February 24, 2020

Poetry at the Zoo















Leap into Action - Poetry at the Zoo

Saturday, February 29, 2020 1:30 - 4:00 pm
Duluth Zoo.

1:30pm  Lyz Jaakola : song, hand drum, and poems
2:00pm  Marie Zhuikov
2:30pm  Ann Glumac
3:00pm  Sheila Packa

World Wildlife Day
The proceeds go to Zoo Victoria’s Bushfire Emergency Wildlife Fund.

The Onsgard room is in the main building right down the stairs. 
It can also be reached by elevator.

Sheila Packa is a fiscal year 2020 recipient of an Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.














Essay Daily: Talk About the Essay: Rebecca McClanahan's Selected List of Literary Gea...

Poetry, prose poems, flash fiction, essayettes, and creative nonfiction often borrow each others forms.

First, structures of poetry and prose that bind the lyric essay:

https://www.assayjournal.com/diana-wilson-laces-in-the-corset-structures-of-poetry-and-prose-that-bind-the-lyric-essay-12.html

Second, this list of possibilities to explore when writing an essay, a poem or a hybrid work:

Essay Daily: Talk About the Essay: Rebecca McClanahan's Selected List of Literary Gea...: In her talk on Imagination and the Essay at AWP 2017, Rebecca McClanahan mentioned that she has a list of 72 (as I wrote it down) moves in c...






February 20, 2020

Approaching the Border

https://vimeo.com/117233282

Poems by Sheila Packa (and voice)
Film, musical composition, and arrangement by Kathy McTavish
Honor song by Liz Jaakola and the Oshkii Giizhik Singers.

This is about trafficking and survival, migration, approaching the border, life, death and rebirth.

This video appeared in an installation "The Road to Williston"
Bakken Boom! Artists Respond to the North Dakota Oil Rush
@ Plains Art Museum January 29, 2015 - August 15, 2015 - Fargo Fred J. Donath Memorial and William and Anna Jane Schlossman Galleries, General Exhibition.

February 10, 2020

Minnesota's Renaissance Women

Duluth and Minnesota Women's History
 


Born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1899, Ethel Ray Nance spent her childhood in an overwhelmingly white community. The daughter of Inga Nordquist Ray, a Swedish immigrant, and William Henry Ray, an African American from North Carolina, Ethel Ray learned at an early age that the color of a person's skin was a determining factor in the treatment he/she received. Ethel Ray Nance had a vision of a world in which "we respond to people not color". She dedicated her life to this vision, spending over seventy years fighting against racism, discrimination and the ill treatment of human beings.

Correspondence:
WEB DuBois correspondence: http://oubliette.library.umass.edu/view/pageturn/mums312-b045-i348/#page/1/mode/1up
Ethel Ray Nance's Letters: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/give/bene56/duboisletters.html
Newspaper Articles:
A Patron of the Arts: Ethel Ray in Harlem: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/09/nyregion/literary-new-york-hurston-s-new-york-her-eyes-were-watching-harlem.html 
Remembering Countee Cullen: http://harlemrenaissancelibrarian.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-harlem-renaissance-friends-biography.html
Oral History
An excerpt from Ethel Ray Nance's oral history: (regarding the lynching in Duluth)
http://collections.mnhs.org/duluthlynchings/html/oraltext_nance.htm

Women in the Harlem Renaissance
http://aawomeninhr.blogspot.com/


February 6, 2020

Climate Emergency & Poetry

Greta Thunberg
"No Time to Lose: Climate Emergency Poetry"
Saturday, March 14th, 7 to 9pm
Wussow's Concert Cafe
324 N. Central Avenue, Duluth

Cancelled due to coronavirus pandemic.

Join several Duluth poets (myself included) to share poems of motivation, optimism, love of nature, sustainability, inclusivity, and poems about the stark reality of climate change.

February 4, 2020

Writing Workshop & Reading in Hibbing



















Sponsored by the Boreal Writers' Guild

Writing Workshop and Reading by Sheila Packa

Contact Sheila to confirm. This event may be cancelled because of the pandemic. 

March 22, 2020 Sunday at 1:00 - 4:00 pm at the Boreal Writers' Guild, 214 East Howard Street, Hibbing, Minnesota: 


Workshop registration: $20

The Iron Range in northern Minnesota has a rich and interesting landscape, history, and people. Using guided writing exercises, participants will draw on their own experiences, memories, family history and landscape to make a story, memoir or poetry. We’ll look at some examples of good writing and play with some interesting and fun approaches. We will also have time to share the stories in our group. This workshop is for beginning and experienced writers.  To register, contact sheilapacka@gmail.com.

The Poetry Reading will be followed by an open reading. 


Sheila Packa is a fiscal year 2020 recipient of an Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.


February 3, 2020

Upcoming Poetry Readings

Poetry Readings and a March Writing Workshop: 

February 5, 2020 Wednesday 7pm at Zenith Bookstore, Duluth
"An Evening of Poetry with the Finns" will be held Wednesday, Zenith Bookstore, 318 N. Central Ave, Duluth, Minnesota

The Finlandia Foundation Northland Chapter celebrates Runeberg's Day (Runeberginpäivä), a national holiday in Finland honoring Johan Ludvig Runeberg, the national poet of Finland by offering a night of poetry featuring Finnish, Finnish-American, and Northland poets.

Featured poets include: Gary Boelhower, Daniel and Sandra Oyinloye, James (Jim) Johnson (read by Marlene Wisuri) Sheila Packa, Steve Leppälä, and Johan Ludvig Runeberg (read by Hanna Erpestad). Special Finnish treats "Runeberg Torte" (Runebergintorttu) made by Beatrice Ojakangas will be served. It's free; donations welcome.


March 14th, Saturday, 7 to 9pm at Wussow's Concert Cafe, Duluth, Minnesota
"No Time to Lose: Climate Emergency Poetry"

324 N. Central Avenue, Duluth

Join several Duluth poets (myself included) to share poems of motivation, optimism, love of nature, sustainability, inclusivity, and poems about the stark reality of climate change.

March 22, 2020 Sunday at 1:00 - 4:00 pm at the Boreal Writers' Guild, 214 East Howard Street, Hibbing, Minnesota: 
Writing Workshop and Reading
Workshop registration: $20
The Iron Range in northern Minnesota has a rich and interesting landscape, history, and people. Using guided writing exercises, participants will draw on their own experiences, memories, family history and landscape to make a story, memoir or poetry. We’ll look at some examples of good writing and play with some interesting and fun approaches. We will also have time to share the stories in our group. This workshop is for beginning and experienced writers.
A Poetry Reading by Sheila Packa will be followed by an open reading. 


April 5, 2020 Sunday 10 am at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Virginia, Minnesota
"Poetry and Sacred Texts" presentation of poems and a few excerpts of sacred texts by Sheila Packa