APPLETON POETRY PARTY

APPLETON POETRY PARTY

Residents and staff who have participated in the three-month long Appleton Poetry Project invite the public to join them in the culminating celebration of their poetry-making.

The celebration will take place on July 23 from 10:00-11:00 a.m. in Ogilvie Hall at the Thompson Community Center. Refreshments will be served. For more information, go to www.alzpoetry.com or contact Gary Glazner at: gary@alzpoetry.com.

Participants in the Appleton Poetry Project live and work at Brewster Village, Appleton Health Care Center, Fox River Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Valley VNA Senior Services, and Bridgewood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.

Residents and staff will present well-loved classic poems and originally created works. As a highlight of the event, New York poet, Gary Glazner, the internationally acclaimed founder and director of the Alzheimer Poetry Project, will lead the audience in the creation of a new poem.

This will be a high energy, fun event with lots of audience participation. It will highlight the creativity of people living with memory loss in long-term care.

All are welcome to come and experience this exciting form of creative engagement for people with dementia. This event is sponsored by the Helen Bader Foundation, the Poetry Foundation, the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project, and the Fox Valley Memory Project.

The Alzheimer’s Poetry Project Meets Cowboys Real and Imagined

In the hallowed tradition of campfire tales and cowboy poetry, the Alzheimer's Poetry Project holds a special session at the New Mexico History Museum on Friday, June 21, 10-11 am. People living with dementia, their family members and the general public are invited to participate in performing and creating poetry inspired by the new exhibit Cowboys Real and Imagined. Gary Glazner, founder and executive director of the APP and APP poets Joanne Dwyer and Michelle Otero will lead the session.

Cowboys Real and Imagined explores New Mexico’s cowboy legacy from its origin in the Spanish vaquero tradition through itinerant hired hands, outlaws, rodeo stars, cowboy singers, Tom Mix movies and more. Guest curated by B. Byron Price, director of the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West at the University of Oklahoma, the exhibit grounds the cowboy story in New Mexico through rare photographs, cowboy gear, movies and art. It includes a bounty of artifacts ranging in size from the palm-sized tintype of Billy the Kid purchased at a 2011 auction by William Koch to the chuck wagon once used by cowboys on New Mexico’s legendary Bell Ranch.

The event is free by reservation, but limited to 30 participants. For more information or reservations, contact Gary Glazner at garyglaznerpoet@gmail.com

The Alzheimer’s Poetry Project is funded in part by the Santa Fe Arts Commission, New Mexico Arts, a division of the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Poetry Foundation.

Ode To My Fathers Dementia

This a powerful poem and statement from Antrobus. His outlook on his father's dementia is articulate and moving. The last line is a battle cry for caregivers. Please give it a look and listen.

Raymond Antrobus is a spoken word poet and photographer, born and bred in Hackney. He is co-curator of Chill Pill/Keats House Forum and has performed along side authors and poets such as Margret Atwood, Michael Horovitz, Lemm Sissay, Benjamin Zephaniah & Kwame Dawes. Raymond appeared on series 5 of BBC Radio 4’s Bespoken Word.

Follow him on twitter - @RaymondAntrobus - His book Shapes & Disfigurements is out now on Burning Eye books - http://burningeyebooks.wordpress.com/...

More info on Antrobus at:
http://raymondantrobus.blogspot.com/

Memory Arts Cafe at Brooklyn Museum

MEMORY ARTS CAFÉ CELEBRATION
at the Brooklyn Museum
Saturday, May 25, 11 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Rubin Pavilion, 1st Floor
Free

Individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, their caregivers, and the general public are all invited to join this celebration of the Memory Arts Café, featuring jazz trumpeter Jesse Neuman and the Rhythm Break Cares Dance Company with Stine Moen and Hooba. Coproduced by the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project, the Brooklyn Museum, and the New York Memory Center. Hosted by Gary Glazner of the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project. Reception to follow. Email: access@brooklynmuseum.org for more information. The Brooklyn Museum also presents Brooklyn Afternoons: Art and Conversation for Individuals with Memory Loss, a free monthly program that invites individuals with memory loss and their caregivers to explore the Museum’s collections together. Information at access@brooklynmuseum.org

The New York Memory Center is a Brooklynbased agency providing services to adults with cognitive, physical, and emotional limitations to help them enjoy life beyond diagnosis of memory loss. http://nymemorycenter.org/

The Memory Arts Café is sponsored, in part, by the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, the Axe-Houghton Foundation, and the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council.

Photo by Jonathan Dorado

MIDNIGHT IN CENTRAL PARK: UNGA POCH KID

MIDNIGHT IN CENTRAL PARK: UNGA POCH KID

There are purple flowers, orchids and grapes.
Purple is the color of Patricia's rain coat, the priests' vestments and wine.

Soft edges float with uncertainty like rain clouds.
Fog, cotton, marshmallows, mud.
Uncertainty, uncertainty.

Green is rough.
Green is smooth.
Green is a walk in the new mowed lawn

This poem was created as part of the "Meet Me at MoMA" project. The session was led by Museum Educator, Riva Blumenfeld. She had participated in staff training I provided at MoMA last year and she used some of the APP techniques in leading the session. She asked a series of questions: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU LOOK AT THIS COLOR PURPLE?
THESE EDGES ARE SOFT LIKE...
IF I WERE TO TOUCH THIS GREEN SHAPE IT WOULD FEEL LIKE...
IF I WERE THE ARTIST I WOULD CALL THIS PAINTING...

The group's answers form the lines of the poem.

Riva and I reconnected last week at the Practice & Progress: The MoMA Alzheimer's Project Exchange and I was excited to learn from her that she had been using the APP techniques and having success.

Painting No. 3/No. 13 by Mark Rothko
Bequest of Mrs. Mark Rothko through The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc.
© 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

John Fons' Writing

A while back we featured the poetry of Jon Fons. He had participated in Alzheimer's Poetry Day at the Overture Center in Madison, Wisconsin. Fons has recently launched a wonderful website featuring his writing. Click here to link to his website:

Here is another of Fons' poems:

Pressed Flowers

You are the
Bloom of
Yesterday.

Your colors
And scent
Evaporated,
Your stem
Grown brittle.

Yet every
Flower holds
The memory of
Its passion.

Every petal
Tells a beauty
Beyond fashion.

APP on the Radio

Click here to listen to the show: Alzheimers Speaks Radio, Blog Talk Radio

Performing a poem at the Memory Arts Cafe.

With Gary Glazner and project artists Zoe Bird; Fabu Carter; Rachel Moritz and Michelle Otero.