Kayo Miwa’s “Winter Shadows”
From her new work in oils, shown in her September show at the Vertin Gallery, Calumet, MI. We’re making arrangements to use the image as the cover art for the Keweenaw Poetry Anthology, Vol. I.
Reading at Busboys & Poets: Washington D.C.
Busboys and Poets, a bookstore, gallery, and restaurant at 14th St and U Ave., is named for Langston Hughes, who worked as a busboy at the Wardman Park Hotel in the 1930s, prior to gaining recognition as a poet.
This reading took place in the expansive and beautiful Langston Hughes Room.
From the restaurant’s site:
In the early 1920’s Hughes resided in Washington DC where he worked as a busboy at the Wardman Park Hotel. Working at the Hotel, located at 2660 Woodley Road, NW, resulted in a stroke of good luck for the money-strapped Hughes. Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, the famous Russian poet, stayed there. Due to the City’s segregated policy, Hughes could not attend the poet’s reading in the auditorium. However, using the ingenuity characterized by his fictional creation, Jesse B. Semple, Hughes hatched a plan. After writing out three of his poems, “Jazzonia,” “Negro Dancers,” and “The Weary Blues,” on a piece of paper, he placed them beside Lindsay’s dinner plate one evening. As he picked up trays of dishes, Hughes saw Lindsay reading them. That night, Lindsay read Hughes’ work with his own. The next day, in local newspapers, Lindsay informed the world of his discovering a “Negro busboy poet.”
Shortly thereafter, Hughes gained nationwide fame when an interview by reporters appeared in The Associated Press.
“River of Words” K-12 Poetry & Art
Environmental and nature art by K-12 students from around Michigan is currently on display in the Youth Gallery of the Copper Country Community Art Center (CCCAC) in Hancock.
The art in this exhibit represents a wide range of entries to the River of Words Poetry and Art contest, a national Library of Congress and River of Words project coordinated at the state level by the CCCAC staff. Each year, in affiliation with The Library of Congress Center for the Book, River of Words conducts a free international poetry and art contest for youth on the theme of watersheds. The contest is designed to help youth explore the natural and cultural history of the place they live and to express, through poetry and art, what they discover.
The River of Words exhibit will be on display though July 3. The Community Arts Center is located at 126 Quincy Street, Hancock. For more information call 482-2333 or e-mail ccarts@chartermi.net.
Terra Preta Update
Our Science Research Team Leader, Amanda Taylor (first-year, Chemical Engineering), is quoted in the February 2009 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, a journal dedicated to research on the impact of the environment on human health.
Our project is also discussed in the 3.3.09 issue of Science News: “Getting The Dirt On Carbon.”
Learn more about our project here: terrapreta.mtu.edu.
Rong Shang
I met my collaborator and friend Rong Shang — poet, calligrapher, and artist — for the first time in person, in San Francisco in December.
Two poems by me, translated by Ruiquan Deng, Beijing Teacher’s University, calligraphy by Rong Shang.
“Gardening”
“Valentine”
