Save the Kids (STK), founded in 2009, is an all-volunteer, national grass-roots organization dedicated to alternatives to, and the end of, the incarceration of all youth and the school to prison pipeline. STK is grounded in youth justice, transformative justice, and Hip Hop activism.
Last week, the Saint Paul Almanac received news that it has been nominated in five categories for this year’s Midwest Book Awards—in the Culture, Midwest Regional Interest: Text, Publisher’s Website, Reference, and Travel categories. There are many congratulations to be shared with hundreds of people who share their stories and acknowledgement of all the sweat and tears behind the sweet voices. So many voices, sometimes it is overwhelming—like everything we would like to tell you about what’s happening this week!
Welcome to single-sort, curbside recycling, Saint Paul! We are following the simplest of recycling adages: keep it simple and people will use it. If I can fit all of my recycling into one bag, will I have room for more art in another? Saint Paul is reducing, reusing, and recycling. I hope this affords us more creative spaces and the time to fill them with talent. I’ve listed a few examples here.
Celebrate National Poetry Month with a group of some of the most fabulous Twin Cities poets/activists/storytellers who will set the table with nourishing delicious poems that will leave you hungry for more. From radical love, to feeding the masses, to Burger King sex, to wannabe porn starification, these sexy poets have run the gamut in their perspectives on the subject. And, yes, don’t worry, we’ll make time to talk about microaggressions…because our performers are far from being one-dimensional! Special aphrodisiac surprises on the Black Dog Café menu, concocted by The Peoples Cook, to get you in the mood before and after.
Tonight we honor the reason we are in the room! April is National Poetry Month and, tonight, we honor the poets. Bring your favorite poem or poem number seventeen in your 30/30 series or just listen as we fill the space with new, old, polished, and imperfectly perfect poems from 6 p.m.-8 p.m. It is going to be great!
From January to March 2014, over one hundred young Minnesotans were deeply engaged in the Be Heard MN Youth Poetry Slam Series, a program of TruArtSpeaks. The slam identifies six young people to represent the State of Minnesota in the international Brave New Voices Youth Poetry Slam Festival. Tonight, Soul Sounds Open Mic will host a few of the team members and engage with them about their experience as youth poets throughout the process, while also listening to and experiencing their art.
I woke up Friday morning to a white blanket of humility. I had watched it begin to fall the previous afternoon as I sat in on one of the many events listed in the Almanac arts calendar. We looked out the window of the third-floor room of the Metropolitan State library to see heavy flakes against the backdrop of our downtown skyline and both of the capital city’s domes. I know last week, I hinted that we might be past all of this. I was wrong, but at the same time here I was in a room full of people happy not to be stuck in front of the television at home.
Mark Kenneth Tilsen is a Jewish Oglala Lakota poet and philosopher born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He currently is studying at Hamline University and trying to find a way back home after graduation. A sometimes activist, he can be found scribbling in his notebook at Kopplin’s coffee house when hiding from irate professors.
Okay. No kvetching! You can park on both sides of the street now. The snow will be with us for a while, but the air feels a lot better, light enough for us to seemingly glide down sidewalks without having to brace ourselves from the previous months’ harsh elements. They say March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Here, that image rings as thinly as that story about the groundhog. I can’t think of a good animal to reference in an allegory fitting to this Minnesota winter, but it does not matter. It’s nicer out. Let’s greet it with art in our 20th edition of This Week in Saint Paul!
The calendar on my kitchen wall claimed that spring had sprung last week, but Minnesota still predictably holds out. As a kid, and even now as an adult, I didn’t understand the connection of the equinox (nor that Pennsylvanian hedgehog) to any change in season. As a kid, I wasn’t sure if the groundhog myth was about adding six weeks or six months to winter. Hey, I was growing up in Minnesota! Anything is possible.
Tonight is a night of true celebration! Tonight, we honor the womyn in our lives—those who teach us, those who taught us, those challenge us, those who birthed us, and those who spit fire on the mic and make our jaws drop! Bring all of your favorite material by womyn writers or bring an ode to womyn, a womyn, or just bring yourself in the spirit of honoring these beautiful souls. We can’t wait to see you!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! If you have ever seen the sea of faces at Saint Paul’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, maybe you wonder, like I do, why March 17 is not a government holiday in Saint Paul. With all the crowds, as there should be in our city, my biggest question is whether the mayor will take out his bagpipes.
Help us to SAVE OUR STORIES by supporting Saint Paul Almanac’s literary and visual artists, and filmmakers.
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