Guest on Beyond the Breakwater

July 17, 8 to 9 AM

WSUM 91.7 FM & on Mixcloud

Tune in to hear a couple of Hulga poems, me talk about my obsession with Simone Weil and Flannery O’Connor and find out what music they’d have on heavy rotation. In case you missed it, it’s up on Mixcloud.

An Encounter with Simone Weil

A Screening & Conversation

Tuesday, July 22 from 6:30 to 8:30

Central Public Library
201 W Mifflin St, Madison, WI 53703

Simone Weil was a factory worker, labor organizer, teacher, Christian, resistance fighter, and philosopher who dedicated her life to sharing in the suffering of others.

She believed paying attention was the key not to eliminating suffering but rather to turning it into something useful. Join us Tuesday, June 22 for a screening of the documentary An Encounter with Simone Weil to learn more about her life and how it can inform and even transform our relationships and politics today. Afterwards, join a doctor, a university chaplain, an artist and a poet for conversation. Some of the questions we’ll be addressing are: How can we bridge the gap between our beliefs and our behavior? How can you be fully present with another person? How can we witness pain without necessarily trying to “solve” it? How has technology changed our ability to pay attention? What are the benefits and costs of paying attention?

Discussion will be facilitated by the Rev. Jonathan Melton, performer and visual artist Angela Richardson, Dr. Elizabeth Perry with UW, and poet Rita Mae Reese.

Jonathan is an Episcopal priest, working at the Episcopal Student Center on the campus of UW-Madison.

For more about Simone Weil’s life and work, go here.

Reading at Women & Children First

5233 N. Clark St. Chicago, IL 60640

7:30 PM, Friday, August 22, 2014

With Lisa Marie Auter and Nathan Hoks