Monthly Archives: March 2023

Celebrating Baseball Poetry with Chris Arvidson

March 27, 2023 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

For Chris Arvidson, now is a special time of the year.  As a lifelong baseball fan, Chris is looking forward to March 30, which is Opening Day for Major League Baseball’s 2023 season.  As a Charlotte poet, Chris is also looking forward to April, which is National Poetry Month.  Chris’s love of baseball and her interest in writing poetry are reflected in her two most recent books.  In 2017, she published a co-edited volume titled The Love of Baseball:  Essays by Lifelong Fans.  In 2022, she published a poetry collection titled The House Inside My Head.   For readers who want to know more about Chris and her publications, please click on the following link:  https://www.chrisarvidson.com/index.htm

I contacted Chris and asked her how she is preparing for this special week.  Here is what she sent to me:

I have been searching for some Faygo Red Pop, and I’m dismayed to find that neither Harris Teeter nor Publix seems to carry it any longer. Red Pop, a Detroit original, is my favored choice of beverage for opening day. I shall persevere and figure out where to find it before March 30, when my Detroit Tigers play their first game of the season. On March 31, I’ll be at the Charlotte Knights ballpark, in glorious anticipation of the summer to come. I cannot deny that I tear-up for the national anthem that first Spring outing…every time. 

Just last week, I stumbled upon The National Baseball Poetry Festival on Facebook. The organizers are throwing a weekend-long baseball poetry event based at a Boston Red Sox AAA affiliate in Worcester, MA. Events include a poetry contest, ballpark tours, an open mic… not bad for a first-year event. You can see more about the festival at: baseballpoetryfest.org. 

It really made me think–Worcester? Really? Charlotte could TOTALLY do something like this. Maybe even expand it to a whole writing-about-baseball thing, that wouldn’t just be poetry. Although this most poetic of sports certainly does lend itself in that direction. So far, my husband, Henry, thinks it’s a great idea, and Jay Ward, Charlotte’s first poet laureate, sees merit, too. So, stay tuned. I might just see what I can cook up.

I also asked Chris if she would be willing to share examples of her own baseball poems, and she agreed to do so.  The first poem that she provided is about Frances Crockett, the woman who served as the General Manager of the Charlotte O’s.  The Charlotte O’s was the AA affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles from 1976 to 1987.  She was the first woman General Manager in professional baseball.  Here is Chris’s poem:

Dear Frances Crockett

By Chris Arvidson

Just about every day

I walk around the ballpark

Where flags with the pictures of past

Ballplayers, owners, and managers wave to me

The legends of Charlotte baseball.

Yours is my favorite – the only woman

You look so serious and businesslike

So smart and professional

Your blond hair stylish and smooth

It’s not how I remember you.

I see you decades ago out at the old ballpark

The wooden one that sometimes burned

That sat in the middle of a middle-class neighborhood

Through the open door of the rickety trailer near the front gate

That served as your general manager’s office.

You’re sitting at a beat-up old desk

A huge fluffy white dog at your feet

And do I recall a cigarette in one waving hand?

The other holding a phone to your ear

As you conducted the team’s business.

(This poem appeared in “Nine: A Journal of Baseball History & Culture” Vol. 30 Nos. 1-2, Fall/Spring 2021-22.)

The second poem that Chris shared with me is about Ryan Ripken, a minor-league baseball player.  He is the son of baseball legend Cal Ripken, Jr., who played for the Charlotte O’s in 1980.   Here is Chris’s poem:

Hello Ryan Ripken (For Robyn)

By Chris Arvidson

Ryan Ripken came up to bat last night

The designated hitter for the Norfolk Tides

Baltimore’s AAA farm team.

Fluttering in the tepid breeze outside the park

A banner sporting his father’s young face flew

A nostalgic image from Cal the legend’s tenure as a Charlotte Oriole.

Ryan’s twenty-eight now

It looks like Grandpa, Uncle Billy, and Ironman Dad

Will post the big-time family’s big-league careers without him.

He stands tall at bat in the farm team uniform

And takes up more physical space at the plate

Than the other famous Ripkens.

I wonder if he saw that flag on his way into the ballpark tonight

Snapping in the wind over the players’ entrance.

I thank Chris for sharing her baseball poems and for her many contributions to our community.  When it comes to doing her part to make Storied Charlotte a more interesting place to live, Chris is always ready to play ball.

Return of the Greater Charlotte Book Crawl

March 20, 2023 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

For the second year in a row, many of the independent bookstores located in the Charlotte area are working together during the month of April on a project they call the Greater Charlotte Book Crawl.  Their collaborative book crawl will culminate on April 29, 2023, which is Indie Bookstore Day.  These participating bookstores are encouraging area readers to visit each other’s businesses and get to know what makes each bookstore unique.  For more information about the book crawl, please click on the following link:  https://greatercharlottebookcrawl.com/

Beginning April 1, bookstore lovers can pick up Greater Charlotte Book Crawl (GCBC)
passports at any of the fifteen participating bookstores. Each visit to one of the bookstores during the month of April earns the crawler a new stamp.  The ultimate goal is for participants to visit all fifteen stores. Each “finisher” will earn a special edition GCBC decal designed by Davidson artist Lily Clark. The finishers simply need to show a completed passport at any participating bookstore. Finishers can also submit a photo of their completed passport to be entered in a drawing for the Grand Prize: a collection of gift cards from each of the bookstores.

Last year I visited several of the participating bookstores during the Greater Charlotte Book Crawl, but I did not earn the distinction of being a finisher. However, my friend and university colleague Greg Weeks succeeded in visiting all of the last year’s participating bookstores, and he still has the completed passport to prove it.  I contacted Greg and asked him about his experiences with last year’s book crawl.  Here is what he sent to me:

I am a lifelong lover of bookstores (and especially independent used bookstores), and so last year when I happened to see the news about the Greater Charlotte Book Crawl, I was immediately on board. Nonetheless, I didn’t think I would have time to visit all 11 bookstores in a single month, particularly since a few were quite a drive from my home.

What I found was that once I started, I just had to finish it. It was a great excuse to go places I hadn’t been before, connected by a love of books. The most unique was Shelves, a popup bookstore focusing on African American books. The owner, Abby, had set up at Enderly Coffee in west Charlotte. I bought Daniel Black’s Don’t Cry for Me, which I had never heard of before but ended up recommending to family and friends (and now to anyone reading this).

This year, there are 15 bookstores, even into South Carolina, and my initial reaction is that I don’t have time to do that many in one month. I recently mentioned it to my wife and my teenage daughter, both of whom laughed and assumed I would end up going to them all.

As part of the Greater Charlotte Book Crawl, the participating bookstores are collecting donations for Promising Pages, a Charlotte nonprofit organization that provides area children with their own books.  For more information about Promising Pages, please click on the following link:  https://promising-pages.org/

I urge everyone to participate in this year’s Greater Charlotte Book Crawl by visiting the participating bookstores. Here is the full list of these stores:

The Charlotte area is fortunate to have so many indie bookstores.  Each one of them helps make Storied Charlotte a special place for readers and writers. 

Celebrating National Reading Month with Theodore Roosevelt

March 13, 2023 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

March is National Reading Month. The National Education Association (NEA) launched an early version of this month-long promotion of reading in 1994 as part of its literacy education efforts.  However, it has since transcended its origins as an NEA event and has become a true national celebration of reading.  For more information about National Reading Month, please click on the following link: https://nationaltoday.com/national-reading-month/

One of the goals behind National Reading Month is to encourage a lifelong interest in reading.  Organizers of this event argue that if children develop a love of books and reading while they are young, they are more likely to continue reading as adults.  Childhood reading, in other words, can have a lasting impact on a person’s adult life. I completely agree with this point. 

President Theodore Roosevelt is a perfect example of someone whose childhood reading shaped his adult life.  I happen to know something about Roosevelt’s reading practices as a result of editing a book titled Theodore Roosevelt on Books and Reading.  I just put the finishing touches on the index this past weekend.  For authors and editors of scholarly books, compiling an index is the last hurdle that needs to be cleared before the book is published.  For more information about this forthcoming book, please click on the following link:  https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538175460

In his autobiography, Roosevelt recalled that his parents provided him with a wide variety of books throughout his childhood.  He wrote, “There was very little effort made to compel me to read books, my father and mother having the good sense not to try to get me to read anything I did not like unless it was in the way of study. I was given the chance to read books that they thought I ought to read, but if I did not like them I was then given some other good book that I did like.”  Among the many books that Roosevelt read as a child were adventure novels set in the American West, books about animals and their habitats, and myths and sagas from around the world. 

Many of Roosevelt’s adult interests can be traced back to the books he read as a boy.  The stories that he read about the American West contributed to his decision to move to South Dakota as a young man.  He went on to write several books about the history of the West. The animal books he read as a child caused him to take a scientific interest in natural history.  In fact, when he entered Harvard, his intention was to study zoology.  He eventually switched his emphasis to history, but he remained interested in natural history for the rest of his life. His childhood interest in myths and sagas from many lands played a role in his ongoing fascination with world history.  Throughout his presidency, he often drew on his deep knowledge of world history when making decisions and engaging in international negotiations. 

When Roosevelt’s parents provided their young son with a wide variety of books, they helped Roosevelt develop a lifelong interest in reading.  They also helped prepare Roosevelt for his career as a statesman and as an author of more than forty books. 

Of course, providing children with books is no guarantee that they will grow up to become president, but it does help all children realize their potential.  As we celebrate National Reading Month here in Storied Charlotte, it is important to remember that reading can be a transformative experience.

Six Women Who’ve Shaped the History of Charlotte’s Community of Readers and Writers

March 07, 2023 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

Given that March is Women’s History Month, now is an especially apropos time to celebrate the many women who have shaped the history of Charlotte’s community of readers and writers.  For the purposes of this blog post, I have selected six such women.  Not all of their names are widely known today, but each of them made a lasting contribution to our community.

Mary Rebecca Denny was the founding chair of the English Department at UNC Charlotte.  In 1946, Bonnie Cone hired Mary Denny as the first full-time faculty member at what was then called the Charlotte Center of the University of North Carolina.  Denny had been an English professor at Queens College (now called Queens University), but she decided to leave her position at Queens College and join forces with Bonnie Cone.  When the Charlotte Center evolved into Charlotte College in 1949, she stayed on and created the English Department.  From 1949 until 1964, she served as the chair of Charlotte College’s English Department.  Shortly after Charlotte College became the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Denny retired, becoming UNC Charlotte’s first professor emerita.  During her time as the chair of the English Department, she founded the college newspaper and a college literary magazine. The Denny Building at UNC Charlotte is named in her honor.

Mary T. Harper played a major role in introducing African American literature to the students at UNC Charlotte and to the larger Charlotte community.  When Dr. Harper joined the university in 1971, she was the first full-time Black faculty member in UNC Charlotte’s English Department.  She played a pivotal role in creating and teaching the first African American literature classes in the department.  In addition to her work at UNC Charlotte, she co-founded (with Dr. Bertha Maxwell-Roddey) the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Afro-American Cultural Center in 1974.  This center is now known as the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts + Culture.  In her work with this center, she arranged for community programs and presentations on African American writers.

Irene Blair Honeycutt taught creative writing during her long tenure as a faculty member at Central Piedmont Community College.  In 1993, she founded CPCC’s Spring Literary Festival and served as the director of this festival for fourteen years. This festival expanded into CPCC’s Sensoria Festival, a celebration of literature and the arts. Upon her retirement in 2006, CPCC established the Irene Blair Honeycutt Lifetime Achievement Award.   Besides teaching and doing community engagement work, she published four poetry collections, the most recent of which is Beneath the Bamboo Sky, which came out in 2017.

Adelia Kimball founded the Charlotte Writers Club (CWC) on June 6, 1922, and served as the club’s first president.  She continued to lead the club until 1930 when she moved to New York City to work as an editor for the publisher Louis Carrier & Company.  During her tenure as CWC’s president, she organized and ran the club meetings, arranged for speakers, and helped found the club’s initial writing contest.  Now, more than 100 years after its founding, the Charlotte Writers Club is still going strong.  In recognition of her contributions to the history of the club, the club established the Adelia Kimball Founders Award for “extraordinary service to the CWC and the greater writing community.”

Dannye Romine Powell made her debut on the Charlotte literary scene in 1975 when she became the book editor for The Charlotte Observer.  She remained the paper’s book editor until 1992.  Back in those days, the paper published a two-page book section every Sunday.  It included original book reviews, interviews with authors, and news about local literary events. In her role as book editor, she often interviewed Southern authors.  She decided to collect these interviews in a book titled Parting the Curtains:  Interviews with Southern Writers, which came out in 1995.  In addition to her interview book, she has published five poetry collections, two of which have won the North Carolina Poetry Society’s Brockman-Campbell Award for best book by a North Carolina poet. 

Allegra Westbrooks was an important figure in the history of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. When she moved to Charlotte in 1947 to manage the Brevard Street Library branch of the public library, the library system was still segregated.  The Brevard Street Library was one of only two branches that served African Americans at the time.  After the library system desegregated in 1956, she moved to the Main Library where she ran the acquisitions operation before being promoted to Supervisor of Branches in 1957, making her the first African American to hold the position of supervisor in the library.  During her career with the library, she played a major role in developing the library’s outreach programs and expanding the library’s branch system.  She collaborated with community groups to make books available to children who did not live near branches, and she started a bookmobile program to bring books to residents throughout the county. In recognition of her many contributions, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Board of Trustees renamed the Beatties Ford Regional Library in her honor.  In April 2020, this branch became known as the Allegra Westbrooks Regional Library.

Each of these six women made lasting contributions to Charlotte’s community of readers and writers.  Storied Charlotte is a better and more vibrant place because of the work and leadership of Mary Rebecca Denny, Mary T. Harper, Irene Blair Honeycutt, Adelia Kimball, Dannye Romine Powell, and Allegra Westbrooks.