Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

Martin Farawell, Program Director, Poetry

A member of the Muskoke/Creek Nation, Joy Harjo has said “Poetry, music and dance came into the world together. Will go out that way, together, too.” So it is no surprise that, during the Friday Afternoon Poetry Sampler at the 2008 Dodge Poetry Festival, she introduced her second poem by saying, “It’s a little poem. It’s a song. Same thing.” To get a feel for what she means, listen to her recite/chant/sing her poems “No” and “No Huli.”

In all cultures, song, dance, chant and poetry were once part of group activities, celebrations, ceremonies and rituals that involved the entire community. Although we don’t know exactly when they emerged, we know poetry and song existed long before written language and musical notation. Most anthropologists agree that recognizable human speech is at least 50,000 years old. Paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey has argued that the skulls of much older hominids offer evidence that a speech area of the brain may have developed hundreds of thousands, even a million years ago.

But song predates human beings. Choirs of crickets and frogs sang long before the first hominid appeared. Perhaps we, too, sang before we had speech. The cooing and babbling of babies almost always falls into rhythm, repetition, even melody long before they have spoken words.

The Native American Indian tradition of referring to animals as people may come from an understanding that we share many of our deepest impulses, including the impulse to sing, with our nonhuman relatives. Certainly Harjo’s suggestion that “we’re in a big old canoe together” comes out of a worldview that sees kinship before it sees difference.

But Harjo’s poems will not allow us to idealize this worldview. The poems dip down into dark, brutal images as quickly as they rise back up into song. Listen to her again. How can singing be a response to the violence the singer has witnessed?

“No Huli” can be found on Joy Harjo’s most recent CD, Winding Through the Milky Way. For a wide selection of poems spanning her publishing career, see How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems. Visit the 2008 Dodge Poetry Festival Poet Pages for a biography of Joy Harjo.

Be sure to return for upcoming Poetry Fridays, when we will feature many poets from past Dodge Poetry Festivals in the weeks ahead, including Edward Hirsch, Jane Hirshfield, Ted Kooser, Maxine Kumin, Naomi Shihab Nye and others.

Molly de Aguiar, Program Associate

Last week, the tenants of 14 Maple Avenue proudly celebrated the grand opening of the building alongside its owner, the Morristown Parking Authority, with all of our friends, grantees, supporters, and the public.

For those of you who weren’t able to join us, we’d like to extend an invitation to come visit us and take a tour of the building. In the meantime, have a look at some pictures from the day.

As you can see, we couldn’t have asked for more beautiful weather, as we gathered for the start of the day-long festivities.

Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello and the tenants of 14 Maple Avenue participated in a “vine-cutting” ceremony.

Organizations at 14 Maple Avenue include:

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Martin Farawell, Program Director, Poetry

In “Something Escapes the Bonfire,” a poem from his collection, The Republic of Poetry, Martín Espada recounts the story of Victor Jara, the Chilean songwriter and poet murdered by Augusto Pinochet’s military junta. Fellow prisoners have testified that after the guards had beaten Jara and broken his hands, they taunted him to sing and play guitar. Jara responded by singing a forbidden political anthem. This act of defiance gave heart and courage to the thousands then imprisoned in the Estadio Chilé.

Knowing of his empathy for Jara might offer some insight while listening to Espada read one of his earlier poems, “Imagine the Angels of Bread.”

Like Jara’s song, Espada’s “Imagine the Angels of Bread” seems written, at least in part, to give encouragement to those who have suffered or are suffering from oppression. Remembering that the root meaning of the word encourage is to give courage, or to give heart, perhaps suggests one aspect of Espada’s sense of the poet’s task.

The poem also seems an act of defiance against the euphemisms so often used in political discourse. Espada counteracts the numbing effects of such vague language. In “Imagine the Angels of Bread,” vivid images give a physical and emotional immediacy to what might otherwise remain abstractions. Espada does not allow the listener or reader to plead ignorance. Perhaps he also believes poetry can put a human face on political issues.

But the title of the poem could be read as a declarative: Imagine what is possible now to bring about change in the future. The poem catalogs several acts of the imagination that brought about change in the past, and this suggests that Espada believes strongly that any political act must begin as an act of the imagination. From this perspective, an act of the imagination is a political act. Listening to the poem again, would you agree?

The text of “Imagine the Angels of Bread” can be found in his collection Imagine the Angels of Bread. Visit the 2008 Dodge Poetry Festival Poet Pages for a biography of Martín Espada.

Be sure to return for upcoming Poetry Fridays, when we will feature many poets from past Dodge Poetry Festivals in the weeks ahead, including Edward Hirsch, Jane Hirshfield, Ted Kooser, Maxine Kumin, Naomi Shihab Nye and others.

David Grant, President and CEO

I recently spent an afternoon with the Board and staff of another foundation. They were planning to “spend down” the foundation’s several hundred million dollars and were planning backwards from twenty years out, thinking about their legacy.

What would make a foundation great as it closed its doors, and in whose eyes?

We are tempted to focus on the “what” – the outcomes and impacts of a foundation’s philanthropy. Maybe success would be a library, or laboratory, or theatre with the foundation’s name on it for years to come. Maybe success would be a program that becomes so widely known and accepted in society that no one remembers where it came from – a Head Start or a 9-1-1. Or maybe success would be the eradication of a disease, where ironically it is the absence of something that becomes an important legacy.

The “what” is critically important. But just as critically important is the “how.” (more…)

Molly de Aguiar, Program Associate

If you’re interested in sustainability issues and community organizing in New Jersey,  Stoking the Sustainability Fire is an event you won’t want to miss.

On Friday, June 5th and Saturday, June 6th, a wide range of New Jersey non-profits and sustainability leaders are gathering at Rider University to learn about a sustainability issues that matter to New Jersey and to take steps toward developing a state-wide sustainability network.

The conference offers seven different learning tracks, with flexible schedule options:

Health, Social Justice and Social Equity
Personal Responsibility
Food and Farming
Energy
Healthy Living and Active Lifestyles
Livable Communities and Local Economies, and
Leadership for Sustainable Change

You can also learn about the Sustainable Jersey municipal certification program (which Dodge supports and which we have written about before on the blog here and here), develop your own network of  contacts in New Jersey, and enjoy good local food and wine.

Learn more about the event on their website and you can register here. Scholarships are available and payment is due by May 28th.

And whether you can attend the event or not, get plugged in to the sustainability network in New Jersey with the New Jersey Sustainability Coalition blog.