I was honored to be invited as a story teller in Concord Art’s “True Stories Told Live: From the Classroom” in November of 2021

Concord Art’s “True Stories Told Live: From the Classroom”  is a collaboration with Fugitive Productions.

Storytellers:

• Alyssa Bigay, Teacher at Concord Middle School
• Tete Cobblah, Retired educator and artist who lives in Maynard, MA, Director of the Witness Tree Institute of Ghana, a non-profit educational organization that runs summer professional development programs for American and Ghanaian teachers in Ghana
• Norah Dooley, Teacher & Children’s Author, Massmouth co-founder, StoriesLive Creator, Greater Boston Story Slam Series Founder
• Kemp Harris, Former Kindergarten teacher of 38 years, plus singer-songwriter, activist, actor, author, and storyteller
• Rob Munro, Dean of Academic Program and Equity at Concord Academy
• Nita Sturiale, Professor in the Studio for Interrelated Media at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design
• Sara Sweet Rabidoux-Kelsey, The Moth StorySLAM Winner & GrandSLAM Champion
• Aaron Wolfe, Moth GrandSLAM winner, Featured on the Moth RadioHour, Teaches Storytelling at the PRX Podcast Garage

The edge
     gap or bridge
     both/and

Birth Day
Something you and I will forever share 

I can be your
crevice
hold
rope
carbon steel carabiner
ladder
scaffold
balloon
airplane
helping hand

Whatever is needed for you to fly –

To the Next

Sometimes I will sit quietly, listen, dry your tears
Sometimes I will still nag  (I promise)

To get you to the other side 

But your wings are of your own design, attached to you, yours alone.
Beautiful, Confident, Capable, Ferocious – deep garnet red with obsidian
galactic sparkles, cerulean edging, and an iridescent emerald green sheen.
Each feather a scar, a story, a desire, a laugh, a pirate’s song, a possibility. 

Packed with all you need for the trip. 

You go on ahead.

Photo Credit Renée Ricciardi.

#nitaswords

Hope is the sound of wind in a leafless tree at midnight;

It’s the chance sighting of a few falling stars in the middle of a meteor shower;

Or, the moonlight casting shadows;

It’s not knowing everything will be alright, but knowing you’re doing your best;

Hope is being able to walk to the next best thing;

It’s having what you need while also wanting more; 

It’s finding your way home without a flashlight;

Hope is the name of a student you’ve watched transform;

and breathing slowly on a spinning planet;

Hope is feeling now, and trying again. 

And again.

And again.

#nitaswords

December 14, 2021

The debri left by pulling away from being born,
Vision is obscured but yet I am more focused and forgiving.

The little strands of matter in a dehydration dance.

Aging feels like the body is being replaced bit by bit with spirit.
With each ache and pain you can almost feel the invisible cord to God. 

Failings, fears, frustration, sadness, hints of regrets
and
more wisdom, questions, acceptance, 

Living with that ever-present feeling of never being able to catch up with the work –  writing, organizing, cleaning, cooking, gardening, meditating, exercising, talking, giving, counting, documenting, making – before it’s too late.

But it also feels like I’m heading somewhere. Not swimming upstream quite as much, but giving in to the hints – a toad’s croak pulls me towards it, the flowering weed demands to stake a claim in the yard, the unexpected moment of teen connection, the new pants that actually fit.

I still want. 

I want to be appreciated, seen, held, loved.
I want others to care
     About others
     About the planet
     About love and science.

In my own mind my eyes are big cartoon bug eyes upon which I overly depend. 

And my feet too. Big heavy Dr Marten tree roots that hold me up, move me around, even climb mountains. 

As it all weakens, and the pulling away begins to pull me down, and the floaters, and the challenges, move along with my view, I’ll need to find other things to hold me up. 

Like dancing, and giving in to whispers of ice cream, and hammock naps, and the freedom to be curt, honest, and demanding.

They say it’s a natural part of aging.

#nitaswords

July 7, 2021

Pain I never asked for,
Pain I deserve,
Pain I can never understand,

your pain

feet, knees, and backs,
cells dividing, splitting migraines,
dull, thudding, sharp as a knife,

fear.

I can’t breath.
I hate you forever,

Violation and hunger

The kind of pain that never goes away, but is assimilated, Lamarckian integration into the genetic code,
Generational shifts and evolution.

“What doesn’t kill us make us stronger?”

And then, radical forgiveness and true tolerance

That boy in the back of he bus? Maybe he was lonely and desperate. Maybe he was beaten by his father. Maybe he needed power to prove he was worthy of living.

If you rip away the chrysalis too soon the butterfly dies.

Pain may grow into resilience.
A resilience that I own.
A resilience we all deserve.

Dedicated to the students in the Poetry and Creative Writing group in the Studio For Interrelated Media at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design on 11.7.2019

your safety is a torment.

you say you are patriotic, generous, you respect the flag and country and the rule of law.  swamps are not your thing. you’ve worked hard and deserve every gold coin. 

america is the greatest country that has ever existed, you say –
an inspirational experiment in justice and liberty for all.  don’t like the way we do things here? get out. 

you are blind.
you are limited.
you are angry.

you are scared.

you can’t keep out OTHER. your sand bags against change are sagging and weak. the seams in your walls are full of holes that time will increase.

patriotism
nationalism

humanism.

your children are starving, your father is on a hit list, your mother was raped, your family never gets a good night’s sleep because you fear violence in the night, your daughter needs heart surgery, your son is a gifted mathematician and needs access to education… will you stay were you are or will you do everything you can to escape and find a glimmer of hope, a chance, safe harbor.

you are a patriot.
you defend your country that stands for liberty and justice
for all.

you labor.
you learn.
you speak.
you break the wall down.

you change your mind.

Circling around each other,
Testing the attraction and repulsion
Of their orbits

The tiny details that mean so much
That cut deeply,
Or elate.

Who is first,
Better,
Faster,
Prettier,
Meaner,
Cooler,
Smarter

How to teach them to fly above,
to see the birds eye view,
the long-range sweetness of good ideas, hope, love.

Empathy and justice
Sacrifice and labor
Joy and loss and recovery.

Big ears,
Buck teeth,
Anxiety that pops pimples and vomits,
Club uniforms of long straight hair and leggings,
The last one to get it.

Dark skin,
Light skin,
Asian eyes,
and Indian Jhumka earrings,
The flash of braces and curves.

“No, you can’t sit here” social order and submission,
Their minds so full of potential,
So vulnerable.

Left alone too long and the thoughts become razor sharp –
To feel, escape, jump off the edge.

Don’t go.
We need you. You need you.

Hope is built –
Friend by friend
Moment by moment
Chance by chance
Hold by hold
Year by year

I see you working. I see you.

(written in a middle school cafeteria during 3 lunch periods full of kids)

Freddie Mercury
Lucinda Williams
AC/DC
Prince
Jimi Hendrix
Arianna Grande

You pick your own faves.

A direct line to my soul.
That energy that pulls me out of despair.

20 million dead in WW1
50 million or more in WW2
60,000 US soldiers in the Vietnam War
307 mass shootings in the US so far in 2018

Voter suppression,
Sins of slavery still dragging us through the mud,
Self-death of friends,
And the whales are dying.

Yet,
what makes your smile curl up unconsciously?
Where in your body is the joy that shatters anger and hatred?

Talent, imagination, beauty, love, the force of survival –
Rails against the machine and drive us to highs that make us quiver with pleasure.

Sweat and ecstasy – better then memes, better than likes.

We are the champions. Damn it. The power junkies continue to suffocate, poison, arrest, and demoralize us. But they are wrong. The universe knows this.

They, them, theirs –
The fragility of invention and discovery alongside the consequences of support.
An incredible opportunity and a dangerous precipice.
Doing our best is not good enough.

Yet, we fight for your becoming.

Freedom is not free. Evolution is a constant state of war.

Dance with me.

The bastards won’t win.
We have honor. And weapons. And tolerance, love and crescendo are on the right side of history.