Category: First 2 Know

  • An Interview with Julian “Juelz” Davenport 

    By: Dwana Pinchock

    Can you tell us about the program that you’ll be doing at The Library?

    The title of the program is Written Proof. It’s a six-session program. What the students will be doing is coming up with an idea, processing it, and turning it into a finished product. As an author myself, I have four published poetry collections, so I’m super familiar with the process of getting [an idea] where it needs to go. We will go through a bunch of different exercises to bring out the best material we can from the students. Also, I’ll be dropping jewels on them (no pun intended) that they can use throughout the rest of their lives as writers.

    Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to poetry?

    I’ve been a writer for quite some time now. I would say for my whole life, but professionally, just for the last decade or so. I’ve been going through my own process of being a writer.

    I’ve always used writing as a form of communication. I used to like to rap like my brother. My older brother was a rapper. Both of my brothers were into music in their own way, so I was kind of inspired by that.

    What music artists touched you the most?

    I was inspired by Tupac. He was my favorite rapper at the time. So, the stories that he would tell, the way he would tell them, the honesty of it all, it made me want to do more research on people like him. I can’t say I grew up as a student of poetry, but he was speaking on things that I was so familiar with. I didn’t feel like anybody else understood me that well. When I found out he was a poet, I thought, “Wow. You know, he does it a little bit of everything!”

    A lot of us come to poetry through lyrics first. You don’t realize it while growing up. At a certain point, it’s like, “Wait a minute! These words are creating a picture! It’s creating a story in a shorter version rather than a whole novel.”

    As a kid, I didn’t look at [song lyrics] as poetry, but when I look back, that’s how poetry found me. It gets straight to the point. A lot of my poetry is framed that way. Since I was young, sitting around reading huge paragraphs was not for me.

    When did poetry become your mode of expression?

    Poetry was like therapy for me, because I was one of the kids who was angry all the time. I would hold a lot of things in and the only way that I could even it out was through the writing process. That’s how poetry, came about. Those were my influences, but I remember specifically, I used to be a pen pal with my brother. My brother was locked up as a teen.

    We always had a decent relationship, and I remember a specific letter he wrote me. He always would give me advice. He’s three years older, and he always tried to steer me away from the street and things like that. He found a creative way of giving me advice by sending me a letter. I read the letter, but I didn’t pick up on it at first. When I went back over the letter and read the advice, I noticed it would all kind of rhyme. It all came together. It wasn’t much. It wasn’t a rap. There was no music, but it was cool. You know what I mean?

    Where do you find inspiration for your poems?

    I draw inspiration from everyone and everything, and maybe in a small way or a big way. Mostly, just being in the community, paying attention to politics, but not getting immersed in it. Just knowing what’s going on. A lot of my writing’s influenced by these things. Also, past experiences, where I see myself and where I want to go. I’m also inspired by my mother and her drive. Conversations with the average person, a drink of coffee, a walk…

    I’m just inspired by the writing process. it changes constantly. You know what I mean? I figure that when I write these poems, they should be honest and they should be to the point, and you have a short amount of time to get a point across. I like to utilize each line. Each line leads into a story and paints a picture. And the more we work at it, the better we are with our pen, our paintbrush, whatever instrument we use to create this art.

    Are there certain themes you tend to explore more than others in your work?

    I cover a lot of things, but I think it always leads back to self-discovery and, who I am as a person, as a man, outside of what I’m supposed to be.

    Do you have a specific routine or ritual for your writing process?

    Yes. I like to have coffee. Lots of coffee. No sugar. A little bit of cream. I love being in a coffee shop. A lot of the work I’ve done, happened in the area downtown: Denim Coffee, Midtown Scholar, Little Amps, even some of the storefronts and some of the restaurants. I sit there for hours to just write because for me, being in the midst of things is inspiring.

    I can go close myself off into a room, but when I’m out in the elements, things are different. I’m in tune with the rhythm of that day or that moment. I look at poetry like you’re either capturing a moment in history or a moment in the present. I feel like a good poet can do that, and I try my best to do that.

    Why do you think libraries are important spaces for young poets and artists?

    I would say the library is just a safe space. You’re surrounded by so many stories, so much knowledge. As a kid, I frequented the library, and I would get lost there. I’m kind of still doing the same thing. I’m just using coffee shops now, but the library, I would say, played a major part in finding the type of peace that I can find on my own. As writers, we need to have some type of peace so that we can process our thoughts, and the library provides that. If you can get to the library and have it as a part of your routine growing up, it’ll never leave.

    If you are interested in joining Davenport’s program this June and July, please visit our events page for more information and registration.

  • What The Library Means to Me: Catie Sutherland

    By: Barry Ernest

    The year is 1967.

    Lyndon B. Johnson is president. Green Bay wins Super Bowl I. Three astronauts die in a launch-pad fire. Expo 67 opens in Montreal. The 25th Amendment is ratified. Big Macs make the scene. The “enemy is losing” in Vietnam, we’re told. The Public Broadcasting Act is signed. Human Be-Ins dot the landscape. Live satellite TV begins. Roger Ebert debuts as a film critic.

    Two-year-old Catie Bond, hand-in-hand with her mom, enters the public library on Walnut Street in downtown Harrisburg. It is her first ever visit to such a place.

    “I remember the library was where my sister and I could get our hands on books and come for various children’s programs,” says Catie today. “The downtown library was the only one open in Harrisburg at that time.”

    Two other significant yet related events occurred in that same year.

    On a national level, the Office of Intellectual Freedom was created as an outgrowth of the American Library Association. The office was charged with educating librarians, their staff, and the public about the merits of being able to seek knowledge and ideas without restriction. On the local scene, the downtown library, a solo staple since 1914, expanded with three new branches: Harrisburg Uptown, Kline Village, and Colonial Park.

    Both of those actions will have an impact on Catie’s mom… and eventually on Catie herself.

    “Our family started to go to the Colonial Park Library after it opened in 1967,” Catie recalls. “Mom liked that someone could get groceries at the plaza as well as library books at the library.”

    That was when the Colonial Park Library and the mall had rubber mats for a floor, which Catie’s mom felt reasonable since kids wouldn’t be hurt if they fell.

    Catie became the proud holder of her very own library card. She routinely searched through those large metal card-catalogue cabinets to find Trixie Beldon, the Bobbsey Twins, and many other volumes.

    She tells the story that only a few years after introducing Catie to the joys of reading, her mom would become a circulation assistant at the Harrisburg Uptown Library and the Kline Village branch.

    But that’s not all.

    “My paternal grandmother, Eleanor Smith, studied library science at Carnegie Tech and got her degree,” Catie said. “She moved to New York City and worked for the New York City Public Library in the late 1920s and the early 1930s.” In 1931, Eleanor married Julian Bond, who also studied at Carnegie Tech, earning a degree in engineering. The couple then moved to Yorktown Heights, NY, where Eleanor worked for the John C. Hart Library.

    That was where they became familiar with the name Halsey William Wilson. For those unfamiliar, Wilson was a noted publisher from Croton Heights, NY, and the creator of such reference essentials as the Readers’ Guide, the Cumulative Book Index, and the Book Review Digest. He was once labeled as one of the 100 most important leaders of the 20th century. He also had the unusual but charitable habit of giving parcels of land to librarians for free.

    “My grandparents built a garage on the land they were given and lived in it while they built a house,” Catie explained. Her grandfather, Julian, was an architect and thus designed their future home.

    Catie’s library lineage doesn’t stop there.

    “My great aunt, Virginia Keltz, who was Eleanor’s sister, was also a librarian in Detroit,” Catie added. “My maternal great aunt, Betty Donnelly, was a librarian in Newcastle on the Tyne in England. And my uncle, Brian Bond, worked as a children’s librarian in North Bend, Oregon.”

    You might say a taste for books and the places where they are archived was a major part of the family’s DNA. This is why it was only natural that Catie, who became Catie Sutherland upon marriage, went to work at the East Shore Area Library, its newly acquired name, after relocating in 1977 to its current home on property adjacent to the Colonial Park Plaza.

    She’s been there for 31 years.

     “I started working for the library in February 1994,” she said. “I worked as a ‘page’ where I put books away and shelved books.” Three decades later, she now holds the position of Public Services Assistant. As the title suggests, she is a go-to guide for all-things library. She is a source of assistance to those who work at the library, as well as the many who visit it daily.

    Catie doesn’t talk much about her heritage. In fact, few are aware of her family line and its long-standing connection to various libraries. When you ask Catie what the library means to her, you get a humble response.

    “I provide service and help our members get answers to their questions and generally help people out.”

    More than that, the library has presented her with a means of following in the footsteps forged by her ancestors. Toward that end, it has become a way of encouraging others to seek knowledge and ideas without restriction. It has afforded Catie the opportunity to deal personally with those who, just as her mom once did, take their children by the hand and lead them, often for the very first time, into their public library.

  • Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Childhood Stories

    Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Childhood Stories

    By: Lexi Plumley

    As a Filipino American, there weren’t a lot of Filipino children’s books. There were books that had our folk tales and certain ghost stories, but they weren’t for children. Aunties and uncles would tell you these stories, grandparents would tell you these stories verbally, but there weren’t really any, physical picture books when I was growing up in the 90s. I do remember there were two instances where I ended up reading the same book during different times in my life.

    I don’t think there was a single physical book that I ever got to read throughout my entire childhood that had to do with anything of Asian descent. Everything was white or black. I read a lot of black children’s stories growing up, but I didn’t get to read anything whatsoever from my Filipino heritage. [Storytelling] was done through family members or other Filipino people who also had the same type of stories, just told differently. Again, they’re all folk tales from our culture.

    I was in fifth grade and heard somebody read this book called, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr. It’s a Japanese children’s book about the events that happened in Hiroshima, where a bunch of kids who had radiation poisoning were in hospitals. There are a lot of terrible things [in the story], but it was painted very beautifully. The book is about a girl who got very, very sick. In Japanese culture, if you make a thousand paper cranes, you get to make a wish. I remember reading that when I was in fifth grade, and I thought the story was wonderful. It was the first time I’d seen an Asian person in a book. I was like, “This is wild!”

    In seventh grade, in junior high, I took a creative writing class, and they read the exact same book. As we were reading the book and learning the history about those events, we were supposed to make a thousand cranes to then send to Japan. This was to put the cranes at her monument because she was a real person who went through these things. She was trying to make the thousand cranes, but didn’t end up finishing them before she passed on. I think her classmates and things decided to make that monument, and there’s a giant statue of her holding a paper crane in that city.

    Every year for the anniversary of either her death or the events that happened, people bring a bunch of paper cranes to the monument and place them there. That’s what we did as a group of eight 12-year-olds. We made a thousand paper cranes. Our creative writing teacher, Mr. Jacobs, sent them to Japan.

    They [the people of Hiroshima] sent us back a letter and a picture of our cranes sitting at this at the base of the monument. Sadako became my favorite book. It is something that I always suggested to people. When I was a preschool teacher, I read it to my kids even though they were way too young to really understand the gravitas of the book. The fact is that there wasn’t any Asian representation in my class, so as a teacher, so I wanted to present that to the kids. I showed them how to make paper cranes.

    I’ve talked to a lot of other Filipino friends of mine that are all in the same age range. We all read that same book. Sadako is the first Asian book that we ever read growing up, and we’re all in our mid-thirties now.

    I didn’t start really seeing books about Filipino children or Filipino culture until I was in college. I think the first one was the most famous Filipino American children book, Cora Cooks Pancit, by Dorina Lazo Gilmore. I was 18 or 19 at the time.

    I have to look and see where Asian stories are in our library system, because we should have more of those. I’ve seen ones explaining Lunar New Year, but there should be more books, more children’s books, especially for Filipino Americans. I feel like we have a lot more Chinese, Japanese, and Thailand books, and ones from India too. We’re lacking in the Filipino department, and it makes me sad.

    By: Maria Lagasca

    I’m going to tell you the first book where I felt seen as not only an Asian girl, but an Asian girl who didn’t speak English very well. English is not my first language. It’s always been a struggle for me. The first book I ever read, and still read once a year, is called In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord. It’s a little chapter book. On the cover, at the top, is a picture of Jackie Robinson, and at the bottom is a little Asian girl listening to a baseball game on the radio.

    It’s a really good book. It’s set after World War 2, and he girl, named  Shirley Temple Wong,  is in middle school. She immigrates to Brooklyn, New York from China, and she does not speak English very well. On top of that, she doesn’t have a support system besides the people in her classroom.

    Shirley doesn’t have formal instruction in English. She learns from the people around her. She struggles to fit in and deal with some of the stereotypes and some of the economic stress that most immigrants face. And yeah, she’s sassy! That’s what I loved about her. She’s bullied, but one thing she knew was to stick up for herself. She didn’t need English for that.  

    She ends up befriending and forgiving the bully. I don’t know. In the Asian culture, you don’t bow down. I was raised to be proud of who I was and to never be fearful, even though I was [afraid], so the idea of forgiving a bully was very new to me. Shirley ends up being friends with the bully, and they end up playing baseball.

    Another thing I liked about her was that she was a tomboy. She ended up playing baseball, which is what I did. I had two brothers. I got their hand-me-downs. I did whatever my brothers did, and I ended up gravitating towards sports. She made me feel very seen, and the mini stories of her parents not being able to navigate the grocery store and her having to go with her mom to translate. She doesn’t know English very well, but she’s the hope for her family. It’s like a burden for her. It’s something I think you don’t understand until you’re a grown up. When you get to high school, you start wondering, “How long am I gonna do this? How long am I gonna be my parents’ translator? How long am I gonna be taking care of them? When am I able to live my life outside of this home?” I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s just that your family becomes dependent on you, and it turns into this forever expectation. It becomes this idea of no “self,” which is relevant in Asian culture. You’re raised to give up the “self.”

    Go be a doctor, be a lawyer, be a nurse, and then you have to come back and give it all to your family.  It’s complex. Shirley navigated all that, and I don’t think I or anybody around me could have explained it better. I still struggle to explain it without that book.

    In the midst of everything, Shirley looks up to Jackie Robinson, knowing his struggles. She starts realizing she’s come to The US with the dream that this is a better life, that it’s all going to be fairy tales and it’s perfect. Then she comes to realize that while she’s navigating her identity, these other people who are skilled, like the best baseball player at that time, were judged by the color of their skin.

    Shirley realizes that it’s not just immigrants going through the struggles of acceptance.  I grew up in a predominantly African American neighborhood, and the people that accepted me the most were the were the Pakistani kids and the black kids, not even my own Asian people. I think it’s because I’m darker and my family’s darker.

    I think that my family was considered poor, so they deemed us lower class. All the other families were like, “Don’t hang out with anybody lower class than you.” Lower class means having less money, being darker, or your parents have blue collar jobs. I was accepted most by the Southeast Asians, the ones who were dark skinned, and my African American community all throughout high school.

    It helped me realize how my struggle is sometimes minimal compared to others. I know I’m not the only one. Growing up, you look up to people that are just fantastic. I remember Michelle Kwan, probably the first Asian icon of the US. Everybody gravitated towards Michelle Kwan. And I gravitated toward her because I grew up figure skating. My mom wanted me to be either a nurse, a lawyer, or Michelle Kwan.