2020: meet frank wolfe in our sixth annual memorial open mic for him, in blog-form, this year.

onward with our tribute to frank wolfe and learning from his life not only to remember and learn from him but also for ourselves and our hearts, as our world and so many of us in it need very honest, real, humane, genuinely connecting kinds of conversations about what it takes to exist and how creating and taking in art makes us a little more whole in working to survive. through opening up with each other, we can often better see the beauty in so many glimmers across what's difficult and also the pockets of miracles all around us, if we slow down enough to train ourselves to be aware of them in our consciousnesses. let's bump some brains together for the better, here, folks.

this first post of content for the sixth annual memorial open mic for frank in digital form is frank-specific, a welcome back to those of you who miss him and also as a means to introduce newcomers to who frank was to us and for himself.

more and more, we feel that frank would be so grateful to have his name and memory pushed onward not only for his artistry but in advocating that people talk openly with each other, feeling more connected and related to versus alone. we believe that he would love seeing how encouraging we are in the sharing of art across those who are out there creating it or savoring it, as it is a big part of us making it from one day to the next in our worlds.

onward with the good we can make happen by sharing our inner and outer worlds, being there for each other as one person and another and also as communities. we are absolutely meant to be there for each other in this world, one of us lifting the other up when needed, as we all sink into raw, weighted, hard spaces within sometimes, and we are here to balance that out for one another, to take turns in this, to learn from and teach one another, to dive into deeper degrees of conversations, to barrel into laughing so hard that we nearly fall over when comedy hits fiercely as we talk, to keep each other afloat in these shared roles.

frank performing his beloved, well-known poem, "love and bagels at steel city coffeehouse & brewery in phoenixville.

 and here is a video of some of his art.

then, here is some more of his art to glimpse.

the sixth annual memorial open mic for frank kelso wolfe—a digital approach for 2020.

emily neblock and i (jennifer hetrick; jen in the three-letter form) have been brainstorming in the past few months, considering our options for this year's sixth annual memorial open mic for frank wolfe.

we finally made a decision; for a number of reasons, we are unable to host the event at steel city coffee house & brewery in phoenixville. some of this is due to limitations in our own schedules and also what's going on societally. but we ask you to please check out this beloved venue when you can because some really wonderful changes are happening there recently, including a new food pantry aspect featuring local food producers. on top of that, NBC 10 based in philadelphia featured this go-to local business earlier this month, too.

instead, this year, we will be welcoming submissions of reflective writings, poems, or other types of creative writing, jokes, photos, pictures of art, and links to music or other kinds of videos on youtube, including recited or performance poetry. these can be frank's, yours, or someone else's, if you have permission to share whatever the submission may be. submissions can be about existing, life, how honestly hard it is live and keep existing on this earth, how beautiful it can be, the complexity of these crossovers, or any other expression of art in some sense, as frank was very much about all of this and very real conversations, time spent creating, etc.

so literary, visual, and music art submissions are all gladly encouraged. also, since frank was one of our favorite comedians, we will be thrilled to take jokes and comedy submissions! please help us all to laugh a little in this strange year we're living in nowadays, if you have any worthwhile humor to share. think submissions not only in darker themes of truth related to loss but also gratitude, humor, the comedy in some honesty, etc., well in line with what frank would advocate.

if submitting videos, please send a shareable hyperlink to the videos posted to youtube, vimeo, etc.

 

(we feel this is a good frank wolfe painting to share right now, as it's 

symbolic with life especially recently in how we need to keep letting our

existence flow onward in hard times during the pandemic, and it is not easy, 

but less resistance, like how water often travels around rocks versus getting

 stuck behind them as we humans often do in our worlds of obstacles, is

a useful lesson for all of us in the turbulent degrees we experience;

also, here is a relevant article on the flows and currents in life and

how we can control and perceive our reactions to it)

our plan is to post all received submissions onto the blog for frank here at http://frankkelsowolfe.blogspot.com, and each post will have a section available for comments by registered users (using gmail/google accounts shroud work) and those who post anonymously.

we welcome whatever you would like to contribute, much like our usual open mic approach, and if you know anyone who may have known frank or maybe didn't but might be interested in participating, please share this info onward.

please include the following with your submission:

• your name as you'd like it to appear with your submission (or if you would prefer a pen name or to not be named)
• a brief third-person biography for yourself, so we know a bit more about you
  
• your phone number in case we have clarification questions about your content to share
• any notes you feel will be helpful in preparing the content to post 
  

please send submissions to poetrywithjenniferhetrick at yahoo dot com.

edit as of the 6th of october: we as organizers have been our usual too-busy-to-live + more, so we are fitting in this posting work for submissions as we can and plan to keep taking submissions well past the original deadline of the 5th of october. so if anyone hasn't submitted yet, please do! that's the glory of the internet accidentally never ending time-wise. =)

if you have any questions, please feel free to let us know. and please also feel free to share this blog post URL (http://frankkelsowolfe.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-sixth-annual-memorial-open-mic-for.html) via social media, email, text, etc.

all the best to all of your hearts,

 jen & emily

2019: the fifth annual memorial open mic for frank kelso wolfe.

join us in 2019 for our annual event for frank kelso wolfe! emily neblock will be co-hosting this year with me, jennifer hetrick. emily is a musician and poet and meant very much to frank.

(edit: 15 september 2020—we had a great event in 2019 but are a bit too busy to live (this society and its shaping of life-days, iyiyiy!) to have done an update or uploaded videos; we are glad to be able to fit in planning time for a 2020 event a bit differently this year due to the current pandemic and are doing our best in making it a current priority.)

october 2018 reflections & thanks after the fourth annual memorial open mic for frank kelso wolfe.

x-posted from the facebook page for frank kelso wolfe from october 2018, as an update after the fourth annual memoral open mic for our favorite poet-artist-comedian-greatfriend.

thank you to everyone who was a part of the fourth annual memorial open mic for frank wolfe, including emily neblock for hosting. since i couldn't be there, i'd love to hear your favorite parts, any special moments or words that stood out to you, etc. what did you enjoy most about it? — poetry with jennifer hetrick. 

& we donated my favorite-ever painting by frank to steel city coffeehouse, as some of you know; it was hard to give up the canvas, but i knew its vacuum and poultry persuasion needed to be in frank's favorite coffee shop instead of my home; emily called me to clear it with me that night. i am so glad it was voted as the one to offer as a permanent wall piece. 

thursday, october 4, 2018: the fourth annual memorial open mic for frank kelso wolfe at steel city coffeehouse in phoenixville.

(an email-turned-blog-post)

here is news about the upcoming fourth annual memorial open mic for frank kelso wolfe.

the event will be thursday, october 4, 2018 at steel city coffeehouse in phoenixville. sign-ups start at 6.30 pm, and the event starts at 7 pm. 

please share the facebook event link, too > www.facebook.com/events/1165126183625606

musician and lyricist emily neblock kindly agreed to host in case jrh is not available due to surgery recovery. jrh will be doing promotional work for this from home.

remember that this event is during a regularly scheduled open mic but that we've thankfully received permission to not charge open mic fees; as we've done in the past, we just ask that those who donate do so as a means to help steel city coffeehouse's owners cover the fees of the sound technician's time for making the night possible onstage. this way, anyone who can't afford to offer much money can still attend. many of us know what it's like to scrape by, and we don't want anyone to be discouraged from showing up to be a part of the event.

those who knew frank as well as those who didn't are invited to attend and participate or be in the audience. or both! we welcome stories and reflections about frank in what you appreciate about him and what you still learn from him, reading of poems and essays, telling of jokes and comedy, performing of songs, talks about his art and any art which is meaningful to you, etc. this can by by frank, you, or anyone else. feel free to bring art of his to display, too.

and we also hope to donate a copy of a painting by frank to hang up at steel city coffeehouse on this night, as per a conversation jrh had with the owners last year since they'd like to feature one of his pieces permanently. jrh is having trouble giving up some of what she does have and feels like others are good in their own right but maybe not the most fitting pieces to offer for what ought to represent frank's art there; we would like to have the best choice feel like the right fit, vibe, and set of colors. so if anyone has any paintings to potentially offer, please let us know in case it helps us to have more options to consider.

we'll also write and burn "the pain words" of our own recent struggles to put into a small fire at the end. last year, one fellow sang "bridge over troubled water" by simon & garfunkel at the end of the night on the sidewalk. it was one of the single-most beautiful moments to us. frank mentioned this song as being very meaningful to him in the weeks before he passed away. so it always reminds me of him and so much more, within.

please RSVP if you can attend so we can plan ahead adequately aside from the unfamiliar open mic participants; feel free to share this post onward to anyone who may want to attend the open mic.

reach out via the facebook event for this or email poetrywithjenniferhetrick at yahoo dot com.

a butterfly solar light for frank wolfe's grave at fernwood cemetery.

back in 2014, i bought a solar butterfly light to put in the ground at frank's grave at fernwood cemetery in royersford. i had it in the trunk of my car all of the time and kept meaning to get to the cemetery, yet being too busy to live across many jobs and the rest of life meant my goal didn't happen as planned. 

but a few months ago, i finally took the light out of my car and set it up to test it out, hoping to get to the cemetery soon afterward. i found out right away, in the dark of autumn and winter, that the light is so comforting and lifts my energy upward on hard days. it automatically knocks my stress down a good bit when i see it. and i realize this is because it reminds me of frank and that life shouldn't be as hard as it often feels, it's beautiful, it's inspiring, and it reminds me of my mom, too, who died when i was 20 and absolutely loved butterflies.

a few months before we lost frank in the physically typical sense, he told me he wanted to paint a picture of my mom. he knew i missed her very much and that she was the only parent i ever had. i gave him a copy of the photograph of her below as a little girl, which means the world to me, and i find it so beautiful. soon afterward, frank translated it into a painted form, which you can see below the photograph.

frank also said that he felt curiously connected to my mom as he painted her, in some unique, different kind of way, and he never met her because she died before i met him. i also never heard him comment anything like this with other portraits and people. 

it is said that butterflies carry messages to the other side. i've always felt that frank and my mom are more connected now in a way they couldn't be as much in our more dense realm. and the tie-in of butterflies here helps my heart. i hope the butterfly solar light eye-scene does the same for you as you read these words. i do plan to finally take it to the cemetery, but i'm also considering buying another one and keeping the original in my yard because of  the comforting, good feelings it stirs when i glimpse it at night, especially in the cold of winter, when it's surprisingly still full of energy to be lit even as we hardly have much sun across these weeks.

videos from the third annual memorial open mic for frank wolfe—october 5, 2017.

here are some video clips from the the third annual memorial open mic for frank wolfe at steel city coffee house in phoenixville back in october 2017. thank you to everyone who attended, contributed, appreciated it from the audience, and helped to make the event something frank would love and be so grateful for across all of its minutes on a thursday night.

and here is a video of the pain words and the fire we do each year at the end of the night.