Month: October 2019

Raymond Crisp has three degrees in English, Ph.D from the University of Illinois and has taught and coordinated academic English programs throughout the world. Widely published, his research focused on quality programming for Language Arts and for teachers of English. Since retirement, he has renewed his love for the arts by organizing poetry and writing conferences and symposiums to include poetry festivals and speaker forums in Kansas and Missouri. Should you be in Flagstaff, AZ you may want to take a drive through Crisp Hill, aptly named for Raymond Crisp! You can reach Ray at raycrisp@gmail.com

Patricia Smith has three degrees as well, Ph.D. in Administration and Management from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Her career focused on the administration and management of workforce development programming in three states. She now has her own consulting company working with mostly not-for-profit entities in the design and delivery of a wide array of public and privately funded initiatives. She has written several books of poetry, many dramatic readings and a play titled “Penguin”. She travels often to the sun and warmth of Florida and to the splendid city of New York. You can reach Patricia at pandksmith@centurylink.net

If you don’t get out of the box you’ve been raised in, you won’t understand

how much bigger the world is. —Angelina Jolie

I know people who are strict assimilationists. To them, if you are going to be in their America, coming from somewhere else, you better quickly get yourself to be just like them. White, Christian, speak perfect English (so they can understand you) employed, healthy and on the path to citizenship. I’m guessing that they are proud of our indigenous people for not having those rules for those who crossed the ocean blue and landed in America. The term “assimilation” began to be used at that time and referred to the process of monitoring indigenous lives using non-indigenous benchmarks. The forced assimilation of native people to European-American values caused the degradation and isolation of the Native American cultures.

Merriam-Webster defines assimilation as “the process through which individuals and groups of differing heritages acquire the basic habits, attitudes and mode of life of an embracing culture.” Our culture often has not been embracing of those who came to America. Many found that coming to America was not all the thought it would be. The Irish immigrants come to mind – never mind that the Irish came to escape horrific famine – and were persecuted because of remnants of English ideas as to who should be in what was then their America.

Everyone knows of Ellis Island located east of the Island of Manhattan. But, as immigrants arrived at five major ports in the 18th and 19th centuries, New York, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia and New Orleans, what is not commonly known is that there were more than seventy federal immigrant entry stations in the United States at the same time.

Blacklash to immigration today comes from a rise of nationalistic populism proponnets who want no part of anyone not like themselves. Those vulnerable to believe the deception that immigrants are just plain bad people who come here to take jobs (thereby displacing Americans), bring their hoodlum gangs, rapists and thieves and want to replace Christianity need to immerse themselves in the history of our country, research their own genealogy and embrace what they will find by doing so.

…and research Emma Lazarus.

We are thrilled to share a new poem with you written by our friend and local poet, Mark Pearce. Thank you Mark! (copyright 2019 Mark Pearce)

Clara (August 1856)

He’s gone, now Clara

He’s gone to the ages

‘just his symphonies to hold us

In embrace

He’s better now, Dear Clara

He’s found his rest, darling one

And we must now make our music

At a pace

It was you, Dear Clara

Who gave Robert-dear the structure

And critique of work

To fortify his score’

It was you, Dear Clara

Who stepped back, in marital blessing

To allow no shade to fall

On Schumann’s core

But you have been denied

Dearest Clara, denied of every blessing

That should come your way

And come your way some more

I will be there for you, Clara

In the task of harmonizing

For the present, for the past

And ever more

I wish I could write, Dear Clara

As tenderly as I love you

And tell all the good things for you

I will make come true

In the while, Dear Clara,

I’m reworking a theme of Robert’s

And finished, I’d very like

To dedicate to you

I’ll need assent, Dear Clara

Or I’d want it, as I require it

In composing, or conducting

Or taking breath.

In the mean, Dear Clara,

I have structured your finances

And arranged for steady income

For your rest

So you will sing, Dear Clara

Not through voice but by your keyboard

And the score and spirit

Of a woman yet fulfilled

And I would be there, Beloved Clara when

Upon that day of reckoning

We would consummate a passion

Scarce revealed

Your Beloved,

Johannes Brahms

Mark Pearce is a sixth-generation Missourian who lives in Warrensburg, MO. After a long and fascinating career with public television and public radio at the University of Central Missouri, Mark retired and began writing poetry “to ensure that his waning years would be expressive ones”! He confesses to being particularly susceptible to rhythm, development and dramatic conclusion in his works and practices a wide range of poetic styles. Organizer of the Montserrat Poetry Festival and a regular participant in the Old Drum Open Mic Series, Mark can be found on Wednesday mornings pulling weeds in the specimen garden at Turkeyfoot Prairie.