When thaw becomes flow

Today is Palm Sunday and next Sunday is Easter, for those who celebrate. Yesterday was the third (inter)national No Kings protest. (The Better Half and I braved mid-day local wind chills in the teens for almost an hour while participating.) This coming Wednesday is April Fools Day. I'm mildly troubled by the juxtaposition of those latter two events but the next demonstrations are planned for May Day, which is also Beltane. With only 365 days to work with most years, we have to do the best we can as we schedule things. It's not just western water rights that are subject to prior appropriation.

late March: time for new growth to flow

Photo by J. Harrington

April Fools Day also brings us the start of National Poetry Month, this year celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. In recognition of the times we're living in, and the times we've lived through, I'm going to celebrate the month by focusing my reading attention on Bob Dylan Lyrics 1962 — 2001. Some of his recordings have been showing up on the shuffle play list in my Jeep, and I find it both reassuring and disconcerting how well many of his lyrics from years ago seem to fit today's tempora et mores.

Large flocks of dark-eyed juncos and of robins have been observed this week past. I'm inclined to tempt fate and take the back blade off the tractor some warmer day this coming week, but not Wednesday. I'm hoping that one day soon warmer weather will arrive and stay and then hanging around outside will be something to look forward to, until the mosquitos and deer flies arrive. But that's weeks away, right? Meanwhile, the last mounds and shaded patches of snow still have to melt.

This year our country celebrates its 250th anniversary. Dylan wrote a song / poem that I believe fits and represents my birthday wishes for this and each succeeding anniversary.

Forever Young

Written by: Bob Dylan

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young          

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On becoming weathered

 Friday of the coming week is April Fool’s Day. There is no truth to the rumor that it was named after those who believe this time of year in the North Country is actually Spring. Our current windchill is 20℉. Tonight’s actual low temperature should be around 17 ℉. There is some good news, though. This is the week when overnight temperatures are supposed to bottom out at 32 ℉. The longer it takes for Spring to actually arrive, the more we’ll appreciate it when it does, right? The midweek snow forecast no longer includes local accumulations. So that’s hopeful. Please don’t remind us of these observations when we’re complaining about heat and humidity come July and August.

4/19/13 previews of coming attractions?

Photo by J. Harrington

Do you remember that there’s a Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, OK? It’s scheduled to open this May 10. It will join the Woody Guthrie Center as a major attraction. I had lost track of the Dylan Center’s development and stumbled across it this morning as I was looking online for information about some of Joy Harjo’s work. Harjo is the current Poet Laureate of the US, the first Artist-in-Residence for Tulsa's Bob Dylan Center, and lives in Tulsa. Her book, An American Sunrise, is the NEA Big Read next month. All-in-all, that’s enough good and interesting news to limit my complaining about our unseasonable weather. I’ve just finished rereading Sunrise and have found the online version of Harjo’s Poet Laureate project, Living Nations, Living Words. Before Harjo, Tracy K. Smith’s project was American Conversations: Celebrating Poems in Rural Communities. I believe I’ve found something to do instead of “doom scrolling” on social media, at least until the weather warms and I can spend time outside without concerns about spring frostbite.

An Old Story

By Tracy K. Smith

We were made to understand it would be

Terrible. Every small want, every niggling urge,

Every hate swollen to a kind of epic wind. 

 

Livid, the land, and ravaged, like a rageful 

Dream. The worst in us having taken over 

And broken the rest utterly down. 

 

                                                                 A long age 

Passed. When at last we knew how little 

Would survive us—how little we had mended 

 

Or built that was not now lost—something 

Large and old awoke. And then our singing 

Brought on a different manner of weather. 

 

Then animals long believed gone crept down 

From trees. We took new stock of one another. 

We wept to be reminded of such color. 

 

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Valentine’s, the day before!

This morning we found ourselves wondering, since Valentine’s is about love and warm hearts and flowers, how it ended up occurring in a very cold time of the year. As we contemplated, we realized that it must have been due to lobbying by confectioners, concerned that their candy concoctions would melt and get super-sticky in warmer summer months. There’s lots more folks celebrating Valentine’s north of the equator than south of it so, February being the last month of winter in the northern hemisphere, it probably makes sense to celebrate Valentine’s now. [Nearly 90 percent of the human population is in the Northern Hemisphere...]

One of Minnesota’s most famous and talented sons, Robert Zimmerman of Hibbing, has written quite a few love poems put to music. Another Midwesterner, Ted Kooser, has a volume of his Valentines published by the University of Nebraska Press.

where would we be without  flowers?

Photo by J. Harrington

Maria Popova has recently published a fascinating explanation of

How flowers gave rise to life on Earth and made possible the human consciousness that came to see a world “thronged only with Music.”

For this Valentine’s Day, and hereafter, we need to include reciprocity with the Earth that provides all we need to live and love on Valentine’s and every day.

Now, speaking of music, not included in the above-linked fan’s selection of Dylan’s best 15 love songs is the one we’ve selected as today’s poem. May your Valentine’s Day, and the rest of your year, be filled with warmth and love, for each other, our kin, and the Earth. We may not want to marry everyone else, but, as Rodney King famously asked “I just want to say – you know – can we all get along?” It would be a start.

Wedding Song

Written by: Bob Dylan 

I love you more than ever, more than time and more than love
I love you more than money and more than the stars above
Love you more than madness, more than waves upon the sea
Love you more than life itself, you mean that much to me

Ever since you walked right in, the circle’s been complete
I’ve said goodbye to haunted rooms and faces in the street
To the courtyard of the jester which is hidden from the sun
I love you more than ever and I haven’t yet begun

You breathed on me and made my life a richer one to live
When I was deep in poverty you taught me how to give
Dried the tears up from my dreams and pulled me from the hole
Quenched my thirst and satisfied the burning in my soul

You gave me babies one, two, three, what is more, you saved my life
Eye for eye and tooth for tooth, your love cuts like a knife
My thoughts of you don’t ever rest, they’d kill me if I lie
I’d sacrifice the world for you and watch my senses die

The tune that is yours and mine to play upon this earth
We’ll play it out the best we know, whatever it is worth
What’s lost is lost, we can’t regain what went down in the flood
But happiness to me is you and I love you more than blood

It’s never been my duty to remake the world at large
Nor is it my intention to sound a battle charge
’Cause I love you more than all of that with a love that doesn’t bend
And if there is eternity I’d love you there again

Oh, can’t you see that you were born to stand by my side
And I was born to be with you, you were born to be my bride
You’re the other half of what I am, you’re the missing piece
And I love you more than ever with that love that doesn’t cease

You turn the tide on me each day and teach my eyes to see
Just bein’ next to you is a natural thing for me
And I could never let you go, no matter what goes on
‘Cause I love you more than ever now that the past is gone

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On losses and gains

We were saddened today to note the death of Peter Ostroushko. We once saw him perform live at the University of Minnesota Morris campus during a multi-day Symposium on Small Towns we attended back around 2004. If we remember correctly, one of the songs he sang was Dylan's Girl from the North Country. His rendition was / is among our favorite covers of that beautiful song. We also thoroughly enjoy his soundtrack for Minnesota--A History of the Land. He will be missed. Several of his albums are available through Red House Records, if you're interested.

On a brighter note, have you begun to feel any symptoms of Spring fever yet? We're enjoying a string of sunny, warmer than average days that almost compensates for the recent polar vortex visit. One of the tantalizing questions is whether Spring will actually arrive early or if we're just being set up to be dumped on by a series of March/April/May blizzards. If memory serves, July is the only month in which it hasn't snowed in Minnesota. Then again, we're now at the time of year when the average daily high temperature is 32℉. Better yet, effective tomorrow, the normal high temperature is above freezing.

There's no sign yet of open water. We'll start checking the Sunrise River pools more regularly now, in anticipation of arriving geese, ducks, swans and sandhill cranes. Who knows, we may stand a chance of enjoying an actual Spring that lasts for weeks instead of days and a melt season that doesn't yield Spring floods. That kind of return to normalcy would be a wonderful respite from the past four years.

Music

By Juhan Liiv
Translated from the Estonian by H.L. Hix & Jüri Talvet

It must be somewhere, the original harmony,

somewhere in great nature, hidden.

Is it in the furious infinite,

in distant stars’ orbits,

is it in the sun’s scorn,

in a tiny flower, in treegossip,

in heartmusic’s mothersong

or in tears?

It must be somewhere, immortality,

somewhere the original harmony must be found:

how else could it infuse

the human soul,

that music?

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Facing the music of presidential politics

 At daybreak today, as I rehung the bird feeders, I noticed a doe whitetail deer under the pear tree. Her bright Summer pelage almost glowed in an orange-tan-reddish shade. Since then the day has been interspersed with cloudy skies and intermittent showers and downpours. Not a day for outside chores.

So I proceeded to waste time and energy inside as I sipped coffee and scrolled through my Twitter timeline this morning. A Tweet that caught my eye noted that tRUMP has referred to Kamala Harris, the recently announced Democratic VP candidate, as a "Nasty woman." That reminded me of a concert the Better Half and I attended almost four years ago, in October 2016. Joan Baez was the performer and she appeared wearing a "Nasty woman" t-shirt. It was a follow-up to tRUMP's calling Hillary Clinton that appellation in the course (coarse?) of the final debate of the 2016 campaign.  That concert was the penultimate time we enjoyed the presence and live voice of Ms. Baez. We saw her again in October 2018, in her Fare Thee Well tour, after the country had endured almost two years under a #FakePresident who obviously lacked the necessary qualifications to fulfill even the most basic responsibilities of the position.

Joan Baez, October 2016

Photo by J. Harrington

Times had been much better a decade or so before that, when we [the Better Half and I and many others] had enjoyed one of Bob Dylan's few remaining appearances in Minnesota on November 4 (Election Day) at Northrop Auditorium, about the time Barack Obama was first elected President.

To be candid, it hurts remembering those good times when I now look about at a country beset by climate breakdown, an out of control pandemic, compounded by a failed kleptocratic regime that has no idea how to do anything but line its own pockets and attempt to become an aristocracy autocracy. [According to Sarah Kendzior, in Hiding In Plain Sight, "Kleptocracy literally means 'rule by thieves.',,, (it) goes hand in hand with autocracy—a system of government in which one ruler holds absolute control..."]

But now we have, for the first time ever, a woman who is "the first African American and the first Asian American to be chosen as the running mate of a major party's presidential candidate." The prospect of her election triggers my memories of the lyrics from one of Dylan's wonderful songs "But even the president of the United States / Sometimes must have to stand naked." It will be interesting to watch what we get to see happen between November 3, 2020 and late January 2021 as the world gets to watch a would-be Emperor become obviously naked.

I hadn't realized how significant a role music has come to play (sorry, couldn't resist) in my adult life until writing this post. Music, and poetry (Dylan, the Nobel Laureate, conveniently provides that crossover) feed my heart. Mostly everything else feeds my head (thank you, Grace Slick and The White Rabbit). Fortunately, Joy Harjo teaches those of us who need it how to bring heart and head together together in poems such as today's

For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet 

Joy Harjo - 1951-

Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop.

Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.

Open the door, then close it behind you.

Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean.

Give it back with gratitude.

If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and back.

Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire.

Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there without time.

Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters.

Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you.
Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them.

Don’t worry.
The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves.

The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand or even more.

Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time.

Do not hold regrets.

When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.

You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant.

Cut the ties you have to failure and shame.

Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction.

Ask for forgiveness.

Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor.

Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.

You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.

Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.

Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long.

Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and given clean clothes.

Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go.

Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.

Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark. 

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Repairing the window of my world view

If I had started practicing my fly casting back in April, today would have been a great day for practicing casting into the wind. I hadn't, so it isn't. Fortunately, I learned long ago not to spit into the wind so that's not an issue. Prepare for some sort of untoward weather events tomorrow since that's when I plan to check out some trout fishing spots. I'm more interested in getting a look at a handful of places I want to reconnoiter for river access and casting obstructions than in actually wetting a line, but, to be on the safe side, I'll bring a rod or two. Otherwise, I'm sure I'd get to see the hatch and rise of my lifetime and there I'd be, standing empty-handed looking like a witless damn fool.

even sunny days often have storm clouds

Photo by J. Harrington

Yes, the continuing diminished and undistinguished state of the world has once again gotten under my skin. The tiller I want to use to make mounds for planting a three sisters garden may be ready this weekend. When I dropped it off at the beginning of last week, they said it should be done some time this week. It's been my experience that similar issues occur with about every small engine repair shop I've used in the past twenty or so years. "Oh, you thought we'd have it done when we said we would?" If the planting doesn't get done by the first part of next week, I'm not going to try it during our 100+℉ spell forecast for several days midweek. (Time to remember the wabi sabi "accept imperfections" approach.) Late next week, after the hot spell, should still allow a viable time to maturity so....

As I promised a day or so ago, I've been looking through the "Progressive's Style Guide." Today I learned a definition of intersectionality:

Intersectionality is a concept often used in critical theories to describe the ways in which oppressive institutions (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, classism, etc.) are interconnected and cannot be examined separately from one another. The concept first came from legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 and is largely used in critical theories, especially Feminist theory, when discussing systematic oppression. When possible, credit Kimberlé Crenshaw for coining the term "intersectionality" and bringing the concept to wider attention.

Although I know the meaning of each of the words in the definition, when they are all strung together, I'm still not sure holistic might not be a better term, unless the inclusion of oppression affects the denotation and connotation of the term. Plus, I have reservations about the validity and utility of critical theory, but then I had been more inclined toward a Hegelian than a Marxian world view. These days I find myself leaning much more toward Margaret Wheatley's emergent systems perspectives, combined with the Ojibwe world views described by Richard Wagamese, with a moderate sprinkling of zen and wabi sabi thrown in.

Fortunately, when I become as disgruntled as I too often am these days, I can almost always rely on the oeuvre of one of Minnesota's own Nobel laureates to help me out. Dylan has, decades ago, described today's challenges to a "T."

It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)

Written by: Bob Dylan 

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying

Temptation’s page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you’d just be one more
Person crying

So don’t fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It’s alright, Ma, I’m only sighing

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don’t hate nothing at all
Except hatred

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked

An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it

Advertising signs they con
You into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks they really found you

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy, insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something they invest in

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn’t talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer’s pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death’s honesty
Won’t fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
what else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only

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An auspicious and suspicious day

Of note:

• Today is Eeyore the Donkey's 149th birthday.
• [UPDATE] Today is Joy Harjo's birthday.
• Yesterday was Gary Snyder's 90th birthday.
• Tomorrow is Mother's Day in  the US.

Eeyore and Gary and Mothers all are among our most favoritest peoples and we wish each and every one of them health and happiness for many years to come, while they live with us and in our memories.

On the other hand (remember Harry Truman's request for an economist that had only one hand?), we have a more than moderate case of the grumpies because today is unseasonably cold, below freezing temperatures are forecast during the next couple of nights, the latest Coronavirus is still rampant and  the #OrangeIdiot is still in the White House. Then  again, we discovered a very interesting online resource for food information: FoodPrint. It's worth your time to take a look. Our current  food "system" has passed the point  of diminishing returns. One of our favorite native Minnesotans has said it all better than we can. If not Maggie's, whose? We all Gotta Serve Somebody.

Maggie’s Farm

Written by: Bob Dylan 

I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
No, I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
Well, I wake in the morning
Fold my hands and pray for rain
I got a head full of ideas
That are drivin’ me insane
It’s a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more

I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more
No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more
Well, he hands you a nickel
He hands you a dime
He asks you with a grin
If you’re havin’ a good time
Then he fines you every time you slam the door
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more

I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more
No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more
Well, he puts his cigar
Out in your face just for kicks
His bedroom window
It is made out of bricks
The National Guard stands around his door
Ah, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more

I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
Well, she talks to all the servants
About man and God and law
Everybody says
She’s the brains behind pa
She’s sixty-eight, but she says she’s twenty-four
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more

I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
No, I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
Well, I try my best
To be just like I am
But everybody wants you
To be just like them
They sing while you slave and I just get bored
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more

Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music

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Life has frogs in its throat! #phenology

It / they started yesterday, or thereabouts. We can't tell if we're hearing gray treefrogs, Spring peepers, Boreal chorus frogs, wood frogs, or all of the  above plus other, but the peeping and chirruping has begun. The sounds are significant signs of Spring's arrival here at the Southern edge of the North Country. Mating calls follow emergence from a frozen habitat; precede mating, which  precedes egg laying, then tadpoles then more frogs; then another Autumn followed by another Winter.

gray treefrog on porch screen

Photo by J. Harrington

Frog calls are a delightful replacement for Winter's howling winds. The morning bird chorus is adding voices by the day. This all makes me think I'm overdue for an attitude adjustment. I have been spending way too much time worrying and fussing about things I can't control to the detriment of enjoying the things I can. According to much of the contents of my email inbox, the world is daily overrun by one crisis after another and signing a petition per crisis will take care of things, especially if an online signature is accompanied by a donation. Back in the mid-1960's, one of Minnesota's two Nobel Laureates in Literature, in his poem It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding), enumerates lists of factors that brought us to where we are today. The more things change, the more they…

dime-size green  treefrog

Photo by J. Harrington

The last line of Dylan's song: "But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only" points us back in time to the shores of

[An ancient pond!]

Matsuo Basho - 1643-1694

An ancient pond!
With a sound from the water
Of the frog as it plunges in.


                                              —Translation by William George Aston

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In honor of World Poetry Day

On this World Poetry Day, as much of the world copes with a deadly virus pandemic, almost all of the world's governments and corporations still fail to promptly and adequately respond to climate breakdown, and too, too many politicians continue to seek only achieving a short-term competitive advantage, I do not wonder at the frustration and despair felt by younger generations. In their honor, with hope for the future of our descendants, and in recognition of Minnesota's Nobel Laureate in poetry, today's poem is offered as a prayer on behalf of and to those "in charge," that their decisions may be  based on what is best for  the next Seven Generations. Let us all disprove Auden's assessment that "...poetry makes nothing happen:" We can do that if we only vote for those who live and embody Dylan's wishes.

Forever Young

[listen along: Rhiannon Giddens and Iron & Wine]

Written by: Bob Dylan

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

Copyright © 1973 by Ram's Horn Music; renewed 2001 by Ram’s Horn Music

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Some ways to stay Forever Young

Last night we saw and heard Joan Baez perform the song "Joe Hill." It was one of two Phil Ochs songs in her set, the other was "There But for Fortune." Listening to these two songs, and her rendition of a number of the Bob Dylan masterpieces that comprised about 40% of the songs in the show, made us wonder where are the comparable folk songs and songs of social justice and who's singing them today.

[UPDATE: Star Tribune coverage]

Thanks to the internet and search engines, we found a 2016 listing of 12 Powerful Songs that Inspired Social Progress and also Songs About Social Issues, beginning with the 18th century and listing only two in the twenty-first century. We follow @FolkAlley on Twitter and occasionally listen on line, but we haven't been paying close attention to contemporary songs of concern about environmental, labor, social and/or political issues. We think we're probably guilty of being the "no one there to hear it, when a tree falls in the forest." That's relatively easily and enjoyably corrected.

These musing were further triggered today when we came across a reference to The Weavers, a "folk group" which Pete Seeger helped found. The Wikipedia article on the group helps provide some perspective on today's political scene:

During the Red Scare, however, Pete Seeger and Lee Hays were identified as Communist Party members by FBI informant Harvey Matusow (who later recanted) and ended up being called up to testify to the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1955. Hays took the Fifth Amendment. Seeger refused to answer, however, claiming First Amendment grounds, the first to do so after the conviction of the Hollywood Ten in 1950. Seeger was found guilty of contempt and placed under restrictions by the court pending appeal, but in 1961 his conviction was overturned on technical grounds.^[4] Because Seeger was among those listed in the entertainment industry blacklist publication, Red Channels, all of the Weavers were placed under FBI surveillance and not allowed to perform on television or radio during the McCarthy era. Decca Records terminated their recording contract and deleted their records from its catalog in 1953.^[5] Their recordings were denied airplay, which curtailed their income from royalties. Right-wing and anti-Communist groups protested at their performances and harassed promoters. As a result, the group's economic viability diminished rapidly and in 1952 it disbanded. After this, Pete Seeger continued his solo career, although as with all of them, he continued to suffer from the effects of blacklisting.

Joan Baez 2016 concert

Photo by J. Harrington

Lurking somewhere in our stacks of CDs, we believe we have a recording of Utah Phillips (and Ani DiFranco?) singing "Which Side Are You On?" DiFranco also has released an album by that title, it  includes the song. She is a contemporary folk/social justice singer. Maybe our memory is even more faulty than we think. Our point, before we close to look for the CD in question, is that social media seems to be full of gloom these days. We think the progressive movement would be better served if we had more inclusion of singer-songwriter-musicians to help ease us over the inevitable rough spots and help keep us "Forever Young." Baez sang this Dylan work last night and it was, for me, the bittersweet high point of an evening for which we here and now publicly thank our Better Half for getting the tickets.

Forever Young

Written by: Bob Dylan

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young 

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Sins of Omission #NPM17

This morning began peacefully and beautiful, filled with the misty, drifting ground fog that makes everything haunted and romantic at the same time. Duck after duck, in singles and pairs, more than I'm used to seeing around here, flew low, just over the treetops, barely above the foggy mist. I was in a rare, mellow mood until I opened the web page on 30 Ways to Celebrate National Poetry Month and saw what was missing!

misty morning, sunrise

Photo by J. Harrington

What the Hell?! Academy of American Poets!? For suggestion 21 on how to celebrate National Poetry Month, you offer "Watch a poetry movie." So far, so good. Then you provide a list that includes "Films About Poetry" and "Films That Reference Poetry." Fine! But, you have absolutely no mention of the films about or with America's latest Nobel Laureate in Literature (poetry), BOB DYLAN? (Yes, I am shouting. I'll try to calm down.)

Try including these poetry movies next year, or, even better, edit them into this year's list:

• Don't Look Back, D.A. Pennybaker's 1967 documentary


• No Direction Home, Scorsese's 2005 documentary


• The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival


• I'm Not There, six incarnations of Dylan

There are other options, but the ones listed seem to be an inexcusable omission since Dylan's award was "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition". Even the Academy's biographic notes on Dylan acknowledge that he is also the author of Tarantula, "a collection of prose poetry." How the egregious omission of Dylan's movie poetry, or would that be poetry movies, could have occurred is beyond me. Perhaps it's evidence of ... what? what could account for it.

Record

Katrina Vandenberg

Late night July, Minnesota,
John asleep on the glassed-in porch,
Bob Dylan quiet on a cassette


you made from an album
I got rid of soon after
you died.  Years later,


I regret giving up
your two boxes of vinyl,
which I loved.  Surely


they were too awkward,
too easily broken
for people who loved music


the way we did.  But tonight
I’m in the mood for ghosts,
for sounds we hated: pop,


scratch, hiss, the occasional
skip.  The curtains balloon;
I’ve got a beer; I’m struck


by guilt, watching you
from a place ten years away,
kneeling and cleaning each


with a velvet brush before 
and after, tucking them in
their sleeves.  Understand,


I was still moving then.
The boxes were heavy.
If I had known



I would stop here
with a husband to help me
carry, and room—too late,


the college kids pick over
your black bones on Mass. Ave.,
we’ll meet again some day


on the avenue but still,
I want to hear it,
the needle hitting the end


of a side and playing silence
until the arm gives up,
pulls away.

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How to save America(n poetry)

This is day three of National Poetry Month. The third of thirty things we can do to celebrate is "Sign up for Teach This Poem, a weekly series for teachers." If you believe that the best way to learn something is to teach it, signing up for "Teach This Poem" might well be worthwhile even for nonteachers. Or, you could look into starting your own poetry course through a local arts organization or "adult" education program.

You were young once, don't let them tame you

Photo by J. Harrington

Tony Hoagland, in Twenty Poems That Could Save America, writes:

Nonetheless, it is common knowledge: real live American poetry is absent from our public schools. The teaching of poetry languishes, and that region of youthful neurological terrain capable of being ignited and aria'd only by poetry is largely dark, unpopulated and silent, like a classroom whose door is unopened, whose shades are drawn."

I was raised at a time, in a place, that preached and practiced making sacrifices to improve life for the next generation. The American Dream I grew up with was that the kids would have a better life than the older generation. I don't see much evidence of that kind of thinking these days, do you? Do you have a clue where it went? When it disappeared?

I'm again reminded of one of my all time favorite quotations, from one of the few politicians I've admired. Robert F. (Bobby) Kennedy, in remarks at the University of Kansas, March 18, 1968, noted:

... But even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction - purpose and dignity - that afflicts us all.  Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things.  Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.  It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them.  It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl.  It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities.  It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.  Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play.  It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.  It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.  And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.  [emphasis added]

unused skills deteriorate

Photo by J. Harrington

I believe that we as a nation, as a people, will not, can not, confront our poverty of satisfaction without poetry playing a much larger role in our national life. One of our country's greatest contemporary artists, from Hibbing and Duluth Minnesota, has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition". If a reformed folkie, rock and roller winning the Nobel Prize does not bring poetry into mainstream America, I have real concerns about whether we can be saved, or should. Hoagland tells us that "the list of poems taught in our schools must be updated." He's correct, and Dylan's lyrics are, in my opinion, a better place to start than anything else available.

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Written by: Bob Dylan 

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’ 

Copyright

© 1963, 1964 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1992 by Special Rider Music

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An inaugural snow job and poet?

The yard is full of juncos, just in time for tomorrow's snow storm. I think it's time to swap out the hummingbird/woodpecker nectar for a tray feeder, after the snow stops falling. A package of suet is sitting thawing on the kitchen counter. The woodpeckers, especially the pileated that visits almost daily, have pretty well hammered the first batch into shreds.

pileated woodpecker at suet

Photo by J. Harrington

Today's sky looks pensive and brooding, which fits with the forecast. I've been feeling mostly that way myself ever since Tuesday of last week. In an effort to cheer myself up by making a small contribution to the upcoming festivities, when the president-elect becomes the President, I've been contemplating which poet might be appropriate to create an inauguration poem. My first thought was Allen Ginsberg. After all, he wrote the very timely poem America. Unfortunately, since Allen has passed on, it occurred to me that Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who published Ginsberg's Howl, might be able to do the reading. Even better, he could read his own work, I Am Waiting, which seems like it might be a near perfect fit.

The more I thought about it, the more concerned I became that Ferlinghetti's age could be an impediment to travel, and I doubted that the president-elect would want to move the inauguration to San Francisco just to accommodate a poet. Then, the Muse came to my rescue with the name of a poet who would probably be a much better fit with the new Washington swamp drainers. Charles Bukowski was a blue collar, working man's poet if ever there was one. In light of the age of the president-elect, and the stress and rigors of his upcoming job, something along the lines of Bukowsk's 1990 special might be appropriate. Alas, the Muse seemed to have overlooked the fact that Bukowski is now enjoying that great race track in the sky. I could think of no one fitting to read a Bukowski ode and so returned to mentally working my rolodex.

Who, who, who could poetically "Make America Great Again?" But, of course, this year's Nobel Laureate in Literature, Hibbing's own Bobby Zimmerman. In fact, his canonical hit Ballad of a Thin Man nicely themes with newcomers to inside the Beltway. What do you think? Would it work? He's too busy for Sweden, but if his country needs him?

Ballad Of A Thin Man

Written by: Bob Dylan

You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say, “Who is that man?”
You try so hard
But you don’t understand
Just what you’ll say
When you get home

Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

You raise up your head
And you ask, “Is this where it is?”
And somebody points to you and says
“It’s his”
And you say, “What’s mine?”
And somebody else says, “Where what is?”
And you say, “Oh my God
Am I here all alone?”

Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

You hand in your ticket
And you go watch the geek
Who immediately walks up to you
When he hears you speak
And says, “How does it feel
To be such a freak?”
And you say, “Impossible”
As he hands you a bone

Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

You have many contacts
Among the lumberjacks
To get you facts
When someone attacks your imagination
But nobody has any respect
Anyway they already expect you
To just give a check
To tax-deductible charity organizations

You’ve been with the professors
And they’ve all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have
Discussed lepers and crooks
You’ve been through all of
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books
You’re very well read
It’s well known

Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you
And then he kneels
He crosses himself
And then he clicks his high heels
And without further notice
He asks you how it feels
And he says, “Here is your throat back
Thanks for the loan”

Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Now you see this one-eyed midget
Shouting the word “NOW”
And you say, “For what reason?”
And he says, “How?”
And you say, “What does this mean?”
And he screams back, “You’re a cow
Give me some milk
Or else go home”

Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Well, you walk into the room
Like a camel and then you frown
You put your eyes in your pocket
And your nose on the ground
There ought to be a law
Against you comin’ around
You should be made
To wear earphones

Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music

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Congratulations! #BobDylan and Minnesota's North Country

For the past several years, I've been struggling with the question(s) of form(s) in poetry and genre in literature. I've been doing this while those that create poetry and literature have been busy transcending boundaries of form(s) and genre(s). That was made clear this morning when the 2016 Nobel prize for literature was awarded to northern Minnesota's own Robert Allen Zimmerman, known to the rest of the world as Bob Dylan. That makes Mr. Dylan the second Minnesotan to be honored as a Nobel literature laureate, Sinclair Lewis being the first.  Minnesota, Sauk Center and Hibbing should start promoting whatever it is in our air, or water, or both, that contributes to such creativity. There's something happening here and you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones. ("Ballad of a Thin Man" lyrics).

Bob Dylan Way, Duluth

Photo by J. Harrington

Actually, another Minnesotan, this one an immigrant from New York, has spent years studying, teaching and writing about what it is that's happening here, when it comes to Bob Dylan and other Midwestern writers. David Pichaske has written Song of the North Country: A Midwest Framework to the Songs of Bob Dylan and Rooted: Seven Midwest Writers of Place. Unfortunately, the latter does not include Mr. Lewis, focusing on Bill Holm as the Minnesota representative. Pichaske's two books, plus some of his other works, seem to offer helpful insights into the role place, particularly Midwestern rural place, can play in the creative development of writers.

Iron Range mining tailings

Photo by J. Harrington

Dylan is Dylan. As the Nobel committee noted the award was bestowed for "having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition." Dylan has been a large part of the soundtrack of my life for more than two generations. I caused a minor stir in a Loft poetry class some years back when I asserted that, as far as I was concerned, Dylan was as much a poet as a singer-songwriter. As rural Minnesota looks to create a sustainable life and economy for the twenty-first and subsequent centuries, it might be helpful to spend more time thinking about what we've done successfully to create more Nobel laureates in literature, and what seems like a disproportionate number of creative, talented writers and visual artists. Creativity isn't an extractive or polluting industry. Two of Dylan's songs provide a helpful contrast, I believe. One is the North Country Blues, the other, Girl from the North Country.

North Country Blues

Bob Dylan

Come gather 'round friends and I'll tell you a tale
Of when the red iron pits ran a-plenty
But the cardboard-filled windows and old men on the benches
Tell you now that the whole town is empty

In the north end of town my own children are grown
But I was raised on the other
In the wee hours of youth my mother took sick
And I was brought up by my brother

The iron ore poured as the years passed the door
The drag lines an' the shovels they was a-humming
'Till one day my brother failed to come home
The same as my father before him

Well, a long winter's wait from the window I watched
My friends they couldn't have been kinder
And my schooling was cut as I quit in the spring
To marry John Thomas, a miner

Oh, the years passed again, and the giving was good
With the lunch bucket filled every season
What with three babies born, the work was cut down
To a half a day's shift with no reason

Then the shaft was soon shut, and more work was cut
And the fire in the air, it felt frozen
'Till a man come to speak, and he said in one week
That number eleven was closing

They complained in the East, they are paying too high
They say that your ore ain't worth digging
That it's much cheaper down in the South American towns
Where the miners work almost for nothing

So the mining gates locked, and the red iron rotted
And the room smelled heavy from drinking
Where the sad, silent song made the hour twice as long
As I waited for the sun to go sinking

I lived by the window as he talked to himself
This silence of tongues it was building
'Till one morning's wake, the bed it was bare
And I was left alone with three children

The summer is gone, the ground's turning cold
The stores one by one they're all folding
My children will go as soon as they grow
Well, there ain't nothing here now to hold them

Songwriters: Bob Dylan

North Country Blues lyrics © Bob Dylan Music Co.

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Can the Iron Range have a sustainable future?

The Mesabi Daily News web site this morning has a "Breaking News" banner that "U.S. Steel to announce 700 layoffs at Minntac in Mountain Iron." I first saw it when I started to read "MnDOT committed to Highway 53 funding" following a Tweet that caught my eye. Of particular interest was the statement that

"MnDOT officials told the Virginia City Council last week that they are trying to have Cliffs Resources agree to push back the company-imposed May 2017 deadline for the Highway 53 relocation project to be completed. But they said that’s a doubtful proposition."

The May 2017 deadline reference is a year ahead of the period when the iron sector is projected by the World Bank to begin an economic recovery, according to 2012 a report prepared for the European Commission (Mapping resource prices: the past and the future). As a recovering planner, I'm well aware of the dangers of taking forecasts as a given. Never-the-less, I suspect that the World Bank used best available information in updating its Commodity Price Forecast.

A comparison of the World Bank forecast with historical prices for the past 5 years leads me to believe that the forecast has been generally on target, allowing for a relatively short-lived bump up in prices during late 2012 and 2013, prices have been declining much of the past two years and that strongly suggests a depressed iron ore world market through 2018, as forecast.
.

Source: Index Mundi: Commodities: Iron Ore 

I started looking at some of this information while thinking about and researching the whole question of sustainable mining on the Iron Range. Some have argued, incorrectly I believe, that environmental regulations are notable contributors to the problems and costs faced by mining in northern Minnesota. From what Google searches yield, Europe appears to be well ahead of Minnesota in looking at the future of indigenous ore production. The Mapping resource prices report includes a breakdown of production costs. Environmental regulations are not listed as a separate category and neither are they mentioned as a major cost factor.

My Minnesota has been among those asserting that the Iron Range needs a more diversified economy to be sustainable. One of the world's leading consulting firms highlights another way to consider why a sustainable economy for Minnesota, including the Range, is becoming more critical. McKinsey & Company, back in 2011, produced Resource revolution: Meeting the world’s energy, materials, food, and water needs. Their conclusion seems relevant to northern Minnesota's future. What do you think?

"In the 20th century, governments and businesses didn’t have to worry about resource productivity; they were able to focus on capital and labor instead. Over the next 20 years, resources needs to be put at the heart of public policy and business strategy."

Increased resource productivity implies reduced demand for the raw material, similar to the way taconite processing helped the Range recover. It might also be worthwhile to give some thought to the potential effects of climate change mitigation on the steel industry lest a certain folk singer from the North Country be found to be too prophetic.

They complained in the east, they are paying too high
They say that your ore ain't worth diggin'
That it's much cheaper down in the South American towns
Where the miners work almost for nothin'

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Bob Dylan's Way

According to a number of recent reports, Bob Dylan, in an interview for AARP magazine, said that "if I had to do it all over again, I'd be a schoolteacher." That quote must be from the extended version of the interview, because I couldn't find anything like that in the online version. But what I'm actually thinking about is what it might have been like to have had Mr. Robert Zimmerman of Hibbing, MN as a teacher in high school or college. What, if any, academic episode might there have been similar to when Dylan first played the electric guitar in England and members of the audience booed him and called him a Judas.

a sign of Dylan in Duluth

Photo by J. Harrington

As I understand it (from afar, of course) in academia a student demonstrates mastery of a topic as a precondition to reinterpreting it. I think that's comparable to what Dylan did with folk music during his early years. Then he insisted he wasn't a topical singer; he explored country music, he's done spirituals and a Christmas album (the latter standard for most garden variety "pop" singers); and now he's interpreting old standards iconized by Frank Sinatra. I don't think even Noam Chomsky has shown that kind of range and versatility.

another sign of Dylan in Duluth

Photo by J. Harrington

If the Iron Range wants to diversify its economy, it could do worse, it seems, than opening a west wing of Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame devoted to Dylan, or expanding the concept to house a North American Folk Music Hall of Fame. I bet the IRRB would help fund it and we could convert an old mine pit into an amphitheater to add additional realism to Girl from the North Country. I claim such a thing would be no more a stretch than Dylan as a school teacher dealing with academic bureaucracies. Why should Duluth have all the fun? Why not more honor for the prophet in his own count(r)y?

Girl From The North Country by Bob Dylan 

Well, if you’re travelin’ in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

Well, if you go when the snowflakes storm
When the rivers freeze and summer ends
Please see if she’s wearing a coat so warm
To keep her from the howlin’ winds

Please see for me if her hair hangs long,
If it rolls and flows all down her breast.
Please see for me if her hair hangs long,
That’s the way I remember her best.

I’m a-wonderin’ if she remembers me at all
Many times I’ve often prayed
In the darkness of my night
In the brightness of my day

So if you’re travelin’ in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine 

Copyright © 1963 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991 by Special Rider Music

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