Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

By the Dodge Program Staff

(Part three of a three-part series)

For the past two Mondays (here and here) we’ve brought you the voices of our grantees as we explore how the themes of creativity and sustainability relate to each other. We provided you with the following context: 1) We sent essay questions to a sampling of 40 arts, education, environmental and place-based nonprofit organizations, asking them to help us define creativity and sustainability and offer their thoughts about systems-thinking, connections, values, design and “Big Hairy Audacious Goals” (BHAGs); 2) We identified several orientations that described the relationship between creativity and sustainability; and 3) We are considering these stimulating, seasoned and (at times) provocative answers as we frame a set of guidelines and philanthropic strategies that will have as powerful and positive an impact as possible.

Today we explore with you the following orientation:
Creativity as the Means of Imagining a Sustainable Future.

An innovative education reformer asserts, “We have to be able to imagine the future we want in order to set goals, to write the narrative of where we want to be. It requires creativity to keep our eyes on the prize because we have to be able to imagine the prize and write the story of getting there.” We also heard from an experiential education specialist who said, “We regularly hear conversations about sustainability that focus on reacting to problems that currently exist. If we could encourage community and political discussions that are focused on a vision of a world that is as sustainable as possible, it will be more likely that more of us will take action in support of that action than if we identify each issue that is not sustainable and then respond to it. We may arrive at some very creative methods and processes for bringing the vision to fruition, and we may rely on current technologies and practices for some of the action steps.” (more…)

Martin Farawell, Program Director, Poetry

The two poems C. D. Wright read in the Friday Afternoon Sampler at the 2008 Dodge Poetry Festival, “Lake Echo, Dear” and “Like Something Christenberry Pictured,” serve as an excellent introduction to her poetry.

Perhaps the first question in “Lake Echo, Dear” could also be read as an expression of Wright’s major concern for poetry as both a reader and writer: How often do we actively read, and how often is our engagement not much deeper than looking at the page?

Wright’s poems expand this question to include: How often is what passes for perception and understanding genuine, and how often are we merely going through the motions?

Wright never takes anything for granted. But her questioning is not an intellectual exercise. Her refusal to abide the glib, the ironic, the facile or the merely sentimental stems from her dedication to poetry’s potential. She demands more of herself than she does of any reader.

It is telling that Wright alludes to the artist William Christenberry. Among his most famous pieces are a series of sculptures based on his own photographs of homes in one of the more poverty stricken areas of the rural South. This is a region Wright knows well from her own childhood. Christenberry’s sculptures have what can only be described as a photographic realism. Their effect on the viewer is often deeply moving.

Both “Lake Echo, Dear” and “Like Something Christenberry Pictured” have a similar almost photographic realism. As the details build, we know we are in the presence of something made by a deliberate and careful artist. The cumulative effect, when we reach the closing lines of both poems, is to feel Wright has led us someplace we couldn’t have arrived at by any other means. “And this feels painfully beautiful/ whether or not/ it will change the world one drop.”

“Lake Echo, Dear” can be found in Steal Away: Selected and New Poems. “Like Something Christenberry Pictured” appears in Wright’s most recent collection, Rising, Falling, Hovering. Visit the 2008 Dodge Poetry Festival Poet Pages for a biography of C. D. Wright.

Be sure to return for upcoming Poetry Fridays, when we will feature many poets from past Dodge Poetry Festivals in the weeks ahead, including Franz Wright, Simon Armitage, Patricia Smith and others.

Molly de Aguiar, Program Associate

Last week, we gave you a list of the books and articles we’ve been reading this summer. Today, we’ve got a list of great spots to visit and enjoy in New Jersey.

Want to add to the list? Leave us a comment!

(D&R Canal; Cape May)

Sandy Hook Gateway National Recreation Area
“Great for biking and birding!”

Asbury Park
“Amazing arts & music scene, restaurants & beaches”

Shakespeare Theater of NJ
“I was thrilled by the beauty of ‘The Tempest’ at the outdoor stage of the Shakespeare Theatre and howled with laughter at their current production of ‘Noises Off.’ Can’t wait for Hamlet, opening September 12th…”

WheatonArts
“Exquisite glass works at their bi-annual Glass Weekend”

Spring Lake, NJ
“The longest non-commercial boardwalk in NJ”

Cape May
“It has something for everyone – sea and beach, horse-drawn carriage tours and bird-watch walks, miniature golf and professional theatre, old-world mansions and new age cuisine, t-shirt shops and art galleries, a light-house and the best sunset in the Northeast.” (more…)

By the Dodge program staff

(Part two of a three-part series)

Last Monday we started to bring you the voices of our grantees as we explore how the themes of creativity and sustainability relate to each other. We provided you with the following context: 1) We sent essay questions to a sampling of 40 arts, education, environmental and place-based nonprofit organizations, asking them to help us define creativity and sustainability and offer their thoughts about systems-thinking, connections, values, design and “Big Hairy Audacious Goals” (BHAGs); 2) We identified several orientations that described the relationship between creativity and sustainability; and 3) We are considering these stimulating, seasoned and (at times) provocative answers as we frame a set of guidelines and philanthropic strategies that will have as powerful and positive an impact as possible.

Today we explore with you the following orientation:
Creativity = Sustainability

A key New Jersey education figure said, “Creativity is an essential ingredient in developing sustainable communities, in part because people will need new models to learn from and to inspire them…I would suggest that creativity and sustainability… are powerfully and inexorably connected in that each is the servant… and the master… of the other.” (more…)

Martin Farawell, Program Director, Poetry

In his poems “Ghosts,” “Country Fair” and “Sunday Papers,” Charles Simic brings us into a world were absurdity is accepted as a mundane fact of life.

Simic is sometimes called a surrealist. Yet the visitation in “Ghosts” is described by someone who remains utterly rational. The details are examined carefully, almost clinically. It wouldn’t take much of an adjustment for Simic to tell us that the poem is meant as a fantasy, or as a product of the unconscious. But he doesn’t. Instead, he confesses, “I don’t believe any of it, and still I’m scared stiff.”

Some commentators also credit Simic with an ironic sense of humor. The woman in “Country Fair” and the audience listening to the reading both laugh at the six-legged dog. If we laugh, too, is it because Simic is trying to be funny?

Simic’s poem about the relaxing weekend ritual of reading the “Sunday Papers” begins, “The butchery of the innocent never stops.” It ends with the couple preparing to share their Sunday roast. This familiar domestic image could suggest that together they have made a sanctuary against the chaotic violence of the time. Perhaps they have. But then is Simic’s inclusion of the detail that they are about to dine on a slaughtered lamb motivated by the desire to be ironic, humorous or surreal? Or by “the vague desire for truth and the mighty fear of it.”

“Ghosts,” “Country Fair” and “Sunday Papers” can be found in Sixty Poems. Charles Simic’s most recent collection is That Little Something. Visit the 2008 Dodge Poetry Festival Poet Pages for a biography of Charles Simic.

Be sure to return for upcoming Poetry Fridays, when we will feature many poets from past Dodge Poetry Festivals in the weeks ahead, including C. D. Wright, Franz Wright and others.