Warrior Writers at Stockton

Somalia vet Sarah Mess reads poetry at Stockton University
(photo/Jan Barry)

A Warrior Writers workshop at Stockton University in Galloway, NJ on Saturday drew more than a dozen diverse participants to write and talk about often harsh experiences in the military and beyond, including brushes with death, survivor guilt, sexual assault, and hidden impacts on family members.

The multi-ethnic group included a wife who attended with her husband, a sister who came with her brother in memory of another brother who died young after serving in Vietnam, men and women veterans of the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps who served in war zones from Vietnam to Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as a wide variety of other duty stations including Germany and Guantanamo Bay.

Several workshop participants then presented selections of their poetry or prose in a performance in the college theater. The writing workshop and performance were adroitly guided by Valerie Stemac, an Air Force veteran whose transition from PTSD patient to poet is conveyed in a new HBO documentary, “We Are Not Done Yet.”

The film is about a group of combat veterans and otherwise severely injured soldiers who create a collaborative poem in writing workshops at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland, which they perform together at a theater in Washington, DC, under the direction of actor Jeffrey Wright. Warrior Writers has helped facilitate workshops and performances at military bases and art centers in the Washington area, in collaboration with Seema Reza, co-founder of Community Building Art Works.

Formed in 2007 in Philadelphia, PA, Warrior Writers has fostered workshops and public performances in cities and towns across the U.S., embracing veterans of all eras. In New Jersey, monthly writing workshops are hosted at the VA Vet Center in Secaucus and at Frontline Arts in Branchburg. Public performances have included appearances at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark, Puffin Cultural Forum in Teaneck, art galleries in Jersey City, Montclair and Somerville, and the New York City Poetry Festival.

For more information, see:

www.warriorwriters.org/

www.wearenotdoneyetfilm.com/

Saving the Meadowlands

Meadowlands, Richard W. DeKorte Park, Lyndhurst  (photo/Jan Barry)

Imagine the Grand Canyon sliced and diced by highways lined with billboards, power plants, warehouses, shopping malls, sports stadiums, trash landfills and housing tracts. That’s the state of the New Jersey Meadowlands. 

What’s left of the once extensive wetlands that stretched from Newark Bay deep into Bergen County are a few parcels of cattails, phragmites and cottonwood trees scattered along the Hackensack River corridor. These hemmed in spots are home to bald eagles, great blue herons and a profusion of wildlife.

These endangered natural areas precariously exist next to the relentless roar of trucks and cars on the New Jersey Turnpike and North Jersey’s dense network of state and local highways. Recently, environmentalists and local officials scored a hopeful victory in blocking a Bergen County plan to pave over a small parcel of wetlands bordered by the Turnpike to create a dinosaur amusement park.

Meadowlands protest, Ridgefield
(photo/Jan Barry)

Yet the green teams were unable to stop developers’ plans to build a shopping center one exit south on the Turnpike, next to a grove of cottonwoods that house an eagle nest.

The latest environmental battle in the Meadowlands is over a proposed fracked gas power plant that would be sited on the edge of a strip of wetlands bordered by the Turnpike and Route 1 & 9, barely a mile from a PSE&G natural gas-powered electricity generating plant on the Hackensack River. The existing power plant is near the endangered eagle nest.

The proposed plant in North Bergen would sent electricity to New York City. It “would emit more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases than any existing power plant in New Jersey,” according to the North Jersey Record, citing a review of federal data.

The power plant plan, which quietly received some preliminary permits from the state Department of Environmental Protection, set off alarm bells in Meadowlands communities and beyond. Mayors and councils in more than 40 North Jersey towns have signed onto resolutions opposing the proposed project. They are calling on Governor Phil Murphy to stop the project.

Power plant protest, Ridgefield Park
(photo/Jan Barry)

"We cannot afford to power New York City on the backs of the environmental health and safety of the Meadowlands and New Jersey residents," Westwood Mayor John Birkner Jr. said at a rally last week attended by several mayors of Bergen County towns who joined environmentalists at a protest highway billboard in Ridgefield Park. The proposed plant is in neighboring Hudson County, where it is supported by local officials and construction unions.

“This plant would be a major blow to air quality, in a region that already has some of the worst air pollution in the entire country,” the Sierra Club’s New Jersey chapter stated. “Bergen and Hudson Counties already have an F rating by the American Lung Association for ozone pollution. Our ozone levels are so high that it may put sensitive individuals at risk, including children, the elderly and people suffering from asthma, heart disease and other lung ailments.”

Opponents of the proposed power plant have organized petitions, town meetings, roadside rallies and a billboard campaign asking passersby to call Governor Murphy to reject the project. Murphy maintains that the proposal is under DEP review and not his call. Citing a variety of studies and reports on environmental hazards of gas-fired power plants, the Bergen County League of Municipalities sent Murphy and the DEP a resolution opposing the proposed plant. These hazards include increased flooding in the Meadowlands due to global climate change fueled by burning fossil fuels.

The county organization of mayors proposed “an alternative approach to producing electricity from solar panels [which] would avoid all of the environmental and health issues noted in this resolution while still providing new jobs and other financial benefits to local towns and would be in conformance with Governor Murphy’s goal to increase the use of renewable energy.”

Bergen County officials took similar heat from environmentalists and local officials over a plan to rent out a 35-acre wetlands parcel off the Teaneck exit of the Turnpike to a private company that runs a dinosaur amusement park in a DPW parking lot in another section of Overpeck County Park. Earlier this month, County Executive James Tedesco’s office announced it is dropping that plan.

“It’s a victory for wildlife, it’s a victory for nature,” Don Torino, the head of the Bergen County Audubon Society, told the North Jersey Record. “The people of Bergen County didn’t need something else to pay for … they need nature. Especially in that part of the county.”

The Record article on the issue noted that opponents suggested alternative ideas.

“‘I don’t want to see another inch of Overpeck Park developed,’ said Diane Koszarski, a retired librarian and puppeteer who stuck a sign in front of her Teaneck home after she learned of the county’s plans. ‘There must be another way to work with the dinosaur park people so kids can enjoy it without impinging on a really fragile and important part of our ecosystem.’ ”

Overpeck County Park is largely a reclaimed landfill and lake in the northern reaches of the Meadowlands. The 811-acre site was donated by the towns of Teaneck, Leonia, Ridgefield Park and Palisades Park in the 1950s to be a county park. County officials allowed extensive landfill dumping until a state judge ordered the county to create the park that was planned for the area. 

The 35-acre parcel in Teaneck was isolated by construction of the Turnpike and intersection with I-80. That parcel is connected by Teaneck Creek with a 46-acre wetlands that was restored by volunteer groups that created Teaneck Creek Conservancy to maintain hiking trails and outdoors education programs. Bergen County has promised for years to clean up contamination from illegal dumping on both parcels.

Town by town, that’s the story of the Meadowlands: official promises to maintain open space undercut by deals with developers and dumpers.

And yet, bald eagles are drawn to fish in the Hackensack River and nearby ponds, especially in winter when water bodies further north are frozen. An Audubon Society birder last month reported 21 eagles settled into trees along a pond in Little Ferry, where aerators keep ice from freezing the center of the former brick-making quarry.

Eagle nest area, Ridgefield (photo/Jan Barry)

A mile or so away, the Bergen County Audubon Society fought to save a 10-acre preserve around an eagle nest off Overpeck Creek in Ridgefield. “That’s a grassroots victory,” Don Torino told a crowd of supporters at a recent celebration in an industrial park that provides spectacular views of bald eagles swooping and soaring about the nest. The bulk of the eagle nest area off the Turnpike intersection with Route 46 has been bulldozed for a shopping center.      

          

Sharleen Leahey: Singing Out for Activists

photo: Left Forum 2015

Sharleen Leahey is a movement troubadour. She sings Pete Seeger songs, Woody Guthrie songs, her own songs about timeless issues and issues of the day. Her latest CD collection is titled “For the 99.” The first verse of the title song pulls listeners into the middle of a demonstration, whether in New York or New Brunswick, Washington or Newark:

We are gathered here in the people’s square

So we can have our say

We have come today to protest the way

Our rulers have behaved

A Somerville, NJ resident, Leahey ranges around the world in addressing war and peace issues, social justice issues, human rights issues. Here’s two verses of “Good People”:

Drone over Afghanistan

A village laid waste

The pilot can’t get hurt ten thousand miles away

Nintendo death the modern military way

Brought by the good people

…

Homeless on the street

An old woman stripped of pride

Half a block from the new boutiques

She’s standing on a church breadline

This ain’t the ‘30s

It’s the new millennium time

Where are the good people?

For more words and music, CD ordering information and concert schedule, go to:

sharleenleahey.com/home

www.facebook.com/sharleenleahey?eid=ARDDgI0B1xoZQxLUzG5QIth7vk6cnkR4Mrpp4mQYge9CwvUZIyu5cWNuSnSgV2BNUkgujhxTOTNh7B8O

Fire and Ice: Views of Climate Change

"La Tuna Fire," by Jeff Frost 

“Receding lines of ice…advancing lines of fire.”

That’s Tim Blunk’s view of the art show he’s curated at Gallery Bergen at Bergen Community College in Paramus, NJ.

“Artists have historically served as the conscience of humanity; now they may serve as the conscience of the earth itself,” Blunk noted in a curator’s statement for the show, which opened January 24 and runs through March 30. The artists in this show, he added, “hope to instill in the viewer a perceptual shift where the environment ceases to be conceived as a place separate from us…”

Jeff Frost pulls visitors’ eyes to stare across the room at a life-size photo of a Los Angeles freeway closed by a smoke-swirling wildfire blazing up a mountainside. The La Tuna Canyon fire in September 2017 endangered homes in Burbank, Glendale and neighboring parts of Los Angeles. It was one of numerous wildfires that have blazed up in southern California communities in recent years.

"Flag (wildfire 08)" by Peter Alan 

Peter Alan pulls viewers close to look at burnt remnants of his home and studio, destroyed in the wine country wildfires in northern California in October 2017. Alan fashioned charred pieces of wood and other objects into a series based on the shape of the American flag as part of a defiant survivor’s body of work entitled “Wildfire: an assault on humanity, hitting home.”

James Balog reveals the breathtaking melting of a glacier in Alaska captured in time-lapse photos taken between 2007-20017. Videos set at high speed pull viewers closer to contemplate the climate change in the past decade that relentlessly shrunk ice packs near the north pole. Balog’s photography work for the Extreme Ice Survey aims “to give a ‘visual voice’ to the planet’s changing ecosystems,” states his website, extremeicesurvey.org.

Marie McCrary tells a more subtle story in a photo of a lake in Norway, just starting to freeze over last October. “The fastest warming region in the world is the Arctic,” notes McCrary, a physics professor at Bergen Community College. She is researching the physical process of rising temperatures in the Arctic and impacts globally.

Other artists in the show—Helena Donzelli, Andrea Geller, Karen Lynn Ingalls, Mitsuko Nakagawa, Jaanika Peerna and Carleen Sheenhan—offer insightful variations on the theme of people and nature intertwined.

Gallery Bergen is in West Hall at Bergen Community College, 400 Paramus Road, Paramus, NJ. It is open Monday-Friday, 11 am to 5 pm.

Armistice Day, 2018 Art Show

poster image by Maly Marstens

November 11 marks the 100^th anniversary of Armistice Day, the ceasefire that ended the First World War. The Puffin Cultural Forum and Frontline Arts commemorate Armistice Day with an exhibition of art works created to inspire countering cultural forces that would allow history to repeat itself, yet again.

The exhibition opening is Saturday, November 10 at 6 pm at The Puffin Cultural Forum, 20 Puffin Way, Teaneck, NJ. The event is free and open to the public. The art show runs through January 19.

Curated by Walt Nygard, Jan Barry and Ron Erickson, the exhibition includes paintings, prints, sculptures and mixed-media works by a variety of artists including Greta Anderson, Jan Barry, Donna Bassin, Terry Berkowitz, Marco Bras, Karen Brussat Butler, Rebecca Darge Christensen, Anne Dushanko Dobek, Michael Eckstein, Ron Erickson, Jim Fallon,  Cathleen Ficht, Karen Fiorito, Manda Gorsegner, Rachel Heberling, Tara Krause, Nathan Lewis, Talia Lugacy, Sigrid H. Mabel, Gardner McFall, Len Merlo, MaryAnn L. Miller, Liz Mitchell, Ruth Bauer Neustadter, Walt Nygard, Joanne Ross, Anthony Santella, Kenneth Schnall, Leokadia Stanik, Greg Stone, Onnie C. Strother, Nina Talbot, Vilja Virks-Lee, Frank Wagner, Eli Wright, and James Yee.

“‘The Wire’ and ‘One Hundred Years’ are companion pieces in that very little has changed in one hundred years except for the backdrop. In 1918 there was a wall of fire wrought by artillery and today there is green grass and blue skies though the barb wire remains,” Ron Erickson, a painter and printmaker from Bogota, NJ, notes in an artist’s statement.

“These days we have no day marking the end of war, no day to celebrate, to proclaim: It’s Over!” says MaryAnn L. Miller, a book artist and poetry coordinator for the NJ Book Arts Symposium. “Battle continues to destroy, to displace populations that will never find a way back to their homes. ‘On Foot/By Hand’ is about those populations: the refugees, the migrants, the asylum seekers, the bombed out.”

“Art can speak for me,” says Rebecca Darge Christensen, an artist from Des Moines, Iowa, who contributed a triptych titled “War. Peace. Armistice.” “I can communicate with everyone through the channel of art. If I can bring people together to the table, with art and food, every prejudice that overrides beauty and goodness is broken. Art can, and should be, accessible to everyone. Through accessibility comes understanding; the tie that binds us to peace and contentment.”

For more information: 
www.puffinculturalforum.org/events/event/700-armistice-day-2018-.html

Earth Songs II

Just published a new collection of poetry titled Earth Songs II. It’s a sequel to Earth Songs: New & Selected Poems, published in 2003. The new collection commemorates family members and friends who are no longer with us and a now fading time when peacefully protesting senseless wars and the government’s ill treatment of injured soldiers seemed to have a hope of transforming America into a more caring culture.

Amid these graveyard thoughts, written during sleepless nights and Warrior Writers workshops, sometime zestful poems emerged like spring flowers, renewed displays of Nature’s healing powers. These poems were nourished by the kindness of friends, relatives, lovers, strangers, and by treks in astounding outdoors places, where battered spirits can be renewed.

Come See

A flare of flowers, a sunset aflame—

I capture rapture with my camera,

In a Zen penning of a poem—

And such moments, forget what’s lost

Commemorating Peace

When I was growing up,

The whole village stopped

For a moment of silence

At the 11^th hour of the 11^th day

Of the 11^th month—

Armistice Day.

It was treated seriously,

Like Arbor Day,

When we planted trees—

Ancient holy days now,

When people commemorated peace

And spring planting.

Early Warning

Winter dropped from the October sky

Two days before Halloween—

Tree branches smothered in snow

On summer leaves snapping deep into the night

Made darker by downed power lines

Global warming! skeptics scoffed—

As this part of suburban civilization

Staggered for days without electricity,

Towns closed schools, postponed Halloween

Until tangled wires and lives are restored

The paperback book, listed at $10, is available at lulu (with a 10 percent discount): http://www.lulu.com/shop/jan-barry/earth-songs-ii-poems-of-love-loss-and-life/paperback/product-23822398.html

Artists Take on Climate Change

"Keep It in the Ground," art by Ruth Bauer Neustadter

Ruth Bauer Neustadter’s latest art show invites viewers to participate in a community discussion about what can be done regarding global environmental crises. In many cases, naming and framing an issue to the public is the first step in effectively addressing the problem. In this case, art viewers are asked to help in the framing.

“Turn the Tide: Paintings which Encourage a Conversation About the Future of Mother Earth” opened last night at the Hackensack (NJ) Performing Arts Center with a spirited crowd of about 50 painters, dancers, poets and environmental activists joining an impromptu performance of reflections on her art’s themes. 

“This is the most important issue—the state of Mother Earth,” Neustadter said of the event, encouraging audience members to share their thoughts on viewing the mixed-media pieces in this show. The works on display were made from recycled metal, plastic, wood and paper items in brightly painted arrangements. Titles convey the themes of somewhat abstract works: “Endangered Species,”  “Red Tide,”  “Pipelines, Trains, Oil.”

Addressing the theme of a black and white piece titled “Empty Honeycombs,” four dancers stood in a line near the middle of the room, humming as they slowly, slowly, slowly bent forward and collapsed on the floor. One by one, other audience members offered comments on the long-reported decline of honey bees.

Another dancer celebrated a colorful art piece titled “Mother Earth” with graceful, sweeping movements. “Life, love, mother—Mother Earth,” she said.

I contributed a poem jotted down while contemplating a piece titled “Keep It in the Ground.”

The detritus of dead sea creatures

and decayed vegetation

is sucked out of the ground

and burned to choking smoke

that poisons living creatures

and whacks the balance of Nature

back toward a deadly, prehistoric

time before the creation

of humankind

A man read a friend’s poem, contemplating “Endangered Species”:

“When will it end? Maybe when we become endangered—and it may be closer than we think.”

Turning to what can be done, one of the dancers said she has shifted her priorities to addressing environmental justice issues. Two other audience members talked about raising monarch butterflies on milkweed plants in their back yard and inside their home. A member of the Hackensack Environmental Commission talked about a project to rebuild an old greenhouse in a city park and put it back into use.

A woman announced that a citywide litter cleanup campaign called “Slam Dunk the Junk” is scheduled for this weekend, with civic group members gathering at the Hackensack Performing Arts Center, 102 State St., at 9 am on Sunday, postponed due to an expected rain storm on Saturday.

Another woman spoke out about destruction of rainforests due to clearcutting for beef growing operations, encouraging the crowd to support a campaign asking people to cut the amount of beef they eat. “What if everybody ate half as much—that would make a big difference,” she said.

Neustadter’s son Josh commented that, as an environmental researcher, he’s thought a lot about how to replace plastic—which permeates modern society—with something biodegradable. While that vexing problem is being addressed, he said, people “need to do more with less,” to reduce the amount of castoff junk that doesn’t biodegrade.

Summing up the evening, a woman said she was excited by “the burst of energy that comes from these paintings” and spread through the audience.  

For more information: https://www.hacpac.org/art-gallery/