Full Moon on K Street

The People and Places of Northwest Washington January 13, 2010 ■ Page 15 Moms share their ‘baby love’ throughout the city By IAN QUILLEN “You can go through various Current Correspondent organizations,” Cannova added, “that take everything and hope at otherhood, says Annie some point it gets to the right Lou Berman, evokes an place. But we all knew we live in M instinctual compassion a city that has an extremely high that goes beyond the limbs of a poverty level, and as women, we family tree or the walls of a family knew that there were other women home. that needed stuff.” “You automatically have this Founded by Ali Wentworth, an innate sense of being protective actress and comedian who lives in and caring for others and feeling Georgetown, and modeled after for other mothers,” said Berman, similar programs in New York and who lives in Georgetown and by Los Angeles, Baby Love has day is an editor at the lifestyle grown from an idea into a thriving Web ‘zine Daily Candy. “And you philanthropy in less time than it see all the stuff fortunate people takes most infants to learn to have and you know they want to walk. help.” Wentworth brainstormed with That sentiment, she says, drove friend Jessica Seinfeld, who runs Bill Petros/The Current the creation of Baby Love DC, a the similar Baby Buggy charity in Georgetown-based charity devoted New York, and developed a rela- Georgetown-based charity Baby Love DC, which was founded by actress Ali Wentworth, gathers essential toward directing essential baby tively simple battle plan: Publicize baby gear, clothing and products and distributes them to needy mothers in D.C. From left to right, gear, clothing and products to monthly drives by word of mouth, organizers include Elizabeth Thorp, Annie Lou Berman, Sissy Yates, Ana Caskin and Sarah Cannova. needy mothers elsewhere in the collect any and all baby goods that District. are in good condition, and trans- Using a truck donated by “Junk the things as they do in getting make it really fun by a lot of times “Once we’ve kind of cycled port and donate them to a number in the Trunk” removal services, those things for their own chil- giving away cupcakes and cookies through it, there’s no way to of organizations that route them to the board members left astonished dren.” ... It’s sort of a way for people to immediately get it to families in needy mothers. by the breadth of donations, while Baby Love DC held similar kind of hang out.” need in D.C.,” said Sarah After conceiving the idea last the truck pulled away completely events in September, October, December’s event, on the first Cannova, who lives in Spring March, Wentworth “cast a wide full. November and December. The weekend of the month, was nearly Valley, co-founded local shoe net” to a few-dozen friends, “It was amazing,” Berman said. spirit, board members say, has ruined by wintry weather. Baby company Sassanova and serves Cannova recalls. The group even- “And the care that people take to been contagious. Love DC’s Web site, alongside Berman on the group’s tually narrowed to the six perma- give these things — they don’t “We’re making it easy for peo- babylovedc.org, officially said the board of directors. All six mem- nent board members, who in June just come and say, ‘Hey, here’s a ple by saying, ‘All you have to do event was cancelled, and only two bers of the board are mothers of sponsored and ran their first drive huge trash bag of this stuff.’ They is drop off your stuff,’” Berman board members even made it to young children. in Georgetown. really take the same care in giving said. “And then we’re trying to See Baby/Page 20 New collection American Indian Museum celebrates puts D.C. in verse winter storytelling tradition with fest By LINDA LOMBARDI By LAURA L. THORNTON This weekend’s storytelling festival — the Current Correspondent Current Correspondent museum’s first — will feature several well- known and accomplished American Indian When you think of poetry, you might raditional American Indian stories, storytellers, including Gene Tagaban (of conjure imagery of the glory of nature. Does hands-on family Tlingit and Cherokee it count if it’s a full moon on K Street? Tactivities and descent), a world travel- The new anthology edited by poet and special gallery tours will er known for his interac- playwright Kim Roberts answers that ques- be featured this week- tive storytelling style, tion with an emphatic yes. “Full Moon on K end as part of the Winter Levchuk says. Street” is a collection of 101 poems that por- Storytelling Festival at “Storytelling in tray our city in many different ways, cele- the National Museum of Native American culture brating the built environment and how we the American Indian. ... brings people together live in it. Storytelling is a tradi- — communities, fami- If you love D.C., even if you haven’t read tional, wintertime activ- lies ... individuals — to a poem since high school, you’ll find that the ity in American Indian Courtesy of Thirza Defoe a place where they learn book is full of intriguing perspectives on Bill Petros/The Current culture, according to the Thirza Defoe will perform in the to listen,” Tagaban said. familiar places and events. Kim Roberts edited “Full Moon on K museum’s Leonda National Museum of the American “The importance of Levchuk, who is storytelling is that it’s a One poem is about the painting of Street,” a book of poems about D.C. Indian’s storytelling festival. Marilyn Monroe on the side of a building at Navajo. For genera- way to break down the Calvert Street and Connecticut Avenue; recognizable details like getting on the Metro tions, American Indians walls and connect with another is set at a liquor store at the intersec- at the Van Ness station, and, in more than have gathered together after the first snowfall the part of you that opens up the possibility tion of New York Avenue and North Capitol one, the sound of summer in sweltering D.C.: — when the animals are in hibernation — to of imagination and creativity,” which “in Street and asks, “Can you spare a quarter for the humming and roaring of air conditioners tell stories about the animals, the earth and turns opens up the door to create solutions,” a lucid moment?” small and large. “how things happen the way they do,” she he added. Everyday moments in the poems include See Poems/Page 23 said. See Stories/Page 20 THE CURRENT WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2010 23 Northwest Real Estate former congressman and five-time us are urban, most of us are part of helped people connect with one Roberts hopes this anthology POEMS presidential candidate Eugene literary communities.” another. We have an incredibly rich will help to change this one-sided From Page 15 McCarthy. And for newcomers — And in fact, the book celebrates diverse literary community to draw view of the city. “We have more of or those who want to send the book this literary community as well as on.” a reputation as a political center The poems were all written to folks back home — the introduc- the city itself. Roberts complied the There are poetry anthologies than a literary center,” she says, between 1950 and the present, but tion to each poem explains the anthology to celebrate the 10th about other cities, but Roberts “but we are a major literary center, the history of the city is a constant local references. anniversary of the online poetry found that there had never been so we need to claim it.” presence. Roberts, who’s lived in But more generally, the book journal that she edits, Beltway one about D.C., which she said has Plan B Press released “Full D.C. for almost 25 years, has done shows that even poetic metaphors Poetry Quarterly, which features been slighted in other ways as well. Moon on K Street: Poems About research and given tours about the can be based entirely in the urban only poets who live or work inside For instance, she bemoans the Washington, DC” on Monday. homes of famous local writers, and experience. One example is the the Beltway. She says she won- name of the “Harlem Renaissance” Readings will take place through- says the city’s past permeates her way Sterling A. Brown, first poet dered at first if it was odd for a — “People think that it happened out 2010; see thinking. laureate of D.C., expresses the journal to be so narrowly focused, in New York, but the movement washingtonart.com/beltway/tenth.ht “Driving down the street I think, beauty of a woman in one poem: “but it’s worked really well — it’s started in D.C.” ml for more information. that’s where Zora Neale Hurston lived, that’s where Walt Whitman’s “The last time I saw Annie on the boarding house was,” she said. avenue, Many of the poems evoke what She held up traffic for an hour or NEW LISTING Roberts calls this “layered sense of two. “BEST ADDRESSES” CATHEDRAL WEST place.” One, called “Ode to the The green light refused, absolutely, 4100 CATHEDRAL AVENUE, N.W. Black Nationalist Pharaoh Head of to go off at all; Georgia Avenue,” laments the loss And the red light and the amber of a decoration on a closed book- nearly popped the glass, $895,000 store; it makes Roberts think of When Annie walked by, they came “the way locals give directions like, on so fast, turn left where such-and-such used Then stayed on together twenty to be.” minutes after she went past; Another contribution that was And it took three days for to get written especially for the book tells them duly timed again.

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