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SEQUENCE:18820436
CREATED:20120918T003000Z
DESCRIPTION:Investigative journalist (AND POET) Dennis Bernstein presents Special Ed: 
 Voices from a Hidden Classroom.\nReading, discussion and 
 book-signing.\n\nWhat people are saying about Special Ed:\nCome into the 
 special ed classroom, where the kids who don't fit in anywhere else spend 
 their day. For these kids-real kids Dennis J. Bernstein taught in the New 
 York City public schools before he became an internationally known 
 investigative journalist-pistols, switchblades, police cars and hunger are 
 more instructive than textbooks. Special Ed is about daily life under the 
 siege of poverty, racism, and class warfare. We come to know these kids 
 intimately: Gloria, whose mother was disappeared in Guatemala and whose 
 friendship with Marilyn rescues her from trauma-induced silence; Paulie, 
 who "finds tears in the mirror's eyes" but thinks of himself as tough and 
 defies the gang-guys who threaten to drop him from the roof of the 
 projects; Regina, who sells nickel bags before class and gets high alone in 
 the gym before giving a heart-wrenching performance of a poem by Langston 
 Hughes. Dennis Bernstein loves these kids fiercely, and we come to love 
 them too as the collection unfolds. In these stunning, understated poems, 
 these poems unafraid to name the darkest facts of our world and yet 
 continually informed with compassion, we find ourselves in Rilke's world of 
 beauty and terror. To depict with love, as Bernstein does, is indeed to 
 transform, the way a shattered guitar and broken glass are transformed by 
 the kids in the special ed classroom into art and jewels.\n-Anita Barrows, 
 PhD, poet, child psychologist, translator (with Joanna Macy) of Rainer 
 Maria Rilke\n\nDennis Bernstein is a hero to me because of his dedicated, 
 unflinching reporting of real news on Flashpoints, at KPFA in Berkeley, 
 California. But his fearless pursuit of the truth about what is happening 
 in our rapidly transforming world did not prepare me for the beauty, depth, 
 not-one-word-mislaid perception of this amazing book. Each word, each line, 
 each thought has a weight, a texture, a surprise all its own. With its 
 moving preface, in which Dennis shares his own struggles as a young child 
 with special needs, Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom is that 
 unusual gift literature can be: We are connected to humanity in ways we 
 might never have even considered or imagined before. Above all it is art 
 turned to us through the eyes of love.\n-Alice Walker, Pulitzer 
 Prize-winning poet, author of The Color Purple\n\n \n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/09/17/18721852.php
SUMMARY:Dennis Bernstein reads Special Ed at Revolution Books
LOCATION:Revolution Books\n2425 Channing Way(in the Sather Gate Parking Mall off of 
 Telegraph Avenue, wheelchair accessible,donations accepted.)
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/09/17/18721852.php
DTSTART:20120919T020000Z
DTEND:20120919T040000Z
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