This is why I love Minneapolis

So, one of the coolest things about winning this grant is that I get to interact with, and learn from the six other VERVE grant winners for 2012. We are all part of this cohort that meets every couple of months for master classes at Intermedia Arts that are facilitated by other spoken word artists from the Twin cities. It has so far been a lot of fun, and really good for me to be able to workshop with other artists like myself (although, it is also kind of funny to me- a bunch of poets getting together to practice being observant and intentional in our choice of words. I mean, good stuff.) I also get to learn about their projects as they go along, and share with them the progress of mine.

Anyway, I wanted to talk briefly about one project because I get to be a part of it! My friend Cole Sarar is doing this thing called Ring-Ring poetry that involves different locations in Minneapolis and St. Paul where you can call this number and listen to poetry on your phone. The idea is that the poetry is linked to a real physical place (and while listening to a poem, you get the sense that the poet who wrote it might have just been there earlier that day, or is there now, somewhere near by). But I wont speak for the project, you should yourself check it out here: ringringpoetry.com

So, I wrote a poem called "My Block" that is being featured this week at the corner of 24th st. and Dupont ave in Uptown. It's about first moving to Minneapolis and learning to call this place home (I remember the ad that I answered on craigslist was titled "In the heart of Uptown" and it really is.) I wrote it when that street corner was my stomping grounds, but actually, I have moved a couple of times since then. Not too far away though, Uptown is still my home. You might even catch me walking by still (ask my friends-I walk a lot).

So call (612) 223-POEM to hear this piece. You can do it from anywhere, but I encourage you to take the adventure over there and stand on the corner and be part of the experience. One of my favorite things about Minneapolis is that there is so much art going on here that is spills into the streets! Just last week I went on a little art tour down Chicago ave, where our guides shared stories with us about the homes and businesses, and the trees in the fronts yards, and the parks. Everything in Minneapolis is an art installation, everything is interactive, some of the poems of Ring-Ring are even "choose your own adventure". We have such a vibrant city!

******

Also,
Perhaps you found your way to my blog because of this poem, or the poster you saw on the street? If that's the case, Welcome! I encourage you to check out my thing here, but also to check out the other poems of Ring-Ring. (If you are already at the corner of 24th and Dupont, then you are not far from Lake of the Isles, my favorite lake in Minnesota, and the location of another poem that I highly recommend). Happy listening!

Fundraiser for May Day Books!

So this weekend approaches fast, and here I am not even mentioning this upcoming show!

I (know I always say this, but I) am really excited about this performance! I am going to be doing a little poetry at the May Day Books Sale and Social this Saturday afternoon, to raise money for this awesome  non-profit, all volunteer bookstore. I think of May Day as a meeting space, a place to host a educational forum, or a movie showing-lots of fun stuff like that. Many years of activism have brought me to May Day time and time again for events by our group and others. And they have all kinds of radical, progressive stuff on the shelves (by people whose work I know I should be reading more of). And everything is always 15% off the cover price. What's not to love? (For the sale, everything will be 20% which is maybe not as impressive when you know it is only an additional 5%, but hey-the point is it's a fundraiser).

Another reason I am excited for this show is because I intend to break out a little bit in terms of my material. Because this is a fundraiser for a bookstore and not a political rally, or a topic-driven event I am going to do some poems that aren't entirely political (you know, my usual). Don't worry, some will be (let's not go crazy here). But it will be nice to do some poetry for poetry's sake. I have some new pieces I am going to debut and it should be a lot of fun. And the audience will be mostly comprised of friends (and anyone reading this blog post is certainly invited) so I'm not too nervous, and we're on track for having it recorded. Basically, I just have to figure out what I'm going to wear (well, that and get through the rest of this week).

So yeah, 

Saturday 3-6pm (I will probably be speaking at 4-ish)
301 Cedar ave S
(right below Midwest Mountaineering)
See you there!

New Videos!

So thanks to my friend Tom from WAMM, I finally have a youtube channel set up for Missteatree!
We filmed some poems "in studio" with a really nice mic and camera set up, and hopefully we will be doing more soon. I am really happy to have this new version of The Huff and Puff of my Frustration, so it's the first one I am making public. But soon (soon my friends) I will have the beginnings of a body of work that looks great and sounds great, and can be easily viewed and shared by others. (Bah-hah-hah!)

So here is the first of many. Remember, the quality is 1080 times better in hi-def. Enjoy!

Vision board 2013

So my girlfriends and I had a wholesome good time last Friday night, cutting and pasting together vision boards for a fun little girls night art project. A vision board, or dream board, is where you clip images and words out of old magazines and put them together in whatever order pleases you on poster board. The idea is to visualize what you want in your life, things or places you want to be, things you want to be doing, whatever, and the point is to get creative.

Just look at all this fun we're having.

If you’ve never done this, I would recommend it to anyone at any time in your life. I will say it goes best in groups (try to get people to bring different kinds of magazines for variety). We sat around and talked about what we wanted our summers to look like (as enjoyable a conversation as you can imagine on a cold, snowy/rainy April day).  My board is heavily influenced by thoughts of summertime escape.

I really love this thing. I love how it turned out. I have a vision board that I made two years ago that I still really like. But now, looking at the two next to each other, I realize how much I have changed. My friends and I decided we must do this at least once a year from now on. What better way to visualize the near future than to put your positive intentions down on paper? To quote the gracious Ms. Gloria Steinem “Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” Now I get up everyday and look at it, and can imagine the pathways to getting there. Summer here I come.

So, I wrote a poem out of all of the text that I found to put on this board. I left the phrases intact (except the phrase “Create a life you LOVE” which I literally cut up so it would fit with the images while contextually it stays the same) and this is what I came up with. This is my intentions for the summer of 2013 in a few words:

Write

in the garden

Caterpillar unleashed

Create a life you LOVE

Meet the poet

Sunny days and friendly people

Imagination in more important than knowledge

Reading is sexy

Peace,

Misty

An amazing out of nowhere opportunity!

I have the most exciting news! I received a phone call last week from a woman named Mary, who said she was at the WAMM annual meeting on the 23rd, and that she loved my poetry, and she wanted to offer me a “gig”. I said okay, and she explained that they were having an event at Augsburg College on April 4th with featured speaker Gloria Steinem!!! 

They want me to do my poem “I’m having Issues” at it as an opener right before Mrs. Steinem speaks! I don’t even know how to say how thrilled, how honored, how excited I am to be performing at this event! Gloria Steinem is a living legend, not to mention my own personal idol (if you have somehow never heard of the feminist movement of the 1970s- now is a good time to start www.gloriasteinem.com). The idea of meeting her, much less getting to perform my poetry at something like this, I just… the whole thing makes me light headed!

The woman on the phone went on to say that they were expecting 400 to 500 people to attend the event, and that they want to pay me $50 to perform at it. I wanted to tell her to just stop right there, or else I was going to realize I was dreaming and I might wake up, and I didn’t want that to happen.

I am, of course, freaking out. I mean, she’s Gloria Steinem! What if she likes my poem? (It’s a good thing I have it memorized) I think it’s a really good thing that the event is imminent
because I wouldn’t want to have too much time to think about it. Instead it’s like- Surprise! Activist Christmas! The universe just opened up and offered me this, and suddenly it is the most important performance of my life (so far). I mean think about it- it sets the bar. Because besides the featured guest, an auditorium full of college educated women and men who came to hear her speak will also be there (which is pretty much the target audience for this piece, and this project). Who could ask for more? I’m not asking for anything. I just can’t wait until Thursday.

So, yeah. It’s ganna be awesome. I should mention that the event is free and open to the public (and did I mention that Gloria Steinem will be speaking at it?) You should try to make it. It’s ganna be Thursday April 4th at 11am, at the Foss center on the corner of 22nd and Riverside (in the chapel) at Augsburg College, Mpls.


I will be there with bells on.

Happy International Women's Day!

(Oh my gosh, I'm a terrible blogger. It's been over a month since my last post. Oops!)
 I woke up today feeling like it was Christmas or something! It is a holiday, although, not as well known or observed as Christmas. Today is International Women's Day. It is interesting to note that even though is was started in here, Women's day is celebrated all over the world, and is given a lot more attention in other countries. I want to share every awesome thing I've seen posted on facebook today. Instead, I will just share the poem I wrote last year for women's day (and the whole month of March is Women's history month, by the way.) I first debuted this down at Occupy Mpls, back when we were still trying to hold the People's plaza (ah, the good old days). This video is from a poetry slam I did last month.

Honestly, it is the first poem that I have written on this "issue" because I, too, have struggled with my own identity as a feminist. I grew up thinking that being female meant being weaker-than (wonder where I got that idea). Sadly, I decided early on that I didn't want to be a girl, or do anything considered feminine (like cooking, gardening, sewing- woman's work). I wanted to be a person first, and a woman technically. And I put a lot of energy into this, because I didn't want to be so easily dismissed in this world as 'the other sex'. It is only in the last few years that I discovered how much of myself I was suppressing. And when I started to allow myself these little 'feminine' pleasures in life (the JOY of cooking, how much FUN it is to garden, wearing pink etc.) that I started to realize how I was missing out on, being a girl. (I believe the term for this is 'internalized oppression'). And I started to think that maybe it wasn't even my idea to deny myself in this way, that society (and the backwards views of my parents) taught me it is bad or wrong to be a girl. That if I wanted to be a strong person, it meant not being 'womanly'.

Well-that's crap. Women through out history have been some of the most courageous contributors to the greater good, overcoming oppression, and blazing the trail for the rest of us in terms of equality, peace, and justice. I know so many strong women in my own life now. My whole activist family, and especially the women of the Anti War Committee, have taught me how much women can do, and how important it is that we do! I am so lucky to be here now. Empowerment of women has to start with us, with our own misconceptions of strength, power, even beauty. So, I wrote this poem as a sort of 'coming out' as a feminist. If you haven't made that leap of identifying as a feminist (men and women alike), then consider this your invitation. Think of all the women in your own life, and how much they mean to you. If you think they deserve to live in a free and accepting world, then you might be a feminst :)

 (oh yeah, and the video) Enjoy!

In Dreams

I wish I could make myself into a mermaid.

Elusive, fictitious, long flowing hair- the works.

I would swim and watch the ships in battle,

watch to see which men are still alive when they

hit the surface of the water.

And then I would swoop in and scoop them up,

wounded and unconscious,

sailors or soldiers or slaves, I wouldn’t care.

I would take them away under the water

and tend to their wounds.

And I would sing to them too.

Mermaids and men don’t speak the same tongue,

but music travels easily through water.

I would tell them without words that it was all a dream

and that everything is going to be okay

(whether or not it was true).

The ones that wouldn’t make it, I’d take down into the blue.

The rest I left beside the sea, and hoped to leave a song inside their heads

so they would know that it was me.

Because, we mermaids are the stuff of dreams

and in their dreams I return to them.

And in our dreams we can be anything

where a pair of legs, like wings, could sprout

have our father part the sea, just so we can walk out!

(It’s funny to dream of being a thing that dreams of being me)

But a mermaid’s heart is a ship inside a bottle.

The want to get out is somewhat inevitable. And the men,

they wake up and they tell themselves that it was just a dream

and rarely go down to the sea to walk along the shore to remember.

The mermaids are out there.

But they don’t seem to see.

And the sunset sends them in again.

And our song is swallowed up by the vastness

of the ocean and its long din.

So we go back in to play with dolphins and wait

for a prince that likes to swim.