From: Obediah Michael Smith
Subject: hand up hand out to get to Havana
Date: Tuesday, May 19, 2009, 4:26 AM
Friends, Family, Fellow Artists & Writers:
How nervous nervous I am about not being able to gather enough to get to Cuba for The 14th Annual Havana International Poetry Festival. I had aimed to collect $3000. I have now been able to reduce the need and cost to about $2000. I have received donations of $500, 200 Canadian dollars of which have come all the way from Canada, from a professor at the University of Toronto and his wife.
Donations are coming in like sweet milk, falling upon cornflakes, from a can just out of the refrigerator. I am scheduled to leave for Havana on Sunday, May 24 and I am still in need of $1500. Please donate whatever you can. It will go a long way and would be highly appreciated.
Hopefully & Prayerfully,
Obediah Michael Smith.
E-Mail back please! ASAP.
bestwordsmith@gmail.com
from Nathalie Wood
To Obediah Michael Smith
Date Tue, May 19, 2009 at 3:27 PM
Subject Re: hand up hand out to get to Havana
I would have helped if I were able to.
If you plan on travelling to Cuba every year, why don't you secure a sponsor unless you don't find running behind people bothersome? Shouldn't the ministry, perhaps tourism, take care of the arrangement and expenses?
from Obediah Michael Smith
To Nathalie Wood
Date Tue, May 19, 2009 at 4:48 PM
Subject Re: hand up hand out to get to Havana
An artist here from Canada suggested that for things like these a national lottery would come in handy.
Interesting the euphemism in your sentence: "... unless you don't find running behind people bothersome".
The bother, I am aware, does go both ways. I do struggle to get though to be able to give.
Last Wednesday, at The Hub, I read a 42 minute poem, Hymns To Him: A Poem of Cuba. It is what I wrote at Havana International Poetry Festival, 2007, the first one I attended. I collected - your donation included, thanks again very much - $3000 in a single week.
This poem is what I have given or what I am giving back. Its worth might not be appreciated at present but I assure you, it will be valued eventually. It is being translated into Spanish to be published in Cuba.
It turns out that that is only half the book. I have to type and polish and add poems from two notebooks from Havana Festival, 2008.
My or our community does not know it needs me or that it needs poetry. It does not at present seem to know the role of poetry and poets. It will eventually. It thinks Junkanoo and sports are enough. A nation though needs more than these two legs to stand on. How can it fight a dragon or dragons when dragons have so many legs?
A nation is also up against millipedes and centipedes. In the face of such adversities, can it afford not to see the worth in what we do and invest in it? I think not, Nathalie, fellow-poet.
The nation ignores us, its poets at it peril. We must be true nonetheless until they discover what we are worth. Let us keep each other pure therefore and driven.
With all my love to you, Obi.
Subject: hand up hand out to get to Havana
Date: Tuesday, May 19, 2009, 4:26 AM
Friends, Family, Fellow Artists & Writers:
How nervous nervous I am about not being able to gather enough to get to Cuba for The 14th Annual Havana International Poetry Festival. I had aimed to collect $3000. I have now been able to reduce the need and cost to about $2000. I have received donations of $500, 200 Canadian dollars of which have come all the way from Canada, from a professor at the University of Toronto and his wife.
Donations are coming in like sweet milk, falling upon cornflakes, from a can just out of the refrigerator. I am scheduled to leave for Havana on Sunday, May 24 and I am still in need of $1500. Please donate whatever you can. It will go a long way and would be highly appreciated.
Hopefully & Prayerfully,
Obediah Michael Smith.
E-Mail back please! ASAP.
bestwordsmith@gmail.com
from Nathalie Wood
To Obediah Michael Smith
Date Tue, May 19, 2009 at 3:27 PM
Subject Re: hand up hand out to get to Havana
I would have helped if I were able to.
If you plan on travelling to Cuba every year, why don't you secure a sponsor unless you don't find running behind people bothersome? Shouldn't the ministry, perhaps tourism, take care of the arrangement and expenses?
from Obediah Michael Smith
To Nathalie Wood
Date Tue, May 19, 2009 at 4:48 PM
Subject Re: hand up hand out to get to Havana
An artist here from Canada suggested that for things like these a national lottery would come in handy.
Interesting the euphemism in your sentence: "... unless you don't find running behind people bothersome".
The bother, I am aware, does go both ways. I do struggle to get though to be able to give.
Last Wednesday, at The Hub, I read a 42 minute poem, Hymns To Him: A Poem of Cuba. It is what I wrote at Havana International Poetry Festival, 2007, the first one I attended. I collected - your donation included, thanks again very much - $3000 in a single week.
This poem is what I have given or what I am giving back. Its worth might not be appreciated at present but I assure you, it will be valued eventually. It is being translated into Spanish to be published in Cuba.
It turns out that that is only half the book. I have to type and polish and add poems from two notebooks from Havana Festival, 2008.
My or our community does not know it needs me or that it needs poetry. It does not at present seem to know the role of poetry and poets. It will eventually. It thinks Junkanoo and sports are enough. A nation though needs more than these two legs to stand on. How can it fight a dragon or dragons when dragons have so many legs?
A nation is also up against millipedes and centipedes. In the face of such adversities, can it afford not to see the worth in what we do and invest in it? I think not, Nathalie, fellow-poet.
The nation ignores us, its poets at it peril. We must be true nonetheless until they discover what we are worth. Let us keep each other pure therefore and driven.
With all my love to you, Obi.
posted by Obie Quiet at 5:04 PM
2 Comments:
Speaking as one who knows all too well:
Even if we were to create a national lottery, there is no guarantee whatsoever that the revenue raised from it would go to the arts. Our government -- all the ministries -- has neither respect or time for artists, and has no idea that countries need artistic creation.
It's about time that we dispel the myth that any ministry will see the value in assisting any artist to carry out artistic activity. They believe we need roads instead of art, schools instead of creation. They will not spend anything on that which feeds the soul, especially in this hard time.
Junkanoo is exempt to some extent because they can count the votes. It is not a willing giving, but if Obie wanted to get government funding, he should register as a fun group for the next Junkanoo parade -- then he'd get more money than he has ever got from government.
Cultural producers should be outraged. Youth groups automatically get grants. Sports foundations get huge subsidies. Apart from Junkanoo groups, cultural producers get virtually no useful support at all.
How very precious to me, Nico, is this response - laying it on the line, as it were, and after having held the office you have recently held. I thought it was only appearing like that, having to view it from outside, but you are confirming that it is like that.
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