for-words 06 14 2013
Friday, June 14, 2013
Protest
I'm happy to announce protest is alive and well in Wisconsin. Here's the back story.
It usually starts with the belief that my/our actions mean something, a sense of agency. If I/we tell people in power what the situation is as we see it, then they will take those facts into consideration.
Then the action continues with disbelief---how could they not see the validity of what we are pointing out to them? The motivator then is well, if you can't understand the obvious, then I need to find the audience that does understand, is willing to see.
And so to the Capitol, to the Penokee Hills, to the streets.
for-words 06 12 2013
for-words 06 11 2013
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Commencement
"It's not about you," Mr. Eul, principal of James E. Groppi High School, told me. I had asked for his suggestions for the commencement speech the school invited me to give. "Keep it short," he said. "Seven minutes. Not more than ten. There'll be energy, there'll be noise."
There was energy, joyful energy. There was noise before the ceremony and as each graduate stepped across the stage to accept his or her diploma. But I felt I had everyone's attention while I spoke.
I congratulated the graduates on their courage and perseverance. I told them we need their energy:
People in power are passing laws that will make the lives of poor and working people even more difficult. We need your energy in groups like the League of Young Voters, the NAACP, MICAH, to stand up for justice. We need you to vote in every election. They are turning down federal money for health care, they are taking away money for public transportation, the buses, they are taking away money from public schools. The city and state needs leaders who will work to help people. You can be such a leader.
The way to deal with social injustice is not to waste your own life.
Margaret Rozga
author of Though I Haven't Been to Baghdad
and 200 Nights and One Day
for-words 06 09 2013
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Stories Live
Tucked away like sleeping babies, the stories we live, the stories we live with, and those we live in sometimes wake up and cry. Poets, writers, visual artists, musicians hear them, lift them up from their cradles in upper rooms and bring them down to the living room where guests wait for their turn to cuddle the baby.
I've started to think in such terms of the stories that cry out, desperate to be heard. Shawn Smucker, a guest blogger on Andi Cumbo's AndiLit put me on this path. Here's what Shawn wrote:
"Stories have a deeply ingrained desire to survive, but it's a dangerous world out there. Most of them wait too long to be told (they're rather shy, after all) and they lose their voice to death or disease or memory loss."
If you'd like to read more of what Shawn had to say, here's a link:
http://us-mg6.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=f191mlh9d3v0q#mail
Margaret Rozga
author of 200 Nights and One Day
and Though I Haven't Been to Baghdad
for-words 06 08 2013
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Heather
She nearly died. One of her doctors told her that as he saw it she had died. He paused to check his tears and said, "you came back."
She came back, and she's almost her strong old self. 90-95%. Not yet ready to go back to work in her job that requires strength. 100%. So she reads. So when I finally got a chance to see her, I brought her books.
Deciding what to bring meant thinking about what books might she like and what books was I willing to give up and what books met both of those criteria and were in good, if not mint condition.
A look at my bookshelf: Craig Lesly's River Song because she used to live in Oregon and Sena Jeter Nasland's Four Spirits which has some good passages and a civil rights connection. Then I was pretty sure she'd like Thomas King's Medicine River—I love it, who wouldn't?—I also knew that not teaching any more, I was unlikely to go back to it. And I realized I had two copies of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, so I could give her one of those.
I gave her eight books in all. I'm not sure what were the other four. Choosing them gave me more than a little pause, so I feel I should remember titles. Maybe she will tell me, but I gave them with no strings. Whatever she doesn't like and whatever she finishes she can pass on to whomever she chooses or simply toss.
Sometimes letting go is like that.
Margaret Rozga
author of 200 Nights and One Day
and Though I Haven't Been to Baghdad