HIGHLIGHT APPEARANCES AT THE ART AUCTION TO ALLEVIATE HUNGER

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Greetings Folks! Yep, another day has ticked away (only 4 days to go!) and we’re still trying to get as many caring folks as possible on board for the launch of the Art Auction to Alleviate Hunger.

We’ve been highlighting the artists and poets who collaborated on the creation of items for the auction, hoping that their talents and accomplishments would interest you and prompt your support. Thanks to my Facebook friends (Vincent Calone, Rhonda Straw, Greg Bell, Robin Wind-Faillace) who have already registered, made donations, and/or added your voice to the cause!

But we have more in store for you at this auction launch that kicks off our efforts to raise funds for Feed the Children. Appearing in person or by video, we have a diverse and distinguished lineup of “messengers and activists for social good” beating the care and generosity drum. These folks have eye-popping bios that I can’t list fully here, but I can give you a tiny taste of the smorgasbord of accomplishments they bring to the table.

Sistah Joy Alford- Poet Laureate of Prince George’s County, Maryland; founder of the socially conscious poetry ensemble, Collective Voices; and recipient of the Poet Laureate Special Award from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Sistah Joy also produces and hosts the award-winning cable television program, Sojourn with Words, which has aired on CTV (Comcast Ch. 76, Verizon Ch. 42), the Prince George’s County local access station, since 2005.

Dr. Mary Swander- Former poet laureate of Iowa, is the Executive Director of AgArts, a nonprofit designed to imagine and promote healthy food systems through the arts. She was recognized by the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame as one of four honorees for 2022. She hosts the podcast “AgArts from Horse & Buggy Land” that highlights the Amish, sustainability and rural life.

Erik Nussbaum- Director of Music and the Arts at The Chicago Temple, has been awarded several music awards, including the Clarence Hubert Johnson Award and the Janet Grieg Post Prize in Music, and served as In-School Conductor of the Chicago Children’s Choir for six years.

Diane Wilbon Parks- An accomplished author of two poetry collections and a Children’s Book, she is also an accomplished visual artist whose artwork is featured prominently on the Poetry X Hunger website. One of her poems and artwork has been installed as a permanent sign at the North Patuxent Research Refuge. 

Dr. Stacey Young- An internationally recognized leader in knowledge management and organizational learning for international development. She has been working in the development sector since 1994, first as an independent consultant in Kenya and Uganda, and then at the largest bilateral donor in international aid. Previously she taught at Skidmore College and at Cornell University, where she earned a PhD in Government.

John Ricketts- Director of Program Impact and Disaster Services for Feed the Children, the international organization that will accept your generous offering and ensure that it does good for people around the world who are in need. It is in great part through John's efforts that people- like those in Fort Myers after Ian passed through- suffer just a bit less after disasters.

Although not appearing on the launch program, we'd like to thank Stacia Sturman, Corporate Partnerships Manager at Feed the Children, for facilitating the collaboration with Feed the Children and for John's appearance in video format at the art auction launch this Saturday. 

Stay tuned for the introductions to Dr. Hiram Larew (founder of Poetry Hunger) and JC Wayne (founder of The Poartry Project). I love it when people with pull and prestige step up to the plate to bat for those who don’t have the strength to swing…or even to make it to the game. 

Here are some useful links relevant to the Art Auction to Alleviate Hunger:

Auction Zoom Launch Registration Link: tinyurl.com/hungerartauction 

Better World Link to Auction: https://poetryxhunger.betterworld.org/auctions/art-auction-fighting-hunger

Feed the Children Donation Link: 
tinyurl.com/donatetofeedthechildren

Auction Context & Backstory- https://poartry.org/art-auction-for-alleviating-hunger/

Poetry X Hunger Auction Info Page- https://www.poetryxhunger.com/art-auction-to-alleviate-hunger.html

Auction Promo Video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/h_Bk25MZu8U

Participants’ Bios: https://tapoetexpress.blogspot.com/2022/11/artist-poet-bios-alleviating-hunger.html

Thanks for joining me here. Till next....T. A.

THANKFUL DESPITE MYSELF: GRATEFUL FOR REAL S/HEROES

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Ordinarily, Thanksgiving is the one holiday I look forward to celebrating. This year, I’m struggling with my gratitude sentiments. Don’t get me wrong, I know I have plenty to be grateful for, and a few happenings in the past 24 hours have moved my gratitude needle in the right direction.

I could gush about receiving a treasure from Vinnie Calone or being there for Stephanie Niles’ first Zoom poetry reading at Poetry Near & Afar (thanks to Judy Turek). But those are personal, and there are bigger things than my personal gratification on the list.

Lis McLoughlin, founder of Nature Culture and 
Writing the Land (among many other uplifting things) sent the organizers of the Art Auction to Alleviate Hunger- with proceeds going to Feed the Children- an inspiring email. Here’s an excerpt:

“…I expect this painting will bring a lot more money, but if allowed, I bid $100 on it.”

Can you imagine organizing a charitable auction and receiving such an email before the auction opened? Uplifting indeed!

Apparently, Lis took a sneak peek at the Better World auction site, and she has jumped aboard the generosity train before it has even left the station! We don’t launch the auction until Saturday, Dec. 3 at 2pm EST!

The painting, “Devas de los hambrientos" by JC Wayne (founder of The Poartry Project), that Lis referred to is one of the original pieces created for the online auction, and it was inspired by Heyssel Mariel Molinares Sosa's poem, "Hambre," published on the Poetry X Hunger website.

Perhaps even bigger than that humongous boost, was an interaction I had with Scot Young. You might know Scot as the “Cowboy Poet” who reads while donkeys bray in the background. Even donkey braying can’t drown out the potent poetry Scot delivers more reliably than USPS delivers mail these days. But Scot’s poetry writing, editing, publishing, and teaching (he runs a writing group for youth), despite their outsized value, are not what I am most thankful for at the moment.

As superintendent of the school district in a “rural PreK-12 school that serves 110 children in small no stoplight town of Theodosia in the Missouri Ozarks,” the buck stops with Scot when this little school, in a town of anywhere from 176 – 195 people, depending on your source (188 according to the 2020 US Census), “… acts as a Mobile Food Pantry once a month and hands out a semi-truck load of meat, dairy, bread and produce to 600 people every month.”

According to Scot, students, teachers and administrators have been conducting the Mobil Food Pantry since the Pandemic began. He writes, “The people line up 3 hours before the truck arrives and not one time have we ever been rained out. Let that sink in. There are usually out of state plates in line and several from outside our community but my take is if they are hungry then we are here…. I have been in education over 30 years as a teacher, principal and superintendent and when asked what I remember the most or my greatest accomplishment, it is being able to do this.”

And just in case you want some backup for my take on Scot, here’s an excerpt I snagged from Amazon from a John Dorsey (author of Prettiest Girl at the Dance) quote, as he writes about Scot and his poetry collection, All Around Cowboy: “…Scot Young is a great poet, but anyone can do that, he's an even greater man, so I take it back, maybe he is a cowboy, but let's be clear, John Wayne would never have the balls to be Scot Young." Nothing I could say would top that!

Listen, you can cheer for your winning quarterbacks, your star point guards, your worshipped movie stars or musicians, your favorite billionaires, or whomever you choose to put on the hero pedestal. To each their own. But when it comes to s/heroes, it’s people like Scot Young, Lis Mcloughlin, JC Wayne, Hiram Larew, and the like who fit my hero bill! If I had children, these would be the role models I’d offer them. To those of you I’ve mentioned and to the many of similar ilk unmentioned here, thank you for what you do!

Check out what we've got planned for you and Feed the Children:

ARTIST & POET BIOS- ALLEVIATING HUNGER EKPHRASTIC ART AUCTION

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I'm hoping you won't get tired of me beating this drum and tune me out before Saturday, Dec. 3 at 2pm eastern because that's a big day for the collaboration among Poetry X Hunger, The Poartry Project, and Feed the Children. That's the day the Art Auction to Alleviate Hunger kicks off. 

By now you probably know that a few multitalented artists created works of art inspired by poems published on Poetry X Hunger, the world's first website dedicated to poetry about hunger. You might even know that all the proceeds from the auction and donation campaign will be going to Feed the Children, the international organization dedicated to assisting children and families in need.

I'm guessing you don't know who those artists are and which poems were chosen for inspiration from the Poetry X Hunger website. That's the purpose of this post: to introduce you to the artists and representative samples of their work (Ya don't think I'd give away the actual auction items, do you?); and to the poets and their poems. I've only included excerpts of the poems here, but there are links to the all of the full poems as published on Poetry X Hunger. 

I've listed the visual artists' bios with a representative piece of art that is not a part of the auction first, then the name of the poet, their poem title (with live link), and the beginning of the poem.  

Barbara Ezell has been a librarian/educator as vocation and hobbyist artist for many years, with expressions in various media: film, mosaics, photography, shadow boxes, paper marbling, collage, epoxy clay, and jewelry making. She has an MFA in film/video and create personal films. Over time she has been a member artist of Woman Made Gallery and exhibited in a few WMG shows and at Chicago area libraries and universities. Currently, she makes original jewelry: pendants, pins and earrings from decorated tin and rejuvenated jewelry, and shadow boxes featuring my jewelry. She calls her sculptural pieces Mystic Muses.  

Barbara's inspiration was Ann Bracken's American Madonna. The first stanza of the poem reads:

Hunger wears a face full of hope
like the girl on the magazine cover
cradling a loaf of white bread
as if it’s a miracle. Tonight she will
sleep with food in her tummy.

BIG THINGS COME IN THREES? ON THE POETRY HORIZON

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I’m sure lots of people do lots of things for poetry, for those who write, read, and listen to it, for those who ingest it through their pores, who sip it like morning tea or coffee or chug it like a shot of whatever your favorite shot substance is. I know a few such people and Rick Lupert and the Poetry Super Highway (PSH) certainly fit the bill.

But I don’t expect you to take my word for it…in fact, I hope you won’t take my word for it and will “fact check” my contention. All you have to do is click here and travel. This super highway has many lanes so you can zip through in the IAH (in a hurry) lane- which I wouldn’t recommend- or take in the sights in the preferred TYT (take you time) lane- which I do recommend. So much to absorb!

It’s not Xmas time- or more apropos, Hanukah time- yet, but the PSH is bringing more poetry gifts. More? Well, yes more. The recently concluded poetry contest surely brought gifts a-plenty. The newest shiny gift basket is the 18^th E-Book free for all where you can give the gift of your creative expressions (i.e., your poetry) and receive similar gifts from others without it costing you a cent! 

In Rick's words, this is "A crazy project in which your poetry e-books will be freely available to all interested humans on Earth for a 24 hour period." You can submit your poetry from now through the end of November with the big giveaway happening on Thursday. Dec. 1.  

So if you’ve got a treasure trove of poems you think might enhance a life or two and/or wouldn’t mind wallowing in someone else’s trove, then I’m thinking you might want to take the next exit onto the Poetry Super Highway and see where it leads.

There are two more tidbits of enhancement I hope you’ll consider. In a similar vein, a while back, I shared the news that Quilled Ink Press is accepting submissions for the inaugural edition of The Quilled Ink Review, a new international literary journal featuring poetry, essays, and short stories.

Perhaps by now you know that I get a kick out of extraordinary people and things. After perusing Quilled Ink Press website, and Adiela Akoo’s (founder & editor-in-chief) work, and backstory, I am convinced that she is an extraordinary individual and that The Quilled Ink Review will be an extraordinary literary journal.

Again, I’d rather you not take my word for it and check things out yourself. I’m hoping that if you do that you’ll want to submit your poetry, essays or short stories for publication in

the inaugural edition of The Quilled Ink Review (submission deadline is November 20, 2022). I don’t often submit my expressions for publication, but I think I will do so for this occasion. If something I’ve written makes the cut, I’d be thrilled to be a part of this initial offering from Quilled Ink Press.

Finally, and at least as important as the other two opportunities above, is the charitable collaboration between Poetry X Hunger (Hiram Larew, founder) and The Poartry Project (JC Wayne, founder). From December 3 – 17, 2022, an ekphrastic poetry fest with a twist will be available for your consumption, AND if you participate you will contribute to some young, tender bellies emitting fewer hunger grumbles.

The ekphrastic twist is that rather than poetry being written in response to visual art, this project consists of art having been created in response to poetry published on the Poetry X Hunger website. What’s truly exceptional is that the artists who created works in response to the poetry have agreed to allow their work to be auctioned, with proceeds going to Feed the Children, the international organization dedicated to enhancing the lives of children and their families in the US and eight other countries around the world.  

Don’t you just love win-win situations? Poets, visual artists, and poartists reap exposure for their work, children and families are fed, and those who offer winning bids get an original piece of art and a bellyful of satisfaction for making a significant contribution to the lives of those in need.

I’m all over this project and will be helping Hiram and JC maximize the effort. Oh! And if you don’t want to participate in the auction itself, there will be a sister donation campaign for those who just want to contribute to the effort. Stay tuned for more info on this initiative as we approach the auction opening on Saturday, December 3, 2022.