rainbows begging for our praise silver trucks heavy with oil our paper bricks our milk teeming along the highway alongside us on our way to clean tables read ledgers or save lives to teach geometry or ring up groceries as my mother did for 20 years so i could write this poem all of us as vital as the one light we move through the same light on the blackboards with lessons for today equations to solve history to question atoms to imagine the i have a dream we keep dreaming or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won't explain the empty desks of 20 children marked absent today and forever many prayers but one light breathing color into stained glass windows life into the faces of bronze statues warmth onto the steps of our museums and park benches as mothers watch children slide into the day one ground our ground rooting us to every stock of corn every head of wheat sown by sweat and hands hands gleaming coal or planting will mills in the deserts and hilltops to keep us warm hands digging trenches rooting pipes and cables hands as warm as my father's cutting sugarcane so my brother and i could have books and shoes the dust of farms and deserts cities and planes mingled by one wind our breath breathe hear it through the day's gorgeous din of honking calves buses launching down avenues the symphony of footsteps guitars and screeching subways the unexpected bird song on your clothesline here squeaking playground swing swings trains whistling are the whispers across the cafe tables here the doors we open for each other all day saying hello shalom bonjour howdy namaste or brainestias in the language my mother taught me in every language spoken into one wind carrying our lives without prejudice as these words break from my lips one sky since the appellations and the seary claim their majestics in the mississippi and katarato worked their way to the sea thank the work of our hands weaving still into bridges finishing one more report for the boss on time stitching another wound our uniform the first brushstroke on a portrait or the last floor of the freedom tower jetting into the sky that yields to our resiliency one sky toward which we sometimes lift our eyes tired from work some days guessing at the weather of our lives some days giving thanks for a love that loves you back sometimes praising a mother who knew how to give or forgiving a father who couldn't give what you wanted we head home through the gloss of the rain or the weight of the snow or the plume blush of dust but always home always under one sky our sky always one moon like a silent drum tapping on the rooftop of every window of one country all of us facing the stars hope a new constellation waiting for us to map it waiting for us to name it together was awesomely beautiful and did you two coordinate the wearing of blue because you looked super fabulous i mean we had the red dresses and we had the blue shirts it was awesome it's really good well this brings us to the end of the sharing of poetic pairings today thank you all so much for all your words whether they came from a poet a songwriter yourself that's really wonderful i'm super excited and uh we're going to do this event again right genie next year in april so stay tuned meanwhile read poetry share poetry speak poetry uh be together love each other eat cookies and i'm i want you all to chit chat now i know some people might have to run out but enjoy each other's company and i'm going to put on the video so we can hear the Jorge Drexler song so thank you all very much and thank you to me public library