Showing posts with label Poet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poet. Show all posts

Friday, September 25, 2026

Peace Class with Mandy Kahn (9/30)


Once and only once, we met live at PRS, March 22, 2026. We may do it again. Stay tuned.
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Every Wednesday, 6:00 pm PT (prs.org)
Join FREE online gathering to build inner peace as well as world peace with Mandy Kahn, now in its sixth year.

Peace Class is led by activist and poet Mandy Kahn. It is a free weekly gathering for participants around the world to come together to build peace in themselves and therefore world peace as a community.

To attend, simply join this Zoom link at the West Coast start time every Wednesday at 6:00 pm (PT). us02web.zoom.us/j/82150472713 

Peace Class is presented by the Philosophical Research Society (prs.org) in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.

Peace Class is now in its sixth seventh year. Each class meeting presents a short talk that elucidates some aspect of the true nature of peace. The talk is followed by a journaling-based practice to give each participant the opportunity to develop a set of peace-building tools to use at any time.
Nature is a remedy that brings peace as plants soothe and heal us, communicating via mycelia
 
Mandy cross under Kahn billboard, LA
Each hour-long session also includes a collective peace meditation (such as metta bhavana or the cultivation of "universal Buddhist loving-kindness," agape or boundless friendliness to all).

Teachings about pioneer peacebuilders like Peace Pilgrim and the opportunity to share participants’ personal peace-building discoveries with the group.

Each Peace Class meeting presents a stand-alone lesson; participants are invited to drop in for any single class or the full class series.

Mandy Kahn and PRS are grateful to be joined by peace advocates and would-be activists from around the world in this supportive online space.

Instructions
Talk, guided meditation, sharing, inspiration
Zoom link at its local start time: every Wednesday night 6:00 pm (Pacific Time). This class is FREE and is open to ALL.
  • Holy Doors: Poems (Mandy Kahn)
    ABOUT    : Mandy Kahn is a California poet and peace teacher raised in Los Angeles and educated at UC Berkeley. She’s the author of three collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Holy Doors (2023). Her poems have been included in the Best American Poetry anthology series, have been featured on BBC Radio, and are seen in the nationwide newspaper column American Life in Poetry. She presented a program of her peace-building immersive poems at the Getty Museum in 2019.
  • She is a frequent feature of Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal with fellow UC Berkeley graduate Editor Dhr. Seven, presenting the text of past Peace Class presentations.
  • Peace Piece: Poems Mandy Kahn
    She was also the subject of Courtney Sell’s feature-length documentary Peace Piece: The Immersive Poems of Mandy Kahn, which is available from IndiePix. In 2021, Kahn presented a two-day peace concert at Meditation Mount in Ojai in conjunction with Dot Maver, director of the National Peace Academy, Fumi Johns Stewart, executive director of May Peace Prevail On Earth International, and Michael Lindfield, Meditation Mount’s board president. Mandy Kahn has been a featured speaker at many peace events, including at Peace Week, World Unity Week, and One Planet Peace Forum. Mandy Kahn serves as the Philosophical Research Society’s contributing writer and previously served two years as PRS' artist-in-residence.
  • Questions? Please email events@prs.org or phone (323) 663-2167
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Thursday, August 6, 2026

Nude Poetry with Füde, NY to LA (8/7)

Now I'd like to bring out Leehee Bee, a hot piece of asymptote on our stage for the first time.
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Reading my poetry is a new kind of "naked"
What performing poetry reveals about language, vulnerability, the fear of being (mis)understood
 
Could I stand in front of people fully nude?
A few months ago, I [Lihi Be] stood on a stage in New York City and performed slam poetry for the first time. The scene was hosted by Nuyorican Poets' Cafe at the Bowery Poetry Club, a small, legendary room where decades of poets have stepped up to a microphone and turned their inner worlds into sound.

It's the kind of place where language has history, where words have weight, where the air feels charged from voices that came before.

Enough with old white male writers! Sit down!
Gigi luxury nightwear (Schweitzer Linen)

lihi be, the i in mi, this breath and body
I remember standing there, waiting my turn, feeling my heart beating in my throat, which surprised me. I’ve spoken in front of rooms before. I’ve guided workshops, taught movement, led breathwork journeys where people open parts of themselves that are tender and alive.

Holding space for others doesn’t scare me. But this was different. This time, I wasn’t holding material space; I was the material. A poem I wrote alone earlier that morning was about to leave the page and hit the stage, entering a room full of strangers, not through dead ink, but through my living breath, my voice, my body.
New York City as seen from high above Central Park, a kind of Griffith Park, Los Angeles

(Married with Children) American skin: Al Bundy's high school girlfriend shows up at the beach
White men can't dance, but women can (KP)
What is The Füde Experience? Naked eating, social bonding, courageous self-inquiry together
The Füde Experience: naked eating with Lihi Be at FÜDE LA (thefudeexperience.com)
Does anyone here need a bath to wash away dirty thoughts of body image negativity?
Holiday hosting: rosemary ritual cleanse (The Füde Experience)
We said nobody wants to see it, Shake Spear! OK, a quick flash then sit down and shut it!

Lihi Benisty poetry: Self
Until that moment, "poetry" was something I wrote, never something I performed. When I published my book, The Self, Reframed, it felt like a big step outward. Suddenly the poems were technically "public." Someone, anyone, could order the book, underline a passage, carry a piece of it into her own life.
 
Butt even then, there was still distance. The page protected me. Readers meet a poem alone. They can pause, reread, close the book, throw it in the garbage disposal, flip the switch, make acid-free wood pulp that washes out to sea... That meeting happens quietly, inside their own interior worlds.

Shame? We refuse to limit ourselves
Slam poetry is different: Spoken word removes the distance. When one performs a poem, there is no safe distance, no page between the room and the I performing. My breath carries my language. My nervous system becomes part of the delivery. My voice, my pauses, my trembling chest -- all of it becomes part of my poem.

In some ways, it feels easier to be naked than to perform one's own poem, in the woods, with someone you love, in front of Mother Nature, playing pretend it's Adam and Eve in a Sumerian garden.


Look, it's the real me!
I was in New York for a series of gatherings -- one of them a nude experience I was hosting with the Füde Experience: a roomful of naked people exploring embodiment, mindful presence, the simplicity of being in our bodies without the usual layers of social armor.

Standing naked in a room with others didn’t feel nearly as vulnerable as standing on this stage. In fact, being naked felt surprisingly simple. Source: a poem is a different kind of naked (seeds of the self)

We're bringing it to Los Angeles
"No bikinis! Cover up those shameful bodies...or you are headed for hell!" - Loving Christian
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Lihi Be (Benisty)
AUTHOR: Lihi Be (Benisty), teacher of somatic self-inquiry, breathwork, movement, teacher, mentorship, poetry, summer retreat leader, author of The Self, Reframed. She leads a dynamic blend of somatic practices to navigate emotional landscapes. She is profoundly committed to the poetic art of self-inquiry through breathwork and movement. Her teaching is distinguished by her ability to weave these elements into a cohesive practice that respects the complexity of the human experience. Her poetry serves as a reflective mirror, deepening the themes she navigates in her somatic work and offering an additional avenue for connection and self-discovery. She lives in Los Angeles, California. (Substack, Instagram, FÜDE in LA, Amazon, Facebook, Omega Institute, lihibe.com)
Nuyorican Poets' Cafe Poetry Slam at the Bowery Poetry Club Mondays (@bowerypoetry
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Wednesday, June 18, 2025

History's 20 most influential poets

This free event includes open mic, which means participants can also recite.
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Poetry is like a pulse running through history, shaping revolutions, kindling love, and exposing the rawest human truths. Some poets whispered change; others roared it. These poets and their verses outlived empires as their voices refused to fade. Find out the minds behind the world’s most enduring poetry.

Homer
Homer (Dan Castellaneta/Matt Groening)
Few figures loom as large as Homer. His epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey, laid the foundation of Western literature. These [epic] war stories, fate, and heroism influenced countless works, from Shakespeare to Hollywood. Though his life remains a mystery, his words have echoed for nearly three millennia....

ODYSSEY

The Goddess Athena, Greece
Then the goddess, flashing-eyed Athena, answered him: “Therefore of a truth will I frankly tell thee all. [180] I declare that I am Mentes, the son of wise Anchialus, and I am lord over the oar-loving Taphians. And now have I put in here, as thou seest, with ship and crew, while sailing over the wine-dark sea to men of strange speech, on my way to Temese for copper; and I bear with me shining iron. [185] My ship lies yonder beside the fields away from the city, in the harbor of Rheithron, under woody Neion. Friends of one another do we declare ourselves to be, even as our fathers were, friends from of old. Nay, if thou wilt, go and ask the old warrior Laertes, who, they say, [190] comes no more to the city, but afar in the fields suffers woes attended by an aged woman as his handmaid...” Homer, Odyssey, Book 1, Line 178
Rumi
Eight centuries later, Rumi’s words still enchant hearts worldwide. A mystic, poet, and philosopher, his poems—especially "Masnavi"—explore love in its divine and human forms. His poetry, full of longing and ecstasy, speaks across cultures and religions. He is also one of the most widely read poets today....

MASNAVI
Can translations capture Rumi?
At the hour of the morning-drink a beloved said to her lover by way of trial, “O such-and-such son of such-and-such, I wonder, do you love me or yourself more? Tell the truth, O man of sorrows.”

He replied, “I have become so naughted in thee that I am full of thee from head to foot. Of my existence there is nothing (left) in me but the name: in my being there is naught but thee, O thou whose wishes are gratified. By that means I have become thus naughted, like vinegar, in thee (who are) an ocean of honey.”

Filled with sunniness?
As the stone that is entirely turned into pure ruby: it is filled with the qualities of the sun. That stony nature does not remain in it: back and front, it is filled with sunniness

Afterwards, if it love itself, that (self-love) is love of the sun, O youth; And if it love the sun with (all) its soul, ‘tis undoubtedly love of itself. Whether the pure ruby loves itself or whether it loves the sun, There is really no difference in these two loves: both sides (aspects) are naught but the radiance of the sunrise. Until it (the stone) has become a ruby, it is an enemy to itself, because... Masnavi of Rumi

Shakespeare (The Bard)
Shakespeare’s mastery of language reshaped literature forever. His sonnets brim with passion, despair, wit, and unrelenting curiosity left a lasting mark. As the most quoted writer in history, his influence extends beyond poetry—his storytelling also shaped modern drama. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” and others have immortalized his name.  More

SONNET 130
Willy, I'm not that hot.
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
FREE TO RSVP
Poetry in the Afternoon (Third Thursdays) at the SPARC Centre Gallery, featuring South Pasadena Poet Laureate and popular YA (young adult) author Ron Koertge as well as Peace Activist Mandy Kahn (prs org). There is also an OPEN MIC for participants to sign up to perform. Subject matter is open but will cover the sensitive subject of sex. Free. Refreshments served, part of the Fremont Playhouse, rear gallery. RSVP:
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