Moira Roth
Dearest community,
There is no easy way to say this. The poet and feminist art historian Moira Roth, who helped mentor this project from its infancy and who contributed words for our publication, has passed.
She was utterly unique. She treated life itself as a cause of joyful ceremony. From the beginning manifestations of Poets Reading the News, she would invite Elle and me over to her art-filled apartment with an insistent “We must celebrate!” Surrounded by quilts gifted to her by Faith Ringgold, we would indulge in pastries, sparkling wine, and conversations of creativity and equity.
She was a deep listener, a storyteller, a mentor, an advocate of women of color in the arts, a reader of the news, a teacher, and a friend. Art seemed to be her lifeblood and she was consistently inspired. Thank you, Moira, for all that you did and all that you were. You are truly missed.
Below, I’ve included some of her poetry, and some recent work that is resonating right now by Sarah Dickenson Snyder. You can find out more about this great woman here. I think from reading her poetry you’ll get a sense of her deft humor, insight, and inimitable grace.
With care,
J Spagnolo
Through Song? Leaflets Falling Through the Sky?
By Moira Roth
In the midst of the usual bombardment of news
I pause
To muse on that about Bob Dylan and about the South Korean “balloon bombers.”
Over the years, I have been haunted by Bob Dylan
–both his songs and his use of language
(later I come home to study his webpage) —
And was delighted
To read about his recent Nobel Prize for Literature
In today’s Times
I read the front-page article on him,
“Bob Dylan and New York City: A Complex, Fertile Romance”
And
“The Coolest Class at Harvard? It’s ‘Bob Dylan.’”
And yet,
a few pages later,
am totally immersed in
Chloe San Hun’s “Subverting North Korea. One Bundle of Leaflets at a Time.”
This article tells us about Lee Min-bok,
based in South Korea:
“On days when the wind blows to the north, Mr. Lee, 59,
ventures out with his secondhand five-ton truck, hauling a large hydrogen tank to the border with North Korea, an hour’s drive away. There, he fills dozens of 23-foot and 39-foot barrel-shaped balloons with the gas and lets them drift away.”
Among their content, these balloons carry “debunking” leaflets about the present leader of North Korea.
What has triggered my musings over Lee’s balloons and Bob Dylan?
It is because,
Almost dramatically,
The café is suddenly filled with children, prams and pregnant women,
And I ask myself
How will these children, when they grow up,
Hear news about the world?
Through songs?
Leaflets falling from the sky?
Reading a newspaper in a cafe?
News on the Internet?
Or through some new technological device?
As I sit at the café’s window musing about all this,
An unknown woman enters and smiles at me.
She tells me that it is thirty years since she came here
—she used to do her laundry in a building opposite the café—
And her visit here has stirred up so many memories for her.
She remarks that it is so important to have special spaces in one’s life,
And then, smiling at me, says:
“You’ve got your memories and I’ve got mine”
And walks out.
Suddenly, Interrupting All This Despairing News
By Moira Roth
Today
The front page of The New York Times
Is consumed
–by the war on Syria (“White House Considers Arming Kurds in Syria“)
–by the Clinton-Trump battle (“Trump Backs Stop-and-Frisk Across the U.S.” and “Clinton Views The Disabled As Key Allies”)
And
–by new shootings of African Americans in the Midwest (“Police Shooting Fills Charlotte with Foreboding: Officers Find a Gun—Family Says Victim Was Unarmed”)
Suddenly,
Interrupting all this despairing news, I find in The Times a Special Section in blue
and black entitled “I, Too, Sing America.”
This section is about the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. that is to open on September 24:
I read Holland Cotter’s review of the exhibition and a discussion of the museum.
His essay is entitled:
“Here At Last. A century in the making, a museum that uplifts and upsets “
He describes David Adjaye’s design of the museum as “rising in three low, inverted pyramid-tiers,” and explains that it is the last undeveloped museum site on the National Mall.
(On the last page of this Special Section is a reprint of Langston Hughes 1926 poem: “I, TOO.” The poem is engraved on the wall of this new African American museum.)
Part 2
September 24, 2016
In today’s issue of The New York Times
I study
Henry Louis Gates’ essay,
“Proving Black History Matters”,
Which ends with a long quote from James Baldwin.
I stare out of the café’s window transfixed by Baldwin’s words:
“History is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally in the present in all that we do.”
Readiness in an Unpredictable World
By Sarah Dickenson Snyder
It feels like the earth might start
to shudder. I’m scared of being trapped
in a house I know or a world I don’t,
and what will I grab on the way out—
perhaps this painted stone I own,
greenish blue with a golden hummingbird
on one flat side and the word Love on the other.
Last July when my sister and I needed a real dose
of summer, we drove to an outdoor craft fair,
windows open, our masks on. The several tables
were spread out, the sun unfazed. We stopped
in front of a table where a mother had stacked
crocheted Christmas ornaments like knotted hope
and her daughter, her head just above the table’s surface,
sat on a folding chair in front of a little wall
of painted stones. It’s the only thing
I touched, her smile touching me
when I handed her two dollars.
That’s what I’ll save—run outside
under the frozen stars and kneel
on our trembling planet
with love and a bird in my palm.
I always came to this café, then run by artists and anarchists, to read The New York Times
By Moira Roth
I sit here
Where for years I have sat daily
Since moving back to Berkeley
From Southern California in 1985.
I always came to this café,
then run by artists and anarchists,
To read The New York Times.
On the front page of today’s Times
Is an article about Donald Trump,
Who has “finally acknowledged that President Obama was born in the United States.”
I sit here
Thinking about Cold War America,
That I first saw when, at age 17, I visited Washington D.C. in the summer of 1951.
Another article I read in today’s Times is about “Brexit”
Which triggers memories of England
(where I was born in 1933)
And a photograph of “Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany”
— talking to reporters at a European Union summit meeting —
Stirs up memories about
The time of my first travels through Europe
After I returned to England from the U.S.
I sit here,
Reading the Times,
Musing on all the changing history I have lived through
Over the decades.
I sit here wondering about how ordinary Americans
Live in this world of ours?
Will today’s Times address this?
It is only after turning page after page of the newspaper
That I find a photograph of Alison Phillip
— an African American woman suffering from multiple sclerosis —
accompanied by Nikita Stewart’s article about her, entitled
“As Shelter Residents Surge, Housing for Disabled Comes Up Short.”
Stewart begins her article by telling us that“Alison Phillip’s feet dragged beneath her
as she used forearm crutches
to make her way down a ramp,
leaving the Brooklyn homeless shelter
where she and her 2-year old
daughter live.”
With exhausted eyes,
I continue to turn the newspaper’s pages
Until I reach the final page.
Here I read an article about
“A Russian-Iranian Axis” that announces that
“The partial cease-fire in Syria’s civil war
is welcome news. But
it must not be allowed
to obscure a dangerous new item”
— with a subtitle explaining that
“A military partnership forged in Syria
Could long outlast the war.”
I close the newspaper and sit staring despondently out of the window of the café.
Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016)/The Map of Sounds and Memories
By Moira Roth
I. Sounds of the Comets
That night she sat,
Staring into the Blind Mirror
–beside her
lay the Sound Pencil–
Amidst the stones
That formed a circle in the middle of the garden
Of the Library of Maps.
After meditating
And listening to the silent garden,
She took the Sound Pencil
And,
Pointing it upward at the night sky,
Listened
–hour after hour–
To the comets
As they whirled around
In time and space.
She spent all night
Listening.
It was the first time that anyone on Earth,
Including herself,
Had ever heard the sounds
Of all the comets in the universe,
Past
Present
And future.
II. Memories of the Stones
Just before dawn,
Holding the Blind Mirror in one hand,
And the Sound Pencil in the other,
She began to walk through the Labyrinth of Stones.
At first she heard
Only the sound of her own breathing,
As she silently
Read
The inscription on each stone.
But at last,
As she reached
The center of the Labyrinth of Stones
The stones began to whisper.
Sitting there,
Listening to their memories,
She began to play.
