Misty Copeland Makes History

Promoted to Principal Dancer at American Ballet Theater

The New York Times, June 30, 2015

Misty Copeland, whose openness about race in ballet helped to make her one of the most famous ballerinas in the United States, was promoted on Tuesday by American Ballet Theater, becoming the first African-American female principal dancer in the company’s 75-year history.

Her promotion — after more than 14 years with the company, nearly eight as a soloist — came as Ms. Copeland’s fame spread far beyond traditional dance circles.

She made the cover of Time magazine this year, was profiled by “60 Minutes” and presented a Tony Award on this year’s telecast. She has written a memoir and a children’s book, and has more than a half-million followers on Instagram. An online ad she made for Under Armour has been viewed more than 8 million times, and she is the subject of a documentary screened this year at the Tribeca Film Festival.

To read the rest of this article click on this.

Misty Copeland report from 60 Minutes

Misty Copeland Makes the Cover of Time

The New York Times, April 16, 2015

For the first time in a generation a dancer has made the cover of Time magazine: Misty Copeland, the American Ballet Theater soloist, was chosen as one of the magazine’s “100 most influential people,” and is featured on one of the five different covers for its upcoming issue.

That puts her in rare company. Time officials said that the last time a dance figure made the magazine’s cover was in 1994, when the choreographer Bill T. Jones was featured. Previous dancers who got their own Time covers include Gelsey Kirkland (1978), Mikhail Baryshnikov (1975), Rudolf Nureyev (1965) and Margot Fonteyn (1949).

The rest of the The New York Times article appears here.  The New Yorker profiles Misty Copeland here. 

BOB MARLEY - "WAR"

Bob Marley & The Wailers perform "War" in Boston, 1978
("War" flows directly into "Exodus.'
To hear "Exodus" click on this.)

WAR

Until the philosophy
which hold one race superior
And another
Inferior
Is finally
And permanently
Discredited
And abandoned
Everywhere is war
Me say war.

That until there no longer
First class and second class citizens of any nation
Until the colour of a man's skin
Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes
Me say war.

That until the basic human rights
Are equally guaranteed to all,
Without regard to race
Dis a war.

That until that day
The dream of lasting peace,
World citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain in but a fleeting illusion to be pursued,
But never attained
Now everywhere is war - war.

And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes
That hold our brothers in Angola,
In Mozambique,
South Africa
Sub-human bondage
Have been toppled,
Utterly destroyed
Well, everywhere is war
Me say war.

War in the east,
War in the west,
War up north,
War down south
War - war
Rumours of war.
And until that day,
The African continent
Will not know peace,
We Africans will fight - we find it necessary
And we know we shall win
As we are confident
In the victory

Of good over evil
Good over evil, yeah!
Good over evil
Good over evil, yeah!
Good over evil
Good over evil, yeah!

For information about Bob Marley see bio. and his official website. For information regarding songwriting credit for "War" read Wikipedia and watch this video clip.

New U.S. Poet Laureate: Juan Felipe Herrera

June 10, 2015 Juan Felipe Herrera Named U.S. Poet Laureate from the Academy of American Poets at poets.org Academy of American Poets Chancellor Juan Felipe Herrera is the new U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Herrera is the first Mexican American poet to hold the position. “Juan Felipe is someone who believes that poetry can make a difference in people’s lives and communities,” said executive director Jennifer Benka in a Washington Post article announcing the news. “He will bring an enthusiasm and electricity to the role of poet laureate that is sure to spark new and wider interest in the art form among people of all ages.” Herrera was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2011. Chancellorship is an honorary distinction. Chancellors provide artistic guidance, champion our programs and poetry, and judge our largest prizes for poets, including our $100,000 Wallace Stevens Award.

Juan Felipe Herrera was born in Fowler, California, on December 27, 1948. The son of migrant farmers, Herrera moved often, living in trailers or tents along the roads of the San Joaquin Valley in Southern California. As a child, he attended school in a variety of small towns from San Francisco to San Diego. He began drawing cartoons while in middle school, and by high school was playing folk music by Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie.

Herrera graduated from San Diego High in 1967, and was one of the first wave of Chicanos to receive an Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) scholarship to attend UCLA. There, he became immersed in the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, and began performing in experimental theater, influenced by Allen Ginsberg and Luis Valdez.

In 1972, Herrera received a BA in Social Anthropology from UCLA. He received a masters in Social Anthropology from Stanford in 1980, and went on to earn an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1990.

His interests in indigenous cultures inspired him to lead a formal Chicano trek to Mexican Indian villages, from the rain forest of Chiapas to the mountains of Nayarit. The experience greatly changed him as an artist. His work, which includes video, photography, theater, poetry, prose, and performance, has made Herrera a leading voice on the Mexican American and indigenous experience.


Juan Felipe Herrera is the author of numerous poetry collections and other works that include video, photography, theater, prose, and performance, making him a leading voice on the Mexican American and indigenous experience. Read more about his life and work, watch exclusive video of the poet performing his work, and more.

Additional information about Herrera can be found at a Library of Congress web guide. An excellent profile of Herrera appears at The New York Times. Further New York Times coverage appears here. More at the Los Angeles Times and NPR.

A video on California Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera. This is part of the documentary film "Go Chanting, Libre," which profiles four Chicano poets who participated in the Poetry in the Schools program. Produced in 1984 by Ed Kissam and Rick Tejada-Flores for KRCB TV. For more information and to order a DVD, contact info@paradigmproductions.org

HALF-MEXICAN

by Juan Felipe Herrera

Odd to be a half-Mexican, let me put it this way

I am Mexican + Mexican, then there’s the question of the half

To say Mexican without the half, well it means another thing

One could say only Mexican

Then think of pyramids – obsidian flaw, flame etchings, goddesses with

Flayed visages claw feet & skulls as belts – these are not Mexican

They are existences, that is to say

Slavery, sinew, hearts shredded sacrifices for the continuum

Quarks & galaxies, the cosmic milk that flows into trees

Then darkness

What is the other – yes

It is Mexican too, yet it is formless, it is speckled with particles

European pieces? To say colony or power is incorrect

Better to think of Kant in his tiny room

Shuffling in his black socks seeking out the notion of time

Or Einstein re-working the erroneous equation

Concerning the way light bends – all this has to do with

The half, the half-thing when you are a half-being

Time

Light

How they stalk you & how you beseech them

All this becomes your life-long project, that is

You are Mexican. One half Mexican the other half

Mexican, then the half against itself.

____________________________________
Footnotes: Re: Mexico Volcano see this page. flayed: to skin; removed skin from a carcass. claw feet: deformed foot; mythical figures with "claw feet"; an eagle with "claw feet"; in design and furniture "claw fott". Kant (German philosopher (1724–1804): considered the most significant Western philosopher. "Kant was the philosopher of human autonomy, the view that by the use of our own reason in its broadest sense human beings can discover and live up to the basic principles of knowledge and action without outside assistance, above all without divine support or intervention," from the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Einstein (1879-1955): born in Germany and considered the greatest physicist. For more see this page. 

Herrera with UC Riverside students for a poetry reading.

Press Release

PEN Center USA announces: 

The 2016 Emerging Voices Fellowship Application Is Now Open 

Los Angeles, CA: PEN Center USA, a literary nonprofit based in Beverly Hills, is pleased to announce the 2016 Emerging Voices Fellowship application period is now open. 

Application Deadline for the 2016 Emerging Voices Fellowship is August 10, 2015.

Founded in 1995, the Emerging Voices Fellowship aims to provide new writers, who lack access, with the specific tools they need to launch a professional writing career. Over the course of eight months, each Emerging Voices Fellow participates in a professional mentorship; hosted Author Evenings with prominent local authors; editors and agents; a series of master classes focused on genre; a voice class; courses donated by UCLA Writers’ Extension Program; three public readings; and a $1,000 stipend. Past mentors have included authors Ron Carlson, Harryette Mullen, Chris Abani, Ramona Ausubel, Meghan Daum, and Sherman Alexie.

Participants need not be published, but the fellowship is directed toward poets and writers of fiction and creative nonfiction with clear ideas of what they hope to accomplish through their writing. For eligibility requirements and to download the application, go here: https://penusa.org/programs/emerging-voices

Recent Emerging Voices accomplishments of note include 2005 Emerging Voices Fellow Cynthia Bond whose novel Ruby (Hogarth Press) was acquired for film rights by Oprah Winfrey and selected as Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 Pick. 2008 Emerging Voices Alum Shanna Mahin's novel, Oh! You Pretty Things (Dutton - Penguin Books USA) was published last month and received a glowing review from the New York Times. 

To date, 125 individuals have completed the Emerging Voices Fellowship. Alumni have published over thirty books and have received hundreds of anthology inclusions, awards, honors, and fellowships. For more alumni news, go here: http://penusa.org/emerging-voices-alumni-brag-sheet.

PEN Center USA, a branch of PEN International, has a membership of more than 700 professional writers and strives to protect the rights of writers around the world, to stimulate interest in the written word, and to foster a vital literary community among the diverse writers living in the western states.

Bill Gates, College Dropout: Don't Be Like Me

THE NEW YORK TIMES, JUNE 3, 2015

David Leonhardt

@DLeonhardt

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Bill Gates is something of a model for education skeptics. Mr. Gates — like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Oprah Winfrey — dropped out of college. If they didn’t need a college degree, the skeptics suggest, maybe you don’t need one, either.

Mr. Gates has just published a blog post with something of a reply: Yes, you do need one.

“Although I dropped out of college and got lucky pursuing a career in software, getting a degree is a much surer path to success,” he writes.

“College graduates are more likely to find a rewarding job, earn higher income, and even, evidence shows, live healthier lives than if they didn’t have degrees. They also bring training and skills into America’s work force, helping our economy grow and stay competitive.”

He adds, “It’s just too bad that we’re not producing more of them.”

The post is tied to an interview Mr. Gates has done with Cheryl Hyman, the chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago, the city’s network of community colleges. During her five-year tenure, the system has started to raise its abysmally low graduation rate. One of her main pushes has been simplifying the course-selection process, so students know what courses they need to take and can enroll in them. The complexity of that process at many colleges is a bigger problem than many people realize.

In a blog post Wednesday, Bill Gates wrote,  “Although I dropped out of college and got lucky pursuing a career in software, getting a degree is a much surer path to success."CreditSeth Wenig/Associated Press

“The problem isn’t that not enough people are going to college,” Mr. Gates writes. “The problem is that not enough people are finishing.” About one-fifth of the working-age population, he notes, have attended some college without earning a degree.

The attention that Mr. Gates and his foundation are putting on college completion is part of a broader push on the subject. The Obama administration has also started emphasizing college completion, as have some governors and mayors, both Republican and Democratic.

It’s still not clear exactly what works best in reducing dropout rates, but it is clear that doing so matters. As I wrote recently, two large recent studies suggest that college graduation itself matters. (And other studies have come to similar conclusions.) Not only do students learn from the courses they take, but they also learn the valuable skill of seeing something through to the end — of figuring out how to finish what they started and of gaining the confidence that comes with that success.

The broader economic weakness over the past 15 years — which has affected college graduates, too — has created a fair amount of cynicism about college. People worry, somewhat understandably, that the economy is a zero-sum game in which producing more college graduates will simply force those graduates to fight over a fixed number of good jobs. But the evidence points strongly in the other direction.

Education, as David Autor, the M.I.T. economist, notes, is not a game of musical chairs. More educated societies generally become richer, healthier and better functioning over time. Take the United States, which led the way in making high school universal in the early 20th century. Or South Korea, which has rapidly expanded its number of college graduates in recent decades.

“It’s hard to find examples of countries that have not ultimately benefited from sustained investments in modern education,” Mr. Autor said. “The evidence favors the idea that human capital investments pay off over the medium and long term."

 I’ve pointed out before that even education skeptics aren’t skeptical about the value of education — and college — for their own children. One of the world’s most famous college dropouts isn’t skeptical about it, either.

POETRY.ORG from the Academy of American Poets

On the right side of this blog is a list of categories with links to websites about writing, arts and culture, and other topics that might be of interest to you.  One example is POETS.org from the Academy of American Poets.  It is a comprehensive site with essays about poetry and poets and videos of poets reading and discussing their work.

You can find essays on writing and poetry craft and spotlights on major 20th Century writers like Ezra Pound and Allen Ginsberg, and emerging writers like Kevin Young and Suji Kwock Kim. There are videos with poets from the academy's own archives and a selection from the web.  In one video Ada Limón talks about the role of poets in our culture and the benefits they might find on the internet today.