[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: evening, everybody. The air conditioning is on. We are just doing a major renovation of the historic windows, and the shades aren't in yet, so the sun was coming in. So I apologize that it's not extremely cool in here, like it should be, but thank you all for joining us. Good evening. We're so happy to celebrate the installation of our newest Poet Laureate, Max Heinegg. And I wanna thank President Bears for also being with us tonight, I think, representing the city council. Thank you for being here. Yes, and that. I'm thrilled to have such a longstanding member of our local arts scene at the helm of this program for the next two years. In combination with his teaching experience, I know Max is the right person to carry on the legacy of this position that Terry Carter and Vijaya Sundaram cemented. Today would not be possible without the help and support of the Medford Arts Council, who work in conjunction with my office, Lisa Coliani, my Community Affairs Director, to run this Poet Laureate Program. Before we get into the program and hear from Max, I'd like to take a moment to recognize the incredible contributions of our outgoing Poet Laureate, Vijaya. Thank you for all you have done. Thank you for all you've done over the last two years. Your poems have been amazing and such a wonderful addition to our ceremonies and our community. And to begin the ceremony, I'm happy to introduce Terry E. Carter, our inaugural poet laureate.
[Terry Carter]: Good evening, everyone. I really believe in my spirit that poets are lions. Let me just read the poem. When the lions don't roar. When the lions don't roar, how can the cubs learn to wrestle and pounce, to stalk and stealth, and to tell the pride stories? When the lions don't roar, what sounds do their mates make? Do they moan in grief? Do they squeal at the thief? Do they stomp in disbelief? When the lions don't roar, will the jackals and hyenas become more brazen and wicked? Will the zebra and giraffe strut more boldly? When the lions don't roar, will Anansi's tails be the most spicy? Will the peacocks and parrots fan their feathers mockingly? When the lions don't roar, whose voice resounds in the wind, runs the wildebeest to riot, moves the gazelles to galloping, gives the leopards pause. The jungle's an ever more frightful place. The loss of its leader is fearful to face. All of the predators gather to chase when the lions don't roar. The water buffalo huddles its crowd. The big-eared dogs bark very loud. Baboons assemble unhurried and proud when the lions don't roar. Warthogs snort with joyful glee as if they think they're finally free. The forest primeval breathes fitfully when the lions don't roar. Now hunters casually choose their prey. No other foe can rule the day. Slings and arrows will have their way when the lions don't roar. Man's dominion arrives in force, shaking paradise at its source. The lust for blood will run its course when the lions don't roar. Pretenders rush to snatch the throne as mothers raise their young alone. Treason assaults both blood and bone when the lions don't roar. Evil intentions will scatter the pride as fear and contempt now creep inside. Chaos and ruin forever abide when the lions don't roar. The stranger scoffs at nature's rule, laying waste to the watering pool. The village is lost to the wandering fool when the lions don't roar, when the lions don't roar, when the lions don't roar anymore. Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you very much, Terry. That was wonderful. Next, I'd like to welcome Leticia Rocha, the Medford Arts Council member. And like I said, without the support of the Medford Arts Council and my staff who work closely with the Medford Arts Council, this would not be possible. So thank you in the entire committee for all you do to support this and many, many other things art related throughout the community. Welcome.
[Rocha]: All right. Hi, everybody. I'm Leticia Privy Rocha, and I'm currently co-chair of the Medford Arts Council. I joined the Arts Council a little bit over a year ago, and I became co-chair in May of this year. Our goal as an Arts Council is to bring high-quality cultural programming to the Medford community. We primarily do so by both advocating for the arts and funding grants for community members that seek to engage the Medford public through arts and culture. I'm really proud to say that one of those programs that we fund is the Poet Laureate stipend. And I'm going to give a shameless plug, if you're interested in our work, please come chat with me. We're always looking for more volunteers and applications for our next grant cycle actually open in September. That's right around the corner and I'm happy to chat about any ideas that folks might have. Now that I've given the shameless plug for the Medford Arts Council, I'd love to talk about our incredible poets that we're celebrating today. Aside from being co-chair of the Medford Arts Council, I'm also a poet, so naturally I have to enthusiastically praise the art of poetry. The late Minnie Bruce Pratt once said that poetry helps us stay alive. It helps us remember why we're trying to make a better world. And the two poets that we're celebrating today perfectly encapsulate this quote. Their work shows us the joy, the inspiration, and the connection that poetry sparks. Our outgoing Poet Laureate Vijaya Sundaram infuses every image in her poems with beauty and tenderness, echoing a sincere curiosity, awe, and love for the world in all of its complexities. I was lucky enough to spend time with Vijaya through the wonderful program that she started at the Arts Collaborative Medford, a monthly poetry and song open mic. Vijaya is such a warm and inviting presence who always nurtured a space where performers and audience members could feel not only comfortable, but empowered to receive the art of poetry. It's a program that I deeply cherish, and that has made me feel more tightly woven into the community of Medford. And so Vijaya, we're really grateful for all that you've done as Poet Laureate over the last two years. Your service and all of the care that you've put into the role has had a lasting impact on our community, and we wish you all the best in your next chapter. And now I'd like to say a few words about our new Poet Laureate, Max Heinig. I've had the pleasure of hearing Max perform a couple of times and including at the Medford Brewing Company, which is a place that he has poured so much into that truly brings our community together. Much of his work paints the everyday rituals of living that we engage in as people with great precision and reverence. And when you read his poems, you're taken on a journey of immense emotional depth and lyricism that echoes his musical talents. I particularly enjoy the poems that reflect back Max's many years of service as a Medford Public School teacher. In these poems, he bears witness to the classroom with both honesty and grace, radiating his devotion as an educator and earnest compassion for his students. Max, we're thrilled to welcome you as the third Poet Laureate of Medford, and we can't wait to experience all the poetry that you'll bring to our beloved city. Thank you, everybody.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Now I'd like to invite the outgoing Poet Laureate, Ms. Vijaya Sundaram, to do a poem named All Our Yesterdays. Welcome. Thank you.
[Sundaram]: Can you hear me well? OK. Don't be afraid to tell me if I'm too soft. So I am embarrassed to say that I bring my computer up to these things. I know I should have it on a piece of paper, but my handwriting is absolutely terrible. So I prefer to type. So I never learned the art of handwriting. I learned the art of writing. That's a different thing. All right. So I will start with the poem that I wrote and maybe say a few words about Max, if that is okay. This is a poem I wrote a while ago called All Our Yesterdays. All my yesterdays behind me galloped down the sloping road as I stood at the edge of the receding year, shielding my eyes from today and the rest of my life. The coming days fetches all, move through my cells and leave behind their husks, drifting away wraith-like even as I meet them, and keep meeting them, and will keep on meeting them as they move, will move, and have moved through me. And time has no meaning, no meaning at all, and still I check the clock, and still I mark my calendar, and still look forward to every new day, even as it passes through me into the rising dust of all the days galloping by. It is this movement I greet as I stand in the revolving spot of the eternal now. even as I age and wither and dissolve into gold dust. What this means does not matter. The revolving spot turns, and I turn and face everywhere, every when, at once, at the same time, running into my own face, even as I turn and turn to watch the days gallop past, fast. And you are my face, and you as well. And I am yours, and yours. as well. Hold hands here in the revolving now. Let the days pass through us all. And while we are at it, at our eternal solstice, let us make flowers bloom, sing our songs, and cleanse the air and feed the young. They do not know yet, but they will soon. And we must prepare them. Thank you. Like Max, I too am a teacher. I taught for 17 years in the Winchester Public Schools, eighth grade English, and I loved being that. And then I was done. And now I'm an associate professor at Bunker Hill Community College, and I love doing that. Because teaching is what connects us to our students and to the generations. If you do it well and with love, you are giving a gift beyond what you know and what they know. I have had messages from students from 17 years ago who tell me they still remember the books I talked about. So I know that Max is that person for his students too. It's really, really one of the greatest gifts we can give our students, the gift of ourselves, the gift of language, the gift of art, of poetry, of science, of math. I'm not a scientist or a mathematician, but that is a great gift as well. And when someone does that well, There are no words to encapsulate that. And by the way, I didn't write this down. I'm extemporizing. So I just want to say that Max being a teacher and a musician and a poet connects me to him in ways that are surprising and not surprising. I totally get Max. And I love that he's all of these things that I have been and still am. And Max, I'm so happy you're going to be our next Poet Laureate. So I just wanted to quote a couple of things. And here I'm going to look at my notes. This is from John Keats in his Ode on a Grecian Urn. When old age shall this generation waste, thou shalt remain in the midst of other woe than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayest, beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth. and all you need to know. And we poets, we aim to get that to you. We aim to bring the truth, the beauty of life and living to you. Beauty does not always mean pretty. Don't mix it up with pretty. There are terrible things going on in the world, but if we see them and we speak of them and we awaken people's minds to them, we are creating a kind of beauty, the beauty of humanity. So let's remember that. Thank you. We poets owe an allegiance to the truth and to beauty and to speak the words that come from somewhere beyond us, through us, to you. Any poet who is young enough thinks that their poetry comes only from them, but believe me, it comes from somewhere else. we tap into this thing that encircles the globe, we tap into it at different points in that stream. And we're lucky enough to be able to distill some of that and share them with you. So there's no ego involved in poetry, in music, in the arts. There should not be any ego involved in it. If there is, then perhaps you have to look within and see where is it coming from? Because all poetry is about sharing, caring, loving, speaking the voice of yourself and speaking for all. And those who think poetry is negligible, that, oh, it's just a bunch of, you know, la-di-da snobbish people speaking la-di-da words that I don't get, please think again, because poetry is not meant to be that. It's meant to be for you, for us. There's music in it. There's the music of music, and then there's the music of words. And we try to do both. We are a tribe apart. We belong to that tribe, Terry, and Leticia, and Max, and I, and anyone else here who writes poetry. We belong to a tribe. There is no tribe of humanity divided in any way other than Well, we should not be divided in any way. We all should belong to this tribe. So I welcome you to the tribe of poetry. And Max, thank you so much for doing that for us. Your honesty as a teacher and as the passion that you bring is going to serve us well through your poetry. Welcome.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Again, thank you everyone for joining us today for this amazing celebration of art, culture, and poetry in Medford. Before I begin, I want to thank Leticia and the other members of the Arts Council for your partnership and guidance. This has been a joint collaboration, and we're lucky to have such incredible partners. We started the Poet Laureate Program because fostering a love and appreciation for art from all perspectives makes for a more inclusive and welcoming community. When we gathered to officially install Terry four years ago and Vijaya two years ago, I never could have imagined just how impactful, meaningful, and thought-provoking this position would become. Like last time, we know that finding a successor for Vijaya would be daunting. Her deep ties to the community and desire to make poetry and literature accessible to all have been amazing to watch over her tenure. When we saw Max's application and work, however, we knew we had the right person to continue this legacy and build upon the foundation created by Vijaya and Tariq. Max is a local poet, musician, and teacher that has taught in the Medford Public School System since 1998. He has published almost 300 poems, recorded 10 albums of original music and lyrics, and is the author of three poetry collections, Good Harbor, Going There, and Keepers of the House. If those accomplishments don't prove his dedication to his craft, I don't know what would. I'm in awe of Max's passion for the arts, his experiences in our schools, and most of all, his commitment to our city. In his new role as our official City Poet, I know Max has the knowledge, skills, and passion to help share the beauty of the arts with the entire community. So please, join me in officially welcoming our newest Poet Laureate, Max Heinig.
[Heinegg]: All right. Thank you for coming. I'm going to do the somewhat contemporary thing of reading off the phone, something my students would do. First, I want to say thank you for coming. It's great to see, obviously, family, friends, and a couple of former students. When thinking about what I was going to read tonight, I didn't want to do one of my sort of traditional poems I was talking about with my wife. She said, why don't you write something for tonight? And I thought, why not write something that explains quite literally how I got here? And also, if you don't know me, or you don't know my work, or you don't know my connection to Medford, this should sort of take care of that. And should you want to read along, it's on the back. So. This is called Thank You or How I Got to Stand Here Today. I got the call when I was 25, renting in the Fenway with Wendy. We should have bought that apartment, by the way. Miss Shirley Count's principal of the Brooks Hobbs asked if I knew anything about Greek mythology. And if I did, I could teach English to sixth graders. I told her I'd lived in Greece and loved the myths since I was a child. Good enough. I met Dr. Moriarty, who asked me if I knew The Sick Rose by William Blake, so I recited it. I shook Roy Bellson's hand, and he was the superintendent, and he told me to challenge them. I joined a team led by the venerable Pauline Walker, rest in peace. And we taught the oldest tales, from Hercules to Hestia to Hermes, and the maps, Athens, Sparta, and the Aegean, tales that bind themselves to places. At night, I made music in Boston, waking up for the tea to Sullivan Square, the 95 bus, an eggplant parm for lunch at Amici's, and Dom and Mario, who, side note, I just learned they're not brothers. I'm still kind of like in disbelief over this. This is like something Medfordians have to debate. I walked the tunnel between the two buildings, because the Brookshobs used to be united by that, until they raised it. From there, the Andrews, working with Ralph Watson, playing concerts with my rock band in the gym. From there, 489 Winthrop Street for a generation. From the reign of Dr. Kruger to Paul D'Aleba, John Perella, and Ms. Cabral. The Constance, my colleagues in humor and in health. From the field of dreams to COVID, we walked the walk with a fresh 125 students each fall, and now I've taught over 3,000. From Park Drive and the Fens, to Professor's Row by Tufts, to our first house on Arden, 20 years this January. to our daughters, Ava and Stella, who went through our schools to college and are here in this room today. Our family walked the fells, hiked the fells, cross-country skied the fells, and skated the vernal pools, also in the fells. Wendy even wrote the fells' fairies. They swam at Wright's Pond, competed on the field of dreams, and learned to drive in Oak Grove Cemetery, which I was told maybe I shouldn't mention. I think some of you might be guilty of that, too. Each year took to the good work. To Chaucer, Homer, to Dante, the Bard, and back again. Each year adding to the song until it resembled our world as it was being reborn. The languages and the halls reflecting our world as it changed. At night, Wendy and I contended with parenthood We learned the work of adults, meals, and naps, and doctors, managing the backstage chaos teachers keep so well hidden behind a public grin. In stolen moments, we wrote, mused, edited, published. And I developed a little bit of a brewing, how shall we say, habit. 20 years of that, too. All the while, Medford. was the canvas, the axis, the harmony. For half a century, the poems have been singing to me, and I have basked in the myths and the music. They are the constellations I stand beneath, lucky to trace the astral tales and to share them with anyone willing to listen. Thank you so much.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: That concludes our short, but so very sweet ceremony this evening. We're so lucky to be graced with not just our three poet laureates, but Leticia as well, who's also a poet. Please stay. We have refreshments in the foyer. Take your photos. And we are so excited to begin this next term of our next poet laureate. Congratulations again, Max.
|
total time: 5.3 minutes total words: 487 |
|||