Tonight we honor the reason we are in the room! April is National Poetry Month and, tonight, we honor the poets. Bring your favorite poem or poem number seventeen in your 30/30 series or just listen as we fill the space with new, old, polished, and imperfectly perfect poems from 6 p.m.-8 p.m. It is going to be great!
From January to March 2014, over one hundred young Minnesotans were deeply engaged in the Be Heard MN Youth Poetry Slam Series, a program of TruArtSpeaks. The slam identifies six young people to represent the State of Minnesota in the international Brave New Voices Youth Poetry Slam Festival. Tonight, Soul Sounds Open Mic will host a few of the team members and engage with them about their experience as youth poets throughout the process, while also listening to and experiencing their art.
I woke up Friday morning to a white blanket of humility. I had watched it begin to fall the previous afternoon as I sat in on one of the many events listed in the Almanac arts calendar. We looked out the window of the third-floor room of the Metropolitan State library to see heavy flakes against the backdrop of our downtown skyline and both of the capital city’s domes. I know last week, I hinted that we might be past all of this. I was wrong, but at the same time here I was in a room full of people happy not to be stuck in front of the television at home.
Mark Kenneth Tilsen is a Jewish Oglala Lakota poet and philosopher born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He currently is studying at Hamline University and trying to find a way back home after graduation. A sometimes activist, he can be found scribbling in his notebook at Kopplin’s coffee house when hiding from irate professors.
Okay. No kvetching! You can park on both sides of the street now. The snow will be with us for a while, but the air feels a lot better, light enough for us to seemingly glide down sidewalks without having to brace ourselves from the previous months’ harsh elements. They say March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Here, that image rings as thinly as that story about the groundhog. I can’t think of a good animal to reference in an allegory fitting to this Minnesota winter, but it does not matter. It’s nicer out. Let’s greet it with art in our 20th edition of This Week in Saint Paul!
The calendar on my kitchen wall claimed that spring had sprung last week, but Minnesota still predictably holds out. As a kid, and even now as an adult, I didn’t understand the connection of the equinox (nor that Pennsylvanian hedgehog) to any change in season. As a kid, I wasn’t sure if the groundhog myth was about adding six weeks or six months to winter. Hey, I was growing up in Minnesota! Anything is possible.
Tonight is a night of true celebration! Tonight, we honor the womyn in our lives—those who teach us, those who taught us, those challenge us, those who birthed us, and those who spit fire on the mic and make our jaws drop! Bring all of your favorite material by womyn writers or bring an ode to womyn, a womyn, or just bring yourself in the spirit of honoring these beautiful souls. We can’t wait to see you!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! If you have ever seen the sea of faces at Saint Paul’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, maybe you wonder, like I do, why March 17 is not a government holiday in Saint Paul. With all the crowds, as there should be in our city, my biggest question is whether the mayor will take out his bagpipes.
Last week, I checked out three movies from the library. I did not watch any of them. I am guilty of depriving the rest of the world of these copies of movies, but I have an excuse: I went outside. I saw things. I met with people who are doing things. I saw people—people not unlike the folks our stories celebrate each week. Whether I was meeting in Lowertown or Rondo, or working in my neighborhood, it felt great, likely at least in part due to the improving weather. It will grow even warmer this week, and some of the art will be even hotter! We have a few ideas to turn up the temperature.
Where have your footprints taken you? Through storytelling, spoken words, poetry, chanting, singing, crafting, and painting, we retrace our footprints and reflect as educators, community organizers, artists, students and fellow supporters on our journeys to romance the West Bank neighborhood in the midst of our greater personal journeys. The Saint Paul Almanac is pleased to announce the sixth in its 2013–2014 season of acclaimed Lowertown Reading Jams, which celebrate the rich literary history of Minnesota’s capital city and the widely popular genre of spoken word. Featuring performances by Farhiyo Abdulkarim, Janet Curiel, Safy-Hallan Farah, Ifrah Mansour, and Lula Saleh.
Music, to Liz Lassiter, is purpose. Music is transformative. Music is a process for all spirits involved in creating it. Ultimately, music defines itself differently for different people and that is the beauty of it.
MAHMOUD EL-KATI is a lecturer, author, and commentator on the African American experience. El-Kati is Professor Emeritus of History at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. El-Kati hosts a weekly public affairs radio show called “Reflections and Connections” on KMOJ radio in the Northside of Minneapolis. He also moderates a monthly viewing and discussion on various Black classic films at the Fourth Fridays at the Movies held at Golden Thyme Cafe in St. Paul.
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