mess i am i am from a land far away called st francis or san francisco one of the things one of the things that confused me when i first moved here to st paul is i try to get to us i was in minneapolis and i was trying to get tortillas fresh fresh fresh corn tortillas and the lady said to me well you have to go to some pablo and i'm like ok you have some there's some pablo minnesota where is it and she said over the river just take lake where where is this magical some popular where is it and after thirty seconds it hit me she was talking about s yes yes yes yes so we are here in sun pablo i am your host and we are here to celebrate the almanac and its writers and i remember the first time i saw the knack i was like what is this is this the yellow pages because someone gave it to me because i said this is the first book you need to read when you come to this town and i'm like oh i get someone's phone number and instead i got a story and i i'm a storyteller and to be given a story like that is magic and so it is the first book you need because better than a phone number sometimes it is stories are the things that feed us and nourish us and so this is what this is something to nourish u something that whenever you're having a bad day or maybe you just want to get a new perspective you can open the almanac and get nourished so that's what we're going to do today we're going to eat story are you with me i'm going to eat some star we're going to listen yeah we'll be nervous tonight so before we start with the stories though we want to introduce the people who are involved and make it happen because a lot of people that make this happen and we're here to honor them as well and so if you would please put your hands together for the founder and executive director of the st paul minn that kimberly nightingale hi you have no idea how beautiful you all look here tonight i just want to thank you all for being here i want to thank you for your brave stories and poems i want to thank you all for being here in st paul today and bringing your magic in your life in your world to this space today and for this year many of you have your work in the st paul mn ak and people will be reading it thousands of stories thousands of these books will be sold all over st paul and all over minnesota and they'll be reading your work and this is your legacy to your city if you have never sent in work or you haven't gotten publishing almanac yet please send it into stories at st paul mn act out org you get paid and you get invited to eat at different places but again i just want to say we've got a pitiful reading here tonight with some few to fall writers but you all are part of the same  this is my dream when i started it that all of you would be here and we celebrate a black america in this day and age so thank you so for a part of my five minutes i would like for us to take twenty seconds to silas and we can do that in your own way right now please ok thank you now i want to ask you i like noise my bubble my brother does bubbles i like noise i have a lot of children so i got used to noise so less in the mess it's up to kim right now and your own there's two things i would really like to do tonight one i tell everyone x i'm doing more than two things sometime i can't count right so everyone on our and all the different people imo take the time to ask them to ostend up because that would take too long out of my five minutes i dare is one person here who has really helped make this happen and we do need to give her recognition  thank you woods terrific and the team that did this terrific those thing everyone on our board connect it we tell them their ambassadors one thing a bad ambassador to do is always just talk about th which i talk about that i'm not wherever i go the other thing is i buy a case of books and i give those out to people here and some of those people i have seen here tonight i say take the book we have so many different ways of being connected to the object so one of the things i'm also asked to i by the case of books as ambassador everyone who is here i'm enlisting everyone here to be a ambassador ok now you don't have to do it tonight but sometime before we do the two thousand and fifteen edition i want you to buy another one of the books so you can paul as so many different ways and i'm asking everyone here to give a call to the top person from the mayor and the city council person or someone and share that message have the same paul monette become an institutional piece of the city government what we don't want to happen is what they do with the sports teams and i think we're more important than the sports teams which is we get these great people and they let them go you do not want the same paul neck to go away so i'm just saying the same paul i met it's a great great thing for the city of st paul and what makes it so great is everyone here everyone that contributes to thank you good evening as kimberly indicated is such a beautiful crowd of people here tonight and we are truly grateful just to be here and be honoring our mother and return i take a moment just as the lady in the gray hat is my mother's oldest sister living sister and there are youngest sisters said you are a standing right here in the back and just truly we are beyond we as a family have been bless blessed with the presence of bertha givens and just her ability just to show and and give so much of herself and allow us to carry it on in our legacy you know with our children and we just want to just my mother and i were driving through the rondeau neighborhood when she shared a vision with me imagine like john lennon no heaven above us people living only for a day imagine an entire world sharing no need for greed or hunger i told her own in her dreams could this be she spoke in her poetic voice would lennon's words you may say that i'm a dreamer but i'm not the only one some day i hope you will join us and the world will live as one my mother went on to share this vision with the st paul community and together we have made that vision a reality imagine that the lawn dart days a winner have finally come and gone and the long hot days  summer have returned to claim the throne is saturday night in the city and we are strolling down rondo's street sweet aromas tease our nostrils til they make ours stomach so know before we begin our reading we would like to think some of the people that made this possible today if the following people would please stand i'm going to list not to list everyone but i'm going to ask you if by your occupation so please hold your applause and we're going to it all at once i want to get awkward after a while like tired ok do it all at once to save energy so would you please stand stand up our tw community editors they twenty six diverse community members who met for fourteen weeks read over two hundred submissions and selected and edited the pieces you read in the twenty fourteen almanacs would you please stand stand stand twenty forty community production team this includes the book designer cover artist the researchers editors who put together the event pages the history facts and edit all the illustrations would you please stand stand and read this let's give them a  so usually i open up a reading that i host with a reading but i thought it would be better to get some special guests person that actually in the almanach to take my place so someone has come and page forty nine i feel like i'm at church page forty nine corinthians three sixteen there we go hi everybody i'm carter norman and i wrote a poem about the iron range to help me with i right so i grew up and virginia minnesota if you get in your car and get on the highway and drive for three hours north you'll have this strange mysterious land savvy iron range and it's a beautiful beautiful beautiful landscape has great ethnic diversity and has a very rich history it's contributed a lot to our nation  some of the richest deposits of or in the world were found there and that helped build this this nation and helps it's the name of this poem as the skeleton of a nation belly but the immigrant forged and children formed and heat and cold are forgotten the heritage of a nation is traced upon rails highways and shipping lanes as a vein leads to the heart back to this place and for those of you that can't see i in the back i am wearing green corduroy shoes so if you can't see that in the back just want to let you know so those will be little things i will let you know so our next yeah i like that too she is a longtime media columnist and cure rates and host a monthly reading by writer series now in its fourteenth year at the historic university club of st paul her book of poems payments due is in its fifth printing from midwest villages and voices her most recent book is all this and more from noted i forgot to say that if you have a cell phone turn it up put it on vibrate put it under your leg if that's what you need to whatever you need to put it away all right you do it we good let me finish this now her most recent book is all this and more from noted in press two thousand and nine she received a two thousand and eleven k sexton award for her dedication to literary activity in minnesota her poem cold can be found on page three of the almanac please put your hands together for carol  that's sort of more than you want to know about anyone here's a little poem that will take the app take the temperature down in here i hope the midnight sky is bright with the light of new snow rooftops have gone missing evergreens have gone white across the road chimneys smoke curls traffic slow silence groves it is winter and the this upon us drifts raw is a beautiful and deep as my memory of him gone this long here missed as the silence gross thank you very much all right good did you feel it yeah it's amazing language contains temperatures even c so if i say like ice  not fun sorry ok think of warm massage on the back of your neck there we go from someone you love not a stranger not a stranger all right our next our next i'm silly that's just who i am i my mother son are all right our next oh it was born in st paul and now resides in minneapolis that's ok we're ok with that she is a kind of thing technician who enjoys writing voices her story booker federal washington and me is on page fifty four please give it up for patricia anita young institute university look thirty washington valued education and instilled in his students of african heritage values of hard work creativity and entrepreneurship these valueless have touched my family members and me throughout our family's history booker teleflora washington born approximately eighteen fifty six was in slave in virginia on a plantation the young booker yearned to learn to read and to serve after slavery was abolished washington went to school and became an educator hundred eighty one as the principal of normal and industrial institute in alabama he transformed the campus from a rundown building into an educational institution offering thirty eight trades his first book up from slavery tells his story and his highly acknowledged to day washington also author thirteen other books in addition to being in author and educator washington founded the national negro business lee he contended that through hard work and owning businesses in agriculture bricklaying carpentry and design americans of african heritage would become financially independent and empowered yielding indispensable members of society my great grandfather harry taught my grandfather george to purser beer and to walk in mr washington's footprints like washington my great grandfather was born a slave p was sold twice due to his father's encourage mint and it's an experience graham put george attained a college education and became a teacher and mentor to young male students training them  trades and industry skills he also built a school and designed homes i wish i had learned to design his unique topiaries grampa george's wife decided to attend a college in arkansas after graduation she became an elementary school teacher grandmother ethel's daughter my mother lois a need a young graduated from  hundred forty nine afterward she moved to st paul minnesota where she married my father james they're still married fifty eight years later my m om used our family values and worth ethic as a registered nurse evening supervisor and director of health education for the for the original children's hospital of st paul which was located at three eleven pleasant avenue she continued her education after retiring and raising four civically engaged children and nineteen seventy three my mom became the first african american graduate of the metropolitan state university many a teen from tuskegee where mom studied i read the works of benjamin franklin victor frankl richard wright louisa may alcott lorraine hansberry and booker t washington to name a few reading opened doors to a new world for me on april twenty ninth one thousand nine hundred sixty nine i was seventeen years old i stood in the oval office of the white because in nineteen zero one president theodore roosevelt invited booker to the white house and a similar he was the first african american to be invited in a similar light i was the first of two high school seniors to represent junior achievement of minneapolis at the white house as we stood in the oval office president nixon said to me i gradually you on your good management now come on down here and fix up our budget after graduating high school i attended a technical college and earned a degree in accounting subsequently i found employment using my business skills booker t washington values were woven into the back bones of my great grandfather my grandfather my grandmother and then handed down to me please celebrate april fifth that is the only known birthday of booker t washington yes it's late late at night and i get this voice i don't know i like even call like telemarketers when they you know hello thank you for calling me can you please raise my number from your database it works better than the other way i do it that's more you know i can't say different children ok sorry our next poets is the oldest one tonight he is the aspiring author and a straight a student who enjoys his work at the age of fourteen yes he is fourteen oldest one yes you get the joke eli is very our next author is very busy struggling school karate and baseball besides yes baseball a baseball fan out there yes besides writing he enjoys drawing camping playing guitar and hanging out with friends and above average kid living in st paul he strives to make a difference in his community and classroom and his piece midway memories is found on page one hundred six please put your hands together for  you i wrote a short memoir about my life growing up in my neighborhood my hamlet midway neighborhood is the kind of place where childhood memories are made sure wisconsin dells the caribbean cruise to the bahamas and disney world all have their fair share of excitement and joyous wonderment but nothing can compare to the warm feeling you get as sticky chocolate ice cream drizzles down your fingers while you watch your sister try to feed the dog some of hers the simple rushes of adrenaline as you speed away on your tarnished red mountain bike the fading orange sun glaring off the chrome handlebars in the winter glistening white snow forts protect from compact and snowballs that sting like bees baseball games under the bright flood lights of midway ballparks making you feel as if you're at target field standing right next to just more no buying rich creamy milky way candy bars at lloyd's pharmacy and stopping at the library to pick up tent and comics spending time with loved ones  shouting you know as the last card leaves your hand getting a plastic birdie stuck in your inexpensive racket or figuring out a puzzling crosswords these are all memories that might not seem big and amazing but they are the most important thank you you is the not going to be in part two of that to know yes are you are you not a hamburger person ok good i'm into the veggie burgers now but hamburgers are good too i like them both excellent excellent they do have veggie burgers there have you ever had one now can alright bad joke doesn't work in this crowd don't say veggie and no i'll remember that all right are you ok with that joke ok gotta watch out campbell is looking make that joke wasn't funny at all not at all all right our next stop there i'm just having fun with you all right it's hot in here we've got to have fun yeah all right so our next author uses language to express things she finds too confusing currently she is trying to develop her skills as an orator while blending some and english she thinks herself charming and hilarious in the somali language often making herself laugh but rarely does that humor translate into english it will be magical when she learns to fuse the two languages together seamlessly her poems and stories have been published in the water stone review and the st paul mn act and as a  storyteller she has shared her words at the black dog cafe lowertown reading jams equilibrium at the loft and the late night series of the pillsbury house theatre is on page two fifty three  so and one ninety seven six foot tall sugar cane she covers her expressions with a shell modest but heaven is at her feet and i fear god through her so i sit on the floor massaging her swollen ankles the combination of third and first world burdens continue to weigh her down she was once a six foot tall sugar cane by now she and i are the same height and my heaven is seven inches shorter time is tired keep talking my ears are too lazy keep listening she guides me to be in the mistery i sacrifice the afternoon to drive her in th my name happiness her daughter thank you if many of you don't know my my socks are blue polka dots and there's a dog here in the front so if you ever want to come and meet us in the front you are more than welcome later on so just so that you know i used to always sit in the back and always wonder what was happening i always thought the most exciting things were happening in the front row so that's what i'm betting you know all right we are now at our last reader of the night i know i know i know but you know what that means i always tell people when they get sad that means you can go outside and together get an almanac and read it to each other you can get a glass of wine you can get some you know get a soda or coffee and you can read it to each other and it's so awesome or find the author because you there's a name tags and ask them to read it or sign yours it's really awesome game you should do it so our last reader of the night is an american slash performance poets known for his spoken word poetry he is a minnesotan spoken word finalist and the co founder and co director of no projection a group of four brothers a means to use spoken word as an inspirational tool he performs all over the twin cities including walker arts center orchestra hall pillsbury house theater and put number theater and he's currently the highest ranked youth poet in the twin cities and will compete in i think he already has but maybe he will it's the future and the past at the same time he will compete in the twenty third team in the next you know spoken word competition brave new voices he's a junior at the community of peace academy in st paul and his piece titled can be found on page one sixty please put your hands together for pockets seconds before and we had doors for our elders and it's not to receive communion even though our tongues hadn't reached that stage of holy water guns weren't allowed in our homes but balloons were so we soaked our summers in battleship grass stains and became the nights nickname they called us kids we called ourselves bigger than most things our size sneaking girls beneath the playground slide first kisses were a lot like gut laughter everything was funnier when you weren't supposed to smile they told us to mind our manners fold our fingers criss cross applesauce for dinner did you wash your hands before dishing them greens did you help your mother pick of him greens we were scabs and knees and bubblegum  save some for later sounded a lot like a metaphor for childhood for the way we grew up through adversity and anniversaries of street signs and jazz parades i guess before they built that freeway there was a colony of houses lined up like heritage on an auction block about to meet their god the largest black community in same power was cut down like it had it deserved the land it slapped on for so long like it had it raised its children under a corner store stories from porches and grandma's front lawn i bet if they knew we played beneath the bridges they built they would tear those down too they would tell us kids to grow up like high i rise to minority roofs we were minorities prove that if you raise your fireflies in the heart of the dark they will earn their light in the form of a spark in the form of a million matches that tempting is that flame that desert until every grain is that diamond worth giving a name so they called us kids we carve outs that was the reason this neighborhood lives the reason you can clear your throat and conscious and enjoy the rights of barry are big men permanent in cement so what so why street lamps never have to leave we were our front door keys our tattered shoes and collard greens our mothers i woke up that dawn told us to walk down the block to gold in time given enough money for a coffee and a krispy kreme and if i remember to bring four creams my mother would always blow me away in one that meant the top of the world or at least th wow that was just a taste of what is in your hands amazing right and you can keep it keeps on going because that's what stories that nourish the stew they don't just nourish at the moment they nourish us forever and ever as long as we keep talent as long as we keep listening and so i want you to remember that and remember what you heard because the you keep repeating the story and on and on and on so b efore you go we want to do a little bit more thank yous because it's also about gratitude tonight this is not just a celebration of those that read and wrote and edited and all that stuff it's everybody that's involved because it  village takes a village to raise a child it takes a village to raise a book and so we want to be a big thanks to the development team kwan foster douglas and goes  if you could could you please check your chairs for the program to describes our mission you should have one i don't know if everyone has one of those should be at your chairs if if not i think the outside as well yet the they are connected one of these all right and inside inside are you ready are you ready wow because i'm from the eighty's yeah only five people got that all right  important because this is what helps support the almanac i think it was said earlier you know you can get a case of books yes that would help and as well this would help this envelope would help and if you can't give now maybe take it later maybe you can help later but anything you can give can help the almanac keep on keepin on and that's what we want to do right keep on keeping on yeah yeah so make sure you take this and take  kept wow what a crowd i don't think i've ever spoken to this much of a crowd as soon as i get off i'm going to call my mother a gopher and not in that order though hi so organization that i started a couple years ago called walnut the idea with is that it i wanted something ancient to be a metaphor for stories and that's what the idea of the one that comes in my idea with this thing was to create a tradition of stories happening everywhere i believe one hundred percent in the sharing of our stories and the sharing of our poetry and so i started this a couple years ago and recently we did a festival  festival where it was twenty one meetings all over st paul and minneapolis and i was very happy with it it went really well we had great attendance except i really really wanted to touch twenty five readings so i contacted kimberly and so this is what we're doing this year and i'm really excited there's been so much work that has been put into this great magazine and what my goal is what i really want to do is share this with as many people as possible so i put together the same paul mn act literary festival we have make sure you guys get this we have a reading starting on september eighteenth going on till october twelfth there was a reading happening every day every single day there was a little  appealing and to really pull in a larger audience of people and just to make each one of the elephant i'm trying to replicate everything that is in the on the moment like twenty five different times in twenty five different places and part of the reason for doing it every day is so that there's really no excuse for not going you know like i used to do reading i'm like oh i'm doing a reading on sunday of like oh i have danced that day oh i'm doing a reading on wednesday in the afternoon oh i have school that day i couldn't get out of that one but now we have readings happening every marketing if you could take these and put them everywhere we're going to be putting them in all the locations my ideas like this and all the work that is going to the almanac i want to share with the whole of st paul as it should be and so this is this is i would gift to saint paul so i'm very excited i'm very honored to be just in the service of all the way it is here i mean i don't myself but i write about jack and so you know i don't write about any of the stuff that's in here so it's just such an honor to bring that out to be the person to do that  so thank you oh very important if you are going to be able to be on mike and i haven't got a hold of you i tried i hold google e mail response for presenting it to spam please get ahold of me and we and i can sign you up for right now i have recipes on my website the people cook dot org you can cook together and read together and get stuff from the st paul mn act org and you can get there's videos and fun activities keep it going this is the almanac is three hundred sixty five days this is day one let's keep it going have a very good night everybody