A Midwinter's Tale Revisited ~ December 5, 2014
Saint Julian Press
Saint Julian Press as a literary and educational organization embraces a vision to create a local and worldwide community, by engaging in a literary and artistic dialogue that promotes world peace, cultural conversations, and an interfaith awareness, appreciation, and acceptance. In our mission as a new literary imprint we hope to identify, encourage, nurture, and share transformative literature and art of both past and living masters. While giving emerging artists, poets, and writers a place they may come home to and share their work.
The Morrow Chapel at Trinity Episcopal Church in Midtown Houston has been the venue for Saint Julian Press quarterly events since our inception. It is one of the most inspiring artistic and sacred spaces in the Houston area, a space we are immensely grateful to the church for sharing with us and the public who attend the reading events we offer with great humility of spirit.
The Introduction
Tonight! Diehl Brandon Moran, Thomas Beard, Michael R. Martin, Billie Duncan, John Powell Hardesty, Doug Williams, Ron Starbuck, Joanne Starbuck and Donna McKenzie. Share a high-spirited send up to the season! Be prepared to laugh and dig some joy.
Ron Starbuck – a word about St Julian Press
Donna McKenzie – Introduction of the players and performers.
All the literary works are used under Fair Use practice for educational and nonprofit literary purposes.
Appropriate links are used so that you may read and listen to a poem.
Ron Starbuck – a word about St Julian Press
Donna McKenzie – Introduction of the players and performers.
All the literary works are used under Fair Use practice for educational and nonprofit literary purposes.
Appropriate links are used so that you may read and listen to a poem.
Ron Starbuck
When I Was a Boy
by Ron Starbuck /Ron when i was a boy it was easy for me to imagine living the cowboy life, like John Wayne somewhere in Kansas which is where i was born and mostly raised or even further out west among the mesas and cactus southwest of home by only a few hundred miles my imagination ran rowdy in those days we lived in the far suburbs of Kansas City but on the close edge of a cultivated countryside where small farms and ranches were stretched and scattered between subdivisions creeks and streambeds were our favorite play fellows they were the wild companions and places of our childhood and of my heart i believe still there was a small field i once walked by on occasion where two horses grazed, and where i would often stop to say hello, they weren’t shy at all about galloping up to the fence, anxious for me to pet their broad foreheads and dive deeply into the the black pools of their pupils where sunlight and stars floated forever speaking out loud with a neigh and a nod whispering horse sense to my ear my maternal grandfather and grandmother were farm folk all their life, wedded to the land and the changing seasons the rhythm of their lives guided by the movement of earth and moon and Sunday morning church at St. John’s Lutheran where relatives and neighbors gathered weekly, some still do i can still see my grandmother’s face and her secret smile like Mona Lisa’s, knowing more than any child may imagine and her soft loving eyes, wise with wonder for the world her hands bent with arthritis, but never a complaint as she snapped snap beans for dinner or kneaded dough for bread i can still taste the delight of those farm days especially the strawberries and shortcake in summer vine ripe juicy tomatoes exploding with flavor into the back of your mouth and throat and i can still see my grandfather too, so clearly even now his hands especially, so strong and so sure calloused from years of work on the farm, but so very gentle i can remember as a small child, crawling up on his lap as he sat in his rocking chair by a pot bellied stove, truly and how he held each of us in turn, all his grandchildren, joyfully patient eyes twinkling like some dime store Santa even though he was bald and beardless wearing blue jean overalls with brass buttons and snaps we’d play with there was no safer place in the entire world you know Used under Fair Use practice for educational and nonprofit literary purposes. |
First Set
Lou Reed quotes the final lines of the opening verse ("The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity") at the beginning of his Live: Take No Prisoners album (1978).
This poem is the basis of Joni Mitchell's song "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" from her 1991 Night Ride Home album. Even though it’s nearly 100 years later. “The Second Coming” is a stunning statement about the divergent forces at work across history, and the conflict between the contemporary world and more traditional cultures and societies. The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? 
Billie Duncan
Billie Duncan
John Hardesty
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Doug Williams
Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus. New York Sun Times Editorial /Doug Williams
We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun: Dear Editor-- I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus? Virginia O'Hanlon 115 West Ninety Fifth Street Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished. Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world. You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood. Used under Fair Use practice for educational and nonprofit literary purposes. 
Michael R. Martin
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Conches on Christmas
by Mike Chasar / Michael R. Martin The title is linked to the poem on the POETRY FOUNDATION web site. 
Michael R. Martin
Thomas Beard
Brief reflection on killing the Christmas carp BY MIROSLAV HOLUB / Thomas Beard The title is linked to the poem on the POETRY FOUNDATION web site. 
Thomas Beard ~ Brief Reflection on Killing the Christmas Carp
Donna McKenzie ~ Martha Stewart Holiday Calendar
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The Third Set
Donna McKenzie
Martha Stewart Holiday Calendar (Washington Post 1996 "Style Invitational" Contest) / Donna
December 1 Blanch carcass from Thanksgiving turkey. Spray paint gold, turn upside down and use as a sleigh to hold Christmas Cards. December 2 Have Mormon Tabernacle Choir record outgoing Christmas message for answering machine. December 3 Using candlewick and handgilded miniature pine cones, fashion cat-o-nine-tails. Flog Gardener. December 4 Repaint Sistine Chapel ceiling in ecru, with mocha trim. December 5 Get new eyeglasses. Grind lenses myself. December 6 Fax family Christmas newsletter to Pulitzer committee for consideration. December 7 Debug Windows '95 December 8 Decorate homegrown Christmas tree with scented candles handmade with beeswax from my backyard bee colony. December 9 Record own Christmas album complete with 4 part harmony and all instrument accompaniment performed by myself. Mail to all my friends and loved ones. December 10 Align carpets to adjust for curvature of Earth. December 11 Lay Faberge egg. December 12 Erect ice skating rink in front yard using spring water I bottled myself. Open for neighborhood children's use. Create festive mood by hand making snow and playing my Christmas album. December 13 Collect Dentures. They make excellent pastry cutters, particularly for decorative pie crusts. December 14 Install plumbing in gingerbread house. December 15 Replace air in mini-van tires with Glade "holiday scents" in case tires are shot out at mall. December 17 Child proof the Christmas tree with garland of razor wire. December 19 Adjust legs of chairs so each Christmas dinner guest will be same height when sitting at his or her assigned seat. December 20 Dip sheep and cows in egg whites and roll in confectioner's sugar to add a festive sparkle to the pasture. December 21 Drain city reservoir; refill with mulled cider, orange slices and cinnamon sticks. December 22 Float votive candles in toilet tank. December 23 Seed clouds for white Christmas. December 24 Do my annual good deed. Go to several stores. Be seen engaged in last minute Christmas shopping, thus making many people feel less inadequate than they really are. December 25 Bear son. Swaddle. Lay in color coordinated manger scented with homemade potpourri. December 26 Organize spice racks by genus and phylum. December 27 Build snowman in exact likeness of God. December 28 Take Dog apart. Disinfect. Reassemble. December 29 Hand sew 365 quilts, each using 365 material squares I weaved myself used to represent the 365 days of the year. Donate to local orphanages. December 30 Release flock of white doves, each individually decorated with olive branches, to signify desire of world peace. December 31 New Year's Eve! Give staff their resolutions. Call a friend in each time zone of the world as the clock strikes midnight in that country. Used under Fair Use practice for educational and nonprofit literary purposes. Original Source may have been the Washington Post, with different lines submitted by readers in 1996, to the "Style Invitational," a weekly humor contest. Where this time, folks were asked to submit entries for Martha Stewart's December-January calendar. The author is unknown, but this is one other link found. http://www.humormatters.com/holidays/Christmas/xmasstewart.htm |
Fourth Set
Donna McKenzie and Ron Starbuck
Donna McKenzie
Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem - Dr. Maya Angelou / Donna
Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses. Flood waters await us in our avenues... Please find the whole poem here, on this Oprah Winfrey page. "Dr. Maya Angelou wrote it for the 2005 White House tree-lighting ceremony. Oprah believes Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem is some of Dr. Angelou's best work yet! The Renewed Voices for Christ Choir join Oprah and Dr. Angelou as they recite this heartfelt holiday message." Used under Fair Use practice for educational and nonprofit literary purposes. From Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem - Dr. Maya Angelou
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The Fourth Set
On Christina Rosetti
It’s the birthday of Pre-Raphaelite poet Christina Rossetti, born in London in 1830. She grew up in a large, boisterous household. She had two brothers and one sister, and her parents were Italian, so all the children grew up speaking Italian and English. Her father was a political refugee and a Dante scholar and poet. Rossetti was a successful and much-admired poet in her own right. She published her most famous collection, Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), when she was 31 years old. And most people today would probably recognize one of her poems as a well-known Christmas carol. It begins: In the bleak mid-winter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak mid-winter Long ago. 
Doug Williams
Theme for English B – Langston Hughes / Doug Williams
The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you-- Then, it will be true. Please find the full poem, Theme for English B on poets.org the Academy of American Poets. The Academy of American Poets was founded in 1934 to support American poets at all stages of their careers and to foster the appreciation of contemporary poetry. Intro to the poem is used under Fair Use practice for educational and nonprofit literary purposes. From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Knopf and Vintage Books. |
Mary Did You Know
Diehl Brandon Moran, Thomas Beard, Michael R. Martin
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The Fifth Set
Audrey Griffin
Winter Solstice by Audrey Griffin
The sun’s congregation gathers: Breathless, we wait for morning. The last leaves still cling frozen to the tips of twisted branches, sentinels against the sky. On this day the sun resembles less herself and more her sister-- small mirrored a gilded silver stone Her unfurling flame was left behind with the summer, and the hot coals cooled as autumn ended. Cradled in the candelabra of trees suspended on webs of fog that are tied to each cold point, the sun reclines cold and lonely as birdsong, paused in her ascension. We stand on the hillside clutching boughs, our breaths, each other, in silent reverence. A stray sigh of warmth curled around an ear, an ankle, that is forgotten as soon as it is felt. And just like that, the moment is broken. We are singular once more. Our footprints in the snow become individual indentations as we disperse to our separate homes, all pretense of ceremony gone, left with our own private concerns of the longest night soon to be swept over our skies. Copyright 2014 - Audrey Griffin |
Another Christmas - Ollie Brown /Doug Williams
You know it’s nearly Christmas when the coke ads are on tv. It’s nearly time for present laden families to reunite, in tinsel lined living rooms and put their worries aside. Holidays are coming. This year is coming to an end. Hopefully we’re all a little closer to where we hoped we’d be, and the changes and the setbacks have energised our feet, Hopefully we can walk tall into a new year, maybe with new scars, but happy knowing we’re still here. For all that was loved and lost this year. For all the time we wasted waiting, for the friends we found, and for all the drunken fights and fall outs, we are homeward bound. Bound to find there is a place we always belong, between the home cooked hugs and the stocking fillers. Home is where the haven is, for all the time we are over worked and under paid, all the bad coffee and late trains, we made it through to another Christmas. Christmas is the great escape. Die Hard and board games, leftovers eaten messily off paper plates, and Christmas cake. But for me, It’s half ignored Christmas specials spilling through the tv, while you scramble through kitchen drawers for double A batteries, and if you’re lucky, the snow is making postcard visions, through the prisms of your windows, that you stop to watch for a second, before getting back to your family. It’s nearly Christmas. So let’s take a second to remember our birthday wishes, our resolutions and all the promises we made to ourselves this year. Maybe this will be the year we worry less and care more. And I hope it all goes well. I hope at home you find that Christmas doesn’t matter, but family does. I hope kindness trips of your tongue, I hope this year you fall in love, and all you’ll hear in the weeks to come, is ‘promise me you’ll stay in touch’. So merry Christmas. Let’s get back to ourselves. And in the 12 months to come, on your dark and rainy days, I hope this Christmas will remind you, how much you are loved. Used under Fair Use practice for educational and nonprofit literary purposes. The original Huffington Post video can be found here. We could not find an actual link to the words of the poem. 
Doug Williams
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The Sixth Set
Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison – Ron Starbuck
Ron: Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. All: Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison Ron: I have seen thy holy places in the Old City of Jerusalem. I have walked the cobblestones Christ once walked. I have stood before each station of the cross and marked the time of day you stood there in pain and agony. I have felt the hurt of all thy people, be they Christian, Jew, or Muslim from any sect across the Holy Land. All: Kýrie Eléison - Christe Eléison Donna: I have been to the Western Wall and heard it wailing, crying out in prayer for some compassion, some small mercy. As I have seen your people praying in the mosques upon the Temple Mount ~ Al Haram ash-Sahrif, the Noble Sanctuary. Each is claimed by many as a holy site. So many, O Lord. I think that there is nothing here, we may claim completely as our own, which is ours. All have claim, none have claim. There is nothing here that any may claim that is not yours first. I hear them crying on all sides for these their holy places, but not yours, O Lord. All: Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison 
Rev. Hannah Atkins, Rector of Trinity Episcopal Church Midtown Houston
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MRM: I have seen them bend their words and intentions, their prayers, into something far from holy. I have seen and heard them miss the mark more than once, in their quest for your holiness, your presence in their life. Lord God, I wonder when will we ever learn that true holiness is not found within these places alone, these monuments and images of you, who are unseen and invisible, without image. All: Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison Billie: Lord, I wonder when they will find your holiness resting in themselves as an indwelling of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Their was an infant child once born upon a holy night, a silent night. Who rested in a humble manger, where cattle fed, where ox and ass and sheep all dwelled. The innocent of creation. Where angels, shepherds and wise men bowed in homage to a new born king, a heavenly kingdom only, not of this earth or world. All: Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison All Players: Let us give birth too, in this most holy of nights, in the silence and stillness of this night to the Christ child that dwells within us all. All: Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison Ron: O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. |
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This arrangement does help to sustain the press and allow us to publish more books by more authors.