read to me.

A friend of mine recently introduced me to the reading marathon. Having been a graduate student in writing, I suppose it reflects badly on me that I had not heard of this before, but I had not, until she told me about the Melville Marathon at the New Bedford Whaling Museum that she participated in earlier this month.

It was difficult, she observed, when the readers did not fully appreciate or understand the particular cadences of rhythms of Melville's prose, and there were times, as one might imagine, that the listening experience was less than pure pleasure. I was suddenly transported back to my years in my graduate writing program, which was the last time I attended literary readings with any regularity. Writers and poets came through town weekly, it seemed. There were frequent student and faculty readings, too, and for each one, we huddled into a black box space, sipped wine from plastic cups, and nibbled on cheese cubes, and for an hour or two, we were read to.

I miss being read to in a darkened room.

I miss the poets especially.

I started looking through my stacks of poetry chapbooks and collections. One of the first I re-encountered was Under Flag, by Myung-Mi Kim, and wondered if there were recordings available online.

Of course, there were, and I stumbled upon this: Lunch Poems.

There are many reasons to avoid YouTube. But today, I'm grateful for it. Enjoy!

Air and Simple Gifts

I watched the inauguration at the State House, at a gathering hosted by Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Roberts. Despite the unfortunate angle of the sun streaming in through tall windows (which made the screen a little hard to see), the whole morning was moving in a way I hadn't even anticipated.

What surprised me most was my own response to Air and Simple Gifts, the quartet arranged by John Williams for the inauguration. The crowd seemed to hold its breath for those moments - and in those moments, all was hope and possibility. A sudden and unexpected feeling of serenity washed over me, like I was being wrapped in a warm blanket and held there by kind, strong hands.

Of course, that euphoria could not last too long. One only need to return to one's desk, the newspaper headlines, the news reports, the endless demands of the day, to be reminded of the unprecedented challenges of these days - uncertainty, anxiety, fear.

But for those few minutes, I allowed myself to trust that our leadership would, in fact, lead.

And that one day - even if not tomorrow, or next month, or next year, but one day - it would all be better.

Democracy demands wisdom, now more than ever

These are challenging times: A shaky economic future. Troubling global events. Systems that have broken down and failed us, again and again.

The problems that face us are complex, and so are the solutions. We cannot address the issues of our day with sound bites and slogans. We will only progress through deliberate, thoughtful debate, which will inform action with integrity.

Earlier this month, we paid tribute to the life and legacy of Senator Claiborne Pell, one of the most influential statesmen in recent history and Rhode Island's own. From the smallest state in the nation, one of our country's brightest shining lights.

Former President Bill Clinton called Senator Pell's life and legacy "his last true Pell Grant" to our country. Indeed, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts are among the many gifts the Senator Pell gave us to ensure and protect a true and vibrant democracy. In difficult times, we are reminded of the responsibilites our democracy require of us.

The 1965 Act that established the NEH called upon us to support broad public "access to the arts and the humanities, designed to make people of all backgrounds and wherever located masters of their technology and not its unthinking servants."

For the past 40 years, the 56 independent affiliates of NEH have been at work in our states and territories, creating and sustaining public programs that allow ordinary citizens opportunities for thoughtful, informed conversation about the issues that affect our lives.

In Rhode Island, the Council for the Humanities has provoked and inspired discussion on a wide range of topics---from our state's role in the transatlantic slave trade to the history of apple orchards in Rhode Island. From our work ith the Providence Police Academy to the Learning Community Charter School; Home and Hospice Care of Rhode Island to VSA Arts---what guides us is the conviction that the humanities not only enrich our lives, but their study actually enables us to better sustain ourselves in our communities.

As a society , our beliefs and ideals are our most powerful and transformative resources. In the words of another visionary Rhode Islanders, Barnaby C. Keeney, "Our relations to one another as individuals and to our society are determined by what we know and what we think. Our use of knowledge is inseperable from our ability to express it in words and shapes. Only through the best ideas and the best teaching can we cope with the problems that surround us and the opportunities that lie beyond these problems."

In order to envision and enact the opportunities that lie beyond these problems, we must invest in strengthening the humanities. We must keep the humanities broadly and widely accessible through support of state humanities councils and of the National Endowment. In do doing, we not only honor the legacy of our own Senator Pell, but also we honor ourselves and our own capacity to imagine a better future.