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Sophie Binder at The Green Center

7/31/2017

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Save the date! On Tuesday, September 12th at 6:00pm, St. Louis-based artist and author Sophie Binder will be speaking at The Green Center about her 2001 odyssey around with world with, you guessed it, two wheels and a sketchbook.

​In April 2001, she quit her job and put all her belongings in storage to fulfill a longtime dream to bicycle and sketch her way around the world. What followed was a solo adventure that would take her through 16 countries across Europe, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, New Zealand and the U.S., pedaling 14,000 miles in 14 months. She came back in June 2002 with seven sketchbooks full of watercolors and stories.

​She will share some of her art, several of her stories, and many of the insights she gained about the unity in variety of the human experience, and the beauty and empathy to be seen and shared on this third planet from the sun.
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The Meteorite

7/24/2017

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An example of the power of the short poem to rattle around one's head is Randall Jarrell's wonderful 1954 poem "The Meteorite":

Star, that looked so long among the stones
And picked from them, half iron and half dirt,
One: and bent and put it to her lips
​And breathed upon it till at last it burned
Uncertainly, among the stars its sisters--
​Breathe on me still, star, sister.

​While syntactically a simple address and request of a star to do one thing (Star...Breathe on me...), what that star is and does is very complicated. The star "looked", "picked", "bent", "put", "breathed upon" a stone. That stone is itself special (or is it?). It is has been "picked from" others, is "half iron and half dirt", "burn[s] / Uncertainly, among the stars" who have now become "its sisters". In the end, the speaker's request that the star "Breathe on me" is capped with the wonderfully complex "still, star, sister". To ​keep breathing upon the speaker, and to address that to a "star" who is a "sister" in a poem titled "The Meteorite" is to send us back again and again through the short lyric to sort out who begins a star, who becomes a star, and who remains a star.

​That is the point, and that is the beauty of poetry. 
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Beautiful bugs on the walls

7/19/2017

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Thank you to the photographers, guests, and community who came out to The Green Center last night to celebrate WGNSS's biannual competition winners. The stunning photos--real natural historical documents--will be on display throughout the downstairs until September 1st, 2017. Please come in and have a look. In fact...

​...today at 4:00pm would be a wonderful opportunity, as The Green Center Tea Society welcomes all to cool off, have a snack and chat about Meena Alexander's poem "Lady Dufferin's Terrace". As always, no poetry experience necessary!
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Vermilion in Tooth and Claw: Area Photographers On Nature

7/17/2017

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Vermilion in Tooth and Claw
by the Winners of the Webster Groves Nature Study Society’s
Natural History Photography Contest

Please join us for a reception at The Green Center to celebrate the achievements of WGNSS photographers.
Tuesday, July 18, 2017 from 6:00pm—8:00 (show closes 9/1/17)
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August Hours in July

7/11/2017

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​"Spun silk of mercy,
long-limbed afternoon,
sun urging purple blossoms from baked stems..."

​Join us tomorrow at The Green Center at 4:00pm for a discussion of Naomi Shihab Nye's poem "Last August Hours Before the Year 2000". Nye was born in St. Louis and grew up in San Antonio, Texas and Jerusalem. Though it's not August yet, we still see "baked stems" all around, and as the poet says: "What better blessing than to move without hurry under trees?" Stay cool with us under the trees and celebrate Nye's poem with friends new and old.
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The Victor Dog

7/10/2017

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James Merrill (1926-95) is about as decorated as an American poet can be, having won the Pulitzer and National Book Award, among countless others. Known by many and praised by almost as many as the consummate stylist, whose intelligent and beautiful poems come from an experienced and virtuosic sense of art, "The Victor Dog" is an example of his deep whimsy and wide-ranging aesthetic. Ange Mlinko has written a wonderful guide to the poem at The Poetry Foundation, and if nothing else, a reading of this lovely poem should send you to your vinyl collection or Spotify for a bit...

​For those interested in a deeper dive into James Merrill's life and art, Langdon Hammer's recent biography of the poet is wonderful, and Merrill's papers are housed at Washington University in St. Louis.
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The Universe: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

7/5/2017

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The poem under discussion at today's meeting of The Green Center Tea Society (all are welcome! no prior knowledge or experience required!) is Tracy K. Smith's The Universe: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. Smith is currently the United States Poet Laureate, appointed in June 2017. The poem is from her Pulitzer-winning collection from 2011, Life on Mars​.
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New Citizens at the National Parks

7/3/2017

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The National Park Service and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have partnered up to allow some folks to become naturalized citizens at one of America's National Parks. This month's NPS co-hosted naturalization ceremonies will be at Congaree National Park (SC), Saratoga National Historical Park (NY), and Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site (KS). As with rededication ceremonies or renewals of wedding vows, you may recite the naturalization oath yourself this Fourth of July or on your next trip to a state or national park. If you can manage it in September, you could possibly sidle up to the group swearing their oath and joining their country in Glacier National Park in Montana.
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    ​"...To a green thought in a green shade..."

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