Milkweed & Butterflies, Not Bombs
In the lovely home of poet Barbara Huntington (location given to registrants closer to date of event) The folk songs of the 60’s and 70’s filled America’s radio waves with themes of peace for a nation weary of death, maiming, and dying in the Vietnam War. For instance, the haunting voice of Mary Travers of the folk group Peter, Paul, and Mary told us “…can’t go a home this-a-way… with not a shirt on my back and not a penny to my name.” The precedent for the music, if not the peace consciousness, might have been seeded by President Dwight David Eisenhower when, 3 months into his presidency in 1953 he gave his famous “Cross of Iron Speech”, AKA “Speech for Peace” equaling arms spending to stealing from the people. President Eisenhower, in spite of being a military man, added, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” Join Jim Moreno, taking a break from the Ink Spot, with a poem-making workshop at the lovely home of Barbara Huntington, amidst an amazing garden which includes flowering and indigenous plants, milkweed and butterflies. Barbara’s South Bay home will root workshop participants in themes of peace against war, nonviolence against violence, & equality and dignity against racism and ignorance. Inclement weather would move us inside Barbara’s spacious home. Writing prompts from the anthology Poets Against The War, edited by Sam Hamil of Copper Canyon Press provide inspiration for workshop participants for the first 90 minutes. Poets Against the War was a global movement of poets that erupted in February, 2003, to protest the invasion of Iraq by the Bush administration. Within a few weeks, the movement ballooned into an international phenomenon, with over 13,000 poets submitting their poetry to the web site to protest the war(poetsagainstthewar.org). Hamil penned, The children have seen so much death/that death means nothing to them now./They wait in line for bread./They wait in line for water./Their eyes are black moons reflecting emptiness./We’ve seen them a thousand times. The second 90 minutes will move between themes of nonviolence and opposition to racism. Poems from the Civil Rights Movement to contemporary Hip Hop and free verse poems will serve as prompts for beginning to seasoned writers composing original social justice poetry in an atmosphere of respect and creativity. After you register for the workshop San Diego Writers, Ink will send you the address to Barbara’s home.