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.