“When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.” Audre Lorde
SEPTEMBER 26, 2020
SAVE THE DATE
It’s twelve years since I started using poetry for activism, involving myself first with Sam Hamell‘s Poets Against the War. Almost ten years have passed since poet, publisher, musician and artist, Michael Rothenberg, and editor, artist, graphic designer, and translator Terri Carrion, co-founded 100,000 Poets for Change (100TPC) to which I am seriously devoted.
Through the decade our 100TPC poet-activist numbers have grown. We’ve expanded to include allies. These creatives from around the world share the values of peace, sustainability, and social justice. They speak out against corruption, cruelty, tyranny, and suppression through poetry, story, music, mime, art and photography, sometimes at personal risk.
INVITATION
If you’ve been involved before, please note the date and participate again. If you haven’t participated in 100TPC, we invite you to become a part of this worthy worldwide initiative.
By “we” I mean:
Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion, founders and organizers of Global 100TPC;
The Bardo Group, publishers of The BeZine and hosts of The BeZine Virtual 100TPC.
FROM PRIOR YEARS:
SAMPLES OF POSTERS FROM
REGIONAL EVENTS
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THE BeZINE
~ Be inspired . . . Be creative . . . Be peace . . . Be ~
VIRTUAL 100TPC
Our banner was designed by Zine team member Corina Ravenscraft (Dragon’s Dreams)
The second year I invited poetry against war was 2011. I put up a post on Into the Bardo (the name of the site before it became The BeZine) and invited folks to share their poems in the comments section. That was the last year for Sam Hamill’s Poets Against the War and the first year for Michael and Terri’s 100,000 Poets for Change.
Since 2012, we (The Bardo Group) have hosted an annual virtual event on the fourth Saturday of September in concert with Global 100TPC. My thought for going virtual was that there were many others who, like me, are home bound but want to have their say, want to stand for peace, sustainability and social justice. Soon Michael Dickel (Meta/ Phor(e) /Play) joined our team and a new tradition was born. Michael became our Master of Ceremonies.
This year – whether your are homebound or not – we invite you to join with us via The BeZine Virtual 100TPC on September 26. Complete instructions for sharing your work will be included in the post that day. Between us, Michael Dickel and I keep the event running for twenty-four hours or so. Mark your calendars.
Watch for more info here and at The BeZine on these initiatives and . . .
Upcoming:
Call for Submissions to the September 15, 2020 issue of The BeZine, which is a prelude to 100TPC;
The Poet by Day 100TPC Wednesday Writing Prompt, September 16, hosted by Michael Dickel; and
In the spirit of love (respect) and community and
on behalf of The Bardo Group,
Jamie Dedes, Founding Editor and
now Co-Manager Editor with Michael Dickel
100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE: Ten years of evolution (2011-2020)
VOL 1: The Memoir
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
From Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion
In the tenth year anniversary of the movement, we are excited to invite all past and present 100TPC organizers and/or participants, to submit a three page essay to be considered for inclusion in the book 100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE [100TPC]: Ten years of evolution (2011-2020), which will be published on a date to be announced.
This book will tell the story of 100TPC from the perspective of the poets who have been a part of creating and sustaining it. Through our personal essays, the reader will learn not only about the individual stories of the hundreds of poets-organizers from all corners, reflecting on the social and cultural effects of such poetic actions, but it will also offer an enriched summary and an organized way to learn about this grassroots movement and its impact on the history of poetry. It can also be thought of as a guidebook and manual, for future generations interested in the strategy of activists engaged in manifesting positive change–peace, justice and sustainability.
THEMES:
You can submit a maximum of two essays, only one (1) per theme. Be sure to send each essay in a separate email (see details below).
1. FOUNDATIONAL EXPERIENCES. First experiences as organizer/ poet/ artist/ audience with 100,000 Poets for Change. 2. LOCAL EXPERIENCES. Experiences seen as a whole, after these ten years. Reflect on your achievements, or whatever you have witnessed, good and bad. You can choose to write about success or disappointments, benefits and limitations, even if you were not an organizer/participant consistently for the past ten years. 3. IMPRESSIONS: Reflections and stories on the philosophy, ideas and spirit propelling the movement. How has this movement informed your poetics? 4. SALERNO. If you participated in the 2015 Salerno conference, you can choose to write about it, as a whole experience, and/or highlighting a specific story or aspects of the conference. 5. READ A POEM TO A CHILD. If you have been part of the Read a Poem to a Child initiative, you can also choose to write about that.
Submission deadline: December 1, 2020
Format guidelines: Word document, Times New Roman, Font 12, Double Spaced.
Maximum 750 words.
Language: If you are not an English speaking writer, please send your text in its original language along with the best possible English translation (three pages max, each). At this point, the project will only include the English version, but we’re studying alternatives to the issue of language, and world accessibility.
Bio & Photos: Please send a fifty word Bio as a Word doc. attachment. Also, and this is optional, you can attach three-to-five good quality images (jpg) related to your essay, and/or the events you organized in your community. Include photo caption and credits. Do not send bio photos. We want exceptional images that offer a glimpse either of the themes or aspects we’ve mentioned above, the collective drive, or the audience reaction.
Please send your submissions and/or any questions to: 10yr100tpcbook@gmail.com In the email’s Subject Matter, please write your essay’s theme.
Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.
Poetry rocks the world!
FEEL THE BERN
For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice
Maintain the movement.
“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
MISSION STATEMENT: To foster proximity and understanding through our shared love of the arts and humanities and all things spirited and to make – however modest – a contribution toward personal healing and deference for the diverse ways people try to make moral, spiritual and intellectual sense of a world in which illness, violence, despair, loneliness and death are as prevalent as hope, friendship, reason and birth.
Our focus is on sacred space (common ground) as it is expressed through the arts. Our work covers a range of topics: spirituality, life, death, personal experience, culture, current events, history, art, and photography and film. We cover these topics in the form of reviews, essays, poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, music, art, and photography. We share work that is representative of universal human values however differently they might be expressed in our varied religions and cultures. We feel that our art and our Internet-facilitated social connection offer a means to see one another in our simple humanity, as brothers and sisters, and not as “other.”
“THE BeZINE” CALL FOR SUBMISSIONSthebezine.com is open for submissions to the upcoming March issue, deadline March 10, themed Waging Peace. This Zine is an entirely volunteer effort, a mission. We are unable to pay contributors but neither do we charge for submissions or subscriptions. We publish poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, feature articles, art, photography, and music videos and will consider anything that lends itself to online posting. There are no demographic restrictions. We do not publish work that promotes hatred or advocates for violence. All such will be immediately rejected. We’d like to see work that doesn’t just point to problems but that suggests solutions. We are also interested in initiatives happening in your community — no matter where in the world — that might be easily picked up by other communities. Please forward your submissions to bardogroup@gmail.com No odd formatting.Submit poems and narratives in the body of your emailalong with a BRIEF bio. Art and photography may be submissed as attachements. Work submitted via Facebook or message will not be considered for publication. We encourage you to submit work in your first language, but it must be accompanied by translation into English.
We are devoting the BLOG POSTS THROUGHOUT FEBRUARY to work addressing illness and disability. Submissions of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, feature articles, art, photography, and music videos and anything that lends itself to online posting. There are no demographic restrictions. Please forward your submissions to bardogroup@gmail.com. No odd formatting.Submit poems and narrative in the body of your email along with a BRIEF bio. Art and photography may be submitted as attachements. Work submitted via Facebook or message will not be considered for publication. We encourage you to submit work in your first language, but it must be accompanied by translation into English.
Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.
FEEL THE BERN
For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice
The Poet by Day officially endorses Bernie Sanders for President.
The New New Deal
Link HEREfor Bernie’s schedule of events around the country.
“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
John Anstie is the lead for the next issue of The BeZine, which is open for submission to its December issue through November 15. The theme is “Life of the Spirit.” Submission to bardogroup@gmail.com Please read our submission guidelines. Meanwhile, I invite you visit John’s site and get to know this fine musician, poet, grandfather, trainer of dogs for the blind, and so much more. In short, a renaissance man.
Dear Earth, you are a sacred aqueous Isle
in a dark and endless sea of universe.
You may never reveal your strategy.
We may be bound by genetic code
to the presupposing chemical destiny
of one great astrophysical master plan
for all living things. We, who represent
your malaise, your chronic infestation;
we, like a fleeting itch in your long life,
will never comprehend it. But, in truth
you know too well that we can never
understand more than one percent
of all there is to know. You contain
the knowledge that is beyond us.
We are but a rash on your skin.
One day, we know you will
raze all of our delusions,
prepare us for the day
when a blinding light
will inoculate you
and inform us of
a moment when
extant humans
will, at last be
prepared to
distinguish
the l i e s
f r o m
truth
and
so
we
a r e
m e r e
a t o m i c
p a r t i c l e s
inside a temporal chalice
The focus of The BeZine, a publication of The Bardo Group Beguines, is on sacred space (common ground) as it is expressed through the arts. Our work covers a range of topics: spirituality, life, death, personal experience, culture, current events, history, art, and photography and film. We share work that is representative of universal human values however differently they might be expressed in our varied religions and cultures. We feel that our art and our Internet-facilitated social connection offer a means to see one another in our simple humanity, as brothers and sisters, and not as “other.” The BeZine is a space where we hope you’ll delight in learning how much you have in common with “other” peoples. We hope that your visits will help you to love (respect) not fear. For more see our Info/Mission Statement Page.
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
“Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it…” The Art of Living, Wilfred Peterson
December 15, 2018
A Life of the Spirit is a many-faceted jewel. Some of our contributors interpreted the theme for this month as Spirit (Being, the Ineffable, the Divine) and others more as spirited, strong. Some find Spirit and courage in the great love of their life or in their art, in their religion or spiritual practice. Others find it in an inspiring parent or grandparent. You will see that nature plays a role for nearly everyone.
I don’t think I’ve ever used as many hankies in pulling together an issue of The BeZine as I have with this issue. Contributors this quarter speak intimately from both joy and heartbreak, which is perhaps not surprising given the theme.
Our contributors have also rallied their spirits to speak out against gun violence and to speak up for the LGBTQ community. Violence and cruelty are not an absence of Spirit but a lack of awareness.
c 2018, Anjum Wasim Dar
My country – America – has a gun violence history that is notorious but firearms are ubiquitous on this Earth and complicit in wars and conflicts, hate crimes, terrorism, suicide and accidental shootings. Death by fire arms is grotesquely common in South American countries, Jamaica, and Swaziland.
Gun-suicides: I’ve taken the liberty of including a poem about my big sister, Teresa Margaret, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. She was twenty-seven. I was fourteen. Fifty-four years later, the trauma remains. The questions remain: Why? Where did the gun come from? Who taught her how to use it?
“Although the USA ranked fourth in the world with 12,400 firearm-related homicides, that figure pales in comparison with its 23,800 gun suicides. None of the other 194 nations and territories [ … ] came close; India ranked second at 13,400.” USA Today HERE
Easy access to firearms is cited by experts as one reason for the prevalence of their use in suicide. Another may be that guns offer an effective means of suicide.
Since there is history, culture, identity, and ethic involved in gun ownership and use, attempts at doing away with guns are not feasible at this time. Complicated core issues need to be defined and addressed first. Will we ever come to a unified place where we agree that murder and torture are not options? How then would Spirit play in the garden of material life?
Thanks to The Bardo Group Bequines team and to our guest writers for helping us put together an issue that is honest, artful, and inspiring, one that walks “with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground.”
As you read, we hope that you will leave your “Likes” and comments behind to let each contributor know they were read and appreciated and to enrich the experience for others.
In the spirit of love (respect) and community,
and on behalf of The Bardo Group Bequines, Jamie Dedes Founding and Managing Editor
TABLE OF CONTENTS
How to read this issue of THE BeZINE:You can read each piece individually by clicking the links in the Table of Contents.
To learn more about our guests contributors, please link HERE.
To learn more about our core team members, please link HERE.
John Anstie is the lead for the next issue of 
The focus of The BeZine, a publication of The Bardo Group Beguines, is on sacred space (common ground) as it is expressed through the arts. Our work covers a range of topics: spirituality, life, death, personal experience, culture, current events, history, art, and photography and film. We share work that is representative of universal human values however differently they might be expressed in our varied religions and cultures. We feel that our art and our Internet-facilitated social connection offer a means to see one another in our simple humanity, as brothers and sisters, and not as “other.” The BeZine is a space where we hope you’ll delight in learning how much you have in common with “other” peoples. We hope that your visits will help you to love (respect) not fear. For more see our I
