OBSERVATIONS #20 – 12.31.24

Change is Coming – Details To Be Announced To the January-June, 2025 Racine Writer-in-Residence Grantee #18 – Congratulations! Best Wishes to our new WIR program coordinator! Formal announcements will be made shortly. In the meantime, Thank You, Nick Ramsey/Art Root coordinator, 2017-2024, for your outstanding leadership and diligence in organizing the program. Nick’s hands on…

OBSERVATIONS #19 – 12.31.24

EN PLEIN AIRThe humid wind, sandy beaches, blinding light, hidden niches,Safeguards the children,Suspended between parched earth, blue sky, clear water, As if etched in steel, not real, tell time. Trace your way along the path, Through scrub, lost at the edge,Reminiscent of ancient mounds, Dissonance turned melodic,Just beyond, Long shadows of man and trees intersect,Leafy…

OBSERVATIONS #18 – 12.24.24

I Must Do To Be I must do to be, Things move, change waits, Words interrupt, hands interpret, Bodies heal, thoughts roam. Before you, after me, Sands drift to form dunes and valleys, Swirling shapes shift with times motion, And like water, are not silent. Obedient children must speak, They play guard over brown uneven…

OBSERVATIONS INVITATION – 12.1.24

YOU ARE INVITED: “Follow winter’s light to a community gathering of thinkers and talkers, makers and do-ers.” ( Mimi Peterson planning the upcoming Solstice Celebration.) WHERE: Vintage and Modern Books, 415 6th St. , Racine, Wisconsin, 53403 QUESTIONS: Adam: 872/235.3753 WHEN: 3 – 7 P.M. on Friday, December 6, 2024 WHO: Mimi Peterson, Racine Writer-in-Residence,…

OBSERVATIONS #12 – 10.27.24

In ProximityStaged by design, Neither an absolute unicum, Nor a sculptural continuum.A critical mass, the arena set in a meandering sprawl,Seen as a monument to hierarchy,Continual expansion of the false emperors power,Constructed around dark notions of axial age and fear of ruin. Pretenders pose at stagecraft,Weaponized words, spiked and sharp, Meant to exhaust Liberty, Female…

OBSERVATION #11-10.26.24

My Musings on Nobody’s Perfect with Anecdotes by B, C, J, L, M,Like butterflies, words escaped the cocoon of the story teller’s memory,Like fairy tales, transformed and captured under my pen. mp Meet M – Growing up in a family with three brothers, all went to the same religious school. Teacher identified M as their…

OBSERVATIONS #10 – 10.19.24

About the Arts and Humanities Happy National Arts and Humanities month! The White House issued its yearly proclaim that states: “The arts and humanities bring people together and show us that we have more in common than we have differences – helping us see each other, understand one another, and unite in common cause. Our…

OBSERVATIONAL INTERLUDE

Call – 10.5.24 Response – Flubbing Around By – Mimi Peterson Flubbing AroundIt is always a challenge,To find where to begin,What to say and do.Although the list starts short,Words form in quick succession.Each a cue of what follows,Too many additions block lively ambition,On the list of things to do.As perceived by the Do-ers, Waves of…

OBSERVATIONS #8 – 9.21.24

About Me Alone, only the distant street sounds penetrate my thoughts, Only the skylight’s my mood, Only coffee, cooling in my favorite mug, Waits within reach. I sit at the old family table of notorious memories, 100 years past, metal and glass sculpture stood proud, Some made by Daz’s hand, Others found at Chicago junk…

OBSERVATIONS #4 8.24.24

Call – Environment, Theme of the Month Response – Folk Lore Observed – Floating Feathers, a Folk Art Poem – by Mimi Peterson, WIR #17 Folk culture comes to pass thru generations. Friends gather to share ideas, they repeat news, tell tales of events, and, perhaps, anecdote the next project’s story board with pictographs and…