Maureen Owen and Barbara Henning: Poets on the Road

Poets on the Road – Maureen Owen and Barbara Henning – City Point Press – 9781947951709 – Paperback – 176 pages – $18 – June 6, 2023 – ebook editions available at lower prices

This is a special book by two very special poets. I know I am biased. They are both friends of mine, and Maureen I have known for almost fifty years. This terrific travelog documents an amazing poetic journey they took in 2019, crossing the country in a small car, with stops for poetry readings, visits with other poets, cheap motels and funky meals from Brooklyn (where Barbara lives), first south, then west all the way to California and back to Denver (where Maureen lives).

It was truly an incredible trip, originally documented in a blog they wrote while traveling. This book collects those stories and features photos of the poets and the people and places they visited along the way.

I loved this story so much, I decided to publish it, and consequently this book is a collaboration of the two poets plus the exceptional book designer, HR Hegnauer and publisher City Point Press.

Here’s an excerpt from Pat Nolan’s wonderful introduction:

Although a road trip across North American calls to mind Jack Kerouac’s youthful meanderings of self-discovery, this reading tour was more in the manner of Bashō’s late life journeys through the backcountry of Japan. . . . The road trip was in a sense a pilgrimage of reengagement with their calling as poets, and a chance to reacquaint with like-minded friends, old and new, in a far-flung landscape of American poetry.

Venues would include upscale bookstores, coffee houses, museums, legendary used bookstores, botanical gardens, university classrooms, art centers, and artist coops—in short, a unique sampling of poetry environments tracing an arc across the Southern States, the Southwest, and up the West Coast before hooking back to the Rockies.

Framed as a personal challenge, the poets hit the road much in the manner of itinerant preachers and musicians, lodging at discount motels, funky hostels, Airbnbs, and with friends along the way. Adding a social media touch, Maureen and Barbara created a blog of their tour so that friends, family, hosts, and fellow poets might also share in their adventure.

It’s always a pleasure to spend any amount of time with Maureen and Barbara, so this conversation was truly special for me, and I hope for all of you as well who will be listening in.

As further full disclosure, let me add that we were also in Tucson when she and Barb came to visit, so I am a participant and contributor to the blog and to the book as well, making it even more fun for me to talk to both Maureen and Barb about it here.

Maureen’s most recent book is let the heart hold down the breakage   Or   the caretaker’s log (Hanging Loose Press)

Barbara’s most recent book is Ferne, A Detroit Story (Spuyten Duyvil)

Maureen’s website

Barbara’s website

Buy Poets on the Road here. (this link is to Bookshop.org, sales will support indie bookstores)

Barbara Henning (photo by Miranda Maher)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Scott Crow: Black Flags and Windmills

978-1604860771 – PM Press – paperback – $20.00.

I knew I would be interested in reading Black Flags and Windmills after reading the publisher’s description of this book:

When both levees and governments failed in New Orleans in the Fall of 2005, scott crow headed into the political storm, co-founding a relief effort called the Common Ground Collective. In the absence of local government, FEMA, and the Red Cross, this unusual volunteer organization, based on ‘solidarity not charity,’ built medical clinics, set up food and water distribution, and created community gardens. They also resisted home demolitions, white militias, police brutality and FEMA incompetence side by side with the people of New Orleans.

crow’s vivid memoir maps the intertwining of his radical experience and ideas with Katrina’s reality, and community efforts to translate ideals into action. It is a story of resisting indifference, rebuilding hope amidst collapse, and struggling against the grain. Black Flags and Windmills invites and challenges all of us to learn from our histories, and dream of better worlds. And gives us some of the tools to do so.

This short description made me realize that I had not really thought about what it was like in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast during and after Katrina, beyond the media images of human suffering and devastation we all saw on television and online.  And that I really had no idea what was going on there in the weeks and months after this massive dislocation.  I think I suspected that things were pretty grim, but I wanted to learn more first hand.

crow is an anarchist organizer who went to New Orleans immediately after the storm hit, mainly to look for a colleague and friend he knew had stayed in the city throughout.  His story about the early days there, where he and a few other people tried to assist, outside of all official structures and organizations, is mind blowing and powerful.  But the ongoing story of the work that he and others did to help create community based self-help structures is really at the heart of his memoir, and is at once uplifting and inspiring for anyone who is searching for ideas and principles that will help us, not just in times of stress and turmoil, but all of the time and forever, as we try to find better ways to build community and live together on a crowded planet without falling into authoritarian and top down structures and systems.

No doubt that not every reader will agree with everything that scott believes in and does, but this is a valuable story for anyone interested in how human beings can work together for the common good.

Here’s his official bio, for those who want to know more about his background and current work: scott crow is an Austin, TX based anarchist community organizer, writer, and trainer who began working on anti-apartheid, international political prisoner and animal rights issues in the mid 1980s. He is the co-founder and co-organizer of several social justice groups and education projects throughout Texas and the South including Common Ground Collective (with Malik Rahim), Radical Encuentro Camp, UPROAR (United People Resisting Oppression and Racism), Dirty South Earth First!, and North Texas Coalition for a Just Peace. He has trained and organized for Greenpeace, Ruckus Society, Rainforest Action Network, A.C.O.R.N., Forest Ethics, and Ralph Nader, and many smaller grassroots groups. He is currently collaborating on long-term sustainable democratic economic mutual aid projects within Austin.

This is a talk that I think is well worth a listen.

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