 So Alan Gilbert is a local author this book that he's going to be talking about today It's a well, it talks about a lot about the history of Worcester education and How these laws with Worcester education have really influenced other communities So without further ado, please welcome our local author mr. Alan Gilbert So I got to tell you I really feel like I've been set up. I mean the last two hours. I can't step dance I can't play the oon. I Can't do any I try so What I want to do is give you some sense of what it's like to really like writing and to be an author This is the book I wrote. It's called equal is equal fair is fair And it's subtitled Vermont's quest for equity and education funding same-sex marriage and health care I'm sure that's Not the exciting stuff. You've just seen for the last two hours But there's actually a lot of Worcester in this book And I want to try to explain to you why and how that came about I also wanted you to know that for the last day or two I've been watching myself as I prepare for this presentation and I can't believe So that was planned because the next thing I was going to say is I can't believe how dependent I am on paper And that's really true. I mean if you actually look at this you can see I've been revising something I think now for the sixth time and that is something that an author does all the time One of the things that does to you though it essentially Chains you in change change you as in going to prison to the way that you've written something because you think you put so much Work into it. You have to say the things that you've now developed So it's really hard for me to actually do this extemporaneously without some notes So when they go flying away really does bother me a lot So let me just let me just talk a little bit about how I became an author And then let me talk a little bit about the stuff that's in the book and how it pertains to Worcester So how do you really become an author and write a book and I got to tell you for me What happened in Worcester nearly 30 years ago is what put me on the path to writing this book The book is about as I said Vermont's quest for equity and education funding same-sex marriage and health care And I became I have become fascinated with those three subjects I've always liked to read you should know my mother was an English teacher and she didn't let my three brothers and me watch television during the school week She wanted us to read books and I did and I think when you begin even as a child to realize the power That words have to tell a story or to describe a snow scene to somebody from Florida or maybe even publish a family newsletter When you start realizing the power of words when you're doing that You can really get hooked on reading and you get hooked on writing and that's what happened to me When I came to Vermont in the 1970s after college I became a journalist for the Rutland Herald and the Times Argus And I have to tell you writing for a daily newspaper is probably the most terrific way to learn How to observe things and then explain them to other people so they can understand them You're writing two stories a day and everything has to be perfect or the editor really lays his or her thumb down on you So that really isn't in a nutshell what writing is all about. How do you observe things and then explain them to other people? One of my interests when I was a reporter was education And I think that could be because both of my parents have been educators I wrote a lot of education stories both while I was at the Herald and also at the Times Argus And then later when I started doing a lot of freelance writing when I moved to Worcester, which was in the late 1980s I I got drafted to run for the school board I didn't realize what that early man I guess at the time and I want a seat. I'm not sure I was I was opposed actually And I dove into education politics It didn't take long for me to see that Worcester was a property poor town With high school taxes and a school building that actually wasn't meeting state standards The town had gone through repeated votes on funding a modest bond so we could build in addition to the school Towns people that's all of us said their school taxes were too high and they were right We were right. We were paying a lot Especially compared to other people So at that point I Had heard that the ACLU of Vermont the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont Was considering challenging in court the state's school funding system because the wide disparities in school funding I was pretty naive about all this stuff about what a lawsuit really is even though my wife is an attorney I don't think you've ever you really understand the law until you're part of a case or you're very close to somebody who is Going through litigation of some sort Worcester itself was really a poster child of the problem of unequitable funding Robert Gensburg who was an incredibly principal highly respected lawyer from the Northeast Kingdom He was the one who was putting together this lawsuit for the ACLU Along with a bunch of other lawyers and they wanted to show the iniquity of the system and asked the state courts to Force the state to change the way that funds were being raised. I Had become chair of the school board by this time and Bob Gensburg called me one evening Explained what he was doing for the ACLU and he asked would Worcester like to become a plaintiff and join this lawsuit And I said well I certainly think so but I Refers to have to have the board take a look at this and decide if the Worcester school board wanted to jump into this It took a very little time at our next meeting to decide what to do and we decided we were in we wanted to join this lawsuit As a plaintiff so the school district of Worcester when there still was a Worcester school district We became plaintiffs in the case that became known as Brigham. I didn't realize that My life was about to change because of the stuff I was going to get involved in it was sort of what happened to the school funding system It got changed too The Vermont Supreme Court and the Brigham decision said that indeed the system for Distributing state school funds was unfair the court told the legislature the system had to be changed to To make access to school funds more equal for all towns the result was as most of you know Act 60 which emerged as eventually the most equitable school funding system in the country still to this day So if you all remember I think looking around the most of most of you listening Remember what some of this was like in the 90s When the gold towns in the state were really upset that all of a sudden their school taxes were now going to be pooled Along with all other towns taxes, and then it would be shared equally among all the different towns After the Brigham decision came down in February 1996, and it was pretty clear This was not going to be a really easy battle to get good legislation through I helped form an advocacy group to explain and defend the court decision and then to monitor the passing and implementation of the law act 60 itself Later several years later because of my work on that Stuff in the legislature. I was asked to apply and I got I got chosen to become the executive director of the American Civil Liberty Union of Vermont, which again had originally brought the suit so in many ways I had a heck of a lot of Ability or I was able because of the front row seat I had to To tag along with a really interesting story and the story didn't stop just with education Remember we're talking about equity here. How can all kids be treated equally a couple of years after the Brigham decision came down in fact Two years we had another Really nationally important decision and that involved the right of gay couples to become married like straight couples are That was the Baker decision that was that was handed down by the Vermont Supreme Court in December of 1999 It was it was a real game-changer At first people didn't know what to think about it or what to do about it But it was pretty clear that just as with the education funding the legislature is going to have to kick into high gear and Figure out a way that changing something had been in place for many many years if not centuries Which is you know the limiting of marriage rights to only state straight couples How are you going to do that for gay people without having the state in an uproar? for me The really fascinating thing about the Baker decision was that it was premised based on the same reasoning as the Brigham decision And that was that the state must provide according to the state Constitution it has to provide equal access to Benefits that if it's going to give them to one person It's got to give them to all people who on an equal basis and this is this is what the Article 7 of the Vermont Constitution says because if you think about this It can really be used to do a lot of pretty amazing things if you can make it work This is what it says and the language is weird because it comes literally from the 18th century this this constitutional Clause was written in the 1770s and it's still we still haven't in our Constitution virtually exactly the same It says the government is or ought to be instituted for the common benefit protection and security of the people nation or community And not for the particular emolument or advantage of any single person family Or set of people who are a part only of that community So it means when the government hands out a benefit like schools public schooling is a requirement in the Vermont Constitution Kids have to have an equal opportunity to learn in school. You can't have what a kid can learn the Capability to school to fund certain programs that can't be based on the town the kid lives in it's got to be based on the school You have and you have to have equal access to school funds So this got me thinking about How is this how is a simple clause used to make two really important changes first to completely change around the way schools are funded? Which was quite an awkward when that came down and then the second decision the Baker decision How did this how did this clause of the Constitution and allow a second thing? Which was the ability for gay people to marry? How how did that happen? What is it? How does it? Constitutional how does a constitutional clause that's two hundred and fifty years old really work? And that's what I that's what I tried to understand. What's so different about Vermont? Why was Vermont able to do this and that's when I started thinking about writing a book? Because I needed to understand how all this could happen and I wanted to be able to explain it to other people and In the process of doing this asking about school funding and about gay marriage I also began asking why hasn't this happened with health care? Why haven't we made access to health care equal for all Vermonters? This is something we've been working on Literally, I found out for a hundred years and it's something the state still hasn't been able to achieve So with those three things in mind. I said to myself. I got a book. I got a book It's got three chapters two of them are success stories and one of them is a still struggling story The real challenge for me was how could I make any of this stuff? School funding formulas common law concepts of marriage publicly financed Universal access to health care. How can you make that interesting to either talk about or to read about? And I was pretty sure I can handle the research But the writing I knew had to be crisp It had to be engaging it had to be clear while not complicated and it could not be either preachy or strident and Really when it comes right down to it, that's really what good writing is all about finding the voice That connects you with readers So what I wanted to do is to just read you a couple of of my favorite snippets one from each of the of the three chapters and There ones that there ones that I actually still like reading myself and it's it's kind of cool when when that happens to you because It really makes you feel like you've connected with Who you're writing about and you hope you can connect with your readers as well So this is about the school funding case and it's about who the heck was Amanda Brigham Behind every legal case is a person and a story the school funding case filed in 1995 in the Vermont Superior Court in Hyde Park was Brigham v. State of Vermont Although there were actually a total of 13 plaintiffs the lead plaintiff was Amanda Brigham Her surname Brigham came first alphabetically in the list of plaintiffs And so the file created by the court was simply Brigham v. State of Vermont I always felt it was fitting that a lawsuit That broke new legal ground in an important education issue took the name of an eight-year-old Once the Vermont Supreme Court decision in the case was handed down two years later Legislators explaining a school funding issue began to say that Brigham requires this or Brigham requires that I Smiled to think how appropriate it was that a child from a rural Addison County Farmtown seem to be telling adults what to do when it came to education. I Think I can do without those now, but thanks Lyle That's my wife by the way The much better much better half Amanda Brigham was the daughter of Carol and Rusty Brigham of Whiting a Hard-working couple who struggled to keep the family farm going but ended up having to work off the farm as well to make ends meet Carol served in the Whiting school board She knew how hard it was to balance the school's budget The town was property poor and residents income were below the state average There was nothing fancy about the small school in the village that served kids in kindergarten through sixth grade Amanda was squirming in a decidedly adult-sized chair when I met her in the summer of 1995 at the Lemoyle County Court House Her mother introduced us explaining that my school was also involved in the lawsuit. We were plaintiffs as well Amanda said hello after prompting from her mom Carol whispered to me that she was shy I tried to put myself in her shoes Pondering what it would be like if my mother and I had one day gotten into our car and driven 85 miles from the small town Where I was growing up to attend something called a hearing to change things the schools work better for all kids It's hard to know how much any eight-year-old can understand of a complicated legal case As Amanda grew older so did her confidence After elementary school in Whiting she went to the regional high school in Brandon and then out of state for college She gained bachelor's degrees and master's degrees in sports management She worked at universities in Pennsylvania in New York, and then she returned to Vermont for a job Returned to Vermont for a job at Norwich University When I retired from the ACLU in 2016 Amanda and her mom drove to Montpelier for my going away party. I Got it now her smile said to me when we reminisced about the lawsuit and her role in it It's not easy being a plaintiff in the lawsuit Amanda has never worn on her sleeve the notoriety awarded by the alphabet Her shyness long ago gave way to a proud modesty of a young woman whose school needed help So that was Amanda who I still think is a wonderful kid She did a wonderful thing, you know always be grateful to her and I think many other people without realizing it probably are as well So let me let me read you something about the Baker decision. It's in my book that It's still a sort of a sore point among many many people Especially within the gay community Not so much for what about what Vermont did after the Baker decision but what it didn't do and It was something that has been very difficult for me to explain to people Why what Vermont did was courageous when they think that Vermont was actually being Too cautious and not courageous enough at all when it did come down with the Baker decision If you remember when Howard Dean signed the Civil Union's bill that was finally passed He actually did it in a closed. It wasn't even a ceremony. It was nobody invited to the signing of the bill There were no pens that were passed out to people if you sometimes have one of a big a big Bill is passed instead. It was done behind closed doors And that that was really kind of important of what was in store for the Baker decision As the years passed the decision was shunned by national gay rights advocates The Vermont Supreme Court the advocates said had given permission to the state's Legislature to create something less than marriage for gay couples. It amounted to second-class citizenship Civil unions were not equal to marriage. They said Advocates continued to push in state after state toward full marriage equality The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court was the first state court in 2004 to rule that marriage as a legal institution could not be separated separated from its benefits and protections They were a package Even after Vermont became the first state in 2009 to mandate marriage through legislative action rather than court action It's one-time leadership in the March to marriage equality became for many people outside Vermont a historical footnote At a national ACLU conference in 2013 that I attended the Windsor the United States gay rights Take case taken by the ACLU to the US Supreme Court Right before the big Obergefell's case that later got gay marriage for everybody in the country came about When that was being analyzed there was a lot of hope for victory in this case In fact, it did come down with the positive Ruling shortly after this conference, but at this conference the ACLU conference presenters recounted the road to marriage equality one speaker termed Vermont civil unions law a mere booby prize on that road and Embarrassing half-step that showed a lack of courage Ironically sitting next to me at the conference was one of the Supreme Court justices from the Baker court One of the people who had decided that decision The justice remain wooden through the presentation and it made me feel very empty Within Vermont though the view on the Baker decision was and it remains that it was historic That people have forgotten or glossed over the depths of anti-gay sentiment at the time and that the public Conversation that ensued through the Vermont Legislature's discussions after Baker paved the way Dangerously rocky at first toward widespread acceptance of a major cultural social into many Moral shift in the treatment of members of the LGBTQ community a Marker noting the decision in subsequent changes in Vermont marriage laws was erected in 2017 on the lawn between the State House and the Supreme Court building It's the only such marker near the two buildings that commemorates a special political or historical event It's a big deal So let me see. Can I do I have time for one more thing? So healthcare a lot of people asked me about healthcare and why why the common benefits clause Wasn't able to hasn't been able to get universal access to healthcare everybody in Vermont is in in other words and in my book I When I did my research and I and I found how far back this broken record story goes Literally a hundred years. I started realizing a lot of the ironies that have come about not just once not twice Not three times sometimes four and five in trying to to grab the brass brass ring on this one and a good example is what happened first with Howard Dean and some of his efforts in the The late 1990s And then also what Peter Schoenland tried to do 20 years later also to bring about health care So let me just read from a couple portions of the health care chapter From the start of Howard Dean's unforeseen ascension to governor member Dick Snelling had died and Dean had been vice governor lieutenant governor Dean really seemed to relish the job He had developed a list of initiatives while running for lieutenant governor in 1990 So his general interests were known, but few guessed how quickly he'd move on one of those interests health care reform He really wanted to do something about that With any year the doctor governor as he was sometimes called saw the legislature approve a bill Sponsored by Democratic House Speaker Ralph right to have the state's newly created health care authority study the state's health care system The authorities mandate was to develop a choice of plans to create what was termed a universal health care system That would provide health coverage to all of Vermont Well, such a plan was developed and such a plan was brought before the house Ralph right was a speaker of the house at the time and he realized the Democrats couldn't make the numbers work The votes were simply not there Seeing that this was the case Ralph right settled for a watered-down version of the bill and hoped that he and the governor could revive a universal coverage bill in the Senate I never dreamed of giving up right said in a book he later wrote It wasn't in me besides we might still pull it all together For even though we didn't have a majority of Democrats in the Senate The public demand still seemed to be there and we had the doctor governor who had gotten this whole thing started It wasn't to be Right explained we were 10,000 feet above New Jersey when the end came He and Dean were flying to Washington for a political fundraiser Dean was calmly reading the New York Times Right turned to him and said governor. What are we going to do with the health care plan in the Senate? Right noted Dean's response in one sentence quote He barely looked up from his reading and he nonchalantly answered nothing. It's dead That's it. It's dead Ralph right said two years of grinding and fighting and it's dead everything when out of my mind Is the only visual I had was the governor in a hospital room Pulling another sheet up over a patient's face and turning to look at the charts on the patient in the next bed So almost exactly 20 years later the same thing happens with Peter Shumlin After his election his 2010 election Shumlin got to work immediately on his agenda with health care at the top Of this list in the first session of his tenure the legislature passed a comprehensive bill that created an independent health care Regulatory board Green Mountain care board the law assigned the board specific responsibilities and On yet Raider Wallach a veteran of health care reform efforts and a well respected Person in New England health care circles was chosen to lead the five-member board and the board plunged into its work high hopes But by December 20 40. I'm sorry 2014 Shumlin decided it wasn't to be After three years of study and extensive modeling his administration could not get single payer the plan the governor had promised to work The money just wasn't there Shumlin said Efforts would continue on specific smaller pieces of health care reform But building a system where everybody was in and everybody was guaranteed care through a publicly financed system was not going to happen The announcement of the second death of single payer and of protesters statehouse disruption Were overwhelming evidence that Shumlin couldn't keep his promises He saw where he where his dropping in the health care ball had landed him in July 2 2015 he announced that he wouldn't run for a reelection in 2016 one governor is pulling the plug when health care reform in 1994 another in 2014 despite the interest and the energy around the health care issue Nothing seemed to have changed in 20 years and indeed Not I had some things have changed in a hundred years, but not what we really want So I'll stop there. I've had a lot of Satisfaction in writing a book like this. It's not very long. I do have copies I'll be back at the green 10 as we call it by the by the historical society after I'm done here If anybody has any questions or if they'd like to get a copy of the book So thanks for being here and thanks for listening One more time for mr. Allen Gilbert Thank you, Alan Well, welcome everybody. We have had an amazing turnout and it just kind of keeps kind of flowing in and flowing out We appreciate you all we have a new local singer-songwriter coming up. We're gonna get her on stage. Her name is Sarah Bell She and her family of Relocated to Worcester and we love having them for sure. Actually, they have a beautiful booth over there And so you can visit that I'll tell you a little bit more about that But we're gonna get her plugged in and just a couple minutes. You'll be hearing the music of Sarah Bell. Thank you all right So we're gonna get back to some get back to some music here Sarah Bell We were just hanging out backstage and she has been on a long spiritual journey She's a mother of two Maisie and Thatcher Hey thatcher There's that right there. He's be be signing autographs along with his mama a little bit later And a partner drew is out there. They have a tent that is travel. Well, please check out their art out there and She also has a wellness practice a very diverse young gal But my favorite thing that she said is through her music that she's new to within the past six months is that she believes she would believes that She would like to bring healing to people through her music. So on that note, please welcome to the Worcester Arts Fest Sarah Bell I'm super excited to be here. I mean, this is like super fancy. Look what we've created. This is amazing We're just gonna thank the rain. Thank you rain Thank you. We need the rain. It was really dry. We need to share them with you guys I've been playing out a little bit more like Chad said to I I've played a lot like my whole life, but honestly in front of people. It's been like the last six months. So Thank you guys for listening this first one. I'm gonna play for you It's kind of about that process just exploring our fears When I realized I kind of kept digging into what I was afraid of what was holding me back from things in my life And I just kind of dug and dug and dug and realized that the only thing holding me back was myself And that there was really nothing to be afraid of just a perspective. So on that note, here's my first one for you Oh And we named her ladybird goodness, she has been good to us So this song is about ladybird didn't for a brief period of time before moving here We sold our yurt back in upstate, New York. Don't kill me You're like George And we were pretty much looking coast-to-coast for the time was kind of our our salvation our like little getaway our freedom So then we found ourselves in this place is so special Yeah, so this is a song about ladybird and like I said She kind of became our our symbol of freedom and newness and sometimes when we have to let things go let old dreams go There's some things that we need to cling to I think to like Find our new dreams So that's what that's the songs about cuz that's summer. It's okay to walk Just as long as it's to Just like that We will drive it. It's okay to walk Okay, just as long as it's to Looking for love and a little bit of dirt place and rest your head Okay to walk Okay to run just as long as it's to Looking for love and a little bit of dirt place and rest your head Well, you don't get hurt get yourself fly to the end The flowers have passed by the edge of the swamp making white in the cover on the lift of time If the smell of the leaves breaking under I feel no shame but the pine Thanks to that we're getting back to high And Drew I'm in Aries as well, which probably explains some things But my husband my gentle Pisces husband, he's just my calm. He's like he's like the anchor for me So I wrote this song a while ago Actually many years ago I started this song with that kind of thought process of me just being like I'm the wild one in our family and you're just like you're the calm And I couldn't finish it for the longest time I just recently I finished it And the end of the song is kind of like his what what I perceived his response to me would have been As far as me being like I'm the wild one. I'm the reason everything's chaotic sometimes and that his response With his sweet gentle self. So that's what this one's called. It's called hold me down It's your name I'm going to be my car You're still being close In a whisper Please work to my end We're just gonna keep it rolling and bring bring up we're gonna get him kind of dialed in sound wise Get him and he's gonna a special guest with his daughter Rosie is going We're excited to have Michael and Rosie and uh coming up in just a just a minute or so. So stay tuned here All right. So here we go Uh, you might recognize this gentleman or maybe even this young one right here Michael close Is one of the teachers he's multifaceted one of the teachers, of course over at dodie But also teaches the cello I've also had the pleasure of having Michael Guys, hold on They play I know they have groupies The pleasure of of having Michael play with my band and putting together a string quartet And uh, so it's wonderful that he's got Rosie Jamming with him. So please welcome Michael and Rosie close Uh in this piece I tried to put all those voices into one This is basically from a piece I wrote for full orchestra with a bass soloist voice It was uh six different songs about six different animals. Let's see if you can guess which animal this is Any guesses? Seagull you got it. There it is. This is the seagull. Mr. Michael close And daughter Rosie Awesome We set the stage here and uh upcoming is a poet rick agren And uh, he's gonna have some poems. We also have a special guest poet as well But i'm not going to tell you that is because then it wouldn't it would ruin the special guest element of it So there you have that But uh, you you have happened upon or or meant to come to the Worcester arts fest. It's the very first one My name is Chad Hollister and I just want to put a huge thanks out to the whole team that David book had this idea and said, what do you think about it? And we said it sounds great And then he said do you want to help and we said, um, okay and uh, so the whole team has just been really really awesome and and we'll Certainly mention all of them before the end of the day But um, just want to thank everybody for you know coming out and supporting local music and art and poetry and And reading and history exactly. Um So, uh, give me one brief second here. Thank you for that brief pause there Had to get rid of an amp and a looper so rick agren I've known I've known him for a bit Lives above the post office always a kind face and uh, also he's pretty cool too because he rides a motorcycle And uh, always like seeing him going out for rides. I dream of one day my wife um saying, you know, honey, let's let's get a Harley Davidson and uh, She's she's giving me the big negative. It's never gonna happen, honey But whatever you can you can have dreams, right? So rick is a poet a teacher a radio producer who works helping kids Of all of all ages Uh with their reading and writing. He loves the sound the sounds of human voices In sadness and joy Folks of the Worcester arts festival, please welcome to our stage rick agren There is a place Where marigolds fly from the tips of our fingers golden orange sparkles of light Where silver blue waves crest and roll from shore to shore in our bathtubs Each face we see gentles in our presence red Maple leaves the purest of love notes slide under our doors There is a place we're stumbling at the end of a sentence is holy A place where everything is cured by kissing it. Hello It's not customary to clap after every poem. I don't know but you see if you feel it go for it, but um, I lived in Plymouth, New Hampshire on a hill above the Pemigios at river and had a beautiful for sithia bush and uh, it was in bloom this big dome And I looked out my kitchen window one day and there's a tricycle parked next to it and I'm like, hmm wonder what's going on in the neighborhood and uh, so I sort of walked out there and uh, a little girl had climbed under it and was laying on her back under the for sithia bush and was weeping and I was like I don't think I'm going to talk to her right now. I think this calls for some privacy For sithian Crawling under the golden dome of drooping winter burnished branches Blue sky folds of minuscule yellow trumpets Gold finches Winging back and forth above her singing potato chips potato chips potato chips The hollow of her small ribs the pounding of her heart Under the golden dome of weeping A leaky umbrella under which all her sadness spends itself And after about 10 minutes she hopped on her trike and rolled down the hill Cook is crow milk. It's officially out of print sadly but um You can find it on ebay. Sometimes her amazon will sell it to you for a dollar 49 Or seventeen ninety five or a hundred and forty five dollars if it's signed It's just that's that's capitalism folks but uh I grew up um For a few years by a giant cornfield and I often woke to the crows in the morning singing Crow milk you might say crows watched over me taking turns walking the rails of my crib singing heads bobbing black throats rippling At sunrise that carried me wild purple grapes We shared black raspberries on the thorn in the evenings A mesh of sugar in our voices Wove us loosely into a family on the wings Shoes of one's own choosing when I met a woman with one blue eye and one green eye I knew her life like my own I have different sized feet One small foot and one smaller foot leave me rocking back and forth like a boy with a big decision The shoes that fit I wear forever while the ones that don't I hobble around in I never know which foot will do the sacrificing until it's doing it Sometimes I can hide it the way I skip or glide But if you know me you can tell my dance from my limp I lived in seattle for three years and uh when I first got there someone told me If you're walking on the street, it starts pouring You just walk into a store and say I left my black umbrella here and I'll hand you one And I'm like that sounds very seattle. So I tried it and it works. It's pretty cool On a rainy day black umbrellas on a rainy day in seattle stumble into any coffee shop and look wounded by the rain Say last time I was in I left my black umbrella here A waitress in a blue beret will pull a black umbrella from behind the counter and surrender it to you like a sword at your nighting Unlike new englanders She will never ask you to describe it Will never ask what day you came in She's intimate with the rain and its appointments Look positively reunited with this black umbrella and proceed to bell town and pike place Sip cappuccino at the cowgirl luncheon at on first av visit buster selling tin salmon silhouettes Ungelent in the wind Nosing ever into the oncoming Meandering watery worlds like you and the black umbrella the one you will lose on purpose at the day's end So you can go the way you came into the world wet looking days of this game are over I'm sad to say but I enjoyed catch them and kiss them in fourth grade. I must admit We do not chase little girls and little girls do not chase us and anyway I haven't I haven't adopted sister and I chased this little girl named Nancy who this poem is for four And I had such a crush on Nancy that when we adopted my sister and had the family meeting I I said like I want I want Nancy's a great name. Let's do Nancy and I got outvoted three to one It was Susan they called her Susan and when my sister showed up her name was Nancy And they decided well, we can't confuse her. We'll call her Nancy Susan. So It's kind of an aside, but To Nancy who taught me catch them and kiss them The day she slowed down her red hair streamed behind her as she ran tickling my face Nancy was the fastest most beautiful girl I had only chased her once before without catching her weaving through jump ropers and kickball players We ran off the tar into the grass Spring's hot buzz made my breath come harder a trickle ran down the side of my face Arm outstretched my fingers barely touched her red hair and then she was in my arms Offering me her cheek hot and flushed pink with a rouge of exuberance. I tasted the salt on my lip She bent to pull up her knee sock and with bells ringing we walked side by side to our classroom door I let her go before me in line just so I could look at her hair one more time Here's for the the moms and dads who are making kids lunches on monday morning Cakes continue to rise A pancake with its burnt side down is still burnt No amount of syrup can hide it And the heel of the stale white bread is not camouflaged inside The peanut butter and jelly sandwich I've jumped in front of the oven cakes never fall as you've always threatened And bologna is not enhanced by frying it speed Spoon feed me a rich tapioca of truth. I swear. I can take it Help me cut my uncertainties into littler pieces. You've always been afraid. I'd choke Give me the lollipop of life and I promise I will run with it in my mouth This is a little one and it's true story Unseen toriador Black bull Charging every red leaf Falling from a sugar maple. I was on my way to the airport in Manchester, New Hampshire And there was a red maple and leaves were falling and there's this big black bull like in a suburban neighborhood Running around in circles around this tree I'm like I would love to stop and know more about this, but I got a plane to catch The brazier salesman's day off Traveling the countryside with a suitcase full of under things the brazier salesman looks forward to his day off Away from the crinkle of eager fingers tear tearing cellophane Releasing the smell of fresh cotton starch and sizing Away from the girdles that tuck the tummy and thigh Shaping exquisite womanhood into what it is not Away from the cross your heart models that lift and separate mixed up with Victorian models that reign you in breasts and bottoms Mean breasts and bottoms mean only work to him and pulpitude is only so much packaging On his day off his wife and he go up by the falls. They have a picnic on the blanket and catch small trout He undresses her at night with sure clean hands and he never fumbles whether buttons or clasps That's the racist it this is a poem that that launched my kids book I'm also a kids book author of a book called pumpkin chivalry, which is the story of a little pumpkin who's afraid to get carved but this is this is the uh The older version that the poem got read on on public radio and then elementary school teachers Started saying is that a kid's book? Is that a kid's book? And I was like I need a illustrator pronto And it actually took us about 10 years From the birth of this poem to a kid's book, but we pulled it off and I I Got to publish that book and read it to almost 3000 kids one one year it was awesome And helped them with their reading and writing and that's how I got involved with the children's literacy project and uh over in waterbury that Serves under served rural schools in bramont in new hampshire and I'm a poet in the schools for the bramont in new hampshire arts councils and really love doing that creative work with kids and their teachers teaching teachers how to teach poetry and teaching kids how to play with language chivalry S h i v a r e is a it's kind of a racket. Uh, if you've ever done Uh pots and pans at midnight on new years made a big racket That's like a chivalry or jumped out from behind a couch and yelled surprise and made a big racket That's a chivalry Deep in the leaves mining my own business and along comes this young farm girl Her eyes are blue as cornflowers like cutouts and the sky comes through the back of her head Her knife shines in the sun And I am picked pronounced cute and perfect and off I go My insides feel funny. She's pulling them out Her knife is sharp, but her hands are warm She cuts me some eyes that I'd been missing. I see the orchard out back Apples bowing the branches. I see how happy I make her. She fairly glows She cuts me a nose and I smell fall leaves the rose and her perfume And corn ripening She cuts me some ears. I hear a brook running over its stones A horse in the pasture browsing cricket song in the grass Lastly, she cuts me an ear to ear grin and I find I'm pretty pleased. I ain't no pie With a candle inside I'm nice and warm There's a seed left in me and it's starting to itch And so much poems and then I want to Welcome Katie spring up to read a poem. She I was just going through the booze and she's got Kind of beautiful art there in this beautiful poem that I've I've seen before go by. It's it's a gorgeous love poem I'd love to have her read that for you This one's about trying to Stay out of trouble Actually, this will be the last one When the radio starts when trying when trying When the radio starts playing my screams. I try to turn it down low Low so it becomes a hum an undertow a home When the car starts driving me home I try and turn off try to single the junction try and break the rear view and forget where I've been When a sugar pumpkin asks me for kisses I put on orange lipstick I smile at the candle flame. I hear the green of the seeds calling When my shadow starts walking backwards tries to get behind me and smile at trouble I try and keep an eye on him try and walk with my back to the sun When a crow tries to put his shadow on me I try and let my wings show Try and walk foretoed try to sing a lullaby as fast as Try and sing a lullaby as best as I can Thanks so much Katie's a poet artist and neighbor and writes a hell of a love poem. Thank you This is over which I have over at my booth, but they are all poems I wrote during The first year of this called to make a meal We began this meal with seed catalogs and tea dreaming nourishment Spring came rain and mud you bent in the greenhouse You a moving prayer Summer roots hold to soil as we read This is what they don't tell you how much you'll pull out how much space growth needs Wheelbarrows of weeds so onions can bulb so we can chop and saute And now the harvest another prayer. Thank you Roots leaves fruits flowers and now the table barely ruined place a glass we finally eat What a nice surprise from katie sterling katie Thank you as we well as we well know the proprietors of good heart farm and I look over and I see our friend edge and katie and and Of course, we love having your amazing farm store And is what used to be another institution the post office cafe and you just have Jumped in there and Brought this amazing community vibe Which it doesn't get much more community than farming and Community so thank you. Thank you. So welcome everybody. Um, thanks huge. Thanks to rick agron. What a what a way to deliver a poem, right? Yeah Thanks, everybody. We still have lots more to go And we are going We're gonna bring up We're gonna get her dialed in on be on a Gavin is coming up to sing some of her songs on piano and vocals and So stay tuned for that coming up just within a couple minutes. So stick around here We are heading all the way Till the 8 p.m. Hour here at the Worcester arts fest. No, it's not going to go that late But if for some reason you have friends that haven't come down yet give them a jingle You can get service right out there and say come on down because there's still plenty more and Please visit all your artists by and support local art made right here in Worcester, Vermont and Coming up is ambiana. So stick around. Thanks