National Poetry Month—Patrick Murfin "Brief Haggadah for Passover/Good Friday"

You knew I had to get around to that extremely minor Midwest poet, Patrick Murfin sooner or later.  So it was sooner. 

I will be appearing at tonight’s program at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 5603 Bull Valley Road in McHenry, Social Gospel in Words and Music. The music will be provided by Memphis based bluesman Andy Cohen.

We scheduled this event around Andy’s availability while touring.  Turned out he was free tonight.  And tonight turned out to be both the first night of Passover and Good Friday.  It seemed like a good idea to note that fact, especially since we will be performing in a Church.

So I whipped up a new poem for the occasion. 

Brief Haggadah for Passover/Good Friday

For Social Gospel in Words and Music

April 6, 2012

The child always asks…

            What makes this night different

            from all other nights?

You have to think hard.

Somewhere children are always

being massacred for some

accident of birth

            or for mere convenience sake.

Somewhere slaves are plotting their escape

            and Pharaohs hitch their war chariots

            to pursue them. 

Somewhere fools dance

            and lay fronds before the path

            of a maybe Messiah on an ass.

What makes this night different?

            Nothing, son, except that

            you asked the right question.

            Now, what are we going

            to do about it?

—Patrick Murfin

Social Gospel in Words and Music is First Introduction of UU Congregation to McHenry

 

When the Unitarian Universalist Congregation moved into their new McHenry home, the former Haystacks Manor restaurant at 5603 Bull Valley Road,  in January they were leaving behind a 147 year history in Woodstock.  Since then the vibrant congregation has been settling into its new home, making adjustments, and planning for the future.  It has been a busy few months.

Now the Congregation is getting ready to open their doors to their new neighbors in McHenry with an innovative program combining great traditional roots blues and original poetry.  Social Gospel in Words and Music presented this Friday evening, April 6 at 7 PM will feature Andy Cohen, Memphis based blues guitarist and preservationist of a wide variety of Southern traditional music, and McHenry County poet and activist Patrick Murfin.

The program is presented by the congregation’s Social Justice Committee.  Members of the church hope it will be a sample of the kind of innovative cultural and educational programming that will find a home in the new facility.  They envision not only church sponsored events, but also programs by other groups in the community.

Typically. the program reflects the deep commitment to social justice causes for which the congregation was well known for in Woodstock.  Proceeds from a requested $10 donation at the door will support the Interfaith Committee for Detained Immigrants post release program, which provides assistance to those released from Federal custody after it has been determined that they were not in violation.  

There will be a reception for the artists following the program.  CDs by Andy Cohen and Murfin’s collection of poetry,  We Build Temple in the Heart will be available.

For more information call Patrick Murfin at 815 814-5645 or visit http://joomla.uucofwoodstock.org .

Patrick Murfin to Pair His Words With Blues Artist’s Music

Patrick Murfin has been a fixture on the McHenry County scene for almost three decades as a social justice activist.  Some might call him a gadfly.  Others take a dimmer view. 

He is also a writer and published poet who will read his work as part of Social Gospel in Words and Music, a program at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 5603 Bull Valley Road in McHenry on Friday, April 6 at 7 PM. 

Joining Murfin on the program will be Memphis based bluesman and roots music guitarist Andy Cohen.  Together the two will explore social justice issues through the arts.

Murfin may be best known as the long time host of the Diversity Day Festival which ran annually for 14 years in Woodstock Square.  He has also been out front in opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as a spokesperson for the McHenry County Peace Group, as an advocate for immigrant rights, and most recently for organizing support for Occupy Chicago.  The Unitarian Universalist Congregation has long been a base for his activism.

In 2004 Skinner House Books of Boston published his collection of poetry, We Build Temples in the Heart.  He is a self described eclectic blogger at Heretic, Rebel, a Thing to Flout where he mixes posts of “opinion, history, poetry and general bloviating.”  He also contributes autobiographical sketches to The Third City blog and labor history writing to another on-line journal, Working Class Heroes.

“I will include work from the book,” Murfin said, “but there will also be a good deal new material that has never been publicly read.”

The McHenry performance, sponsored by the UU Congregation’s Social Justice Committee, will benefit the Interfaith Committee for Detained Immigrants post release program, which provides assistance to those released from Federal custody after it has been determined that they were not in violation.

A $10 donation will be asked at the door and a free will collection will also be made.  A reception for the artists will follow the performance.  Cohen’s CDs and Murfin’s collection of poetry, We Build Temples in the Heart will be available.

For more information call Patrick Murfin at 815 814-5645 or visit http://joomla.uucofwoodstock.org .

Southern Blues Master Andy Cohen Will Bring a Unique Sound to McHenry

One critic called Memphis, Tennessee based guitarist and singer Andy Cohen, “the best kept secret in folk music.”  Cohen specializes in the traditional sounds of the South—Delta, Piedmont and country blues; Black and White roots gospel; rag time, boogie-woogie, honky-tonk and barrelhouse.  But he is most deeply rooted in the blues.

Cohen will be making a rare Illinois performance on Friday, April 6 at 7 PM at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 5603 Bull Valley Road in McHenry.  He will be half of a special program, Social Gospel in Words and Music that will pair him with local poet and activist Patrick Murfin.  Together the two will explore social justice issues through the arts.

The joint concert was Cohen’s idea.  He has matched a lifetime in music with a passion for social justice.  When he re-connected with Murfin, an old acquaintance from their mutual involvement in the Industrial Workers of the World decades ago, on Facebook he suggested the unusual collaboration. 

Lately Cohen has used his talents supporting the Occupy Memphis movement in his adopted home town.

The 64 year old grew up far from the south in Boston.  His father was a collector of Dixieland jazz recording.  At the age of 15 he was also drawn to the very active local folk music scene and was first exposed to the legendary Big Bill Broonzy and Jim Kweskin and his Jug Band.  He heard echoes of his father’s jazz in both. 

His life’s work really was set the next year when he heard the legendary bluesman the Reverend Gary Davis perform live.  Davis became an inspiration for a life of close study of the tradition.  In the process he played with Davis himself and other traditional musicians. He knew and learned from a galaxy of legendary performers, most of them now passed on.

Cohen has absorbed that tradition with every fiber of his being.   “Revivalist would not be an inaccurate term to describe him,” according to Dan Forte in Vintage Guitar Magazine, “but there’s nothing academic in the way he fills decades-old music with vitality.”

In addition to his legendary guitar picking, Cohen also performs and records on the dolceola, a small keyboard hybrid that has keys that strike clusters of zither-type chords on the left side and a miniature run of tiny piano keys on the right.

As a music preservationist Cohen was the long time guiding light of the venerable Kent State Folk Festival in Ohio, and has been the President of the Beale Street Blues Society in Memphis.

The McHenry performance, sponsored by the UU Congregation’s Social Justice Committee, will benefit the Interfaith Committee for Detained Immigrants post release program, which provides assistance to those released from Federal custody after it has been determined that they were not in violation.

A $10 donation will be asked at the door and a free will collection will also be made.  A reception for the artists will follow the performance.  Cohen’s CDs and Murfin’s collection of poetry, We Build Temples in the Heart will be available.

For more information call Patrick Murfin at 815 814-5645 or visit http://joomla.uucofwoodstock.org .