Looking Forward

FALL IS FULL OF POETRY

Lansing's putting on many wonderful poetic happenings this season. Be sure to view the listing from WW for upcoming open mikes and events. (Right side, scroll down.)


KEEPING LANSING SAFE!

The Lansing Police Department reported the arrest of a suspect for the murders of Debra Renfors, Deborah Cooke, Ruth Hallman, Sandra Eichorn, and Karen Delgado-Yates. The suspect also is tied to the beating of a woman who survived last week (on Jones St.) and a series of attacks on Lansing women several years ago.

Lansing police: 'Serial killer' caught Aug. 31

What are your ideas about keeping Lansing safe? The City Pulse offers an online forum where Lansing can dialogue. Take a moment to post your ideas about

Keeping Lansing Safe!

Remembering Victims

Karen Louise Delgado-Yates 41 yrs
"Police identify 14th homicide victim" Aug. 30

A Call to Care

ROLL CALL

Look who’s caring to call attention to violence against women!

City Council member William Matt
http://www.billmatt.org/ see post "Crime Fighting Strategy" Aug. 29
Quote: "the [Mayor's] crime prevention plan fails to address building and supporting programs that prevent violence against women"
=letters to the Mayor and City Council do some good!

LSJ 'Brutal' death is a shock Aug. 29
"Eichorn was the fourth woman killed in the last five weeks in the city. "
=some kind of tally for the number of murdered women in addition to a total number of this year's homicides

Lansing Police (as reported by the LSJ)
Police: Attack may be related to 2 homicides Aug. 29
"Police are asking residents - especially women living alone - to take extra precautions for their personal safety."
=recognition of women's UNsafety in Lansing

WHY SPEAK OUT

There is "a call to care" in Lansing on October 1 @ noon @ City Hall:

to promote neighborhood safety &
to confront violence against women.

The SPEAK OUT is…

* a positive gathering of community members,
* a peaceful environment for residents’ to share experiences,
* a collaboration in order to network across neighborhoods,
* an information-sharing event with local & state groups,
* a free-speech event with story, poetry, & song, AND
* a direct message to the City Government:
}{STOP THE VIOLENCE!}{

Did you know? October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and Oct. 1 is the DVA community's Day of Unity.

SPEAK OUT partners include

EVE Inc. - End Violent Encounter

Survivin' & Thrivin' hosts
Deena Tyler & Melissa Dey Hasbrook

RINA RISPERS
of The New Citizens Press & NuPoets Collective

Voices

from Melissa...

PHONE CALL AWAY

Deena Tyler and I keep in regular touch during my trip to Belgium. Yesterday we chatted online when I found the LSJ headline about yet another murdered woman in Lansing.

Sandra Eichorn "'Brutal' death is a shock" Aug. 29

The news struck me physically. I wanted to hear my mother's voice, like I wanted to hear her voice the morning I was told by phone that planes with people were crashing into buildings with people on September 11, 2001. I tried lunch yesterday with little success and dinner was a no-go.

But I did call my mom at work before trying to sleep. "What's wrong?" She asked, as she always does when I call her from Belgium while she's at work. "Nothing," I said, "Just wanted to hear your voice."

Thankfully, her voice is a phone call away for me to hear, but not for the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Lansing's murder victims, and not for the loved ones of Brandon Williams, a 17-year-old who sometimes may have phoned his elders just to hear their voices.


POETRY AND POLITICS

Survivors of violence deal with survival in different ways. Sometimes we must just swallow the fear that rises and get out of bed to face whatever and whoever may be out there. Sometimes we laugh with loved ones, overcoming the pain and shame put on us by someone else's hands and words. Sometimes we withdrawal from public; sometimes we dive into what's happening in this world.

Poetry is one way for me and many survivors to survive and thrive. Recently, I shared some poems on the Lansing State Journal forums, where I am posting about STOPPING THE VIOLENCE! in Lansing -- to keep our neighborhoods safe and to confront violence targeted against women.

Here are links to the poems:

Number 13
for the unidentified 64-year-old woman
found murdered at 1813 S. Genesee, Lansing, Michigan
(note: now we know she was Sandra Eichorn)

Messages
for rosalind and haywood

Speechless

The LSJ reports today

Lansing woman is city's 13th homicide:
64-year-old found dead in her home on Genesee Drive

The victim has not yet been identified by the police.

Poetry and Prevention

TONIGHT!
Don't miss the East Side Poetry Open Mike at Magdalena's Tea House! Lisa Sayles, a Survivin' & Thrivin' regular, is hosting.


SPEAK OUT UPDATE
Joining us Oct.1 at Lansing City Hall are the Michigan Peace Team and
Triangle Foundation. A huge thank you to these groups!

Are you interested to join the program? Here's how to sign up!

A VISION FOR PREVENTION
The Michigan Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence published an important resource for local leaders and community members:

A Vision for Prevention: Key Issues and Statewide Recommendations for the Primary Prevention of Violence Against Women in Michigan (2003) by Wendi L. Siebold

The book is available for free and in PDF format. Just follow the proper link to download on this web page .

Here are the key issues listed in its table of contents:

• Integrating violence against women prevention messages into every local community in Michigan.


• Building relationships and partnerships across organizations within local communities.


• Increasing the capacity of current coordinated community response efforts to prevent violence against women and create prevention-focused coordinated community responses.


• Promoting violence against women prevention education throughout our state and local communities.


• Improving prevention education by strengthening linkages between prevention educators.

The Facts

GOOD FACT

The Old Town Poets are returning to the Creole Gallery at 1218 Turner Street in Old Town on Wednesday, September 12, at 7:30pm.

Coordinator Ruelaine Stokes invites participants to sign up ahead and at the event to read one poem. The evening will be

"a real celebration of life, poetry, music, community, and the beautiful, spirit-filled gallery that Robert Busby created as a home for artists and the arts."

BAD FACTS

Check out the facts about violence against women in Michigan! Provided by The Michigan Resource Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence .

• Since the age of 16, "38% of women have experienced physical violence by a man" and "40% of women have experienced some form of sexual violence, ranging from unwanted touching to forcible rape." (See the fact sheet Violence Against Women in Michigan.)


• "One out of five, twenty one percent, of Michigan women with current partners reported sustaining some type of violence in that relationship." (See the fact sheet Prevalence of Domestic Violence.)


• "Based on Michigan data from 1999–2000, about four of every ten females (39%) seen in selected emergency departments (EDs) for injuries related to assault were there because of intimate partner violence against women(IPVAW)."


• "From 1999–2001, a total of 316 violent deaths connected to intimate partner relationships were registered in the Michigan Intimate Partner Homicide Surveillance System." (See the fact sheet titled Intimate Partner Violence in Michigan.)

ACTION AFTER FACT

Information is most useful as informed action. Please consider what step next to take. Here are some ideas:

Urge local and state government officials to STOP THE VIOLENCE against women in Michigan.

Invite neighbors to SPEAK OUT at Lansing City Hall on October 1.

Support nonprofits working with survivors of violence, like EVE Inc. (Oct. 1 SPEAK OUT partner).

Write letters to editors, like Rina Risper (OCT. 1 SPEAK OUT partner) of The New Citizens Press.

Why Are More Women Dying?!

from Melissa...

MORE WOMEN DIE DURING CHILDBIRTH, BUT WHY?

In the LSJ on Aug. 25 under the section Lifestyles, we find the AP story "Rate of women dying in childbirth on the rise" (subtitle reads Experts: Obesity, C-sections major reasons for increase) by Mike Stobbe. Stobbe reports, "Some researchers point to the rising C-section rate, now 29 percent of all births - far higher than what public health experts say is appropriate." Yet how is it that women are getting more C-sections than what "public health experts" recommend?


GOOD QUESTION!

A paper published in 2005 by the British Medical Journal indicates that this question cannot be answered because of insufficient documentation.

The authors analyze "US national birth certificate data on approximately 4 million births annually to create a new category-—mothers at 'no indicated risk'—-and then examines the growth of primary caesareans in these women from 1991 to 2001." (The BMJ is "published by BMJ Publishing Group Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association.")

The authors' conclusion sounds alarm:

The proportion of no indicated risk primary caesareans is growing rapidly in the United States, adding to the overall rise in primary caesareans. The major limitation of this study is the quality of reporting of items on the US birth certificate. However, we would expect that "defensive medicine" would encourage the reporting of a risk factor associated with the resulting caesarean. [...] It would also be inappropriate to equate no indicated risk caesareans with "patient choice" caesareans, as birth certificate data provide no record of the mother's intent.

Although some recent editorials have suggested that vaginal births carry risks comparable to caesarean births, health problems associated with caesareans have been amply documented. All of these risks may be easily outweighed by the potential benefits to a mother or infant with a condition that could have been avoided by a timely caesarean, but what if the caesarean was done without a medical indication? In the case of no indicated risk primary caesareans, particularly for younger mothers who plan to have more children and may be denied a vaginal birth after a caesarean, additional research is needed to elucidate whether the risks of a no indicated risk primary caesarean will be offset by associated benefits. (emphasis added, full story)

Let's get this straight:

(1) US birth certificates don't document the basis for caesareans,
(2) certain women are categorized as "no indicated risk" for caesareans--a surgery well documented as carrying risk, and
(3) "editorials"--in other words editors--claim equal risk between vaginal v. caesarean births, contrary to "public health experts"!

VIOLENCE TARGETED AT WOMEN

WW Blog readers may ask, "Why go on about such a story in the midst of increasing murders in Lansing with practically all women victims?"

BECAUSE this story affirms to look carefully when following coverage about victims of violence--whomever is presenting the coverage! What kind of documents are/n't referenced? Which details are/n't emphasized? (See the Letter to the Editor "Report death trend" in the LSJ, ,Aug. 23. But to be clear, I wrote to them about the murder trend in Lansing.)

BECAUSE women are taken out AND violated by violence in an alarming scope, says the World Health Organization. "[V]iolence against women is widespread with far-reaching health consequences."

BECAUSE women's health care in the US is inferior to that of men, says the US Dept. of Health and Human Services. "Differences in quality of care are evident for women compared with men."

BECAUSE people in positions of power** too often abuse their positions. For an example too close to Lansing, read "Virg in Old Town china shop" by Kyle Melinn, City Pulse, 15 August 2007.

BECAUSE men are in positions of power** disproportionately to women in the US. We still are waiting for the first woman President and the first woman Mayor of Lansing! Women still earn less than men, says the National Committee on Pay Equity!

BECAUSE we who watch the coverage about victims of violence are alive but the victims are dead.

BECAUSE we who are women want to stay safe and alive!


(**By "positions of power" I refer to those institutional "seats" in government, commerce, religion, and so on. I do not mean that men are more powerful than women by nature or by justice. I mean that there is an alarming disproportion of men in positions of economic, political, and social power compared to women.)

Positively Poetic

SPEAK OUT PREPARATIONS

Yesterday's post announced who is partnering so far for the SPEAK OUT @ Lansing City Hall @ noon on Oct. 1, where participants are welcome to impromptu share poems, songs, testimonies, and so on in promotion of neighborhood safety and confronting violence targeted at women.

We also are prepping a program of community members, artists, activists, and so on. Do you want to be in the line up? Then email deyofthephoenixAThotmail.com with

* your name,
* contribution at the SPEAK OUT
(-->poem, song, testimony, etc.),
* and about your interest or connection to the event theme
(-->E/N/W/S-side resident, survivor of violence, local artist, etc.).

For acquaintances new to all of the SPEAK OUT partners, one of us will be in touch with you about program details. We hope to include as many people as interested in the program yet are working with a limited number of program slots.


PRISON POETRY PROJECT

Check it out! The first Prison Poetry Project took place recently at Gone Wired Cafe, where Survivin' & Thrivin open mikes glowed from Nov. 2006 to Apr. 2007.

Local poetry readers slip prison verse over razor wire
City Pulse, 22 August 2007

ARRO (Advocacy, Re-entry, Resources and Outreach) presented the event. To learn more about this group organized by the Northwest Initiative, see January 2007's Newsletter, page 2.

Speak Out Partners

GOOD NEWS

Women Writers of Survivin' & Thrivin' are joined by partners to SPEAK OUT @ Lansing City Hall on October 1 @ noon:

EVE Inc.
End Violent Encounter

Rina Risper
Publisher of The New Citizens Press
& founder of The NuPoets Collective

READ ALL ABOUT IT

People are paying attention and calling out to STOP THE VIOLENCE!

Rina Risper's Excuse me are you listening?
TNCP 19 August 2007

Lansing City Pulse's Trickle Down Crime Fighting
22 August 2007

Added 25 August:
LSJ's Dozens Attend Hunter Park Vigil
23 August 2007

Edited Letter Published!

from Melissa...

Golly Gee! Today the LSJ published my letter to the editor submitted on Aug.15! Their title is "Report death trend":

Thursday's Letter to the Editor

Of course, the letter is shortened (though it was 149 words in length, within the 150-word limit). To see the original, check out the post Accountability Now!

Just maybe raising a racket on the LSJ forums yesterday made an impact.

A New Day

from Melissa...

UNPLANNED HAPPENING

I spent Wednesday with posters on the LSJ Story Chat. My online comments were "taken to task", so I put forward rationales for engaging residents in safety policymaking and confronting violence targeted at women. Exchanges are available below each story in a forum:

Wednesday's Letters to the Editor (Aug. 22)
Safety Plan (Aug. 21)
Police Say Husband Likely Shot Wife, Self (Aug. 22)

This exercise in free speech let me practice presenting these issues to strangers. Yet Lansing lost another women to murder!

Debra Waidelich - LSJ story "Police say..."

STOPPING THE VIOLENCE: HOPE, PERSIST, & BE ANGRY

In memory of Lansing's murder victims and to "keep on" stopping the violence, here is a poem that took several years before writing it (Jan. 2006). It is a poem included in Blame It on Eve!, my chapbook to be released in September:

Mystery Woman, or The Weights of Silence
by Melissa Dey Hasbrook
for Taisha (*see below poem)

In trying to tell something,
a woman is told,
shredding herself into opaque words
while her voice dissolves
on the walls of silence.

Ressemblage.
From silences to silences,
the fragile essence
of each fragment sparks
across the screen,
subsides
and takes flight.

—Trinh Minh-Ha
Woman, Native, Other

Mystery Woman,
I cannot forget you,
though we never met in the flesh.
I read part of your story
the time when
you could not hear
or speak
or write.
You appeared one morning in Brooklyn,
alone and without documents.
People stared
at your pendant of the sun and moon
imagining you “Mexican”
by its design.
They suspected you “illegal”
since no one reported you missing.

I remembered you
while visiting my Northwest sister.
Laying in bed,
I held her arm
as she told me of harm
the day her husband tried to kill her
in front of their children.
Coldness swept over me
and my stomach turned sour
as silence weighted
the passage of her words.

I remembered you
while vacationing in Paris.
Laying in a hotel,
I held my lover
as a man struck a mother.
Her scream cut across
the narrow space
between our balconies.
Adrenaline pumped through me
and I leapt to my feet
as silence weighted
the absence of her words.

Mystery Woman,
I cannot forget you,
though we never will meet in the flesh
because you were found that morning
murdered and burnt.
But I hope to write part of your story
the time when
you could hear
and speak
and write.
I stare at your pendant shining,
imagining you
brown, yellow,
black, red,
and white.
And I suspect you present and watching
as I weigh your silence
with words.

ABOUT TAISHA

I first learned about Taisha in July 2003 while staying in Brooklyn. I clipped the NYT story Burned Body in Brooklyn Still a Puzzle to the Police and wondered about this woman lost to a violent act.

In a writing workshop at The Leaven Center (Jan. 2006), the poem "Mystery Woman" poured forth, tying together several experiences with women violated by violence. After the workshop, I researched online about her, Mystery Woman, and found out she was Taisha Camacho, a teenager. To learn about Taisha, read more:

Photos posted by her cousin Michelle
Arrest for Taisha's Murder
Acquittal of Man Charged with Taisha's Murder

Where's the Justice?

from Melissa...

In today's LSJ letters to the editor NONE address the editorial Safety Plan. Questions cross my mind:

• Was my letter the ONLY one submitted about the editorial?


• Or did SO FEW submit letters to the LSJ in response to its assessment of the Mayor's plan (and/or LSJ coverage of victims of violence)?


• How can there be NOTHING to print on this very important community topic?

Thinking back on the LSJ's coverage about the murdered child Ricky Holland, I wonder, where's the justice??

Letter to the Editor

August 21, 2007

LSJ’s Editorial “Safety Plan” (Aug. 21) raises questions about Mayor Bernero’s plan for a safe city but none address two issues especially impacting Lansing residents:

Who is the Mayor consulting from Lansing neighborhoods about how best to keep our communities safe? Video surveillance cameras will not intervene attackers breaking into our homes, as happened in the murders of Debra Renfors and Ruth Hallman.

Also, how is the City of Lansing going to confront violence targeted against women? Add Deborah Cooke and Brandon Williams to the list and we find that recent murders include one male, who at 17 years counts as a child.

Mr. Mayor, please engage the neighborhoods and women of Lansing directly in revising this plan for a safe city.

Melissa Dey Hasbrook
Lansing

Paying Attention

from Melissa..

The Lansing State Journal published an editorial Safety plan about Mayor Bernero's plan for making Lansing, Michigan, a safe(r) city. The LSJ story raises questions about funding, cameras, and law enforcement.

Yet--AGAIN--no recognition is paid to the role of residents' direct input and involvement, nor to the pattern of violence targeted at women. And I sent ANOTHER letter to the LSJ editor; we'll see if they print THIS one.

So let's raise our voices!! Mark your calendars for Monday, October 1--the first day of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Deena Tyler and I are joining community members to

SPEAK OUT @ LANSING CITY HALL
@ NOON on the sidewalk of Capitol & Michigan Aves.

The event is dedicated to raising awareness about neighborhood safety and violence targeting women. Our gathering is a peaceful one and exercises our right to free speech. Please bring poems, songs, testimonies, posters, and the like!

TNCP Is Steppin' Up!

Thanks to The New Citizens Press for steppin' up about victims of violence and neighborhood safety in Lansing, Michigan!

Rina Risper published Melissa's letter to the editor (see post Accountability, NOW!) in the latest TNCP.

Look for the print edition around town and stay tuned for the letter's online publication http://www.tncp.net/ .

And soon to come in the TNCP: Melissa's letter to Mayor Virg Bernero!

More to See

Melissa Dey Hasbrook is giving MySpace a try. Check it out:

http://myspace.com/deyofthephoenix

Ready for Me

Deena Tyler is set to release her chapbook Ready for Me: Raw and Rough on Saturday, November 4! Stay tuned for event details.

Here is a poem from the book:

I Harbor No Illusions
by Deena Tyler

I harbor no illusions that I’ll go far,
that Oprah will buy me a car,
or I'll be a star.
I harbor no illusions that people don't judge my skin,
that losers ever win,
that everyone is my friend.
I don’t harbor those illusions.
There are days early in the morning
without warning
I feel my grandmother's presence and just for a moment, I am innocent again.
I believe…
I believe that Martin Luther King's dream could be true for me and you,
I believe we could love one another,
all be brothers.
I believe we could chase an ideal,
make it real,
make it worth living for.
I believe there is an honest man
who will take a stand.
Then…
the moment goes and heaven knows
that at any time without reason
it could become a killing season.
I could just be gone,
that everything I believed was wrong.
So I will not have delusions
about my illusions.
But I still want to believe.

To contact Deena, use this email address:

usATwomenwriters.us.to

Speaking Up

from Melissa...

The LSJ did leave a phone message asking for permission to print my letter to the editor, which I provided. But my letter is not included in Friday's letters. So...?

Derek Melot of the LSJ maintains its blog and recently posed on Mayor Virg Bernero's "plan" for safety in Lansing, which does not impress me. Check out Melot's post (Aug. 16) and my comment about (some reasons) why Bernero's plan is incomplete and misguided:

http://noise.typepad.com/derek_melot/2007/08/up-down-all-aro.html

Please join the dialogue! The LSJ Blog, your own blog, and/or a letter to the editor are some ways to speak up in the community.

Accountability NOW!

from Melissa...

LETTER TO EDITOR

Today I submitted the following letter to the editor of the Lansing State Journal, community newspaper of my hometown. In this version, I provide links to the referenced stories. Let's see if LSJ publishes it AND what version of it they publish (since it's 149 words long, within the 150-word limit).

LSJ, please fairly report about victims of violence. “Police ID Woman” (Aug. 12) glimpses at Debra Renfors while “Victim Tried to Change Life” (Aug. 14) is lopsided. Overall, you obscure her person and this disturbing trend: a second woman murdered in the same house without anyone convicted.

LSJ’s portrait of a record not the person of Ms. Renfors contrasts your coverage of murdered neighborhood-activist Ruth Hallman. In both cases, humans were killed. Irrelevant details about Ms. Renfors’s history, like past intoxication, is sensational not responsible or insightful.

I request that you publish a feature about Lansing-area violence spotlighting women and children as the majority of victims. Consider how recent reporting on the murders of Julie Mishoe , Barbara George, and Brandon Williams fails to address this proven pattern. October is domestic violence awareness month, an ideal time for such a feature. LSJ, give victims and survivors of violence our due.

Melissa Dey Hasbrook
Lansing

Comment: LSJ did print the story "Experts speak on grief, violence" (Aug 12). But nodding at domestic violence in response to Julie Mishoe's murder DOES NOT acknowledge RECURRING violence in our community, most often violating and/or taking the lives of women and children. Check out the stats:

http://www.endabuse.org/resources/facts/
http://www.nccev.org/violence/statistics/statistics-domestic.html
http://www.abanet.org/domviol/statistics.html
ADDED 21 AUG: http://www.now.org/issues/violence/stats.html

REMEMBERING THE VICTIMS

Here are stories about the victims (ones not linked in the above letter).

Deborah Kaye Cooke
Hunter Park homicide victim identified
The perpetrator/s murdered AND sexually violated Ms. Cooke.

Julie Mishoe
Murder-Suicide Victim's Family Speak Out

Brandon Williams
Victim, 17, remembered as 'loving'

Barbara George
Husband charged with killing wife in 1990

Barbara Jean Tuttle
2004 - the first woman killed at 1017 N. Washington Ave., Lansing.
Lansing's unsolved homicides

Debra Elaine Renfors
2007 - the second woman killed at 1017 N. Washington Ave., Lansing.

Ruth Hallman
Carol Wood remembers ‘Momie’

NO MAGIC, MAYOR!

An LSJ story-headline quotes Lansing mayor Virg Bernero about recent murders:

Mayor: "I wish I could wave a magic wand and stop this"

And what about the nature of such murders?

"Bernero said that most homicides in the city are drug related or domestic in nature, though he did not confirm or deny that today's homicide was either."

Intervening violence DOES NOT involve magic. We require a community-wide effort from teaching children to law enforcement to neighborhood collaboration. In this process, elected officials must take responsibility not brush away complicity.

Policy makers set agendas. I CANNOT imagine a mayor telling its residents that one wishes one could wave a magic wand for the economy to improve or to stop unemployment! There must be accountability for victims and survivors of violence demonstrated by our communities' priorities--from City Hall to police precincts to courtrooms to households.

Drum Roll, Please

Deena Tyler is in The New Citizens Press about July 26's Poetry in the City. Read all about it!