This One Is Not Hers: 1989 Golden 240 Volvo Station Wagon
2013
I see the car. I know it is not hers. I know, because she has been gone for years—at least gone from my world. This car—it is the same color, the same make, maybe even the same year.
Linwood
2013
The railroad caboose was our warming house. Pete didn’t open it until ten, but that didn’t stop us. With our blades and sticks over our shoulders, ear bras on our heads, choppers on our hands, we would change in the snow banks and the Stanley Cup finals began.
Workin’ on the Railroad— Dale Street Shops
2013
Driving through the intersection of Dale Street and Minnehaha Avenue, in the Frogtown district, you couldn’t help being impressed by the massive yellow-ochre brick building with the exceptionally tall glass block windows.
There Was No Sun in the Room
2013
I imagined her stretched out and weeping over her womb on a stretcher, Shaking.
Bridge
2013
There’s no time in traffic on 35E to honor a place such as this—my old neighborhood in ruins. In one second my car wheels cover what was once my brothers’ bedroom with the nursery rhyme floor.
Swimming with the Sharks
2013
Among our family stories is one with a lesson: Don’t try swimming with the sharks.
Mawk-Eyed
2013
A RETIRED NEUROSURGEON, John Mawk teaches all the sciences at the international high school in Lowertown.
Poem for the Saint Paul City Council
2013
The New Year, with its dependable timing, its greeting full of bells and whistles and promises, has arrived. We stand, once more, at a new beginning.
February 14, 2013 – Soul Sounds Open Mic with Antoine Duke
2013
As an artist, performer, poet, educator, spoken word artist, dancer, and director, Antoine Duke is indeed a man of many hats. As a 19-year-old performer and teaching artist he has received grants, founded companies, and has competed nationally as a spoken word artist. Antoine is currently working for Pillsbury House Theater. Antoine chooses social justice education through theater, and art because he believes that art cannot only teach creative, and powerful practices, but also because it can educate us on how to become better human beings. He says that "Art allows you to listen to the world around you and take in other perspectives."
February 7, 2013 – Soul Sounds Open Mic with Saymoukda Vongsay and writing workshop
2013
Saymoukda "Mooks" Vongsay is a Lao American poet and playwright whose passion is arts advocacy. Her work has been published by Altra Magazine, The Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement, Saint Paul Almanac, Lao American Magazine, and Bakka Literary Journal, to name a few. Vongsay pens the series Pushing the Pen, published weekly in the Asian American Press, interviewing literary artists from across the nation. She has taught and performed spoken word poetry from the Midwest to the East and West coasts, as well as in Italy and Japan.
January 31, 2013 – Soul Sounds Open Mic with Patricia Van Ert
2013
Patricia Van Ert is a poet, writer, storyteller, mentor, social activist and mother. She is an enrolled member of the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation and a member of the TGI-Frybread Native American writing group at the Loft. Currently working on a monologue around congestive heart failure and a series of children’s stories, Van Ert is creative director/teacher of Words Out Loud—a spoken word poetry group and class at the Rondo Library from 2006–2010.