Serendipity 2012

So at the back of my mind there was a unspoken intent to do some VideoPoem work in 2012. I really do want to do HEMAN, A Man from Vermont a poem I wrote in 1999 for family  (also called What Makes America Work).  Here is how it begins:

"What makes America work?'
Grandpa slipped his soul into conversation
like a late night visit to the cookie jar - clandestine
spirit, satisfaction, hmmnn - sweet energy.
His eyes twinkled with exclamation: "It's people!"

I suspect this old Democrat who fettered party fundraising letters
with the lavishness of a nesting Oriole - took a vital life step, the day
this question "What makes America work?" infested his psyche.

At a recent gathering for the passing of his eldest daughter, I met some of his great-grand children who had their firmest recall of the man from pictures and this poem. One greatgrandaughter was intently working on geneology and scrapbooking of the family story ... she had some pictures.  I promised to connect -- but wanted to be firmly ready for the journey. I am yet to be.

As my last post suggests I am a believer in collaboration ... even in the arts, maybe, most especially.  Here the reflective nature of evolving in connection with others can be powerful. 

As I make this post I remember my 1st encounter with the book Transforming Vision: Writers on Art (the Art Institute of Chicago).  Within that collection of art and words Stuart Dybek reflects upon finding light at the Institute in the essay Killing Time. He was jobless. His experience of the Public Library was juxtaposed with the Institute -- as a place for the displaced and dispossessed drowsing over enormous tomes or reading. This was 1990. Today it echoes with enormous ripples. In a recent  reintroduction to my expanded welcoming suburban hometown library as a person whose job was terminated I had similar reflections about its inhabitants.

So on the 1st Monday of 2012 I set upon a task to find collaborators for my Community TV Station:  Potential content developers and Board Members. 

Within this effort which involves searches & hyperlink  following I stumble into another opportunity for collaboration with CT  artists as I get wowed by  a photographer that has a way with capturing light and a sound designer that I had the pleasure of being LinkedIN with whose share brought me to this enchanting composition and I think to myself herein is a video poem in search of words. Then I get a call from a decade done life that connects me with a poet whose words appear to connect both

Let's start turnin' the pages and viewing these urban cages as places to grow up sages and setiin' the stages ... for a revolution. A Light Revolution. Cementing futures in liberation and resolution of the knife to our neighbor and the knife to ourselves. Twelve is the number of daisies coming up through the sidewalk. Talk to me about your dreams and all the places in between the snow falling slow.

So I seek permission to collaborate to make a video poem. 

So it appears that in March my toils will be enchanting... but I am not wishing  my days away 'til then... as they are full of civic collaborations of which I am as eager to get underway, well.  BetterFood4all is being launched as initially outlined in this post.