Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

Laura Aden Packer, Program Director, Arts

I just received a postcard announcing the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey‘s summer schedule, which features their production of The Tempest (see a recent article about the production in the Daily Record).

For me, summertime is inextricably linked to Shakespeare.

As a teenager, big trucks pulled up to my neighborhood playground one hot summer day and set up a stage in the middle of the basketball court. My friends and I learned that the New York Shakespeare Festival was touring a musical production of Two Gentlemen of Verona around to city parks and that for the next two nights, there would be a show right there, in our playground.

Well, what a show it turned out to be! Raul Julia and Clifton Davis were Proteus and Valentine, and that show spoke to me, and many of my friends, in a way we had never experienced before.

After that, we spent our summers at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park, watching free Shakespeare in the park; throughout the rest of my school years and well into my professional life, I devoured Shakespeare plays and worked for theatres devoted to Shakespeare, including the exquisite, outdoor American Players Theatre, in Spring Green, Wisconsin, which is renowned as one of the country’s finest Shakespeare companies.

American Players Theatre (Spring Green, Wisconsin)

Although I no longer work for a Shakespeare-related organization, summer still means Shakespeare to me, and folks in New Jersey need look no further than the campuses of Drew University and the College of St. Elizabeth in Madison where the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, under Bonnie Monte’s inspired artistic leadership, presents brilliant productions of Shakespeare (and other classics), night after night, in the Kirby Theatre at Drew and under the stars (my favorite) at St. Elizabeth’s.

Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) at St. Elizabeth’s

You won’t want to miss their production this summer of The Tempest, which opens on June 24th and will be presented in the beautiful outdoor Greek amphitheatre on the St. E’s campus. Pack a picnic and treat your family to the show. You can buy tickets here or call (973) 408-5600.

We want to know: what are your favorite Shakespeare experiences? Do you have favorite memories of Shakespeare in the summer too?

Wendy Liscow, Program Officer

I did it again.  I just spent an hour surfing the web.  My intention was to write a blog about some of my favorite technology and social media bloggers, and before I knew it, I was clicking from link, to link, to link, to link, to link, to link, to link. So beware: if you have any interest in learning about social media for non-profits you might find yourself on your own clicking spree.

Let’s start off with Beth Kanter who is one of the most popular bloggers on social media for non-profits. Her blog provides no nonsense information on everything from Facebook to Twitter to Flickr. She is curating the Nonprofit Technology Network’s (NTEN’s)  ”We Are Media: Nonprofit Social Media Starter Kit,” an online community of people from nonprofits who are interested in learning and teaching about how social media strategies and tools can enable nonprofit organizations to create, compile, and distribute their stories and change the world.

Check out Beth’s blog about Facebook’s New Fan Page, something that every nonprofit should investigate and decide if they want to implement.

Wild Apricot is a for-profit software company for small associations and non-profits. I haven’t checked out their software, but I have become a fan of their primary blogger Rebecca Leaman who writes on a wide range of technology topics. Check out these great posts:

Facebook Applications for Your Non-Profit
New Guide Helps Non-Profits Choose Donor Management System
What Makes a Successful Online Community
Social Media for Non-Profits:  26 Great Slideshare Presentations You Can Use

So, start clicking your way to understanding social media. But be forewarned, you are guaranteed to get “click happy.”

Photo: Vangelis Thanaidis

Martin Farawell, Program Director, Poetry

Brenda Hillman’s poems invite the reader to pay as close attention to exact detail and concise word choice as she does. Listen to her read “Partita for Sparrows” and “Air in the Epic.” It is almost as if the language of the poems is compressed by the intensity with which she looks at the world.

Although sometimes Hillman herself almost seems surprised by the discoveries and associations she makes, she is perfectly willing to follow them wherever they lead. Go back and listen again to “Partita for Sparrows.” How could the writer or reader of the poem anticipate that final image?

Hillman has said that going to a poem is “not like going on Google and getting the answer…You go to a poem to get the mystery.” This is not to say she doesn’t value the kind of answers available through web-surfing or research. Neither of these poems could exist without their author’s knowledge of history and literary tradition. But perhaps for Hillman poetry is one way to approach those places where we don’t have any answers.

Toward the end of “Air in the Epic,” the speaker of the poem is aware of the terrible irony that her students “dislike even thinking about Agamemnon.” She sees the connection between the ancient war epic and their world, where their peers are dying in a war fought in the cradle of civilization. Yet, “even when they load/ their backpacks early & check the/ tiny screens embedded in their phones,” she can’t help but “love the human species.”

That unexpected epiphany gets at the heart of many of Hillman’s poems. It would be easy for the teacher in that classroom to assume the superior position of The One With All the Answers. But Hillman understands that knowledge is not enough. For her, all our intelligence, curiosity, imagination and compassion must be brought to bear on the struggle to be human. Outside of poetry, we might pretend we have the answers. Hillman’s poems invite us to accept living in the mystery.

The text of “Air in the Epic” can be found in her collection Pieces of Air in the Epic. “Partita for Sparrows” appears in Lyric Postmodernisms: An Anthology of Contemporary Innovative Poetries. Visit the 2008 Dodge Poetry Festival Poet Pages for a biography of Brenda Hillman.

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

Yesterday morning there was an article in The Star-Ledger by Peggy McGlone about my decision to leave the Presidency of the Dodge Foundation next year. The article ended rather abruptly, and when I checked it out online I found out why. Peggy had written a final paragraph which was not in the printed version.

In it, she quoted me as saying, “Leaving a leadership position well is an underappreciated art.” I think it’s an idea worth pondering.

During the past 24 hours, many people have reached out to me via phone and e-mail to extend their best wishes, and that notion of “how to leave” has been an interesting sub-theme in our conversations. When is too early? When is too late? How much notice is the right notice? Who’s in on the decision? Then what happens?

It seems to me there are many of us so-called “Boomers” in particular who are deeply committed to organizations, including some we have founded, who are looking ahead and hoping that when the time to leave comes, which it inevitably will, we can do it in ways that enhance our organizations rather than threaten them.

All of us at Dodge would love to know how some of you are thinking about this issue. What are the variables? What are examples of doing it well? What are the mistakes to avoid? Who has written about this well?

One answer to the last question is Susan Stevens, in her remarkable book Non-Profit Lifecycles. She has a particular interest in founders and how they leave, but her observations about the opportunities and threats inherent in any change in executive leadership are very helpful.

Your own observations?

Molly de Aguiar, Program Associate

We’ve talked a lot about our three-story biowall on this blog and on our website – that it is a central aesthetic feature of our new office space, and how it embodies the connection between human health and the natural world.

It’s quite a privilege to walk past it each day and to hear the sound of the water trickling down the wall. We marvel at its beauty and its clever design, as it efficiently and naturally filters the air we breathe.

In fact, some visitors come to our office just to see the wall and learn how it works.

Lately, I’ve seen some other interesting examples of bringing nature indoors.

If you are interested in your own vertical garden, for example, ELT Living Walls sells kits that you can install in your home. How about one for your home office or kitchen, like these?

Check out ELT’s terrific photo gallery here.

Greenworks, based in Stockholm, recently exhibited their concept for a self-watering, mobile plantwall at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair. How would you like one of these for your home?

Also a prototype, this bathmat designed by Nguyen La Chanh of Switzerland is made of a variety of mosses planted in a type of foam called plastazote. The mosses get watered as you towel off from your shower or bath.

(more…)