Day of Unity

On October 1, 2007, I hosted an event titled SPEAK OUT for Safety at Michigan's State Capitol building in Lansing. The anti-violence advocates, survivors, and neighbors who took part shared a wealth of intellect and heart on the matters at hand: neighborhood safety and preventing violence against women.

I recently uploaded photos taken by Paul Potts and Anaya Keaton at this event. They are available via my Anti-Violence Advocacy album on Flickr.

October 1 is The Day of Unity for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. And the SPEAK OUT was an excellent instance of people allying - across neighborhoods and communities - to promote safety for everyone. I still draw upon that event's strength when I envision possible positive change, with the hope that no one else will be violated of violence.

Click! Click! Click!

Pictures now available on Dey of the Phoenix (MySpace , see Artists album) from...

DeShaun Snead's Love Show (15 Dec) @ Scene Metro Space

and East Side Poetry Open Mic (18 Dec) @ Magdalena's Tea House.

Finalz 4 Me

EAST SIDE POETRY OPEN MIC

Tonight is the final ESP Open Mic I'm organizing at Magdalena's Tea House.

DeShaun Snead, smashin' jazz artist who just featured in The Love Show (Scene, 15 Dec), is hosting the evening! 7:30pm sign-up, 8pm reading, $5 cover.

Proprietor Miko Fossum plans to carry on this three-year-old, once-a-month venue for poets and poetry admirers, so stay tuned to Mag's web site for an update! My deepest appreciation to Miko and the invited hosts since April

Erin McLaughlin, Amanda Dubey, and Chris Pereira (May); John Thompson (Jun); Franny Howes (Jul); Lisa Sayles (Aug), Gianni "Tupaco" Risper (Sep), and Susan Harris (Nov).

KEEPING WOMEN SAFE "CAMPAIGN"

Much thanks to every person who gave support as I urged Lansing local officials to prioritize preventing violence against women (mid-August to early December).

When I sent my first letter to Mayor Bernero (15 Aug), I had no idea what laid ahead (see Facts from the Campaign below). But the efforts were fruitful due to the commitment and risk-taking stamina of many golden-hearted individuals.

...AND I'm glad to say that strong women and allies are working to keep women safe in our community!

FACTS FROM THE VAW CAMPAIGN

• month-long silent treatment by the Mayor and my Council Member Harold Leeman (Ward 1),


• letter received from the Mayor one week after I filed a citizen's complaint about his violating Obligations of Leadership according to Lansing's City Charter,


• steadfast support from Rina Risper, President and Publisher of The New Citizen Press,


• meeting strong women at City Hall who prioritize this safety issue, including Jessica Narodowiec and Anne Hodges,


• consistent communication with and assistance offered by Council Member Carol Wood,


• collaborating with local and state anti-violence advocates and survivors of violence for the SPEAK OUT for Safety (Oct. 1),


• nonprofit director Joan Nelson confirming to me that she instructed her staff not to attend the SPEAK OUT for Safety on behalf of the Allen Neighborhood Center,


• holding historic meetings with Lansing City Council Committees, which yielded a 2008 sub-committee for follow-through on suggestions to prevent violence against women,


• nonprofit director Susan Shoultz pulling out EVE Inc. from the Committee of the Whole dialogue (one week and a half prior), followed by a phone apology (two weeks later) if I took this action "personally," and her continued refusal to meet in person with mediators.

Momentos

2007 offered me plenty of memorable moments including...

• first solo feature performance (OKC, OK)


• summertime in the Flemish city of Leuven


• first time driving on the left side of the road (July trip to UK)


• invitation from Prof. Leonora Smith to talk with her MSU students about my community work and poetry


• first nonacademic publication: The Red White and Blue


• unexpected company by City Hall elevator: Lansing's Mayor Virg Bernero on the day I filed a citizen's complaint (about his violating the City Charter under his obligations of leadership)!

More fun factoids about 2007 are available at MySpace blog Dey of the Phoenix under the Dec. 10 post Year in Review. Topics include gorgeous people, Survivin' & Thrivin', and my gratitude list.

Praise for BIE!

From Leonora Smith, author of Spatial Relations:

Melissa Dey Hasbrook’s poetry comes from her strong, relentless voice—a voice that rises not from the throat but from deep inside the body—from the solar plexus and the womb. Mad, damn mad, and sometimes wonderfully sassy: “I’d like to see Donald Trump make a toilet bowl shine,” she says: that’s what it means to be “unskilled labor.”

It’s no accident that the first poem in Hasbrook’s Blame it on Eve! opens with an epigraph from poet/feminist/political activist Susan Griffin. There are notes from other street corners in this book: call and response to the Beats’ harangues, to the slam scene’s tough percussions, to the protests of the working man and woman, and to all the never-back-down feminist poets who used their voices to name injustices and keep naming them until men and other women were forced to listen.

Hasbrook’s kind of “edgy” poem is honed like the edge of a blade to slice through crap, to stand off wife beaters, and to dismantle fences at the borders before Bush has time to put them up. It’s clear why she invokes Griffin, whose poem, “I Like to Think of Harriet Tubman,” ends with the lines “there is always a time/for retribution/and that time/is beginning.”

Hasbrook’s voice hits this and other notes, but her poetry is not the work of yesterday; it is the poetry of now. Like some other poets of her generation, Hasbrook is using her poetry as a way of imaging and making a space in this “post-emancipation proclamation nation” where the words poet/feminist/activist don’t need backslashes. And this is where you find the sweetness in this book: generosity, gratitude—running strong and deep beneath the surfaces—hope that her words are making it possible for others to find a solid place to stand.

Hyperlinks added by MDH.

BIE! Press Release

PRESS RELEASE - DECEMBER 6, 2007 – Blame It on Eve!

Blame It on Eve! is the first solo poetry compilation released by Melissa Dey Hasbrook, and authors Carol Davis Koss (OK) and Victor Villanueva (WA) offer up praise about her word art.

Blame It on Eve! is an electronic book available on CD through Everybody Reads Books and Stuff of Lansing, Michigan, and soon through its website.

The release party for Blame It on Eve!, held Sunday, December 2, 2007, at the Grand Café/ Sir Pizza in Lansing’s north end, kept tables full even after an ice storm. MC Dr. Jenn Nichols, Everybody Reads, Musician Barb Barton, poets Lisa Sayles, Chey Davis, and Susan Harris also joined the show.

The City Pulse of Lansing ran a story about the release party titled “Poet continues push for community through couplets” in its December 5, 2007, edition as part of its Arts and Entertainment section.

Here is what readers are saying about Hasbrook’s collection:

“One portion of Blame it on Eve! is titled ‘No Mincing Words’ and one thing Melissa Dey Hasbrook does NOT do is 'mince words.' Her poetry is both political and confessional, exploring her society, the larger world, and herself. Hasbrook is a performance poet and, in much of her work, even on the page, we can hear her voice and her passion. “
—Carol Davis Koss, Author of Camera Obscura, Oklahoma City, OK

“Blame it on Eve! doesn’t blame Eve. The title is an irony. Or maybe it’s an echo. A profound one (irony or echo), one which Melissa Dey Hasbrook carves out with words: free verse, rigorously metered rhyming verse, sonnet to prose poetry. This is a wonderful, politically powerful collection, railing—beautifully—against institutions of all sorts: the academy, the State, the economy, the illusions of race and the realities of racism, and the institution of gender. At bottom, this is a tribute to women—to all that they give of life and love, of violence absorbed and resisted, of Word.”
—Victor Villanueva, Author of Bootstraps: From an American Academic of Color, Pullman, WA

Through MySpace and The Women Writers Blog , Melissa Dey Hasbrook keeps the public up to date about her publications and performances. Hasbrook also is available by email about her work deyofthephoenix[at]hotmail.com.

Whoo-eee!

Updated 6:55am 12/7

There's a lot happenin' around the corner, and I'm not missin' any of these:

Carry the Dream, celebration event for The Leaven Center on Saturday, December 8.

Night of Hope Day of Peace Concert by Sistrum Women's Chorus of Lansing and Greater Lansing Gay Men's Chorus. I'm going Friday, December 14 (but there's also a show on December 15).

The Love Show featuring musician DeShaun Snead with guests on Saturday, December 15.

East Side Poetry Open Mic at Magdalena's Tea House with guest host DeShaun Snead on Tuesday, December 18.

Powerful PoetrY

EXTRA! EXTRA!

Good news! The City Pulse of Lansing, Michigan, ran an article about my book release for Blame It on Eve!, my first solo poetry compilation. The e-book available on CD is for sale through Everybody Reads Books and Stuff (E. Michigan between Fairview and Clemons).

WORD ART HAPPENIN'S

Last night I whooped it up with a wonderful sampling of poets at SpitFire Poetry held 1st and 3rd Wednesdays at the Green River Cafe in East Lansing (on M.A.C. near Grand River). Blair was featured, an amazing folk singer and spoken word artist based in Detroit.

Upcoming in Lansing is the East Side Poetry Open Mic Tuesday, December 18, at Magdalena's Tea House (E. Michigan Ave., between Fairview and Clemons). It's the last month of my organizing this three-year-old venue, which I picked up in March. Musician DeShaun Snead is guest hosting. Sign up is at 7:30pm and reading at 8pm. $5 cover includes tea or coffee.

For 2008, I'm putting together a poetry spectacular titled Ancient River. Guest poets joining me sometime in mid-February are my friends Marycela and Deena Tyler. So scribble AR by MDH in Lansing in your new calendars!