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Independent Scholars' Evenings
Fall 2007 Events
Independent Scholars’ Evenings
Thursdays: 7.00 p.m. Free and open to the public.All events are held at the Moline Commercial Club
1530 5th. Ave., Moline. IL 61265
(doors to The Moline Club entrance, located off 16th. St. will be open at 6.30. p.m.)
Sept 27th
“The Green Process” Heidi Moran-Sallows. Environment Artist, Art Institute Of Chicago.The Process of Creativity: Month of October 2007
Oct. 4th
General DiscussionOct. 11th
Local Artist.Oct. 18th
Management and Intellectual Property consultants.Oct. 25th
General DiscussionNov. 1st
“ Mahima: Meaning and Interaction in Our Lives” Narveen VirdiNov. 8th
“The Power of Myth” Jacob RayapatiNov. 15th
“Islamic and Jewish Faiths: Similarities and Contrasts”Cantor Gale Karp and Talia Alvi
Nov. 22nd
Thanksgiving – no event.
Nov. 29th
“Mystical Metaphors: The Poetry of Rumi, Hafiz, and Kabir” Judith LeeDec. 6th
"Phantasmapedia, An Alphabestiary of Little Known Demons, Entities, Mutants and Pseudo - Biological Aberrations."a new collection of work by Mark McLaughlin
Dec. 13th
Holiday party.Spring 2008
Feb. 14th
Ryan Collins: Literary Arts Administrator at Quad City Arts.Feb 21th
Open ForumFeb 28th
“Self-Exiled from Normalcy, A Word or Two on Leap Year’s Eve.”Dale Haake
March 6th
“Cornish Night: A brief foray into the life, lore and history of Cornwall.”Gwen Foulkes
March 13th
“Scots – Irish : The best of both worlds.”Bill Fisher with Storyteller Heather Nobling
March 20th
“Celtic Art – an overview of Celtic Art from past to the present”Bill Hannah, Professor Emeritus, BHC and Bagpiper Kirk Witherspoon
March 27th
“Celtic Highland Games- The history, nature, scope and direction of Celtic Highland Games.”Lisa Lockheart and muscians Linda nd Reggie Shoesmith.
April 1st
“Down the Rabbit Hole” the movie on the laws of quantum physics as applicable to our lives.April 12th
“An Evening with W.B.Yeats the Irish Poet.”John McBride, Ph.D and M.S.W. Past-president of Quint City Poets assn.
April 19th
“Nature Makes a Come Back”Don Manning, Writer and Speaker on the Great Outdoors, past president Of Izaak Walton League, Black Hawk Chapter and a fisherman.
April 26th
Glycobiology – The New Frontier of Medicine.Sharon Sipp. R.N., childbirth instructor (Lamaze) and certified massage Therapist.
May 1st
“Effective Communication and Public Speaking”Fred McKee, mentor and coach of Public Speaking, 20 years experience as a toastmaster having attained advanced Toastmaster Bronze Level
May 8th
“Demystifying Digital TV”Mike Carroll Assistant Chief Engineer at KLJB Television
May 8th 2008
Mike Carroll"Demystifying Digital TV"
Mike Carroll is the Assistant Chief Engineer at KLJB Television.
Please check: www.qcinstitute.org for details and listing of presenters.
All events are held at The Moline Commercial Club
1530 Fifth Avenue
Moline, Illinois 61265
Sponsored by:
The Institute for Cultural and Healing Traditions, Ltd.
(309) 762-9202
email: staff@qcinstitute.org
The Moline Club doors will be open at:
513 Sixteenth Street
RSVP
(309) 762-8547 or (309) 762-4904
The Lion In Winter
From February, 2005 and every succeeding February, we will review those evergreen writers in the literary forms they offer. These are the writers who defy speed reading... whose rich and invigorating words stand on their own accord. Like musical notes, the words interplay in our lives, exploring their attraction in as many ways as they can. Like music, it is the ability to listen that makes the attraction more keen and more finely refined, we read and reread the works in enjoyment, and with the art of listening. It is this art of listening that is in common with the writer and the reader.. To write well you must learn to listen. To read you must learn to listen.
Imaginative literature is about listening to a voice. A voice that is its very own, and like none other. A voice that speaks to you and to you alone. In private. It is this voice that you are communicating with, and which the artist / writer is communicating with you. There is a distinctive quality, partly because of the voice itself, and partly because of the interaction the voice has with your own voice. It is for you alone. The voice of the artist speaks to you. And, subsequently, to each individual separately. The details are merely matters of techniques. What is most important is that you hear the voice.
Writers don't just "hold, as 'twere, a mirror up to nature" by creating an imitation of life; they create a moment of life itself.
That is the the task, the art, the skill of the writer as an imaginative writer.. be it poetry or prose - to be able to stretch out and reach out to the reader and let it have, with the reader, a life of its own. Essentially it is this dual interaction, this two-way street...and that is what the skillful artist is able to achieve.. to arouse that exact note in the reader with the only tool on the canvas .. the voice. A voice that, in Coleridge's words, "contains in itself the reasons why it is so and not otherwise"
It is the skill of the writer to evoke, only with the voice on the canvas of a page, the images for the the interpretations of the reader as one listens to the overtones and the undertones, the disguises that reveal more than they cover up and their imbedded implications, the naturalness and the artificiality, the sound of the silences, the meanings of the unsaid, the nuances of what is said, the tone and the stress that lead the images, and the listeners. The reader can recognize the depth of a master.
To write well, the writer and poet has to listen well. To understand well the reader has to listen well.
Often we do not know, clearly, why we love certain poets. That is irrelevant. Like life, the listening is a skill that occurs at a unconscious or super-conscious plane. It is the refinement of the instinct that is finely tuned, and that increases the ability to listen well.
A good poem is hard to find, but when found the effect of it is to make you, the reader, more alive.
What are the reasons you love what you do? Why do you feel a poem is a good poem? It strikes a cord. We enjoy the poems, and luxuriate in their sound and in their voice, as we do in the grand idea of a symphony, or in a musical piece, individual and complete in itself, delighting the senses, stirring the intellect and stimulating the heart, uplifting the soul.
Once you find a good poem, and recognize it as such, frequently you will be reading the poem several times before beginning to understand it fully. It is not important to know why. 'Why' is an exploration reserved for those who wish to culture the skill of reaching out to the listener with the medium of voice on the canvas of a printed page. 'Why' and 'How' is the invigorating discovery of the writer and the pleasure in artistic freedom. That is the catch - the search for artistic freedom. Much has been written about that aspect, and many have searched hard and long for their artistic freedom, struggling through anarchy and confusion. Artistic freedom is anchored and has its own perimeters without which it is lost in limitless space. Artistic freedom is anchored in the discovery of the writer's own voice, which enables the individual and distinctive expression. The main question, then, is finding the voice. It is equally important to know what to do/ what to write, and what not to do/ what not to write. And when.
The fundamental question, then, is the " finding of the voice."
There is a resonance that all writers have, to know, instinctively, what is true and what is right. It is the correct note that is sounded. The correct note for which the writer has listened long and hard, learnt much and practiced through many pages till the instinct is finely tuned and the correct note soars in all its beauty. for the listening pleasure of the readers.
Does the exploration end after the voice is discovered? Hardly. There are the works of art that are enjoyed by the individual, both the writer and the reader, repeatedly over time, and then there are the works of art discovered anew by the individual, both the writer and the reader, to be delighted in and shared. A new voice, and, as all voices, a distinctive and unusual voice, true to its own self.
Those are the voices that deserve to be called "The Lion In Winter."
Your Presence is important in its support of original work.
Please be generous with your presence.
