Mar 14th, 2011: Lowertown Reading Jam: St. Paul Poet Laureate Carol Connolly presents Six Fine Irish Performers
March 14, 2011
The Saint Paul Almanac continues its year-round literary celebration of Minnesota’s capital city with the acclaimed Lowertown Reading Jams. Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, the March presentation of the eclectic series, curated by Carol Connolly, features readings by six of the finest poets and performers of Irish descent working in Minnesota today. The all-Irish Reading Jam will be presented on Monday, March 14, 2011 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Black Dog Coffee and Wine Bar, 308 Prince Street in Saint Paul. The Jams will continue on the second Monday of each month through July.
Poetry you can stomp on; Upcoming LRJs; New writing from Gordy Palzer, Deb Pleasants and Diane Wilson
March 13, 2011
Here at the Saint Paul Almanac, we clearly value the written word, but there’s definitely a time when it’s good to walk all over it, scuff it, and jump around on top of it! For the fourth year running, the City of Saint Paul and Public Art Saint Paul have announced the St. Paul Sidewalk Poetry Contest.
A Man’s Epiphany at O’Gara’s
March 13, 2011
It isn’t as far from Saint Paul to Nepal as you might think it is. This was all brought home to me several years ago, in the men’s room of O’Gara’s Bar and Grill on Snelling Avenue in Saint Paul, where I experienced an epiphany while gazing up at its fourteen-foot-high walls, and saw there evidenced a feat of heroic proportions—surely on a par, for ordinary men, that is, with Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in their conquest of Mount Everest.
Not Your Typical Irish Dancer
March 13, 2011
Grabbing the ballet barre to support myself, I attempted to stretch out my right leg. My thigh felt like a vise was twisting it tighter and tighter. The pain was so intense, I was afraid to breathe. I hobbled out of the dance room and nearly collapsed on the hallway floor. Massaging my cramped leg, I watched those energetic adults and wondered how I, a forty-seven-year-old Black woman with no dance experience, ended up in an Irish dance class.
Early Spring
March 13, 2011
Pale vision on an early day: two gray wings gliding flat balance on the body’s straight line. A trill rises from the meadow....
Tracks
March 6, 2011
Before I was born There was movement Paddles pushing pent up people through oceans of pain That explains my fear of water When I was born There was movement still
The Uptown
March 6, 2011
In the drama of my family, the Uptown Theatre played a lead role. Sitting in the middle of the block at 1053 Grand Avenue, the theater began as the Oxford in 1921. In 1929, the Uptown was reborn as an “atmospheric theatre” with an Italian motif, stucco walls, faux balconies, stars and clouds on the ceiling, and a brightly lit marquee. In the 1950s, it was again remodeled in mid-century modern style. In 1976, the Uptown turned its lights out for the last time, to make way for a parking lot.
The Best Place in the World
March 6, 2011
I have lived in Saint Paul most of my life, and I’d say my favorite place in Saint Paul is the St. Anthony Park Public Library. With its many shelves and millions of stories, each one unique, each one special in its own way, there is no place like it in the world. I love going to the library after school for hours on end, looking at the books. The St. Anthony Park Library is unique because of its architecture. The original library, now the adult-teen section, was part of a Carnegie Library built in 1917. It has been updated, and a children’s section, built in the shape of a large dome, was attached to the old building.
Saint Paul Poet Laureate Carol Connolly: Poem for the Second Inauguration of Mayor Chris Coleman on January 4, 2010
February 27, 2011
We stand on the edge of a New Year, full, it is, of endless possibilities. Somehow, we climbed the steep hills of the year just past, none of it easy, our seven hills dotted with lights steady in the dark of night, hills alive now with the beauty of a new snow that stopped traffic everywhere.
The Hmong Wedding
February 27, 2011
My wedding day began at 1 a.m., when I got up for work as anchor and producer of Sunrise 7, the morning show on WSAU-TV, based in Wausau, Wisconsin. After my shift ended at 9 a.m., I met up with my fiancé, Noah, to say goodbye until our wedding night, then headed for my mother’s home in Saint Paul. Born and raised in the United States, Noah and I are what you could call a typical American couple. But we also treasure our Hmong heritage and wanted to honor our families by following the tradition that has spanned many generations. Although we’ve been engaged for a year, we can’t get married until our families give their official approval and agree on a dowry. There is no guarantee this will happen.
Great-Grandma’s Fur Coat
February 27, 2011
As coats made from the pelts of animals go, the one that I inherited three years ago probably wasn’t that expensive: It isn’t mink, beaver, sable, or even fox. Rather, it’s made from the pelts of brown rabbits, dyed black. We figure it came to my Austro-Hungarian great-grandma in the 1930s; family lore has it that Great-Uncle Ted presented it as a gift to his mother. Inside, embroidered in champagne-colored thread on small slips of satin that match the lining, are her initials: M. L., for Mary (Peck) Laber. But there is a bit of mystery associated with the coat—a photo shows Grandma Laber in a dark fur that’s a slightly different style from the one I inherited.
Winter Carnival 1887: A Ghost Story
February 27, 2011
For almost as long as there has been a Saint Paul, my family has been a part of the city. My father, Carl Reimringer, was born here in 1914, and baptized in Assumption Church, where his father was baptized and his grandfather was married. Though I’d never lived here, when my wife and I moved to Saint Paul shortly after my father’s death in 2001, I fell head over heels in love with the city, feeling that I’d returned to a home I hadn’t realized had been missing from my life.