Marsh:
As I talk to you more I now see that you’re working towards this kind of seamless connection between your art life and your life. You do a lot of social work in Chicago that I’d like you to talk about briefly because it is a different way of talking about your poetry, isn’t it? What’s that about?Lee:
Well, when we moved to Chicago, we moved into a really terrible part of Chicago, called Uptown. I had kids, and I realized that if I was going to raise my kids in this kind of dangerous, drug-infested, gang-infested neighborhood, I would have to do something about it. So a few friends and I started a little meditation studio where we teach a form of dynamic movement, which I guess you could call “power yoga.” It looks like martial arts, there’s a lot of dynamic forceful movement, but it’s basically a kind of yoga. There was a housing project right behind us, and we went in there and started teaching at-risk kids rage management, breathing exercises, concentration exercises and we had a high rate of success. The kids were involved with drugs and gangs and dropping out; a lot of them are turning their lives over. We had one particular guy we had to pull out of jail twice. We did a lot of work with him; he’s getting on the right track. We [also] worked with senior citizen homes, a lot of wheel-chair-bound people. We’ve had a high rate of success with them. A lot of them couldn’t move their limbs, and now they’re able to use their arms and to take small steps. We even had a couple of instances where people are able to see vague shapes now, who were not able to see before we had them do eye exercises and things like that. The City of Chicago has supported us for about seven years. We’ve been doing it for nine years but the City of Chicago supported us for seven years, and then they pulled out their money so we’re kind of on our own now. But we’ve created three beautiful gardens in the city in abandoned lots that were otherwise used by junkies. We’ve created these beautiful gardens, and it seems to me it’s all the same thing. It’s all aesthetic consciousness. And by aesthetic consciousness I don’t necessarily mean prettifying things; I mean making things richer, fuller, just making things better.Marsh:
So when you and I talk about poetry, we’re talking about something much, much bigger than written words on a page.Lee:
I would say so, yeah; I would say definitely.Marsh:
It’s really a way of being in the world.Lee:
Yes, I would say definitely, and I’m going to start introducing poems into our programs. I’m going to try to get the senior citizens to write poems, to keep journals; the kids in the housing projects, I’m going to start having them read poems. I’m going to read poems to them and I want them to start reading poems and keeping journals and so it’s a learning a way to be—to be soulful. That’s what it is, Alec, soulful. To ensoul the world, if there’s such a word, I think that’s Emerson’s word.