New faces at the Almanac; Flooding in Saint Paul… then and now; New writing from Patricia Cummings, Tim Nolan, Marianne McNamara and Wendy Brown-Báez

March 28, 2011

New faces and organizational growth for Arcata Press, publishers of the Saint Paul Almanac Arcata Press, publisher of the Saint Paul Almanac, is pleased to announce the recent hiring of

New faces and organizational growth for Arcata Press, publishers of the Saint Paul Almanac

March 28, 2011

The nonprofit publisher welcomes new staffers and expands program outreach despite the continuing economic challenges facing many organizations. Arcata Press, publisher of the Saint Paul Almanac, is pleased to announce the recent hiring of three new staff members to assist in community engagement, fundraising and sponsorship development. David Unowsky, founder and former owner of the nationally recognized independent bookstore, Ruminator Books, Robert Smaller, Jr., with more than twenty years of management experience and award-winning performance in sales, and community organizer Deborah Torraine.

World War II—The Home Front in Highland Park

March 25, 2011

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, I was three years old. Two years later, my silver-haired father, Verne Cummings, was drafted into the Army. He was thirty-five and the father of two. After basic training, Dad was assigned to Special Troops, Headquarters Company, 8th Infantry Division, and spent the next two years in Europe. Dad always said he was assigned to Special Troops because he knew how to run a movie projector. Even though he had never finished high school, Dad was quickly promoted. After the German surrender, Sergeant Cummings led his squad to liberate one of the concentration camps.

Cold Night

March 25, 2011

My feet are cold—the car is cold—the car sounds like a bucket of bolts Rolling down a hill— it’s so cold that my breath falls like ice from the roof...

In Nomine Patris

March 25, 2011

The year was 1933: FDR had just succeeded Herbert Hoover in the White House, the first episode of The Lone Ranger aired on the radio, Fay Wray co-starred with a giant mechanical gorilla in King Kong, and the chocolate chip cookie had just been invented. The young boy hurried alone through the freezing darkness on his way to Assumption, the old German church on West Seventh Street, where he served daily Mass. It was still very early, barely five o’clock.

Building a Bridge with Words

March 25, 2011

At the writing workshop, I ask the students if they are here because they think writing is important. A couple of them raise their hands. Then I ask if they are taking the workshop because they will receive extra credit, and most of the hands shoot up. I had offered to share my love of language by teaching this workshop at Face to Face Academy, a charter school for homeless youth in crisis, after learning that 70 percent of all teens in foster care end up being homeless for a year or two—foster parents no longer receive help from the government when the child turns eighteen.

Mar 14th, 2011: Lowertown Reading Jam: St. Paul Poet Laureate Carol Connolly presents Six Fine Irish Performers

March 14, 2011

The Saint Paul Almanac continues its year-round literary celebration of Minnesota’s capital city with the acclaimed Lowertown Reading Jams. Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, the March presentation of the eclectic series, curated by Carol Connolly, features readings by six of the finest poets and performers of Irish descent working in Minnesota today. The all-Irish Reading Jam will be presented on Monday, March 14, 2011 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Black Dog Coffee and Wine Bar, 308 Prince Street in Saint Paul. The Jams will continue on the second Monday of each month through July.

Poetry you can stomp on; Upcoming LRJs; New writing from Gordy Palzer, Deb Pleasants and Diane Wilson

March 13, 2011

Here at the Saint Paul Almanac, we clearly value the written word, but there’s definitely a time when it’s good to walk all over it, scuff it, and jump around on top of it! For the fourth year running, the City of Saint Paul and Public Art Saint Paul have announced the St. Paul Sidewalk Poetry Contest.

A Man’s Epiphany at O’Gara’s

March 13, 2011

It isn’t as far from Saint Paul to Nepal as you might think it is. This was all brought home to me several years ago, in the men’s room of O’Gara’s Bar and Grill on Snelling Avenue in Saint Paul, where I experienced an epiphany while gazing up at its fourteen-foot-high walls, and saw there evidenced a feat of heroic proportions—surely on a par, for ordinary men, that is, with Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in their conquest of Mount Everest.

Not Your Typical Irish Dancer

March 13, 2011

Grabbing the ballet barre to support myself, I attempted to stretch out my right leg. My thigh felt like a vise was twisting it tighter and tighter. The pain was so intense, I was afraid to breathe. I hobbled out of the dance room and nearly collapsed on the hallway floor. Massaging my cramped leg, I watched those energetic adults and wondered how I, a forty-seven-year-old Black woman with no dance experience, ended up in an Irish dance class.

Early Spring

March 13, 2011

Pale vision on an early day: two gray wings gliding flat balance on the body’s straight line. A trill rises from the meadow....

Tracks

March 6, 2011

Before I was born There was movement Paddles pushing pent up people through oceans of pain That explains my fear of water When I was born There was movement still