date changes STATE COLLEGE: poetry and photos, fracking and faith

image source

Program begins at 9:00AM, and finishes a bit before 10:00 (in time for 10:00 church)
People of any faith or none are welcome. RSVPs appreciated so they can set up extra chairs.

Join member congregation St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church’s Adult Forum to hear from Poet Julia Spicher Kasdorf  will talk about Shale Play, her newly published collaboration with photographer Steven Rubin.  She will show some images, read some poems

DATE CHANGES (changed due to weather) :
Sunday, FEBRUARY 3rd at 9:00AM at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

Julia Kasdorf and Steven Rubin have an  exhibit linked to the book at the Bellefonte Art Museum, January 4-27.  They will present together in secular settings:

Jan. 11th at 7:30pm at the  Bellefonte Art Museum
Jan. 24th at 7:30pm
Thursday, January 31 at 7:30pm in the Foster Auditorium in the Pattee and Paterno Library on the Penn State University Park campus.

Learn more about the artists:
juliakasdorf.com                                    stevenrubin.com

You may remember Julia Spicher Kasdorf’s work from the close of our April 2018 newsletter, copied here:

In honor of [the April 13, 2018 A Better Path Coalition] event, we will end with a powerful poem by Pennsylvania docupoet Julia Spicher Kasdorf.  For more from her, including explorations of faith, bookmark this written interview to read with time to reflect.

But first, the poem:

“A Mother on the West Virginia Line Considers the Public Health”
The industry thinks I’m too dumb to back down; they don’t know
I do this for my Mom and Dad. They were 69 and 71.
He had pulmonary fibrosis, worked with asbestos all his life. She grew up
near the coke ovens back when kids were sent into the mines to pick coal.
So they both had lung problems, but their home, the next hollow over,
sits 350 feet from a compressor station. We sealed the house,
set up an air scrubber, but—four of their neighbors passed last year, too.
*
We bought the coal rights to our 115 acres because we know
the company will come up to your front door, but we let the gas go,
just didn’t see this coming. A gentleman from New Jersey leased our land.
One day we come home to find pink ribbons tied in the field. Then bulldozers.
They put in four shallow wells and a Marcellus well on a 5-acre pad

Continue reading where the poem is printed in full with permission