2020: music paired with literary art, brainstormed by emily fields.

 

elementary school music teacher emily fields of pittsburgh pairs the reading of the book listen to the rain by bill martin, jr. and john archambault, illustrated by james endicott with music as "raindrop prelude" by frederic chopin.

 

2020: a poem by alex burns.

 

From Alex Burns—This poem was written a few months ago when a family member was devastated by the loss of another, more distant to me, family member, who committed suicide due to the isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Candlelight

A light burns brightly
Casting warmth into darkness
Enlivening others
Bringing joy

Till all at once
It is captured
Cut off from others
The oxygen that feeds the flame

The light struggles
It flickers,
Losing strength
And will

Till, at last,
All too soon
No longer is there
Enough to sustain it

Lacking contact
With those others
That precious life force
It flickers out

And yet those others
Many, not few
Are left without light
No flame to guide them

They do not understand
Why the flame is extinguished
How to see through the darkness
What they have lost, or why
 
But have faith,
It will sustain you
When all seems lost
And light your way

 

 

Alex Burns grew up near Leeds, England. During his time there he combined a love of hiking, and folk music, while pursuing a career in IT. IT provided the opportunity to exchange the grey skies of industrial northern England for the US Midwest.

Moving first to Chicago, then Boston, Chicago, Albuquerque, South Carolina and the DC Metro, gave him a broad perspective on US culture and regional differences. Finally, a second move to Albuquerque gave him both the inspiration, and opportunity, to focus on the arts, after retiring from his IT career.

He started writing poems in his teens, and wrote a few poems for his wife, Mary for birthdays or anniversaries. Since retiring to Albuquerque, he has devoted his love of language to describing the beautiful environment he has come to live in. He has also come to find much that he dislikes about what his adopted country is becoming, and our role in threatening the earth upon which we live. He recently self-published his first book of poems, English Impatient, and is working on a second.

2020: songs by ryan rettew, including one inspired by a poem by frank wolfe.

 

here, ryan rettew plays a song partily inspired by jennifer hetrick's three-year poetry project on the manufacturing history of berks county, the labors of our fingertips: poems from manufacturing history in berks county, involving interviewing more than 70 seniors about their memories of working in factories in mills. this song is  reaches so far in its lyrics and into hearts and is well-worth replaying again and again as you cook in your kitchen, rest in your backyard in the sunshine, or sit close with somebody you love and appreciate in your world.

 

 

in 1970, the grateful dead released the song, ''ripple,'' which is another great one to repeat around the house, taking in ryan's rendition. this song carries a lot of hope and beauty in its sound in our far from easy world, so it's a welcome tune to many of us.

 

 

and we are incredibly happy to bring this song to you from ryan because it is inspired by the final few lyrics of a poem by frank, which is shared below. ryan took inspiration from the poem's third-to-last line and the ones surrounding it in writing this song.

 

 

Poem For My Facebook Friends
By Frank Kelso Wolfe, 7.19.2014

Who ponders pencils peaches and peers

and what we wish to share

a man slipping on ice, a woman skating on it

the questions we comment on

which shade of green we would be

who is now in love

which child is ill, or earned their blue belt

why double rainbows and dancing dogs become important

our moments of waking toss us from year to year

computers connect us in modern solitary ways

while we yearn for the warm blanket of

hand heart holds

that brought us comfort when reality was too real

I caringly, needily, desperately, lovingly type to you

my friends, please be well

prepare yourself to hold someone bodily

when the power goes out

when we discover what lies beneath the tenuous technology

when we the breathing are all we have.

 

 

Ryan Rettew is a singer-songwriter based in Denver, Pennsylvania. She lives there with her husband Jim and is a stay-at-home mom to their three young children.

2020: poems by hiram larew.

 

Spoons or Rakes

What we need now
           is glow –
The sort of night that embers make
The sound in nests
           or apples’ shapes
A glow that gives more than it takes
The kind of spoons or rakes
           that neighbors love
Those hailing lights from distant shores
           that warm the boats
We need the wool of passing years
           or more
What holding close does
           when so little is near

An earlier version of this poem appeared in North of Oxford’s Pandemic Poetry Online Anthology.

 

*

 

When More

What should you do
When bad gathers around to squawk
When fog snakes in
          or ledges creak and crack

What can you do to ward off
Or hold tight
          or wait out

What’s there to do when all the world votes no
          or cuts off escapes
          or growls at your heels

What’s left to do
When more just isn’t enough
When apples bite back
          or shadows
          turn out the lights

The poem first appeared in Better than Starbucks.

 

Hiram Larew's poems have appeared widely and been nominated for four Pushcarts. His Poetry X Hunger initiative is bringing poets from around the world to the anti-hunger cause (www.PoetryXHunger.com). Find him on Facebook at Hiram Larew, Poet.

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.)