INSIDE THIS EDITION:
- APRIL IS NATIONAL POETRY MONTH: raindrops (Damont Combs); Still I Rise (Maya Angelou); Peace Path (Heid E. Erdrich); The Summer Day (Mary Oliver)
- THE WELL OF WOMAN: A provocative and animated collection of original songs and poems penned by Ricardo Pitts-Wiley
- JANE'S WALK PROVIDENCE: May 5-7, Annual Festival of Free, Resident-led, Walking Conversations
The 2023 poster was designed by Marc Brown, creator of the popular Arthur book and PBS television series. The artwork incorporates an excerpted line from the poem “Carrying” by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón.
Launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996, National Poetry Month is a special occasion that celebrates poets’ integral role in our culture and that poetry matters. Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world, with tens of millions of readers, students, K–12 teachers, librarians, booksellers, literary events curators, publishers, families, and—of course—poets, marking poetry’s important place in our lives.
RI Cultural Anchor: Damont Combs
Damont Combs is Indie Author Legacy Award 2018 Poet of the Year. He is a poet from Southside Jamaica Queens NY and a graduate with a degree in Computer Technology Service from Johnson and Wales University. Mr. Combs, otherwise known as Mr. Orange Live, has released two books of poetry: My Poem... My Riddle, (Prysmatic Dreams Publishing, 2015) and Damont Combs presents A Touch of Orange. (Kingdom Enterprise LLC, 2016).
raindrops
When one falls in love it’s similar to raindrops
Uncontrollable, everywhere splattering, everyone
Know’s you’ve fallen due to the songs you sing
Due to the rain that sings as each crashes against sureness
A musical melody of notes as vast as these rain drops…selah
Even the reasons you fall, are too numerous to count
Much like the properties of rain it melts away ice
Of painful yesterdays and even brings growth
To stalled dreams of “will I ever fall in love?”
From the heavens this gift has been brought
On earth your prayers have been answered
In the form of nature’s teardrops
Has teardrops ever been so sweet?
“Love” reigns as indescribable needs
Divine… real… osculate. Preciously
Placed upon’s one’s lips or cheeks
As gentle as a raindrop
as gentle as love
© damont combs | Year Posted 2017
Still I Rise
BY MAYA ANGELOU
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Peace Path
By Heid E. Erdrich
This path our people walked
one hundred two hundred endless years
since the tall grass opened for us
and we breathed the incense that sun on prairie
offers to sky
Peace offering with each breath
each footstep out of woods
to grasslands plotted with history
removal remediation restoration
Peace flag of fringed prairie orchid
green glow within white froth
calling a moth who nightly
seeks the now-rare scent invisible to us
invisible history of this place
where our great-grandfather a boy
beside two priests and 900 warriors
gaze intent in an 1870 photo
his garments white as orchids
Peace flag white banner with red cross
crowned with thorns held by a boy
at the elbow of a priest
beside Ojibwe warriors beside Dakota warriors
Peace offered after smoke and dance
and Ojibwe gifts of elaborate beaded garments
thrown back in refusal
by Dakota Warriors torn with grief
since their brother’s murder
This is the path our people ran
through white flags of prairie plants
Ojibwe calling Dakota back
to sign one last and unbroken treaty
Peace offering with each breath
each footstep out of woods
to grasslands plotted with history
removal remediation restoration
Two Dakota held up as great men
humbled themselves
to an offer of peace
before a long walk south
before our people entered the trail
walking west and north
where you walk now
where we seek the source
the now-rare scent
invisible as history
history the tall grass opens for us
Breathe the incense of sun on prairie
Offer peace to the sky
©2016 by Heid E. Erdrich
Heid E. Erdrich is the author of Cell Traffic: New and Selected Poems (University of Arizona Press, 2012) and National Momuments (Michigan State University Press, 2008), among others. She lives in Minnesota.
The Summer Day
By Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Announcements
The Well of Woman, stories of women brought to life through song, poems, vignettes, dialogue and movement in a provocative and animated collection of original songs and poems written by Ricardo Pitts-Wiley, details the experiences women shared with him over a span of 35 years. The Well Of Woman reflect multi-generational, deeply personal journeys, yet each has a defined universality.
FREE AT EACH PERFORMANCE: 2 OUTSTANDING EXHIBITS
ANNYE R. PITTS: WITNESS EXHIBIT
ARTISTS MARY BETH MEEHAN & JONATHAN PITTS-WILEY
GREAT QUEENS OF AFRICA: THE WELL OF WOMAN EXHIBIT
CURATED BY BERNADET V. PITTS – WILEY & THOMAS N. WALSH III
Reminder
Jane's Walk Providence
An Annual Festival of Free, Resident-led, Walking Conversations
SAVE THE DATE: MAY 5-7
Jane's Walk is back in Providence for 2023!
Explore Providence neighborhoods on foot during Jane’s Walk, a global weekend festival on May 5-7, inspired by the great urban activist Jane Jacobs. These interactive walks are led by local residents and community activists who share stories and ask questions that get people thinking, talking, and connecting with each other. Jane’s Walks are free, and anyone can participate! Wear comfortable shoes, meet your Walk Leader in the designated meeting spot, and get ready for a lively discussion.
Walks are planned throughout the weekend, starting from different locations across Providence at staggered times. For more information visit doorsopenri.org/janeswalk. All walks will be published online starting April 15th. In the meantime, save the date and invite your friends!
“Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s party!’”
Robin Williams, actor
