DAYS LIKE THIS
Shoulder to shoulder, with our sun umbrellas
and stadium seats, baseball caps and tubes
of SPF 30, I see the cashier from the carnicería
on Cerrillos, the dot.com retiree, the roofer
from high on Agua Fria Rd., the high school
teacher and downtown jewelry-maker.
And their children--ponytails, midriffs,
Raiders t-shirts, high-top Keds. This is a city
of markets, fiestas, community days, 4th of July
pancake breakfasts. If familiarity can no longer
gather us, then fry bread and Navajo tacos--
no matter how long and slow the line—
or a tortilla and bowl of green chile stew.
Grandma sits next to me on the curb
with no more short term memory. She tells
Serafina, her fidgety great-grand-girl,
about the way her father used to keep butter cold
in 1926 on the porch of the house in Española.
A system of shelves and wet canvas in the shade,
chilled by the summer breeze. Serafina says, “Wow,
Grandma, you ARE old,” and swings her monkey
purse over her left shoulder. These days
the city seems split in isolated directions—
east-side, Airport Road, Park Plaza,
and Casa Solana. The eighty year old
next to me says, in his day, all Santa Feans
lived in all the neighborhoods, at fisticuffs
or pleased as sardines. Today, it’s the saving
grace of the Pet Parade: goldfish bowls
in red wagons, a golden retriever in tails,
someone’s ferret in disco glitter. Is it
dogs in drag that bring us together?
There’s a pueblo song that calls
the four directions so many times
I nearly believe we have come here
for some kind of blessing. Like the bones
of the skeleton, in that Hispanic folktale,
coming together to grant the courageous
the chance to do good. Or the Puritan,
Jonathan Edwards, writing persons of all
nations and all conditions. These four
third-graders, dressed up like daisies
and tethered to three family cats form
some kind of unlikely and fabulous family.
And here we are. My sister says, “stop
asking me and just eat your chicken-wrap
burrito thing.” When she leans forward
I see the purple shadow on her lower back--
mark of the Moors, they told Mother,
distant remnant of old, bloody Spain.
There are no simple answers there, just
a chubby blonde girl throwing candy
from a wheelbarrow, the strangers
across the street rubbing upper arms,
the seams of the city zipping up
at the threshold of donkeys and pet snakes.
Grandma says a veces la gente necesita
juntar codos. It’s true, we’ll never
own things equally, agree and agree,
but there are days like this, lucky crush
and mosaic of blue jeans, baby bags,
sun hats and cowboy boots. She’s right,
of course. Unlikely, mismatched, contentious.
“Sometimes, people just need to rub elbows.”
Valerie Martínez
©2006
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
Poem for the Railyard Complex Opening Celebration
BLUE WINDING, BLUE WAY
I tell you—City, City, City—a story you told me--brown eyes, green eyes, black--in the days of snow drifts, mini-skirts, nothing beyond Richard’s Ave. The center of earth was a patch of land where the house was, the backyard, arroyo humming over the reddish concrete wall, and one immortal turtle. The neighbor’s immense ham radio antenna and Mr. Chang hunched to static and metal under the morning buzz of Osage Ave. We went to school in pick-ups and dented sedans, or workmen showed up to build vigas in the big room that swelled our home, Alfonso saying, Linda, get me that bucket and ¿donde está tu mama? Me saying, at the grocery store buying tubs of ice cream, you know, those big ones? Get me, ice cream, you know took to the air over the rooftops to Frenchy’s Field. We weren’t supposed to go there—He’ll shoot, you know--and I imagined him hunched somewhere near the water, listening. In those days the Santa Fe River ran and sang. It’s true? you ask, staring at the empty bed, dust rising at the dead end of Avenida Cristobal Colón. There was water? Now, we dream of blue winding, blue way along West Alameda—barbershop, coop, health clinic. The clog and cough of St. Francis Drive. Back then there were cars and wanderers and children just like now—towheads, dark braids, dirty cuffs—rolled up with all of us on the days of markets and parades along San Francisco and Palace Ave. Hmmm went the afternoon sun and you really could get fry bread for a quarter after walking down Washington Street from Fort Marcy after Zozobra burned. Now I go downtown where the acequia crosses Closson and Maynard, stutters along Water St. and sings the parallels of East Alameda and Canyon Road. Like a whisper, it lays itself down between Camino del Monte Sol and Camino Cabra, two streets with the river in-between—one with her skirt trailing southwest to the Paseo Real, the other reaching her fingernail moons to the foothills. And the river itself, p’oe tsawa, flushed from the red burn of the Sangres, running headlong downhill into this city of ours, then and now, with her canciónes encantadas--with her blue, with her brown mouth open.
Valerie Martínez
Santa Fe Poet Laureate
© 2008
I tell you—City, City, City—a story you told me--brown eyes, green eyes, black--in the days of snow drifts, mini-skirts, nothing beyond Richard’s Ave. The center of earth was a patch of land where the house was, the backyard, arroyo humming over the reddish concrete wall, and one immortal turtle. The neighbor’s immense ham radio antenna and Mr. Chang hunched to static and metal under the morning buzz of Osage Ave. We went to school in pick-ups and dented sedans, or workmen showed up to build vigas in the big room that swelled our home, Alfonso saying, Linda, get me that bucket and ¿donde está tu mama? Me saying, at the grocery store buying tubs of ice cream, you know, those big ones? Get me, ice cream, you know took to the air over the rooftops to Frenchy’s Field. We weren’t supposed to go there—He’ll shoot, you know--and I imagined him hunched somewhere near the water, listening. In those days the Santa Fe River ran and sang. It’s true? you ask, staring at the empty bed, dust rising at the dead end of Avenida Cristobal Colón. There was water? Now, we dream of blue winding, blue way along West Alameda—barbershop, coop, health clinic. The clog and cough of St. Francis Drive. Back then there were cars and wanderers and children just like now—towheads, dark braids, dirty cuffs—rolled up with all of us on the days of markets and parades along San Francisco and Palace Ave. Hmmm went the afternoon sun and you really could get fry bread for a quarter after walking down Washington Street from Fort Marcy after Zozobra burned. Now I go downtown where the acequia crosses Closson and Maynard, stutters along Water St. and sings the parallels of East Alameda and Canyon Road. Like a whisper, it lays itself down between Camino del Monte Sol and Camino Cabra, two streets with the river in-between—one with her skirt trailing southwest to the Paseo Real, the other reaching her fingernail moons to the foothills. And the river itself, p’oe tsawa, flushed from the red burn of the Sangres, running headlong downhill into this city of ours, then and now, with her canciónes encantadas--with her blue, with her brown mouth open.
Valerie Martínez
Santa Fe Poet Laureate
© 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Upcoming Events
Please join me and members of the community for the upcoming events in Santa Fe:
- 9/13/08 Grand Opening of the New Railyard Complex, Santa Fe, 1-3:30 p.m., at the corner of Cerrillos Road and Guadalupe St. http://www.railyardgrandopening.com/
- 9/14/08 STIR: A Festival of Words, workshop, “Integrating Poetry Into Life,” Harwood Art Center, Albuquerque, 2 p.m. http://harwoodartcenter.org/ss/stir-a-festival-of-words
- 9/23/08 Santa Fe Opera Big Read Event, a reading and discussion of Twain's Tom Sawyer, North 4th Arts Center, Albuquerque, 7 p.m.http://www.neabigread.org/
- 9/25/08 Pihtya Mixed Media Series, Reading, Center for Contemporary Arts (CCA), Reception and Reading, Santa Fe, 7:30 p.m. http://www.ccasantafe.org/
Monday, September 1, 2008
WESTERN HORIZON
The sky’s a triplet--
indigo, navy, dusty pink.
Thirteen gargantuan ravens.
Bits in their beaks; Asian eyes.
Cheeky moon playing Jupiter.
I count nineteen black branches
and Lorca’s three gold letters:
SUN.
Valerie Martinez
copyright 2008
indigo, navy, dusty pink.
Thirteen gargantuan ravens.
Bits in their beaks; Asian eyes.
Cheeky moon playing Jupiter.
I count nineteen black branches
and Lorca’s three gold letters:
SUN.
Valerie Martinez
copyright 2008
How Not to Blog
I am brand new to blogging and have often told others that no one wants to know what I'm thinking about every day. Even so, when I think about poetry and community and Santa Fe, there's a lot to tumble with.
One, Santa Fe is a city that sits in many layers of beauty, conquest, conflict, and reconciliation. My friend Selena Sermeno has taught me a lot about "conflict engagement" in the last year--the idea that there are some conflicts that will never have a resolution for various reasons--historical realities, religious incompatibilities, entrenched (so much so they might be called "innate") beliefs. What we can hope for, in these situations, is to learn the "stamina" to stay with a dialogue about conflict, to engage with it in fruitful ways, to keep trying to listen to, empathize with, and understand the "other's" point of view, whether we will ever agree with it or not. This process of "conflict engagement" presents us with an opportunity to let go of the idea of resolution (which may blind us to the present moment) and concentrate on LISTENING to another and deepening our understanding of what s/he thinks and feels.
What kind of conflict, you may ask? How is Santa Fe a place of conflict? Next weekend is the annual Santa Fe Fiesta, a "celebration" of the "bloodless" reconquest of Santa Fe by Don Diego de Vargas in 1693. However bloody or bloodless the actual reconquest was, the event was preceded by many violent years of conflict between the Indians and Spaniards. Many have argued, fruitlessly, about what happened during the actual "reconquest." Is it not more important to acknowledge that Indians and Spaniards were at war with each other and that our history lies in the truth of this?
Acknowledgment of this truth may direct us away from impossible arguments about what happened and toward the present need for more open and productive dialogue about how people feel about the past and present of Santa Fe. Once, while in graduate school, I took a class with N. Scott Momaday in which we read his WAY TO RAINY MOUNTAIN. On the back cover was a quote that said something like "This book nags at the white man's conscience." On the first day of discussion, a graduate student blurted out that she was sick and tired of being accused of being complicit in the oppression of Native Americans. As a white woman, she said she had not participated in violence against Indians, would never do so, and was tired of being grouped with those who did, ancestors or not. This sparked a long and contentious debate in the class.
After some time, a Navajo student, who didn't (as it turned out) talk a lot in class, waited for a rare hiatus in the discussion and spoke up. She said that most of the time, native people just want to hear that people acknowledge what happened in the past and see the darkness of it, its legacy in the present. I have never forgotten this. We sometimes get caught in the cycle of guilt or defiance against guilt, in the effort to resist the ugly past, so much so that we forget that we "simply" need to acknowledge what happened and express our remorse.
As a mestizo woman, I sometimes feel the warring between different parts of my own psyche--the dark and historic legacy of my Spanish ancestors, the presence of Navajo blood and the absence of any real experience of a Navajo community (as our native ancestry was subdued). I am learning to accept this warring as a fact of my body, blood, and psyche and trying to engage with this conflict by listening to myself and others as they reflect, probe, and grapple with the past. These undercurrents rumble beneath the streets of Santa Fe and it seems wise to acknowledge their movement.
I am talking, here, of some very first steps in what will be a long process, I hope, of building a future together as once warring peoples. We have made strides, yes (many would urge me not to be negative, to concentrate on the fact that people in Santa Fe live in relative peace). But we have all seen prejudice, anger, resentment, hurt reflected in the faces and words of our fellow citizens, have we not? Rather than turn away, we could lean forward and listen, stay with what might feel uncomfortable, unfair, wrong-headed, unfriendly. This is acknowledgment. This takes stamina. And, it might be the beginning of something "else."
One, Santa Fe is a city that sits in many layers of beauty, conquest, conflict, and reconciliation. My friend Selena Sermeno has taught me a lot about "conflict engagement" in the last year--the idea that there are some conflicts that will never have a resolution for various reasons--historical realities, religious incompatibilities, entrenched (so much so they might be called "innate") beliefs. What we can hope for, in these situations, is to learn the "stamina" to stay with a dialogue about conflict, to engage with it in fruitful ways, to keep trying to listen to, empathize with, and understand the "other's" point of view, whether we will ever agree with it or not. This process of "conflict engagement" presents us with an opportunity to let go of the idea of resolution (which may blind us to the present moment) and concentrate on LISTENING to another and deepening our understanding of what s/he thinks and feels.
What kind of conflict, you may ask? How is Santa Fe a place of conflict? Next weekend is the annual Santa Fe Fiesta, a "celebration" of the "bloodless" reconquest of Santa Fe by Don Diego de Vargas in 1693. However bloody or bloodless the actual reconquest was, the event was preceded by many violent years of conflict between the Indians and Spaniards. Many have argued, fruitlessly, about what happened during the actual "reconquest." Is it not more important to acknowledge that Indians and Spaniards were at war with each other and that our history lies in the truth of this?
Acknowledgment of this truth may direct us away from impossible arguments about what happened and toward the present need for more open and productive dialogue about how people feel about the past and present of Santa Fe. Once, while in graduate school, I took a class with N. Scott Momaday in which we read his WAY TO RAINY MOUNTAIN. On the back cover was a quote that said something like "This book nags at the white man's conscience." On the first day of discussion, a graduate student blurted out that she was sick and tired of being accused of being complicit in the oppression of Native Americans. As a white woman, she said she had not participated in violence against Indians, would never do so, and was tired of being grouped with those who did, ancestors or not. This sparked a long and contentious debate in the class.
After some time, a Navajo student, who didn't (as it turned out) talk a lot in class, waited for a rare hiatus in the discussion and spoke up. She said that most of the time, native people just want to hear that people acknowledge what happened in the past and see the darkness of it, its legacy in the present. I have never forgotten this. We sometimes get caught in the cycle of guilt or defiance against guilt, in the effort to resist the ugly past, so much so that we forget that we "simply" need to acknowledge what happened and express our remorse.
As a mestizo woman, I sometimes feel the warring between different parts of my own psyche--the dark and historic legacy of my Spanish ancestors, the presence of Navajo blood and the absence of any real experience of a Navajo community (as our native ancestry was subdued). I am learning to accept this warring as a fact of my body, blood, and psyche and trying to engage with this conflict by listening to myself and others as they reflect, probe, and grapple with the past. These undercurrents rumble beneath the streets of Santa Fe and it seems wise to acknowledge their movement.
I am talking, here, of some very first steps in what will be a long process, I hope, of building a future together as once warring peoples. We have made strides, yes (many would urge me not to be negative, to concentrate on the fact that people in Santa Fe live in relative peace). But we have all seen prejudice, anger, resentment, hurt reflected in the faces and words of our fellow citizens, have we not? Rather than turn away, we could lean forward and listen, stay with what might feel uncomfortable, unfair, wrong-headed, unfriendly. This is acknowledgment. This takes stamina. And, it might be the beginning of something "else."
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Diversity, Understanding, and Reconciliation in Santa Fe
Diversity, Understanding, & Reconciliation in Santa Fe
Valerie Martínez, Santa Fe Poet Laureate
©2008
Yesterday, as I drove to the College of Santa Fe, I realized that I almost always take the same route from home to office, so much so that my head leans left and right, forward and back, and so habitually that the path must be ingrained into muscles of my body. On the way, I see the same daily bicyclers and morning runners, the same train tracks, the same horizon of townhouses on Zia Road. At work my days are routine, for the most part, and I interact with many of the same people each day.
Last spring, I did things differently. Each Friday and Saturday, I traveled to Cuba, Torreon, and Ojo Encino, New Mexico to collaborate with public school students and a large group of community residents. Twice a week, eight artists from Santa Fe and Albuquerque (part of a Littleglobe, Inc. team) traveled to the Cuba area to partner with “ordinary people” to create art. To get there, I crossed several county lines and drove through some of New Mexico’s most magnificent landscapes—lizard-shaped earth formations in red and brown, pale-beige mesas, the unfolding llano. In the process, I crossed all sorts of invisible lines, too.
Cuba is a town of 9,000 with a largely Hispanic/Norteño population. Even so, Cuba High School, where we worked on Friday mornings, is about 80% Navajo, serving the outlying areas—Torreon, Counselor, Ojo Encino—and their largely Navajo populations. On Saturdays, we gathered with 45 people across the geographical, socio-economic, ethnic, and generational lines that usually divide us. There were children ages 6-11, high school students, 20-30-somethings, and others aged 40-80. We were/are White, Navajo, Hispanic/Norteño, Pueblo, Irish, Black, Japanese-American, and Mixed-Blood/Mestizo. Most have lived in the area for their entire lives. Many moved to the area many years ago. At the beginning of the project, few knew each other well.
It’s safe to say that every one of us, in this gathering, had taken a risk to be together. And it was intimidating, sometimes. I felt the force of history upon me, both pride in my Spanish
ancestry and the historical reality of Spanish oppression and violence. I felt embarrassed, sometimes, when I answered a Spanish-speaking native in my half-fluent Spanglish. I was afraid to offend the Navajo elders in the group, not knowing enough about Navajo etiquette. I made mistakes.
But, with time, fellowship did happen. We sat next to each other, ate together, sang, painted, wrote, laughed. After a couple of months, we began to have conversations about some of the historical and contemporary tensions and issues that divide us. After several months, we began to understand each other. It wasn’t something we could rush; we had to give each other time.
Back home in Santa Fe, I see that we, too, are struggling with the invisible lines of language, culture, socio-economics, ethnicity, and history that separate us. We grow increasingly diverse and, often, increasingly separate. We sometimes feel like strangers to each other, in our own home town. At the least, we feel isolated; at the most, hostile.
Because of this, and because Santa Feans often talk to me about their desire to bring our community together, we are going to have to take some risks. We need to step off the beaten path, walk across invisible lines, and spend some time with people we don’t know. It will be intimidating. We will make mistakes. It will take time. But I believe this is the first step in moving our complex, deeply-layered, and diverse city toward fellowship, understanding, and reconciliation. Si se puede.
This essay first appeared in Spanish in La Voz de Nuevo Mexico.
Valerie Martínez, Santa Fe Poet Laureate
©2008
Yesterday, as I drove to the College of Santa Fe, I realized that I almost always take the same route from home to office, so much so that my head leans left and right, forward and back, and so habitually that the path must be ingrained into muscles of my body. On the way, I see the same daily bicyclers and morning runners, the same train tracks, the same horizon of townhouses on Zia Road. At work my days are routine, for the most part, and I interact with many of the same people each day.
Last spring, I did things differently. Each Friday and Saturday, I traveled to Cuba, Torreon, and Ojo Encino, New Mexico to collaborate with public school students and a large group of community residents. Twice a week, eight artists from Santa Fe and Albuquerque (part of a Littleglobe, Inc. team) traveled to the Cuba area to partner with “ordinary people” to create art. To get there, I crossed several county lines and drove through some of New Mexico’s most magnificent landscapes—lizard-shaped earth formations in red and brown, pale-beige mesas, the unfolding llano. In the process, I crossed all sorts of invisible lines, too.
Cuba is a town of 9,000 with a largely Hispanic/Norteño population. Even so, Cuba High School, where we worked on Friday mornings, is about 80% Navajo, serving the outlying areas—Torreon, Counselor, Ojo Encino—and their largely Navajo populations. On Saturdays, we gathered with 45 people across the geographical, socio-economic, ethnic, and generational lines that usually divide us. There were children ages 6-11, high school students, 20-30-somethings, and others aged 40-80. We were/are White, Navajo, Hispanic/Norteño, Pueblo, Irish, Black, Japanese-American, and Mixed-Blood/Mestizo. Most have lived in the area for their entire lives. Many moved to the area many years ago. At the beginning of the project, few knew each other well.
It’s safe to say that every one of us, in this gathering, had taken a risk to be together. And it was intimidating, sometimes. I felt the force of history upon me, both pride in my Spanish
ancestry and the historical reality of Spanish oppression and violence. I felt embarrassed, sometimes, when I answered a Spanish-speaking native in my half-fluent Spanglish. I was afraid to offend the Navajo elders in the group, not knowing enough about Navajo etiquette. I made mistakes.
But, with time, fellowship did happen. We sat next to each other, ate together, sang, painted, wrote, laughed. After a couple of months, we began to have conversations about some of the historical and contemporary tensions and issues that divide us. After several months, we began to understand each other. It wasn’t something we could rush; we had to give each other time.
Back home in Santa Fe, I see that we, too, are struggling with the invisible lines of language, culture, socio-economics, ethnicity, and history that separate us. We grow increasingly diverse and, often, increasingly separate. We sometimes feel like strangers to each other, in our own home town. At the least, we feel isolated; at the most, hostile.
Because of this, and because Santa Feans often talk to me about their desire to bring our community together, we are going to have to take some risks. We need to step off the beaten path, walk across invisible lines, and spend some time with people we don’t know. It will be intimidating. We will make mistakes. It will take time. But I believe this is the first step in moving our complex, deeply-layered, and diverse city toward fellowship, understanding, and reconciliation. Si se puede.
This essay first appeared in Spanish in La Voz de Nuevo Mexico.
Poet Laureate Community Outreach Project
LINES AND CIRCLES:
A CELEBRATION
OF SANTA FE FAMILIES
A Project of the City of Santa Fe Poet Laureate Program
Valerie Martínez, Poet Laureate 2008-2010
Description of Project:
This project will gather three generations of 10-15 individual Santa Fe families to compose/create a unique family “work” (story, short film, photograph, woodwork, quilt, sculpture, pottery, recording, etc.). The families will represent the rich diversity of the Santa Fe community--ethnically, socio-economically, historically, etc. The families will work inter-generationally, with the Poet Laureate and (periodically), in company with each other. The works may reflect the family name, family history, or simply the inter-generational collaboration that happens during the project. In some cases, assistance for the families may come from local artists (documentarians, filmmakers, artists, etc.) as necessary. Each work will also be accompanied by a poem. The poem may be collaboratively written--authored by the family members and Poet Laureate--or the Poet Laureate may compose the poem for the family, depending on the family’s wishes. The finished pieces will constitute an exhibit entitled “Lines & Circles: A Celebration of Santa Fe Families” to be presented to the city, other New Mexico communities, and (possibly) other U.S. cities. The title “Lines & Circles” refers to the idea of family lines as well as the circular nature of communities working together.
Goals:
To actively engage the Poet Laureate with her community in the collaborative creation of art and poetry of significance to Santa Fe
To raise awareness of the power of poetry and the spoken word to build and celebrate community
To encourage positive relationships within families and between families
To foster a sense of shared community
To encourage meaningful and creative dialogue
To reflect the rich family life and community of Santa Fe
To generate a body of art and poetry that commemorates the life of Santa Fe
Duration:
March 2008-March 2010
Tentative Timeline:
March-July 2008 Call for participation by Santa Fe families—ads in newspapers, flyers
in schools, libraries, community centers, and elsewhere.
March-October 2008 Poet Laureate & Arts Commission arrange for a local museum, gallery, or public arts space to host the exhibition and schedule meeting venues
July 2008 Deadline for “application” by families
July/August 2008 First meeting of Santa Fe families with poet laureate & Arts Commission
representatives. Introductions, presentation of project and schedule,
discussion, socializing.
August-Sept. ’08 Poet Laureate and Arts Commission work with families on ideas
November 2008 Family ideas due, along with a list of needs and materials assessments
Oct. ’08-Feb. ’09 Poet Laureate and Arts Commission gather materials, volunteers, resources, and work with families.
March 2009 Second families meeting and working session
April-August 2009 Families continue work on project and meet, individually, with Poet Laureate
September 2009 Third families meeting to share works-in-progress
December 15, 2009 Deadline for completed projects, including poems
Jan.-Feb. 2009 Creation/Construction of Exhibit
February/March ‘09 Public Exhibition
A CELEBRATION
OF SANTA FE FAMILIES
A Project of the City of Santa Fe Poet Laureate Program
Valerie Martínez, Poet Laureate 2008-2010
Description of Project:
This project will gather three generations of 10-15 individual Santa Fe families to compose/create a unique family “work” (story, short film, photograph, woodwork, quilt, sculpture, pottery, recording, etc.). The families will represent the rich diversity of the Santa Fe community--ethnically, socio-economically, historically, etc. The families will work inter-generationally, with the Poet Laureate and (periodically), in company with each other. The works may reflect the family name, family history, or simply the inter-generational collaboration that happens during the project. In some cases, assistance for the families may come from local artists (documentarians, filmmakers, artists, etc.) as necessary. Each work will also be accompanied by a poem. The poem may be collaboratively written--authored by the family members and Poet Laureate--or the Poet Laureate may compose the poem for the family, depending on the family’s wishes. The finished pieces will constitute an exhibit entitled “Lines & Circles: A Celebration of Santa Fe Families” to be presented to the city, other New Mexico communities, and (possibly) other U.S. cities. The title “Lines & Circles” refers to the idea of family lines as well as the circular nature of communities working together.
Goals:
To actively engage the Poet Laureate with her community in the collaborative creation of art and poetry of significance to Santa Fe
To raise awareness of the power of poetry and the spoken word to build and celebrate community
To encourage positive relationships within families and between families
To foster a sense of shared community
To encourage meaningful and creative dialogue
To reflect the rich family life and community of Santa Fe
To generate a body of art and poetry that commemorates the life of Santa Fe
Duration:
March 2008-March 2010
Tentative Timeline:
March-July 2008 Call for participation by Santa Fe families—ads in newspapers, flyers
in schools, libraries, community centers, and elsewhere.
March-October 2008 Poet Laureate & Arts Commission arrange for a local museum, gallery, or public arts space to host the exhibition and schedule meeting venues
July 2008 Deadline for “application” by families
July/August 2008 First meeting of Santa Fe families with poet laureate & Arts Commission
representatives. Introductions, presentation of project and schedule,
discussion, socializing.
August-Sept. ’08 Poet Laureate and Arts Commission work with families on ideas
November 2008 Family ideas due, along with a list of needs and materials assessments
Oct. ’08-Feb. ’09 Poet Laureate and Arts Commission gather materials, volunteers, resources, and work with families.
March 2009 Second families meeting and working session
April-August 2009 Families continue work on project and meet, individually, with Poet Laureate
September 2009 Third families meeting to share works-in-progress
December 15, 2009 Deadline for completed projects, including poems
Jan.-Feb. 2009 Creation/Construction of Exhibit
February/March ‘09 Public Exhibition
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