No Rhyme or Reason

Author Pages

• My most recent project has been to narrate a video for the Safety and Security Department of St. Paul Public Schools. This was a presentation of a simulated response to terrorism in the schools, which included the full participation of the local police, fire, emergency response teams, city hospitals and school district of St. Paul, MN. This video was shot at Hazel Park Middle School, and included actors and students using moulan make-up, with a full scale response by all of the previously listed agencies. In the winter of 2008 this video was presented at the White House by the director of St. Paul Public Schools Safety and Security Department.
  
• It was a great honor to be asked to do the background narration, and I look forward to more opportunites of a similar nature (though, hopefully, with less serious themes and subject matter). It was a pleasure to do the work non-gratis for such a worthy cause.

• The second project was one in which I was not personally involved, but my poem, Lime Kiln Transformation, from my recent book, No Rhyme or Reason, was read in the background by another narrator for the new video at the interperative center at Lime Kiln Point, on San Juan Island, WA. The video was shot by 'Bob, the whale guy,' and the narration was done by one of his former students at Ripon College, in Ripon, WI.
  
• Again, it gives me great pleasure to contribute to such projects non-gratis, as they hopefully serve a larger purpose than my own.
• For those of you familiar with the book, if you read the 'backward' at the end of the book, the various orca poems included in the book were inspired by a collaboration between Bob Otis and myself, which I hope to continue next summer  The idea is to have residents, tourists, eco-class students and repeat visitors write about their experiences with the orcas in pods J, K, and L. I witnessed many personal transformations of spirit in those who came to experience the passing of the whales up close. It is my hope to go back next year and finish the collaboration we began four years ago, and publish the works of others relating to their experiences with the whales. It is through our observations of those at the top of the food chain that we can most clearly see the consequences of our actions on our planet, since those who fall farther down the chain often become extinct before we are even aware of them. I hope that in some small way, I can bring attention to the fragility of our planet and our collective responsibility for it's stewardship. peace