Pudding House Unitarian Universalist.

ON THIS WEBPAGE:

1. NEWSFLASHES, HEADLINES, & FEATURES

3. AMERICAN POETRY ANTHOLOGY AWARD

4. WHAT IS THE UU POETS COOPERATIVE?

5. AFFILIATION BENEFITS

6. ANTHOLOGIES FEATURING UUs

8. CHAPBOOKS PROJECT

9. ARCHIVES

10. UU POETS COMMUNITY MEMBERS

1. Newsflashes, headlines, & features for 2004/05

MEDIA MONOPOLY NEWS
If you’re a writer, this issue is not only your business but it is your responsibility. We must collectively get smarter about the media monopoly and what it absolutely does mean to you personally, even if you are published, promoted, and part of that “inside” media monopoly state of favor—it is not good for you or anyone. Why?

The number’s down to 6!

Ben Bagdikian, author of The Media Monopoly (Beacon Press, 2000) and former dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Berkeley, says “For the first time in U.S. history, the country’s most wide spread sources of news, commentary, and entertainment are controlled by only 6 firms, among the largest in the world.”

Professor Robert W. McChesney, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times (Univ. of Illinois Press, 1999) says “Powerful interests have constructed it so that citizens have not been involved in the key policy decisions that have shaped it [the media].”

The Democratic Media Legal Project team is developing the ground-breaking framework for a constitutional challenge to the present broadcasting structure. We want governance of the publicly owned airwaves in accordance with democratic ideals and the U.S. Constitution. The project work is being done by Alan Korn, Dan Fiske, Dorothy Kidd, Paul Sawyer, Robert Alpern, Dorothy Patterson, Glenn Terrones, Henry Kroll, Dee Dee Halleck, Geo. Gerbner, and hundreds in support. Tax Deductible donations are payable to the Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community (UUJEC) and may be sent to:

UUJEC
Democratic Media Legal Project
3450 Geary Blvd., Suite 208
San Francisco CA 94118

Is democracy possible when a few corporations dominate the airwaves and the publishing industry, when so few people are controlling what you get to hear, read, research?

Jen’s number one follow up opinion and recommendation:
I cannot understand why any informed poet, for example, and especially one who happens to be a Unitarian Universalist, would ever buy anything from, give a reading at, or in any way contribute to the profits of Barnes & Noble—the major media monopoly control freak in the publishing distribution industry. If you truly understood how publishing works compared to how it should work, you surely would not contribute to their power by investing in books at profit level through them.

Barnes & Noble should be our number one boycott effort and I, for one, and many other poets I know around the country, BOYCOTT BARNES & NOBLE. We are watching their bad-citizen behavior. If you boycott Barnes & Noble, we’d like to know; if you are willing to help inform others about why they should, send us your name, address, and email in case we want to spring into action. In the meantime you can ask Poets & Writers why they’re content to get in bed with B&N, you can tell your friends to give readings in the few remaining independent bookstores instead, you can never again buy a book from B&N’s seductive palaces, you can stay away from their events and encourage others to (every person who walks in the store is counted on to buy a certain number of …2.7?—books). Pudding House Publications will not allow our books to be sold in their stores. Including in the mammoth number of university bookstores they have taken over with little notice. If you wonder why we allow them to acquire our books for college classes, call Jennifer.

Media Exploration Through Improved Audienceship Lecture available in your area
Jennifer Bosveld led this 9-month series in Columbus a few years back but the news has gotten worse with the Barnes & Noble take-over of so many college bookstores. With information from The Nation, The Toledo Blade, and information given in Bill Moyers’ Free Speech for Sale, how can we be complacent? If Jen is coming to your area to give a reading or workshop, you might include her 1-hour presentation on the media monopoly as well.

Who are the media giants? Disney, Rupert Murdoch, Viacom, Seagram, Bertlesmann and guess what? Maybe we should stop saying we’re down to only 6 big voices. Maybe we’re down to ONE—all of these are members of the National Association of Broadcasters and they all put their heads together for their own interests, not yours or mine. Our democracy is dying and the media monopoly is one of the major reasons.

COFFEE AND POETS
Coffeehouse readings, gotta get another cup of coffee before I tackle this revision, here, have a cup of coffee…

It’s as though the wafting aroma is the rising muse, it’s as though the dark mirror is the screen upon which the images clarify, it’s as though the cha-ching of the cash register interrupting the poet performing at the open mic is a reminder of how little we’re getting paid for our good work. But here’s a way to be a good consumer at least…and that’s something. EQUAL EXCHANGE—fairly traded gourmet coffee. They donated all the coffee for Clearwater Coffeehouse at GA in Nashville and in gratitude we recommend that you go to them for your coffeehouse supplies, coffee hours, coffee clubs, etc. Charlotte Mann is the Outreach Coordinator, 251 Revere Street, Canton, Massachusetts 02021, (781) 830-0303 x242; cmann@equalexchange.com. Serve fairly traded coffee and tea at arts, poetry, and church events and in your offices and at home. Now there’s an idea. Tell them the UU poets sent you.

[More to come]

2. The Long Beach, California General Assembly treated the UUPOETS events and exhibition space like royalty. We thank the UUA headquarters including the ministerial offices for a huge amount of support during a difficult year. Just three months before G.A. Jennifer's husband, Rev. Jim Bosveld died and he always introduced himself as "the roadie for the bard." Our crowd was smaller for Clearwater Coffeehouse because it was held much later in the evening and we can't do that again. Jen was also very preoccupied with care for Jim during a difficult year when they knew Jim was dying of kidney cancer so we did little publicity. The event carried itself. People just showed up.

3. AMERICAN POETRY ANTHOLOGY AWARD

A anthology of artistic and applicable work is chosen early each year. Books may be nominated by anyone (publishers, editors, poets, readers, journalists, etc.) even as we are doing our own research to find collections that reflect or at least do not smack in the face of UU principles and purposes. We claim that the selected book advances poetry and its applications in our culture. Successful collections might have an agenda such as social justice, peace, environment, earth centered spirituality, playfulness, fresh approaches to writing, avant garde, instructional elements along with the poems, ethnic representation or inclusiveness, or life-journey themes, and more.

We choose work that would provide entre for the Everyperson not necessarily already abiding in the realm of contemporary poetry and work that elevates the common taste if the uninitiated would dare to venture in. And yet the books satisfy the more learned readers among us as well.

NOMINATE A POETRY ANTHOLOGY FOR THE NEXT AWARD!
Send 2 copies of an anthology worthy of recognition. Include a letter of persuasion and contact information—both editor/s and publisher addresses, phone, and email. Incomplete nominations will eliminate the candidate. Nominations are accepted year-round. The next selection will take place early 2005 and nominatinos should arrive by January 20, 2005. Those already nominated are revisited the following year but additional letters of persuasion are welcome and will be filed with the book. Send to UUPC/Am.Poetry Anthology Award, Pudding House, 81 Shadymere Ln., Columbus Ohio 43213.

4. NITA PENFOLD CO-DIRECTORSHIP
OF THE UUPC

Depending upon which world you frequent, Nita Penfold is known as a well-published poet, or an exhibiting assemblage artist, or a Unitarian Universalist religious educator who brings spirituality and the arts together for adults and children.

Penfold is also currently a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry Degree at the University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland, CA studying with radical theologian Matthew Fox and cosmologist Brian Swimme. The program has opened her to a ministry that connects and empowers people through the arts to participate in the great unfolding of creativity in our universe. As part of that ministry, she has agreed to take on the role of UUPC co-director to spread the word to and about UU poets and the contributions they make to our faith and our world through their words and their lives.

Nita spent a week the summer of 2001 teaching her class, "Writing From the Soul," at Star Island's Arts Week. If you haven't attended this week at Star, you are missing the opportunity to mingle with other U.U. creatives, participating in one of a variety of arts workshops for the mornings, and everything from music and poetry readings, talent, art, and photography shows, or swimming and walking the rocks the rest of the time. Other notables who have given workshops are William Least Heat Moon, Nancy Willard, and Nita's husband, song-leader Nick Page. There are usually workshops in visual arts, music, writing, photography, and dance with special guests for evening events. The Arts week happens the third week in June, about the same time as GA and is well worth the trip out to the Isle of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire.

As another part of her arts ministry, Nita is editing a book for Pudding House--Living Spiritually in a Consumer Society. We are a people who consume, ie. "use up, waste, destroy, squander." And we have come to a time where our consumption is destroying the very home we take for granted, Earth. The CALL for poems is now closed and we're at work on the finished product.

Nita received her Masters in Writing at Lesley College in 1986. Over 300 of her poems and several short stories have been published in the past 20 years. Her work has appeared in over 22 anthologies including Beacon Press books, Cries of the Spirit which received the American Poetry Anthology Award, and Claiming the Spirit Within and recently in June Cotner's books, Family Blessings, and Mothers and Daughters. She was an associate editor for Jennifer Bosveld's The Unitarian Universalist Poets: A Contemporary American Survey anthology and Prayers to Protest: Poems That Center and Bless Us. Pudding House Publications has released her chapbook Mile High Blue Sky Pie ($8.95) and published her chapbook, The Woman With the Wild-Grown Hair in 1998. For 13 years Nita Penfold had been Director of Religious Education at the First Parish in Milton, MA (Unitarian Universalist). She then Directed of Religious Education at the Lexington MA UU Church.

6. WHAT IS THE UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST POETS COOPERATIVE?

A national collective of actively writing and publishing poets who happen to be Unitarian Universalists. An outgrowth of the first anthology ever of contemporary poets who are UUs, The Unitarian Universalist Poets: A Contemporary American Survey. The co-op was founded later that year because the poets wanted to stay in contact and have one central place where they could find out about future anthologies and opportunities of interest to them. The co-op has attracted 350 members on and off and nationwide. It is kind of a natural tendency for people who lean toward UUism to also shy away from organized religions; or labeling. It is often said that Unitarian Universalism is the largest non-card-carrying denomination in the country. Far more people identify with Unitarian Universalism than sign membership rosters and serve on committees or identify with a church. One needn't be a church member to be a member of the UU Poets Cooperative. Perhaps you have many comrads in this coffeehouse.

To address general curiosity, we have reprinted the
UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST PRINCIPLES & PURPOSES

We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote:

* The inherent worth and dignity of every person
* Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations
* Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations
* A free and responsible search for truth and meaning
* The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large
* The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all
* Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

The living tradition we share draws from many sources:

* Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life
* Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of life
* Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life
* Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves
* Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit
* Spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

Excerpt from Bylaws adopted at 1984, 1985, 1995 General Assemblies.

UU POETS AT GENERAL ASSEMBLY (GA)

CLEARWATER COFFEEHOUSE
Named in honor of Pete Seeger and his work inspiring the work of many faithful volunteers to clean up the Hudson River. We are encouraging as many UU congregations as possible to start a CLEARWATER COFFEEHOUSE and donate a minimum of 5% of the gate to the Clearwater organiation in New York or to a similar effort in their own back yards. See the CLEARWATER COFFEEHOUSE webpage on this website for much assistance toward starting such an event.

Our big annual CLEARWATER COFFEEHOUSE at General Assembly takes place in a different part of the United States each year in late June. It is open to the public.

LITERARY ROOTS
Unitarians and Universalists merged in 1961. Among the rich literary backgrounds from these two religions the following writers have created great works while they shaped thinking, brought attention to justice and environmental issues, and broadened the concepts and applications of religion and spirituality and art. Julia Ward Howe who wrote the Battle Hymn of The Republic, Charles Dickens whose body of work addresses classism and poverty, Louisa May Alcott whose; Little Women was recently brought back to screen in a way that comes closer to depicting the Alcott's own Unitarian life-style, and many other great writers inspire today's UUs to blend their causes with their art. Other great UU writers of the past include Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson (a Unitarian minister), Clara Barton, Susan B. Anthony, William Cullen Bryant, e e cummings, Clarence Darrow, Charles Darwin, Buckminster Fuller, Oliver Wendell Homes, Thomas Jefferson, Herman Melville, Florence Nightingale, Linus Pauling (some of these aren't that long ago), Beatrix Potter, Carl Sandburg, Albert Schweitzer, Rod Serling, Kurt Vonnegut (living, but a couple of his books are arguably classics already), William Carlos Williams, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Agassiz, and many others. Many of them are among my heros, such as William Carlos Williams and Louis Agassiz.

LITERARY LEAVES
Civil Disobedience and rants to newPrayers and newProphets—
In the words of the rock group, R.E.M., "standing on the shoulders of giants, makes me sad." We have among us in this age poets, including lyricists, who are the soothsayers of the times and as Paul Simon said "The words of the prophets ARE written on the subway walls." I founded in 1996 the UU Poets Cooperative in order to provide a forum for any important messages our poets of today might offer up, to bring spotlight to their work, and to provide additional opportunities to publish and promote their work. (The UU Poets Co-op is separate-from but affiliated with Pudding House which offers a wide range of publishing and other support to poets without respect to religious orientation. So, Atheists, Baptists, Catholics, and Methodists, etc., hit our other webpages; you're welcome there and all over our place.) —Jennifer Bosveld.

MEMBERSHIP:
$10. Check payable to Pudding House w/UU Membership in the memo line.
Send name, address, phone and email, SASE, UU affiliation.
2 copies of any of your books, etc., for the archives.
No individual poems please unless you state intentions for submission to any
Pudding House Publications and that submission must include SASE.