Raising Lilly Ledbetter; Women Poets Occupy the Workplace

I finally received my contributor's copy of Raising Lilly Ledbetter; Women Poets Occupy the Workplace. Wonderful blurb by Carolyn Forché . Almost 200 women poets "bear witness to women's workplace lives and act to re-envision and refigure the world of work for women..."

My poem highlights the plight of international sex workers. Other poets include Rita Dove, Nikky Finney, Denise Duhamel, Natasha Trethwey, Ellen Bass, Daisy Fried and so many others- almost 200!!!!

Bravo to the editors Carolyne Wright, M.L. Lyons and Eugenia Toledo and the publisher Lost Horse Press.

“This remarkable anthology, gathered in tribute to Lilly Ledbetter with a toast to Carolyn Kizer, gathers the lyric art of working women, writing from the depths of at least sixty-two occupations. These are the poems of the heavy-lifters, night-shifters, line and piece workers, writing with grace and often with humor: poets who punch clocks, woman the phones and decks, weave, weld and can, cotton-pick and cold call, thread-spin, typeset and teach. They sex-work, they ship-build, plaster and preach, butcher and drive the bus. This is anthology as page-turner, as fist in the air, as do-it-yourself manual against despair. Here, and in gratitude to Lilly Ledbetter, is the music of a movement, and it is one of the best of our time.”—Carolyn Forché  

You may follow this link to order the book:  https://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/WRIRAI.html

Congrats to Juan Felipe Herrera; Our Newest Poet Laureate

Juan Felipe Herrera, From Farm Fields to Poet Laureate

Poet Juan Felipe-Photo Credit Gary Kazanjian

By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER  JUNE 10, 2015

The Library of Congress is to announce on Wednesday that Juan Felipe Herrera, a son of migrant farmworkers whose  writing fuses wide-ranging experimentalism with reflections on Mexican-American identity, will be the next poet laureate.The appointment is the nation’s highest honor in poetry and also something of a direct promotion for Mr. Herrera, who was poet laureate of California from 2012 to 2014. “I feel like I’m on one of those big diving boards,” Mr. Herrera, 66, said by telephone from his home in Fresno. “I was on a really high one already, and now I’m going to the highest one.” 
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Read on at: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/books/juan-felipe-herrera-of-california-to-be-next-poet-laureate.html?smid=tw-share

Opera Philadelphia's Charlie Parker's YARDBIRD; Live Tweeting the Final Dress Rehearsal

Charlie Parker’s Yardbird’ Ties Jazz and Opera Together in Philadelphia

Carlie Parker, left, and Lawrence Brownlee, who will portray him in the world premiere of “Charlie Parker’s Yardbird” at Opera Philadelphia. CreditAgence France-Press - Getty Images; Dominic M. Mercier/Opera Philadelphia

           Join me @omcbrideahebee when I will live-tweet the final dress rehearsal of Opera Philadelphia's Charlie Parker's YARDBIRD on June 3 at 6:15 p.m. Find me on twitter @omcbrideahebee and follow me. 


Now, meet the wives of Charlie Parker.

Happy Birthday to Poet Marilyn Monroe

     Happy B-D Marilyn! Love this photo of her & poet Edith Sitwell. Here’s link to Monroe’s poetry:

http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/07/27/marilyn-monroe-fragments-poems/