"In Sound Proof Rooms"
dedicated to Anna Mae Aquash (1945-1975/6)

a nEw pIecE
by antoinette nora claypoole

photo: "NW AIM, circa 1972" photographer unknown

"My eyes drift like a death walk.

Back into the heartbeat of a Pacific Northwest audience. An event myself and local activists organized: “Apartheid in America”.

One night that late winter weekend International Treaty Council person Tom LaBlanc brought an 8mm flick up from San Francisco. It was called “Brave Hearted Woman” and there I heard Annie Mae’s name.

Saw her death in the eyes of all of us, like headlights on an Oregon highway which Robert
Robideau still claims “did her in. That November (1975) bust here in Oregon was her death sentence, antoinette”. " read complete piece

home

NEW
from antoinette nora claypoole

workshop info here or scroll down

"...civil rights of writers are very important in these times of Patriot Act realities. Currently I am stepping into a simple, important process of protecting our rights while adhering to/learning about the new "laws of the land". All this in regards to events in Indian Country, ie the upcoming trial of John Graham, extradited from Canada to the U.S. in Dec. 2007 for the murder of Annie Mae Pictou Aquash. I believe media rights will be part of our new landscape...a fight or a gentle river, undammed.
We'll watch like osprey in the reeds of summer's heat..."

HOME

posted by wild embers
all rights reserved
graphic donated by Robert Robideau from Peltier files: "John Trudell in protest"





contact: watersongs@gmail.com

antoinette nora claypoole BIO click here

workshops click here

wild embers press click here
click here Rivers in Her Eyes
Anna Mae Pictou Aquash click here

presentations in this series are reflections of reality

turned like madrone in the hands of a sculptor,
life emerging from the way we hold a dream
as though it has desire
to become many truths. which in fact it does.

(click on image to travel)

DEFINED
by antoinette

the dream desires. yes. a queen bee comes through an open screen. she is seen by none. she is the eyes of everyone. somewhere on ellis island a gramma is blind. she becomes the sun she cannot see. soothing heat filled rooms with mist. kissing tendrils. of a tiger lily. a steamboat. releases the river. becomes burned. down. harbor in santa barbara. releasing all knowledge. of chilling darkness. this. is butterfly writing.

there are no nets. no collections of wings. no pins holding tight the flight.
there are circles. beaches. foggy redwoods remarkably love. colored. outside
the lines of time.

antoinette nora claypoole
All People are One
copyright 2006

about butterfly writing

contact: watersongs@gmail.com

antoinette nora claypoole BIO click here

workshops click here

wild embers press click here
click here Rivers in Her Eyes
Anna Mae Pictou Aquash click here

presentations in this series are reflections of reality

turned like madrone in the hands of a sculptor,
life emerging from the way we hold a dream
as though it has desire
to become many truths. which in fact it does.

(click on image to travel)

DEFINED
by antoinette

the dream desires. yes. a queen bee comes through an open screen. she is seen by none. she is the eyes of everyone. somewhere on ellis island a gramma is blind. she becomes the sun she cannot see. soothing heat filled rooms with mist. kissing tendrils. of a tiger lily. a steamboat. releases the river. becomes burned. down. harbor in santa barbara. releasing all knowledge. of chilling darkness. this. is butterfly writing.

there are no nets. no collections of wings. no pins holding tight the flight.
there are circles. beaches. foggy redwoods remarkably love. colored. outside
the lines of time.

antoinette nora claypoole
All People are One
copyright 2006

Butterfly Effect Writing Workshops/Presentations 2008-9

by
antoinette nora claypoole, MFA

"If art provides a 'saving power,' it is not in the atomized artworks
produced by individual subjects, but in a deeper collective vision
that sees the world as a work of art."
--Daniel Pinchbeck
from "Beyond Singularity"

mini-wo/manifesto
The work within these pages is part of an effort to make quantum leaps in the way we see, breathe and create. Just as in visual art or shamanistic practice, writing/art creates new views of life for the artist/reader/audience.

Because as writers we have the ability to inspire these shifts in consciousness--consider the work of Frank Waters, Helene Cixous, (the list infinite) it is clear that writing as art can heal the human condition, even where all other human efforts fail. antoinette 4.13.05

workshop contact info:
antoinette claypoole
po box 3026
ashland, oregon 97520
watersongs@gmail.com


menu
(click on the name to get there)
Philosophy
BIO
Workshops

from my New work
rivers in her eyes
shining star gods..butterfly writing
3:15 experiment

Random writings
Indian country blog

Workshop Overview
click on the title of each for details/descriptions

Workshop One
Dreamweavers: writing between the worlds
discovery of archetypes and myth in writing
www.butterflyone.blogspot.com

Workshop Two
Rivers in Her Eyes: the emergence of post-colonial
writing journey into post-colonial writers/genres
www.butteflytwo.blogspot.com

Workshop Three
Butterfly Effect Writing : words as art that redefine destiny
exploring ways writers create/shape change
www.butterflythree.blogspot.com
(workshops are 1 1/2-3 hours long, include a reading list & vary according to student needs)


Philosophy of Butterfly Effect Writing Workshops
(click on italics; you'll visit random places)

Together we create an exploration of connection and vision, voice and beingness, simply by sharing the same space, place, air---the planet.

"It is the air that connects us.
It is the air that separates us..."
--Yoko Ono
from Grapefruit

Just as in visual art or quantum physics, writing creates new/varied views of life for the reader/audience. Because as writers we have the ability to inspire these shifts in consciousness--consider the work, for instance, of Helene Cixous, Harvey Arden, Frank Waters (the list rolls on) - it is clear that writing as art can heal the human condition, even where all other human efforts fail.

For this reason, all writing workshops/presentations in this Butterfly Effect series intend to inspire participants with the concept of living as art, art as written as well as verbal and visual. In this way we move through writing as art, art as an avenue for change and change inspired by the individual in relation to/connection with each the other, all life becoming one.

These workshops and presentations in this way encourage an ongoing bond between writing and surroundings, self and other, between participants and presenter, society and psyche, Earth and survival.

BIO
antoinette nora claypoole

the mundane
I have been published in various anthologies and journals throughout the North and South West of the U.S.--some quite esoteric, some renegade and a few "literary" feats. In the past year I began doing freelance work about the American Indian Movement for Pacifica Radio, KPFK, Los Angeles, a public news station on the cutting edge of controversy.

Most currently I am editor of a new literary press that was begun in Taos, N.M. Wild Embers is an effort committed to printing/creating books which tell a story about how we can survive these times. All the while loving where we came from. So we can get to where we long to be. One of our first books, la Puerta, Taos the art of fetching sky includes artists/writers of N. New Mexico.

And. Embers just published a special edition of a book I wrote about 4 years ago, Rivers In Her Eyes. It is an historical fiction, based on the forced relocation of Dine (Navajo) and includes an extensive collection of endnotes, intended to help the reader grasp history while reading mythology.

My first book was a treatise for American Indian Movement leader, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash-- found murdered in 1976. Who Would Unbraid her Hair: the legend of annie mae (1999, dist. Clear Light Books, Santa Fe, N.M.) is now nearly out of print but remains a classic within underground circles worldwide. As an activist for Indigenous people, in the 1970's and 80's I learned that knowledge and art were the two most essential components for change--AND survival of not only indigenous cultures, but all of us humans.

The MFA I received from Antioch University Los Angeles will always save my life, writing poetry replenishes my soul, and Indian Country once retrieved my spirit. Now I create writing places for all of us to dream.

the butterfly effect
as an author, mother, activist and photographer i feel that if you love mosquitoes they won't bite. as a sister daughter auntie lover i know dreams are where we really live. as a human being human i live by the magadalene reality that all people are one.

copyright 2006
antoinette nora claypoole
All People are One