The William Meredith Foundation has announced that their 2021 Award in Poetry will be given to Chestertown’s Robert Earl Price for his latest book entitled “BLOOD FLOW.”

In his poem remembering Robert Lowell, William Meredith writes,

“Your language moved slowly toward our language
until we saw that we were all immigrants –
had perhaps been shipped as convicts –
from the land of your reluctant indictment,
a land of our consent, if not our doing.”

– William Meredith

The language Meredith is describing here is the language of the tribe, and it is the same tribe Robert Earl Price describes in his introduction to “BLOOD FLOW”:

“Let our blood flow radiate warmth
From me to you
From you to yours
Until there arrises a single tribe of humans
Proud and pure as the blood flowing in their veins.”

– Robert Earl Price

Poem after poem in “BLOOD FLOW” trace the damage, the cruelty of this human tribe to each other from the murder of four little girls at the 16th Street Baptist church in Birmingham, to a disheartened Dr. King the week before his assassination: “I fear I am integrating my people into a burning house.” The poems are often more than dark. They take despair as a given: “The house is ablaze and we are trapped inside/ Hostages of suicidal arsonists.” We are asked to roll the dice again, but the election will not be fair, There is no need to vote. Still, the little martyrs lead us to the Civil Rights Act, we finally have achieved a black President. History provides us with hope.

Price opens “BLOOD FLOW” with a quote by Amiri Baraka: “The artist’s role is to raise the consciousness of the people. To make them understand life, the world and themselves more completely.” And while it is often said that a poem fails exactly to the extent it tries to preach to a reader, the redeeming quality of these poems is the extraordinary force of the images, the spot on dramatic monologue of 12 women artists, lines that show what it is like to be “the other” in society and approach philosophy: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

“If we can not share his blood, we have at least the poems. They help us understand how black lives matter, how to look into the eyes of a fellow human being and find our own humanity. This is the great gift Price has given us. The racist world we were all born into, the land of our consent, if not our doing, is ameliorated somewhat in these poems. We are able to transcend our ontology, escape the loneliness of being who we are a bit in Robert Earl Price’s ‘BLOOD FLOW.’ William Meredith would have been so glad the 2021 award in his name has gone to Robert Earl Price, brother in the art.”

Quartet, new online journal for women poets over 50, will launch January 5, 2021.

The journal, founded by four Delaware women including Chestertown native Wendy Ingersoll Perry, is the culmination of a decade of weekend workshops held at Perry’s family farm on Quaker Neck Landing Road.

The other founding poets, Gail Comorat, Linda Blaskey, and Jane Miller collaborated with Perry in 2019 for the publication of their own poetry, Walking the Sunken Boardwalks (Pond Road Press). The four also gave a reading at the Bookplate in July 2019.

Collectively, the group has published seven books, received five Delaware for the Arts grants, five Pushcarts nominations, two “Best of the Net” nominations, and one best poet award.

“We want a journal specifically for women over 50 to highlight the creativity and accomplishments of women who’ve reached an age where they’ve come into their own, have attained experience and courage, and who are flourishing even in the midst of chaos, Perry says.”

The inaugural issue will showcase 16 poets including current and former state poet laureates as well as writers from all over the country from Seattle to New York City. Chestertown’s own Meredith Davies Hadaway will appear in the issue.

Perry, who writes under the name Wendy Ingersoll, sees Quartet as place for both experienced and new women poets over 50 to share poems in traditional and contemporary forms that take on difficult themes or describe everyday life with wonder and surprise.

“The Eastern Shore is so rich with writers and poets we wanted to reach out and make sure people are aware of our new presence,” Perry says.

The plan is to publish four times a year and the submission period of Issue 1 will be January 8 to February 8 of 2021.

All women writers over 50 are encouraged to read their Submissions Guideline in Issue 1.

On January 5, Quartet will be online at quartetjournal.com A previous Spy interview with Perry may be found here.

Appearing in this photograph: from left to right are Gail Comorat and LInda Blaskey, standing, and Wendy Ingersoll Perry and Jane Miller, sitting.

 

The Avalon Foundation will present the final two performances of their home grown and self-penned theatre production, “Ho Ho Hope : A Covid Christmas Play”, this Saturday and Monday nights at 7pm. There are tickets available for both shows. The show is sponsored by PNC Wealth Management. Back in August, the organization decided it would try and mount their annual holiday production amidst all of the regulations surround the Covid-19 Pandemic. At the start of rehearsals the show was seen as one that would be aired virtually online and run in front of limited audiences indoors.

Once the new Avalon’s Outdoor Stoltz Pavilion was built the show moved outside and currently has run for 6 performances. “Management thought about all of the safety measures that would need to be in place before we made the decision to go through with this,” said Director Tim Weigand. “We started rehearsals indoors from about 15 feet away from each other with masks on originally. Once we were able to rehearse outside at the new pavilion, that really changed everything for the cast. It was colder for sure, but we knew we could do a live show at that point and the show started to take some shape.” The outdoor pavilion built to seat almost 1000 people, in Covid times seats about 96 people. Seats are arranged in “pods” made up of 4 seat patio sets, 2 seat patio sets and 2 seat high back chairs. Only persons in your “covid bubble” are allowed to sit next to you and each pod set is at least 6 feet away from any other pod. “The show does take place outside so people are encouraged to dress warmly and bring blankets to keep warm. Anything you would wear to a Ravens or Redskins game should do the trick. The show was built to be about an hour long and currently runs about an hour and 5 minutes. But it packs a little bit of punch in that time frame. There is singing (most of it pre-recorded), dancing and drama in the show,” says Weigand.

Ho Ho Hope – A COVID Christmas takes place on the East Coast during the Pandemic of 2020. A mother and full-time arts administrator struggles with her colleague’s and organization’s decision to put on a holiday play during a Pandemic. Calling upon a cast of characters from classic holiday stories and the community at large (all while following CDC protocols), the story emphasizes the challenges we face as we work to adjust to our temporary new world. Watch along. Some jokes land, some don’t. The music is great. Hey… it’s a COVID Christmas. “Theatres and venues have been hurt terribly over the course of the 2020 and the start of 2021 is not looking any better. At The Avalon we have moved all of our operations outdoors and online to keep the business relevant, to present entertainment options to patrons and to offer a place to perform for artists. We hope you will come out to support the performers. The kids have been stripped of everything this year. We really wanted to get the play done so they could feel a little bit of normalcy this year. For about an hour during each performance, I think they feel that,” said Weigand.

Tickets for the show must be ordered online at avalonfoundation.org. For more information please email suzy@avalonfoundation.org.