Thursday, April 30, 2009
{The Blue Banner}
Spontaneous plans yield community garden
Dw I V ^5
Page 11
Y
By Rachel Letcher
Staff Writer
RELETCHER@GMAIL.COM
Not knowing the impact his Pisgah
View Community Peace Garden would
have on the Asheville youth community.
Bob White planted a few seeds two years
ago, purchased with the $2 he had in his
pocket.
“I was in my house listening to music,
and a little voice came into my head that
said, ‘Start a community garden,’” White
said with a serious look in his eyes. “I
had no earthly idea about gardening, but
I knew something needed to happen to
make this a better place.”
Two weeks later he said he debated
with the voice in his head until he asked
the manager of Pisgah View apartment
complex, one of Asheville’s public hous
ing projects, if he could use a lO-by-30
foot piece of land near the outskirts of the
property.
“It was like a movie. The manager
looked at the supervisor and then looked
at me and said, ‘OK,’” he said, laughing.
“They said 1 could take the ball field.”
White, a carpenter by trade, had no
source of income at the time and started
his garden by planting a package of seeds
he purchased with the only money he had
“I felt lost when I first got out there ”
he said. • “I had no tools, no money and
nobody to help me. I just went home. But
that voice kept coming back in my head
mmmm
745 HAYWOOD RD.
ASHEVILLE, NC
828.254.4429
Brooke Rogers, head of healthy cooking claSTforthTl^sg'rvTe'^^^^^
munity peace garden helps two-year old Elijah Rogers water plants.
and, about two weeks later, this woman
came by and said she could help and con
nected me with some people.’!
A student from Warren Wilson College
encouraged White to ask for donations and
took him out to the college, where he bor
rowed a tiller and other equipment.
“That’s when it got magic, when that
lady came to help me,” he said.
A nurseiy in Swannanoa donated a thou
sand different types of tomato plants, more
than 400 pepper plants, herbs like basil
and parsley and a variety of flowers to the
up-and-coming organic garden.
A church donated a chicken coop, situ
ated in the greenhouse made of plastic,
where White plans on selling eggs and,
eventually, the chickens. Community
members donated their time and spare
tools to White’s project.
“When I started to get to work tilling
the field, a bunch of kids were standing
by the fence and were asking to help,”
he said. I said ‘Yeah, it’s your garden.’”
They started breaking up the soil and the
rows were all zigzagged, but everything
See garden Page 1.5 |
Poetry
works explores the impact of his father’s
exile from China and political imprison
ment on Lee’s own private life, according
to Hope-Gill. The Belarusian poet Val-
zhyna Mort’s work bears witness to politi
cal oppression in her homeland.
Each reading presents a variety of cul
tures and aesthetics because the poets who
dreamed this up wanted a festival that truly
is about diversity in all directions male,
female, cultural, racial, physical ability,'
tradition and context,” Hope-Gill said.'
Funded by the North Carolina Arts Coun
cil and the North Carolina Humanities
Council, Wordfest also allows local orga
nizations and individuals the opportunity
to sponsor a specific poet of interest
uBy this we mean if you like a certain
poet, or share the values and passions of
a pout, -you-can pull.together-a donation
that will go toward bringing that poet to
Asheville,” Hope-Gill explains. “For in
stance, local publisher Grateful Steps Press
is sponsoring Ekiwah Adler Belendez’s
reading, because his being here reflects
the press’ interest in multiculturalism and
celebrating difference.”
Poets Ross Gay and Patrick Rosal were
co-sponsored by the undergraduate cre
ative writing program at Warren Wilson
College to support the rising poet’s works,
according to Hope-Gill.
The essential purpose is to bring people
together from many different communi
ties. We present a poet lineup that reflects
the real population, from 20 different cul
tural and aesthetic backgrounds,” Hope-
Gill said. “I think that, through the spon-
sor-a-poet idea, the community can use
the festival as a way of magnifying their
ideas and values.”
Wordfest’s sponsors include the Moun
tain Area Information Network, the Black
Mountain College Museum and Arts Cen
ter, Hookah Joe’s, UNC Asheville, Bobo
Gallery, Malaprop’s Bookstore and Cafe,
Book Works and Rivendell.
“We’re taking poetry high-tech with the
live webcast. We were the first festival to
do this,” Hope-Gill said.
Hope-Gill anticipates views from Afri
ca, Britain and Spain for this year’s Word
fest Internet coverage, due to recent pro
motion of the festival on both Facebook
and Twitter.
“Asheville Wordfest brings together
amazing poets both local and national, and
the people who write for their own person
al pleasure and survival,” Hope-Gill said.
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