Friday’s monthly “Art on the Ridge” program at the Phinney Center features the first public reading of “The Lenin Poems.”
The idea was conceived by poet/artist A. K. “Mimi” Allin (aka The Poetess at Green Lake) as a way to find out what Fremont residents think of the giant Lenin statue in front of the Space Building.
There’s a statue of Vladimir Lenin outside of the Space Building in downtown Fremont where the artist has a studio. As do many Fremont residents, the artist passes the statue daily. She knows its history, where it was cut to be disassembled for transport, the name of its artist, buyer and seller. She knows its current cost. She even knows the dates it was made, discarded, re-found and shipped to the U.S. She knows that the bronze chunks behind Lenin are the flames of revolution and that the statue stands 16 feet tall while Vladimir himself stood 5.5 feet tall. But what the artist does not know is how the people of Fremont feel about this statue, and how Lenin feels about the people of Fremont, and what that might mean to the people who live here and visit. I asked the poets to begin to explain. And they have.
THE LENIN POEMS judges are happy to announce that we received over 50 beautiful Lenin poems – poems both small and light, large and serious, in English and Russian, in rhyming and free verse. We want to thank the poets of Fremont, and of the world, for taking on this challenge.
Update Friday: The reading of The Lenin Poems has been moved to the Lenin Statue in Fremont at 7 p.m. Friday.
Friday’s “Art on the Ridge” begins at 6:30 p.m. and includes live music, art and poetry. Judges A. K. Allin, Vanessa DeWolf & Gregory Crosby will take two months to consider a winner out of the 50 submissions. The winning poem will be cast in bronze and placed with the statue. A printed publication of the best poems will be read and “poured” over the statue on July 4 as part reading, part performance art.
11 responses so far ↓
1 Whopper // Apr 14, 2009 at 9:10 am
How many people did you murder today?
Look, there go your friends Pol Pot and Mao,
Pile up the bodies, Fremonters go WOW!
2 broken arm // Apr 14, 2009 at 2:24 pm
What fun…. hey whopper are you going to repeat some of the other stellar poems from the Fremont news site? There was a particularly nice haiku……
3 Whopper // Apr 14, 2009 at 2:37 pm
You know you can write the same thing and post it under different names, right?
Welcome to the Internets.
4 jm // Apr 14, 2009 at 3:10 pm
What’s the Seattle connection with the Russian Revolution anyway?
5 broken arm // Apr 14, 2009 at 3:14 pm
are you comrade?
I’m no poet
though I try to be.
better than woeful
6 Whopper // Apr 14, 2009 at 4:08 pm
“What’s the Seattle connection with the Russian Revolution anyway?”
The same morons who wear Che and Mao t-shirts. It’s ok to celebrate left wing tyrants, not rightwing tyrants.
Go figure. When’s the statue to Mussolini going up?
7 John // Apr 14, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Seattleites - know that I hear your plaintive wailing for your bygone days as a two-newspaper city. Having spawned and incubated both Pravda and Izvestia, I tell you those days can be yours again!
8 jm // Apr 15, 2009 at 7:19 am
The current Lenin statue should be melted down and the bronze material remade into a Chief Sealth statue.
9 broken arm // Apr 15, 2009 at 8:28 am
Good one John…..
jm can you re-phrase that in verse?
10 A. K. Allin // Apr 16, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Art on the Ridge has been cancelled and so The Lenin Poems reading is taking place at the heart of it, right there at the Lenin Statue in Fremont - 7pm this Friday 17 April. See you there!!
11 broken arm // Apr 17, 2009 at 8:04 am
thank you A.K.
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