Memory Arts Café

New York Memory Center & Alzheimer’s Poetry Project Launch

New York State’s First Memory Arts Café

Memory Arts Café is a new series of free art events for people living with Alzheimer’s disease, their caregivers and the general public, and is co-produced by New York Memory Center and the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project. The series takes place on the 2nd Wednesday of each month and includes light refreshments and the opportunity to chat with the guest artists. 

Wednesday, June 13 at 6 pm

New York Memory Center

199 14th Street at 4^th Avenue • Brooklyn, NY 11215

(Take the R to Prospect Ave.)

For info: call (718) 499-7701 or visit alzpoetry.com

About the performers:

Legendary jazz critic, Nat Hentoff, has praised Roger’s work as "the most joyously encouraging way of expanding the audience for jazz."  In partnership with the NYC Alzheimer Association Chapter and jazz singer, Peter Eldridge, Ms. Rogers has produced two Alzheimer's benefit concerts entitled “For Those We Love.” (louiserogers.org)

The Boston Globe wrote of pianist, composer, educator, and bandleader Mark Kross "Kross digs hard with a bright contemporary piano style with Monkish bop influences.” He is the Head of the Music Department at the Middlesex School, an independent high school in Concord, MA and has released five CD’s with his band, The Mark Kross Five-Piece Trio.

About the producers:
Founded in 1983, the mission of New York Memory Center is to help older adults who have cognitive, physical, and emotional limitations, to maintain or improve their level of functioning so that they may enjoy their later years at home and within the community. Through an innovative wellness center, New York Memory Center meets the needs of individuals living with Alzheimer’s and related dementia disorders and their Caregivers. NYMC offers two primary programs: Lotus Club, an early intervention and support program for those experiencing the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s and related dementias; and Memory Life Services, a program which provides more extensive services suitable for adults in the community with middle to later stage memory loss. For additional information, please visit nymemorycenter.org.

Gary Glazner founded the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project (APP) in 2004. The APP was awarded the 2012 MetLife Foundation Creativity and Aging in America Leadership Award in the category of Community Engagement. The National Endowment for the Arts listed the APP as a “best practice” for their Arts and Aging initiative. NBC's “Today” show, NPR's “All Things Considered” and Voice of America have featured segments on the APP.

New York Times on Frontotemporal Dementia

Powerful article in the New York Times by Denise Grady on Frontotemporal Dementia. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/health/a-rare-form-of-dementia-tests-a-vow-of-for-better-for-worse.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp.

The photograph is by Béatrice de Géa.
The video that accompanies the writing is amazing, with strong graphic shots of the couple featured in the article. Hearing their voices is heartbreaking.
The harrowing piece ends with an ee cummings  poem that the couple shares:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

The Thing About Life

The Thing About Life

Elizabeth Raby

 

It's a strange thing about life--

how we want it, no matter what--

the cane, the hearing aid,

the oxygen pulled along behind us

like a grocery cart, which, of course,

it sort of is, feeding us our necessaries.

For the fortunate, the brain continues to function

at more or less its accustomed pace--

a little clog, a blockage here and there,

but we manage to work around them,

process and produce.  Through

my thicker lenses, around my

growing cataracts, I still am able to see

the hummingbird, iridescent green speck

riding purple-leaved branch of the plum tree

in early morning breeze. Behind them
 once again the sun clears the mountain.

Elizabeth Raby has been a poet in the schools for the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts, the New Jersey Council of the Arts, and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. She taught poetry writing at Muhlenberg College.  Raby represented the Teachers for Tomorrow program as an English Teacher in Deva, Romania.  Her publications include The Hard Scent of Peonies, Jasper Press, Camphorwood, Nightshade Press, and Ten Degrees Above Zero, Jasper Press. She has lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico since 2001 where she and her husband run a monthly open poetry reading.  Raby is a member of the board of New Mexico Literary Arts and a Fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
More on Raby's books and poetry from Visual Artists Collective

Poetry at MoMA

Picasso! Rousseau! Van Gogh! This "art cheer," celebrates the 3 artists highlighted during the Dec. 13th, 2011, session of Meet Me at MoMA. The session was co-lead by Francesca Rosenberg, Director of Community and Access Programs and APP director Gary Glazner. More on Meet Me at MoMA at: http://www.moma.org/meetme/index

APP in the News

New York Times Review of Needham's "When We Forget"

Allan Kozinn describes the piece as "...stunning," and that the"...brilliantly orchestrated score is both dreamy and harrowing.

Here is a link to the review of Clint Needham's piece, "When We Forget," in the New York Times.

Many thanks to Needham for including my poem, "We Are Forget," which he says inspired the piece for including the poem in the Carnegie Hall program. It was really fun looking around the hall as people read their programs and imaging them reading the poem! I have included the poem and a link to Needham's story in a post below.

For My Father, With Alzheimer's

For My Father, With Alzheimer's
Jeanne Marie Spicuzza

Just because you can’t remember
you wanted two children
and I was the third.

Doesn’t mean you have forgotten
I watched you fix the vacuum
and paint the pier.

Just because you can’t remember
I wore the same striped shirt as yours
and you were my hero.

Doesn’t mean you have forgotten
you coached me in little league
and did a handstand when

I caught the last fly ball of the season.
We went to Dairy Queen
for hot fudge sundaes.

It meant a lot ‘cause
you were principled
but you were stingy.

Just because you can’t remember
after Mom died, you became generous.
You felt so guilty.

Doesn’t mean you have forgotten
you slept next to her clothes
and never married again.

Just because you can’t remember
to clean the house
tie your shoes

feed the cat
take your insulin
or go to the bathroom,

doesn’t mean you have forgotten
that you are my father.
And I love you.

Your Alzheimer’s may take
your body, mind
and memories.

But your heart
lives on
in me.

Do not be afraid
of the dark place
where things wither.

I will not forget.
I will remain and remember
for both of us.


This poem was written for Robert Alan Spicuzza by a friend from the early days of the Poetry Slam. We met back in the day in Milwaukee and it is an pleasure to include her work here. More info on Spicuzza and her work at Seasons & a Muse, Inc

Jeanne Marie Spicuzza is a writer, actress, film producer and master herbalist, and the founder and CEO of Seasons & a Muse, Inc., a seven division arts and entertainment cooperative corporation. She is published in Shepherd Express, Poetry Motel, Poetic Diversity, Blue Fifth Review, Quill & Parchment and others. She has featured on radio, television and film like NPR, BBC, Lifetime Television and more. The recipient and nominee of several prestigious awards, including the Shepherd Express Performance Artist of the Year, the Golden Headset Award and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowship Award, Jeanne Marie performs internationally. She is currently in active development of five independent motion pictures.