April is National Sexual Abuse and Child Abuse Awareness Month. To mark this important time there will be an arts-oriented awareness-raising session this weekend, sponsored by The Blue Rose, an organization dedicated to eradicating all forms of abuse. The organization and its website (the-blue-rose.org) are the work of local activist and Uphams Corner resident Antoinette Rose, better known as Toni.
The mission of The Blue Rose is to break the silence about abuse, empower survivors, and teach them to speak out and take charge of their lives. On the website Rose recounts her personal history of abuse as a 12 year in Dorchester. For the past five years, she has been sharing her story of survival in general poetry venues like the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge. It was only last year that she started organizing Blue Rose in hopes of growing it into a healing arts non-profit.
“Before, I thought of myself as a victim of abuse,” said Rose. “Through poetry and sharing my story, I was able to realize that ‘I am a survivor.’ I do showcases with other poets to try to reach as many survivors and victims as I possibly can and to show them that something good can come from something horrible.”
The use of a blue rose as a symbol originated when a former boyfriend gave Rose a real blue rose to apologize after an argument. Researching the symbolism of this unusual bloom, she found these flowers do not exist in nature and have to be bred by a complex process. Thus, they represent the unattainable, the mysterious, the hope for an impossible-seeming hopeless love. Those elusive, hard-to-articulate connotations resonated with her personal story.
This coming Sun., April 17, The Blue Rose is hosting a free “Amazing WoMen Poetry Showcase,” from 7:30 to 9 p.m. at The Great Hall at 6 Norfolk Street, Codman Square. The fact that both the W and the M are capitalized indicates that there will be both Women and Men reading. There will be a few male readers at Sunday’s event, but unlike those reading in previous years, these men are not survivors themselves, but supporters of survivors.
Blue Rose has similar showcases planned this spring for Malden, Natick and Providence though this will be the organization’s only Boston appearance.
Poetry Month
April is also National Poetry Month. On Thursday evening, April 18 at 6:30p.m., JazzBoston! will combine verse and jazz at the Uphams Corner Branch Library. New England Conservatory students, Alec Harper (saxophone) and Andrew Schiller (bass) will read jazz-influenced poems selected by former- U.S. Poet Laureate and current Boston University professor, Robert Pinsky as well as their own original poems. Then they will perform the music that inspired them. Afterwards they will invite audience members to read one of Mr. Pinsky’s poems out loud in the library. Harper and Schiller are appearing at other branches this spring and were enthusiastically received when they performed jazz standards at the Grove Hall branch last December.
The Uphams Corner Branch has regular poetry readings by local residents. Check out their Facebook page for pictures of 13 Uphams Corner versifers.
