Venita Fons

One of the highlights of the Alzheimer's Poetry Day held at the Overture Center for the Arts in Madison, Wisconsin on August 2nd, 2011 was having local poet John Fons participate. He has been writing poetry on his experience with his mother living with dementia.

John Fons is a writer living in Madison, Wisconsin with his wife Jane. He worked with his father, the late Lloyd C. Fons, in oil and gas exploration before graduating from Dallas Theological Seminary. John’s mother Venita and his father celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary in Chicago where once they recognized each other at the intersection of State and Randolph after a childhood friendship and subsequent separation for many years. They raised four children. Venita is now diagnosed late Alzheimer’s and resides at a memory care unit in California. She remains as she has always been, a kind and loving soul intent on finding the best within herself and others.

Here are two of John's poems:

Visitors

Who are
These people
Who come
To say
Hello?

They never
Leave.
Where do
They think
They go?

My son,
My daughter,
My niece,
My nephew
Always within
My heart.

My sister,
My brother,
My closest
Friends have
Lived within
Since love
First made
Us one.

I keep
Them here.
They cannot
Leave.

Where do
They think
They go?

Letters

These are
Written to me.

I love these
Letters written
From loved
Ones.

See them
Where I
Keep them.

Here is
One from
My son.

Another from
My daughter.

I have a
Few from
My friends
At church.

Here’s another.


Alzheimer's Poetry Day- Madison was partially funded by the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission, the Helen Bader Foundation and the Madison Arts Commission.

Alzheimer's Poetry Day- Baraboo and Madison

Here is Karin Barreau reading her poem "Time is Here," written for her neurologist on his retirement. She will be featured at Alzheimer's Poetry Day, 11am to 1pm, on Tuesday, August 2nd, at Overture Center for the Arts, 201 State Street, Madison, WI.

 

Free and open to the public, the Alzheimer's Poetry Day- Madison is a celebration of the Alzheimer's Poetry Project. Fabu Carter Brisco, Madison Poet Laureate Gary Glazner, founder and Executive Director of the Alzheimer's Poetry Project and Wisconsin APP Director, Lisa Auter will read classic, well-loved poems and poems written by those with Alzheimer's.

Alzheimer’s Poetry Day- Baraboo will take place 11am to 12:30pm, on Saturday, July 30th, in the cafeteria at UW-Baraboo/Sauk County, 1006 Connie Road, Baraboo, WI as part of the Summerset Festival of the Arts. Featuring members of the Sauk County Writer’s Group, “The Purple Cow Poets,” and APP founder Gary Glazner

Alzheimer's Poetry Day is funded in part by the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission, the Helen Bader Foundation, the Madison Arts Commission and the Poetry Foundation. Sponsored by the Alzheimer's & Dementia Alliance of Wisconsin.

Michele Brody

I had the pleasure of meeting New York artist Michele Brody at Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Annual Cherry Blossom Festival. Here is an image of her Tea House Quilt.

She has people write on over-sized tea bags, poems, stories, musings. Yesterday Brody attended the poetry workshop at Park Slope Geriatric with the idea that in the fall we will collaborate having people living with dementia participate in creating a quilt. We experimented with passing around tins of tea and letting the group describe the scent. We created a poem on our favorite beverages and on sharing meals and drinks with family and friends.

We used one of Issa's haiku as inspiration

drinking tea alone--
every day the butterfly
stops by

The group liked the idea that one could visit with a butterfly. 

You may read more about Brody's Tea House Project at:
Tea House

Like many artists Brody has a multitude of ideas and has a wide range of interesting projects up and running. One of her most fascinating projects is her Nature Preserve. Also, like most artists she is seeking funding you may read about the project and find out how to help out here:

Nature Preserve

To raise funds for her work she is using United States Artist. This type of social media funding site like Kickstarter is becoming more popular and is worth checking into is you are not already familiar with them. I encourage you to check out and support the project.

You may read more about Brody's work at:

Michele Brody

Alzheimer A Visual Poem

Petra Anders sent me a link to this poem by the Dutch Artist, Peter Meijboom

You may see more of his visual poems at: VISUELE+POEZIE

Arts! by the People

Paul Rabinowitz, Director of Arts! by the People is a truly inspiring person. I had the great pleasure last year of of working with him and his artists. The group he has put together reflects his passion and drive. It was a treat to get an email today detailing the work he has been doing with the Lester House Poets in New Jersey. Here is Paul's program lesson, the artwork that they used and the poem the artwork inspired. Paul writes:

"At our Friday poetry session our senior citizens of Lester Housing experimented with ekphrastic writing. Ekphrasis is the graphic, often dramatic description of a visual work of art. We read ekphrastic poems inspired by Edward Hopper's, Nighthawks and Pablo Picasso's, Man with a Blue Guitar. It turned out to be a fascinating session because of the abstract nature of our dialogue.

They decided to title the poem [untitled]. An abstract idea in itself! They wanted to add their own free form lines to introduce the work.

At the end of the class I revealed to them that the artist is their fine arts instructor, Willie Baez.

A big thanks to Willie for introducing me to this unique form of expression and for lending us the artwork. Also a big thanks to Stacy Osei-Kuffour for helping out and transcribing."

[Untitled]

Reflections,

life,

dreams,

a man for all seasons,

tightly interconnected random thoughts.

When I look at this painting

I see above me and below me and side to side slowly

I see nature and food and plants and good things to smell and eat

I see a dreamer; I see things he might like to do

I see life, food, flowers, dreams; what makes the world

I see balance in one's life

I see reflections things past and present

Created by the seniors at Lester Housing in our Talking Poetry Class, June 03, 2011
More about Arts! by the People at:

Recognition

I had the good fortune to speak on the Alzheimer's Poetry Project at the 9th annual National Latino Writers Conference held May 18th to 21st in Albuquerque at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. We are working with Carlos Vasquez, the History and Literary Arts Program Director and holding an APP event there in November. He was kind enough to ask me to give a welcoming talk. I met a number of writers including Elena Díaz Bjorkquist who generously shared some of her poetry on her response to her father's dementia.

Recognition

Elena Díaz Bjorkquist

I ask, “Who am I?”
Daddy lowers his gaze
As if the answer
Will appear
on the floor

Minutes drag by,
I hold my breath –
Has he forgotten me?

Suddenly, he looks up,
Smiles,
Says,
“Elena . . .
you’re Elena.”

Satisfied, he nods.
I exhale,
Return his smile,
Pat his shoulder.

He’s forgotten much
But not me.

Elena taught at Santa Rosa Junior College in California for a year before running the CETA Program for the County of Sonoma. When she moved north to Mendocino County she started a bilingual program for Mexican children and taught ESL and Spanish. Later she taught U.S. History and Spanish at Mendocino High School. In 1990, she retired from teaching and began writing Suffer Smoke. In the fall of 1996 she returned to teaching with a position at Sonoma State University where she taught Chicano/Latino Studies classes. More about her at elenadiazbjorkquist.net

New Poetry by Octavia McBride

What Remains
For Mom

her memory
a soup of evaporating dissonance
has survivors
gentlemen with brogues, mouthing all kinds of blues
Yeats & lots of Langston

Octavia McBride and her daughter Sojourner have worked with the APP in Philadelphia. Her new poetry collection, "Where My Birthmark Dances," will be published by Finishing Line Press this July. For more information go to:

http://www.finishinglinepress.com/NewReleasesandForthcomingTitles.htm

We will post more of her poetry when the collection comes out. It was delightful to work with her and her daughter. Congratulations on the new book!

The image above is from Sojourner's blog and shows Octavia hanging a poetry butterfly! Read more at:
http://trumpetworld.blogspot.com/2011/04/shout-out-to-my-mom-where-my-birthmark.html

Octavia McBride-Ahebee is a writer of poetry, short stories and plays. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States, McBride-Ahebee lived for nine years in Cote d'Ivoire, West Africa. A former reporter for The Philadelphia Tribune, her literary work has appeared in the following books and journals: It Is Time For Change; Speeches of William R. Tolbert, The Beloit Poetry Journal, International Quarterly, The Eagle Spirit, and Poet Lore (2nd place winner in the John Williams Andrews Narrative Poetry Competition).

Educated at Williams College and Cheyney University, McBride-Ahebee's debut collection of poetry, Assuming Voices, has recently been published by Lit Pot Press. McBride-Ahebee's poetry gives voice to women who historically have not been heard; African women, women in refugee camps, women who are victims of civil war, women who are new immigrants and village women battling such diseases as breast cancer and obstetric fistula.