....Art offers Sanctuary to everyone willing
to open their hearts as well as their eyes
------Nikki Giovanni, poet
Music and poetry and friendship heals... and we need to be together.
----Ruthann Baler, singer-songwriter
There is a lot going on for us in the Boston area today. Everyone, go slow and take care and make time to listen to the quiet words within... as well as all the news going on around us. Tomorrow we are gathering in Hopkinton as community to honor what good things that art and the words within ...can offer us as human beings. We will also pay tribute to three artists/activists of our community who work hard to make our world a better place through the work and art that they do. I hope you can join us.
---your host, Cheryl Perreault
On Saturday, April 20th at 10:30 a.m. HCAM Studios Wake up and Smell the Poetry will pay tribute to National Poetry Month with an impressive morning line-up of three guest features including Afaa Michael Weaver, Michael Moran and Kate Chadbourne. These three features are not only artists of poetry, story and song, but also activists in bringing the arts to community and in bringing community to the arts.
Michael Moran has worked for the past 20 years as a community activist including work as founder, director and president of three community art centers in the Metrowest region and was awarded the Metrowest’s Community Leadership Award in 2003 and the Contributor of the Year Award given by the Framingham Cultural Council in 2009. Poet, Professor, Fulbright scholar, Pushcart Prize (and more) recipent and a man of many other good works, Afaa Michael Weaver has travelled to China, Hong Kong and Taiwan and back to provide a forum for different places of the world to learn from each other through the exchange of poetry. In fact, Baltimore organizers of the CityLit Festival have recently declared April 19th Afaa Michael Weaver Day for his good work of poetry and activism. First inspired to compose a song after hearing news about a group of starving children in Somalia, poet Kate Chadbourne has created a "well-wishing" website where she offers to compose songs of healing for anyone in the world in need. Kate has shared her poetry,stories and songs in the U.S. and beyond... at colleges, anthropology centers, Gaelic events, Kripaula yoga center, coffeehouses, libraries, performing arts centers, NPR and other radio programs and her book about father, a Maine lobsterman won the Kulupi Press Award.
Each guest feature will be invited to share their art of poetry or song and will also be honored for their activism in the arts. An open mic will follow with participants who come from near or far to offer their best in 3-4 minute contributions before a quiet room of listening audience. The public is welcome. Free admission, hot coffee and scones offered. The event takes place at the friendly and professional community space at HCAM- TV Studios located at 77 Main Street, Hopkinton, MA Doors open at 10:00 a.m. and the program begins at 10:30.
For more information about the program and to view past Wake up and Smell the Poetry tv shows Click Here.
Also be sure to consider joining Wake up and Smell the Poetry in Framingham on May 4th when some of the highlights of the past 7 seasons will be offered on the night-time stage at Amazing Things Arts Center on Saturday, May 4th at 8:00 p.m.! For information and tickets visit the Amazing Things Arts Center website.
