Writers Forum 12/11/08

Producer/Host: Joan Clemons

Studio Engineer: Joel Mann

A tribute to coastal Washington County poet, M. Kelly Lombardi. Members of her Salt Coast Sages poetry workshop will discuss her influence on them, and read some of her work.
Lombardi, who died on September 9, 2008, was the founder and leader of the Salt Coast Sages in Machias. She taught poetry, specializing in international poets, particularly contemporary Irish poets, in Sunrise Senior College at the University of Maine in Machias, and facilitated poetry workshops. She also lectured on antique roses and raised close to 50 varieties herself.
Each year she traveled to Ireland to refresh her music and poetry interests, and to Italy where she stayed at a 12th century Augustinian monastery to “write and write.” “Ireland,” she said, “is my ancestral home; Italy my spiritual home, coastal Maine is my home harbor.”

Guests: “The Salt Coast Sages” from Washington County–Gerald George, Sharon Bray, Don Crane, Grace Sheridan and Philip Rose.

Voices 12/09/08

Executive Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Contributing Producer: Carolyn Coe

Thousands of protesters converged at Fort Benning, Georgia last month to demand the closure of a US Military run school that is notorious for the atrocities committed by many of it’s graduates– particularly in Latin America.  The school has long been known as SOA.   That used to stand for “School of the Americas”, but critics call it the “School of the Assassins”  The official name has recently been changed to “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation”, but the mission of the school remains and calls for it to be closed are louder than ever.

For 18 years an ever-growing number of people have attended an annual vigil held at the gates of Ft. Benning.  Led by Father Roy Bourgeois, the vigil is part funeral procession and part civil disobedience.  Thousands of people march with small wooden crosses bearing the names and photographs of the dead and disappeared.  As they march,  the list of names is read and “Presente” sung in honor and remembrance— a list so long it takes several hours to complete.  Each year several people also engage in acts of civil disobedience, by crossing the line onto Ft. Benning property in protest.

WERU volunteer Carolyn Coe attended this November’s vigil in Fort Benning, and brings us this report. FMI: www.soaw.org