Listen and Be Heard Network

Live Session at IBeam Brooklyn Featuring:

Jay Rodriguez, Preston Fulwood, Gengi Siraisi, Martha Cinader

This episode features a tribute to Joe Talaugon Sr., author of “Mestizo Through My Eyes,” and his daughter, Judy Talaugon, co-editor of “Tribunal Rising.” The episode also includes interviews with members of Craig Harris’ Harlem Night Song Band, and a live recording from a session featuring pianist and vocalist, Preston Fulwood.

The archival recording of Joe Talaugon mixed with the most recent conversation with Judy Talaugon, explores Joe’s childhood with a Filipino stepfather, and the educational and organization practices of his daughter Judy, bringing forward indigenous wisdom and origin stories.

“We gather in small clusters, we listen to our favorite DJ, we stay up all night and we just do it differently… We need to keep people safe and we need to own in America that censorship is in full bloom.”

Craig Harris leads his rehearsal band Harlem Night Song, a weekly event called Rhythms of Resistance, featuring a multi-generational lineup of jazz musicians. Our Listen & Be Heard interns Jemyah Jones and John Mims spoke with band members, audience and Craig.

New Music and Poetry You Won’t Hear Anywhere Else

We feature another live improvisational session with Preston Fulwood – Piano and Vocals, Jay Rodriguez Sierra – Multli-instrumental, Genji Siraisi – drums and percussion, Martha Cinader – streams…

Preston Fulwood is an artist, musician, reiki healer, producer, composer and instructor. Preston is a master instrumentalist and vocalist and is a well known studio musician and jazz pianist.

Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra – Musician, Composer, Producer

Zakiyyah’s creative journey began as a child when, at the age of three, she won her school’s Valentine’s Day Poetry Contest. Early exposure to the arts through Mount Vernon’s Creative Arts Program allowed her to act in plays alongside talented peers, including saxophonist Michael Philips. Outside the program, she trained under Tina Satin—who also taught Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington

Judy Talaugon is a Chumash and Filipina Land Protector from the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. She is the daughter of farmworkers and immigrant leaders. Growing up among Mexican and Filipina communities in California, she has been a long-time activist in numerous struggles, ranging from human rights to housing, land rights, and the fight against white supremacy.

Craig Harris, trombonist, composer, bandleader, and sonic shaman. … his musical journey began with the Sun Ra, … place among creative music’s … leaders.

Martha Cinader is a poet and author living in Harlem, NY. Her young adult novel, Marq and the Queen Fish, is forthcoming in 2026 from Atmosphere Press. Cinader is the founder and Director of the Listen & Be Heard Network, where she hosts and produces The Listen & Be Heard Hour, and Beyond Borders, both non-commercial podcasts and syndicated radio shows on the Pacifica Affiliate Network. 

Tony Robles, “The People’s Poet” was born in San Francisco and is the nephew of Filipino-American poet, historian and social justice activist Al Robles. He was a shortlist nominee for poet laureate of San Francisco in 2017 and the recipient of the San Francisco Art Commission individual literary artist grant in 2018. His two books of poetry and short stories, Cool Don’t Live Here No More – A letter to San Francisco and Fingerprints of a Hunger Strike (both published by Ithuriel’s Spear Press) take on the issues of eviction, gentrification and police violence in communities of color. He is…

Joe Talaugon grew up in the town of Guadalaupe in the Central Coast of California. His memoir honors his Filipino immigrant father, one of the early manongs, (Early Filipino immigrants to the US,) as well as his experiences growing up in Filipino culture with a man who was his stepfather

A young boy named Lakas discovers that a fish from his dreams might be real—leading him on a lively, magical chase through San Francisco’s Manilatown.

In Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici argues that capitalism did not simply emerge as an economic system—it required the deliberate remaking of the human being. Central to this transformation was the invention of the “body as machine”: a disciplined, regulated, and productive entity shaped to meet the demands of wage labor.

“This collection is based on my experiences and observations as someone who witnessed Hurricane Helene and its impact on the community—particularly my mobile home community in Hendersonville,”

Existing in the liminal space of sound of spoken word and music, Sista Zock introduces a unique Afro Jazz Fusion Sound with a touch of Hip-hop. Her latest project, Zock Solid, Where the Stem Meets the Root, features a collaboration with Abiodun of The Last Poets, adding depth and resonance to her musical journey.

Tribunal Rising commemorates the 1992 International Tribunal movement in the city of San Francisco to dismantle the legacy of Christopher Columbus and the Myth of Discovery. In 1990, “[a]t the culmination of the Special International Tribunal on the Human Rights Violations of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War in the US, the American Indian Movement extended a call to national liberation movements and anti-imperialist allies, united by a shared vision of justice and equality. This vision emerged from a deep-seated commitment to human dignity and the elimination of age-old practices that perpetuate hatred and inflict both psychological and physical harm.”…

Living It! is Martha Cinader’s debut as the producer of her own album, and features an eclectic array of arrangements and musical styles. It was recorded in part in a studio in New York City, part in a studio in Hamburg, and part live at the Mojo Club in Hamburg, throw in some bonus tracks recorded live at WBAI Radio in New York, and a superb mastering session with Ralph “Pinguin” Kessler in Hamburg, and you get fourteen tracks! Cinader brings together the collective talents of Sabine Worthmann, who uses here sfx pedals generously with her accoustic bass and an…

In this remarkable collection, Tony Robles transforms a bright-lit warehouse into a psychic landscape to illuminate one man’s efforts to reassemble a broken life. Where the Warehouse Things Are gives the satisfaction of a book of poetry as well as a novelistic sense of a place and its inhabitants fully rendered. — Ron Rash, author ofThe Caretaker

This book is about a man who grew up during a time when life in California was very hard, even though as a child he had no clue of the struggles his father and mother were going through. All he knew at that time was that he lived in an old house somewhere out on a farm where his farmworker father worked tilling the fields for the next crop to be grown. This is a story he put together from his notes, recall and his curiosity by simply listening to people talk over 40 years.

In Thrift Store Metamorphosis, Tony Robles astutely demonstrates the palpable currency of human interactions. His keen observations show us the necessity of reflection. In this mirror, we learn that everything and anything that we pay attention to has the capability to hold deep meaningful lessons for us and our lives. Robles makes us feel a range of emotion: sorrow, loss, love, regret, anger, rage, humor and hope. The poet reminds us with this essential collection, so goes the thrift store, so goes the world.

This book is a vessel/holding liquid for thirsty desirers/in the empty spiral of the universe/where detail is opinion/one moment is all it takes to answer/when the body calls. This book is just one answer in a life of calling. The storyteller lives inside the breath of home. Whatever home is chosen, whatever breath is owned. The desirer takes the moment we’re in and stretches out its every wrinkle. In the folds are new horizons, exploding the every day, line by line-inwards, so the shards are sort of slo-mo in their entry into gravity…We’re brought into the world of the writer.…

A collection of biographical stories and poems about fascinating people in history whose real dreams made a real difference. Developed in performance, these stories bring old tales to life for contemporary readers in a way that is both entertaining and informative.

00:00:20:22 – 00:00:45:27
Speaker 1
This is as the sound enters my inner ear and vibrates through my inner plane, my biosphere. Part of me learning to be a better listener of others is learning to listen to myself. When we are listened to, truly listen to you know you can feel when someone’s deeply listening and we feel heard. We are healed in that moment, listening to be heard.

00:00:45:28 – 00:01:16:01
Speaker 1
Even if your voice shakes without knowing it, you may be saving a stranger. Listening to be heard is. I guess, part of why I want to connect with you for the series. You said that it like stuck to myself. Welcome to the Audio Garden where we cultivate our collective wisdom, nurture creativity, and spread love. My name is Martha, Senator, and this is.

00:01:16:01 – 00:01:27:07
Speaker 1
Listen and be heard.

00:01:27:09 – 00:02:02:28
Speaker 1
Welcome back to the Audio Garden and Friends. I’m so glad to be here with you, and I hope you really enjoy what you’re doing. I’ll be your guide through the three minutes of this next hour. We to better. The first part will be with both Joe Talaugon and his daughter, Judy Talaugon, and recording both from our archives and our most recent conversation with Judy, authors of Mestizo through my eyes and charging those eyes.

00:02:02:28 – 00:02:42:08
Speaker 1
And then we’ll be talking with members of Trey Harris Band and Craig Harris himself. Our interns, John and Jamie, had conversations about the rehearsal band that plays everything, and then some live recordings from last Sunday with Preston forward. Hey, Rodriguez! Since then he’s the writer and so and there’s a little bit of that poetry before we come.

00:02:42:10 – 00:02:48:22
Speaker 1
In the word sick.

00:02:48:25 – 00:03:23:10
Speaker 1
And with fire burning, earning which will be in anyway her way is the highway. How to work to seem to be with the truth about how the field, the conditions for the art of stay. And she walks away from her own food, from any excuses, from anyone. What is wrong with comes the good way to ask and why.

00:03:23:10 – 00:03:38:26
Speaker 1
We are going to take over the robbery at large with the bull’s eye on her Bible calls, the actionable alternative hold.

00:03:38:28 – 00:04:07:16
Speaker 1
Without a question. Useful section. Of otherwise you know to come on over the hill and the will and name will something. Well telling you, you’re not what you thought. But you bought somewhere and he where your head is like a big.

00:04:07:19 – 00:04:46:14
Speaker 1
Back in one of the listen to her. Our Tony Robbins interviewed Joe to Logan about his autobiography, Misty. So through my eyes and I have created a little montage with part of that with our most recent conversation with his daughter, Julie Civilian. And we’re going to take a little journey back and forth through time. So if you’ll follow me this way, through the gate, we are going to enter a very special place in the Audio Garden.

00:04:46:16 – 00:05:16:13
Speaker 1
Pay our tribute to go to who has sent back and through the children, who is moving on to other places. We all take it, or sports, whatever we’ve been trained in to take it further. Right? Right. And and you know, are maestro, our coach, our mentor holds our hand on into advanced studies and sometimes we don’t interface is 12 years to finish our work.

00:05:16:18 – 00:05:52:16
Speaker 1
But you know but these students are already they’ve been given permission from the beginning of this class to take over city, to take over a municipality, to learn how to administer city funds and zoning practices for land and land access. They’re very oriented to land access. So because I’m a native person and I want people to know that this is the biggest land transfer in all of American history right now, they will be talking to a wonderful author, Joe Collagen, who has written a beautiful, beautiful memoir called Mosquito Through My Eyes.

00:05:52:20 – 00:06:21:12
Speaker 1
It’s art, personal history, part manifesto, part love letter, but really a journey about identity and healing and reconciliation. Joseph Logan, welcome to our podcast today. Thank you Tony. If you read through the book, it’s more of a personal life story. I didn’t have to do any literal research anywhere. I mean, everything would come from my heart and from my own experiences.

00:06:21:14 – 00:06:54:01
Speaker 1
I grew up here in Guadalupe, California, at the little farming town of the coast of California, Santa Barbara County. My stepfather is a Filipino immigrant that came to this part of the country back in 1932. And the reason it came to this part of the of the state during that period of time in 19, in the late 20s and early 30s, there was a very large population of immigration of Filipinos coming to California, to the West Coast to work.

00:06:54:03 – 00:07:17:12
Speaker 1
So he was one of those recruits that was recruited out of the school in the Philippine Islands back in 1927 and came out here to go to work as a as a laborer. And that’s what he did. He ended up working in the field because that Filipinos came and a kind of a bad time came out in the middle of a depression.

00:07:17:14 – 00:07:29:28
Speaker 1
So most of these guys were single young men like my father, and they went to work in the fields, and he ended up here and working and done since, what, 1974?

00:07:30:01 – 00:07:58:00
Speaker 2
You know, into translation, oral literature will be brought almost identical to what we’re doing today is recorded shows and, and then translated these dialogs and, and then extremely healing. I know that from my work. And I can’t wait to continue to talk about it, but we’re going international migrants. You know, with me moving abroad, I’m here always has a tale to go with that.

00:07:58:01 – 00:08:46:25
Speaker 2
And it’s in honor of giving credit where credit is due. So for sure it is an indigenous principle of belonging and right, you know that. But I’m going to tell you, in 1974, I was hired at Huckleberry House House for runaways in San Francisco. Who hired me was Danny Glover and his to be wife, a shaky Bomani. And in our time together, working in a crisis 24 hour crisis facility, if you will facilitate as advocates as badass is right, right out of the strike, right straight out of the student strikes and and riots in San Francisco, the smoke cleared and a lot of people went back to school and got their got got their job.

00:08:46:25 – 00:09:11:06
Speaker 2
And these two were at the opera house and they had a side gig working with Youth Runaways. We and one day a shaky somebody was just being real arrogant. And the children, like you just said, sometimes we don’t know who we are. But we got my gun. We do. We have an origin story. You did. She stopped the conversation.

00:09:11:06 – 00:09:29:24
Speaker 2
She said that. She said that. And I want to give her credit. And even though I was raised by the fire to understand that I belong to this process, to this Mother Earth, and to hear her say, listen, everyone has the right to their own origin.

00:09:29:26 – 00:10:00:01
Speaker 1
Right on the main highway, one on one, coming up from Los Angeles all the way to San Francisco. So that’s great of time that farmers were growing vegetables. And when the people came to this valley, they traveled up the coast from the south, from Mexico, up into Southern Cal, or if they came from the Philippines, they came to some standard Cisco down to south, down the coast, the one on one on one.

00:10:00:03 – 00:10:42:06
Speaker 1
And when my father came there in 1932, there was a lot of immigrant landing gear from the so that they lived in labor camps, farmhouses, single men that settled in the valley over the years, in the 30s and 40s and 50s. They continued to work in the fields and families, established businesses. So you had a large Filipino community in Guadalupe itself, and poor and living in the country like that, except to their own countrymen that were living in the area.

00:10:42:06 – 00:11:16:02
Speaker 1
So they would get together on the weekend, maybe on Sunday, and socialize and speak their own dialect. And that’s the only thing that I could remember my father being when he was happy and having a good time. He had many friends and and I grew up around these, these men and some of them, like I said, established families, but majority were in this single and but yeah, they kind of looked for a companionship either in town in a pool.

00:11:16:06 – 00:11:42:29
Speaker 1
And like I said, in the book of illegal activities were going on in the town. Yes, they continue to do that because it was more like a sanctuary to them, because they would get together in these gambling in the pool halls and barbershops and what have you to be together with their companions. And a lot of times they go out to the ranch and have cockfights.

00:11:43:01 – 00:11:44:06
Speaker 1
Soon you were talking.

00:11:44:06 – 00:12:08:20
Speaker 2
To me about how your students actually use discord and have gotten away from a lot of other things. What say you about the modern state of media and how we use it with the tribunal project, with listening to her, with anything we’re trying to be? Absolutely. You need to be adept at each application. Let me say we just did a fundraiser, which is more of a salon, which is educational.

00:12:08:21 – 00:12:31:03
Speaker 2
There’s really picked up on Razor Out, but it had to be something where people felt like they wanted to come and put some coin down to contribute to the gig. It was in desert. It was some two hour code to get the time and location. It was done and without license, and it was done the way I advocate that we occupy a beautiful, wonderful Oceanside.

00:12:31:04 – 00:12:56:13
Speaker 2
We gather in small clusters, we listen to our favorite DJ, we stay up all night and we just do it differently. But we put the intelligence here, the students who are in conversation with it, not posing, not making a festival and not reducing it by invisible, intangible laws, by the way. And I want to talk about that in a minute, because America has a tendency to think that it’s all exclusive, all so exclusive.

00:12:56:18 – 00:13:17:27
Speaker 2
International. The term international is not a dirty word. So I want to talk about that in a minute. But yeah, we use each application very specifically. People out in the audience. We don’t go discourse all the way, face public, because some of the people that are there will never be outside of their house, will never show up for an action out in the street.

00:13:17:28 – 00:13:42:02
Speaker 2
They can’t. And we need to. That is a critical, huge population in this country. Neglected, abandoned. We need their voice. The discord is almost perfect for that population and that’s how we use discord. We use other apps, like I say, you know, just our own apps to direct people to our gigs, to our salons where they can. More information all night.

00:13:42:03 – 00:14:17:13
Speaker 2
Again, central to is not the only I don’t want to say it is really not, you know, but it is definitely built as a way and grown up. I’m just part of the production. I’m not part of the crowd hopping about. This is what we do with organizing zone. We need to keep people safe and we need to own in America that, you know, censorship is in full bloom and we are not expensive in how we speak to things, to really bring us outside of the cage, outside of the mentality that says that we’re so, you know, we’re so exceptional.

00:14:17:15 – 00:14:28:15
Speaker 2
You know, we we can we can dictate what the hell international impact is that it’s really not that big of a deal. Well, it is a big deal. I’m not going to compete with it.

00:14:28:18 – 00:14:34:25
Speaker 1
I’m Tony Robles, co-host of Listen and Be Heard. This is listen and be heard. Radio.

00:14:34:27 – 00:14:52:26
Speaker 2
Thank you Tony. And we are listening to both Joe Torre Logan, author of Mistico Through My Eyes and his daughter Judy to Logan editor, along with Angela marino of Tribunal Rising.

00:14:52:28 – 00:15:28:14
Speaker 1
Right. Yeah. So that was a really popular activity. Then my father raised hundreds of prisoners for other people and also for himself. So it was a very popular activity for every Sunday up in the mountains. And they would have a secluded area where they would fight these roosters. Tony, it’s amazing that all these activities were going on and other people that say they were illegal and against the law and the corruption and all that.

00:15:28:16 – 00:15:54:07
Speaker 1
Yes, it was, but it’s it’s amazing how the the authority to turn the blind eye towards them and let this thing happen, because the philosophy was in that time was that if you leave the Filipinos alone and let them do their own thing, they’re not going to cause any trouble. So as long as there was no trouble, there was no violence.

00:15:54:13 – 00:16:32:16
Speaker 1
These things went on. And I think you said that the only time that the authorities would get involved with during election time. Yeah. That’s true. Yeah. It was a very political that had its own leaders that you what was going on with the chief of police and all these people. So whenever the county sheriff would be up for election, he would come around and parade these gambling dens and then take the money and take the gambling tables out of there and destroy them.

00:16:32:19 – 00:16:56:01
Speaker 1
Same thing with the chickens up in the. They got her up all the roosters and kill them and put them up someplace. But then, miraculously, all of these things might have went away for a few days because of the raids. So they elected the guys, the sheriff and say, oh, he’s a great man. He’s going to keep clean.

00:16:56:03 – 00:17:20:21
Speaker 1
But the bomb was it was the ritual of of actually getting that together in a clandestine area. They had to be in a place where the authorities weren’t. So it was a metaphor for you had the gambling, right. But of course, when these immigrants came to the US, that was a gamble itself. You can’t win if you don’t gamble.

00:17:20:22 – 00:17:25:19
Speaker 1
And this tragedy in that. And there’s also.

00:17:25:21 – 00:17:47:08
Speaker 2
Generation. That because they’re my team. And this is the thing is I don’t organize by coercion. I don’t organize and try to teach by pain, not guilt, not shame. I really work on it. And and so and work on it. Meaning that before get that moment I’m preparing, you know, I’m eating proper. I’m fasting and resting as much as I can.

00:17:47:12 – 00:18:26:06
Speaker 2
But to see the two generations, in contrast, had a non to see those that are your age who have been raised to feel minimized and but but you better bulk up and you got to leave and you got to provide all of that. That victim. Yeah. I do want to say about Latin America, you know, and about that question of of mental rules that are enhanced, we say, and, you know, but in South America, I’m realizing that you see up here, I’m going to meet animals and don’t ask, don’t answer to get up here.

00:18:26:06 – 00:18:38:03
Speaker 2
We’re really good at he, you know, we like to follow and can give this warmth and feels good to be familiar. And we move in in math. My case of course. Okay.

00:18:38:04 – 00:18:40:19
Speaker 1
That’s a good that’s a human thing. We’re going to have that.

00:18:40:26 – 00:18:51:03
Speaker 2
Thank you. Yeah. But North it’s like goats because everybody has the right to say all right. What’s good. There’s so much.

00:18:51:06 – 00:18:54:03
Speaker 1
Interesting I like that the goats and the sheep. I like that.

00:18:54:09 – 00:18:55:06
Speaker 2
You don’t think it.

00:18:55:08 – 00:18:59:28
Speaker 1
The spirit animal spirits in a you know.

00:19:00:01 – 00:19:28:20
Speaker 2
They’re beautiful and they move independently and they’re very confused. But but they, you know, you can’t tell them sometimes what you do. They’re going to, you know, so I the Philippines to me because I have a little bit Filipino on me. Right. And me that that that’s nation is filled with independent thinkers also, you know so you can this country we think we’re so exclusive on the on the Constitution and independence and freedom.

00:19:28:27 – 00:19:41:08
Speaker 2
If you go to another countries and people will not vote the same as the guy next to you today, love them. They love their culture, they love their team. But you don’t have to tell anybody what to do in terms of their vote or how who they want to trust.

00:19:41:09 – 00:20:15:20
Speaker 1
I really want to emphasize strongly on this story was the the Filipino. They were from the Philippines to come to America and their propaganda was out at all. America, the land of opportunity. You want to get rich, you make money and you go back home with a lot of money. So they didn’t come. But unfortunately, a lot of those men stayed single all their lives, worked all their lives, and lived out these camps and died, ended up dying in an old age.

00:20:15:20 – 00:20:42:01
Speaker 1
But I think that the tragedy of history is that these men came with hoops and dreams, that they’re going to come and get rich and work and go and go back home someday. My father always said he wanted to go back home. But as the years went on and on and on, his family grew and he and got more settled into the into the community.

00:20:42:03 – 00:21:20:02
Speaker 1
He never did go back. And I think that’s tragedy to it all, because I know he would spend hours and hours by himself in the fields working, thinking about his home in the Philippines. I had the opportunity, fortunately, in 1998, to go back to the Philippines and visit his homeland and talk to him and tell them that that story of it was a heart wrenching thing for me, because I know my father, he wanted to go back, and I think that’s why I wrote the book.

00:21:20:04 – 00:21:20:28
Speaker 1
Author Joe.

00:21:20:28 – 00:21:53:15
Speaker 2
To the book is so through my eyes. And that was a montage with his daughter Judy to Logan, who is one of the editors of Tribunal Rising, you will find links to their bios, their books, how to get to their websites, and more at listening to her. Net this is season four, episode 27th and our Carolyn Johnson.

00:21:53:16 – 00:21:57:02
Speaker 1
Okay, I’m done. And.

00:21:57:04 – 00:22:05:18
Speaker 1
I’m here to today on behalf of Richmond, be heard. What do you think about the hurricane?

00:22:05:20 – 00:22:21:24
Speaker 2
Oh it’s great. It gives young musicians the opportunity to learn how to play in a professional environment. It gives them exposure. And he’s also mentoring a lot of the younger, which is really good. I would say.

00:22:21:26 – 00:22:22:13
Speaker 1
You’re.

00:22:22:15 – 00:22:47:04
Speaker 2
Dylan Campbell. Nice to meet you, Dylan. And what do you do today? I play the bass for great hair. And what made you join this group? Well, I got a call one morning from Craig and he said, are you available tonight? And I happened to be available, and I showed up and I was just subbing in originally. And that was almost two years ago, and I been here almost every Thursday since.

00:22:47:07 – 00:23:19:28
Speaker 2
What do you think that this space place was meeting? Well, I mean, first of all, it provides a place for people to heal really great jazz musicians and other music, too. And it’s a, it’s a it’s a multi-generational band. So you have people who are like old heads. You have people in the middle like myself. You have like young cats that are like in college or fresh out of college, and it brings everybody together musically, and it provides a space for people to hear really eclectic music.

00:23:20:00 – 00:23:45:12
Speaker 2
You know, it’s not it’s not regular, regular big stuff. It’s kind of deep. I agree, I’ve never heard music like this before. So tonight it’s a it’s a special band. It’s a special place. Perfect. So what do you think that rhythm of resistance means to you? Well, I mean, what it means to me is that, like, we have to be silly to the community, as artists to try to drive the force and be a part of the fight, the good fight for the culture and the community.

00:23:45:13 – 00:24:05:15
Speaker 2
Especially here in Harlem, how things are always changing. People get tired out and just all of the other negativity and things that are happening in the world, and to just be a sort of joy and positivity and try to do this, you know, in an activist set, but through music. Exactly. And also like that really connects to our loose and her title.

00:24:05:15 – 00:24:21:21
Speaker 2
So I want to ask you what it means for you to listen and to be heard. Well, I mean, to listen is to learn and to be heard and to grow. So I think that would be the simplest way to put it. You know, to be a part of something bigger than yourself.

00:24:21:24 – 00:24:22:16
Speaker 1
A couple of questions.

00:24:22:16 – 00:24:24:26
Speaker 2
About what we have here.

00:24:24:27 – 00:24:44:07
Speaker 1
This is a rehearsal band. Yeah. That’s it. That’s for. What does that entail? Well, traditionally, rehearsal bands are bands that guys get together, larger bands, and they get together and read some music once a week. Yeah, pretty much basically what it is. So how did you get started doing this? I met Craig.

00:24:44:08 – 00:24:51:07
Speaker 3
At some point. I knew Craig from hearing him on a record with blue. It called The Young Lion.

00:24:51:10 – 00:24:51:18
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:24:51:19 – 00:24:52:13
Speaker 2
And that’s.

00:24:52:13 – 00:25:12:12
Speaker 1
When I first heard his name. And I knew that he referred to occurred. Well, I had to listen because I was overwhelmed by blue. It’s great. Yeah. On the album. And I honestly, I just remember seeing Craig’s name. But then I met Craig in New York and I looked back at the album, I started listening. I think the work that he did on that album is very cool to think about.

00:25:12:18 – 00:25:16:24
Speaker 1
You have to. You have to check out that. Yeah. You know. All right.

00:25:16:26 – 00:25:18:15
Speaker 2
How long have you been playing the puppet?

00:25:18:18 – 00:25:20:01
Speaker 1
Playing for 12 years.

00:25:20:04 – 00:25:22:26
Speaker 2
Nice. All right. So what made you become a part of.

00:25:22:26 – 00:25:43:11
Speaker 1
Harlem Nights? I was just filling in for someone. Someone could make it one week, and I just caught myself in a rotation. That was nice. How long have you been doing it? Literally only two months. That’s nice. What do you feel like this place brings to you?

00:25:43:13 – 00:26:01:11
Speaker 1
For many. Do you think that it brings that same people to the community? Or what do you feel like to say, for instance, community. I think the community gets a lot of different things on there because just like you said, you haven’t heard anything like this before, ever. So people might come in and get a sense of peace.

00:26:01:12 – 00:26:29:27
Speaker 1
They might get a sense of like shocking that like, wow, what is happening? What is this? So I think there’s many different things that people can get from coming here and welcome. Perfect. And what is Rhythm of Resistance mean to you? For me and where I’m at in my point, of my career, of my life, it’s the it’s a place for me to experiment and learn and be able to grow.

00:26:30:00 – 00:26:52:22
Speaker 1
My last question for you is what does it mean to you to at indie? It means a lot because most of the time as we spend our day just practicing, practicing, practicing. So to finally be in front of people and play for people with means a lot. This is what I go by. Okay. It’s nice to meet you.

00:26:52:25 – 00:27:14:06
Speaker 1
Interview you for listening to her radio today and just ask you a few questions about what we have going on here. So what do you think about this rehearsal? And how do you know I love it? It helps me to wrestle with my own demons and play with that fifth wall of just being inside my body versus being entertained, entertaining somebody by being expressive.

00:27:14:07 – 00:27:31:26
Speaker 1
Enjoy doing poetry more with music in the background or without it? I’ve never done it without music in my life. Always hope you like to it more. Oh, it’s right here. I never know. I don’t know it without. Okay. I respect that. How did you meet Craig to start doing this? Man, Craig is my neighbor. Yeah, and I’ve been on the scene.

00:27:31:26 – 00:27:56:00
Speaker 1
I used to work at Saint Petersburg. Okay, well, 49th Street, you were just in proximity. It just wound up in my biosphere. Okay, cool. One jazz musician. Since we’re so connected, you need a mall, especially in Harlem, because everybody wants to play music together, right? And I’m like somebody that come through and exists. Okay? Exists in in, in.

00:27:56:02 – 00:28:15:06
Speaker 1
Because I, I learned how to be amongst the hip hop artists are people. This is why boxers, men, people up. You can’t jump out of the box. If you claim it fully, claim it fully, then you’re encased in it. So this is why some people are limited or it looks like, oh, look at them doing something with other people.

00:28:15:06 – 00:28:40:19
Speaker 1
When we are really a poly, Olympic and polyrhythmic people, do you think putting yourself in a label like I only do hip hop you can’t change to or poetry? I don’t think it’s always been, you know, you can say, I can only do what? First of all, I can only limit you that phrase alone. Yeah, I can, only I can.

00:28:40:21 – 00:28:54:12
Speaker 1
Yeah. I have a friend who said I can’t smell. I said, well, then you can’t, and you’ll never will. Even if you want to always be can.

00:28:54:15 – 00:29:01:04
Speaker 1
I mean, I can’t say you.

00:29:01:07 – 00:29:16:26
Speaker 1
In. Day of everything.

00:29:16:28 – 00:29:42:21
Speaker 1
From the tip of the horn. My world are burning. My word of the Lord.

00:29:42:24 – 00:30:04:13
Speaker 1
Country. Me born of.

00:30:04:15 – 00:30:55:24
Speaker 1
And be heard. Our. I’m Martha, Senator, your host here in the audio garden. And we’ve just been listening to the men’s and Samya Jones, our intern, talking with members of a rehearsal band called the Harlem Night Song Band. And they have an event on Thursday nights called Rhythms of Resistance. And now we’re going to hear John Mims in conversation with composer, bandleader and trombonist Mr. Peter.

00:30:55:26 – 00:31:15:12
Speaker 1
Aiken. Oh, okay. That’s my mother. That’s my family from Aiken. Do you want to say her interview real quick? Yeah. Who are you? I’m done. Ma’am. Yeah. Am I am I? You know, you had it, you know. Serious? Yeah. You know. You know. No no no no. Oh, man, I know, man, I know a big man. Big guy, big guy.

00:31:15:15 – 00:31:37:02
Speaker 1
Good friend of mine is. Now he’s about 80 years old. He’s from the man, not he from Chicago. Okay. It’s my dad’s name. And it’s been from South Carolina. Okay. Yeah. Riga. Greenville. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Upstate. You? Yeah. Are you from New York? I’m from New York. Yeah. My family came in 1933. They came from South Carolina. Yeah.

00:31:37:03 – 00:31:57:28
Speaker 1
To Brooklyn and Harlem. And then they worked and got their little pennies together because they used to do days was my aunt, my grandmother. They gave us a women’s block working with people’s houses all week, leave on Monday morning, then come back home on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They say that they stayed there on the week. Then they come home on the weekend.

00:31:58:02 – 00:32:16:12
Speaker 1
I gotta catch. Yeah, like like that. Then they got their penance together. Then they bought houses out near there ready to go. You know, do a lot of people in your family and you just kind of went off and they don’t know my small family. I’m the only between my siblings. Then I found out some cousins who play.

00:32:16:12 – 00:32:35:27
Speaker 1
But between my brothers and sisters, my sister played up for money. But I’ve been with me. I definitely come home after this. You know, I grew up at a time. First of all, the community has always music in the community. Yeah, we go up in the music and go up in the music. Right. But then I would say initially I grew up at a game in 1990.

00:32:35:28 – 00:33:01:01
Speaker 1
You were nine years old. We went to school and they had great public schools. Right. What made you want to start doing rehearsal concerts here at the church? I want to. Enforcing your idea that that music was part of our culture. Kids, young people, we played music. We played instruments. Yeah, we played live in the school system. Instruments out in schools like in the 70s and stuff like that.

00:33:01:04 – 00:33:25:20
Speaker 1
And that was a not a good idea. Okay. So so I played music and university study and I did that. And I’ve made a very good living for me. I went to I had two university. University of the street because I learned in the streets became music with people who didn’t go to school. And then I went in on the second, later day.

00:33:25:22 – 00:33:54:12
Speaker 1
Oh, and down on you. Oh, did you make her in theory? I majored in music performance and composition. I can tell you what I learned, but you haven’t had a real vision. So then. So I learned music a lot of in the streets. And then in coming up in New York and New York and as little time, there was a time when they had these things called rehearsal bands.

00:33:54:13 – 00:34:11:03
Speaker 1
Yeah. When you were they had her for all the week, and then you get in the room and you, you be in the room with Elvis. So I’ll be right next to guys, like, could be my father. Like, I could be his father. Yeah. You know what I’m saying? So it’s a tradition because that’s how you. That’s how you are.

00:34:11:08 – 00:34:30:14
Speaker 1
That’s what you learn because it’s a generation. Like I learned things about you. 22. 23. Right. I’m 72. So it’s a beautiful thing, right? You’re showing the younger generation through with her band, and later on, they have their own. They they they they just. And this is where we network. Important. We will be in network. And we met with you.

00:34:30:14 – 00:34:52:18
Speaker 1
And I get the chance to music and hear it every week. Yeah. And and it’s also a training. It’s a training ground because it’s a thing. And so we really started we got to build up the community audience. And because people have we kind of people take I’ll get you out to be content with people, people in our neighborhood.

00:34:52:19 – 00:35:04:29
Speaker 1
You know what I mean? You know. Yeah. But when you keep going, going. Because that’s how we grow. That’s how we go. That’s why I found you like that also this year.

00:35:05:01 – 00:35:26:07
Speaker 1
So we enjoy keeping the culture going. Like we started this thing about 13, 14 years ago when my partner and Jonathan and Lola and we started to keep the culture in the community. So it’s a beautiful thing, but it’s such a beautiful thing to congregate. This is like our church. It’s good to have something. So routinely every week.

00:35:26:09 – 00:35:41:05
Speaker 1
Oh, man. Good. Together. Yes. And it puts it. Puts it. Because that. Because if I didn’t, I didn’t have I think I would get lost in the week because I don’t know every day is I know Thursday just feel like a good week. Thursday Friday, Saturday I know we stopped, but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I don’t know what I’m doing.

00:35:41:07 – 00:35:59:24
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know, so it’s a good reset Monday for you. Exactly. It’s getting into the week. This is the beginning of the week. Yeah. It’s getting even that work with people. They grow, we grow. It’s invaluable. And in our neighborhood. Yeah. I like what you’re doing. We need to film extreme. We got some plans on streaming it. And then when we get.

00:35:59:26 – 00:36:20:19
Speaker 1
When we go outside here, we rehearse it. Bands and our hurts. A lot of people just come on stage and they don’t have any kind of vocabulary. So we’re building a vocabulary at the same time. You know, we got we got to take people there learning. Everybody’s learning especially. And I’m learning more than anybody really. Yeah, I’m learning anything because I come out of here.

00:36:20:20 – 00:36:43:25
Speaker 1
I mean, I might be able to focus in the future. What what I’m going to do next. How am I going to teaching people is the best way to learn. Oh, oh, I concur. I concur with that. And it’s a beautiful thing. I agree, I agree with you because I get to where people without letting go with up man.

00:36:43:26 – 00:36:51:03
Speaker 1
I like you guys. Thank you.

00:36:51:05 – 00:36:54:15
Speaker 4
Thank you John.

00:36:54:18 – 00:37:31:03
Speaker 4
Camera. Films. Craig Harris and all the members of the stand. This is a little more of Harlem Nights on band on Thursday night. Rhythms of resistance every Thursday night. And you can find more information about that on our website. Listen to be heard that night. This is episode 27 and you’ll find all the links there to Harlem Jazz Bar.

00:37:31:04 – 00:39:57:07
Speaker 4
More about Mr. Craig here. We have even featured also to the poet on the previous episode. I think it was actually a third one of this season for this is going to segway into a live recording of Sunday in Brooklyn. About that.

00:39:57:09 – 00:40:02:10
Speaker 4
To our great multi-instrumentalist.

00:40:02:13 – 00:40:04:04
Speaker 1
Composer.

00:40:04:07 – 00:40:14:21
Speaker 4
Sound designer, our our show bridges Sierra and.

00:40:14:24 – 00:40:20:24
Speaker 4
A company that piano, piano.

00:40:20:26 – 00:40:25:24
Speaker 4
Kenji survival on drums.

00:40:25:26 – 00:40:32:19
Speaker 4
It’s the second.

00:40:32:21 – 00:41:11:28
Speaker 4
Figuration or rehearsal band.

00:41:12:00 – 00:41:28:20
Speaker 5
Already.

00:41:28:22 – 00:42:36:15
Speaker 5
In the parking.

00:42:36:18 – 00:45:01:28
Speaker 5
In.

00:45:02:01 – 00:46:53:16
Speaker 4
Commission. And he heard our brought to you by listen and be heard network of project for sound system culture.

00:46:53:19 – 00:46:58:04
Speaker 5
I know all.

00:46:58:07 – 00:47:05:01
Speaker 5
Of the mighty one of.

00:47:05:03 – 00:47:12:22
Speaker 5
And.

00:47:12:24 – 00:47:31:20
Speaker 5
By the way. And homie.

00:47:31:22 – 00:49:05:08
Speaker 5
My.

00:49:05:10 – 00:50:44:26
Speaker 5
Now.

00:50:44:28 – 00:50:57:25
Speaker 5
In the name I have never.

00:50:57:27 – 00:51:15:24
Speaker 5
Between what I need to do or what I wish I knew what I needed. Because I ever hear what I felt like. How many people say that to be?

00:51:15:26 – 00:51:33:15
Speaker 5
You have a moment and you are here. And when you hear this, what you do, you even when you. And that was in.

00:51:33:18 – 00:52:04:19
Speaker 5
Your mental well do it without job or your well-being, or wings. Are grateful to God from the earth, Christ and the rest of the world, and I.

00:52:04:21 – 00:52:10:13
Speaker 4
That was alive for.

00:52:10:15 – 00:52:16:07
Speaker 4
A Sunday in Brooklyn. Another rehearsal man.

00:52:16:09 – 00:53:01:18
Speaker 4
Tested for words and piano and vocals. They me his Sierra. Multi-instrumentalist Sandy, Cerastium drones and percussion and myself there at the end. Martha Dickinson poetry. And we do that on Sundays. Most Sunday in Brooklyn at the Ivy studio. And we’ll do it again with something more. And you’re welcome. It’s one of the network with us, but it will be open.

00:53:01:20 – 00:53:05:10
Speaker 5
Weekend.

00:53:05:13 – 00:53:31:07
Speaker 5
Morning. We begin from the from from bread and.

00:53:31:09 – 00:53:38:07
Speaker 5
When you say.

00:53:38:09 – 00:53:59:28
Speaker 5
All.

00:54:00:01 – 00:54:17:10
Speaker 4
This, the sound system culture. And we invite you to get involved. And the producer as a post, as a volunteer in different aspects of local.

00:54:17:13 – 00:54:33:08
Speaker 4
Live performance. We need engineers and software folks. And maybe you want to be on our side of the board. And.

00:54:33:10 – 00:55:02:12
Speaker 4
The money, whatever you would like to do, you can find it and listen to be heard that at sound system, culture, that world and we can drive through the visitors there. And thank you so much for spending time with this here in the Audio Garden. The wisdom be heard. Our thanks once again to our desk.

00:55:02:14 – 00:55:44:25
Speaker 4
In memory of Joseph Singer, his daughter Judy to Logan. And I’ll remind you, his biography. Autobiography is meant to be so through my eyes. And to the book Tribunal Rising. She’s the editor, along with Angela marino, published by East Wing Books of Berkeley. We also heard from Craig Harris and his Harlem Knights song band. Some of the members who were interviewed by Jimmy Jones and John Mims.

00:55:44:26 – 00:55:58:24
Speaker 4
I were listening to Be Heard interns here in Harlem, New York.

00:55:58:26 – 00:56:37:08
Speaker 4
Thanks, as always to David at radio in Asheville, North Carolina, for introducing, listen and be heard to the Broadcast Airways Kcur in Taos, New Mexico. Keep in San Antonio, Texas. KHOU in Ames, Iowa, and four in Red bluff, California and other stations that are part of the Pacifica affiliate network for cultivating the audio garden in your communities. And our own listening to her network host of.

00:56:37:10 – 00:57:00:22
Speaker 4
Please visit us at listening and sign up for our email newsletter and at our listening to her YouTube channel, where you will find unedited video interviews of our featured guests. My name is Martha Senator, and I want to thank you for listening and giving me the opportunity to be heard.

CREDITS– CO-HOSTS & PRODUCERS: Martha Cinader, Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra, Tony Robles. INTERNS: John Mims, Jemyah Jones. FEATURED GUEST: Joe Talaugon Sr., Judy Talaugon, Craig Harris. POETRY: Martha Cinader, Zakiyyah Modeste. MUSIC:  Craig Harris’ Harlem Nightsong Band. Live session recording at iBeam features: Jay Rodriguez Sierra, Preston Fulwood & Gengi Siraisi. LISTEN & BE HEARD QUOTES: Jemyah Jones & John Mims. SOUNDTRACK, MIXING, MASTERING, SOUND DESIGN: Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. Executive Producer, Martha Cinader.

Do you want to be heard in the garden? Please consider contributing your audio content. We grow together when we nurture our network. Click here for more information.

The Intuitive Writing Podcast hosted by Elizabeth Perlman

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:29:24
Speaker 1
Hello. Welcome to our podcast and thank you for listening. My name is Elizabeth and I’m the founder of the Intuitive Writing Project, a writing based empowerment program for girls and gender expansive youth. We are dedicated to giving young women a safe, encouraging, non-critical, unconditionally supportive space to write their story, speak their truth, and assert their voice both as writers and as individuals.

00:00:29:27 – 00:00:56:29
Speaker 1
I created this program 11 years ago because it’s what I wanted and needed when I was young, a safe place to be truly seen and heard. That’s why we use the Amherst Writing method, a radically nurturing and empowering writing methodology. I wish everyone learned in school. You can read more about the Amherst Method on their website. And in Pat Snider’s groundbreaking book, Writing Alone and with others.

00:00:57:01 – 00:01:30:07
Speaker 1
But the basic principles and the ones that guide all our classes are that one. Everyone is a writer with important stories to tell. Two everyone has their own unique voice, a voice that needs to be heard. And three our voice will grow stronger and clearer the more it is supported and positively affirmed. The way we affirm our writers is to repeat back and lift up the words, lines, phrases, or concepts that really resonated for us in the classroom.

00:01:30:11 – 00:01:56:09
Speaker 1
Everyone writes together, everyone shares their writing, and then everyone gives each other grounded, positive feedback. Since we can’t violate the sanctity of our classes by recording what goes on there, these one on one conversations are designed to provide a little glimpse, a microcosm of what happens in the classroom. You can also read about our work and read the girls words as they were published on our blog, The Intuitive Voice, with the links below.

00:01:56:11 – 00:02:25:10
Speaker 1
If you enjoy listening to one young writer who read their words and talk about it. Imagine how powerful it is when six young writers are reading their words and giving each other positive, affirming feedback. It’s pretty life changing, and there’s a lot more I could say about it, but I’ll let these young writers speak for themselves. On behalf of all the writers at the Intuitive Writing Project, I want to thank you in advance for supporting the stories of young women making the time to be present and really listen to girls.

00:02:25:16 – 00:02:37:16
Speaker 1
Listen to the wisdom, insight, and brilliance of each girl is how we change the world. Thank you for supporting the voices of young women today.

00:02:37:17 – 00:03:03:09
Speaker 2
I’m so honored and excited to be interviewing our brilliant writer, Erin Hamburg, who will be reading a really relevant poem even though it was written several months ago. Before we begin, I wanted to have Erin introduce herself. If you could tell us your pronouns, your grade level, and then a little anecdote about your first memory of writing. Of course.

00:03:03:11 – 00:03:37:27
Speaker 3
So. Hi, guys. I’m Erin, and I’ll be graduating high school in May. So actually just three weeks away. And I usually her pronouns. And so my first memory of having written a story would be fifth grade. I had this who is absolutely wonderful. And she basically gave us a passion project. So we had a couple of days a week to focus on something that we were interested in or something that we like to do.

00:03:37:29 – 00:03:55:04
Speaker 3
So, you know, it was like photography and writing and it was kind of all over the map. And I wanted to write a book. And so even though I never finished the book, I did start it and I got to read it to my class once a week.

00:03:55:06 – 00:04:05:07
Speaker 2
That is incredible that even at that age, at ten years old, you had that vision of being a writer and writing a book. And what was the book about?

00:04:05:10 – 00:04:13:19
Speaker 3
So it was about a teenage spy named Willow.

00:04:13:22 – 00:04:21:13
Speaker 2
I love that. And did you actually finish it? Like, did you manage to get to the end? Because it’s hard to finish a story like.

00:04:21:15 – 00:04:39:28
Speaker 3
You don’t think that I did in fifth grade? My, my attention span maybe wasn’t as long as it is now. So I remember I was doing, like, illustrations. I had the idea for a title page, but I don’t know that it was ever longer than, like, 30 pages.

00:04:40:00 – 00:04:48:27
Speaker 2
It’s so cute. I wish we could have you read from that as well. That would have been really cool. Do you still have it? Copy of it somewhere?

00:04:48:28 – 00:04:49:23
Speaker 3
Yes.

00:04:49:25 – 00:05:00:01
Speaker 2
Okay. Keep it in a fireproof box, because you’re going to want to read that when you’re older. And you will probably be amazed at your talent at age ten. I’m sure.

00:05:00:04 – 00:05:01:03
Speaker 3
That I will.

00:05:01:09 – 00:05:20:12
Speaker 2
You will be. You will be when you get older. So for today, I wanted you to read the poem that you wrote, actually this past summer. It was the class we had right after the 4th of July. And you wrote about it was, we had been talking about what happened with the shooting at Highland Park, Illinois.

00:05:20:12 – 00:05:48:27
Speaker 2
And you wrote a poem and it’s about gun violence. And I just want to preface it by just to give everyone context. As of this recording on May 11th, there have been 202 mass shootings in 2023, which is more shootings than there have been days in the year. So this piece, even though it was written back in July, in 2022, it’s as relevant, if not more relevant than ever.

00:05:48:29 – 00:05:57:12
Speaker 2
And it’s so beautiful. If you would begin your piece Happy 4th of July.

00:05:57:14 – 00:06:25:07
Speaker 3
Firework or firearm? Red, white and blue explode across the sky. Colors of mourning for a country riddled with bullets. Land of the free. Home of the brave. Our strongest soldiers. Our schoolchildren. Armed with clear backpacks. And the fear that one day shelter in place will not be enough. Empty busses, empty classrooms. AR 15 are free because education is the price we pay.

00:06:25:09 – 00:06:51:01
Speaker 3
There will be no next time. But next time is today, tomorrow and the day after that. The flag stands at half mast. Soon it will fall. Buried under a million futures. Never realized. A million gunshots never stopped. A million promises never kept. An anthem of triumph for a country of tragedy. How dare you, Neal? How dare you shed a tear?

00:06:51:03 – 00:07:16:06
Speaker 3
Stand up and pray for your country. Clasped hands for the lost souls. The victims of the violent American dream. Sing not for stars and stripes, but for families who never said goodbye. Enough is enough. But it goes on, on, on. Turn off the news. Mute the TV. What’s one more name? The list is too long to see. Pack the picnic blankets.

00:07:16:06 – 00:07:25:00
Speaker 3
The hot dogs. The extra napkins when fireworks echo soda shots. Happy 4th of July, America.

00:07:25:02 – 00:07:26:19
Speaker 4
Oh my God.

00:07:26:21 – 00:07:53:01
Speaker 2
Hearing it again. I mean, I’ve read it a couple of times, but hearing you read it in your voice, especially in the context of what’s going on in the world right now, gave me goosebumps. This is such a powerful piece. What’s so I think most potent about it is that the language is so simple, it almost feels like a children’s story, but it’s every word is loaded with meaning.

00:07:53:01 – 00:08:25:07
Speaker 2
And of course, the theme is very deep. Couple lines that jumped out at me that are they’re all beautiful, but I love the line are strongest soldiers are schoolchildren armed with clear backpacks. Oh, God. I mean, again simply said, but loaded with meaning. And, Really, it should be. I wish every adult in the world could read this piece.

00:08:25:07 – 00:08:51:07
Speaker 2
Especially the people who are who don’t want to ban guns, because this is the wisdom of a young person recognizing a serious problem that needs to be resolved by the people in power. And of course, this incredible, oh my God, this is what gave me goosebumps, that, it’s buried under a million futures. Never realized. A million gunshots never stopped, a million promises never kept.

00:08:51:09 – 00:09:20:21
Speaker 2
Because of course, it kind of feels like it has been a million and it’s going to continue to exponentially increase. I love also the line, an anthem of triumph for a country of tragedy. Oh, it’s so poetic. And then the line clasped hands for the lost souls. The victims of the violent American dream. And that’s something.

00:09:20:24 – 00:09:46:01
Speaker 2
I’ll pause for a minute to talk about this line. The violent American dream. That’s something that we talked about in class, and something that comes up so often is that somehow violence is inextricably linked with this dream fantasy of what we think America should be. And that’s why this is so potent that it’s happy for them to lie is the name of the boat.

00:09:46:03 – 00:10:08:01
Speaker 2
It’s such a great satire. I wanted to ask you about when you were beginning this poem or, you know, let’s go back even further. Whenever we have a discussion in class and then we have prompts, I always give everyone some options. And then I also say, write about whatever you want. You can always write whatever’s up for you right now.

00:10:08:02 – 00:10:23:25
Speaker 2
Fiction, nonfiction, whatever you need to write. Were you did you know when you started writing an upfront that you would be writing about this, or did it just sort of emerge and then tell us a little bit about the process for you of writing this?

00:10:23:27 – 00:10:50:12
Speaker 3
Yeah. So it was on my mind, of course, but I think when I sat down to write, it definitely wasn’t at like the very forefront of my mind. And it was actually one of those days where I was like, this, this is the day where I don’t have anything to show the class. And I was thinking about the 4th of July because I don’t remember if it was coming up or maybe it had happened.

00:10:50:14 – 00:11:25:06
Speaker 3
I can’t remember the exact date. And the irony is, I think I originally set out to write something about the 4th of July that was maybe like a little nostalgic, almost like a happy short story. And it kind of just went there almost as soon as I started writing. And it’s it’s easier, I think, to write about something that really hits home emotionally, because it was like once I started writing about this one event, like this one shooting, that was on my mind.

00:11:25:07 – 00:11:56:20
Speaker 3
You know, I had a friend who was in Chicago like a couple blocks away at the time. It kind of, I think, just like tapped in to the larger kind of current of like anger and sadness that has existed among high schoolers and their families for a really long time. And just the idea that, like, the burden of protection kind of falls to students and teachers and their families, and you brought up the clear backpack line.

00:11:56:20 – 00:12:14:18
Speaker 3
But it’s like, it’s so hard when I think about that, because I get it. I get why school districts do it. But all these little things, it’s like the clear backpacks and shelter in place drills, and it’s like things that can do so much good. But it’s like.

00:12:14:20 – 00:12:16:15
Speaker 3
It’s just a reminder.

00:12:16:18 – 00:12:40:03
Speaker 2
It’s so twisted that it sort of just become this normal thing that like, oh, of course you have metal detectors and clear backpacks. There was that line about the shelter in place I wanted to talk about to, that the fear that one day the shelter in place will not be enough. And AR 15 is are free because education is the price we pay.

00:12:40:06 – 00:12:48:07
Speaker 2
I was going to ask you if you had shelter and you guys still have shelter in place. Drills? Yeah. How often?

00:12:48:09 – 00:13:11:06
Speaker 3
So usually. Well, so, like we classify a emergency drill. Like it could fall under fire. Earthquake or, like, on campus threat. I don’t know if that’s the right wording. So I would say most often we have drills for like a natural disaster. Like what do you do if there’s an earthquake or there’s a fire. And so like we’ll all go out onto the field.

00:13:11:12 – 00:13:34:03
Speaker 3
But I would say like very rarely we do practice what to do if there’s and they never they never say like if there’s a shooter on campus. But I mean it’s implied. I think that’s what would happen most times if we were in that situation. And so, you know, we like close the windows and sit under our desks for, you know, 3 or 4 minutes hot.

00:13:34:10 – 00:14:16:02
Speaker 2
That is so horrifying. It also reminds me of, I managed to miss, fortunately missed both of those terrifying, generations. The generation before me had, during the Cold War, had nuclear war drills where they hid under their desk as if that would have protected them. And then your generation is hiding under your desk in danger of gun violence, which, of course, that also is not going to hiding under one’s desk is so, futile in the face of this horror, but just making you go through those motions, I feel like the way it normalizes it and makes it like this is just part of life.

00:14:16:03 – 00:14:39:07
Speaker 2
It’s part of what you captured in this piece the normalization of violence. And I think that’s where some of the brilliant satire or sarcasm comes in. How dare you, Neal? How dare you shed a tear? Seeing not for Stars and Stripes, but for families who have never said goodbye. And then I love. I think there’s so much.

00:14:39:10 – 00:15:09:20
Speaker 2
This is the voice of your leadership and the leadership of your generation saying enough is enough. Like, this is ridiculous. And then, of course, there’s such excellent repetition. And right after enough, after enough is enough. And then but it goes on, on, on. And I should note that on each on is on its own line. Listeners can see the link to this piece on our blog and see how it’s written.

00:15:09:20 – 00:15:39:02
Speaker 2
The on on, on just really captures the tedium of this, tragedy that we could prevent, but are sadly choosing not to. The list is too long to see. And then, of course, the very end goes back to what you were saying, the beginning about wanting initially to write something nostalgic. The pack, the picnic baskets, the hot dogs, the extra napkins like all that has this beautiful, nostalgic feel to it.

00:15:39:03 – 00:16:09:12
Speaker 2
But it’s tainted by the violent American dream. And then, of course, the final line is freaking amazing. Happy July on there. I love that, sarcasm of that and well deserved because like, come on people, but you captured the insanity of the situation with so much clarity and grace, so powerful. Two more questions I wanted to ask you.

00:16:09:12 – 00:16:42:20
Speaker 2
I always ask about if you can. So think about this, do this, do this question. Second advice you would have for other writers when they get stuck writing, or they’re just stuck with that blank page at the beginning and like, don’t know what to write about. But before that I want to hear if you have like if tomorrow you got an opportunity to give a speech to the whole world on this topic, what would be like the main thing that you would want them to to understand if you could actually be heard?

00:16:42:20 – 00:16:56:04
Speaker 2
I feel like young people do not get heard enough. They have. So many, especially young women, are so brilliant, so wise, so insightful, and people are not listening. So if people were listening, what would you say?

00:16:56:07 – 00:17:41:13
Speaker 3
Well, I would hopefully articulate it better than I’m sure I probably will now, but I think just the idea that people responsible for our current legislation when they were in high school, this wasn’t really real. And so I don’t think there’s obviously like the absence of any like, real fear or like awareness of what it might feel like, you know, to go to school and see like a police car, you know, and like, wonder why it’s there or, you know, to look at the door and wonder, like, what would I do if someone came in or, you know, I’m taking a pee test and like, my table is like the one closest to

00:17:41:13 – 00:18:09:13
Speaker 3
the door, like, is that good or is that bad? And I think we don’t really think about thinking about those thoughts. What is that? It’s like metacognition. They just kind of are. And they’ve been there for I don’t really know how long. And it’s not like you ever say them out loud. If someone’s just like a routine to think about stuff like that.

00:18:09:15 – 00:18:50:06
Speaker 3
And I think that’s of course like the very heart of the problem. And, you know, it’s obviously not an issue that belongs solely to schools. We see it, you know, in public in all over the news malls, shopping centers, homes, parks, you know, so many like public spaces that we value and that we like, share as communities. And so I think that’s what’s the saddest to me as an American citizen, because I won’t be in high school forever.

00:18:50:08 – 00:19:09:20
Speaker 3
You know, I’ll only be there for a couple more weeks, but I will continue to belong to spaces like those, and I’ll continue to be there, you know, for the rest of my life. And so I don’t get to graduate gun violence. I get to graduate school. But that’s not something that I get to leave behind as an American.

00:19:09:22 – 00:19:21:26
Speaker 3
And so I would hope that that’s something that we as a country could seem to understand more, or at least appear to show more consideration and sympathy towards God.

00:19:22:03 – 00:19:34:26
Speaker 2
You are so eloquent, Aaron, that like everything you said, like you’d written it in advance, but especially that line, I don’t get to graduate from gun violence. God.

00:19:34:28 – 00:19:36:02
Speaker 4
It’s really good.

00:19:36:04 – 00:20:07:18
Speaker 2
Really powerful line. But yeah, because that that everyone who is your age and a couple years older has, is living with this reality that people of my generation and older cannot fathom. And so I love that. I mean, now I can fathom it going out in public, but I can’t fathom what that was like in school. It’s hard enough that you have to take an AP test and then also on top of the stress of school, also be thinking about how close I am to the door and an exit.

00:20:07:20 – 00:20:33:09
Speaker 2
And will I survive it? That’s like so unfair. So I love that you said that about sympathy and empathy for human beings. That’s what we need more leaders like you in the world. Thank you for your thoughts on that. And on happy note, I would love your advice to, other young writers with struggles with the blank page and or just getting started.

00:20:33:10 – 00:20:40:01
Speaker 2
How do you go forward and write when you get stuck?

00:20:40:03 – 00:21:07:26
Speaker 3
Usually I try to go back to like a topic that’s familiar to me or something that I know I can write about, usually imagery of like nature or something that has a lot to think about, like a topic that you can’t really run dry. So I think that’s like that probably looks different for everyone. But something as simple as like describing a setting or a season or something like that.

00:21:07:28 – 00:21:43:27
Speaker 3
I think that’s one option. And then tapping into current events is another. And then I think we talk about this in class sometimes, but creating a character and like then hopefully like the plot for that character follows like the creation of the character. So I think those three things are always really helpful. Sometimes I go back to old work because I have everything in the same notebook.

00:21:44:00 – 00:22:05:02
Speaker 3
I don’t know. I mean, it’s like I don’t think anyone ever can, like, predict writer’s block. So it’s like, obviously it’s frustrating when it happens and you’re just sitting there staring, but I think it’s kind of nice time sometimes to just be able to sit there and look at a page.

00:22:05:04 – 00:22:26:21
Speaker 2
That’s so helpful. I think, for everyone to understand that. And part of it is it’s almost like a this is why I feel like writing can be sort of similar to meditation, because sometimes you just sit there and you just your mind is blank, and that’s good. Most I think we’re sort of driven to be feel like we have to be productive and efficient and fast.

00:22:26:24 – 00:22:47:22
Speaker 2
We panic if we don’t immediately have an idea or don’t immediately know where the story is going. But actually, I love how you said that, that it can be nice to just sit there and like, let let your how let there be nothing. And then just notice, like the first little cloud of a thought, that you’re sober and follow it and see what happens and not be rushed about it.

00:22:47:25 – 00:23:09:24
Speaker 2
Do you feel like it helps? Like do you? I know in class we usually have a larger chunk of time, but do you find time is the thing that you need the most in terms of writing? Like if somebody says write for ten minutes versus they give you an hour this time, help with that. Coming up with ideas.

00:23:09:26 – 00:23:11:06
Speaker 3
Yeah for sure.

00:23:11:08 – 00:23:12:08
Speaker 4
Yeah.

00:23:12:10 – 00:23:41:08
Speaker 2
Because you can sit there, you can noodle on it and not have to be. And I also want to mention, because you’re one of the few people who is, multi-talented in the writing, in terms of writing. Most of us have one that we’re more comfortable with. You write exceptional fiction and nonfiction and poetry. When you write fiction, it’s a would you say that it’s a different process from nonfiction?

00:23:41:08 – 00:23:46:14
Speaker 2
Or is it? It’s all the same. It’s just how it comes out.

00:23:46:16 – 00:24:09:15
Speaker 3
I think it is different. I mean, once it feels like once I get a story going or I have an idea for it, it like, buys me a month or two of of class time almost, because it’s something you can build on. And like a poem, which is usually like a one class activity, maybe two, you know, like I’m going to go back to the drawing board pretty soon.

00:24:09:16 – 00:24:34:17
Speaker 3
So writing fiction and like coming up with an idea is maybe like a little bit more rewarding just because it carries on for longer and you get to like, keep coming back to it. So, you know, you have maybe one class where you spend the whole class thinking about a story that you want to write, but once you have it, you don’t have to stare at that blank page for a while.

00:24:34:19 – 00:24:35:10
Speaker 4
Okay, that’s.

00:24:35:10 – 00:24:59:26
Speaker 2
A good point. Fiction is more building things, sort of upfront, thinking about character and structure, and then it starts filling itself in. I also like what you said about, like just finding an interesting character and going with that, because you’re right. Like, that’s the thing. If character determines plot, like a character is destiny is that famous quote.

00:24:59:27 – 00:25:25:16
Speaker 2
So when you know what the character wants and what they’re going for, the plot kind of falls out of that. It’s just like, well, of course, if they want this, this is going to happen and there’s going to be conflicts. If a young writer came up to you and ask you, what is the most helpful thing that you’ve learned in your writing experience to write fluidly and easily?

00:25:25:22 – 00:25:30:15
Speaker 2
What would that be? What was the thing? What’s the single most helpful thing to be a writer?

00:25:30:18 – 00:25:50:25
Speaker 3
Single? Most. Well, I think obviously a a basic foundation for like grammar and language, which is something that I most people just seem to pick up as they go through school. But overall, I would say.

00:25:50:27 – 00:26:19:24
Speaker 3
Confidence in having like a surety of like, your voice and what you want to say. I don’t like reading my own writing sometimes. I don’t like going back to it because, I mean, it’s kind of like looking at pictures of yourself sometimes, or, you know, athletes analyzing highlights, right? It’s like it’s really easy to focus when, you know, you gave the ball up.

00:26:19:28 – 00:26:57:01
Speaker 3
So I, I still struggle with that kind of a lot with writing, because it also feels like you’re maybe like you’re most vulnerable when you’re writing something like the poem that we read today. So being able to feel confident in your voice and what you’re writing about, and also understanding that writing is just so, so valuable. Like, I mean, I would encourage everyone to write and feel confident writing just because, like it is something that I will use, like for the rest of my life, like regardless of what I end up doing.

00:26:57:03 – 00:27:25:02
Speaker 3
And I think that’s what I’ve enjoyed so much with this program is that, you know, I use things from the intuitive writing project every day, even though I don’t write creatively every day. But it’s kind of everywhere in my life, from just emails to papers to presentations. It’s just everywhere. And so going through that, like with the confidence of voice, is key.

00:27:25:03 – 00:27:26:14
Speaker 3
I think.

00:27:26:16 – 00:27:27:25
Speaker 4
That is so beautiful.

00:27:27:26 – 00:27:57:09
Speaker 2
Thank you for saying that about the program. And I just want to clarify, when I think when you’re saying confidence in your voice, is it the feeling? Is it the knowing that of course I’m constantly drilling into everybody that what you have to say is important and that what’s inside of you needs to come out? Or is it, because confidence is such a slow process, like I’m still working on it.

00:27:57:12 – 00:28:11:21
Speaker 2
Probably. We all work on it over a lifetime, but do you feel like it’s that now, you know, because you’ve been writing every week for so long that there’s going to trust that what comes up and what comes out is valid?

00:28:11:24 – 00:28:13:13
Speaker 4
Something that.

00:28:13:19 – 00:28:42:04
Speaker 3
I mean, we talk in school sometimes about, like your writing voice, which of course is just your voice in words. And I think what I’ve learned is just in general, like people tend to appreciate when they can hear someone’s voice and like their personality and like, I think that’s confidence. So I think it’s yes to both, but just understanding that, like, we’re all our own harshest critics.

00:28:42:04 – 00:29:04:18
Speaker 3
So like a lot of the times like it’s that and it kind of acts as like a filter from ideas coming out onto the page. I think, like we subconsciously just like cross them off the list before they even, like fully form in our brains and like, who knows? Like what good ideas my brain is hiding from me because it doesn’t think that they’re good enough.

00:29:04:20 – 00:29:12:01
Speaker 3
But just like allowing them to come out, even if you don’t end up liking them in the long run.

00:29:12:03 – 00:29:38:25
Speaker 2
I love that. I love that line. Who knows what good ideas my brain is hiding from me? That should be a t shirt. That’s really good. That is the essence of it. It’s like trust. If what you were saying is about authenticity, your authentic way of speaking people. Of course everyone responds to that. And if we don’t let our brains edit it out and get keep us from saying it, it’s going to actually land so much better than we think it is.

00:29:38:28 – 00:29:50:22
Speaker 2
So yes, confidence knowing that like, you got good stuff in there and you just gotta let it flow out and we can always edit later but get it on the page. Yeah.

00:29:50:24 – 00:29:52:14
Speaker 3
Yes, exactly.

00:29:52:16 – 00:30:19:08
Speaker 2
Aaron, you are such a great mind, a great writer, a great human being. It is always a great pleasure and honor to talk with you. Thank you so much for your time today and for talking about writing. And just for all the years of creativity that you have brought to our lives. And I’m so proud of you. Congratulations on graduating in a few weeks.

00:30:19:10 – 00:30:23:01
Speaker 3
Thank you so much and thank you for having me. I really enjoyed this.

  A Not-So-Happy Fourth of July with Erin Hambidge 

For our fourth podcast, listen to brilliant high school senior, Erin Hambidge, read and discuss her poem, “Happy Fourth of July” in conversation with TIWP founder, Elizabeth Perlman. Note: this podcast covers mature topics like gun violence and may not be suitable for young children. 

You can also enjoy Erin’s words on our blog, The Intuitive Voice:
https://intuitivevoice.org/2023/05/10/happy-fourth-of-july/ 

To learn more about our organization, visit us at:
https://www.intuitivewritingproject.com/ 

Thank you for your time and presence, supporting the voices of teenage girls! 

You can also enjoy Erin’s words on our blog, The Intuitive Voice:
https://intuitivevoice.org/2023/05/10/happy-fourth-of-july/ 

To learn more about our organization, visit us at:
https://www.intuitivewritingproject.com/ 

Thank you for your time and presence, supporting the voices of teenage girls! 

Elizabeth has a BA in Media Arts and a Masters in Transformative Arts, the study of creative expression for healing, connection, and growth. She is also a certified Group Leader in The Amherst Writing Method. Before launching TIWP in 2013, Elizabeth worked for over a decade as a graphic designer and art director in the advertising industry.

Word Magic: The Power of Writing to Reframe Your Story & Reclaim Your Intuition by Elizabeth Perlman is a self-help book that uses writing as a tool for self-discovery, healing, and empowerment, drawing from her “Intuitive Writing Project” for women and girls. It offers practical guidance and over 150 writing prompts to help readers trust themselves, reframe negative narratives, and find their inner wisdom through…

This compilation of 27 poems was written over the course of 25 years, from 1998 to 2023. (The title is reflects the author’s extreme delay in sharing her work—and yes, that is a unicorn finger puppet, taking time to smell the azealas!) The main theme of every poem is self-empowerment: remembering who we really are and reclaiming our innocence, our freedom and our joy. A…

CREDITS– HOST & PRODUCER: Elizabeth Perlman. FEATURED GUEST: Erin Hambidge Hosted by Listen & Be Heard Network.

Featured Guest: MAS Inspires (Muhammed Al-amin Sanusi) | Poetry: Karla Brundage, Martha Cinader, Tony Robles | Music: Jay Rodriguez Trio & Hernan Ramiro

[link to transcript]

s4e19
June 11, 2026

From the archives: We’re revisiting Season 4, Episode 19 featuring spoken word artist MAS Inspires. Re-listen to his inspiring story alongside poetry and music performances.

Mas Inspires, a 17-year-old spoken word artist from Abuja, Nigeria, shares his journey from overcoming a stammer to finding purpose through poetry. He highlights the resilience and creativity of young people in Nigeria, who are building opportunities despite challenges. His performances, which often address themes of justice and sustainable development, have led to opportunities such as performing for Nigeria’s former vice president and receiving scholarships for his education. He founded the NextGen Creative Network, a youth-led organization that aims to empower young African creatives and leaders.

Poetry You Won’t Hear Anywhere Else: from Martha Cinader, Tony Robles, Karla Brundage

Music You Won’t Hear Anywhere Else: A Love’s Reflection by Hernan Ramiro, tenor saxophone, flutes, Faloguni Shah, vocals, Teru Nakamura, bass drum. Jay Rodriguez Trio live dedication to Sonny Rollins: That’s All, I Can Only Give You Country Walks in Springtime. Jay Rodriguez, saxophone, Alex Blake, bass and Victor Jones, drums.

Muhammed Al-amin Sanusi, widely known as MasInspires, is a Nigerian spoken word artist, advocate, and performer. Often referred to as a “poetvocate”, he uses his poetry and platform to campaign for climate change, social justice, and child rights. MasInspires has performed on prominent global and national stages, including pieces for the United Nations, African Union, ECOWAS, and the 68th UN Tourism Regional Commission.

With rhythm and repetition to engage children, five narrators take turns highlighting what they notice in their world, each focusing on one of the five senses. We are there with them:A girl sees a “haint blue door at Grandma’s house / Rocking chairs waiting on the porch.” On special days, we hear the marching band play—ba-da-dum-bum.

“This collection is based on my experiences and observations as someone who witnessed Hurricane Helene and its impact on the community—particularly my mobile home community in Hendersonville,”

Writers Across Oceans invites writers to our first ever writers’ retreat “Writers Across Oceans: A Healing Session” in Waimea, Hawai’i. This event offers an opportunity for creation, fellowship, reflection, relaxation, and daydreaming amidst beautiful surroundings.

Karla Brundage’s Blood Lies: Race Trait(or) is about race. It is about the history of race, about imposed racial definitions like mulatto and quadroon.

Word Magic: The Power of Writing to Reframe Your Story & Reclaim Your Intuition by Elizabeth Perlman is a self-help book that uses writing as a tool for self-discovery, healing, and empowerment, drawing from her “Intuitive Writing Project” for women and girls. It offers practical guidance and over 150 writing prompts to help readers trust themselves, reframe negative narratives, and find their inner wisdom through the act of writing. The book synthesizes Perlman’s experience leading writing classes, presenting writing as an effective way to build self-love and confidence.

Existing in the liminal space of sound of spoken word and music, Sista Zock introduces a unique Afro Jazz Fusion Sound with a touch of Hip-hop. Her latest project, Zock Solid, Where the Stem Meets the Root, features a collaboration with Abiodun of The Last Poets, adding depth and resonance to her musical journey.

Fifty years after the fall of Saigon, Dao Strom’s Tender Revolutions / Yellow Songs vibrates with the ramifications and ripples of Empire. A hybrid project comprised of writings, music, and visual ephemera, each of the four Yellow Songs books and the Tender Revolutions album reckon with the intimate consequences of the colonial project, reconfiguring them into complex and lucid, literal and figurative songs of selfhood. Embodied, critical, wholehearted, collective, personal, genre-defying—Tender Revolutions / Yellow Songs renders the brute force of history with tender precision.

Living It! is Martha Cinader’s debut as the producer of her own album, and features an eclectic array of arrangements and musical styles. It was recorded in part in a studio in New York City, part in a studio in Hamburg, and part live at the Mojo Club in Hamburg, throw in some bonus tracks recorded live at WBAI Radio in New York, and a superb mastering session with Ralph “Pinguin” Kessler in Hamburg, and you get fourteen tracks! Cinader brings together the collective talents of Sabine Worthmann, who uses here sfx pedals generously with her accoustic bass and an…

Karla Brundage is founder West Oakland to West Africa Poetry Exchange and author of three books of poetry, including award winning, Blood Lies: Race Trait(or), Swallowing Watermelons, and co-author of Mulatta–Not so Tragic. Her work as editor and publisher for Pacific Raven Press has and Tar Baby Quarterly included authors in the Bay Area, Hawaii, Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya.

Zakiyyah’s creative journey began as a child when, at the age of three, she won her school’s Valentine’s Day Poetry Contest. Early exposure to the arts through Mount Vernon’s Creative Arts Program allowed her to act in plays alongside talented peers, including saxophonist Michael Philips. Outside the program, she trained under Tina Satin—who also taught Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington

Simone “Azúcar” Nikkole is a songwriter, screenwriter, author, Spoken Word poet, and Sí.Nik Productions and L.A. Sugar Factory founder. Her work is featured in Silver Tongue Devil Anthology (Amazon), Poets Without Limits IncarNATION Anthology, Mo’ Joe Anthology along with The Voices Project, Learn to Love and Enhance Online Magazines.

Dao Strom is a poet, musician, writer, and interdisciplinary artist who works with three “voices”—written, sung, visual—to explore hybridity and the intersection of personal and collective histories. She is the author/composer of several hybrid-literary works, including including the poetry-art collection, INSTRUMENT, and its musical companion of song-poems, TRAVELER’S ODE, and the forthcoming TENDER REVOLUTIONS/YELLOW SONGS (2025).

Yvette R. Murray is an award-winning poet and writer. She has been published in Chestnut Review, Emrys Journal, Litmosphere, A Gathering Together, and others. She is the 2022 Susan Laughter Meyers Poetry Fellow, a 2021 Best New Poet selection, a Watering Hole Fellow, and a Pushcart Prize nominee. She is a board member of the South Carolina Writer’s Association and the Poetry Society of South Carolina, and a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators. Find her on Twitter @MissYvettewrites.

Elizabeth has a BA in Media Arts and a Masters in Transformative Arts, the study of creative expression for healing, connection, and growth. She is also a certified Group Leader in The Amherst Writing Method. Before launching TIWP in 2013, Elizabeth worked for over a decade as a graphic designer and art director in the advertising industry.

Martha Cinader is a poet and author living in Harlem, NY. Her young adult novel, Marq and the Queen Fish, is forthcoming in 2026 from Atmosphere Press. Cinader is the founder and Director of the Listen & Be Heard Network, where she hosts and produces The Listen & Be Heard Hour, and Beyond Borders, both non-commercial podcasts and syndicated radio shows on the Pacifica Affiliate Network. 

Tony Robles, “The People’s Poet” was born in San Francisco and is the nephew of Filipino-American poet, historian and social justice activist Al Robles. He was a shortlist nominee for poet laureate of San Francisco in 2017 and the recipient of the San Francisco Art Commission individual literary artist grant in 2018. His two books of poetry and short stories, Cool Don’t Live Here No More – A letter to San Francisco and Fingerprints of a Hunger Strike (both published by Ithuriel’s Spear Press) take on the issues of eviction, gentrification and police violence in communities of color. He is…

CREDITS– CO-HOSTS & PRODUCERS: Martha Cinader, Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra, Tony Robles. FEATURED GUESTS: Muhammed Al-amin Sanusi POETRY: Karla Brundage, Martha Cinader, Tony Robles MUSIC: A Love’s Reflection by Hernan Ramiro, tenor saxophone, flutes, Faloguni Shah, vocals, Teru Nakamura, bass drum. Jay Rodriguez Trio live dedication to Sonny Rollins: That’s All, I Can Only Give You Country Walks in Springtime. Jay Rodriguez, saxophone, Alex Blake, bass and Victor Jones, drums. SOUNDTRACK, MIXING, MASTERING, SOUND DESIGN: Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. Executive Producer, Martha Cinader.

Do you want to be heard in the garden? Please consider contributing your audio content. We grow together when we nurture our network. Click here for more information.

Welcome to Episode 3 of The Intuitive Writing Podcast! In this episode, host and TIWP founder Elizabeth Perlman is joined by brilliant 8th grader Viviana Sanchez, who reads and discusses her poem, “History / Her Story.”

Together, they explore what it means for young women to trust their intuition, claim space in historical narratives, and discover their authentic voice through creative writing.

Read Viviana’s full poem on our blog, The Intuitive Voice: https://intuitivevoice.org/2023/04/28/history-herstory/

Learn more about our empowerment writing programs at https://www.intuitivewritingproject.com/

[00:00] Elizabeth Perlman: Welcome to The Intuitive Writing Podcast. I’m Elizabeth Perlman, founder of The Intuitive Writing Project, where we support young women to trust their voice, own their story, and lead their lives with courage and creativity. Today, I am so excited to welcome brilliant 8th grader Viviana Sanchez, who is going to read her poem, “History / Her Story.” Welcome, Viviana!

[01:10] Viviana Sanchez: Thank you so much for having me! I’m excited to be here.

[01:45] Elizabeth Perlman: Could you share with us your poem, “History / Her Story”?

[02:00] Viviana Sanchez (reading her poem “History / Her Story”):

Every stitch in the quilt,
Every dab of a quill
Layer, to fan on the fire
in the eyes of every young girl

The civilized forest nymph
The wild female spirit held in the hands of boys
Tossed around like a play thing, made pretty and torn at the seams
A world, corrupt and lacking either science or god
A chain of daisies, full moons, creek beds

I prayed to the stars as a child
Wishing for forgotten hopes
Every drop of blood sewed into the ground
Every poem by a girl pushed shamefully into a drawer

Stand squarely and breathe fire
Controlled femininity
Planned recklessness
The patriarchal breath on the back of your neck
Misogyny and goosebumps

In Greek myth, earth was a woman
She cared for the swans and the bats and crickets
Space was a man
He gazed upon the earth with his vast pitiful darkness
And wished he could stand upon her land
And play with her otters and run with her horses
Because Mother Earth was beautiful and he was empty and deadly

She nurtured as teacher of green endless valleys and salty sweet oceans
He watched, self-absorbed and hating as a fallen angel
Maybe that’s why men are so cruel, they try to seek revenge for the skies
They push Mother Earth to tears and poach her playful animals and capture her daughters
They force woman on their knees, to kneel for the Lord, for him

Mother Earth knows and she watches
She sends rain and fire, hurricanes and droughts to get her daughters to notice the battle
The skies are bitter and they punish the daughters that once lived harmoniously upon his impossible love’s land
He sent his children, his sons, to hunt the girls, to repress and oppress them, to get them to worship him, to send disease and guns and divide
to kill the ones who could still hear Mother Earths’ whispers
To punish the ones who grew the medicine Mother Earth gave her soldier daughters
To silence the ones who knew what the skies did every time the ground shook and Earth wept

This story, this struggle and battle has been sewn and stitched into every modest dress woman dressed their unknowing daughters in
This fight lies in every drop of blood woman reap from their womb
And it lives in every song and petal

The skies are trying to punish the earth for existing as a woman
The skies send his sons to suffocate his love’s daughters
And Mother Earth is hurt
So hurt
She is bleeding and weeping and drowning
But she will never die
And neither will her daughters

After they pass, when they are buried in the ground or tossed in the wind
They go back to their mother

And the girls who are still alive?
They all fight
Some fight the skies disease or bloodshed,
Some steal the wallets of boys,
Some plant saplings in the soil
And some?
Some listen to mother earth’s whispers
And write the story she cannot tell.

[06:30] Elizabeth Perlman: Wow, Viviana. That is so powerful and deeply moving. “Stand squarely and breathe fire… Some listen to Mother Earth’s whispers and write the story she cannot tell.” What inspired you when you sat down to write this piece?

[07:15] Viviana Sanchez: I was thinking a lot about history and how so much of what we learn in school leaves out women’s voices, or pushes women’s experiences into the background. I wanted to write about how women have always fought back, nurtured life, and passed down stories from generation to generation even when society tried to silence them.

[12:40] Elizabeth Perlman: You talk about ‘every poem by a girl pushed shamefully into a drawer.’ At The Intuitive Writing Project, our mission is to take those poems out of the drawer and give young women the confidence and freedom to share them with the world. How has writing in community changed how you view your own voice?

[14:10] Viviana Sanchez: Being in a space where everyone’s voice is respected made me realize that I don’t have to hide what I think or feel. Writing helps me process what’s happening around me and gives me strength.

[20:15] Elizabeth Perlman: What advice would you give to other young writers who might feel hesitant to share their poetry?

[21:00] Viviana Sanchez: Don’t be afraid to be honest. Your story and your perspective matter, and there is someone out there who needs to hear what you have to say.

[24:30] Elizabeth Perlman: Thank you so much, Viviana, for sharing your voice, your wisdom, and your poetry with us today on The Intuitive Writing Podcast!

CREDITS:
Host & Producer: Elizabeth Perlman | Featured Guest & Poet: Viviana Sanchez | Network: Listen & Be Heard Network

Author Clifford Thompson joins Tony Robles on The Listen & Be Heard Hour to discuss his essay collection Jazz June, comic book influences, family legacy, and meeting Gwendolyn Brooks.

This episode of The Listen & Be Heard Hour, hosted by Martha Cinader, features original poetry, live music previews, and an extended interview conducted by co-host Tony Robles with author, painter, and educator Clifford Thompson about his essay collection, Jazz June: A Self-Portrait in Essays.

00:00:20:10 – 00:00:29:02
Speaker 1
Listen as the sound enters my inner ear and vibrates through my inner plane, my biosphere.

00:00:29:04 – 00:00:33:25
Speaker 2
Part of me learning to be a better listener of others is learning to listen to myself.

00:00:33:26 – 00:00:44:03
Speaker 3
When we are listen to, truly listen to, you know you can feel when someone’s deeply listening and we feel heard, we are healed in that moment.

00:00:44:06 – 00:00:51:14
Speaker 4
Listen and be heard. Even if your voice shakes without knowing it, you may be saving a stranger.

00:00:51:16 – 00:01:21:19
Speaker 1
Listen and be heard is. I guess, part of why I want to connect with you through the series. You said that it like stuck to my soul. Welcome to the Audio Garden where we cultivate our collective wisdom, nurture creativity, and spread love. My name is Martha Cinader, and this is Listen & Be Heard. Welcome back to the Audio Garden, my friends.

00:01:21:21 – 00:01:23:19
Speaker 1
It’s so good to be here with you.

00:01:23:20 – 00:02:01:16
Speaker 5
Once again. And I have so much to share with you. My good friend Tony Robles has returned and is welcoming Clifford Thompson to the Audio Garden in just a few moments. He’s the author of Jazz June a Self-Portrait in essays, which was published by University of Georgia Press in 2025. Jimmy Jones attended a sketch of New York at the Producers Club and spoke with members of the cast about their experiences.

00:02:01:19 – 00:02:37:25
Speaker 5
So we’ll be hearing some of that, and also some more poetry and music you won’t hear anywhere else. These past few weekends, my co-producer Jay Rodriguez, Sierra and myself and the phenomenal pianist Preston forward Genji Saraisi on percussion, and we’ve been joined by some other friends and just doing stuff. Here’s some poetry to get us started.

00:02:37:27 – 00:04:08:10
Speaker 6
It’s here. It’s not going anywhere. It has no care. Matter is one thing and then another. Energy return is what remains after all, and pairs pain in the air somewhere until they land on an inhale. And hence the Holocaust, the shells and stories for more more matters.

00:04:08:13 – 00:04:45:29
Speaker 5
There will be some live music going down. Live poetry improvization from the Greenhouse Creators Consortium, all performing at the Soapbox Gallery on September 19th, including myself and Jay Rodriguez Sierra, and also a composition by Jay at the end of the evening that everybody is going to participate in. That’s at the Soapbox Gallery on Saturday, September 19th in Brooklyn.

00:04:46:00 – 00:04:58:00
Speaker 5
More information at listen and be heard. Net but right now, Tony Robles is welcoming Clifford Thompson at the garden gate.

00:04:58:02 – 00:05:31:19
Speaker 7
Hey everybody, this is Tony Robles. Welcome to listen and be heard radio. As you may or may not know, I really love essays, and I’ve come across a really wonderful book of essays by a wonderful writer. The name of the book of essays is called Jazz June. Clifford Thompson is a recipient of a Whiting Writers Award for nonfiction, whose essays and reviews have appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Best American Essays, Times Literary Supplement, the 2024 Pushcart Prize Anthology, and more.

00:05:31:21 – 00:05:58:27
Speaker 7
His books include What It Is, race, family, and One Thinking Black Man’s Blues, which time magazine called one of the most anticipated books of the season, and the graphic novel Big Man and the Little Men, which he wrote and also illustrated. Thompson teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and my My School, My alum, Vermont College of Fine Arts.

00:05:58:28 – 00:06:07:28
Speaker 7
He’s also a painter and and is also a member of the Blue Mountain Gallery in New York City. Hey, Cliff, thanks for being on our program. Listen to be heard.

00:06:08:00 – 00:06:10:03
Speaker 8
Thank you for having me. I’m excited.

00:06:10:09 – 00:06:20:09
Speaker 7
Wonderful title. Jazz. June. Now, you’re a writer and also an educator and an illustrator, a painter. How did you come to where? Somebody hats.

00:06:20:10 – 00:06:45:02
Speaker 8
When? My brother was much older than I am. For a time lived in the basement of our house where I grew up in Washington, D.C., and he had a number of things down there, including comic books and collections of comic strips. I fell in love with peanuts, and also he had all these Superman comic books. When I got a little older, I started going down the hill to the drugstore where I bought my own comic books, and I gravitated toward the Marvel books.

00:06:45:04 – 00:07:05:03
Speaker 8
Yeah. Which to me were more interesting just because the the superheroes were so much more like human. They had failings and everything. And and that was also true of Charlie Brown and Peanuts. He was just this poor guy who just tried to get through his life and was depressed, and and everybody made fun of him and everything. I thought peanuts was hilarious.

00:07:05:03 – 00:07:24:22
Speaker 8
And so from a very young age, I started writing and drawing pretty much a knock off of peanuts. And then when I got a little older, I made up my own superheroes and did a knock off of Marvel. When I got to my upper teens. My drawing had improved, but but nowhere near to the point where I could really make a living at it or anything like that.

00:07:24:22 – 00:07:46:01
Speaker 8
But I continued to be interested in writing, and so I took up straight prose writing. But throughout the years I returned intermittently to to visual art. I would pull out some paints and do some things, and then I would say in my mid 40s. I’m 63 now, but in my mid 40s I suddenly started painting like a madman, just just all the time.

00:07:46:08 – 00:07:59:00
Speaker 8
In 2020, I joined a Blue Mountain gallery in New York City. The writing. The drawing came back together in the form of my graphic novel Big Man and the Little Man, which came out in 2022. Both impulses were always there.

00:07:59:02 – 00:08:24:08
Speaker 7
Walter Mosley often speaks about comic books and how he was so profoundly inspired, particularly by the Fantastic Four. Right. And that he said that that’s how he entered fiction, because he says that those comic books told him what the world was like when he was 13 years old. The essays in jazz. June. Yeah. Reveal about about your personality.

00:08:24:12 – 00:08:36:16
Speaker 7
One of the things that was telling is that you’ve been told in your life that you are a hard person to know. Yeah. What’s one thing in this collection that maybe you struggled to reveal about yourself?

00:08:36:24 – 00:08:57:03
Speaker 8
Wow. I’m thinking of a couple of essays in particular, the one called. I talk about the version of me in my early to mid 20s and what I was like. And there’s a portion of that essay that shifts into third person, if you recall. And yes, which I found to be a slightly easier way to talk about myself.

00:08:57:09 – 00:09:10:06
Speaker 8
There are things that I didn’t love about myself then, and there were also things that, in spite of that, that sometimes made me attractive to other people. And that was a hard thing to to talk about in first person.

00:09:10:07 – 00:09:11:04
Speaker 7
Yes.

00:09:11:07 – 00:09:35:13
Speaker 8
Look at me. I’m really attractive. So. So I found that describing that mix of qualities was made much easier by by shifting the third person. It was almost like I was talking about somebody else, which in a way I was, because this was me in the late 1980s. Right. That’s the thing that I might not get into if I were meeting a person for the first or second time.

00:09:35:18 – 00:09:41:08
Speaker 8
But on the page and using that approach, I found it easier to to describe myself.

00:09:41:12 – 00:10:04:22
Speaker 7
That scenario with the woman who turned out to be somebody that you didn’t realize she was because you didn’t have the benefit of social media. Right. At the time, maybe a lack of confidence. I guess she was wanted to maybe pursue something more and you weren’t really on that page. But there were other things that kept you together, like some of the other essays in your collection.

00:10:04:24 – 00:10:12:28
Speaker 7
It’s like the connective tissue of the coulda, woulda should’ve. Yeah. To what is possible.

00:10:13:01 – 00:10:31:00
Speaker 8
One of the difficult things about life is that you only have one. Yeah. Right. On Facebook I wrote half jokingly but but not really. Life equals a series of lessons learned. Too late to apply them. Right, right. Which is part of my experience of being alive. There are two versions of me. This is the one who was.

00:10:31:01 – 00:10:52:12
Speaker 8
Who did the things I did in the 70s and 80s and and on into the 90s. And there’s the version of me looking back at that now, I guess, trying to reconcile my life as I lived it and, and the, the insights that I have now and through the meeting of those two versions of myself, discover some sort of meaning or insight.

00:10:52:13 – 00:11:12:26
Speaker 8
I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, that when we’re young, we don’t have this older version of ourselves looking over our shoulders, going, now, man, you don’t want to do this. You want to do that. Or look over here. Look what’s over there. That might be interesting, but you’re not looking at it. I guess my view of my life and just life in general is one of bemusement.

00:11:12:28 – 00:11:37:08
Speaker 8
The whole enterprise by which I mean life. I’ve sometimes said that I. I’m very happy about many things in my life, but life itself tends to make me sad. Just just the things that we all have to go through. But but of course, there are wonderful things in life too. And so I guess what I try to do, maybe half consciously, is to capture some of both of those.

00:11:37:10 – 00:11:52:00
Speaker 7
The title itself, to Jazz June, is very interesting. You write June itself, not the girl, but the month has something about it of the unattainable, the unfulfilled promise.

00:11:52:02 – 00:12:16:09
Speaker 8
June is my favorite month. Yeah, it’s not July and August yet. So you’re not just like, complaining about the heat, but the days are longer. Or you just. You can go outside and just feel free. I associate June with getting out of school and that freedom, that perfect state that June represents. It’s like because we’re human. There is going to be something that falls short in our activities or our celebration of June.

00:12:16:10 – 00:12:41:24
Speaker 8
It’s like it just seems to represent possibility. And even if we don’t know what the possibility is, it just seems to represent all kinds of possibilities. And if you don’t discover or fulfill those possibilities, you may you may feel you fall in short, somehow. But what I try to say in the essay is that just the feeling of being in June itself, maybe it’s enough to just have this feeling of possibility, even if you don’t.

00:12:41:25 – 00:12:48:18
Speaker 8
Even if you were fulfillment, but maybe falls a little bit short. It’s just nice to be in this period where you feel free and you feel like you can do things.

00:12:48:19 – 00:13:05:14
Speaker 7
We fall into a very interesting generation because we’re we’re not really boomers, but we’re not really Generation Xers. Maybe it’s Generation June or or it could be even Generation Exile. Now, you were you were born in in D.C., is that correct?

00:13:05:15 – 00:13:06:04
Speaker 8
Right, right.

00:13:06:06 – 00:13:08:27
Speaker 7
Was your was your family part of the Great Migration?

00:13:08:28 – 00:13:28:14
Speaker 8
So my parents both grew up in rural Virginia. They both moved to New York. They were both born in the 1920s, and they both moved to Washington in the 1940s and made it their home. And my mother liked to quip that where she said the town was called Massey’s Mill, Virginia, which she said was a good place to be from.

00:13:28:21 – 00:13:55:12
Speaker 8
You can read a lot into that, into that comment. But yeah, I would say so because they, they, they moved to D.C., which is not it’s not like they came from Mississippi to, to New York or something. But but they came from, from rural Virginia to, to Washington, which was, of course, the city and my mother. Both my parents actually ended up working for the Postal service, and the Postal Service represented that, the job that you would go north to find.

00:13:55:13 – 00:14:23:25
Speaker 8
Yeah. And and get settled and raise a family. And which is what my parents did. I mean, they definitely did not have a lot of money, but but they, they bought a small house which where I grew up and so. Yeah. So I would count them definitely as part of the, the migration. And after my father died, my mother, she had this wholesale job, which at the time and in that place allowed you a more or less middle class, a lower middle class mode of living.

00:14:23:25 – 00:14:40:28
Speaker 8
And so she had a little extra money to spend a little bit. For three summers running, she found these packaged bus hotel deals. We went to different cities every year, and we spent a lot of time on the bus just, just just to get to these cities. And when one year we went to New Orleans, which is the origin of my love for New Orleans.

00:14:40:28 – 00:14:59:22
Speaker 8
But along the way, I think we stopped at a hotel in the Carolinas, and then we kept going to New Orleans, and sometimes other of our relatives would be on these trips as well. In retrospect, I didn’t think of it this way then, but it really was a yeah, a special thing in my life, just being on these trips with my mother and our relatives.

00:14:59:22 – 00:15:10:20
Speaker 8
And it represents a black, lower, lower middle class adventure. And and I feel lucky that she did that for us.

00:15:10:22 – 00:15:17:18
Speaker 7
I’m Tony Robles, co-host of Listen and Be Heard. This is listen and be heard. Radio.

00:15:17:20 – 00:15:37:04
Speaker 8
My mother’s mother, who lived with us the whole time I was growing up and lived to be 106. She was born in 1894. So yeah, so that was I mean, she was my link to the 19th century. I think her her father had been born in slavery and her grandfather was white. I remember my mother telling me, my grandmother.

00:15:37:07 – 00:15:51:28
Speaker 8
I mean, she was she was pretty tight lipped about a lot of it. But she would tell me stories about her father. I remember she said he was a good man, but he was cruel. And definitely the things he did would, would count now as child abuse. But it was just such a different era.

00:15:52:03 – 00:16:22:12
Speaker 7
In jazz. June, it seems that you are really you self critic. You write that what is a personal essayist if not self-obsessed? Is your self-reflection like watching a movie? And if so, how does the Siskel and Ebert and you go about an honest you love from movies have? Has that had any any impact on your self-reflection, on how you look at yourself and how you look at your life?

00:16:22:16 – 00:16:59:03
Speaker 8
That’s a really good question. When I was in high school, I was staying up late one night and watching TV and and the movie The Graduate came on and The Graduate, it wow. It it touched a chord in me and it was like it was a film, but I think I think The Graduate had as much to do with me turning to prose writing as anything else, because what that movie inspired me to try or to want to do is, was to sort of capture the, the that that same feeling I saw represented on the screen of just this young man who just was so had so many ideas and feelings and just didn’t really

00:16:59:03 – 00:17:17:04
Speaker 8
have a clue what to do with them, and which is how I felt too. And I thought, okay, how how can I translate this feeling into something that comics just don’t seem to be an outlet for? So when you try to write about yourself, either in the guise of fiction or in nonfiction, you got to take a look at yourself.

00:17:17:09 – 00:17:20:08
Speaker 8
I had never thought to put it that way, but I think that’s probably right.

00:17:20:10 – 00:17:32:00
Speaker 7
Maybe prose was your Mrs. Robinson. Yeah, I love that. And then. And then and it worked. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was no awkwardness. It’s like the the awkward. The awkwardness actually worked in your favor. Yeah, I do.

00:17:32:03 – 00:17:32:28
Speaker 8
Like in the movie, right.

00:17:32:28 – 00:17:52:24
Speaker 7
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I remember that after he graduates. Yeah, he’s in the pool right on a float. And then his father saying, hey, I gotta stand you. You worked hard and you’re going to. You want to relax and have a good time. But I totally get it, son. But what the hell? You’re just sitting there. What the hell good is all this stuff do?

00:17:52:25 – 00:18:02:02
Speaker 7
Right, right. It’s hard work. And you graduate. What the hell was it all for? And then he just looks up. Kaufman looks. He’s like, you got me. He got me.

00:18:02:08 – 00:18:03:10
Speaker 8
Yes, yes.

00:18:03:15 – 00:18:04:00
Speaker 7
Oh.

00:18:04:02 – 00:18:13:13
Speaker 8
I love that scene. The dad. It’s like after a few weeks, I would think that individual would want to take some stocking himself and. Yeah. Yeah, but then you got me.

00:18:13:19 – 00:18:32:07
Speaker 7
Yeah. And then he just that he tips over. He just goes under the water. Right, right, right. But, well, speaking of fathers, I know that you you said that you had lost your father at age 11, which is your father had some, maybe some significant health issues. And I guess he was trying to make up for time because he knew that he probably didn’t have a whole lot of time.

00:18:32:13 – 00:18:56:21
Speaker 7
And he wanted to give you some things, and sometimes he was a little bit impatient with you. Yeah, yeah. Like playing, throwing a ball. You write that you missed the authoritative male voice and craved others, even if they were disembodied. And those disembodied voices, of course, are the late Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, et al. Does your fathers come through in your writing, or does he visit?

00:18:56:24 – 00:18:59:13
Speaker 8
Wow.

00:18:59:15 – 00:19:14:22
Speaker 8
I think in a different era, who knows what my father would have done. I mean, he was smart. He read a lot every day. He read the paper from cover to cover, which I still don’t do. He used to try to get me to read the paper and and want me to talk to, to him about the things that were going on at the time.

00:19:15:00 – 00:19:37:18
Speaker 8
My father was retired on disability because of the health issues he mentioned. And, and there were times I think he didn’t quite know what to get into. So one day he made this mock newspaper. He typed up the the front page of a newspaper and with different stories in it. And the the thing I remember best is I they have the, the, the weather in the corner, the upper left hand corner of the newspaper or whatever.

00:19:37:20 – 00:19:53:16
Speaker 8
He wrote a chance of rain today. 10%, maybe. Yes, maybe no. Some people have remarked on the humor in my book, and I think it likely is not. That comes from my father. Sometimes when I write something, I can hear an echo of his take on things.

00:19:53:19 – 00:20:18:13
Speaker 7
The title of the book, Jazz June. Of course, it comes from the the poem by Gwendolyn Brooks, we jazz June, we die soon. And I know that you were enlisted to write a young adult biography of Gwendolyn Brooks and privilege of meeting her, and that was a it was at a bookstore, I guess, a reading. And it was an awkward situation.

00:20:18:14 – 00:20:39:27
Speaker 7
And the thing that was interesting here that I thought was really poignant, you said that you lurked late, you lurked late, which to me suggests like a late, a late bloomer, let’s say. But we both know that some of us do our best work at night. So are you are you a late bloomer.

00:20:40:03 – 00:20:40:18
Speaker 8
Definitely a.

00:20:40:18 – 00:20:41:14
Speaker 7
Late bloomer.

00:20:41:16 – 00:20:59:25
Speaker 8
Yeah. Yeah. I had not thought to, to find that meaning in the words lurked late late. So lurk late is a one of the. It’s from one of the lines of the poem we learned late. We strike straight. But that’s a good insight because when I wrote that, I was trying to describe how I was at this gathering, so she gave the reading.

00:20:59:25 – 00:21:18:03
Speaker 8
After it was over, she was greeting well-wishers and everything, and I wanted to talk to her because of the biography I was trying to rate. So I was hanging back. I wasn’t in the the throng that surrounded her right at the end of the the reading. I was just hanging back, and at a certain point she and a couple of others were like, yeah, who is this dude?

00:21:18:04 – 00:21:38:09
Speaker 8
He’s just, you know, he’s he’s not coming up to say good job or anything, but he’s definitely doing something. So when the crowd thinned out a little bit, I went forward and told her what I was working on and that’s when the awkwardness ensued. I think I was 28 at the time, I, I think I looked about 19 and and she was about 75.

00:21:38:12 – 00:21:52:00
Speaker 8
My fantasy of how this would play out was after the crowd goes away, she and I would go to a cafe or something and I would just ask her questions, and I told her what I was doing, and she said, well, how can I help? And I said, I was hoping I could buy you a cup of something.

00:21:52:02 – 00:22:13:19
Speaker 8
And she laughed so hard. I mean, she like, bent forward from the waist laughing. But on the upside, she took my information and she actually sent me books. And one of them was blacks, which was a compilation of poetry collections, and that ended up being very useful in writing that little young adult biography.

00:22:13:21 – 00:22:40:06
Speaker 7
And overarching metaphor that I get from your book is rivers, I think is really important. There’s a braided river and the main river been the braided river goes off into different directions, but also will return to the source, and that there’s also a horizontal and vertical attributes to the movement in what it bestows. Yeah, yeah. As far as seeing the world in metaphors, is that something that’s part of your your writing process?

00:22:40:08 – 00:23:01:18
Speaker 8
There’s a tendency to sort of mythologizing your own life, separated into periods. When I did this, and this is when I did that. And think about the relations among different parts of your life, I suppose you could call it metaphor, the fact that when I did this thing, it represented such and such. I suppose you could call it thinking in terms of metaphor.

00:23:01:20 – 00:23:08:12
Speaker 8
Maybe what writers do is just think of their lives in terms of being a story. And of course, the story is not finished until we are.

00:23:08:14 – 00:23:35:07
Speaker 7
This is listening to be heard. Radio for readers and writers again. Jazz June a Self-Portrait in essays by author Clifford Thompson, published by the University of Georgia Press. Cliff, thank you for being with us today. I really appreciate it. This has been a wonderful discussion. And for people that want to read more about you, learn more about your work and things, see what’s what’s happening with you.

00:23:35:08 – 00:23:37:13
Speaker 7
How can they go about doing that?

00:23:37:15 – 00:23:43:04
Speaker 8
Oh, I have a website. It’s a Clifford Thompson info, so check the Clifford Thompson info.

00:23:43:12 – 00:23:58:26
Speaker 7
Clifford Thompson, thank you once again. Jazz June a self-portrait in essays. Please pick this book up. It’s a wonderful read. You’ll read the essays over and over again as I have, and once again listen and be heard. Radio for me.

00:23:58:28 – 00:24:20:27
Speaker 5
Thank you so much, Tony Robles, for that conversation with Clifford Thompson. We’re going to go now to our listen to be heard in turn, to Maya Jones, who went to a production of A Sketch of New York at the Producers Club in New York City.

00:24:21:00 – 00:24:22:21
Speaker 9
Oh my God, with today. Hi.

00:24:22:22 – 00:24:44:22
Speaker 10
I’m Magdalene Silver. How did you get this role? For a sketch of New York? Did the Cossack just submitting to everything on actors access? It was like a database that’s pretty well known for getting jobs. And it was like, oh, okay. Like, I love sketch. Like, I love SNL. Like, this kind of would be perfect. It was submitted and a couple of weeks go by and then I get like, I would love to see you.

00:24:44:22 – 00:24:51:28
Speaker 10
And I was like, oh my God. And the additions process was super chill and and it was like, okay, you got it. And I was like, oh my God.

00:24:52:02 – 00:24:54:03
Speaker 11
What is a sketch of New York?

00:24:54:03 – 00:25:14:00
Speaker 10
I think it’s a conglomeration of being a young person in New York and kind of going through that motion of like either being from here or being a transplant and just kind of finding your way. And the machine that is the city, the quirks of it, the things that are amazing about it, the things that kind of suck about it.

00:25:14:02 – 00:25:44:01
Speaker 10
It’s like in homage to that, it’s like kind of capturing smoke in a bottle. I feel like to be heard and seen. I don’t know if I could tell you exactly what that is, but you feel it. Yeah. And I think that’s why I love being an actor so much, is you get those feelings and it’s like chasing the next high of, like, we’re all like in this, like, hive mind of, like, understanding what we’re saying and actually hearing what is going on and like taking that in, like, fully instead of just like when you’re at the other.

00:25:44:08 – 00:25:44:12
Speaker 10
Yeah.

00:25:44:14 – 00:25:51:06
Speaker 12
So because I feel like y’all did a great job with that yesterday, I felt very still very hurt about the experiences that I’m experiencing. Yeah.

00:25:51:08 – 00:25:54:08
Speaker 13
So I am a shell fry from Switzerland.

00:25:54:15 – 00:25:57:07
Speaker 14
Hi, I’m Mamie from Nebraska.

00:25:57:14 – 00:26:04:08
Speaker 12
What does it mean for you guys to listen and be heard as actors, as regular human beings? What does that mean to you?

00:26:04:10 – 00:26:32:29
Speaker 13
These days, I feel like it’s very important for me to listen. Not even to be heard, but to listen. Because you get caught up in life so fast and quick, and we’re all concerned with our own life and everything. Like it’s it’s hard to focus on other people. So I’m really trying hard right now to, to listen. And that’s, I think, to be there for, for my friends, family, people on the streets.

00:26:33:02 – 00:26:35:25
Speaker 13
Yeah. It’s like, yeah, honestly, like.

00:26:35:26 – 00:26:55:08
Speaker 14
Listening and being heard is part of like a human process of just existing with other people. And I think that’s also part of like the acting process. I’m very new to acting personally. I started like last November, frankly, for fun. And here we are. I feel like the ways in which, like my acting has improved most significantly is just by like, being genuinely curious about the world.

00:26:55:12 – 00:26:57:25
Speaker 14
Like the more curious you are, I think a better actor you are.

00:26:57:27 – 00:26:59:10
Speaker 15
My name is Summer gray.

00:26:59:13 – 00:27:00:18
Speaker 10
I’ve never tried.

00:27:00:19 – 00:27:18:22
Speaker 16
Anything like this either, but recently I’ve also been trying to do things that make me uncomfortable because that’s when you grow. I think to listen and to be heard is equivalent to what? Like, love is like. I think to listen, but also to be willing to listen is how you could define like.

00:27:18:24 – 00:27:19:12
Speaker 13
Love and.

00:27:19:12 – 00:27:36:24
Speaker 16
Real care and real companionship is to listen and to hear. You can’t have a conversation if you’re not listening. And it’s hard as humans to listen. It’s very easy to be caught up in your own, but you won’t grow, and you also will burden your relationships.

00:27:36:24 – 00:27:37:08
Speaker 14
That you really.

00:27:37:08 – 00:27:51:06
Speaker 16
Care about. I would say the main thing about being an actor is listening and hearing. Like on stage, you have to listen or you won’t hit your cue. But also if you don’t, if you’re really not listening, you won’t receive, which means you’re not telling the story.

00:27:51:08 – 00:27:52:25
Speaker 17
Morgan. Pasley.

00:27:52:26 – 00:27:54:15
Speaker 12
Morgan. How long have you been an actor?

00:27:54:19 – 00:28:06:28
Speaker 17
I have been acting since I was 15 years old, and I’m 22 now. What is a schedule? New York? It’s a bunch of sketches that laugh about the struggles of living in New York City.

00:28:07:01 – 00:28:09:14
Speaker 12
Do you think they’re accurate? Yeah they are.

00:28:09:18 – 00:28:30:12
Speaker 17
It literally happened to me today. I was on a train. That was the call time. Today was 4:00 pm and I literally was on my train Metro North, and the freaking engine stopped working or stopped doing what it needed to do. And it was a delay, almost like an hour. I got here at 450. So it’s crazy.

00:28:30:13 – 00:28:31:03
Speaker 12
That’s New York.

00:28:31:03 – 00:28:32:03
Speaker 17
For you, right?

00:28:32:10 – 00:28:35:06
Speaker 12
And what does it mean for you, Morgan, to listen and be.

00:28:35:06 – 00:28:51:24
Speaker 17
Heard, to listen and be heard as an actor, that’s kind of what acting is. You’re actively listening to your scene partner and reacting moment to moment to moment. But as a person being heard is being seen, you know? And when you’re being seen, you’re being respected and as a human being.

00:28:51:25 – 00:29:26:08
Speaker 5
So thank you, Jamie Jones, for those conversations with participants. In a sketch of New York at the Producers Club. And you’ll find the full length conversations that she had at listening to her net on our home page right now. Please stick around, listen to the sounds of the audio garden, and I’ll see you on the other side of the bridge in a minute or two.

00:29:26:10 – 00:29:33:26
Speaker 18
We the people have the power to be heard. So remember that the time to act is now. It’s time for a social transformation.

00:29:33:28 – 00:30:12:27
Speaker 1
Since the listen and be heard there we continue now with a live recording from.

00:30:13:00 – 00:30:16:22
Speaker 5
The weekend session.

00:30:16:25 – 00:30:17:28
Speaker 5
With Kristen.

00:30:17:28 – 00:30:29:04
Speaker 1
Forward, Jay Rodriguez, Sierra Dental. Sir, I see myself belong to Senator.

00:30:29:07 – 00:30:30:12
Speaker 5
Dante took his.

00:30:30:12 – 00:30:43:15
Speaker 1
First drum lesson at a place called muse in 1976, and this weekend he’s part of a production called Revisiting Muse.

00:30:43:20 – 00:30:44:15
Speaker 5
And Museum.

00:30:44:15 – 00:30:56:13
Speaker 1
For the people, which will show some great archival video from Reggie Workman of Sanders and others performing there at news.

00:30:56:14 – 00:30:57:13
Speaker 5
And you’ll find.

00:30:57:13 – 00:35:44:16
Speaker 1
More information about that at MoMA, New York city.org.

00:35:44:19 – 00:35:44:28
Speaker 1
Jimmy.

00:35:44:28 – 00:35:45:23
Speaker 12
See a facade?

00:35:46:00 – 00:35:49:08
Speaker 19
Andrew Firestone Abbott Edwards.

00:35:49:10 – 00:36:04:09
Speaker 12
What is a sketch of New York? It’s about the everyday life of New York, the things that we go through all the time. Like, literally, we’re going to leave here and see something that happened in this place like that literally happened to me last night after the show, like, so it’s like you’re going to leave here and see it.

00:36:04:12 – 00:36:28:19
Speaker 19
Listening and being heard to me is like the biggest display of, like, empathy. Like, it doesn’t really matter what someone saying or doing, whether it’s performance or not. Like something I try and implement is like radical listening. Like I don’t try and think of what my next question is or where the conversation is going through. Just hearing someone out there.

00:36:28:22 – 00:36:47:02
Speaker 19
It is whether you agree with them or not. And then, you know, trying to be a active participant in whatever conversation you have. I think when we, you know, when it’s a two way street, that’s sort of where the empathy part.

00:36:47:04 – 00:37:13:21
Speaker 12
I agree with that is because I think, like as a teacher teaching kids, I think that’s one of the most important aspects. The first thing they’ll say is like, nobody’s listening to me, right? Like, so for them to once you listen to them, if you actually hear the mountain, you have this conversation. It’s like, wow. Like, I do feel like I’m being heard and it will like, take me miles with that student and understanding them and them understanding you as well and being able to explore like a whole new, different kind of like relationship with that student.

00:37:13:24 – 00:37:31:22
Speaker 12
So I think that like that’s extremely important. And in any aspect, right, with your partner, with your parents, your siblings, your friends, it’s really important. And it means a lot to me when I feel like someone’s listening to me. Even if you don’t need to have a reaction, you need to have to have a comment. But you just listen to what I’m saying and just I feel heard and I feel seen.

00:37:31:25 – 00:37:33:23
Speaker 12
So it’s important I.

00:37:33:26 – 00:37:56:19
Speaker 19
We just as a human. Of course. Yeah. I mean I personally say a lot of stupid stuff all the time jokes. So the fact that people are actually paying to come see, you know, me not speaking my own thoughts, but but things that other people can relate to from New York City, it’s, you know, it’s nice. Afterwards, the show, they come up and say how great it was and it’s like, wow, I’m really with a good group of men somberly here.

00:37:56:19 – 00:39:43:02
Speaker 19
And these people, like actors are listening to me, but also the audience. So it’s like two double things there. And it’s and I also the creators are the general. And so, it’s just yeah, it’s just really it’s just the human experiences to try and be listened to. So the fact that people are obviously very.

00:39:43:04 – 00:40:10:06
Speaker 1
Are nice. Sure. Rodriguez Syria taken us around the world from the truth. And I’m excited to say I have a book coming out, market A Clean fish and where you say 127, you can get a free copy by supporting sound system culture in.

00:40:10:07 – 00:40:13:14
Speaker 6
Benjamin.

00:40:13:16 – 00:40:28:00
Speaker 1
Sound System Culture is the sponsor of Listening and Be Heard Network. Here’s a little samples of that story.

00:40:28:03 – 00:40:37:06
Speaker 1
To find two blue marbles. She was creating a special queen fish for cooking the King’s chef.

00:40:37:08 – 00:40:39:13
Speaker 5
She normally. Sold her painted.

00:40:39:13 – 00:40:45:16
Speaker 1
Plaster molds and cook them. Souvenir store next to Ronaldo’s restaurant.

00:40:45:19 – 00:40:47:10
Speaker 5
Which was cook s restaurant.

00:40:47:12 – 00:40:49:01
Speaker 1
On the boardwalk.

00:40:49:03 – 00:41:20:12
Speaker 5
But today he wanted a unique queen fish display on the King’s table for the annual Queen Fish Festival. Mark was looking for Amber, who his mother had said would have blue marbles. She needed them for the queen fish’s eyes, and possible was coming to pick up the statue for Cookham. Flora’s never went to Queens because there was nothing there that they would want from the elderly.

00:41:20:12 – 00:41:53:14
Speaker 5
Martin’s making cheap toys from driftwood and necklaces from recycled fish line and seashells. There was an early morning chill. Ma and fishermen were on the shoreline preparing their nets and launching their rowboats. A few lingered. By the smoldering coals, where elderly vendors to frail to go out in the boats or work in the vacation homes of forecasters were waking up and rolling up their bedding.

00:41:53:16 – 00:42:21:12
Speaker 5
The tooth woman held up a rock painted to look like a seahorse, offering it to Mark. Good morning, he said, stepping up to where she was sitting. I only have enough money to buy two blue marbles. She winked at him. Take it. Anyway, it’s almost time, she said and leaned slowly back into her beach chair made from driftwood.

00:42:21:14 – 00:42:55:03
Speaker 5
I’m for what? Asked Mark. The queen fish will come, she said with conviction. Come on, that’s just an old fish tail. He answered jokingly. He admired the likeness of the seahorse and thanked her, putting it in his one pocket that didn’t have holes. Mark found Amber sitting atop the crumbling seawall. The stones were arranged in a mosaic that looked like swaying seaweed.

00:42:55:06 – 00:43:25:12
Speaker 5
They had been rubbed smooth by the weather and generations of Marin’s perching there to look out to see. Amber was talking to an elderly man who picked up a big grass basket with a grunt. It was full of shimmering wind, fish collars made to button around the neck and draped over the children. Each one looked like layers of silver scales with shiny tips.

00:43:25:14 – 00:43:33:10
Speaker 5
You can deliver these to the souvenir store, then take the money and buy some breakfast for everyone.

00:43:33:12 – 00:44:12:06
Speaker 20
To mark in the Queen fish can find out more at Mark with the Q and the Queen fish.com. And if you subscribe to Sound System Culture, which sponsors listen to net, we’ll send you a free copy of it. When he comes out to the second set. More information about all that, that sound system, culture world or listening to be heard.

00:44:12:08 – 00:44:16:18
Speaker 20
This is Preston Forward.

00:44:16:20 – 00:44:48:18
Speaker 20
For ever, and we’ll be making some appearances in the upcoming months. October 17th. And I’ve been in Brooklyn, and I think we have some things as well, which are about in another episode.

00:44:48:20 – 00:45:25:27
Speaker 20
On the West Coast. Oh, there’s a few things happening as well. The 46th Annual Northern California Book Awards honor Amy Tam and Northern California authors on September 9th, 2 p.m. at the San Francisco Main Library. Free for everybody and a reception follows. And coming up to October on Indigenous Peoples Day.

00:45:26:00 – 00:45:29:25
Speaker 20
October 10th.

00:45:29:27 – 00:45:53:27
Speaker 20
34th Annual Berkeley Indigenous Peoples Day Powwow and Indian Market, 534 years of resistance and renewal. And that’s the earthly at the Civic Center.

00:45:54:00 – 00:45:59:03
Speaker 20
We’ll talk more about that before it happens as well.

00:45:59:06 – 00:46:08:10
Speaker 6
Later ways.

00:46:08:13 – 00:46:33:29
Speaker 6
Your words to bias to the truth keeper in the the right to survive.

00:46:34:01 – 00:48:36:10
Speaker 6
No one wants so bad, but she knows that by the state, the blade that cuts the bucks. That all this shows the condition of being alive and mercy in this city of bitch and in.

00:48:36:12 – 00:48:42:06
Speaker 20
The time goes by so quickly here in the early.

00:48:42:09 – 00:49:01:15
Speaker 20
I want to thank all of our guests, Clifford Thompson, all of the actors and actresses, and Sketch of New York at the Producers close, Makoto Stone and Roxanne.

00:49:01:17 – 00:49:08:17
Speaker 20
Our very special listen to be heard in terms of Marvel Jones.

00:49:08:19 – 00:49:12:29
Speaker 20
And of course, my fellow music and.

00:49:12:29 – 00:49:15:01
Speaker 6
Poetry makers.

00:49:15:04 – 00:49:52:28
Speaker 20
And I mean, this past weekend.

00:49:53:01 – 00:49:55:27
Speaker 6
On an old telephone.

00:49:56:00 – 00:49:56:05
Speaker 20
A.

00:49:56:06 – 00:49:57:02
Speaker 6
Herder with.

00:49:57:02 – 00:49:58:25
Speaker 20
Sneakers. Not worth what.

00:49:58:25 – 00:50:31:04
Speaker 21
They cost, the sucker who left the store with them. What a boy. The core of consumption. The presumption that every exchange is a transaction with the beginning and and an ending thing. Do the thank you as who is left standing? Who is the fool with uncool felons. Unversed in adulthood, in the dark, in the ballpark a crow knows the grass isn’t real.

00:50:31:07 – 00:50:34:07
Speaker 21
It doesn’t feel right. Call,

00:50:34:09 – 00:51:17:13
Speaker 6
Call the academic courses in the tower asking for more scraps, nothing more for. The core of the ending has been given. The day to end, beginning to bend back to the fend for self-regulation, to be patient with impatience. In great with faith we.

00:51:17:15 – 00:51:24:16
Speaker 22
Bearings are so.

00:51:24:18 – 00:51:35:05
Speaker 20
Back next week with another very special bouquet from the audio garden.

00:51:35:07 – 00:51:55:25
Speaker 20
Because that’s what we do here. Every week the weather changes, the sun shines in, the wind blows. But what do you know? Here we come around to Canada to listen and to be heard.

00:51:55:28 – 00:52:02:21
Speaker 20
We could use your support. A little fertilizer for the Garden.

00:52:02:23 – 00:52:03:29
Speaker 6
Of Sunlight.

00:52:04:06 – 00:52:09:00
Speaker 20
Please consider it.

00:52:09:03 – 00:52:32:00
Speaker 6
Look up from your stomach.

00:52:32:03 – 00:53:09:04
Speaker 6
And it’s what you have to work with. So be bright. Be thankful for the sun rises and sets to. And there is still more to do and learn. It doesn’t have to be a burden or injury. You’ve not depleted. The sun rises again and earth turns, spins. We are expanding all together, they say, while we run around at war with each other, Earth.

00:53:09:11 – 00:53:35:12
Speaker 6
It’s the first sun. So it’s one that now exist in the universe in motion. I put lotion on the skin I in and smile to think maybe you could.

00:53:35:15 – 00:55:58:09
Speaker 6
Earth’s crust is hard on the table.

00:55:58:12 – 00:56:36:26
Speaker 23
Thanks as always to Davin dial at WP Radio in Asheville, North Carolina for introducing listen to be heard to the broadcast airwaves. Casey E in Taos, New Mexico k e in San Antonio, Texas. K I in Ames, Iowa. And in Red bluff, California and other stations that are part of the Pacific Affiliate Network for cultivating the audio garden in your communities and our own listening be heard network host of wlv.org.

00:56:36:28 – 00:57:00:13
Speaker 23
Please visit us at listen and.net and sign up for our email newsletter and at our Listen and Be Heard YouTube channel, where you will find unedited video interviews of our featured guests. My name is Martha Senator, and I want to thank you for listening and giving me the opportunity to be heard.

CREDITS– CO-HOSTS & PRODUCERS: Martha Cinader, Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra, Tony Robles, Jemyah Jones. FEATURED GUESTS: Clifford Thompson, Cast of A Sketch of New York at the Producers Club. MUSIC: Jay Rodriguez Sierra, Preston Fulwood, Genji Siraisi, Ehab Omar, Martha Cinader. SOUNDTRACK, MIXING, MASTERING, SOUND DESIGN: Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. Executive Producer, Martha Cinader.

Do you want to be heard in the garden? Please consider contributing your audio content. We grow together when we nurture our network. Click here for more information.

D.D. Jackson joins Martha Cinader and Jay Rodriguez Sierra to talk mentorship, creative pivots, and launching Open Minded Visions. Features live audio of La’FroJaz in East Harlem.

00:00:13:10 – 00:00:18:28
Speaker 1
You are.

00:00:19:01 – 00:00:27:19
Speaker 2
Missing. As the sound enters my inner ear and vibrates through my inner plane, my biosphere.

00:00:27:21 – 00:00:32:14
Speaker 3
Part of me learning to be a better listener of others is learning to listen to myself.

00:00:32:14 – 00:00:42:21
Speaker 4
When we are listen to, truly listen to you know you can feel when someone’s deeply listening and we feel heard, we are healed in that moment.

00:00:42:24 – 00:00:50:08
Speaker 2
Listen and be heard. Even if your voice shakes without knowing it, you may be saving a stranger.

00:00:50:14 – 00:01:00:14
Speaker 5
Fine your own voice. Express yourself originally and with an open mind. Listen and be heard.

00:01:00:16 – 00:01:35:15
Speaker 2
Welcome to the Audio Garden where we cultivate our collective wisdom, nurture creativity, and spread love. My name is Martha, Senator, and this is. Listen and be heard. Welcome back to the Audio Garden, my friends. It is so good to be here with you once again. I really treasure each moment here in the audio garden and that I’m able to share it with all of you.

00:01:35:22 – 00:02:05:25
Speaker 2
And today we’re featuring Didi Jackson, another member of the Greenhouse Creators Consortium, which altogether is presenting a festival on September 19th, which is a busy day. It’s also the day of the Northern California Book Awards, which I will tell you a bit more about a bit later. But before we get to any of that, this live from LA from jazz.

00:02:05:27 – 00:02:23:01
Speaker 6
So this poem is called Puerta Rico sun de las dos Adas. Yes. And if you don’t know what that means, you will know what that means. In this poem.

00:02:23:03 – 00:02:34:28
Speaker 6
Who are you? Puerto Rico? Some de pajaro fangirl want to restart this.

00:02:35:00 – 00:02:49:03
Speaker 6
Car. I heard the songs. Boom! Don’t do this now from the top. And I give our artists creative license because we’re all co-creating you.

00:02:49:06 – 00:02:52:04
Speaker 6
Cuba.

00:02:52:07 – 00:03:43:20
Speaker 6
Song de las dos. Alas, Cuba and Puerto Rico are two ways of one bird. It’s like a cylinder Jamaica and it’s bust the pillaged and parcel. Espindola ID Republican Americana Republic and Haiti a border pride to be free from a smart fence designed and technologies by the Israelis. I of all colors and shades scream and grind your unison.

00:03:43:27 – 00:03:59:00
Speaker 6
When will the Antilles be free? Yes, Miss East, us and man us. Some dollar solar in Corazon.

00:03:59:02 – 00:04:29:25
Speaker 2
Thanks to Jamaica Jones are listen and be heard in turn who has been covering all things Harlem Harlem, New York. And why is she doing that? Because listen and be heard. Network is based in Harlem, New York. It is. Our new home has been for pretty much a year now, and we’re very happy to be part of the Harlem community and intend to celebrate the fact.

00:04:29:27 – 00:04:58:15
Speaker 2
So that was an event that she that she recorded that live and an event presented by Laphroaig Jazz. And we’ll be hearing more about that later in the program. But now here at the garden gate is Didi Jackson, another member of the Greenhouse Creators Consortium, of which Soundsystem Culture is also a member.

00:04:58:18 – 00:05:18:03
Speaker 2
I’m Martha, joined here today by Jay Rodriguez, Ciara and Diddy Jackson, who is a musician, composer and new not for profit owner. Well, you can’t even say owner when it comes.

00:05:18:08 – 00:05:20:22
Speaker 7
To definitely not a no right?

00:05:20:25 – 00:05:42:08
Speaker 2
But something that we share in common. And part of the Greenhouse Creators Consortium, of which sound system culture is also and Sound system Culture is a sponsor of listen and be heard. So what is the name of your new not for profit organization?

00:05:42:10 – 00:06:03:27
Speaker 8
It’s called Open Minded Visions, or OMB for short. For those interested, they can go to my website which is just open minded visions. All one word dot. The language of what it’s about is pretty open and broad by design. Right now. It’s sort of like a vessel waiting to be filled with different things, and I have a lot of ideas, but it’s in its infancy for sure.

00:06:03:27 – 00:06:35:26
Speaker 8
So the language is quite open. But more specifically, it’s a means to get out there and hopefully help other people get out there. As a performer, as a composer, as an educator, my wife is a writer. She writes for different journals, including Edible Juries and Shoot, and also a former radio producer for WNYC several years ago. He has a website called s w generation com, which talks about sort of being sandwiched in the sandwich generation between taking care of kids and taking care of, in her case, a mother who has dementia.

00:06:35:27 – 00:06:53:12
Speaker 8
So, you know, she writes a lot about that sort of stuff. So that’ll be kind of under the umbrella as well. And I’m also starting a new label called Canadian Sky records. I’m originally from Canada. I’m planning to go into the studio, and by the studio I mean my house, where I have a sound created area with a Steinway piano that they.

00:06:53:14 – 00:06:54:28
Speaker 7
Would do it. Yeah, man.

00:06:54:28 – 00:07:03:19
Speaker 8
And I’ve already been doing some recordings for various things and looking forward to bringing a trio into the studio. It gets early September to record.

00:07:03:19 – 00:07:04:28
Speaker 7
Along the which you stated.

00:07:05:00 – 00:07:08:10
Speaker 8
But I just presented that the Blues Alley last week as.

00:07:08:13 – 00:07:10:04
Speaker 7
I saw you were too.

00:07:10:07 – 00:07:26:05
Speaker 2
It’s Not for profit was offered to you by contemporary arts. Andrew Jury. Was this a synergistic thing? Was it a good time? Has it opened your mind in some way to how you approach being a musician?

00:07:26:06 – 00:07:46:14
Speaker 8
I played a house concert at The Soup and Sound in one of the many things that that organization that sponsored these six not for profits does. You know where you and I’m sure you guys have done it before, right? You know, you have. I just assumed because he just had somebody wonderfully creative people such as yourself J.

00:07:46:15 – 00:07:52:06
Speaker 7
I’m not one of them. I’m too great if we’re not going to rightly be included. No.

00:07:52:06 – 00:08:10:06
Speaker 8
But I was playing there with the group, which I played for many years. But then his wife and mother, a member of the greenhouse construction with their own opera prophet, and I was just so blown away by just the community spirit of what he was doing, you know, in his own living room. And I immediately had a fantasy of doing the same thing in in my house.

00:08:10:07 – 00:08:17:10
Speaker 8
Ironically, I it motivated me, actually, to get this 1982 Steinway B, which I’ve been rebuilding, and it’s in really good shape.

00:08:17:12 – 00:08:19:09
Speaker 7
Now, but it didn’t.

00:08:19:09 – 00:08:37:22
Speaker 8
Really work well in the living room. So where I was planning to do the house, and so I ended up moving it into this other room and sound, treating it, you know, like a true recording studio. And so my mission, despite being originally inspired by the house concert concept, has now pivoted to more recordings and things like that, which is certainly another thing I’ve done a lot of over the years.

00:08:37:22 – 00:08:58:08
Speaker 8
So. But yeah, the the initial inspiration though did get that definitely come from, from specifically continuing culture and arts and Andrew specifically, and also Marty Kahn, you know, a long standing by Sarah, but who’s encouraging, of course, with his business, Outward Visions, which is itself another not for profit other musicians to form, not for profits. He makes a very good case.

00:08:58:08 – 00:09:00:08
Speaker 8
And he won me over as well.

00:09:00:10 – 00:09:25:25
Speaker 7
Yes, absolutely. Well that’s fantastic man. I mean, I this is Geraldine is for listening to be heard. And I’m here with Jackson and Martha, Senator. And we’re just catching up and learning about each other. Yeah. Old experiences and new experiences as we undertake being part of a consortium led by Andrew Drury. And so this is what we’re here.

00:09:25:25 – 00:09:56:03
Speaker 7
We’re all musicians and artists and I mean everybody, you know, and educators. I know that you started piano at six, and your paths were between Ottawa and Indiana University’s classical aspect. And then we went to the music program at School of Music. We just really hit that. I think it reminds me of the way that I still think about music and understand all of how how music is a language and how we just keep on exploring.

00:09:56:07 – 00:10:02:27
Speaker 7
I mean, from I think we first met, I think of understand we were at the Village Vanguard. We’re playing with David Murray.

00:10:02:28 – 00:10:03:10
Speaker 8
That’s right.

00:10:03:12 – 00:10:04:08
Speaker 7
Yeah. Right.

00:10:04:10 – 00:10:08:12
Speaker 8
Yeah. I played with him years ago, and then we came back and played again in 2017 or 18 and.

00:10:08:13 – 00:10:31:15
Speaker 7
Yeah. And I met you there and I it was really great. So it opened up a whole lot of my mind again, because playing with Craig and everything, and I was like, wow, this is so cool. And I really started really absorbing all of these things because it’s really great for me as a musician to kind of understand all of or to hear and experience that with, you know, what pulled you from classical.

00:10:31:21 – 00:10:50:02
Speaker 7
Yeah, towards Improvization, which is a kind of a silly question because people don’t realize that when we’re improvising. He was working on a book, and all of the competitions are coming from things, from my mind. So I’m improvising and writing down things that I’m as a composer. So it’s similar. How did your parents or their your teachers, right.

00:10:50:03 – 00:10:55:09
Speaker 7
So how do they react when you started going from classical to improvise?

00:10:55:12 – 00:11:07:09
Speaker 8
I’ve often used this term which has fallen out of favor, which is I’ve been I was groomed to be a classical piano player. Let’s be honest, growing up, because I showed the ability or whatever when I was young and when I was 12.

00:11:07:10 – 00:11:08:12
Speaker 7
And six.

00:11:08:14 – 00:11:31:02
Speaker 8
And, you know, and then my teacher that I was studying with in Ottawa, whose name was Dean of Namur, her teacher was Moroccan Pressler, who was this big shot in Vienna. So I was sort of an easy in to to go to Indiana, but I was almost entirely the whole time utterly miserable doing classical piano. My brother also passed away when I was only 19 years old, when I was back in year of university from this rare genetic disease called Wilson’s disease.

00:11:31:03 – 00:11:54:12
Speaker 8
And and that was quite life changing. Needless to say, in that in my case, in that it made me realize, well, why am I? Why am I doing the thing that I don’t really want to do, you know? But even then, it took me another year to get the nerve to request to leave their studio, which is something, you know, I mean, I literally had gotten to the point where I was sort of bombs traumatized, like I couldn’t play with my right hand and I was just very stressed out.

00:11:54:18 – 00:12:12:18
Speaker 8
You know, the combination of his own kind of negative reinforcement technique, as I would call it, you know, when we were one on one in masterclasses, he was very positive and, you know, star. But then in private lessons he could be really negative. And it was just skating to me. Plus of course, what about my brother? So I finally left.

00:12:12:18 – 00:12:38:00
Speaker 8
Finished the degree though in classical piano. But then I just started to gravitate more towards jazz. David Baker, you know, was at Indiana as well. So he was one of the first to kind of encourage me. And I actually got accepted to be a classical pianist for the master’s degree in Manhattan School of Music. And then I, but I really wanted to do jazz, so I applied on a whim, got accepted there too, and I had to decide and agree grant money that I’d also already got in and got it for jazz and my whole life just kind of kind of changed from there.

00:12:38:00 – 00:13:11:09
Speaker 8
But as far as my parents, so they really didn’t know what to make of it, to be honest, they were always generally supportive. And we had, you know, conflict over the years because in those earlier years of transition, because they really didn’t understand. But what changed their mind was a tremendous coincidence, which is that I had just been visiting and now, of course, ex-girlfriend, but at the time, a girlfriend on the West coast where Don Poland was playing at Yoshi’s, and he was doing this masterclass, and I had coincidentally been listening to his music in the Lincoln Center Library because people had said that I sounded like him or whatever, and I had his synergy

00:13:11:09 – 00:13:30:28
Speaker 8
with him. And so I was one of the only people to volunteer to play for him during the masterclass. And he got really seemingly interested in me. And when he found out that I also lived in the New York area, he invited me to study with him. And and then so that was already an incredibly fortuitous circumstance and life changing again for my projects where I ended up going, you know.

00:13:31:00 – 00:13:48:09
Speaker 8
But in addition, he was scheduled to play at the Ottawa Jazz Festival right after I first met him. I think it was. And so he went to Ottawa. My parents saw him play. He came out and did the solo concert with, like, bells on his ankles and all of his craziness. And instantly my parents understood. You know what I was trying to do?

00:13:48:09 – 00:13:55:08
Speaker 7
I know you studied with Don Pulling and Jacket Bayard yeah, but I also had the honor of studying with I said it with Jackie as well.

00:13:55:09 – 00:13:57:21
Speaker 8
Oh, wow. I didn’t know that. Did you study? Yeah.

00:13:57:26 – 00:13:58:16
Speaker 7
Yeah.

00:13:58:19 – 00:14:00:21
Speaker 8
Okay. Because he did do. Of course. Yeah.

00:14:00:25 – 00:14:17:04
Speaker 7
Oh, no, I you know, I said he was a lot of piano players growing up. Yeah. But Jackie Byard yeah I know you studied with both of them. They’re both Mingus cats. That’s right. Yeah. What’s specific lesson or moment with each that still shows up in how you play and teach today?

00:14:17:09 – 00:14:31:18
Speaker 8
Sure. Well with Jackie, it was it was really his open mindedness that struck me like one of the first things that happened when I first got there was he asked me to sit in with him when he was playing at the Birdland on the Upper West Side at the time, and he insisted that I play the Scriabin at that.

00:14:31:18 – 00:14:50:08
Speaker 8
I was like one of the last classical, very virtuosic pieces that I had learned. And, you know, then he also performed in the same concert with saxophone in one hand and piano and the other, and he just had this crazy, encyclopedic, open minded thing. And he would also talk in his teachings about, you know, hanging out with Cecil and his concept and the neural high end studying with him.

00:14:50:08 – 00:15:04:14
Speaker 8
And, you know, just a tremendous walking encyclopedia of music. And it was just like a tremendous crash course in the whole literally there for the whole history of just played back and forth through trade for trade eights on standards. And it was just like this direct transference of knowledge. I’m Tony.

00:15:04:14 – 00:15:05:04
Speaker 7
Robles.

00:15:05:06 – 00:15:10:08
Speaker 9
Co-host of Listen and Be Heard. This is listen and be heard. Radio.

00:15:10:10 – 00:15:25:06
Speaker 2
Thank you Tony. We’ll be hearing more from Tony Robles. If you’ve been missing him in future episodes of the. Listen and be heard. Our we continue now with Didi Jackson.

00:15:25:08 – 00:15:44:16
Speaker 8
And then Don Pullen. You know, his thing was to really give me confidence to get out there as a leader. In fact, I ended up writing a whole series of downbeat columns called Living Jazz for about. I think it was about six years or so every other month, and I called it Living Jazz because it was just, you know, living the life of a jazz musician and then also jazz as a living, breathing art form.

00:15:44:16 – 00:15:59:24
Speaker 8
And and the very first column I wrote was about a lesson and early lesson I had with Don, where I told him I had this mental block about composing, and I was worried about like, what if I wrote something that sounded like something somebody else had already written? And he was like, it’s just a bunch of basically.

00:15:59:24 – 00:16:00:15
Speaker 7
It’s a name for that.

00:16:00:15 – 00:16:18:04
Speaker 8
Yeah. Got it. Just write it anyway. People will let you know if it sounds like something at the appropriate time. Don’t worry about it until then. And he just gave me like this way of thinking about composition that was so inspiring that I literally went home and I wrote, like many, many tunes, many of which ended up on my first two CDs of I got signed to my first record.

00:16:18:06 – 00:16:40:22
Speaker 7
Yeah. You touched upon a lot of different aspects of mental understanding, the journey of yourself as a musician and an artist. At that given moment. You actually help pull and finish his Earth Eagle and first circle after he became ill because he was ill and later stepped into his spot for his final Lincoln Center project. I think a lot of people don’t know all these things with his chief.

00:16:40:26 – 00:16:42:08
Speaker 8
Cliff singers.

00:16:42:09 – 00:16:44:00
Speaker 7
Yeah, and Garth Fagan’s dance.

00:16:44:01 – 00:16:45:12
Speaker 8
Native American singing and drumming.

00:16:45:13 – 00:16:50:27
Speaker 7
Right. I remember that he was into this. Yeah. And I used to love him in Georgia and was like, I just did as a player.

00:16:51:02 – 00:17:05:00
Speaker 8
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it was life changing. But to clarify, I don’t think I would characterize it as finishing the work other than I allow, you know, is able to perform the work. And of course, when you’re forming, you’re doing things in the moment that are your contribution. But it was Don’s work, for sure. In fact, he.

00:17:05:00 – 00:17:06:22
Speaker 7
Even really understood it very well. Yeah, yeah.

00:17:06:22 – 00:17:22:21
Speaker 8
He had recorded an album called Sacred Common Ground that was already ready to come out. Or maybe it already come up and I forget, and this was just sort of like a tour live version of that material. But he was unable to do it because he was, you know, essentially dying at the time he died. When I was in Helena performing, it was very, very sadly this, you know.

00:17:22:22 – 00:17:24:13
Speaker 7
Wow, man.

00:17:24:15 – 00:17:48:12
Speaker 8
But yeah. So that was that was very bittersweet moment in my life. He died, I think, in March of 20, 1995. My mother died in July of 1995. So that was that was like a and ordered my next CD like in January of 2000. Or in of 1996. So it was a very emotional roller coaster, you know, ear in general.

00:17:48:14 – 00:18:13:06
Speaker 8
But yeah, Don, just speaking specifically about that project and then also more broadly, I mean, he he basically gave me confidence. He introduced me to so many players like David Murray. I started a group shortly after that called Blue Jackson Shawn. We did a couple of CDs and then later Blue Jackson Carlos bar, Blue Jackson to the bar, you know, in part because of I could actually with more charm who was in the African Brazilian connection, you know.

00:18:13:08 – 00:18:25:20
Speaker 8
And I worked with, you know, kind of fluid for years. Just a lot of people that were directly or indirectly connected to Don. So. So he was, I would say, quite critical in giving me confidence and then also kind of getting connected.

00:18:25:21 – 00:18:28:21
Speaker 10
All right. So who am I here with today?

00:18:28:24 – 00:18:30:08
Speaker 7
I don’t over here.

00:18:30:10 – 00:18:42:28
Speaker 10
Nice to meet you. I just wanted to ask you a few questions for listening to me. Her network. So my first question I have for you today is what made you create life for jazz? So how you say, how do you pronounce it?

00:18:43:00 – 00:19:09:00
Speaker 11
Latin jazz for jazz. Well, I come from a background of when? Before the boom boxes and before, you know, like all this electronic stuff. I come back around where people used to sing in the in the hallways. They used to sing a cappella. They used to sing in the. They call them Cajuns. In Puerto Rico, where there was no electric music.

00:19:09:00 – 00:19:37:09
Speaker 11
Everybody’s come out and sing. That was the music. And then coming to America, we used to do that too. We used to get together. The jam sessions were in the park and everybody played, and then eventually it went down with the now people had the boomboxes. They didn’t play anymore. They just listened. And now the music for the last couple of years, I remember, is that we don’t participate.

00:19:37:09 – 00:20:00:18
Speaker 11
We listen. So I said, no, I think that the heart of the people still is, and that they want to participate in this thing, because if was only left to the professionals, nobody would play. So the whole concept of Laphroaig is since 1996 is that we are now going to have a band. The band is going to be the people.

00:20:00:19 – 00:20:28:14
Speaker 11
So when we form the John Sessions, it’s like interactive, interactive. Whoever wants to participate, that’s a that’s a common see that are put instruments out there. And I and I welcome people to come. This is a happening. This is not a band. So that’s my inspiration for that Florida that I come from a time that music was for everybody.

00:20:28:16 – 00:20:43:16
Speaker 10
Exactly. That’s great. I was just talking to Natalia, telling me that it wasn’t a band and that everyone can’t together today. And I was like, wow. Because everything was so great. It just blows my mind. So what do you think that this space creates for the community?

00:20:43:19 – 00:20:44:06
Speaker 8
Well.

00:20:44:07 – 00:21:13:02
Speaker 11
The people that I know that have come through the years, and if you see you ever come to really do an interview with previous or or or reels, video reels of 9690s, you know, there are always a lot of people actually having to say, this is really so what is it therapeutic? You know, it’s just the whole thing about being able to play and all that is for the mental serenity.

00:21:13:02 – 00:21:44:18
Speaker 11
So that’s what I get from people. That is, it deals with, you know, or healing. Yeah, that’s what I get from them. And I said, yeah, because we are humans. And one of the things that we do spiritually is we listen to tones the music and we participate. The chanting is in use. People, the people before the electronic stuff that I never meant to name the people made money on.

00:21:44:20 – 00:21:56:22
Speaker 11
No, the Indians chant Africans, champ! Even everybody chants and everybody Joyce in the chant, and everybody. So this is what we do. We’re bringing back the everybody chance and.

00:21:56:24 – 00:22:05:12
Speaker 10
Replaying your goal, Jack. All right, so my last question for you is what does it mean to you to listen and be heard?

00:22:05:14 – 00:22:08:08
Speaker 11
For me to listen to people.

00:22:08:10 – 00:22:11:18
Speaker 10
For you to listen and for you to be heard. Well.

00:22:11:25 – 00:22:39:05
Speaker 11
I don’t know nothing. I been a teacher for over 40 years, and so I’ve taught all kinds, of all kinds of other degrees. I’m a doctor and we have my my master’s is in multicultural education. That’s my master. So I really know about diversity and tolerance. So I don’t know nothing when I tell my students I don’t know nothing, I know just as much as you.

00:22:39:06 – 00:23:07:18
Speaker 11
It’s just that you don’t know that you know just as much as me. I’m here as a teacher to get that thing and you to tell, you know, you know, as much as Einstein. You know as much as everybody that thinks that they know more. Why? Because we’re human and we understand our collectivity. We understand our universe. So our teachers, just to let you know that it’s about the wisdom in you.

00:23:07:20 – 00:23:08:20
Speaker 10
Listen to yourself.

00:23:08:21 – 00:23:34:19
Speaker 11
Yeah. To yourself. So when I told, I told. And I always try to to feel like I’m just getting something out of people and that’s saying they told you the same thing. So to answer you what I hear I love and then I try to to make it more what they call that. Or when you inspired enlighten me.

00:23:34:21 – 00:23:36:09
Speaker 11
Yes. And that’s it.

00:23:36:12 – 00:23:51:03
Speaker 12
Simple as that. We still get what I call it. See some of these stories from being on the on going to ask that question. Okay. Right.

00:23:51:04 – 00:23:57:25
Speaker 13
It’s so nice to meet you. My name is Christian Andres Aponte. Christian Andres Aponte. What a blessing to be here with you.

00:23:57:26 – 00:24:07:24
Speaker 10
I know it’s so great. Me your aura is really good. So I was like you said, your top ten tonight. Oh, you’re so sweet. Thank you. So you shared a poem tonight?

00:24:07:26 – 00:24:17:29
Speaker 13
Yes, I Puerto Rico, you know, it’s a poem about the bonds, the ever, ever bonds that Puerto Rican Cuba have together.

00:24:18:00 – 00:24:20:20
Speaker 10
So what made you fear tonight?

00:24:20:22 – 00:24:45:07
Speaker 13
You know, are people are suffering across the globe, but there are some who are suffering under the foot of oppression more than others. And we know their names. The Palestinian with Congolese, right, the Sudanese and the Cuban people as well. And so many Puerto Ricans love to wave the little flag, but they forget that their flagship is a shared history with the flag of Goa.

00:24:45:08 – 00:25:19:18
Speaker 13
And so we cannot raise that flag righteously with, with, without remembering our siblings in Cuba. And so now more than ever, we have to use every tool. We have to fight back against the national rhetoric and the national agenda that is anti-coup. It’s anti-black, it’s anti liberation, it’s anti community. And I think it’s so important that we use every force possible to fight against that narrative and to educate and to share and to love more and more than anything.

00:25:19:18 – 00:25:43:06
Speaker 13
And that poem is not just about Puerto Rico, but it’s about most of the Greater Antilles. Right? We always forget about Turks and Caicos, and we forget about the Virgin Islands. We forget about Jamaica, about that they are also part of this Greater Antilles, and that there were these dreams that these elders had, right, of sharing a nation, a confederation, a united front for islands to do what they’ve always done.

00:25:43:06 – 00:26:07:27
Speaker 13
Indigenous peoples have always traded with the island next door. Right. And so when we talk about the Antillean Confederation in this united idea of a sovereign political economic bloc, not blockade, but union of the Greater Antilles was talking about what we used to do for thousands of years prior to colonization, which is trade freely with our own islands, you know, so it’s all.

00:26:07:27 – 00:26:53:22
Speaker 14
About there is a God. And she is you, mother, mother of God and mother of the order, mother rising and son and daughter. Now everyone alive with child that is water, who channeled through liquid space of time into this lake of jagged starling alone. Every one of woman whose mystery is spirit and penetrates like hazily the threshold of this earth for Koon with the gift of birth.

00:26:53:24 – 00:27:30:03
Speaker 2
Thank you to Jamaica Jones once again, our intern here at listening to her network who went to this live event, Laphroaig Jazz in Harlem. And there was actually more to both those conversations that she had with the founder and the poet educator. And we’re working on getting the name of the poet who was just reading a bit from the sheet of God, and you’ll find all of that extra audio and some beautiful pictures as well at listen and be heard.

00:27:30:10 – 00:27:45:21
Speaker 2
Net where Jamaica is also reporting online, you’ll find all of that at listen and be heard. Yet coming up more from TD Jackson.

00:27:45:24 – 00:28:01:00
Speaker 15
That’s the world. That’s America. That’s our country. And and it’s still our country. And I believe in all of us who really care about the fact that we are together in all of this and this world and the globe.

00:28:01:04 – 00:28:07:15
Speaker 16
We the people have the power to be heard. So remember that the time to act is now. It’s time for a social transformation.

00:28:07:20 – 00:28:08:22
Speaker 10
Be heard.

00:28:08:25 – 00:28:15:27
Speaker 17
Even if your voice shakes without knowing it, you may be saving a stranger.

00:28:16:00 – 00:28:50:12
Speaker 9
Listen and be heard is radio program that’s part of the Pacifica Radio Network. We focus on writers of all genres poetry, children’s memoir, fiction, creative nonfiction and now we’re taking on a lot of other elements addressing concerns of indigenous communities music. And it just just runs the gamut of everything that nourishes the soul. In fact, I’ve been involved as one of the hosts, the co-host have some interviews coming up fairly soon in the next couple of weeks, so it’s something that I really enjoy.

00:28:50:13 – 00:28:52:08
Speaker 9
I just got a whole lot of pleasure.

00:28:52:08 – 00:28:52:27
Speaker 7
And.

00:28:53:01 – 00:29:00:07
Speaker 9
It’s something that very passionate about, and I’m glad that it’s here.

00:29:00:09 – 00:30:04:08
Speaker 2
Thank you for that. Tony Robles and yes, his interview with Clifford Thompson, author of Jazz June, is coming up right here on the listen and be heard our probably next week. So I hope you’ll join us again next week. But we will still be talking with Didi Jackson and we have some more new live music and poetry. So please stick around, listen to the sounds of the audio garden and I will meet you on the other side of the bridge in a minute or two.

00:30:04:10 – 00:30:43:28
Speaker 2
September 19th is a big day coming up on the West Coast and the East Coast. The 45th Annual Northern California Book Awards celebrating Northern California literature, is happening Saturday, September 19th at 2 p.m. at the San Francisco Main Libraries Court Auditorium. Oakland born Amy Tan will receive the 2026 Fred Cody Award for lifetime achievement and service, and finalists announced to date include Robert Reich, Jeff Chang and Michael McFaul.

00:30:44:01 – 00:31:25:20
Speaker 2
Winning authors will present remarks and books will be available for purchase and signing with the reception, and the event is free and open to the public and here on the East Coast. Also free but accepting donations is the Greenhouse Creator’s Consortium Festival at the Soapbox Gallery. Also on September 19th at 7 p.m. and there will be performances from all of the people who comprise the six nonprofits that are the Greenhouse Creators Consortium.

00:31:25:20 – 00:31:59:10
Speaker 2
And we’re speaking today with one of those members, Deedee Jackson. We’re going to listen to more of that conversation. Please do visit us at listen and Net for more information about the festival and each of the member organizations of the Greenhouse Creators Consortium. Listen and be heard. Network is a project of Sound System Culture, Inc.. Please visit us at Sound System Culture.

00:31:59:13 – 00:32:19:03
Speaker 8
So that was the one that was sort of based partially and loosely on the story of my parents. What happened was, you know, I mentioned my mother passed away, sadly, of cancer in 1995. And in the weeks leading up to her death, she dictated her life story into a tape machine. And my father spent the next subsequent years transcribing it and then augmented it with his own story.

00:32:19:04 – 00:32:23:19
Speaker 8
Growing up of an African American in the segregated South in Knoxville, Tennessee. So we have this book.

00:32:23:25 – 00:32:24:14
Speaker 7
Amazing.

00:32:24:15 – 00:32:51:27
Speaker 8
It’s never been published called love, Song and Sorrow. And so when George Eliot Clarke, who himself is an African Canadian, Canada’s former poet laureate of Canada, really brilliant poet over there that work off and on for many, many years, including right now. Actually, we had another project going on, but he was looking for what to write about. So I gave him this book and then so yeah, he wrote this, this libretto that was about two couples, one of them based on my parents, the other kind of an Indian female singer performed by Kieran at.

00:32:52:00 – 00:33:13:21
Speaker 8
And this guiding Hayden Gill played the other character from this pop group, while Jack soul, who played like this Creole character. So it was a very multicultural opera that explored a lot of different than different things. So yeah, that was it was very meaningful. I mean, for me, the challenge, frankly, in writing opera specifically was just being more conscious and mindful.

00:33:13:21 – 00:33:20:16
Speaker 8
And this is funny talking to you guys, especially Martha as a poet and so on. And they maybe heard on you do so many things. Maybe. Are you a poet as well? I don’t even know.

00:33:20:19 – 00:33:45:08
Speaker 7
Yeah, I think everybody is, but I definitely am actually. But I am definitely working on an opera with all of these interests. Both Martha and I will do in this realm where we we love text and I love working on, like, opera excerpts and alias and using Schumann and using the idea of putting texts to, to, you know, to to song and beauty and.

00:33:45:09 – 00:34:07:02
Speaker 7
Yeah. And that so it’s interesting that this is a very interesting question, because it reminds us of the work that Martha and I are on this path. Yeah. And so it’s very exciting to hear your take on it and your experience because you’ve done it. There’s a new poetry, the project with songs and text, again by George Eliot Clarke, that just just came out right.

00:34:07:03 – 00:34:07:16
Speaker 7
Like.

00:34:07:19 – 00:34:13:27
Speaker 8
Yeah, it came out about me go or let’s see who he’s about. Time is passing. It came out in September of 2024.

00:34:13:28 – 00:34:24:12
Speaker 7
How do you choose the poems to set and what’s what’s different about composing for poets? Fixed words versus writing your own material?

00:34:24:14 – 00:34:44:19
Speaker 8
I forgot to say earlier both what I was getting at was that I really, you know, when I started writing these droppers, I really had almost zero experience writing for words. So I actually ended up joining the Lehman Angle BMI Musical Theater Workshop, which is a four year, essentially free program. But it’s been, as you may or may not know, it’s been the basis for like musical theater, musicals for years.

00:34:44:21 – 00:35:01:12
Speaker 8
Forest, salon, Book of Mormon and just everything pretty much has come out of that, that workshop. And so that makes sense. That instructed me in the relationship between words and music in a way that nothing else would have. Of course, the irony was I discovered that it was completely different than opera, because with opera, the focus sort of is still on the music.

00:35:01:13 – 00:35:16:14
Speaker 8
Like you don’t often know even who wrote the libretto of the most famous operas. What theater? It’s like it lives or dies. Needless to say, by the book and lyrics. But it was still fascinating because then I started to write music in that style and eventually wrote music for television and, you know, did a bunch of songs.

00:35:16:14 – 00:35:17:25
Speaker 7
And of course.

00:35:17:27 – 00:35:21:08
Speaker 8
About how to write music for, for songs and so on.

00:35:21:08 – 00:35:26:04
Speaker 2
So and that was another journey that maybe you’d like to tell our listeners about.

00:35:26:05 – 00:35:45:16
Speaker 8
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people, one of the reasons that I’ve seen been on the off the map to, to people who had followed my earlier career in recent years was, well, two parallel things. One, I was raising my family. But like a lot of people do when the kids are, you know, ages one through 18 and slightly above now, but then also in order to be at home more.

00:35:45:18 – 00:36:07:19
Speaker 8
I started to get more interested, as I’d always been in a certain way in technology and embrace it writing music for television, writing music for media. In fact, I’m teaching media scoring now at NYU and Brooklyn College appears to graduate School of Cinema there because it just became an all encompassing thing. I even won a couple of any awards, you know, writing, music, songwriter, absolutely poser and all of that.

00:36:07:19 – 00:36:14:01
Speaker 8
So yeah, so I had this whole sideline where I was writing music for television, mostly like children shows like The Wonder Pets, and.

00:36:14:03 – 00:36:16:22
Speaker 7
You actually got them right for for plus cat.

00:36:16:27 – 00:36:18:05
Speaker 8
Yeah. Pink plus cat. I wrote.

00:36:18:05 – 00:36:19:08
Speaker 7
About.

00:36:19:10 – 00:36:21:26
Speaker 8
That. And yeah, that’s the one that won a lot of Emmy Awards.

00:36:22:01 – 00:36:24:04
Speaker 7
For its amazing.

00:36:24:07 – 00:36:33:25
Speaker 8
Clifford the Big Red dog. Like basically the exact opposite of the hip, you know, freer expression. But I came out of and people thought maybe I’d lost my mind.

00:36:33:26 – 00:40:18:25
Speaker 2
We don’t think you lost your mind here in the listen and be heard audio garden ditty. Jackson, we’re listening to a cut of his now called Going Home, and you can find out more about him and his organization at Open Minded Visions or.

00:40:18:27 – 00:40:23:00
Speaker 18
I.

00:40:23:02 – 00:40:51:19
Speaker 2
For listening to a live session at IBM with Preston forward on the piano. Tara Marie playing the flute. I was there doing some poetry and a little flute plant, and our master flutist was there to earn Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra.

00:40:51:21 – 00:41:35:26
Speaker 19
So, so sire mediates your heart out or out? Spout doubts about media message media looking for a buy out on a court. Sucking in your subcontinental incidental ensure. Pass on fancy eternity at the centers for the Bad Seeds and Refinery. Daniel Lucid Atari stories share psychotropic coke incidents. Fences three waves of grass, divided yarns before sundown, and people round at the clown designated to be hated.

00:41:35:26 – 00:45:01:03
Speaker 19
Bandwagon justice. This notion of nations as potions, commotions, mama vector. Consensual. Intergenerational. Sensational, informational, confronting load versus interlopers in our brain ways. Kroger’s of our infantile rage. That page got turned before you can read. Do you have no choice? Your voice should be phased phase. But to be further, Asians of covert operation psyop to court masturbation.

00:45:01:06 – 00:45:15:07
Speaker 2
This is the listen and be heard our brought to you by listen and be heard network a project of sound system culture.

00:45:15:09 – 00:45:56:22
Speaker 2
Mark in the Queen fish chapter one. The city of Mara was fashioned with love added mud, driftwood and seashells on the shore of a warm blue sea. Dolphins, sharks and other finned friends guided the peaceful mariners to sunken ocean treasures, which they placed on their rooftops for all to take pleasure in their beauty and magic. The margins inland neighbors called their city flock and the King of flawed thought.

00:45:56:22 – 00:46:33:14
Speaker 2
The proper place for the rooftop jewels of Mara was in his dark vaults. One day long ago, Marines came in from fishing for sea vegetables to find themselves locked out of their homes by flutists who decided to vacation in the summertime on the beaches of Mara. The floor crews threatened the Marines with weapons and forced them to live in the back alleys sheds of their former homes.

00:46:33:16 – 00:47:05:15
Speaker 2
After 100 years, most marins had forgotten there was a time when they ate seaweed and swam in the swaying gardens of the sea that whales sang to them, and the octopus, dolphins and sharks were friends who transported them to amulets thrown into the water with wishes, and boats sunk by the weight of their earthly treasures.

00:47:05:18 – 00:47:43:10
Speaker 2
If you were a seagull picking crumbs of fried fish from the cobblestones early in the morning on West Main Street, you might think marins, with their faded blue hair resembling silky sea vegetables, sweeping the street or heading to their fishing boats, were a different flock from floor curves. Ticket takers were the only floors out and about in the early morning fog, looking for marins to attach tickets to for infractions like long hairs.

00:47:43:13 – 00:48:15:14
Speaker 2
Mark charged through the flock of seagulls, his hair jammed into a knit cap pulled down over his eyebrows to avoid attention. His mom was not going to want to hear any stories about why he was delayed. The seagulls circled over Mark’s head before settling back to scratching a meal from between the cobblestones. He jogged on from the alley at the end of West Main Street to Queens Plaza.

00:48:15:16 – 00:48:49:22
Speaker 2
Marks mother had asked him to go to Queens Plaza to buy two blue marbles. She was creating a special queen fish for Cookham, the King’s chef. She normally sold her painted plaster molds in Cookham souvenir store next to Ronaldo’s restaurant, which was Cook M’s restaurant on the boardwalk. But today he wanted a unique clean fish display on the King’s table for the annual Queen Fish Festival.

00:48:49:25 – 00:49:20:13
Speaker 2
Mark was looking for Amber, who his mother had said would have blue marbles. She needed them for the queen fish’s eyes, and possibly the time goes by so quickly here in the audio garden. That was a little bit of the story of Mark and the Queen fish. To be continued. A book by yours Truly coming out February 2nd, 2027.

00:49:20:15 – 00:49:56:23
Speaker 2
You could get a free copy if you like by becoming a member of Sound System Culture Inc, which sponsors listen to be heard and you can find more information about that at Listen to Be Heard or Sound System culture Dot world. I’m going to take you out with more from our live session at IBM with Preston Fulwood, Jay Rodriguez, Sierra, myself and Dara Marie.

00:49:56:25 – 00:50:32:00
Speaker 7
We hope you enjoy it. All right. And because here we make our own music. Everything is original. Original music, original works with no anything. Please support us at the listen to her network or its sound system. Culture. Okay. That world that’s our website. Sounds just of culture world and can enjoy it. Thank you so very much, Martha. Senator Preston, Fulwood and Dara and Jenji and all of our brothers and sisters, part of our team and humanity.

00:50:32:02 – 00:53:58:18
Speaker 7
All right. And joy to. Sorry.

00:53:58:20 – 00:54:32:25
Speaker 2
We’ll be doing another session open to the public sometime in October. So please stay tuned for more information about that. Or visit us at listen and Be Her net, or you’ll find the latest news about what’s happening in Harlem from our interim Jamaica Jones Articles podcast archives.

00:54:32:27 – 00:55:13:03
Speaker 2
We have a columnist in the Philippines, and we’re getting ready to run a column from Ursula Rutenberg, who is on a project right now in the Ukraine. I want to thank all of our guests today, Didi Jackson from Open Minded Visions for all of the participants at the Laphroaig Jazz event that happened in Harlem. And you’ll find more information about all of that and more on our website.

00:55:13:06 – 00:55:58:18
Speaker 2
The time has gone by so quickly here in the Audio Garden, and it has been my pleasure to be your guide. Please join us next week when we will also be joined by Tony Robles in conversation with Clifford Thompson.

00:55:58:20 – 00:56:37:01
Speaker 2
Thanks, as always to day being at radio in Asheville, North Carolina for introducing listen to be heard to the broadcast airwaves. Casey in Taos, New Mexico in San Antonio, Texas and Ames, Iowa, and four in Red bluff, California and other stations that are part of the Pacifica affiliate network for cultivating the audio garden in your communities and our own listening be heard network host of W.

00:56:37:03 – 00:57:14:00
Speaker 2
Please visit us at listening and sign up for our email newsletter and at our Listen and Be Heard YouTube channel, where you will find unedited video interviews of our featured guests. My name is Martha Senator, and I want to thank you for listening and giving me the opportunity to be heard.

00:57:14:02 – 00:57:32:04
Speaker 1
You are.

00:57:32:07 – 00:57:46:19
Speaker 1
You are my.

00:57:46:21 – 00:57:53:18
Speaker 1
Memory.

00:57:53:20 – 00:57:54:07
Speaker 1
Your.

Join host Martha Cinader and co-host Jay Rodriguez Sierra as they connect with Emmy-winning jazz pianist and composer D.D. Jackson. D.D. reflects on breaking away from rigid classical roots to embrace jazz improvisation, guided by legendary mentors Don Pullen and Jaki Byard. He also reveals his latest ventures: the non-profit Open Minded Visions and Canadian Sky Records. Rounding out the show, intern Jemyah Jones brings us on the scene in East Harlem for an outdoor set by La’FroJaz, alongside a live performance from Preston Fulwood at Ibeam Brooklyn.

https://www.ddjackson.com

https://openmindedvisions.org

Multi-Emmy-winning composer, pianist, and educator D.D. Jackson shares his journey across jazz performance, television scoring, and music education on The Listen & Be Heard Hour.

Preston Fulwood is an artist, musician, reiki healer, producer, composer and instructor. Preston is a master instrumentalist and vocalist and is a well known studio musician and jazz pianist.

Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra – Musician, Composer, Producer

Martha Cinader is a poet and author living in Harlem, NY. Her young adult novel, Marq and the Queen Fish, is forthcoming in 2026 from Atmosphere Press. Cinader is the founder and Director of the Listen & Be Heard Network, where she hosts and produces The Listen & Be Heard Hour, and Beyond Borders, both non-commercial podcasts and syndicated radio shows on the Pacifica Affiliate Network. 

A young boy named Lakas discovers that a fish from his dreams might be real—leading him on a lively, magical chase through San Francisco’s Manilatown.

“This collection is based on my experiences and observations as someone who witnessed Hurricane Helene and its impact on the community—particularly my mobile home community in Hendersonville,”

Living It! is Martha Cinader’s debut as the producer of her own album, and features an eclectic array of arrangements and musical styles. It was recorded in part in a studio in New York City, part in a studio in Hamburg, and part live at the Mojo Club in Hamburg, throw in some bonus tracks recorded live at WBAI Radio in New York, and a superb mastering session with Ralph “Pinguin” Kessler in Hamburg, and you get fourteen tracks! Cinader brings together the collective talents of Sabine Worthmann, who uses here sfx pedals generously with her accoustic bass and an…

In this remarkable collection, Tony Robles transforms a bright-lit warehouse into a psychic landscape to illuminate one man’s efforts to reassemble a broken life. Where the Warehouse Things Are gives the satisfaction of a book of poetry as well as a novelistic sense of a place and its inhabitants fully rendered. — Ron Rash, author ofThe Caretaker

In Thrift Store Metamorphosis, Tony Robles astutely demonstrates the palpable currency of human interactions. His keen observations show us the necessity of reflection. In this mirror, we learn that everything and anything that we pay attention to has the capability to hold deep meaningful lessons for us and our lives. Robles makes us feel a range of emotion: sorrow, loss, love, regret, anger, rage, humor and hope. The poet reminds us with this essential collection, so goes the thrift store, so goes the world.

This book is a vessel/holding liquid for thirsty desirers/in the empty spiral of the universe/where detail is opinion/one moment is all it takes to answer/when the body calls. This book is just one answer in a life of calling. The storyteller lives inside the breath of home. Whatever home is chosen, whatever breath is owned. The desirer takes the moment we’re in and stretches out its every wrinkle. In the folds are new horizons, exploding the every day, line by line-inwards, so the shards are sort of slo-mo in their entry into gravity…We’re brought into the world of the writer.…

A collection of biographical stories and poems about fascinating people in history whose real dreams made a real difference. Developed in performance, these stories bring old tales to life for contemporary readers in a way that is both entertaining and informative.

CREDITS– CO-HOSTS & PRODUCERS: Martha Cinader, Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra, Tony Robles. FEATURED GUESTS: D.D. Jackson, Cristian Andres Aponte, Hector Jorge. Preston Fulwood, Jay Rodriguez Sierra, Gengi Seraisi, Martha Cinader. MUSIC: Going Home by D.D. Jackson, live music at La’Fro Jaz. SOUNDTRACK, MIXING, MASTERING, SOUND DESIGN: Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. Executive Producer, Martha Cinader.

Do you want to be heard in the garden? Please consider contributing your audio content. We grow together when we nurture our network. Click here for more information.

Featuring Shirley ANcheta, Tony Cranston, Saumya Choudhury, Meredith Leigh, Martha CInader, Tony Robles, The Cipher Crew and Nana on Violin

Another sizzling summer remix from our Maestro, Jay Rodriguez Sierra. Remix 4 features poetry from Shirley Ancheta for the great poet Al Robles. We hear a dragon story from Tony Cranston, host of a popular storytelling radio show in London, more poetry from your hosts Martha Cinader and Tony Robles, and also the Cipher Crew from Malcolm X’s Birthday bash earlier this year in Harlem, NYC. We feature the amazing Nana on violin, visiting from Berlin, who joined Martha and Jay at IBeam in Brooklyn for an improvisational session.

Tony Robles, “The People’s Poet” was born in San Francisco and is the nephew of Filipino-American poet, historian and social justice activist Al Robles. He was a shortlist nominee for poet laureate of San Francisco in 2017 and the recipient of the San Francisco Art Commission individual literary artist grant in 2018. His two books of poetry and short stories, Cool Don’t Live Here No More – A letter to San Francisco and Fingerprints of a Hunger Strike (both published by Ithuriel’s Spear Press) take on the issues of eviction, gentrification and police violence in communities of color. He is…

Martha Cinader is a poet and author living in Harlem, NY. Her young adult novel, Marq and the Queen Fish, is forthcoming in 2026 from Atmosphere Press. Cinader is the founder and Director of the Listen & Be Heard Network, where she hosts and produces The Listen & Be Heard Hour, and Beyond Borders, both non-commercial podcasts and syndicated radio shows on the Pacifica Affiliate Network. 

Saumya Choudhury, an Indian poet and cultural organizer, founded Delhi Poetry Slam in 2013, promoting performance poetry in India. After transitioning to digital platforms, she created Poem Pajama and engaged with Santhali tribal communities. Recognized internationally, she hosts writing retreats and teaches poetry, supporting emerging writers and exploring themes of identity and loss.

Tony Cranston is a renowned author, storyteller, and teacher with over 40 years of experience worldwide. Originally stationed in the UK, Cranston has traveled to over 50 cities, reading stories and collecting many as he goes.

Meredith Leigh, with over 20 years in sustainability and food systems, has owned farms, a restaurant, and engaged in diverse consulting. An award-winning author of “The Ethical Meat Handbook” and “Pure Charcuterie,” she is transitioning back to the nonprofit sector while pursuing fiction writing in Asheville, North Carolina.

A young boy named Lakas discovers that a fish from his dreams might be real—leading him on a lively, magical chase through San Francisco’s Manilatown.

“This collection is based on my experiences and observations as someone who witnessed Hurricane Helene and its impact on the community—particularly my mobile home community in Hendersonville,”

Talking Stories is a global storytelling platform rooted in east London, bringing together voices from local communities and across the world. With an equal focus on London-based creators and international storytellers, the program showcases poets, writers, elders, and emerging voices from every continent, creating a rich dialogue between place, memory, and imagination.

Across Latitude & Language brings together voices from across the globe—poets of different races, homelands, and histories, woven together by something quietly powerful: the shared weight of being human. In a world increasingly fractured by borders and conflict, this collection reminds us of the quiet universality of feeling. From the ache of personal loss and unspoken guilt to reflections on vanishing cityscapes and shifting faith, this anthology captures the full spectrum of human experience. Within its pages are poems that grieve, question, remember, and observe—the everyday and the extraordinary.

This autobiographical retelling of Billy Mills’ journeys from being an orphan on Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation to his Gold Medal Win in the 10,000-meter race of the 1964 Toyoko Olympics. Inspired by this father’s words “the pursuit of a dream will heal you”, Billy was able to overcome poverty, racism, and severe health challenges to reach his goal and heal his heart.  

Living It! is Martha Cinader’s debut as the producer of her own album, and features an eclectic array of arrangements and musical styles. It was recorded in part in a studio in New York City, part in a studio in Hamburg, and part live at the Mojo Club in Hamburg, throw in some bonus tracks recorded live at WBAI Radio in New York, and a superb mastering session with Ralph “Pinguin” Kessler in Hamburg, and you get fourteen tracks! Cinader brings together the collective talents of Sabine Worthmann, who uses here sfx pedals generously with her accoustic bass and an…

In this remarkable collection, Tony Robles transforms a bright-lit warehouse into a psychic landscape to illuminate one man’s efforts to reassemble a broken life. Where the Warehouse Things Are gives the satisfaction of a book of poetry as well as a novelistic sense of a place and its inhabitants fully rendered. — Ron Rash, author ofThe Caretaker

In Thrift Store Metamorphosis, Tony Robles astutely demonstrates the palpable currency of human interactions. His keen observations show us the necessity of reflection. In this mirror, we learn that everything and anything that we pay attention to has the capability to hold deep meaningful lessons for us and our lives. Robles makes us feel a range of emotion: sorrow, loss, love, regret, anger, rage, humor and hope. The poet reminds us with this essential collection, so goes the thrift store, so goes the world.

This book is a vessel/holding liquid for thirsty desirers/in the empty spiral of the universe/where detail is opinion/one moment is all it takes to answer/when the body calls. This book is just one answer in a life of calling. The storyteller lives inside the breath of home. Whatever home is chosen, whatever breath is owned. The desirer takes the moment we’re in and stretches out its every wrinkle. In the folds are new horizons, exploding the every day, line by line-inwards, so the shards are sort of slo-mo in their entry into gravity…We’re brought into the world of the writer.…

A collection of biographical stories and poems about fascinating people in history whose real dreams made a real difference. Developed in performance, these stories bring old tales to life for contemporary readers in a way that is both entertaining and informative.

Ethical Meat is meat from an animal that had a good life, a good death, a good butcher, and a good cook. Ethical Meat is a movement that seeks to repair entire regional meat supply chains, and much work is underway by brave hardworking farmers, butchers, processors, chefs and cooks. Working to create the capacity for ethical meat has been a speciality for Meredith for the past 20 years. As a former vegan turned livestock farmer, owner of a butcher shop, restaurateur, non-profit executive, mother, educator, and writer, she has vast expertise in the systemic as well as granular details…

This is the unedited transcript of LBH s4e23, ©2026, Listen & Be Heard Network, all rights reserved.

00;00;12;00 – 00;00;32;06
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Audio Garden, where we cultivate our collective listener, nurture creativity and spread. My name is Martha Cinader and this is listen and be heard.

00;00;32;08 – 00;00;37;14
Speaker 1
Listen and be bird.

00;00;37;16 – 00;00;45;15
Speaker 1
You’re listening to her because you can and must make a difference with the better in this world. Listen and Be Heard is.

00;00;45;15 – 00;01;18;08
Speaker 2
Radio program that’s part of the Pacific Radio Network. We focus on writers of all. John was poetry, children’s memoir, fiction, creative nonfiction, and now we’re taking on a lot of other elements addressing concerns of indigenous communities, music. And it just just runs the gamut of everything that nourishes the soul. In fact, I’ve been involved as one of the host co-host, have some interviews coming up fairly soon in the next couple of weeks, so it’s something that I really enjoy.

00;01;18;09 – 00;01;25;00
Speaker 2
I just got a whole lot of pleasure and it’s something that very passionate about, and I’m glad that it’s here. Hey hey hey. Good.

00;01;25;07 – 00;01;52;23
Speaker 3
Stamos, everybody. What is up? Hernan? Ramiro. Over here. Straight from Brooklyn. You know, formerly known as Jay Rodriguez. I hope you enjoyed the show. So much. Good stuff. Let’s keep it going. Since VH listen and be heard, our summer remix right now. Later on.

00;01;53;01 – 00;02;06;00
Speaker 4
Something you said might help me by is, you know. Yeah. Drive happy, man. You got to cross paths. And I heard it. I bought it on a number that let it never rest.

00;02;06;02 – 00;02;07;09
Speaker 3
Hold on.

00;02;07;12 – 00;02;52;14
Speaker 5
Yeah. I wanted to ask you, what does listening and being heard Nina to you. Thank you. Listening and be inherited. Two separate things. You can listen to anything. You can listen to music while you’re cleaning. You can listen to a sermon or anything in the background while you devote your attention to something else. But when you’re being heard, that means that what you hear, what you hear, you’re actually reflecting on and you’re applying that source, your actions either towards the situation or towards the person you understand.

00;02;52;15 – 00;03;01;29
Speaker 5
So if someone if you approach me and you tell me, hey, mom, you know.

00;03;02;01 – 00;03;29;04
Speaker 5
You took my laundry and washed it, and you get asking me if, you know, I was okay with that, right? If I if I’m just listening to you, I’m like, all right, my God. And I’ll move on with my daily routine or whatever it is I’m doing for the household. But if I’m if I’m hearing you, if I heard you, then the next time I do laundry, I will approach you and say, hey, listen, I’m about to do laundry.

00;03;29;05 – 00;03;36;01
Speaker 5
How would you like me to do your laundry? Is it. Do you want me to do your laundry? Do you understand?

00;03;36;04 – 00;03;36;22
Speaker 1
Thank you.

00;03;36;23 – 00;04;36;27
Speaker 5
So make sure when I ask you to do something.

00;04;36;29 – 00;04;39;24
Speaker 1
For Al Robles, I had.

00;04;39;24 – 00;05;10;06
Speaker 6
Felt them to the water buffalo. They come from far and lighted gates. They lead us out of our city streets into the sleeping blue of water. All of his crossing together inside their curved horns. Voices whisper us back from our wanderings on Kearny Street. We are far from the lettuce fields. The cockfights, the blood of the pig and still father.

00;05;10;07 – 00;05;40;15
Speaker 6
Trapped in memory comes the arrival of workers. Boats of cane fields. Waking in the arms of dark men. I have not always known their tender presence in this city. Cradled by two bridges. The old ones, disguised as dog spirits, lit the bones. Willy for the dead. The wind spins us in this ordinary world. And till someone nearly broken with desire to be lifted to another country.

00;05;40;15 – 00;06;18;13
Speaker 6
In his heart. Remembers the feel of the animals black hair. The slow but powerful carabao walk in the dark. They chase us into dream. Into what voices that bathe in the blue night. Like the blue awakening of fish.

00;06;18;16 – 00;06;23;22
Speaker 1
I’d like to tell you the very first story I ever wrote, and it was published worldwide.

00;06;23;22 – 00;06;52;02
Speaker 7
Seven world languages at Portuguese, Spanish, English, Chinese, Berea, Arabic, and so on. I was so surprised that I could actually write a story and be so successful with it and won’t go. It’s called A dragon’s wish. Long, long ago, an old China. They lived a little girl called May. Not May means pretty, but this little girl was called Mami because she was twice pretty.

00;06;52;03 – 00;07;17;27
Speaker 7
She was pretty on the outside, but she was also pretty on the inside. Were counted the most. She had a good heart. Now, Mami lived with her granddad, who was called Lao Nan. Now Nan means man and low means old. So his name was Old man. It’s quite a nice name in Chinese for a granddad. And they lifted the house in a little village.

00;07;17;28 – 00;07;46;03
Speaker 7
We were very happy, but at long I now couldn’t work in the fields anymore. But he was still very, very skillful with his fingers. And he can have dried a clothing. You could make dragons and phoenixes for weddings. You could include all kinds of things on silk costumes for weddings. And they paid for it. And this night he’d been working all night to finish a costume for a little girl in the next village.

00;07;46;06 – 00;08;16;02
Speaker 7
It’s going to be a birthday. Louis of the goddess Guanyin, the goddess of the poor. The goddess, the fish and people. The goddess of dragons. So it came the next morning to me, said, Mami, can you take this to the little girl in the next village? And she said, yes, of course. So they wrapped it up in brown paper, tied it up and stream, and off she went out to the village, up the hill, past the graveyard and into the forest.

00;08;16;04 – 00;08;23;16
Speaker 7
The village is on the other side of forest. Thus she’s walking through the forest. She suddenly had this battle.

00;08;23;20 – 00;08;29;11
Speaker 8
I don’t know how I do it. Oh.

00;08;29;13 – 00;08;37;05
Speaker 8

00;08;37;07 – 00;08;42;26
Speaker 7
Being a clever, smart little girl. They may hid behind the trees and looked out.

00;08;42;27 – 00;08;53;08
Speaker 3
You’re listening to listen and be heard. Our careers and writers brought to you by listening to be heard network and by sound system culture. All right, now, back to a dragon’s wish.

00;08;53;15 – 00;09;15;28
Speaker 7
When she. Saw these. Big men with hairy chest and big Aaron sticking out to the ears. Oh, and they were laughing. I know you know what they did. They had a baby dragon. They caught it, tied it up onto the ground and were beating it with sticks and just laughing. And the dragon was calling out, and please leave me alone.

00;09;15;28 – 00;09;24;05
Speaker 7
I won’t hurt you. Haven’t done anything. I’m just a baby dragon. But they just laughed and laughed and beat the dragon.

00;09;24;08 – 00;09;37;17
Speaker 7
And Mimi was so so so sorry for the dragon. But what could she do? She’s just here to go. And they were big pirates. Bandits. She did not know what to do.

00;09;37;19 – 00;10;00;15
Speaker 7
Then she had an idea. She untied the parcel, took out the costume of the onion, and stood upon a rock where everybody could see her. And in the biggest, loudest voice she could muster for a little girl, she pointed, said, leave that dragon alone.

00;10;00;18 – 00;10;26;16
Speaker 7
And the bandits turned around to see who would dare. Put their speak to them in such a fashion. When they looked and they saw us standing on the rock, they saw the goddess Guanyin. I said, oh my goodness, everybody look, it’s the Goddess Guanyin! We’ll be in trouble now. Please grab your things and run! And so they all ran up because they were bullies.

00;10;26;16 – 00;10;51;27
Speaker 7
And you know, bullies are just cowards. And they were scared and they ran off and quickly may make claim come from the rock and untied the dragon. And that dragon was so thankful when he said, Mami, I know who you are. I know why the call you made me. And because you have a good heart, I’m going to give you three wishes.

00;10;51;29 – 00;11;12;25
Speaker 7
What would you wish for? But she said straight away. Oh, I want lots and lots and lots and lots of money. And so all of a sudden the drag waved his claws, and in front of her were bags and bags of gold and silver coins. Then she said, right. I want some diamond rings, and I want a crown.

00;11;12;26 – 00;11;38;19
Speaker 7
And what? Jewelry and bracelets and necklaces. And straight away the dragon waved his clawed. She was covered in jewelry and the crown. And for third wish she asked for a big house to be built at the end of the village for her and Nan to live in, and the dragon pointed and said, go back home and you will find your granddad and your home.

00;11;38;21 – 00;11;48;23
Speaker 7
So they went back, and the granddad was standing outside the door of his new home, and they lived happily ever after.

00;11;48;26 – 00;11;57;23
Speaker 7
Until one day somebody in the village began to get the sniffles, and they began to.

00;11;57;24 – 00;11;59;06
Speaker 8
Sneeze.

00;11;59;09 – 00;12;29;11
Speaker 7
And they felt all shimmery and cold, and they were aching, and they went to bed to try to get better. But they never did get better. You’re just died. Someone else got the stiffness for cold and chilly, and they went to bed to try to get better and never woke up again. Aunties. Uncles. Babies, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, young and old, all little by little, got the slivers and called and went to bed.

00;12;29;12 – 00;12;36;05
Speaker 3
You listen to listen and be heard. Our for readers and writers. Hey, I hope you’re enjoying our story as part of our summer remix.

00;12;36;10 – 00;13;06;13
Speaker 7
They may spent all our money to bring doctors from far and wide, but nobody could find anything. She sold all the jewels in a crowd to bring more doctors. But nobody could find a cure. And then one day now known. Got the slippers. And he took hold and shivering. And he went to bed to try to get warm.

00;13;06;16 – 00;13;43;08
Speaker 7
And may. May said, oh, no, oh no, no, Nan, not my granddad. No, I’ve only if only I had those three wishes again. And somebody way above the clouds heard her, and the dragon appeared again. But said mermaid, I know what’s happening because you’re a good girl and you have a good heart. I’m going to give you those three wishes again.

00;13;43;11 – 00;14;11;02
Speaker 7
Now what would you wish for? It may make you money. And jewels were no good, and it came to it. So she said, I wish that this plague, this disease, would go away. I’d never come back again, so no one would be ill. And the dragon said, so be it. And it never came again. But when they thought, what about all the people who died?

00;14;11;05 – 00;14;32;04
Speaker 7
And now Nan, who was ill, can they all be all be better? And can they come back again? And the dragon slowly pointed his claw up to the hill, to the graveyard, and all his aunties and uncles and brothers and sisters are young and old. Came down the hill. There were all alive again, and everybody hugged and kissed each other.

00;14;32;04 – 00;14;57;06
Speaker 7
And there was a great big celebration all day. But she still had one wish left, and she didn’t know what to wish for. She thought and thought, man is no good Jews. And how good she thought and thought. And then she thought, I know I’m going to give you Mr. Dragon that wish. The tiger was so surprised he’d never had a wish before.

00;14;57;08 – 00;15;27;08
Speaker 7
He never thought of it before. Everybody just took their three wishes and used up. He’d never been given one back before. He didn’t know what to do with it. He thought and thought and thought. And then he said, I know what I wish for. I wish that from now on, all us young trackers can disguise ourselves as little boys and girls like you, so that no one will ever see us again as a dragon and be able to capture us and beat us up again.

00;15;27;08 – 00;15;45;26
Speaker 7
And that, boys or girls, is why dragons are not seen to this day. Because they’re all disguised as little boys and girls like you. Maybe even going to your school. How would you know?

00;15;45;28 – 00;16;15;17
Speaker 9
Please visit our archives at listen and Be heard. Yet the governments and discover the governments and different governments and the governments and different parts of the world have become less democratic. And there is a critical mass in different parts. Governments and different parts of the world have become less remote. And governments and different governments and different, the governments and different governments and different parts of the world have become less democratic.

00;16;15;17 – 00;16;38;20
Speaker 9
And there is no curtailing of freedom of speech and expression, even in India. There has been a lot of censorship for the last ten years, even more than there has been over in the past. But one of the things about, you know, Indian society is that we’ve always been, you know, very flourishing ground for different ideas. So the governments in different parts of the government.

00;16;38;21 – 00;16;43;23
Speaker 9
The government, the government. The government, the government.

00;16;43;25 – 00;16;47;26
Speaker 8
And for two months.

00;16;47;28 – 00;16;55;09
Speaker 9
The government in different parts of the world. The government. Government.

00;16;55;11 – 00;17;03;27
Speaker 9
The government itself.

00;17;04;00 – 00;17;27;18
Speaker 9
The government and different governments, the governments and different the government and the governments in different parts of the world have become less democratic. And there is, you know, corrective government in different parts. The governments in different parts of the world have become less remote. And the government and the government and different, the governments and different governments and different parts of the world have become less democratic.

00;17;27;18 – 00;17;54;19
Speaker 9
And there is, you know, curtailing of of speech and expression even in India. There has been a lot of censorship for the last ten years, even more than there has been aware of the past. But one of the things about, you know, Indian society is that we’ve always been, you know, very flourishing ground for different ideas. The governments in different parts of the government, the government, government.

00;17;54;21 – 00;17;55;24
Speaker 9
The government.

00;17;55;24 – 00;17;59;22
Speaker 8
Of government in different going to.

00;17;59;28 – 00;18;04;18
Speaker 9
The government of different parts of the world is that it’s.

00;18;04;20 – 00;18;12;07
Speaker 8
About it’s. It’s it’s, it’s it’s.

00;18;12;09 – 00;18;15;28
Speaker 9
The government.

00;18;16;01 – 00;18;36;04
Speaker 9
The government and different government, the government and different governments, the government and different parts of the world have become less democratic. And there is a critical moment in different parts governments and.

00;18;36;06 – 00;19;18;27
Speaker 10
Is important. Mujeres negras, Afrocentric estén, circuitous literario. La mujer estamos tomando su role desde no habia no Atacama. El espacio Q. La nueva generation de la la nueva. No tenga qué trapezius a? Rato con difficulty ser negro por support. Entonces son sueno absolute star in Cuba a verb encontrar mujeres Amy Canto de las olas y las melodious del Coral Esportiu.

00;19;18;28 – 00;19;29;28
Speaker 10
Lo q respiration soy poesia negra del mar.

00;19;30;00 – 00;19;30;15
Speaker 6
I think.

00;19;30;16 – 00;19;51;12
Speaker 11
Seagulls are my favorite, at least in the way we were talking yesterday, and I was seeing if you could flip over the thing that was in your mind, the way the gulls spin and twirl in mid-flight, surprising themselves. Your mind is young and deep for its age. Like tall grass that lives in a hurry. Out of it now comes a red wing blackbird.

00;19;51;12 – 00;20;14;25
Speaker 11
Just up and over the seed tips a clean shock of red across its shoulders. It is after something, some bug of existence. And so it goes down and black and up and bright, doggedly beautiful. The gulls dive down to and crash against the water. Just as I hunt for ways to show you that you are fit for the world, just as you are.

00;20;14;28 – 00;23;35;04
Speaker 11
Across the marsh the gulls beat and hundreds of directions. Study. Twisting, freefall, float. Weaving something unsayable. It’s that we have this one life and everything is an idea ever the winning strike that breaks just below the surface and manages to fetch something shining.

00;23;35;07 – 00;24;07;10
Speaker 6
About for Al Robles, I had felt them to the water buffalo. They come from far and lighted gales. They lead us out of our city streets into the sleeping blue of water, all of us crossing together inside their curved horns. Voices whisper us back from our wanderings on Kearny Street. We are far from the lettuce fields. The cock bites the blood of the pig.

00;24;07;12 – 00;24;39;15
Speaker 6
And still farther, trapped in memory comes the arrival of workers boats, of cane fields, waking in the arms of dark men. I have not always known that gender presence in this city cradled by two bridges, the old ones, disguised as dog spirits, lit the bones. We leave for the dead. The wind spins us in this ordinary world. Until someone nearly broken with desire to be lifted to another country.

00;24;39;15 – 00;25;00;09
Speaker 6
In his heart remembers the feel. The animals black hair, the slow but powerful carabao walk in the dark. They chase us into dream into what is that? Bathe in the blue night. Like the blue awakening of fish.

00;25;00;11 – 00;26;38;07
Speaker 3
Hernan, Ramiro. For listen and be heard. And you’re listening to listen and be heard. Our for readers and writers.

00;26;38;09 – 00;26;38;26
Speaker 8
So listen.

00;26;38;26 – 00;26;39;04
Speaker 9
And be.

00;26;39;04 – 00;26;40;26
Speaker 7
Heard our. You can find.

00;26;40;27 – 00;26;42;26
Speaker 9
Our reading list of.

00;26;42;26 – 00;26;49;06
Speaker 7
Every book that we’ve ever. Mentioned on this podcast at listen to be heard.

00;26;49;09 – 00;29;53;03
Speaker 8
Net.

00;29;53;06 – 00;30;21;03
Speaker 12
You are.

00;30;21;05 – 00;30;22;00
Speaker 7
This is.

00;30;22;00 – 00;30;28;04
Speaker 13
The listening be heard. Our.

00;30;28;06 – 00;30;58;00
Speaker 13
My alerts, my knee jerks, my tics and trembles and fears and sneers on my character. Those subterranean blues, those many hues of you’s not being here for me. So there is no need to be. To remember what. Remember who. Remember why you cried and insisted you didn’t know why or how or who. Because you didn’t and you were three and it’s still just all the way.

00;30;58;00 – 00;31;19;27
Speaker 13
It has to be because it’s what it is, which who knows what or who it is or cares or where is clothes? In the park, in the dark, in a parking lot, at the gas station. On a nation, nation, nation of my soul. There’s a hole I don’t fit in that fits me. There’s a goal. There’s a foal in the headlights.

00;31;19;28 – 00;31;46;02
Speaker 13
They are so bright. And my brother dies before my eyes in the street. And the beat goes on the heap. The neat stacking and books, the sideways looks. The trucks that took your cookies. Looky, looky. Who do you think you are? You are, you are, you are. You are the star in a constellation. The far flown floozy, boozy.

00;31;46;08 – 00;32;31;03
Speaker 13
Fraternize with flossy, newsy, naughty body, body buddy buddy not so warm and cuddly, more like ugly monster. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Every day. To pray, to pray, to pray, to pray, to pay, to play, to play. To say anything but what’s bothering you that’s so hard to do?

00;32;31;05 – 00;32;35;12
Speaker 13
Hunched over.

00;32;35;14 – 00;33;14;23
Speaker 13
Over soldiers. That in my ears is that fear feeling all too beyond my years. And the cold makes me shiver, but not enough to know ahead of time to put on that sweater. Even though it was itchy and I didn’t like. And I liked my sisters better. Always. Everything was better, bigger, better. Not me. I felt ugly. Mom said I was back and didn’t have friends, but I wasn’t, and I did, I think, but I’m not sure I’m ever sure.

00;33;14;24 – 00;33;42;24
Speaker 13
Never certain what’s behind the curtain. But everyone is reaching the memos but me. Everybody is reading the memos but me. I’m shivery. I’m slippery. I don’t want to know. I think you want to know. But who are you slipping off the right side of the page who can’t stop herself there? So she would have you believe that she didn’t conceive herself.

00;33;42;24 – 00;34;06;12
Speaker 13
But here she is trying to claim there’s a reason she didn’t get the memo trees in his memory. She has to speak the plain truth in the plain day. To say what? There is no other way to say how it’s all pay to play in the street. In the beat of the times. The lines that distract from the facts of strife.

00;34;06;12 – 00;34;48;06
Speaker 13
The life of lies. Until we wise, wise enough. Up, up. Drink from the cup. The Holy Grail is from the slot pair. The that grits grow from the scum and drumbeat of my heart. Saying make art, make, just make and fake the memories maybe. Or make the memories. Which is fine. But mine are all mine. If I remember them or not, I might have forgot to unforgettable the regrettable repetition of our mission as I try to get to the end of the page with something that’s old, something real, which is in the past.

00;34;48;06 – 00;35;03;29
Speaker 13
How is that last? A fast girl, a gas, a task? Don’t ask because I don’t know. I don’t want to know. Don’t send me any medals. No demos. Because I already know what you did.

00;35;04;02 – 00;35;06;23
Speaker 3
And a series.

00;35;06;23 – 00;35;09;01
Speaker 8
Of quatrains, somewhat.

00;35;09;01 – 00;35;17;28
Speaker 14
Similar in structure to the villanelle.

00;35;18;00 – 00;35;42;03
Speaker 11
We really do have to remember that the main culprits in this situation are petrochemical companies and large corporations and well and gas, big oil, big gas, and the political framework that’s attached to that. And so if we can just breathe and remember that, then I think it’s easier to be like, okay, I’m just going to pick one thing today or I’m going to try to help my teenagers form this habit, right?

00;35;42;04 – 00;36;18;19
Speaker 11
Turning the lights off, maybe over whether the banana peel goes in the compost or the trash and not beating ourselves up if we’re not checking every box.

00;36;18;22 – 00;36;19;09
Speaker 2
This is a.

00;36;19;09 – 00;36;22;07
Speaker 3
Poem dedicated to.

00;36;22;10 – 00;36;59;01
Speaker 2
Billy Mills, who is a elder. He was the winner of the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games 10,000 meter track race, and author of the new children’s book wings of an Eagle. And this is a poem for him. It’s called The Circle. A race is run in a circle, an oval, the shape of an eye, a blink, a lifetime begins at minds curvature.

00;36;59;04 – 00;37;53;02
Speaker 2
The shape of ritual song. Pain, a dance, an offering of bones. Kindling. Songs whose breath sweeps across wind and earth a race run by fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, seven generations feet planted, held aloft upon mother’s fertile earth. The silent gun begins the race a race towards dignity, a race towards the meaning of our names. A gun whose silent ring stays in our ears across 10,000 seasons.

00;37;53;04 – 00;38;33;03
Speaker 2
A race towards harvest. A race that never ends. Look at Mills, look at Mills. And announcer’s voice cries out on Mother Earth’s stage of constant rotation. The stage of our eyes in what we behold, never to be withheld, positions changing, coming full circle. And what have we won? My father, my uncle and those that came before. And all the things they should have said and done.

00;38;33;06 – 00;39;39;27
Speaker 2
Have now been said and done. A race one and lost and one again and again. Billy, thank you for running that race. Lifting us from shadows like the wings of an eagle.

00;39;39;29 – 00;39;40;15
Speaker 6
The first.

00;39;40;15 – 00;40;17;29
Speaker 15
Rule is to create relationships of mutual benefit or reciprocal relationship. And so thinking through what that means very, very specifically is thinking through all the relationships in the food system and making sure that each relationship of parties are being cared for.

00;40;18;01 – 00;40;53;05
Speaker 7
This is to listen and be heard. Our brought to you by listen and be Heard network. You can visit our archives at listen and Be heard. Net where you are also welcome to contribute to our efforts in creating this entirely commercial free podcast and radio show.

00;40;53;08 – 00;41;09;21
Speaker 3
Hey everyone, this is Jade Rodriguez. So no one has any Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. Hope you enjoying our summer remix to listen and be heard. Our readers and writers, back.

00;41;09;21 – 00;41;13;17
Speaker 9
To it. Thank you. There we go. Where all my.

00;41;13;17 – 00;41;14;13
Speaker 6
Money gone.

00;41;14;14 – 00;41;15;16
Speaker 9
There we go.

00;41;15;19 – 00;41;16;09
Speaker 13
Has it gotten.

00;41;16;09 – 00;41;39;03
Speaker 9
Stuffed on the inside of the lovers. Who can’t get the trust of me out their mouth. Has it found a home in all the homes it’s visited? Whose cha is it sitting in that? Some of it is sunk itself into seats. That money goes. There’s out there inhaling those same spots, opaque to catch a whiff of my memory.

00;41;39;06 – 00;41;58;09
Speaker 9
There’s some rotting in the hands of a man who first helped me when I greeted the world. Maybe my honey was too potent from birth. There’s even more rotting in the hands of a man that was meant to be a mentor. But my honey sheen to sticky for him to not want to see. Just how did he didn’t matter that he was closer in Asia.

00;41;58;09 – 00;42;22;00
Speaker 9
The man who first took my honey without asking y’all. You taking my honey without asking why? When did I become the bee? And you? I mean, dumb keeper. When did my body start producing honey? Just to be stored in different places? Right when I become so lost in all the noise that the buzzing just started to sound like music, right?

00;42;22;02 – 00;42;43;21
Speaker 9
Tweak melodies. No one thinks twice about when did I lose the will to say, you can’t have none of my honey, it’s my honey. I may have dropped some along the way, but it wasn’t for you. I may have shared it with some not worthy, but that doesn’t make it less pure. I’ve even shared it with someone who didn’t even want the honey.

00;42;43;29 – 00;43;09;04
Speaker 9
They only took it because it was free. Something like the tasting a sample of something they might like except when they didn’t like it. I never got my honey back. My body of a charter was just now a little less full. Just just just wishing I could get some of my honey. Regretting having allowed myself to be pried open that way.

00;43;09;04 – 00;43;32;24
Speaker 9
But I was told I would be handled with care, even convinced I would be kept in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight. The perfect environment for me to thrive in. So I let the top of my honey crouch watch as the sneaky stripped out of me let unclean things take a dip, hoping they love the taste of me after cleaning me off.

00;43;32;27 – 00;43;57;07
Speaker 9
Even when I knew I didn’t want them to, I let them dip into my anyway, even in moments I didn’t want it to my honey. So that must mean I wanted it to. Right? And make sense then to need a sense of approval from the keeper. But did it make sense? Given away all my honey like I don’t got no god damn sense.

00;43;57;09 – 00;44;23;19
Speaker 9
In hopes that someone would care and love me past all this tense Charleston my honey a bit. And hope that them telling me how good my honey takes would finally make me appreciate the jar its captain. Thing is, I know my honey tastes like your favorite delicacy to be cherished and cherish her. I will because she takes real good to me.

00;44;23;21 – 00;44;39;23
Speaker 9
And if she takes real good to me. How dare I say to you about mama? Yeah. Oh, that was beautiful. Thank you.

00;44;39;26 – 00;44;43;01
Speaker 7
For life. Which I am in the presence.

00;44;43;03 – 00;45;16;24
Speaker 16
1000 bricks and a few weeks is the beginning of the first partition to wear less partition. It’s raining prices. Which is? Which is raised less partition. Places, places, places like your life. And think about that. And this is one thing that’s always flat. For that matter, was already in the fourth quarter to that particular one was always which I was.

00;45;16;29 – 00;46;43;21
Speaker 16
I was dealing with Israeli prices. In any significant economic endings, partition is always next partition. Find and book ages of the great anonymity. I am only the with our brains. How deep is our our ability to run the results on this story and the age requests from our bureau in 20 2132. Traveling to support.

00;46;43;23 – 00;46;50;10
Speaker 13
To we want anything.

00;46;50;13 – 00;46;50;27
Speaker 17
Why?

00;46;51;02 – 00;47;01;09
Speaker 13
Why do we need what we clearly don’t we?

00;47;01;11 – 00;47;04;22
Speaker 17
We can get along.

00;47;04;25 – 00;47;11;28
Speaker 17
Without.

00;47;12;01 – 00;47;14;21
Speaker 17
But.

00;47;14;23 – 00;47;21;24
Speaker 17
Do we need to live?

00;47;21;27 – 00;47;28;00
Speaker 17
We need to eat through drink.

00;47;28;03 – 00;47;41;01
Speaker 17
We need our mothers to touch us, care for us. See this?

00;47;41;03 – 00;47;44;07
Speaker 17
But why?

00;47;44;09 – 00;47;56;18
Speaker 17
Doing more? More than that?

00;47;56;21 – 00;48;05;20
Speaker 17
Branches of matter. If it doesn’t matter.

00;48;05;23 – 00;48;15;16
Speaker 17
I will freeze. I will eat and drink. I will live.

00;48;15;19 – 00;48;21;20
Speaker 17
It doesn’t matter what I want.

00;48;21;22 – 00;48;28;27
Speaker 17
I will have no once.

00;48;28;29 – 00;48;45;27
Speaker 17
I won’t ask this pen to flow. Smooth the page I won’t break to read how I think things should be. Rest. And when it all to pay attention to me.

00;48;46;00 – 00;48;48;14
Speaker 17
I.

00;48;48;17 – 00;48;56;07
Speaker 17
Will pay attention and ask nothing about one to.

00;48;56;09 – 00;49;02;25
Speaker 17
I don’t need to want.

00;49;02;28 – 00;49;14;01
Speaker 17
To what is to be unholy, a hole to be filled with what?

00;49;14;03 – 00;49;25;17
Speaker 17
What is, is what it is. What want it to be without me, without my without why? Just the same bird song.

00;49;25;20 – 00;49;49;29
Speaker 17
As long as the day. The way to lighten the load and be grateful for not one to.

00;49;50;01 – 00;51;11;17
Speaker 7
Acrostic the poem in which the initial letters of the lines spell a name or a title.

00;51;11;20 – 00;51;16;22
Speaker 3
Support the listen and be heard. Network and sound.

00;51;16;22 – 00;51;17;08
Speaker 7
System.

00;51;17;08 – 00;51;19;14
Speaker 3
Culture and ink.

00;51;19;16 – 00;51;20;22
Speaker 7
Great..

00;51;20;24 – 00;51;21;02
Speaker 7
So.

00;51;21;02 – 00;51;22;06
Speaker 3
That we can keep on.

00;51;22;06 – 00;51;24;21
Speaker 7
Bringing you this beautiful music.

00;51;24;23 – 00;51;29;16
Speaker 3
And these beautiful statements in giving our people in our.

00;51;29;16 – 00;51;45;04
Speaker 7
Community all around the world a voice that they may heal and grow and inspire. All right now, all the best. Peace out.

00;51;45;07 – 00;51;51;23
Speaker 12
Me me me.

00;51;51;26 – 00;51;59;00
Speaker 12
Me.

00;51;59;03 – 00;52;01;29
Speaker 12
Me.

00;52;02;01 – 00;52;20;16
Speaker 7
I want to tell you that what you say. Being able to have something to say, such as being a good listener, you know, because you have to learn, you have to listen and gain knowledge. And then you can.

00;52;20;19 – 00;52;21;16
Speaker 13
The time goes.

00;52;21;16 – 00;52;26;08
Speaker 7
By so quickly here in the audio garden. My friends and.

00;52;26;08 – 00;52;26;16
Speaker 13
I have.

00;52;26;16 – 00;52;33;21
Speaker 7
So enjoyed that time here with you.

00;52;33;23 – 00;53;14;03
Speaker 7
One of the pleasures of gardening audio gardening is listening to your garden grow. If I went back, or if you went back to listen to the pilot episode almost three years ago now of this show what you could do, we have all of our archives at listening to Be Her Net. You would hear me by myself making the show, fooling around with the concept of what it is and how it should grow.

00;53;14;06 – 00;54;05;17
Speaker 7
And my idea at the time was to reintroduce myself to the literary community, from which I felt a bit estranged, and to be a good member of that community and serve its needs, which is for authors to be able to have a form of platform to talk about their work, their new books, their craft, and for us to engage with each other and to embody the network that we are, because we are the network and listen and be heard.

00;54;05;23 – 00;54;52;12
Speaker 7
Network is nothing but a growing group of people who communicate and help each other out to nurture each other, water each other, shine light on each other, and admire us when we flower and harvest our fruits, when they’re right to be enjoyed. After much practice and deliberation and this show has grown and blossomed in ways that I could never really have imagined when I first began.

00;54;52;19 – 00;55;46;28
Speaker 7
And yet it’s growing into what I envisioned it to be, which is for me to be part of a family and to, you know, do my part in that family. And my part seems to be to bring people together and engage them in conversation and have conversations that lead to action and creation and even beauty and enjoyment. And I hope that you feel the same way about listen to be heard, and would welcome your participation as another creator inventor, listener who also needs to be heard.

00;55;47;00 – 00;56;21;22
Speaker 7
And there are various ways that you could become involved in this entirely commercial free hour, either by contributing segments or contributing finances, or just leaving a comment and letting us know if we’re making a difference in your life. If you like to come back from week to week.

00;56;21;24 – 00;56;59;29
Speaker 7
Thanks, as always to David Dial at PVM Radio in Asheville, North Carolina for introducing, listen and be heard to the broadcast Airwaves Kitchen in Taos, New Mexico, Kep in San Antonio, Texas, KHOU in Ames, Iowa, and KFI in Red bluff, California, and other stations that are part of the Pacific Affiliate Network for cultivating the audio garden in your communities and our own listening be heard network host of W.

00;57;00;03 – 00;57;24;07
Speaker 7
Please visit us at listening and sign up for our email newsletter and at our Listen and Be Heard YouTube channel, where you will find unedited video interviews of our featured guests. My name is Martha Senator, and I want to thank you for listening and giving me the opportunity to be heard.

00;57;24;10 – 00;57;47;19
Speaker 2
Thanks to laugh, the Senator, our executive producer, and our new nonprofit Sound System Culture. Thank you for your support. Please tell your friends this is the only place you’re going to hear this music, this radio art, the way that radio podcasts should be felt and experienced in our communities. All right. Check it out.

00;57;47;21 – 00;57;52;07
Speaker 12
Many of you are.

00;57;52;09 – 00;57;55;05
Speaker 12
You are.

00;57;55;08 – 00;57;55;20
Speaker 12
You?

CREDITS– CO-HOSTS & PRODUCERS: Martha Cinader, Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra, Tony Robles. FEATURED GUESTS: Shirley Ancheta, Tony Cranston, Saumya Choudhury, Meredith Leigh, Martha Cinader, Tony Robles, The Cipher Crew. MUSIC: Nana, Violin, Jay Rodriguez Sierra, all other instruments. SOUNDTRACK, MIXING, MASTERING, SOUND DESIGN: Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. Executive Producer, Martha Cinader.

Do you want to be heard in the garden? Please consider contributing your audio content. We grow together when we nurture our network. Click here for more information.

The Intuitive Writing Podcast hosted by Elizabeth Perlman

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:30:46

00:01:08:53 – 00:01:38:27
Speaker 1
Hello, welcome to our podcast and thank you for listening. My name is Elizabeth and I’m the founder of the Intuitive Writing Project, a writing based empowerment program for girls and gender expansive youth. We are dedicated to giving young women a safe, encouraging, non-critical, unconditionally supportive space to write their story, speak their truth, and assert their voice both as writers and as individuals.

00:01:38:32 – 00:02:05:44
Speaker 1
I created this program 11 years ago because it’s what I wanted and needed when I was young, a safe place to be truly seen and heard. That’s why we use the Amherst Writing method, a radically nurturing and empowering writing methodology. I wish everyone learned in school. You can read more about the Amherst Method on their website. And in Pat Schneider’s groundbreaking book, Writing Alone and with others.

00:02:05:44 – 00:02:39:09
Speaker 1
But the basic principles and the ones that guide all our classes are that one. Everyone is a writer with important stories to tell. Two everyone has their own unique voice, a voice that needs to be heard, and three our voice will grow stronger and clearer the more it is supported and positively affirmed. The way we affirm our writers is to repeat back and lift up the words, lines, phrases, or concepts that really resonated for us in the classroom.

00:02:39:10 – 00:03:05:05
Speaker 1
Everyone writes together, everyone shares their writing, and then everyone gives each other grounded, positive feedback. Since we can’t violate the sanctity of our classes by recording what goes on there, these one on one conversations are designed to provide a little glimpse, a microcosm of what happens in the classroom. You can also read about our work and read the girls words as they were published on our blog, The Intuitive, with the links below.

00:03:05:10 – 00:03:34:17
Speaker 1
If you enjoy listening to one young writer who read their words and talk about it. Imagine how powerful it is when six young writers are reading their words and giving each other positive, affirming feedback. It’s pretty life changing, and there’s a lot more I could say about it, but I’ll let these young writers speak for themselves. On behalf of all the writers at the Intuitive Writing Project, I want to thank you in advance for supporting the stories of young women making the time to be present and really listen to girls.

00:03:34:20 – 00:03:46:32
Speaker 1
Listen to the wisdom, insight, and brilliance of each girl is how we change the world. Thank you for supporting the voices of young women.

00:03:46:36 – 00:04:16:06
Speaker 2
Today. I’m so excited to be talking with the brilliant young writer Ava moga about her beautiful poem, To Be a Teenage Girl. To get us started out, I would love to introduce Ava. Ava, if you could give us your pronouns, your the current grade you’re in. What got you into writing? How you feel about it now? Like, if you have any early memories of writing or if you just came to it recently, what you enjoy about writing.

00:04:16:11 – 00:04:42:12
Speaker 3
Yeah. So I’m Ava. My pronouns are she her. I’m in 10th grade, Thomas More, and I feel like with writing, like I never really hated it or anything. I always liked it. But like, my earliest memories are kind of like their school writing. Like being forced to write in school. But now I kind of like realize that writing can be more of like a hobby, not a chore, and that it can be like an interest that I really love.

00:04:42:17 – 00:04:47:36
Speaker 2
But if you would, please read us your poem To Be a Teenage Girl.

00:04:47:41 – 00:05:16:24
Speaker 3
Yeah. Of course. Once okay. To be a teenage girl, to be a teenage girl is tiring. A constant battle with yourself and others, a captivating yet strenuous time of self-love and self-hate, trends and diets galore. Burn 200 calories in ten minutes. Do this workout for instant abs. Low calorie recipes. Lose 10 pounds I thought I looked good the way I was, until I gazed at the reality in front of me and saw that becoming a teenage girl isn’t so easy.

00:05:16:29 – 00:05:37:10
Speaker 3
The plastering on mascara, concealer, lip gloss and fighting against my will presentable yet effortless was the only possible way that I would look okay to the masses. Hundreds of dollars wasted on stupid skirts and crop tops that I hated how I looked in them, so much so that they were soon pushed into the back of my closet, collecting dust and turning into distant artifacts.

00:05:37:15 – 00:06:02:56
Speaker 3
I wish that I wasn’t so afraid of the girls who strutted around the hallways with their perfect bodies and perfect faces. I wish that I wasn’t so afraid to impress them. All I wanted was to be friends with them, to gain their approval. But in reality, I didn’t understand that other people had the same insecurities as me, equally struggle with the life that I perceived perfect as badly as I want my several teenage years to end being a teenage girl strengthening its emotional endearing.

00:06:03:00 – 00:06:23:08
Speaker 3
As much as it’s filled with hate, it’s also filled with love. Girls paint over the cracks in their friendships and replace the insults and disparage with kindness and affection. When the time finally comes to an end, I know I will miss it, long for it, cry over it, but also celebrate because I can finally let it go. That’s what being a teenage girl is.

00:06:23:10 – 00:06:30:59
Speaker 3
On behalf of all of us, we wish you knew, cared or understood that being a teenage girls tiring. Oh.

00:06:31:04 – 00:06:54:24
Speaker 2
It is so beautiful and powerful. Oh my God, thank you. Ava. Oh, what struck me about this. And of course, I’ve heard it before, but it’s every time I read it, it’s so moving to me because any, any woman of any age, whether you’re old or young, you either relate to this poem because you are a teenage girl or you remember exactly how it felt.

00:06:54:34 – 00:07:25:24
Speaker 2
It’s such a universal experience. And I think the what’s interesting is there’s two parts to this. There’s the societal pressure on girls that is so crushing and so tiring. It’s such a great word. It’s just really hard. It’s like a constant tidal wave of judgment and expectations and pressures that’s leveraged against girls, that girls didn’t choose it or ask for it, but they’re trying to navigate their way through it.

00:07:25:24 – 00:07:56:58
Speaker 2
And then the second part of the piece that’s so cool, is how the writer shows the strength of girls. Like, even amidst all this awful social pressure that makes us hate ourselves, there’s this spirit of strength and wisdom and love inside of girls that they can bring love to things despite a really unfair, difficult time period. Okay, a couple lines that, I mean, every line was amazing, but I loved.

00:07:57:03 – 00:08:28:34
Speaker 2
Yes, as much as it’s filled with hate, it’s also filled with love. Yeah. Girls paint over the cracks in their friendships and replace the insults and disparage with kindness and affection. Like that feels heroic. And I, I personally, of course, I believe this, that teenage girls are heroic. And I feel like the writer captured that. I wanted to ask because we’ll sort of bounce back and forth about the piece and your creative process.

00:08:28:36 – 00:08:44:41
Speaker 2
Like when you were writing it, did you expect that there would be because it is a shift, like towards the end of the piece where it starts like reclaiming your power? Did you expect it to happen, or did it just like it was just like the natural result?

00:08:44:46 – 00:09:00:15
Speaker 3
Yeah, like I feel like when I started writing it, like I was kind of focusing on, like the negative things, but then I kind of realized that, like, I’m still in, like my early years of high school, but like, girls, like, start to get so much better during high school and stuff like that. So I feel like it kind of came naturally.

00:09:00:17 – 00:09:07:32
Speaker 3
Like I was like, oh, like I’m realizing it’s not all negativity, like society, right?

00:09:07:37 – 00:09:26:08
Speaker 2
Right. Well, and that is I mean, the reason I ask you to read this piece now is, of course, because there have been so many studies coming out and they’re really important about the mental health crisis for girls. And I feel like, I mean, there’s a million reasons for it. And you’ve just highlighted a few of the reasons.

00:09:26:08 – 00:09:50:53
Speaker 2
There’s so many reasons the girls struggle and like but this piece captures it’s a microcosm of the experience that all girls have. It’s insane what we push onto girls, and it actually makes sense that girls would be, of course, who wouldn’t be struggling with these kinds of pressures on top of you. So I always want to emphasize the fact that girls are so powerful.

00:09:50:56 – 00:10:15:12
Speaker 2
Girls are so resilient. And that’s what this piece shows the resilience of girls. Like, how insane is it that we expect? Okay, let’s go back to some of these lines. There’s so freaking good. I love where the writer quoted these are totally advertisements that would be on social media. Burn 200 calories in ten minutes. Do this workout for instant abs.

00:10:15:12 – 00:10:20:46
Speaker 2
We were just talking about the whole what is a natural stomach? We don’t even know anymore.

00:10:20:51 – 00:10:22:39
Speaker 3
I know right? Yeah.

00:10:22:44 – 00:10:36:32
Speaker 2
So it’s just trends and diets galore. These things like by just I think there’s a lot of power in quoting and actual ad because like you can’t make this stuff up like.

00:10:36:34 – 00:10:36:53
Speaker 3
You know.

00:10:36:56 – 00:11:12:10
Speaker 2
Right. Yeah. And it’s like, oh my God, this is insane. The plastering on great word of mascara, concealer and lip gloss. And then also, this is the other thing about being just female in this world is the paradox. Like on one hand, the writer captured this presentable yet effortless like you’re supposed to. We’re expected to spend quite a lot of time and quite a lot of money to look a special way, but it’s supposed to look like we haven’t spent any time.

00:11:12:15 – 00:11:13:32
Speaker 3
It’s exactly.

00:11:13:36 – 00:11:14:32
Speaker 2
For this.

00:11:14:41 – 00:11:15:22
Speaker 3
Exactly.

00:11:15:24 – 00:11:43:12
Speaker 2
It’s so crazy. And then I really like the use of the word the masses. It was only possible way I would look okay to the masses, because that really captures the insanity of this. That yeah, we’re not just supposed to look fine to ourselves. We’re supposed to look good to everybody. The masses is like such a great word for like, an insane idea.

00:11:43:17 – 00:12:20:03
Speaker 2
And then, of course, the stupid skirts and crop tops and hating how one looked in them. So relatable, so relatable. I feel like pretty much 99% of girls will relate to. And then I love, of course, you know, having it push back into the closet collecting dust. And I love the phrase distant artifact. And then so relatable. That line about the girls with their perfect bodies and perfect faces, like, again, every girl and woman on earth can relate to that.

00:12:20:03 – 00:12:28:56
Speaker 2
Perfect. And I think that word perfect. I wish I could expunge it from the English language because it’s like the worst word.

00:12:28:58 – 00:12:30:22
Speaker 3
Yeah, it’s. Yeah.

00:12:30:29 – 00:12:51:05
Speaker 2
And no, nobody. And I think what’s ironic too, about this piece, I’m always reading interviews of everybody. I love interviews like this right now. And they I’ve read interviews of beautiful actresses and they that are like, everyone agrees. They have the perfect face and perfect body. And they don’t think.

00:12:51:08 – 00:12:52:44
Speaker 3
They don’t think that. Yeah.

00:12:52:51 – 00:13:26:17
Speaker 2
Yeah, perfect is like this. Impossible. And so anyway, I love that like it was shortly after that. It shifts, then it goes, the writer says, but in reality. And then talks about understanding that other people have the same insecurities. That is such a deep insight. Yeah, that they equally struggled with the life that I perceive. Perfect. I mean, that’s the to realize that when you’re young, it’s like liberation, because then you know, oh my God, everyone’s going through it.

00:13:26:22 – 00:13:52:20
Speaker 2
And then the last, the end was so magnificent that being a teenage girl is strengthening its emotional, endearing, filled with love. I mean, oh, that’s such a beautiful. And you’ve done this with some of your other pieces. I feel like you, as a writer, have an exceptional ability to reframe things to see like you see it through the world’s eyes.

00:13:52:22 – 00:14:13:39
Speaker 2
That’s kind of how the beginning of the pieces, it’s like, this is the the war. In fact, you said this, I thought I looked good the way I was until I gazed at the reality in front of me. And I feel like that is the writer saying I was fine until society made me feel bad, basically, right? Yeah.

00:14:13:41 – 00:14:37:24
Speaker 2
And then. And then. But you’re so good. Like you acknowledge, like that’s happening, but then you’re also able to, like, switch back and see it through your own eyes and see, like the beauty and the goodness and oh my God, to realize, like when it comes to an end, like I’m going to miss it. Yeah. And I love being able to love.

00:14:37:27 – 00:14:58:10
Speaker 2
It’s felt like self loving, a self loving, an expression of self love in the midst of a society that doesn’t want you to love yourself. In fact, there’s that great quote to love yourself in our society is the greatest act of revolution because technically our society makes more money off of us not loving ourselves.

00:14:58:12 – 00:14:59:15
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:14:59:20 – 00:15:36:15
Speaker 2
So I love that you also said on behalf of all of us, which is like such a leadership statement, like stepping out, we wish you knew, cared or understood. Being a teenage girl is tiring and I feel like that again. That just captures what’s happening in the world that people are, I feel like adults don’t give teenage girls credit enough for for withstanding all the crap that we throw at you, and then also for being stronger than it, for not letting it break you and pushing through it.

00:15:36:22 – 00:16:01:00
Speaker 2
Yeah. And also just being exhausted. And you need you deserve more rest. So I want to talk about the creative process. Just when you’re writing in general, when you start out, of course, we always have to face that blank page. And we have always there’s always prompts and suggestions of things to write about, but that doesn’t really help you when you’re just it’s you and the page by yourself.

00:16:01:05 – 00:16:08:58
Speaker 2
How do you get started and how do you push through when you’re like, can’t think of anything to write about?

00:16:09:03 – 00:16:25:51
Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean, I kind of just like if I’m having a hard time, like I’ll just kind of start just like writing down stuff on a page that I think is like or like ideas I’ve had in the past, stuff like that. And I’ll just like if it if it takes like five different tries, like it’ll take five different tries.

00:16:25:51 – 00:16:41:22
Speaker 3
But if it’s like if I’m having a really hard time, I go kind of just like take a little break and like listen to music, like do something like that. Like I like a small break. So obviously in this, like when I’m in the class and doing writing, like I’ll just like take a little breather, like see what I can think of.

00:16:41:24 – 00:16:42:48
Speaker 3
So I love that.

00:16:42:48 – 00:16:43:27
Speaker 2
I love.

00:16:43:27 – 00:16:44:46
Speaker 4
That you take a break. And I’m really.

00:16:44:46 – 00:17:13:51
Speaker 2
Glad you mentioned that, because that that is something I always encourage that when you’re in school, you can’t take breaks. I mean, you’re living on the bell schedule, but here you absolutely can. And this has been studied so many times. We are most creative when we’re not trying to be creative and we just relax. So I love that your instinct, your intuition, just so brilliant is to just like, chill out and do something to like, like calm your brain, relax, get away from it.

00:17:13:53 – 00:17:15:48
Speaker 2
And then an idea comes to you.

00:17:16:03 – 00:17:16:58
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:17:17:03 – 00:17:35:56
Speaker 2
Do you find I mean, I know that we’re all at the beginning of our own process. We’re all figuring out all the time. But is there a specific thing that you do that you think is most helpful, like when you do? Is it listening to music that helped the most? What do you think is the most helpful?

00:17:36:00 – 00:17:48:39
Speaker 3
Yeah. You know, just like basically anything like taking a break, like what you would do, taking a break. So like, I don’t know, like listening to music. This sounds bad, but like going on TikTok for a couple minutes. Yeah.

00:17:48:44 – 00:17:49:53
Speaker 2
No that’s great.

00:17:49:56 – 00:17:52:32
Speaker 3
Like, yeah, like stuff like that.

00:17:52:32 – 00:18:12:39
Speaker 2
So actually I think I’m glad you said it because again, that’s another thing that adults are always saying bad things about social media. And yeah, I mean, I think partly it’s because we’re aware that we get sucked into it and it is it can be a suck, but if you use it, you use it rather than being used by it.

00:18:12:41 – 00:18:24:53
Speaker 2
It’s absolutely wonderful because there’s always depending when you because everybody, you know curates their own account. If you have cool, inspiring things in there, you’re going to go find some inspiration.

00:18:24:56 – 00:18:26:58
Speaker 3
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

00:18:27:00 – 00:18:33:10
Speaker 2
That’s awesome. And of course, there’s a lot of stuff on TikTok that is songs and poetry.

00:18:33:12 – 00:18:53:10
Speaker 3
Yeah, there’s so much like poetry on TikTok. So if like if I need an idea, if I need some inspiration, I’ll just maybe search it up, search like something like, I don’t know, poetic or I’ll just like, look at, like lyrics, like, like the list I’ve made. Like that’ll like that helps. Getting the, like, creative juices flowing.

00:18:53:17 – 00:18:53:58
Speaker 2
Yes.

00:18:54:00 – 00:18:56:05
Speaker 5
Yes, I love that. I love that.

00:18:56:05 – 00:19:16:44
Speaker 2
Writing is so much about reading. I think that reading is always inspiring. I’m obsessed with boats and music as well, because it’s like a great line from somebody else. Somehow. It’s the magic of art that you read their line and there’s some like rhythm to it or magic to it, and it sparks things for yourself. Yeah. It’s great.

00:19:16:46 – 00:19:36:24
Speaker 2
So okay, that would be that leads me to my final question. And it’s kind of related to what we were just saying. But like if you could give advice to other young writers who they may or may not love writing, but they want to write more, what would your advice be?

00:19:36:29 – 00:19:57:20
Speaker 3
I’d be like, obviously taking this class. Like I feel like before I was I never like just decided to write freely or write for fun. So just kind of like, like taking this class, finding ways to just, like, get your creative juices flowing, just like finding more ways to be creative. I don’t know, this class like, helped me a lot.

00:19:57:22 – 00:20:13:20
Speaker 3
Like even though I’ve only done it for like a short time. Like it’s helped me kind of like become more creative, become more motivated and stuff like that. So I don’t know, just like, find like ways to be creative, but there’s still ways to like stuff you like, love to do.

00:20:13:34 – 00:20:27:36
Speaker 2
Yes. Actually, I think that what I’m hearing the writer say, the writer, the speaker, is that it’s time, having time. And that is probably where we all need the most.

00:20:27:41 – 00:20:35:46
Speaker 3
Sitting down. Like, if it’s like you love sitting outside, like finding a place that you love first and then getting that, like setting aside that time.

00:20:35:56 – 00:20:57:34
Speaker 2
Oh that’s brilliant, that’s brilliant. I hope by the time your generation is middle aged, the society has shifted to honor and make time for creative expression. And yes, your generation will hopefully do it because Gen Z is amazing and it’s truly my pleasure and right with you. Thank you for sharing upon today.

00:20:57:36 – 00:20:58:24
Speaker 3
Of course.

00:20:58:29 – 00:21:02:34
Speaker 2
About it. Oh, Ava, you’re so brilliant. I love it.

00:21:02:36 – 00:21:03:36
Speaker 3
Thank you.

In this episode of the Intuitive Writing Podcast, host Elizabeth Perlman speaks with high school sophomore Ava Moga about her powerful poem, “To Be a Teenage Girl.” Ava reads her piece aloud and opens up about the experience of navigating high school, facing social media diet culture, and dealing with the unspoken pressures of beauty standards.

Together, they explore:

Join Elizabeth and Ava for a moving conversation about resilience, self-love, and the strength it takes to grow up in today’s world.

To learn more about our organization, visit us at: 
https://www.intuitivewritingproject.com/ 

Thank you for your time and presence, supporting the voices of teenage girls! 

Elizabeth has a BA in Media Arts and a Masters in Transformative Arts, the study of creative expression for healing, connection, and growth. She is also a certified Group Leader in The Amherst Writing Method. Before launching TIWP in 2013, Elizabeth worked for over a decade as a graphic designer and art director in the advertising industry.

Word Magic: The Power of Writing to Reframe Your Story & Reclaim Your Intuition by Elizabeth Perlman is a self-help book that uses writing as a tool for self-discovery, healing, and empowerment, drawing from her “Intuitive Writing Project” for women and girls. It offers practical guidance and over 150 writing prompts to help readers trust themselves, reframe negative narratives, and find their inner wisdom through…

This compilation of 27 poems was written over the course of 25 years, from 1998 to 2023. (The title is reflects the author’s extreme delay in sharing her work—and yes, that is a unicorn finger puppet, taking time to smell the azealas!) The main theme of every poem is self-empowerment: remembering who we really are and reclaiming our innocence, our freedom and our joy. A…

LISTEN TO A NEW EPISODE FIRST AND THIRD TUESDAYS AT 7PM EST on WLBH Radio at WLBH.org!

CREDITS– HOST & PRODUCER: Elizabeth Perlman. FEATURED GUEST: Ava Moga. Hosted by Listen & Be Heard Network.

Live Session at IBeam Brooklyn Featuring:

Jay Rodriguez, Preston Fulwood, Gengi Siraisi, Martha Cinader

This episode features a tribute to Joe Talaugon Sr., author of “Mestizo Through My Eyes,” and his daughter, Judy Talaugon, co-editor of “Tribunal Rising.” The episode also includes interviews with members of Craig Harris’ Harlem Night Song Band, and a live recording from a session featuring pianist and vocalist, Preston Fulwood.

The archival recording of Joe Talaugon mixed with the most recent conversation with Judy Talaugon, explores Joe’s childhood with a Filipino stepfather, and the educational and organization practices of his daughter Judy, bringing forward indigenous wisdom and origin stories.

Craig Harris leads his rehearsal band Harlem Night Song, a weekly event called Rhythms of Resistance, featuring a multi-generational lineup of jazz musicians. Our Listen & Be Heard interns Jemyah Jones and John Mims spoke with band members, audience and Craig.

New Music and Poetry You Won’t Hear Anywhere Else

We feature another live improvisational session with Preston Fulwood – Piano and Vocals, Jay Rodriguez Sierra – Multli-instrumental, Genji Siraisi – drums and percussion, Martha Cinader – streams…

Preston Fulwood is an artist, musician, reiki healer, producer, composer and instructor. Preston is a master instrumentalist and vocalist and is a well known studio musician and jazz pianist.

Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra – Musician, Composer, Producer

Zakiyyah’s creative journey began as a child when, at the age of three, she won her school’s Valentine’s Day Poetry Contest. Early exposure to the arts through Mount Vernon’s Creative Arts Program allowed her to act in plays alongside talented peers, including saxophonist Michael Philips. Outside the program, she trained under Tina Satin—who also taught Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington

Judy Talaugon is a Chumash and Filipina Land Protector from the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. She is the daughter of farmworkers and immigrant leaders. Growing up among Mexican and Filipina communities in California, she has been a long-time activist in numerous struggles, ranging from human rights to housing, land rights, and the fight against white supremacy.

Craig Harris, trombonist, composer, bandleader, and sonic shaman. … his musical journey began with the Sun Ra, … place among creative music’s … leaders.

Martha Cinader is a poet and author living in Harlem, NY. Her young adult novel, Marq and the Queen Fish, is forthcoming in 2026 from Atmosphere Press. Cinader is the founder and Director of the Listen & Be Heard Network, where she hosts and produces The Listen & Be Heard Hour, and Beyond Borders, both non-commercial podcasts and syndicated radio shows on the Pacifica Affiliate Network. 

Tony Robles, “The People’s Poet” was born in San Francisco and is the nephew of Filipino-American poet, historian and social justice activist Al Robles. He was a shortlist nominee for poet laureate of San Francisco in 2017 and the recipient of the San Francisco Art Commission individual literary artist grant in 2018. His two books of poetry and short stories, Cool Don’t Live Here No More – A letter to San Francisco and Fingerprints of a Hunger Strike (both published by Ithuriel’s Spear Press) take on the issues of eviction, gentrification and police violence in communities of color. He is…

Joe Talaugon grew up in the town of Guadalaupe in the Central Coast of California. His memoir honors his Filipino immigrant father, one of the early manongs, (Early Filipino immigrants to the US,) as well as his experiences growing up in Filipino culture with a man who was his stepfather

A young boy named Lakas discovers that a fish from his dreams might be real—leading him on a lively, magical chase through San Francisco’s Manilatown.

In Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici argues that capitalism did not simply emerge as an economic system—it required the deliberate remaking of the human being. Central to this transformation was the invention of the “body as machine”: a disciplined, regulated, and productive entity shaped to meet the demands of wage labor.

“This collection is based on my experiences and observations as someone who witnessed Hurricane Helene and its impact on the community—particularly my mobile home community in Hendersonville,”

Existing in the liminal space of sound of spoken word and music, Sista Zock introduces a unique Afro Jazz Fusion Sound with a touch of Hip-hop. Her latest project, Zock Solid, Where the Stem Meets the Root, features a collaboration with Abiodun of The Last Poets, adding depth and resonance to her musical journey.

Tribunal Rising commemorates the 1992 International Tribunal movement in the city of San Francisco to dismantle the legacy of Christopher Columbus and the Myth of Discovery. In 1990, “[a]t the culmination of the Special International Tribunal on the Human Rights Violations of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War in the US, the American Indian Movement extended a call to national liberation movements and anti-imperialist allies, united by a shared vision of justice and equality. This vision emerged from a deep-seated commitment to human dignity and the elimination of age-old practices that perpetuate hatred and inflict both psychological and physical harm.”…

Living It! is Martha Cinader’s debut as the producer of her own album, and features an eclectic array of arrangements and musical styles. It was recorded in part in a studio in New York City, part in a studio in Hamburg, and part live at the Mojo Club in Hamburg, throw in some bonus tracks recorded live at WBAI Radio in New York, and a superb mastering session with Ralph “Pinguin” Kessler in Hamburg, and you get fourteen tracks! Cinader brings together the collective talents of Sabine Worthmann, who uses here sfx pedals generously with her accoustic bass and an…

In this remarkable collection, Tony Robles transforms a bright-lit warehouse into a psychic landscape to illuminate one man’s efforts to reassemble a broken life. Where the Warehouse Things Are gives the satisfaction of a book of poetry as well as a novelistic sense of a place and its inhabitants fully rendered. — Ron Rash, author ofThe Caretaker

This book is about a man who grew up during a time when life in California was very hard, even though as a child he had no clue of the struggles his father and mother were going through. All he knew at that time was that he lived in an old house somewhere out on a farm where his farmworker father worked tilling the fields for the next crop to be grown. This is a story he put together from his notes, recall and his curiosity by simply listening to people talk over 40 years.

In Thrift Store Metamorphosis, Tony Robles astutely demonstrates the palpable currency of human interactions. His keen observations show us the necessity of reflection. In this mirror, we learn that everything and anything that we pay attention to has the capability to hold deep meaningful lessons for us and our lives. Robles makes us feel a range of emotion: sorrow, loss, love, regret, anger, rage, humor and hope. The poet reminds us with this essential collection, so goes the thrift store, so goes the world.

This book is a vessel/holding liquid for thirsty desirers/in the empty spiral of the universe/where detail is opinion/one moment is all it takes to answer/when the body calls. This book is just one answer in a life of calling. The storyteller lives inside the breath of home. Whatever home is chosen, whatever breath is owned. The desirer takes the moment we’re in and stretches out its every wrinkle. In the folds are new horizons, exploding the every day, line by line-inwards, so the shards are sort of slo-mo in their entry into gravity…We’re brought into the world of the writer.…

A collection of biographical stories and poems about fascinating people in history whose real dreams made a real difference. Developed in performance, these stories bring old tales to life for contemporary readers in a way that is both entertaining and informative.

00:00:20:22 – 00:00:45:27
Speaker 1
This is as the sound enters my inner ear and vibrates through my inner plane, my biosphere. Part of me learning to be a better listener of others is learning to listen to myself. When we are listened to, truly listen to you know you can feel when someone’s deeply listening and we feel heard. We are healed in that moment, listening to be heard.

00:00:45:28 – 00:01:16:01
Speaker 1
Even if your voice shakes without knowing it, you may be saving a stranger. Listening to be heard is. I guess, part of why I want to connect with you for the series. You said that it like stuck to myself. Welcome to the Audio Garden where we cultivate our collective wisdom, nurture creativity, and spread love. My name is Martha, Senator, and this is.

00:01:16:01 – 00:01:27:07
Speaker 1
Listen and be heard.

00:01:27:09 – 00:02:02:28
Speaker 1
Welcome back to the Audio Garden and Friends. I’m so glad to be here with you, and I hope you really enjoy what you’re doing. I’ll be your guide through the three minutes of this next hour. We to better. The first part will be with both Joe to Moses and his daughter, Judy to Logan, and recording both from our archives and our most recent conversation with Judy, authors of Mischief go through my eyes and charging those eyes.

00:02:02:28 – 00:02:42:08
Speaker 1
And then we’ll be talking with members of Trey Harris Band and Craig Harris himself. Our interns, John and Jamie, had conversations about the rehearsal band that plays everything, and then some live recordings from last Sunday with Preston forward. Hey, Rodriguez! Since then he’s the writer and so and there’s a little bit of that poetry before we come.

00:02:42:10 – 00:02:48:22
Speaker 1
In the word sick.

00:02:48:25 – 00:03:23:10
Speaker 1
And with fire burning, earning which will be in anyway her way is the highway. How to work to seem to be with the truth about how the field, the conditions for the art of stay. And she walks away from her own food, from any excuses, from anyone. What is wrong with comes the good way to ask and why.

00:03:23:10 – 00:03:38:26
Speaker 1
We are going to take over the robbery at large with the bull’s eye on her Bible calls, the actionable alternative hold.

00:03:38:28 – 00:04:07:16
Speaker 1
Without a question. Useful section. Of otherwise you know to come on over the hill and the will and name will something. Well telling you, you’re not what you thought. But you bought somewhere and he where your head is like a big.

00:04:07:19 – 00:04:46:14
Speaker 1
Back in one of the listen to her. Our Tony Robbins interviewed Joe to Logan about his autobiography, Misty. So through my eyes and I have created a little montage with part of that with our most recent conversation with his daughter, Julie Civilian. And we’re going to take a little journey back and forth through time. So if you’ll follow me this way, through the gate, we are going to enter a very special place in the Audio Garden.

00:04:46:16 – 00:05:16:13
Speaker 1
Pay our tribute to go to who has sent back and through the children, who is moving on to other places. We all take it, or sports, whatever we’ve been trained in to take it further. Right? Right. And and you know, are maestro, our coach, our mentor holds our hand on into advanced studies and sometimes we don’t interface is 12 years to finish our work.

00:05:16:18 – 00:05:52:16
Speaker 1
But you know but these students are already they’ve been given permission from the beginning of this class to take over city, to take over a municipality, to learn how to administer city funds and zoning practices for land and land access. They’re very oriented to land access. So because I’m a native person and I want people to know that this is the biggest land transfer in all of American history right now, they will be talking to a wonderful author, Joe Collagen, who has written a beautiful, beautiful memoir called Mosquito Through My Eyes.

00:05:52:20 – 00:06:21:12
Speaker 1
It’s art, personal history, part manifesto, part love letter, but really a journey about identity and healing and reconciliation. Joseph Logan, welcome to our podcast today. Thank you Tony. If you read through the book, it’s more of a personal life story. I didn’t have to do any literal research anywhere. I mean, everything would come from my heart and from my own experiences.

00:06:21:14 – 00:06:54:01
Speaker 1
I grew up here in Guadalupe, California, at the little farming town of the coast of California, Santa Barbara County. My stepfather is a Filipino immigrant that came to this part of the country back in 1932. And the reason it came to this part of the of the state during that period of time in 19, in the late 20s and early 30s, there was a very large population of immigration of Filipinos coming to California, to the West Coast to work.

00:06:54:03 – 00:07:17:12
Speaker 1
So he was one of those recruits that was recruited out of the school in the Philippine Islands back in 1927 and came out here to go to work as a as a laborer. And that’s what he did. He ended up working in the field because that Filipinos came and a kind of a bad time came out in the middle of a depression.

00:07:17:14 – 00:07:29:28
Speaker 1
So most of these guys were single young men like my father, and they went to work in the fields, and he ended up here and working and done since, what, 1974?

00:07:30:01 – 00:07:58:00
Speaker 2
You know, into translation, oral literature will be brought almost identical to what we’re doing today is recorded shows and, and then translated these dialogs and, and then extremely healing. I know that from my work. And I can’t wait to continue to talk about it, but we’re going international migrants. You know, with me moving abroad, I’m here always has a tale to go with that.

00:07:58:01 – 00:08:46:25
Speaker 2
And it’s in honor of giving credit where credit is due. So for sure it is an indigenous principle of belonging and right, you know that. But I’m going to tell you, in 1974, I was hired at Huckleberry House House for runaways in San Francisco. Who hired me was Danny Glover and his to be wife, a shaky Bomani. And in our time together, working in a crisis 24 hour crisis facility, if you will facilitate as advocates as badass is right, right out of the strike, right straight out of the student strikes and and riots in San Francisco, the smoke cleared and a lot of people went back to school and got their got got their job.

00:08:46:25 – 00:09:11:06
Speaker 2
And these two were at the opera house and they had a side gig working with Youth Runaways. We and one day a shaky somebody was just being real arrogant. And the children, like you just said, sometimes we don’t know who we are. But we got my gun. We do. We have an origin story. You did. She stopped the conversation.

00:09:11:06 – 00:09:29:24
Speaker 2
She said that. She said that. And I want to give her credit. And even though I was raised by the fire to understand that I belong to this process, to this Mother Earth, and to hear her say, listen, everyone has the right to their own origin.

00:09:29:26 – 00:10:00:01
Speaker 1
Right on the main highway, one on one, coming up from Los Angeles all the way to San Francisco. So that’s great of time that farmers were growing vegetables. And when the people came to this valley, they traveled up the coast from the south, from Mexico, up into Southern Cal, or if they came from the Philippines, they came to some standard Cisco down to south, down the coast, the one on one on one.

00:10:00:03 – 00:10:42:06
Speaker 1
And when my father came there in 1932, there was a lot of immigrant landing gear from the so that they lived in labor camps, farmhouses, single men that settled in the valley over the years, in the 30s and 40s and 50s. They continued to work in the fields and families, established businesses. So you had a large Filipino community in Guadalupe itself, and poor and living in the country like that, except to their own countrymen that were living in the area.

00:10:42:06 – 00:11:16:02
Speaker 1
So they would get together on the weekend, maybe on Sunday, and socialize and speak their own dialect. And that’s the only thing that I could remember my father being when he was happy and having a good time. He had many friends and and I grew up around these, these men and some of them, like I said, established families, but majority were in this single and but yeah, they kind of looked for a companionship either in town in a pool.

00:11:16:06 – 00:11:42:29
Speaker 1
And like I said, in the book of illegal activities were going on in the town. Yes, they continue to do that because it was more like a sanctuary to them, because they would get together in these gambling in the pool halls and barbershops and what have you to be together with their companions. And a lot of times they go out to the ranch and have cockfights.

00:11:43:01 – 00:11:44:06
Speaker 1
Soon you were talking.

00:11:44:06 – 00:12:08:20
Speaker 2
To me about how your students actually use discord and have gotten away from a lot of other things. What say you about the modern state of media and how we use it with the tribunal project, with listening to her, with anything we’re trying to be? Absolutely. You need to be adept at each application. Let me say we just did a fundraiser, which is more of a salon, which is educational.

00:12:08:21 – 00:12:31:03
Speaker 2
There’s really picked up on Razor Out, but it had to be something where people felt like they wanted to come and put some coin down to contribute to the gig. It was in desert. It was some two hour code to get the time and location. It was done and without license, and it was done the way I advocate that we occupy a beautiful, wonderful Oceanside.

00:12:31:04 – 00:12:56:13
Speaker 2
We gather in small clusters, we listen to our favorite DJ, we stay up all night and we just do it differently. But we put the intelligence here, the students who are in conversation with it, not posing, not making a festival and not reducing it by invisible, intangible laws, by the way. And I want to talk about that in a minute, because America has a tendency to think that it’s all exclusive, all so exclusive.

00:12:56:18 – 00:13:17:27
Speaker 2
International. The term international is not a dirty word. So I want to talk about that in a minute. But yeah, we use each application very specifically. People out in the audience. We don’t go discourse all the way, face public, because some of the people that are there will never be outside of their house, will never show up for an action out in the street.

00:13:17:28 – 00:13:42:02
Speaker 2
They can’t. And we need to. That is a critical, huge population in this country. Neglected, abandoned. We need their voice. The discord is almost perfect for that population and that’s how we use discord. We use other apps, like I say, you know, just our own apps to direct people to our gigs, to our salons where they can. More information all night.

00:13:42:03 – 00:14:17:13
Speaker 2
Again, central to is not the only I don’t want to say it is really not, you know, but it is definitely built as a way and grown up. I’m just part of the production. I’m not part of the crowd hopping about. This is what we do with organizing zone. We need to keep people safe and we need to own in America that, you know, censorship is in full bloom and we are not expensive in how we speak to things, to really bring us outside of the cage, outside of the mentality that says that we’re so, you know, we’re so exceptional.

00:14:17:15 – 00:14:28:15
Speaker 2
You know, we we can we can dictate what the hell international impact is that it’s really not that big of a deal. Well, it is a big deal. I’m not going to compete with it.

00:14:28:18 – 00:14:34:25
Speaker 1
I’m Tony Robles, co-host of Listen and Be Heard. This is listen and be heard. Radio.

00:14:34:27 – 00:14:52:26
Speaker 2
Thank you Tony. And we are listening to both Joe Torre Logan, author of Mistico Through My Eyes and his daughter Judy to Logan editor, along with Angela marino of Tribunal Rising.

00:14:52:28 – 00:15:28:14
Speaker 1
Right. Yeah. So that was a really popular activity. Then my father raised hundreds of prisoners for other people and also for himself. So it was a very popular activity for every Sunday up in the mountains. And they would have a secluded area where they would fight these roosters. Tony, it’s amazing that all these activities were going on and other people that say they were illegal and against the law and the corruption and all that.

00:15:28:16 – 00:15:54:07
Speaker 1
Yes, it was, but it’s it’s amazing how the the authority to turn the blind eye towards them and let this thing happen, because the philosophy was in that time was that if you leave the Filipinos alone and let them do their own thing, they’re not going to cause any trouble. So as long as there was no trouble, there was no violence.

00:15:54:13 – 00:16:32:16
Speaker 1
These things went on. And I think you said that the only time that the authorities would get involved with during election time. Yeah. That’s true. Yeah. It was a very political that had its own leaders that you what was going on with the chief of police and all these people. So whenever the county sheriff would be up for election, he would come around and parade these gambling dens and then take the money and take the gambling tables out of there and destroy them.

00:16:32:19 – 00:16:56:01
Speaker 1
Same thing with the chickens up in the. They got her up all the roosters and kill them and put them up someplace. But then, miraculously, all of these things might have went away for a few days because of the raids. So they elected the guys, the sheriff and say, oh, he’s a great man. He’s going to keep clean.

00:16:56:03 – 00:17:20:21
Speaker 1
But the bomb was it was the ritual of of actually getting that together in a clandestine area. They had to be in a place where the authorities weren’t. So it was a metaphor for you had the gambling, right. But of course, when these immigrants came to the US, that was a gamble itself. You can’t win if you don’t gamble.

00:17:20:22 – 00:17:25:19
Speaker 1
And this tragedy in that. And there’s also.

00:17:25:21 – 00:17:47:08
Speaker 2
Generation. That because they’re my team. And this is the thing is I don’t organize by coercion. I don’t organize and try to teach by pain, not guilt, not shame. I really work on it. And and so and work on it. Meaning that before get that moment I’m preparing, you know, I’m eating proper. I’m fasting and resting as much as I can.

00:17:47:12 – 00:18:26:06
Speaker 2
But to see the two generations, in contrast, had a non to see those that are your age who have been raised to feel minimized and but but you better bulk up and you got to leave and you got to provide all of that. That victim. Yeah. I do want to say about Latin America, you know, and about that question of of mental rules that are enhanced, we say, and, you know, but in South America, I’m realizing that you see up here, I’m going to meet animals and don’t ask, don’t answer to get up here.

00:18:26:06 – 00:18:38:03
Speaker 2
We’re really good at he, you know, we like to follow and can give this warmth and feels good to be familiar. And we move in in math. My case of course. Okay.

00:18:38:04 – 00:18:40:19
Speaker 1
That’s a good that’s a human thing. We’re going to have that.

00:18:40:26 – 00:18:51:03
Speaker 2
Thank you. Yeah. But North it’s like goats because everybody has the right to say all right. What’s good. There’s so much.

00:18:51:06 – 00:18:54:03
Speaker 1
Interesting I like that the goats and the sheep. I like that.

00:18:54:09 – 00:18:55:06
Speaker 2
You don’t think it.

00:18:55:08 – 00:18:59:28
Speaker 1
The spirit animal spirits in a you know.

00:19:00:01 – 00:19:28:20
Speaker 2
They’re beautiful and they move independently and they’re very confused. But but they, you know, you can’t tell them sometimes what you do. They’re going to, you know, so I the Philippines to me because I have a little bit Filipino on me. Right. And me that that that’s nation is filled with independent thinkers also, you know so you can this country we think we’re so exclusive on the on the Constitution and independence and freedom.

00:19:28:27 – 00:19:41:08
Speaker 2
If you go to another countries and people will not vote the same as the guy next to you today, love them. They love their culture, they love their team. But you don’t have to tell anybody what to do in terms of their vote or how who they want to trust.

00:19:41:09 – 00:20:15:20
Speaker 1
I really want to emphasize strongly on this story was the the Filipino. They were from the Philippines to come to America and their propaganda was out at all. America, the land of opportunity. You want to get rich, you make money and you go back home with a lot of money. So they didn’t come. But unfortunately, a lot of those men stayed single all their lives, worked all their lives, and lived out these camps and died, ended up dying in an old age.

00:20:15:20 – 00:20:42:01
Speaker 1
But I think that the tragedy of history is that these men came with hoops and dreams, that they’re going to come and get rich and work and go and go back home someday. My father always said he wanted to go back home. But as the years went on and on and on, his family grew and he and got more settled into the into the community.

00:20:42:03 – 00:21:20:02
Speaker 1
He never did go back. And I think that’s tragedy to it all, because I know he would spend hours and hours by himself in the fields working, thinking about his home in the Philippines. I had the opportunity, fortunately, in 1998, to go back to the Philippines and visit his homeland and talk to him and tell them that that story of it was a heart wrenching thing for me, because I know my father, he wanted to go back, and I think that’s why I wrote the book.

00:21:20:04 – 00:21:20:28
Speaker 1
Author Joe.

00:21:20:28 – 00:21:53:15
Speaker 2
To the book is so through my eyes. And that was a montage with his daughter Judy to Logan, who is one of the editors of Tribunal Rising, you will find links to their bios, their books, how to get to their websites, and more at listening to her. Net this is season four, episode 27th and our Carolyn Johnson.

00:21:53:16 – 00:21:57:02
Speaker 1
Okay, I’m done. And.

00:21:57:04 – 00:22:05:18
Speaker 1
I’m here to today on behalf of Richmond, be heard. What do you think about the hurricane?

00:22:05:20 – 00:22:21:24
Speaker 2
Oh it’s great. It gives young musicians the opportunity to learn how to play in a professional environment. It gives them exposure. And he’s also mentoring a lot of the younger, which is really good. I would say.

00:22:21:26 – 00:22:22:13
Speaker 1
You’re.

00:22:22:15 – 00:22:47:04
Speaker 2
Dylan Campbell. Nice to meet you, Dylan. And what do you do today? I play the bass for great hair. And what made you join this group? Well, I got a call one morning from Craig and he said, are you available tonight? And I happened to be available, and I showed up and I was just subbing in originally. And that was almost two years ago, and I been here almost every Thursday since.

00:22:47:07 – 00:23:19:28
Speaker 2
What do you think that this space place was meeting? Well, I mean, first of all, it provides a place for people to heal really great jazz musicians and other music, too. And it’s a, it’s a it’s a multi-generational band. So you have people who are like old heads. You have people in the middle like myself. You have like young cats that are like in college or fresh out of college, and it brings everybody together musically, and it provides a space for people to hear really eclectic music.

00:23:20:00 – 00:23:45:12
Speaker 2
You know, it’s not it’s not regular, regular big stuff. It’s kind of deep. I agree, I’ve never heard music like this before. So tonight it’s a it’s a special band. It’s a special place. Perfect. So what do you think that rhythm of resistance means to you? Well, I mean, what it means to me is that, like, we have to be silly to the community, as artists to try to drive the force and be a part of the fight, the good fight for the culture and the community.

00:23:45:13 – 00:24:05:15
Speaker 2
Especially here in Harlem, how things are always changing. People get tired out and just all of the other negativity and things that are happening in the world, and to just be a sort of joy and positivity and try to do this, you know, in an activist set, but through music. Exactly. And also like that really connects to our loose and her title.

00:24:05:15 – 00:24:21:21
Speaker 2
So I want to ask you what it means for you to listen and to be heard. Well, I mean, to listen is to learn and to be heard and to grow. So I think that would be the simplest way to put it. You know, to be a part of something bigger than yourself.

00:24:21:24 – 00:24:22:16
Speaker 1
A couple of questions.

00:24:22:16 – 00:24:24:26
Speaker 2
About what we have here.

00:24:24:27 – 00:24:44:07
Speaker 1
This is a rehearsal band. Yeah. That’s it. That’s for. What does that entail? Well, traditionally, rehearsal bands are bands that guys get together, larger bands, and they get together and read some music once a week. Yeah, pretty much basically what it is. So how did you get started doing this? I met Craig.

00:24:44:08 – 00:24:51:07
Speaker 3
At some point. I knew Craig from hearing him on a record with blue. It called The Young Lion.

00:24:51:10 – 00:24:51:18
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:24:51:19 – 00:24:52:13
Speaker 2
And that’s.

00:24:52:13 – 00:25:12:12
Speaker 1
When I first heard his name. And I knew that he referred to occurred. Well, I had to listen because I was overwhelmed by blue. It’s great. Yeah. On the album. And I honestly, I just remember seeing Craig’s name. But then I met Craig in New York and I looked back at the album, I started listening. I think the work that he did on that album is very cool to think about.

00:25:12:18 – 00:25:16:24
Speaker 1
You have to. You have to check out that. Yeah. You know. All right.

00:25:16:26 – 00:25:18:15
Speaker 2
How long have you been playing the puppet?

00:25:18:18 – 00:25:20:01
Speaker 1
Playing for 12 years.

00:25:20:04 – 00:25:22:26
Speaker 2
Nice. All right. So what made you become a part of.

00:25:22:26 – 00:25:43:11
Speaker 1
Harlem Nights? I was just filling in for someone. Someone could make it one week, and I just caught myself in a rotation. That was nice. How long have you been doing it? Literally only two months. That’s nice. What do you feel like this place brings to you?

00:25:43:13 – 00:26:01:11
Speaker 1
For many. Do you think that it brings that same people to the community? Or what do you feel like to say, for instance, community. I think the community gets a lot of different things on there because just like you said, you haven’t heard anything like this before, ever. So people might come in and get a sense of peace.

00:26:01:12 – 00:26:29:27
Speaker 1
They might get a sense of like shocking that like, wow, what is happening? What is this? So I think there’s many different things that people can get from coming here and welcome. Perfect. And what is Rhythm of Resistance mean to you? For me and where I’m at in my point, of my career, of my life, it’s the it’s a place for me to experiment and learn and be able to grow.

00:26:30:00 – 00:26:52:22
Speaker 1
My last question for you is what does it mean to you to at indie? It means a lot because most of the time as we spend our day just practicing, practicing, practicing. So to finally be in front of people and play for people with means a lot. This is what I go by. Okay. It’s nice to meet you.

00:26:52:25 – 00:27:14:06
Speaker 1
Interview you for listening to her radio today and just ask you a few questions about what we have going on here. So what do you think about this rehearsal? And how do you know I love it? It helps me to wrestle with my own demons and play with that fifth wall of just being inside my body versus being entertained, entertaining somebody by being expressive.

00:27:14:07 – 00:27:31:26
Speaker 1
Enjoy doing poetry more with music in the background or without it? I’ve never done it without music in my life. Always hope you like to it more. Oh, it’s right here. I never know. I don’t know it without. Okay. I respect that. How did you meet Craig to start doing this? Man, Craig is my neighbor. Yeah, and I’ve been on the scene.

00:27:31:26 – 00:27:56:00
Speaker 1
I used to work at Saint Petersburg. Okay, well, 49th Street, you were just in proximity. It just wound up in my biosphere. Okay, cool. One jazz musician. Since we’re so connected, you need a mall, especially in Harlem, because everybody wants to play music together, right? And I’m like somebody that come through and exists. Okay? Exists in in, in.

00:27:56:02 – 00:28:15:06
Speaker 1
Because I, I learned how to be amongst the hip hop artists are people. This is why boxers, men, people up. You can’t jump out of the box. If you claim it fully, claim it fully, then you’re encased in it. So this is why some people are limited or it looks like, oh, look at them doing something with other people.

00:28:15:06 – 00:28:40:19
Speaker 1
When we are really a poly, Olympic and polyrhythmic people, do you think putting yourself in a label like I only do hip hop you can’t change to or poetry? I don’t think it’s always been, you know, you can say, I can only do what? First of all, I can only limit you that phrase alone. Yeah, I can, only I can.

00:28:40:21 – 00:28:54:12
Speaker 1
Yeah. I have a friend who said I can’t smell. I said, well, then you can’t, and you’ll never will. Even if you want to always be can.

00:28:54:15 – 00:29:01:04
Speaker 1
I mean, I can’t say you.

00:29:01:07 – 00:29:16:26
Speaker 1
In. Day of everything.

00:29:16:28 – 00:29:42:21
Speaker 1
From the tip of the horn. My world are burning. My word of the Lord.

00:29:42:24 – 00:30:04:13
Speaker 1
Country. Me born of.

00:30:04:15 – 00:30:55:24
Speaker 1
And be heard. Our. I’m Martha, Senator, your host here in the audio garden. And we’ve just been listening to the men’s and Samya Jones, our intern, talking with members of a rehearsal band called the Harlem Night Song Band. And they have an event on Thursday nights called Rhythms of Resistance. And now we’re going to hear John Mims in conversation with composer, bandleader and trombonist Mr. Peter.

00:30:55:26 – 00:31:15:12
Speaker 1
Aiken. Oh, okay. That’s my mother. That’s my family from Aiken. Do you want to say her interview real quick? Yeah. Who are you? I’m done. Ma’am. Yeah. Am I am I? You know, you had it, you know. Serious? Yeah. You know. You know. No no no no. Oh, man, I know, man, I know a big man. Big guy, big guy.

00:31:15:15 – 00:31:37:02
Speaker 1
Good friend of mine is. Now he’s about 80 years old. He’s from the man, not he from Chicago. Okay. It’s my dad’s name. And it’s been from South Carolina. Okay. Yeah. Riga. Greenville. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Upstate. You? Yeah. Are you from New York? I’m from New York. Yeah. My family came in 1933. They came from South Carolina. Yeah.

00:31:37:03 – 00:31:57:28
Speaker 1
To Brooklyn and Harlem. And then they worked and got their little pennies together because they used to do days was my aunt, my grandmother. They gave us a women’s block working with people’s houses all week, leave on Monday morning, then come back home on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They say that they stayed there on the week. Then they come home on the weekend.

00:31:58:02 – 00:32:16:12
Speaker 1
I gotta catch. Yeah, like like that. Then they got their penance together. Then they bought houses out near there ready to go. You know, do a lot of people in your family and you just kind of went off and they don’t know my small family. I’m the only between my siblings. Then I found out some cousins who play.

00:32:16:12 – 00:32:35:27
Speaker 1
But between my brothers and sisters, my sister played up for money. But I’ve been with me. I definitely come home after this. You know, I grew up at a time. First of all, the community has always music in the community. Yeah, we go up in the music and go up in the music. Right. But then I would say initially I grew up at a game in 1990.

00:32:35:28 – 00:33:01:01
Speaker 1
You were nine years old. We went to school and they had great public schools. Right. What made you want to start doing rehearsal concerts here at the church? I want to. Enforcing your idea that that music was part of our culture. Kids, young people, we played music. We played instruments. Yeah, we played live in the school system. Instruments out in schools like in the 70s and stuff like that.

00:33:01:04 – 00:33:25:20
Speaker 1
And that was a not a good idea. Okay. So so I played music and university study and I did that. And I’ve made a very good living for me. I went to I had two university. University of the street because I learned in the streets became music with people who didn’t go to school. And then I went in on the second, later day.

00:33:25:22 – 00:33:54:12
Speaker 1
Oh, and down on you. Oh, did you make her in theory? I majored in music performance and composition. I can tell you what I learned, but you haven’t had a real vision. So then. So I learned music a lot of in the streets. And then in coming up in New York and New York and as little time, there was a time when they had these things called rehearsal bands.

00:33:54:13 – 00:34:11:03
Speaker 1
Yeah. When you were they had her for all the week, and then you get in the room and you, you be in the room with Elvis. So I’ll be right next to guys, like, could be my father. Like, I could be his father. Yeah. You know what I’m saying? So it’s a tradition because that’s how you. That’s how you are.

00:34:11:08 – 00:34:30:14
Speaker 1
That’s what you learn because it’s a generation. Like I learned things about you. 22. 23. Right. I’m 72. So it’s a beautiful thing, right? You’re showing the younger generation through with her band, and later on, they have their own. They they they they just. And this is where we network. Important. We will be in network. And we met with you.

00:34:30:14 – 00:34:52:18
Speaker 1
And I get the chance to music and hear it every week. Yeah. And and it’s also a training. It’s a training ground because it’s a thing. And so we really started we got to build up the community audience. And because people have we kind of people take I’ll get you out to be content with people, people in our neighborhood.

00:34:52:19 – 00:35:04:29
Speaker 1
You know what I mean? You know. Yeah. But when you keep going, going. Because that’s how we grow. That’s how we go. That’s why I found you like that also this year.

00:35:05:01 – 00:35:26:07
Speaker 1
So we enjoy keeping the culture going. Like we started this thing about 13, 14 years ago when my partner and Jonathan and Lola and we started to keep the culture in the community. So it’s a beautiful thing, but it’s such a beautiful thing to congregate. This is like our church. It’s good to have something. So routinely every week.

00:35:26:09 – 00:35:41:05
Speaker 1
Oh, man. Good. Together. Yes. And it puts it. Puts it. Because that. Because if I didn’t, I didn’t have I think I would get lost in the week because I don’t know every day is I know Thursday just feel like a good week. Thursday Friday, Saturday I know we stopped, but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I don’t know what I’m doing.

00:35:41:07 – 00:35:59:24
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know, so it’s a good reset Monday for you. Exactly. It’s getting into the week. This is the beginning of the week. Yeah. It’s getting even that work with people. They grow, we grow. It’s invaluable. And in our neighborhood. Yeah. I like what you’re doing. We need to film extreme. We got some plans on streaming it. And then when we get.

00:35:59:26 – 00:36:20:19
Speaker 1
When we go outside here, we rehearse it. Bands and our hurts. A lot of people just come on stage and they don’t have any kind of vocabulary. So we’re building a vocabulary at the same time. You know, we got we got to take people there learning. Everybody’s learning especially. And I’m learning more than anybody really. Yeah, I’m learning anything because I come out of here.

00:36:20:20 – 00:36:43:25
Speaker 1
I mean, I might be able to focus in the future. What what I’m going to do next. How am I going to teaching people is the best way to learn. Oh, oh, I concur. I concur with that. And it’s a beautiful thing. I agree, I agree with you because I get to where people without letting go with up man.

00:36:43:26 – 00:36:51:03
Speaker 1
I like you guys. Thank you.

00:36:51:05 – 00:36:54:15
Speaker 4
Thank you John.

00:36:54:18 – 00:37:31:03
Speaker 4
Camera. Films. Craig Harris and all the members of the stand. This is a little more of Harlem Nights on band on Thursday night. Rhythms of resistance every Thursday night. And you can find more information about that on our website. Listen to be heard that night. This is episode 27 and you’ll find all the links there to Harlem Jazz Bar.

00:37:31:04 – 00:39:57:07
Speaker 4
More about Mr. Craig here. We have even featured also to the poet on the previous episode. I think it was actually a third one of this season for this is going to segway into a live recording of Sunday in Brooklyn. About that.

00:39:57:09 – 00:40:02:10
Speaker 4
To our great multi-instrumentalist.

00:40:02:13 – 00:40:04:04
Speaker 1
Composer.

00:40:04:07 – 00:40:14:21
Speaker 4
Sound designer, our our show bridges Sierra and.

00:40:14:24 – 00:40:20:24
Speaker 4
A company that piano, piano.

00:40:20:26 – 00:40:25:24
Speaker 4
Kenji survival on drums.

00:40:25:26 – 00:40:32:19
Speaker 4
It’s the second.

00:40:32:21 – 00:41:11:28
Speaker 4
Figuration or rehearsal band.

00:41:12:00 – 00:41:28:20
Speaker 5
Already.

00:41:28:22 – 00:42:36:15
Speaker 5
In the parking.

00:42:36:18 – 00:45:01:28
Speaker 5
In.

00:45:02:01 – 00:46:53:16
Speaker 4
Commission. And he heard our brought to you by listen and be heard network of project for sound system culture.

00:46:53:19 – 00:46:58:04
Speaker 5
I know all.

00:46:58:07 – 00:47:05:01
Speaker 5
Of the mighty one of.

00:47:05:03 – 00:47:12:22
Speaker 5
And.

00:47:12:24 – 00:47:31:20
Speaker 5
By the way. And homie.

00:47:31:22 – 00:49:05:08
Speaker 5
My.

00:49:05:10 – 00:50:44:26
Speaker 5
Now.

00:50:44:28 – 00:50:57:25
Speaker 5
In the name I have never.

00:50:57:27 – 00:51:15:24
Speaker 5
Between what I need to do or what I wish I knew what I needed. Because I ever hear what I felt like. How many people say that to be?

00:51:15:26 – 00:51:33:15
Speaker 5
You have a moment and you are here. And when you hear this, what you do, you even when you. And that was in.

00:51:33:18 – 00:52:04:19
Speaker 5
Your mental well do it without job or your well-being, or wings. Are grateful to God from the earth, Christ and the rest of the world, and I.

00:52:04:21 – 00:52:10:13
Speaker 4
That was alive for.

00:52:10:15 – 00:52:16:07
Speaker 4
A Sunday in Brooklyn. Another rehearsal man.

00:52:16:09 – 00:53:01:18
Speaker 4
Tested for words and piano and vocals. They me his Sierra. Multi-instrumentalist Sandy, Cerastium drones and percussion and myself there at the end. Martha Dickinson poetry. And we do that on Sundays. Most Sunday in Brooklyn at the Ivy studio. And we’ll do it again with something more. And you’re welcome. It’s one of the network with us, but it will be open.

00:53:01:20 – 00:53:05:10
Speaker 5
Weekend.

00:53:05:13 – 00:53:31:07
Speaker 5
Morning. We begin from the from from bread and.

00:53:31:09 – 00:53:38:07
Speaker 5
When you say.

00:53:38:09 – 00:53:59:28
Speaker 5
All.

00:54:00:01 – 00:54:17:10
Speaker 4
This, the sound system culture. And we invite you to get involved. And the producer as a post, as a volunteer in different aspects of local.

00:54:17:13 – 00:54:33:08
Speaker 4
Live performance. We need engineers and software folks. And maybe you want to be on our side of the board. And.

00:54:33:10 – 00:55:02:12
Speaker 4
The money, whatever you would like to do, you can find it and listen to be heard that at sound system, culture, that world and we can drive through the visitors there. And thank you so much for spending time with this here in the Audio Garden. The wisdom be heard. Our thanks once again to our desk.

00:55:02:14 – 00:55:44:25
Speaker 4
In memory of Joseph Singer, his daughter Judy to Logan. And I’ll remind you, his biography. Autobiography is meant to be so through my eyes. And to the book Tribunal Rising. She’s the editor, along with Angela marino, published by East Wing Books of Berkeley. We also heard from Craig Harris and his Harlem Knights song band. Some of the members who were interviewed by Jimmy Jones and John Mims.

00:55:44:26 – 00:55:58:24
Speaker 4
I were listening to Be Heard interns here in Harlem, New York.

00:55:58:26 – 00:56:37:08
Speaker 4
Thanks, as always to David at radio in Asheville, North Carolina, for introducing, listen and be heard to the Broadcast Airways Kcur in Taos, New Mexico. Keep in San Antonio, Texas. KHOU in Ames, Iowa, and four in Red bluff, California and other stations that are part of the Pacifica affiliate network for cultivating the audio garden in your communities. And our own listening to her network host of.

00:56:37:10 – 00:57:00:22
Speaker 4
Please visit us at listening and sign up for our email newsletter and at our listening to her YouTube channel, where you will find unedited video interviews of our featured guests. My name is Martha Senator, and I want to thank you for listening and giving me the opportunity to be heard.

CREDITS– CO-HOSTS & PRODUCERS: Martha Cinader, Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra, Tony Robles. INTERNS: John Mims, Jemyah Jones. FEATURED GUEST: Joe Talaugon Sr., Judy Talaugon, Craig Harris. POETRY: Martha Cinader, Zakiyyah Modeste. MUSIC:  Craig Harris’ Harlem Nightsong Band. Live session recording at iBeam features: Jay Rodriguez Sierra, Preston Fulwood & Gengi Siraisi. LISTEN & BE HEARD QUOTES: Jemyah Jones & John Mims. SOUNDTRACK, MIXING, MASTERING, SOUND DESIGN: Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. Executive Producer, Martha Cinader.

Do you want to be heard in the garden? Please consider contributing your audio content. We grow together when we nurture our network. Click here for more information.

Live Session at IBeam Brooklyn Featuring: Jay ROdriguez, Preston Fulwood, Gengi Siriasi, Martha Cinader

In this episode of The Listen & Be Heard Hour, host Martha Cinader and co-producer Jay Rodriguez share live improvised poetry and music recorded at IBEAM Brooklyn, featuring Preston Fulwood on piano and Genji Siriasi on percussion. The heart of the episode features a conversation between Jay Rodriguez and guest Michael Wimberly—composer, percussionist, Bennington College professor, and founder of Sonic Blue Arts & Education. Wimberly reflects on his musical roots in Cleveland, his journey through West African music, his time playing with dance companies and free jazz icons, and the philosophy behind his multi-genre album, Afrofuturism.

Preston Fulwood is an artist, musician, reiki healer, producer, composer and instructor. Preston is a master instrumentalist and vocalist and is a well known studio musician and jazz pianist.

Michael Wimberly is a highly accomplished composer, percussionist, and professor who has spent decades pushing the boundaries of music, dance, theater, and film. After serving as the handpicked successor to the legendary Milford Graves at Bennington College in 2012, his profound artistic vision took center stage with his multi-genre album, Afrofuturism. Moving far beyond traditional jazz, the album creates a powerful blend of funk, R&B, gospel, pop, and West African music. It features an impressive lineup of collaborators, including Grammy-winning vocalist Joss Stone, kora master Foday Musa Suso, and guitarist Sharief Hobley. Grounded in a holistic “ancient to the future”…

Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra – Musician, Composer, Producer

Judy Talaugon is a Chumash and Filipina Land Protector from the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. She is the daughter of farmworkers and immigrant leaders. Growing up among Mexican and Filipina communities in California, she has been a long-time activist in numerous struggles, ranging from human rights to housing, land rights, and the fight against white supremacy.

Martha Cinader is a poet and author living in Harlem, NY. Her young adult novel, Marq and the Queen Fish, is forthcoming in 2026 from Atmosphere Press. Cinader is the founder and Director of the Listen & Be Heard Network, where she hosts and produces The Listen & Be Heard Hour, and Beyond Borders, both non-commercial podcasts and syndicated radio shows on the Pacifica Affiliate Network. 

Joe Talaugon grew up in the town of Guadalaupe in the Central Coast of California. His memoir honors his Filipino immigrant father, one of the early manongs, (Early Filipino immigrants to the US,) as well as his experiences growing up in Filipino culture with a man who was his stepfather

Afrofuturism, produced by Temple Mountain Records, marks Michael Wimberly’s highly anticipated return as a project leader for the first time in over twenty years. While deeply rooted in his extensive jazz background, the album serves as a vibrant melting pot of diverse musical traditions, seamlessly weaving together West African music, R&B, and gospel.Wimberly breaks new creative ground by stepping away from his usual percussion setup to play mostly keyboards on this project, providing a fresh framework for his artistic expression. Though his instrumentation has shifted, his vision remains the core driver of the record. He serves as the primary songwriter…

A young boy named Lakas discovers that a fish from his dreams might be real—leading him on a lively, magical chase through San Francisco’s Manilatown.

In Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici argues that capitalism did not simply emerge as an economic system—it required the deliberate remaking of the human being. Central to this transformation was the invention of the “body as machine”: a disciplined, regulated, and productive entity shaped to meet the demands of wage labor.

“This collection is based on my experiences and observations as someone who witnessed Hurricane Helene and its impact on the community—particularly my mobile home community in Hendersonville,”

Tribunal Rising commemorates the 1992 International Tribunal movement in the city of San Francisco to dismantle the legacy of Christopher Columbus and the Myth of Discovery. In 1990, “[a]t the culmination of the Special International Tribunal on the Human Rights Violations of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War in the US, the American Indian Movement extended a call to national liberation movements and anti-imperialist allies, united by a shared vision of justice and equality. This vision emerged from a deep-seated commitment to human dignity and the elimination of age-old practices that perpetuate hatred and inflict both psychological and physical harm.”…

Living It! is Martha Cinader’s debut as the producer of her own album, and features an eclectic array of arrangements and musical styles. It was recorded in part in a studio in New York City, part in a studio in Hamburg, and part live at the Mojo Club in Hamburg, throw in some bonus tracks recorded live at WBAI Radio in New York, and a superb mastering session with Ralph “Pinguin” Kessler in Hamburg, and you get fourteen tracks! Cinader brings together the collective talents of Sabine Worthmann, who uses here sfx pedals generously with her accoustic bass and an…

In this remarkable collection, Tony Robles transforms a bright-lit warehouse into a psychic landscape to illuminate one man’s efforts to reassemble a broken life. Where the Warehouse Things Are gives the satisfaction of a book of poetry as well as a novelistic sense of a place and its inhabitants fully rendered. — Ron Rash, author ofThe Caretaker

This book is about a man who grew up during a time when life in California was very hard, even though as a child he had no clue of the struggles his father and mother were going through. All he knew at that time was that he lived in an old house somewhere out on a farm where his farmworker father worked tilling the fields for the next crop to be grown. This is a story he put together from his notes, recall and his curiosity by simply listening to people talk over 40 years.

In Thrift Store Metamorphosis, Tony Robles astutely demonstrates the palpable currency of human interactions. His keen observations show us the necessity of reflection. In this mirror, we learn that everything and anything that we pay attention to has the capability to hold deep meaningful lessons for us and our lives. Robles makes us feel a range of emotion: sorrow, loss, love, regret, anger, rage, humor and hope. The poet reminds us with this essential collection, so goes the thrift store, so goes the world.

This book is a vessel/holding liquid for thirsty desirers/in the empty spiral of the universe/where detail is opinion/one moment is all it takes to answer/when the body calls. This book is just one answer in a life of calling. The storyteller lives inside the breath of home. Whatever home is chosen, whatever breath is owned. The desirer takes the moment we’re in and stretches out its every wrinkle. In the folds are new horizons, exploding the every day, line by line-inwards, so the shards are sort of slo-mo in their entry into gravity…We’re brought into the world of the writer.…

A collection of biographical stories and poems about fascinating people in history whose real dreams made a real difference. Developed in performance, these stories bring old tales to life for contemporary readers in a way that is both entertaining and informative.

00:00:10:09 – 00:00:18:28
Speaker 1
Listen as the salad enters my inner ear and vibrates through my inner plane, my biosphere.

00:00:19:01 – 00:00:23:22
Speaker 2
Arm me. Learning to be a better listener of others is learning to listen to myself.

00:00:23:22 – 00:00:35:14
Speaker 1
When we are listening. To truly listen to you know you can feel when someone’s deeply listening and we feel heard, we are healed in that moment. Listen and be heard.

00:00:35:15 – 00:00:41:09
Speaker 3
Even if your voice shakes without knowing it, you may be saving a stranger.

00:00:41:10 – 00:01:15:26
Speaker 1
Listen and be heard is. I guess, part of why I want to connect with you through the series. You said that it like stuck on myself. Welcome to the Audio Garden where we cultivate our collective wisdom, nurture creativity, and spread love. My name is Martha, Senator, and this is listen and be heard.

00:01:15:28 – 00:01:59:28
Speaker 1
Welcome back to the Audio Garden. My friends, I’m so happy to be here with you today with another episode of the Listening be heard. Our. It’s really my pleasure and my honor to be your guide through the Audio Garden during this special hour. Every week when I try and earn on my co-producer co-host, also known as Jay Rodriguez, try to bring to you the flavors of Harlem, of sounds and something from each of our hearts.

00:02:00:01 – 00:02:19:24
Speaker 1
And on that note, here’s a little poetry. It was recorded live at IBM and Bucklin on Sunday morning. Somebody Sunday memos. But we get together on lots of Sundays.

00:02:19:26 – 00:02:36:27
Speaker 4
Someone said, take this fun pass and around the book come back to me a guarantee. And that put makes money funny because it’s like magic. Like your phone in the palm of your hand, which never use.

00:02:36:27 – 00:03:07:13
Speaker 1
Like money to add some generic money around that can’t even be located equated with water and soil. We 12 for many, many give me the bands in the on the around the facts. That’s not mine, it’s yours. And you never even took the tour. You might as well give on Mars. Take cars to bars and mother planets. Kids, women, scan it if it doesn’t matter or code.

00:03:07:18 – 00:03:46:03
Speaker 1
Unload your emptiness. Trading for money. My name is money. And I will code for collaboration. A constellation of installation. Cells of gold hold together in gooey bars, dripping sugar, energy motions. And the notion that I am money that comes to me I see I need like glow sticks, sweet attracting alibis and flights and real. The amazing Preston Fulwood on piano.

00:03:46:03 – 00:04:17:08
Speaker 1
And that was Genji Cyrus on percussion. And that was pulled together sort of at the last minute by Jay Rodriguez. And we’re going to hear more of that session later in the hour. And we’re also going to open that same configuration of musicians and myself as poet up to an audience next Sunday. And that’s going to be a fundraiser for Preston.

00:04:17:08 – 00:04:58:09
Speaker 1
And I’m going to tell you more about that later in the hour. Right now, I would like to show you through the garden gate to where Jay Rodriguez, Sierra and Michael Wimberly are already in conversation. And Michael is the founder of Sonic Blue Arts and Education and another member of the Greenhouse Creators Consortium, of which Sound System Culture is also a member of which Listen and Be Heard network is a project, and the consortium is having a festival, which I will also tell you.

00:04:58:10 – 00:05:42:14
Speaker 5
The Cleveland man list is long man. The list is long from, you know, Bobby Few, Albert Ayler. I think one of the most interesting things about the idiom of black Americans. But music here in America, I think often styles and sounds and musicians from Chicago to Detroit to Cleveland, a specific thing, if there’s a through line in every place you mentioned Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, it would be really migration and the blues with that massive migration north from basically people escaping, lynching, getting out of the cotton fields as the industrial revolution unfolded, trying to find work north of the south.

00:05:42:14 – 00:06:07:19
Speaker 5
So and with that brought those blues, those stories. But hope, if anything, hope. My family. It’s very difficult even for me to talk about family, because it’s so limited in my knowledge of who my people are, you know, to know how far back they go or from where they come from. That’s the way it is. But if anything, Cleveland, my uncle, was a sax player.

00:06:07:20 – 00:06:30:13
Speaker 5
His name was Marcus Smith. They called him Bubba and he unfortunately got caught up in the drugs. But the person who would come by the house was Charlie Parker to borrow his horn when he was passing through Cleveland. This is what’s told to me, right? And he learned how to write some notation. You know, I heard some of it many, many years later, somebody sang it to me and it was like, oh, bebop.

00:06:30:14 – 00:06:50:08
Speaker 5
Oh, monk was writing bebop. And what Byrd did was give him a few bucks, probably just just to support, just encouragement to keep him. Hey, man, stay on the straight path. You know, keep writing that music. Sadly, my uncle OD’d on heroin, man around age 32. So that was this is a part of the history. There’s beautiful things within.

00:06:50:08 – 00:07:08:12
Speaker 5
In the middle of all that, there’s a human and a human. I mean, we all understand our call and drug addiction, and now it’s understood as a disease. It don’t discriminate. I know that you consider doing I feel futurism. That’s one of the records. I’m using the term, first of all, there’s no such places as Afro land. Afro is a hairstyle, right?

00:07:08:19 – 00:07:31:10
Speaker 5
But Africa and actually that’s a European name for the name of that continent. That’s what the Africans know. It adds. So we’re still learning and unfolding the history of the continent and the reality of the people I know, we call it Africa is known all over the world. But go to some scholars and they’ll say, oh, okay, that’s what okay.

00:07:31:12 – 00:07:53:25
Speaker 5
That’s what’s very important. I didn’t know that. With that said, we talk about futurism, we talk about Sun Ra. And from that inspiration, we look at all the writers who have created somewhat fictional works that put us as brown and black people of color out into space, into the future. So I was what I was looking to do with my Afrofuturism.

00:07:53:25 – 00:08:03:16
Speaker 5
Recording was something the arc did you know? From ancient to the future, the Quarter instrument, 21 Street right on the road. Do you.

00:08:03:16 – 00:08:04:21
Speaker 6
About that from the family?

00:08:04:22 – 00:08:26:26
Speaker 5
Yeah. For they moved so he passed away last year. I’ve even got Joss Stone singing in Wolof. I’ve got four day singing in that. I created these songs in collaboration, but I created something just out of my head. This was to bring for me to honor my roots because of my study of African music. Absolutely. I studied a lot of African music.

00:08:26:27 – 00:08:41:25
Speaker 5
It doesn’t all exist on that one recording. Of course it’s impossible. Yeah, and I know it’s not a futuristic sounding recording, but guess what? It’s timeless. Yeah, I think I have one synthesizer in there. One?

00:08:41:26 – 00:09:06:01
Speaker 6
Yeah, yeah, but futuristic doesn’t necessarily mean, you know, people always think that futuristic means technology, but the technology already has existed in our native people technology, the original computers, the piano, the thoughts of breaking sound into form with strings. And so technology is in there already. What I love so much about people like yourself and this is this is fantastic.

00:09:06:02 – 00:09:27:26
Speaker 6
Had the pleasure of touring with Fred Wesley right up to recently. And you see the roots of what blues and jazz and sway going out to Africa, the idea of failure, the idea of the Pan American. Max wrote for so much beauty in this world, in a time when people are scared of AI, but nothing’s going to replace this thought process and nothing’s going to replace what you just said and what you’re doing.

00:09:27:27 – 00:09:32:24
Speaker 6
You know, when you play, that’s now. That’s the future forever. You know, you’re leaving a legacy.

00:09:32:27 – 00:09:56:18
Speaker 5
Oh, out of Cleveland. You know, I was exposed to that West African music in college out of all places. We did not have a class in there. We had a brother from New York named Craig Brown who was studying classical organ. But he had all this knowledge. He had drums from West Africa. He had all this knowledge on the, you know, he had his alter set up in his room.

00:09:56:18 – 00:10:23:26
Speaker 5
We knew nothing about that stuff, but he educated us on that and pulled us in and engaged me. And I started to learn those rhythms. And by the time I got up to New York and I could hear the dance mobile, I know we have the jazz mobile, right? I didn’t know him. They had a dance mobile where they would bring the truck around and show dance companies, you know, all types of dance, mostly indigenous, black and Hispanic.

00:10:23:28 – 00:10:24:25
Speaker 6
What year.

00:10:24:25 – 00:10:30:07
Speaker 5
Was this? That was in 1983. Now, the dance bill may have started way before that.

00:10:30:08 – 00:10:31:01
Speaker 6
Oh, I didn’t know that.

00:10:31:02 – 00:10:58:00
Speaker 5
Wow. That’s when I saw it. And I heard those rhythms of the great Chuck Davis Dance Company, the rhythms that my boy Craig showed me in school that pulled me into that area. You know, I gravitated to that performance, meeting the great choreographer Abdul Salam and the Forces of Nature Dance Company. And so my whole thing, you say, I’m doing it all, I am doing it all.

00:10:58:01 – 00:11:23:22
Speaker 5
But I had to learn a lot of things from working in dance, working in theater. We’re meeting people, doing films, you know, choreographers and at the same time, same simultaneously, just to try pay my rent, get involved in teaching so that all of that was working simultaneously. Man. Up until the early 90s when I met Steve Coleman. Cooper more.

00:11:23:22 – 00:11:50:27
Speaker 5
I credit Cooper more. Oh, wow. The person who really opened the door for me in this music, in this community of expression, connecting me with Steve Coleman, he did a performance where Rest in Peace. Will Connell, a multi breed player, connected me with Charles Gayle and that took me on, you know, an unlimited amount of experiences around the world with Charles, Gayle or Morris.

00:11:50:28 – 00:12:00:15
Speaker 5
Unbelievable amount of exposure to great horn players, James Spaulding, David Murray, him and for me to hit with all these people. You.

00:12:00:18 – 00:12:06:18
Speaker 6
Yeah, well I’m honored. I’m honored. I’ve been happy to in honor. I remember very well it was an honor to kill your music.

00:12:06:19 – 00:12:07:21
Speaker 5
Last year.

00:12:07:24 – 00:12:08:26
Speaker 7
It was.

00:12:08:28 – 00:12:34:03
Speaker 5
Just like, wow, I’ve been watching you for years, man. And inspired by your sound, you got your thinking. And so, you know, it’s a lot to say, but it was all happening simultaneously. And that moved me into this moment of now approaching 15 years of teaching music at Bennington College and extending Bill Dixon and Milford Graves.

00:12:34:06 – 00:12:37:25
Speaker 6
Right. These are names that they mean a lot to all of us.

00:12:37:26 – 00:13:06:26
Speaker 5
Professor graves, I mean, I think I met him initially through one of the vision festivals down at Oren Sans Center, that they were using that particular space down the lower of Manhattan, and just seeing him set up the drums, maybe just standing on the side, just seeing that power unfold, that polyrhythmic multiplicity of rhythms and sound and conjuring, you know, Milford conjured music in the spirit.

00:13:06:27 – 00:13:07:27
Speaker 5
Man, he loves that.

00:13:07:27 – 00:13:08:26
Speaker 6
Word, man.

00:13:08:27 – 00:13:32:02
Speaker 5
You know, he was a vessel. He he conjured that. I don’t know how adept he was in learning multiple languages and songs from the content, and I’m sure he did, but he still conjured his own thing. Now, the interesting thing is, he was a great timber prior to all playing the drum set. Wow, that was his thing. That was his thing in Queens knocking people out.

00:13:32:02 – 00:13:59:28
Speaker 5
People were getting I mean, wow, I remember him playing LP at his house, man. Chick Corea and himself on on timbales. Right. And the fact that he was the great thimble player, number one call. But someone said, man, you should play drum set, right? The fact that he’s approaching that with a fundamental foundation and rhythmic vocabulary of timbales and the music of Cuba and the Caribbean, you know.

00:14:00:06 – 00:14:20:22
Speaker 6
That’s interesting, man. The one time that I got to hear somebody do that, there was a percussionist named Endel. Dunno. I don’t know if you know Endel Duane if check him out and we’re playing with Charlie when Eddie Palmieri, trumpet player back in the day and Charlie had asked and he was a team Bolero with Bata and that whole, you know, crew over there to play drums, man.

00:14:20:24 – 00:14:42:06
Speaker 6
And I never heard somebody play. So it was just like the basic I had no idea that, Mr. Graves, how all of our continents meet and how Africa intersects in all of the Americas. So that’s an amazing story, man. And so the idea of Latin music. And so we have to dispel that myth. It’s all been in there.

00:14:42:06 – 00:14:57:26
Speaker 6
And I just love how some of my brothers play congas in a very, very Baretta. Would say he wasn’t a Latin conga player. He said he was used to tip. He was like that jazz in his way. He was not. He wasn’t thinking that way. So that’s very interesting. Anyway, going back to your saying sorry.

00:14:57:27 – 00:15:29:26
Speaker 5
Well, no, that’s the evolution of it. I mean, here it is. From that moment on, you know, Milford had had more or less revolutionized the drum set, moved forward, put it in the main conversation with the horn players and the other instrumentalists, and then just pushing them into other areas of the horn, the upper partials of the horn, you know, so and bring that energy that, that, that fire energy that we know Albert Ayler and train and so many others who have gone on to do that.

00:15:29:26 – 00:15:59:08
Speaker 5
And that’s why for me, playing with Charles Gayle pulled my playing or hearing and thinking up to that level. Charles guided me on that. I didn’t really have, you know, I wasn’t in conversation with Milford on hey, man, how do I how should I play this? And for me to be in this position at Bennington College to, to carry on Bill Dickson’s approach to music, or at least his history, you know, and let and educate students on who he was.

00:15:59:09 – 00:16:16:19
Speaker 5
I mean, we just celebrated 50, 50 years last year, getting a proclamation from the state of Vermont and recognizing and honoring Bill Dickson and Milford Graves for the Black Music Division that they created, and bringing that information into that school.

00:16:16:21 – 00:16:24:21
Speaker 8
I’m Tony Robles, co-host of Listen and Be Heard. This is listen and be heard. Radio.

00:16:24:24 – 00:16:34:28
Speaker 9
All right. Today I’m here with Miss Terry with Harlem network news. Yeah. And today, I just want to ask you what it means to listen to and be heard.

00:16:35:01 – 00:16:56:04
Speaker 10
Jimmy is a lot to listen to me. Not mainly in the media, which I’ve worked at for many years. They really don’t cover our stories, so we have to tell our own stories. I spent a lot of time on media and making sure that our communities. And so therefore, that’s exactly the right question for me. And we.

00:16:56:04 – 00:16:56:21
Speaker 9
Need to.

00:16:56:22 – 00:17:25:09
Speaker 10
Support especially now because I meet it and it’s definitely the message. So on the network news. You can find us on the Also media follow network news at blog to meet the support. Donate. You can download Cash App and we’re always waiting to know about other media. Thank you so much.

00:17:25:12 – 00:17:29:01
Speaker 6
Wake up in the morning.

00:17:29:03 – 00:17:38:15
Speaker 11
5 a.m. the dawn and I feel your breath and you’re yawning.

00:17:38:17 – 00:18:02:03
Speaker 11
Sounds like music to my ears. And girl you are the one that’s on my lips. You are the one that’s easy. [censored] I just can’t believe you chose me to be your one. And only said I’m happy to be here.

00:18:02:06 – 00:18:09:12
Speaker 11
I’m happy to be here together.

00:18:09:14 – 00:18:16:18
Speaker 11
So happy to be here.

00:18:16:20 – 00:18:26:00
Speaker 11
Said I’m happy to be here and alive.

00:18:26:02 – 00:18:34:08
Speaker 11
You make me feel so I.

00:18:34:11 – 00:18:55:08
Speaker 11
For to be alive. But I’m happy when I wake up in the morning. Oh I see your. Makes me so grateful for.

00:18:55:10 – 00:19:58:19
Speaker 11
Life.

00:19:58:21 – 00:20:08:19
Speaker 11
Oh.

00:20:08:21 – 00:20:46:12
Speaker 1
You’re listening to some of the music of Michael Wimberly, founder of Sonic Arts and Education. And you can find out more information about the recordings of Michael’s that were featuring on our website at Listening Net. This is episode 26 of season four, and we’re going to join Jay Rodriguez, Sierra, and Michael Wimberly in conversation once more here on the listen to be heard.

00:20:46:14 – 00:21:17:21
Speaker 5
I was telling you, the student at my school, he was a YouTube practitioner. He’s a priest. Oh, wow. So that that opened that door and then that opened up all the other doors of how that the how those traditions in through the Atlantic slave trade transformed in the Brazil with condom and, you know, down in the groove and Santeria and into Haiti, you know, just like traditions, they evolved and continue to expand.

00:21:17:21 – 00:21:39:09
Speaker 5
And luckily, at this point in time, we’re able to access all of that and learn the rhythms and the languages or sing the songs. If we can’t learn the language, I’m bringing stuff that I’ve learned from Haiti, from Cuba, from Brazil, from from all over the continent of Africa, into my music, into this improvization.

00:21:39:12 – 00:22:01:27
Speaker 6
You’re very unique in that way, man. You’re one of the few masters in that realm that incorporates all of that. We need to hear more of that. And what you’re bringing forth was you’re really leaving a legacy of tradition, like Max Roach, like certain people who began to understand what that means, the story of origin and your teaching materials on GenBank.

00:22:01:28 – 00:22:25:20
Speaker 6
What core principles about sound, touch and pedagogy are you trying to leave with the beginner that you wish you had done earlier? Either you see something that you want to give to them earlier that you’ll think will push them forward, that you said, oh, because I’m sure you have all different advanced students and you have people who are beginning and sometimes those beginners actually perfect to grow a stronger foundation.

00:22:25:21 – 00:22:42:15
Speaker 6
Right? Because we’ve seen that as players in New York City, you know, in all traditions and saxophone, you know, for sure flute, all the, you know, and then you deal with all the crazy psychological games that are capitalist system, but we ignore all that. But anyway. Go ahead. Yeah.

00:22:42:16 – 00:23:04:09
Speaker 5
Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, like you said, you were encountering the same students I’m encountering in the approach. I mean, if anything you try, I try to first just just play the instrument. Let me hear you play without thinking. Let me hear the natural approach to the instrument. If. Hey, can you. Let’s play. Let’s play. You know, let’s play an earthquake.

00:23:04:12 – 00:23:05:09
Speaker 5
Let’s play some leaves.

00:23:05:10 – 00:23:08:18
Speaker 6
Beautiful humility. You’re bringing nature in a real simple way.

00:23:08:20 – 00:23:11:14
Speaker 5
Bring the nature into the approach. Because we know.

00:23:11:14 – 00:23:34:19
Speaker 6
This as humanity, we know this. And, man, you must be a great. I want to take lessons. I’d like to teach more, actually, Ornette Coleman and has had you know, people are being taught music wrong, you know, and it happens a lot because, you know, they we have all these students, man. And that one music teacher, 25 students, you ruin 25 people musically all at once.

00:23:34:21 – 00:23:56:20
Speaker 6
And I love I love that because he’s talking about the music of life and the love that we have. And I think we’re living in a time where we, as artists have a responsibility in artists of color, of course, without a doubt, but because the industry is no longer what it is. And so the empowerment that we have conduct consortium that we’re part of now and learning that I’m learning.

00:23:56:20 – 00:24:04:16
Speaker 6
And so I’m honored to be able to even, you know, do this and understand, get better. It’s so beautiful. I’m so really grateful to Andrew during.

00:24:04:16 – 00:24:09:24
Speaker 5
And for those who are listening, we are talking about the presentation of.

00:24:09:25 – 00:24:10:13
Speaker 11
A festival.

00:24:10:13 – 00:24:11:24
Speaker 5
We are organizing.

00:24:12:01 – 00:24:12:21
Speaker 11
That will be.

00:24:12:21 – 00:24:23:20
Speaker 5
September 19th, 2026 to celebrate the the GCC.

00:24:23:22 – 00:24:41:00
Speaker 1
Thank you. Michael. Yes, the Greenhouse Creators Consortium Festival 2026 is happening on September 19th at the Soap Box Gallery at 636 Dean Street in Brooklyn, new.

00:24:41:02 – 00:24:41:21
Speaker 11
Okay. What was.

00:24:41:21 – 00:24:43:12
Speaker 1
Your name that was going to be heard?

00:24:43:13 – 00:24:45:24
Speaker 11
My name is John. It’s nice to meet you. I was going to.

00:24:45:24 – 00:24:51:10
Speaker 12
Ask you one question. What does it mean to you to listen and be heard?

00:24:51:13 – 00:24:52:03
Speaker 6
Well.

00:24:52:08 – 00:24:53:06
Speaker 12
First of all.

00:24:53:07 – 00:25:10:00
Speaker 13
Listening is an important part of just getting along and being heard. Exactly. So I got a lesson. I got to understand the environment around me and then be able to express my opinions and thoughts.

00:25:10:02 – 00:25:14:18
Speaker 12
Do you think you can do one without the other? You think you can be heard without listening or listening without.

00:25:14:18 – 00:25:16:02
Speaker 13
Doing anything that complements one.

00:25:16:02 – 00:25:25:09
Speaker 12
Or another? You think they’ve got to go together? Yeah, I agree, I agree. So what has been your experience in Harlem listening and being heard? Has it been good? Has it been hard?

00:25:25:12 – 00:25:26:15
Speaker 13
Very difficult.

00:25:26:18 – 00:25:27:08
Speaker 12
Difficult?

00:25:27:09 – 00:25:27:18
Speaker 13
Yeah.

00:25:27:19 – 00:25:28:01
Speaker 12
Why would you.

00:25:28:02 – 00:25:50:14
Speaker 13
Say so? The power brokers in Harlem pretty much are listening to other voices and other influencers and other money. Right, folks? So it’s very hard for them to hear what I have to say. So it’s definitely not okay.

00:25:50:15 – 00:25:53:25
Speaker 12
Yeah, that’s understandable. And that’s frustrating. It’s an all be heard.

00:25:53:26 – 00:25:54:06
Speaker 13
Yeah.

00:25:54:07 – 00:25:55:03
Speaker 12
Yeah I understand.

00:25:55:09 – 00:25:58:00
Speaker 13
What’s the name of your organization?

00:25:58:01 – 00:26:01:16
Speaker 12
Listen and be heard. You can visit us at listen and be heard. Net.

00:26:01:18 – 00:26:02:26
Speaker 13
Yeah. Do you have a card?

00:26:03:03 – 00:26:07:19
Speaker 12
I don’t have a card, but I can give you the Instagram or the website.

00:26:07:20 – 00:27:33:16
Speaker 13
All right.

00:27:33:19 – 00:29:00:00
Speaker 1
Listening to more beautiful music by Michael Wimberly. The first one we heard previously was called alive. And this one is simply called improv three. We’re going to listen a little more and take a little break for a station identification after that. And we’ll be back with a little more conversation with Michael MJ. So please stick around. Listen to the sounds of the audio Garden, and we’ll meet you on the other side of the bridge in a minute or two.

00:29:00:02 – 00:29:28:26
Speaker 8
Listen and be heard is radio program that’s part of the Pacific Radio Network. We focus on writers of all poetry, children’s memoir, fiction, creative nonfiction, and now we’re taking on a lot of other elements addressing concerns of indigenous communities, music. And it just just runs the gamut of everything that nourishes the soul. In fact, I’ve been involved as one of the hosts to co-host.

00:29:29:02 – 00:29:49:08
Speaker 8
Have some interviews coming up fairly soon in the next couple of weeks, so it’s something that I really enjoy. I just got a whole lot of pleasure and it’s something that very passionate about, and I’m glad that it’s here.

00:29:49:10 – 00:29:59:21
Speaker 14
For.

00:29:59:24 – 00:30:17:08
Speaker 5
I’ve been lucky. I’ve played for all the dance companies in New York City. I’ve been around Alvin Ailey and everybody’s around alive, Robert Joffrey, and played for and composed for the Joffrey Ballet. I got, you know, I got five ballets in the Alvin Ailey company. Yes, several ballets.

00:30:17:13 – 00:30:18:24
Speaker 6
People need to know this man.

00:30:18:25 – 00:30:52:25
Speaker 5
Bush women. I am a an accompanist and a composer. I’ve done the whole Martha Graham accompaniment, the whole. It’s just another part of my journey. But to answer, how do I find groove? I mean, I create, I you know what usually the instructor, if it’s a dance class, I hear while the instructor is explaining what’s next. I hear everything right there in the tonality, the pitch of the person giving the instruction.

00:30:52:25 – 00:31:14:15
Speaker 5
I literally confined a key total center and the and the way they speak. And then I match some of that rhythm phrasing that they talk about and then take it from there. I’ve been very successful as a as a dancer company in this. But, you know, and it’s paid a lot of rent.

00:31:14:18 – 00:31:45:01
Speaker 11
And nothing if not when nothing really I did I alone when I continue love with love, but I love way I could I have no I don’t.

00:31:45:04 – 00:31:58:28
Speaker 11
To the gates of the sky. Drink up the love arms up a while I come to you in many.

00:31:59:01 – 00:32:18:06
Speaker 11
Then I would not be. Not when I’m not yet. But I am going. When I put in your love. What do you love me? But I love the way I go I alone I got.

00:32:18:09 – 00:32:21:22
Speaker 11
No my.

00:32:21:25 – 00:32:37:20
Speaker 11
Sitting on my side. There’s no time. No, not even when I’m in love with you. Yeah.

00:32:37:22 – 00:32:51:02
Speaker 11
But I know I’m fine. I want to be with me. It’s.

00:32:51:04 – 00:33:22:02
Speaker 5
In my life. I’ve experienced a lot of things. So now that’s why I have Sonic Blue Arts and Education, Inc. as a possible new adventure to support new projects. Just my projects, but to support, you know, other projects, things that that might engage my interest or I feel connected to it. Correct. You know, so if I’m looking for anything, I’m looking for people who or groups or an individual who has that moxie, that energy to see, to imagine something, see it through and deliver it.

00:33:22:07 – 00:33:24:24
Speaker 5
Got it. You know, great accountability.

00:33:24:25 – 00:33:32:21
Speaker 6
Yeah.

00:33:32:24 – 00:34:17:12
Speaker 1
You so much. Jay Rodriguez and Michael Wimberly, you can go to Michael’s website at Michael C Wimberly. Com. You can find out more about his. Not for profit. That’s just been newly established called Sonic Blue Arts and Education. And you can go to listen and be heard. Net where you will find links to everything about this episode credits for his music we played that last one was called dance With You and more about the Greenhouse Creators Consortium performance main event on September 19th.

00:34:17:12 – 00:34:40:20
Speaker 1
And there’s some satellite events. What we’re hearing now is live session from Eyebeam this past weekend. That’s our own Jay Rodriguez Sierra tenor saxophone. Preston Forward in Kenya and sorority percussion and drums.

00:34:40:22 – 00:35:40:22
Speaker 11
Let’s listen.

00:35:40:25 – 00:35:44:27
Speaker 1
To.

00:35:45:00 – 00:35:49:03
Speaker 1
Leave It to Anyone.

00:35:49:05 – 00:36:24:15
Speaker 1
And don’t leave it to me. Not to be someone else sees is to fill in there. Yeah, I’m conscious consciousness. The stinky diaper no one will touch is the such sugar do or dos use the one don’t get to choose to lose cause you’re the one for everyone. This happiness in the nest. Do this not for them. The flow of know what it’s not for you.

00:36:24:18 – 00:36:56:01
Speaker 1
Someone else’s student high. Too high for you to touch. You’re too much to look at or listen to your to do. When there’s crowd and an emergency. Pipe down. Sit down. Shut your mouth. Hit sounds. Lay on the couch and stare in fear. Don’t dare to speech, to teach, to reach for moral clarity. See this and say it ain’t right.

00:36:56:02 – 00:37:28:18
Speaker 1
Put up a fight. Lines of sight. White as a ghost hostess with the most. As those dinners confess. The rest of the ride is to be on time for the floor workout. Look out. Took out the chance. The wrong. The land stands of three legs.

00:37:28:20 – 00:38:14:18
Speaker 1
Moving on with moving on and on to the next school. Like the planetary benefits that come to games. Big time heists by banditos on a Fritos bag. Hey, no one sees slime color. Her mother currently is not utter our brother for yourself to move on is to let no the thing sing without friction Street friction. Benediction of intuitive to tip nation lingo.

00:38:14:24 – 00:38:36:12
Speaker 1
The automation to stop stop anything. The car is in the creation of all that is not working and working with this and in the same line between them. And now how we learn everything.

00:38:36:14 – 00:38:44:05
Speaker 11
Around here. Everything in the car and.

00:38:44:07 – 00:38:47:28
Speaker 1
In.

00:38:48:01 – 00:38:51:12
Speaker 1
Private.

00:38:51:14 – 00:39:04:20
Speaker 1
Care about you care to care, I care, we care about downtown, but without it’s real.

00:39:04:22 – 00:39:06:06
Speaker 11
And three.

00:39:06:08 – 00:39:27:00
Speaker 1
True I do I.

00:39:27:02 – 00:41:38:03
Speaker 1
Dance to.

00:41:38:06 – 00:41:44:16
Speaker 10
Our sense of justice is. Really deeply whether we want to believe it or not, in an inheritance.

00:41:44:18 – 00:41:45:07
Speaker 11
And.

00:41:45:07 – 00:42:22:15
Speaker 10
An inheritance of hope. You know, that’s a spiritual inheritance. I think that humans have, and we don’t always want to claim it, want to compact it into something. I love this that you’re saying right now, though, that technology has taken us, and I really do spend time with the media arm of this discourse, the young ones that are really asking the question and reopening up that opportunity to do just speak out, you know, beyond the the doors of the courts to bring it into a common language.

00:42:22:15 – 00:42:52:27
Speaker 10
So the people of great influence can influence what genocide is or characterizations all over again. New policy, new law, expansive data and forensics. And I mean, in terms of data on data is justice. That whole wonderful line is coming through in the truest way for folks who’ve done this work for as long, who are continuing to teach, and for the new students, data and forensics, you know, we’re unearthing we’re unearthing bones.

00:42:52:27 – 00:43:20:13
Speaker 10
And you’re right, these people cannot be their countries and states and state sanctioned atrocity that could never be held accountable. But just that process and acknowledgment from World Court. How about that? The forensics are coming. They’re horrific. And they’re and we will uncover and re characterize the measles blankets that were handed out to my people on this continent as a form of genocide.

00:43:20:15 – 00:44:03:09
Speaker 10
We will get the real numbers one day and we will know that it was genocide.

00:44:03:12 – 00:44:06:24
Speaker 1
To be grateful.

00:44:06:26 – 00:44:52:09
Speaker 1
To feel flowing is knowing I am here now and that is all I need. Nothing more, nothing less. I would fight to the death to have this, but right now I don’t have to. I am at peace with the peace. Of peace. Yes, there is tranquility for I. Can you read itself? I am not sitting on the shelf in the museum.

00:44:52:12 – 00:45:24:23
Speaker 1
The show is not yet the automatic, but can’t be reversed. I choose the decades. But I’m still a baby crying on earth that serves the tug boat. This is for us. Words like man.

00:45:24:25 – 00:45:54:14
Speaker 1
For the moment. For it cuts the air. Unfair to the mites. The sights and sounds abound here on Earth. A dearth of look that up. Disconnected from the internet, fretting, betting against the oddity commodities king of everything, sitting instead.

00:45:54:16 – 00:46:17:21
Speaker 1
Head dread. Get up from your sick bed saying to everything about every one will be the one with the word in your mouth to hit.

00:46:17:24 – 00:46:26:14
Speaker 1
And the new pair.

00:46:26:16 – 00:46:39:09
Speaker 15
This is the listen and be heard our brought to you by listen and be heard network a project of sound system culture.

00:46:39:12 – 00:46:44:02
Speaker 1
You got a new.

00:46:44:04 – 00:46:50:15
Speaker 1
What you want to.

00:46:50:18 – 00:47:13:28
Speaker 1
Right down in the dumps under city of ten. City and of a person on track. Back step to death. But what no good are you going to be happy to be sealed away?

00:47:14:01 – 00:47:18:17
Speaker 1
You want it to turn?

00:47:18:19 – 00:47:22:20
Speaker 11
No, no.

00:47:22:22 – 00:47:47:21
Speaker 1
And the altar.

00:47:47:24 – 00:47:50:10
Speaker 1
Of the.

00:47:50:13 – 00:48:00:17
Speaker 1
Redemption.

00:48:00:20 – 00:48:05:00
Speaker 1
And.

00:48:05:03 – 00:48:09:15
Speaker 1
Never.

00:48:09:18 – 00:48:23:21
Speaker 12
Okay. What’s your name? Yeah, my name is free, Frank. Okay. I’m John. It’s nice to meet you. I see you got the metal glasses on. What type of content are you doing at hollow? I’m trying to make, like, make content. And that’s what you do. You fight? Yeah, I do, I saw you watching stuff like that. Of course.

00:48:23:21 – 00:48:43:09
Speaker 12
That’s fine. So the only question I had to ask you today is, what does it mean to you to listen and be heard? This will be heard from me. Whatever it means to you. This is the first thing you pay. Just speak. It don’t matter. I feel like it feels to me to be listening, to be heard. It’s just for other people around me to understand exactly what I’m saying.

00:48:43:15 – 00:48:59:15
Speaker 12
You can just talk to people, but they can not. They sometimes they can not necessarily know, which means they’re not listening. It’s actually. Yeah, they’re hearing. They’re not listening. It’s I see exactly. You know, when I go around, I tell people about certain things I do, like I’m in my stuff, like some people don’t really understand. Yeah. I’m trying to get through.

00:48:59:16 – 00:49:20:09
Speaker 12
So what are you trying to get to? Generational wealth. Generational wealth, freedom to go. Yeah, of course I respect it I respect it. So you want to have your own MMA gym? Yeah. Oh that medium I want to expand into different little projects like maybe stocks body make some stores. Yeah. You got to delegate tasks to other people, get some passive income you know.

00:49:20:14 – 00:49:31:20
Speaker 12
Would you like to do things like, let’s say you made it, would you like to do things to get back to the community, help people? Yeah, I feel like that’s what I want to do. I mean, I’m going to give back to the community. I just got to get one. Yeah, you got to go get back to yourself.

00:49:31:21 – 00:50:09:10
Speaker 12
You know what I’m saying? First. Yeah, yeah. I’ll tell you. So I started listening. Be heard. Radio. It’s also a podcast. You can check it out on. Listen and be heard. Net.

00:50:09:13 – 00:50:14:26
Speaker 9
All right. Thank you. What does it mean to you to listen and be heard? What does it mean for me.

00:50:14:26 – 00:50:15:19
Speaker 12
Specifically.

00:50:15:19 – 00:50:16:04
Speaker 9
To be.

00:50:16:04 – 00:50:17:04
Speaker 6
To listen?

00:50:17:12 – 00:50:21:18
Speaker 9
To be heard?

00:50:21:20 – 00:50:49:26
Speaker 9
Okay, look, if I had to think about what it needs to listen to be heard, it basically means whatever message is basically being projected. I’m going to basically now or down to our community. If a message is being basically put out there, you have to basically internalize the message and use that message to be heard. Exactly right. To use what I’ve learned to like am power to empower.

00:50:49:27 – 00:51:12:18
Speaker 9
Exactly. If you’re not listening to the actual message, not I’m not talking about the message. That’s basically I’m not. And you know, I know you’re younger than me, but I’m not talking about the message that’s basically being put off by Cardi B or Nicki Minaj or the men. I don’t really know too much about it right now because the women need to know about.

00:51:12:19 – 00:51:53:21
Speaker 9
Yes, because the women are dominating, you know, the rap field. Hello. But these are not the messages that we need to hear. We need to hear more positive messages by college educated women, the sisters that’s in sororities, that’s getting a degrees. The acres, the cuz are brothers and sisters. As medical doctors. This is the message and he basically are supposed to listen to.

00:51:53:24 – 00:52:28:06
Speaker 15
I hope you’ve enjoyed listening in to this live session that took place at I-beam in Brooklyn, and if you really enjoyed it and you would like to help support a deserving musician, the great pianist Preston Bullard, who we have been listening to, we’re going to do this again on Sunday around 3:00 at IBM in Brooklyn, and it’s going to be a fundraiser for Preston, who finds himself in need of housing.

00:52:28:06 – 00:53:01:21
Speaker 15
And we also would like to find a lawyer, if possible, for him, someone who specializes in disability rights and payments. So if that’s you, if you would like to help, please contact us through listen and be hurt. Net next week we’re going to feature our own Judy to Logan, and we’re going to revisit an interview with her father, Joe Torre Logan, that Tony Robles did back in season one.

00:53:01:21 – 00:53:37:06
Speaker 16
Didn’t have to do any literal research anywhere. I mean, everything was just come from my my heart and from my own life experiences. I grew up here in Guadalupe, California. It’s a little town up the coast of California, Santa Barbara County. My stepfather is a Filipino immigrant that came to this part of the country back in 1932. During that period of time, in the late 20s and early 30s, there was a very large population of immigration, of Filipinos coming to California, to the West Coast to work.

00:53:37:06 – 00:54:02:00
Speaker 16
So he was one of those recruits that was recruited out of the blue and the Philippine Islands back in 1927 and came out here to go to work as a as a laborer. And that’s what he did. He ended up working in the fields because at that time, historically, the United States was in a deep depression period of history.

00:54:02:00 – 00:54:26:00
Speaker 16
And so there wasn’t hardly any work for anybody at the time. But the Filipinos came, and a kind of a bad time of the era. And they came right in the middle of a depression. So most of these guys were single young men, like my father, and they went to work in the fields, and he ended up here in Santa Maria Valley.

00:54:26:02 – 00:54:34:21
Speaker 16
He met my mother, who was a mass Indian, and he married her. And.

00:54:34:24 – 00:55:12:07
Speaker 15
As the voice of Joe Torre Logan, author of Mestizo Through My Eyes, interviewed by Tony Robles in season one of the Listen and Be Heard. Our next week, we’re going to revisit that conversation, as well as another more recent conversation that Jay and I had with Joe’s daughter, Judy. To Logan, who is the author of Tribunal Rising and is currently doing a little tour of the West Coast promoting both of those books.

00:55:12:07 – 00:55:47:14
Speaker 15
And so we would like to bring a little attention that way in that direction towards the intersection of those two stories and the great meaning that it really has for all of us today. So I hope you will join us next week. Here on the listen and be heard. Our I want to thank Michael Wimberly for joining us, as well as Preston, Fulwood and Genji Serious for the session we had last week.

00:55:47:14 – 00:55:58:16
Speaker 15
And listen to hear today.

00:55:58:19 – 00:56:36:28
Speaker 15
Thanks as always to David Dial at VM Radio in Asheville, North Carolina for introducing listen to be heard to the broadcast airwaves Kitchen in Taos, New Mexico, kept in San Antonio, Texas, KHOU in Ames, Iowa, and four in Red bluff, California and other stations that are part of the Pacifica affiliate network for cultivating the audio garden in your communities and our own listen be heard network host of W.

00:56:37:01 – 00:57:09:26
Speaker 15
Please visit us at Listening Net and sign up for our email newsletter and at our Listen and Be Heard YouTube channel, where you will find unedited video interviews of our featured guests. My name is Martha Senator, and I want to thank you for listening and giving me the opportunity to be heard.

00:57:09:28 – 00:57:14:00
Speaker 14
Heard.

00:57:14:02 – 00:57:24:21
Speaker 14
You are.

00:57:24:23 – 00:57:32:04
Speaker 14
Your your.

00:57:32:07 – 00:57:34:26
Speaker 14
You are.

00:57:34:28 – 00:57:46:19
Speaker 14
You are.

00:57:46:21 – 00:57:50:20
Speaker 14
Mentally.

00:57:50:22 – 00:57:51:06
Speaker 14

CREDITS– CO-HOSTS & PRODUCERS: Martha Cinader, Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. FEATURED GUEST: Michael Wimberly. POETRY: Martha Cinader. MUSIC:  “Improv 3”: Alexis Marcelo – piano, Adam Lane – acoustic bass, Michael Wimberly – drums. From Afrofuturism, “Alive” features Chloe Parker, Jonathan Joseph, Mike Meurin, Sharief Hobley & Trevor Allen. “Dance With You,” features Foday Musa Suso, Jonathan Joseph, Jose Armando Gola, Joss Stone & Sharief Hobley. Live session recording at iBeam features: Jay Rodriguez Sierra, Preston Fulwood & Gengi Siriasi. LISTEN & BE HEARD QUOTES: Jemyah Jones & John Mims, features: Cliff Coop, Nikki Bowen, Terri Wisdom & Bernardo. SOUNDTRACK, MIXING, MASTERING, SOUND DESIGN: Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. Executive Producer, Martha Cinader.

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