Let’s be Animals
and deal with bullies
instinctively
Let’s be inspiration
with our imaginations
naturally
Dream of bliss like big cats
Our bodies’ blessed thin or fat
cuddling and slinking
even if you’re snoring
If we get disrupted,
a little growl gets us respect
Let’s be Animals
and deal with bullies
instinctively
Let’s be inspiration
with our imaginations
naturally
Go Reach up like giraffes!
You know about going high
someone’s low let us sigh
Let’s hope they realize
We’re in a place to herald
ways we can see the whole world
Let’s be Animals
and deal with bullies
instinctively
Let’s be inspiration
with our imaginations
naturally
Even fast Impalas
their nirvana together
Staying very close
running across those dirt roads.
Living true like fresh veggies
Aware of their own beings!
Let’s
be Animals
and deal with bullies
instinctively
Let’s be inspiration
with our imaginations
naturally
Let’s laugh like hyenas
Listen hard, they’re not crying
knowing each other.
Protect, watch one another
Every noise makes them unique
You know, let’s laugh together.
Let’s be Animals
and deal with bullies
instinctively
Let’s be inspiration
with our imaginations
naturally
We fly like the parrots
Letting us know they’re starlets
They make great messes
They teach us to say Stop! Enough
‘Cause they tell it like it is
Let’s speak up when it gets rough
Let’s be Animals
and deal with bullies
instinctively
Let’s be inspiration
with our imaginations
naturally
Bronx Historical Society is presenting "The Kindness Session," a poetry workshop on recognizing the difference between kindness and cruelty to channel that in our writing on November 18 at 6 PM till approximately 7:45. The Poetry Workshop takes place at the Poe Visitors Center, 2640 Grand Concourse, in the Bronx. Subways near the Visitors Center are the 4, B, and D train at the Kingsbridge stop. Buses to the Center are Bx9, Bx22, Bx28, Bx38, and BxM4 (Express bus). The Poe Visitors Center is up the Hill from the Fordham Metro North train stop.
Led by area poets Elisabeth von Uhl and Anne Leighton, the Kindness Session will include sharing works from classic and contemporary including Edgar Allen Poe, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ross Gaye, Maya Angelou, as well as selected poems from attendees.
Once the attendees discuss poems, they’ll be encouraged to think of incidents where they recognize kindness from life experiences, friends and acquaintances, and how it affected their lives. From there, writers will be encouraged to create a first draft of poetry. Writers will read their poems, and be encouraged to revise a first draft by the first week of December. We’ll have a Zoom get-together with feedback from each other. By Christmas we’ll have created the first part of an online anthology on blogspot, which poets will study, and make “final” corrections. The anthology will go live in 2025. Over the next few years, we’ll be adding more poems to the anthology from other workshops.
Elisabeth von Uhl earned an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Her work has been published in Lunch Ticket, The Cortland Review, SHIFT, cream city Review, The Watershed Review, and other journals and anthologies. She won a 2021 "Bronx Recognizes Its Own" Award, Her chapbook Ocean Sea, and was published by Finishing Line Press. She’s won scholarships and fellowships to Vermont College's Postgraduate Writing Conference, Prague Summer Writer's Seminar, and Greenwich Village Writing workshop. Visit www.elisabethvonuhl.com.
Anne Leighton appears on the Grammy-nominated album, Healthy Food for Thought: Good Enough to Eat, (Audio & Video Labs) reading her poem “Feed Your Parents Well.” She’s contributed to The Indie Collaborative, The Literary Parrot, Elephant Journal. Her poetry book The Leighton Explosion made enough of a profit to use her earnings to record an original song, “Got My Eye on You, Santa,” which found her a publishing deal with Sheer Music South Africa/Downtown Music, USA. Visit workinggalrockandroll.blogspot.com.
It was a
bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
-"1984"
by George Orwell, 1949
There’s
bad weird and good weird. Some bad weird folks have complained about me for a
range of issues, including an obsession I have of making things happen. I’m a
music publicist and love promoting some of the less popular recording artists. Traditional
poets have put me down for feeling comfortable with rock-oriented and hip hop
poets as well as off-the-wall writers from Dr. Seuss to Walt Whitman. I’ve
believed in mending fences with people that are bullies. I like to dance at
record release parties, even though some of my friends in the music community
that’s unprofessional.Through the years
I’ve heard “abnormal” and synonyms used to describe me.
Recently I
discovered large scale societal backing to boldly declare that “I’m normal,
especially for me.” This includes having insight to set goals and solve
challenges to make my part of the world a better place.
Some of my
skills fit needs for the Kamala Harris – Tim Walz campaign.The online get-togethers have been blowing my
mind because some of the speakers share personal stories about ways they
learned to make the world a nicer place.
I had a
hard time in the Bronx trying to find leaders that care about me. Even females
in my borough’s Democratic Party support bullying, and, actually, put down people
asking for help. I remember a female
crossing guard that refused to help me, at age 60, cross the street.When I was a kid, there was a phrase, “Help
the old lady cross the street!” I had to wait for a civilian to come by to ask
her to hold my hand to get to the other side of a four-lane street.
Weird.
Huh?
Novelist
Min Jin Lee (“Free Food for Millionaires,” “Pachinko”), who went
to Bronx High School of Science, choked up as she told us at an online Women
for Harris National Organizing meeting, "I was raised to believe that love
conquers fear, that forgiveness is possible and that every person is my sister
and brother, and we are sent to heal a broken world."
The Kamala
Harris online community includes people who were confounded—for years--by mean
behavior.The speakers helped us strengthen
our self-realizations that it’s always been “them (the people doing weird
things)” not us. They instructed us to be of service not to be power hungry for
the win: “Welcome our voters.” and “How do we talk to them? Listen. What do
they care about?”
The discussion
about people’s “weird behavior” resonated with me.There are people that I love that hurt those
that are helping them; unfriendly actions make them –ultimately- hinder their
own development.
Harris and
Walz attribute “weird” to people that want to look down on others, and run
their lives or condemn them for wanting help for themselves or their families.
It’s astonishing the amount of people that don’t want healing.
I want to
feel better; understanding that it’s “weird” behavior to put me down for
speaking up for myself is melting half my trauma. Maybe more.Now my tears are calming, grateful, and full
of wonder.
Kamala
stated “We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide
us. They are an essential source of our strengths.” That’s motivation for a
better America, and should be the normal way of life for all of us.
20th
Century Indian Philosopher JidduKrishnamurti said, “It is no measure of
health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
After
Trump was elected in 2016, I worked hard to mend fences with people that had
bullied me. I began speaking up louder to community politicians, and have
continued this work.If a person
behaving “weird” to others was in a minority in a group I’m associated with, I
turned to support groups for advice and comfort. Some responded with an
encouraging phone call or email. Some didn’t. Each encounter with a potential
supporter or detractor offered revelations that I use in new encounters in the
weird and normal realms of my journeys.
When I was in the fourth grade, our principal
spoke about bullying on our school’s morning announcements program. I hope
teachers can ask their students questions like, “Do you find if you use your
energy in a mean way that it ultimately hurts you?” Like frowning, it takes more energy to
deliberately create problems for others. People have to make efforts to look
for fault with others doing good things, which ends up destroying relationships.
Plus, it wastes time when we could be improving our lives and doing positive
things like cleaning cat litter….
In the
writing work I do, I think using my talents to be the change I want to see is
done by recognizing negativity when I express it and when it’s pushed at me,
and seeing what I can do to turn it into a positive action. Now I let people
know, “If you don't want me to call you ‘weird,’ stop being weird.”
Let’s create
normal, and focus on the importance for kind behavior, while showing gratitude
for it.
I feel
healed, finally understanding that I only thought I wasn’t as good a person as my
abusers.Now I know I love this healing
message that most of the time I’ve been normal.
My interview with Joe Deninzon of Joe Deninzon & Stratospheerius and Kansas Fame premieres on the Anne Leighton Inclusion Interview Show, seen on YouTube on Saturday, August 31, at 7 PM ET/4 PM PT / and Sunday morning at 1 AM Amsterdam Time.
Poets for
Harris Walz are inviting the world to attend an online reading of poems inspired
by Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz on Sunday, Sept. 1, 7-9 pm ET/ 4-6
pm PT/ midnight–2am in the UK.
Poets for
Harris Walz is the brainchild of Bronx friends Dona Elena Hatcher, Tina
Jackson, Rhonda Lyles, and Anne Leighton. All four have had a range of
relationships from friends that were unkind to others with what’s become known
in healing circles as “weird behavior” (mean people).
We hope to
know by Thursday, August 28, who will be our special guest readers. Our
organizers are supportive, observant and passionate poets, who will also be
reading.
Please
advise us if you’d like to be part of the open mic.
Tina
Jackson will
be releasing her long-awaited poetry book, "Scars From An Addict"
soon. Her most recent book, “Love Don’t Hit” is a novel about a woman who
is physically, mentally, and verbally abused by her man.
www.instagram.com/tinajackson7858/
Email: jacksontina578@gmail.com
Anne
Leighton’s poetry
book “The Leighton Explosion” is published by Soul Asylum Books, Canada.
She’s working on The Anne Leighton Inclusion Interview Show. workinggalrockandroll.blogspot.com. Email: LeightonMedia@aol.com and Anne@AnneLeighton.com.
Rhonda
Lyles is
an Author, Entrepreneur, Mother, Grandmother, and Inspirational/Motivational
Speaker. Since publishing her first book, “My Thoughts” in April of 2015,
she written 13 more books—most recently “Loved Despite My Scars.”
Email: lylesrhonda@yahoo.com
The Reading Takes Place Online Sunday, September 1
Poets for
Harris Walz are inviting poets inspired by the candidates of Kamala Harris and
running mate Tim Walz to join our online reading event. Poets for Harris Walz
takes place on Sunday, Sept. 1, 7-9 pm ET/ 4-6 pm PT/ midnight–2am
in the UK.
Poets for
Harris Walz is the brainchild of Bronx friends Dona Elena Hatcher, Tina Jackson,
Rhonda Lyles, and Anne Leighton. All four have had a range of relationships
from friends that were unkind to others with what’s become known in healing
circles as “weird behavior” (mean people). We know there are others that have
come out with poetry that can help move us all forward.
Twelve poets
will be selected to read their poetry within a seven-minute performance time. They will be chosen from submissions based on
the relevance to our topic by the four curators of this event.
All
submission and contact information listed below:
*Poems should be attached as a word docx and in the body of one
email including all contact info.
*Poems should be single spaced and 12-point font, and titled.
*Include a one or two sentence bio and recent career
highlights.
*Deadline for submission is August 23 midnight ET/9 pm PT/ 5
AM 24 of August UK Time.
Poets own
their writing and biographies, and acknowledge we will be posting their
performances on YouTube, Facebook, and Linkedin. The video might be shared by
others around the world.
If this
event goes well, we’ll do more online events.
Tina
Jacksonwill be releasing her long-awaited poetry
book, "Scars From An Addict" soon.Her most recent book, “Love Don’t Hit” is a
novel about a woman who is physically, mentally, and verbally abused by her
man.www.instagram.com/tinajackson7858/Email: jacksontina578@gmail.com
Rhonda
Lyles is an Author, Entrepreneur, Mother,
Grandmother, and Inspirational/Motivational Speaker. Since publishing her first book, “My Thoughts”
in April of 2015, she written 13 more books—most recently“Loved Despite My Scars.” Email: lylesrhonda@yahoo.com
