POETS FOR A BETTER COUNTRY: Pittsburgh Poets Rally in A Big Poetry Reading for the Obama/Biden Campaign

poets for a better country:

Some of America’s finest poets, many I know personally and have much respect for will rally in Pittsburgh this weekend to voice their support for the Democratic ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. If you live within the Pittsburgh area or if you can drive up to Pittsburgh, this should be a once in a lifetime experience you cannot afford to miss.

Here is what the announcement says:

We urge you to join with us in forging a national movement to transform political consciousness. Barack Obama has defined democracy as “a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect.”

HERE ARE THE POETS:

Jim Daniels

Please Join Us:

What: A poetry reading for the Obama/Biden campaign

When: October 12, 2-5 PM

Where: The Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, 5941 Penn Avenue,

Pittsburgh

Terrance Hayes will emcee

Jan Beatty, Deb Bogen, C.M. Burroughs, Jim Daniels, Toi Derricotte, Lynn Emanuel,

Vanessa German, Terrance Hayes (emcee), Sam Hazo, Yona Harvey, Romella Kitchens,

Nancy Krygowski, Ben Lerner, Dawn Lundy Martin, Jeff Oaks, Ed Ochester, Peter Oresick,

Ellen Smith, and Judith Vollmer.

Here are some of the poets:

Ed Ochester

Jan Beatty

Toi Derricotte

Lynn Emanuel

For more information e-mail teresal.armor@comcast.net using the subject line,”

Poets for a Better Country.”

Deb Bogen

Judith Vollmer

Sam Hazo

Jeff Oaks

Dawn Lundy Martin

Vanessa German

A Sample Poem from Terrance Hayes

Pittsburgh

by Terrance Hayes

Pittsburgh

is a fat lady jabbering at the bus stop.

She mistakes me for someone who gives a damn,

For a native son of her gray industrial breast.

She blesses her Bucs, her Steelers,

Her father, God rest her soul, was a Hornets fan.

She mistakes me for someone who gives a damn,

Her blue scarf twisting like the broad Monongahela,

Her blue face lined like a jitney’s street map.

I’d tell her I’m not from this place:

These severed tired neighborhoods,

These ruthless winter tantrums,

But her long winded stories numb me.

She is persistent as snow, as boot slush & Thinsulate,

As buses rumbling like giant metallic catepillars.

She lights a Marlboro and it means

Spring will burn quick and furious as a match,

Summer will blaze.

When she tells me No one is a stranger in Pittsburgh,

do I believe her,

My frosty fairy foster-Mamma,

My stout rambling metaphor?

“Enough! This moment – this election – is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive.” (Barack Obama)

Judith Vollmer

POETS FOR A BETTER COUNTRY * teresal.armor@comcast.net or alison_meyers@sbcglobal.net

Contacts:
Toi Derricotte, Pittsburgh: teresal.armor@comcast.net

Alison Meyers, New York City: alison_meyers@sbcglobal.net

poets for a better country to speak out on october 12

Poets in Cities across the Country Forge a Movement to Elect Obama

pittsburgh, pa

If you cannot come to Pittsburgh, you are urged to join with other poets or attend a poetry reading in cities across the United States in that one voice of poetry as a means of forging peace in the world. We cannot afford Sarah Palin. We cannot afford John Macain. We cannot afford another four years of the same:

Look at Sam Hazo's poem below:

TO WAIT AS A WAY OF LIFE

                                           by Samuel Hazo
                     Waiting to act is where
                    the drama waits.
                                     Act,
                    and it's over.
                                   Bad gospel
                    for the overdoers of this world,
                    but irrefuteable…
                                       Hamlet pensive
                    is Hamlet at his truest.
                                             A cobra,
                    coiled on its coils, is totally
                    cobra.
                           The mountain snow
                    that keeps its avalanche a secret
                    threatens the deadliest with white
                    restraint.
                                Never are brides
                    more beautiful than in their veils.
                 Sprinters at the starting blocks
                    with all their muscles primed
                    and flexed look equally supreme
                    before defeat or victory
                    undoes them.
                                 Look everywhere,
                    and everything's waiting to happen
                    next.
                          Rifles are ready
                    in their racks.
                                     Lilacs are anxious
                       to become the first and only
                       versions of themselves.
                                                Bombers
                    are waiting with their waiting bombs.
                 Silently a cougar waits
                    to charge a deer.
                                      Its eyes
                    are hungry, but its claws are patient.

Langston Hughes will not be in Pittsburgh, will not be in other cities across the country,
but as always, Langston Hughes and all the other poets who died believing in freedom
will be there among us, reading
and listening to America. 

Democracy by Langston Hughes

Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.

I have as much right
As the other fellow has
To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.

I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.

Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.

I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you.

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