SpiritWords
Maine Poetries Collaborative
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| ***guidelines for submissions to honors*** |
as of 3/30/02 (In the midst of being updated. Please check back.)
2ND ANNUAL
MAINE POETRY & STORY EXCHANGE
SATURDAY, APRIL 27TH, 2002
UNIVERSITY OF MAINE, ORONO
2000 SpiritWords Honors
Elders First Minnie E. Bowden, Orland, Posthumously
Second Leni Mancuso, Castine
Third Mary Palmer, South Paris
Mid-path First Rick Doyle, Bangor & Crystal Neoma Hitchings, Stonington
Second David Moreau, Wayne
Youth First Lura Crawford, Eastport
Second Sydney Martin, Lamoine
Presented At
Recognition Banquet, University of Maine Orono, April 27
The First
Sponsored by the Department of English, the National Poetry Foundation, and SpiritWords/Maine Poetries Collaborative.
Friends of Maine writing:
We are honored to share with you our vision of SpiritWords/ Maine Poetries Collaborative.
We are a small, but statewide, multicultural network hoping to embrace the many writers whose voices we long to hear, even from the hidden or neglected reaches of our home ground. We aim to encourage young people, welcome schooled and unschooled adult poets, and honor the words of our elders. In these ways, we set out, respecting and following our histories along this path we are rediscovering together.
As we offer the gift of this work to you, we wish for the gift of your participation as we aspire to:
1. gather regularly to share and celebrate our work and words (please see calendar and news);
2. present honors and opportunities at a convening of poets, poetry keepers and storytellers, at an annual gathering (please see MAINE POETRY & STORY EXCHANGE);
3. explore possible publications;
4. develop a resource for schools (ongoing); and
5. strengthen the SpiritWords Fund making it all possible (ongoing).
Please accept our wholehearted invitation to participate in any or all of the possibilities we have dared to imagine.
*PLEASE NOTE: SpiritWords founders are in the process of forming a SECOND CIRCLE of those committed to the realization of this work. Please check back for news.
Thank you.
The Founders and Friends of SpiritWords to top of page
From our brochure:
A bear clan neighbor who'd stop by to help hay. A "worthy opponent"
from highschool debating days over from French Island. An earth-
listener raised across the river. A downstate Franco sister heard singing
of the fields and mills. The great nephew of the last full Penobscot
whose lullabies this Yankee child received. Others, from miles,
committed to a heritage honor. From that first meeting by the fire at
the Smith-Ranzoni farm in Bucksport we found ourselves along an
unnamable path, immersed in a brave encounter with cross-cultural
poetics having to do with listening for each other for a long, long
time. We invite all who believe in our journey to join in trying to say
what we intend to celebrate, and what we hope to have the wisdom to
listen for, for generations to come.
...bowing to the record showing/some old love, too, between us.
--from "In Their Dust"
by Patricia Ranzoni
It has been given in stories from Thunder Bear and his people:
the earliest poetic soundings of the human spirit in this place called
Maine were passed through memory, generation to generation, for
millennia. With contact, the First People respected how The Spirit
could be captured on parchment, carried around, and recognized by
others across territory and season. They learned through time that
words on paper could mean destruction, or call each of us toward
harmony, wisdom, and vision.
We embrace and honor this remembrance as it names the shared
spirit in words , the sacred ground, where we come together now,
across histories and cultures, in reverence for the poetic aspirations of
all peoples here, through all time.
GEORGE THUNDER BEAR SUSANN PELLETIER
JIM BISHOP PATRICIA RANZONI
GARY LAWLESS
to top of page
As Translated by Madeleine Roy, Curator, Franco-American Heritage
Center,
Lewiston-Auburn College:
Ca nous a ete donner dans les histoires de "Thunder Bear" et son peuple:
les premiers retentissements poetiques de l'esprit humain en cette place
appeler Maine furent transmi de memoire, d'une generation a l'autre, pour
plus de milles ans. Mis en rapport, les "Premiers Peuples" furent emerveiller
que "l'Esprit" pouvait etre saisi sur un parchemin, transporter d'une place
a l'autre et reconnu par d'autre, n'importe les territoires ou les saisons.
Avec le temps, ils apprenaient que les mots imprimer sur du papier
pouvaient signifier leur ruine, ou ils pouvaient appeler chaqu'un de nous
envers l'harmonie, la sagesse et la vision.
Nous embrassons et honorons ce souvenir, car il exprime 'l'esprit de
paroles' que nous partageons, le sol sacre ou nous nous reunissont malgre
nos histoires et nos cultures, avec reverence pour les aspirations poetiques
de tous les peuples ici, a travers tout les temps.
SPIRITWORDERS AT WORKCALENDAR
Mark calendars for April 27, 2002 for the second MAINE POETRY & STORY EXCHANGE sponsored by the UMO English Department, the National Poetry Foundation, and SpiritWords/Maine Poetries Collaborative. To register and/or participate in the shaping of the event, please print out the form below:
(Please check back.)
Caribou Sutra
We learn to be tender
with each other.
We learn to turn
and wait.
We cannot walk
alone for long.
We take our songs
out of the air,
and speak the language
of sun on the rocks
at the edge of the river.
We learn when to cross,
when to return.
--Gary Lawless
THE SPIRITWORDS FUND was established in 1996
to locate, support, honor, and preserve the full breadth of poetic expression
which grows out of a long and intimate relationship with the State of Maine and
its rich and various cultural traditions. We understand the State of Maine, in this
sense, not as a political entity but as a place on earth which has been Home for
an often unrecognized diversity of cultural communities, beginning with the tribes
of the First Peoples and continuing through the period of settlement into our time.
We seek to recognize and honor those voices whose memories, dreams, and
imagination inhabit this homeland and whose work remembers and renews for us
the significance of place and community in our lives.
HOW THE HONORS ARE TO BE GIVEN In keeping with this intention, the
SpiritWords Collaborative will undertake events and projects that will honor Maine writers
whose work most tellingly resonates from this spiritual provenance. Its first year doing
such, SpiritWords gave awards to writers whose work was deemed representative of the
Collaborative's founding principles. Candidates for the honors were asked to submit
accompanying statements with their manuscripts in a form of their choosing, locating
themselves and their work within this context. For its second year, and as a result of changed
priorities and limited resources following September 11, 2001, SpiritWords has chosen,
rather than individual awards, to devote its energies and available funds to the ongoing
development of the Maine Poetry & Story Exchange, which, through its very being,
locates and honors Maine writers.
RED SKY
At 14,
My grandmother walked toward the red sky
Toward the sun glancing its gold at every mill window
She saw how, over the border, her dreams had flocked
And flown ahead
Set their eyes on shimmering things:
Glint of river, a silver ring,
Bits of satin, a speckled trout's leap.
She imagined the leaves of trees would unfurl as she came
Glisten with their green notions: her own heart's hope.
The birds on the limb would twitter and whistle their welcomes
And the waft of hyacinth would tug at her frock,
Nudge her hands softly while she worked.
Instead, she came to a city of cold seasons.
The red dusk hung over her.
The sun stared with its one sullen eye.
The mill windows let out their old, blue breath
Every brick hissed a promise or two
And no bird sang.
At 16,
My grandmother walked toward her future husband,
Toward the wide horizon of his eyes,
Their equanimity,
And as she neared, she saw her dreams aflutter,
Alighting there
She hastened to meet this destiny
Unfolding its morning songs and blossoms.
She could not glimpse yet all the future children
Opening eager hands for the books
She would come to love.
She could not see quite yet all the lilacs,
Growing close to factory walls.
--Susann Pelletier
ASSOCIATED ACTIVITIES In addition to the granting of awards, the SpiritWords
Collaborative will periodically honor writers from selected Maine cultural communities
and organize group discussions on issues concerning the individual voice and its
relationship to place and community in our time. In these ways, we intend to promote
appreciation of both the distinctive and communal aspects of Maine's poetic expression,
and to explore the relationship of culture and creativity in our state. An update on the ways
SpiritWords has worked toward the fulfillment of these goals is forthcoming.
THE ARCHIVE Selected manuscripts having special cultural or literary significance
will be archived by the Special Collections Department of Fogler Library, University
of Maine, Orono.
LETTING DOWN
Cushy cow bonny, let down thy milk
and I will give thee a gown of silk.
A gown of silk and a silver tee
if thou wilt let down thy milk to me.
-- old milking chant
Let me live with remembrance of teats
in my fists.
Let me give in to the privity
of a Guernsey hide
my temple in the she-cove
in her side, sweet-haired
and hugely womanly.
Let me blister these barnhands writing her
this script a lost milk
my people are starving for.
--Patricia Ranzoni
WAYS OF GIVING TO THE SPIRITWORDS FUND Donations to the endowment may be made through the University of Maine Foundation, a non-profit organization, and may be designated in honor or remembrance of those who, in their lives and their work, have exemplified the spirit of the Maine Poetries Collaborative. For more information about methods of helping the SpiritWords Fund, please follow the link above to the Foundation, or contact Kevin Frazier at 207-947-5100 or (800) 982-8503, fax (207)947-6193.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, TO ARRANGE FOR READINGS, OR TO PARTICIPATE WITH THE COLLABORATIVE, PLEASE CONTACT:
SPIRITWORDS/MAINE POETRIES COLLABORATIVE
289 BUCKSMILLS ROAD
BUCKSPORT, ME 04416 Or e-mail us at: MEpoetries@aol.com
~OFF THE COAST, The Journal of the Live Poets Society, invites submissions of poetry, graphics/photos, news of art events and opportunities. "Anyone from anywhere is welcome to submit--though poets and artists from Maine will represent the greatest part of each of 3 issues a year: September, January, May." Submit with SASE to Off The Coast, 117 Fitch Rd., Washington, ME 04574; phone/fax: 207-845-2476; or e-mail: snodrift@midcoast.com.
~SEEKING CONTEMPORARY MAINE MILL POETRIES: poems, songs, cross-over prose, originating from Maine papermills, wood and fish processing plants, textile and shoe factories and such, for "Poetic Soundings of Maine," a documentary project being developed by SpiritWords/Maine Poetries Collaborative. Schooled, unschooled. Published, unpublished. Knowledge of such work gratefully received. Send to Millsongs, c/o SpiritWords, HCR 78 Box 173, Bucksport, ME 04416, or e-mail MEpoetries@aol.com.
~ANIMUS, a journal of Maine writing and images seeks poetry, essays, b&w photos, and artwork by Maine residents. Pays 2 copies. Sample copy $4 ppd., current issue $6. Subscriptions $12, ppd. SASE for guidelines or send manuscript with SASE to: Sheltering Pines Foundation, Attn. Animus, P.O. Box 1828, Wells, ME 04090. Web site: <http://www.shelteringpines.org/animus.html>.
~OUT OF LINE, a liberal journal featuring essays, poetry, and fiction, seeks submissions of quality writing with underlying themes of peace and social justice. Submissions not to exceed 3,000 words. Mss returned with SASE. Payment in copies. Send to Sam Longmire, Paff Haus Press, 435 First St., Henderson, KY.
~THE LARCOM REVIEW, a journal of the Arts and Literature of New England, seeks short fiction, essays, poetry, book reviews, (3,000 words maximum in all categories); interested in all genres. Payment $25 per title. Two issues per year. Send submissions to P.O. Box 161, Prides Crossing, MA 01965.
~TERRAIN looks forward to reviewing submissions. A quarterly online journal "without definite boundaries, searching for that interface--the integration-- among the built and natural environments, that might be called the soul of place. It is not definitely about urban form, nor solely about natural landscapes. It is not precisely about human culture, nor necessarily about ecology. It is, rather, a celebration of the symbiosis between the built and natural environments where it exists, and an examination and discourse where it does not." Seeks "literary, journalistic, and artistic works of the highest quality, from a variety of contributors for a diverse audience. The works may be idealistic, technical, historical, philosophical, and more. Above all, they focus on the environments around us--the built and natural environments--that both affect and are affected by the human species.
Visit Terrain for upcoming themes or request guidelines from <editors@terrain.org>.
~The XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics is building a freely accessible digital archive of stories, poetry, living folk tales, and ethnographic documentation. We envision a populist ethnography, that contains both traditional, contemporary, and experimental narratives. We are looking for all types of media, and encourage a flourishing in the art of social description.
CONTRIBUTIONS ENCOURAGED
XCP Archive is collecting STREETNOTES for its ongoing Exhibition. They may contain information on ongoing projects in the field of narrative sociology and anthropology. As always, ethnology, art photography and poetry are welcome. Guidelines.
-If you have a story, poem, or photo essay documenting the life worlds you inhabit or transverse, send it to us for inclusion in the XCP Archive.
- If you've done cross cultural research, or documented a time of cultural change, we'd like to hear from you. Tell us about your documentary experience. Poems and field notebooks, both written and visual are encouraged.
- The XCP Archive is also interested in working collaboratively with organizations doing similar work. Please contact us with ideas.
-The Cross Cultural Poetics Archive will be freely accessible on the internet. The documents you send will revert to your copyright when they are made public on the internet, and they will be preserved by the Cross Cultural Poetics Archive, a not-for-profit educational institution.
Please send materials to:
David Michalski, dmichalski@adm.schoolofvisualarts.edu
or
XCP Archive, c/o David Michalski, P.O. Box 1317 Cooper Station, New York, NY, 10003
For more information, or help in preparing contributions please write to the above addresses.
~you are here, the journal of creative geography, an independent, bi-annual publication, seeks poetry and prose, photographs, maps, letters, musings, "and anything else about place that somehow fits into two dimensions."Submissions encouraged from geographers, historians, anthropologists, architects, scientists, writers, artists, and photographers interested in "place" and "the distinction between here and there." See web site for guidelines or write to you are here, Dept. of Geography, University of Arizona, Harvill Bldg., Box 2, Tucson, AZ 85721. Fax 520-621-2889.
~Maine Arts Commission: Literary Arts: Opportunities
~SUBMISSIONS WELCOME: Apples & Oranges online poetry magazine, including the work of young people. Tom Fallon, Editor. 226 Linden St., Rumford, ME 04276.
~SEEKING CREATIVE DOCUMENTARY writings: moe´pi toe´ publication of the Franco-American Women's Institute out of the University of Maine Orono. Request guidelines from FAW12000@aol.com.
~SEEKING SUBMISSIONS: reality x: Photojournal and Arts Magazine, a web zine based in Portland, ME, promoting the work of writers and artists from Maine and the world, invites submissions of poetry and other writing, as well as the work of visual artists. Submission requirements available by following the link above, by e-mailing to: submissions@realitytimes.com, or by regular mail to: PO Box 16038, Portland, ME 04101. (Submissions may be sent via the "Contact" link at bottom left of their homepage.)
~ASKING FOR SUBMISSIONS in poetry, short fiction, black and white art and photography: Vividarium, journal of new and ground-breaking work whose goals are "to help create a more united literary and art community in Maine, to give new writers a place to showcase their work to an active audience, and to encourage young writers to pursue their writing." For rules, distributors around the state, and so forth, contact Pao Meader, Editor, 74 N. Main Ave., Orono, ME or at the above link. E-mail submissions allowed.
SpiritWords/Maine Poetries Collaborative is a member of the Maine Lit-Ring.
OTHER RELATED LINKS & RESOURCES (under construction) :
Kate Barnes, Maine's First Poet Laureate
Baron Wormser, Maine's Second Poet Laureate
Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Dictionary
Dictionary of American Regional English
Centre Franco-Americain, University of Maine
Franco-American Women's Institute
Maine Underground Railroad Association
Maine Literature Online Timely bulletins of literary news from around the state.
Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance
Dave Mallett, Maine Folksinger/songwriter
Patricia Ranzoni, a SpiritWords founder
Poetry Daily Features a different poem by an esteemed or emerging poet every day, the journal in which it has been published, and news of poets and their work in the world.
Writers Of Maine A clearinghouse of information about Maine writers and Maine literature. Current feature: Jennifer Craig Pixley's work on Ruth Moore.
Page contents copyright 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002. All rights reserved.
Poems are the literary property of their authors
and may not be published without their permission.
Thank you for these visits to SpiritWords.
We hope you will come again and would consider it a favor
to receive news of efforts and resources related to ours.