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.

the problem of gratified desire

If she puts honey in her tea
and praises prudence in the stirring up
she drinks, finally,
a drop of perfect sweetness
hot at the bottom of the cup.

There will be
pleasures more complex than it
(pleasure exchanged were infinite)
but none so cheap
more neat or definite.

--Marie Ponsot

digital humanities

At the suggestion of David Durand at Tizra, I met John Cayley at Blue State Coffee and we talked about "electronic writing." It's been a while since I've been in - or thought about - this world much.

We spoke of many things, but one thing that struck me was an observation he made about the preponderance of "digital humanities" programs, projects, efforts. "Digital Humanities" in large part, refers to online databanks (sophisticated and beautiful though they may be) of what are traditional materials - books, letters, print resources - digitized - the emphasis being in preserving these materials. What of the work that is being created specifically for a digital environment? And what does that mean for the work of the public humanities?

There are occasional references to the "new humanities," which frequently address online "web 2.0" tools in some way or another. I like to think about weblogs specifically - the beauty of which is the fact that they are embedded in media. The best ones capture that sense of deep interconnectedness - that one could move effortlessly (or nearly so) from text to image to video to audio, to and from different types of websites - those that are online versions of traditional print pieces (the "brochure") to those that are more fluid and dynamic.

Leadership Chat - Leadership Rhode Island - 1/10/08

Last month, I spoke at the Leadership Rhode Island Orientation as part of a series of "leadership chats" facilitated by graduates of the program. I had been asked to speak about my own "leadership journey" and share personal anecdotes about how I define leadership. I'm sharing my remarks here.

*

The past year has been one of great change for me, personally and professionally. This time last year, I had just recently returned to my full-time position at Brown, after the birth of my second child. Soon after, I was appointed Executive Director of the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, a position I assumed in July.

Early last spring, my husband started a new position for which he has been commuting to Boston daily.

My daughter, who is 11, started middle school this past fall, at a school that was new to her and to us.

Last fall, I was elected Chair of the Board of the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island, succeeding the founding chair, and I began my term last month.

I still maintain volunteer positions with other nonprofit organizations, and I try also to have some degree of a personal life, although that is with only marginal success.

As you might imagine, there are moments when I wake up in the middle of the night and dwell obsessively on two questions:

First, how did this happen?

In order to put that question in its appropriate context, you have to understand that as a high school student, my life plan was to be a “happy novelist.” The way I envisioned this, was in a lovely old country-style home, with wide expanses of space all around me (think: Little House on the Prairie), where I would spend my days dancing around in full skirts (and perhaps bonnet?) with my completed and brilliant manuscript (because in my imaginings, my manuscript was always both completed AND brilliant, although these fantasies never included actually writing anything) – my brilliant manuscript tucked under my arm. Fields of wheat would be swaying in the distance. Birds would be singing.

This is a far cry from sitting at my desk in my office at home, which overlooks the 95 S-curve, typing late into the night. And a far cry from what is perhaps the most definitive image of my life these days – my husband and I sitting side by side on our living room couch, after the children are in bed, each typing furiously on our laptops, as we listen to the late night news on television. OK, so sometimes we're actually watching Project Runway or re-runs of What Not To Wear.

My second middle of the night question is: Why do I do this?

I could sleep more. I could pick up my kids earlier and do scrapbooking projects with them. I could learn to play more video games. I could bake. I could improve my karaoke skills, which – while adequate – could always stand to be improved.

My house could be cleaner.

And every morning, when I awake, I do it because there is simply so much work to be done. And because my children need models of independence. Competence. Commitment. Because young women – like my daughter – need to see that there are roles for women in the world.

And because in whatever small ways that I can, I want to make my corner of the world better than I found it. To make the lives of those people around me enhanced – rather than diminished – by their interactions with me.

And because I believe that if each of us – individually – does not add his or her voice and his or her talents to the collective voices and talents of us all, we all stand to be poorer for that lack.

So, in an addition to an overall lack of sleep, one of the consistent themes of these recent months has been the challenge to enact those values that I hold most dear about what it means to lead.

I’ll talk for a minute about the organizations with which I’ve been involved and how I came to be involved with them.

The International Charter School
I enrolled my daughter in the International Charter School for a number of reasons – small class size, personal attention, the opportunity to learn a second language, but the thing that was most compelling to me about the school was this:

The ICS model is called two-way immersion. The school implements this model by alternating the language spoken in the classroom – students learn in English one week, and in Spanish the next. (The school also offers a Portuguese/English strand.) Classes are composed of both native and non-native English speakers. What this means for students is that during the weeks of Spanish instruction, the native Spanish-speaking students naturally assume roles of leadership, because during those times, the knowledge and experience they have is essentially privileged over that of the non-Spanish-speaking students.

So here is an environment being created where what would be seen in another setting as a disadvantage, is a strength, and by validating that strength, children are empowered to assume leadership. For my family, these were important lessons not only for the practical skills that the acquisition of a second language could offer, but also for that understanding – from an early age – that each of us has gifts to share, each of us has value. There are, of course, the related lessons of cultural competence that students learn in this type of environment, and our family holds that very dear as well.

I was asked to join the board in one of the positions held for parents, and I did. As is always the case, there were things that needed to be done, and I started doing them – things like reviewing the bylaws, developing guidelines for how we recruited new board members, setting up a way that we could evaluate whether we – as a board – were doing a good job, beyond what the school did, beyond what the director did.

I know now that these were important governance functions, but at that time, I simply did them because they needed to be done.

And that is what you will hear emerge as my definition of leadership in any situation: Recognizing what the needs are (and that only can come through a thoughtful understanding of the situation and landscape), identifying what needs to be done, facilitating that work by recognizing and supporting the abilities and talents of those around you.

New Urban Arts
At New Urban Arts, artist mentors work with high school students to teach and model leadership skills through the discipline and development of a creative practice. Youth are treated not as empty vessels waiting to be filled with the knowledge that experts can impart, but as individuals bringing natural strengths, abilities, talents, and interests. The idea that drives the New Urban Arts model is to bring out those natural strengths and allow them to blossom with the appropriate guidance – just enough structure to be reliable.

The founder of New Urban Arts, Tyler Denmead, who just recently made his own transition to a graduate program at Oxford University, is a visionary leader who brought out the best in those around him, through a skillful mix of boldness and humility.

I became drawn to the Women's Fund of Rhode Island because of the way it articulated its commitment to systemic change - as opposed to direct service.

The story that we at the Women's Fund use to explain the distinction is the "Babies in the River" story. It goes like this:

One day, a woman is walking by a river and sees that there are babies floating down the river, drowning. She immediately leaps into the river and starts pulling the babies out. She sees another woman walking by, and she calls out to this second woman, "Help me, help - you need to help me save these babies."

But the second woman just keeps walking. A second time, the woman in the river calls out, "Please, why won't you help me save these babies?

The second woman answers, "Because I am going to the head of the river to see who's throwing these babies in and I'm going to stop it."

The Women's Fund wants to go to the head of the river. Of course, to address social injustices, social inequities, we need both - we need those who will save the drowning babies, and those who will go to the head of the river. For me, the systemic change value was very important.

For me, leadership prioritizes addressing social inequities in many forms. Leadership prioritizes service to others. Leadership provides a means to view social problems through a different lens - a lens which is as inclusive as it is hopeful.

I'm going to stop here, so we can have some time for discussion. I will just close by observing that - as you all know - there is so much work to be done. And for all of us, who type furiously into the night, we know this. And it is what keeps us getting up every morning, even from restless sleep, to start again.