Activities
My pick of the week-end:
Now in its 17th year, the Jumbo Circus Peanuts have become an Seacoast institution (some say they should be confined in one), winning awards, earning a Governor’s Commendation, appearing on the biggest and best stages in the area, playing countless fundraisers, and throwing many a memorable dance party along the way.
On Saturday, Feb. 25 at the Portsmouth VFW Hall on 238 Deer St. the Jumbo Circus Peanuts’ annual Mardi Gras Dance Party will benefit WSCA, with all proceeds going to support local, non-profit, commercial-free radio. Doors open at 8 p.m. and admission is $10. Purchase of a year membership in PCR comes with free admittance.
The Peanuts’ costumes, always a sight at any show, will continue to celebrate Carnival traditions and the unique cultural organizations of New Orleans such as the Mardi Gras Indians, the Skull and Bone gangs, and the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club. Audience members are more than strongly encouraged to masquerade as well.
As always, JCP productions at the VFW feature free snacks and onsite parking, efficient bar service at friendly prices, lots of activity on the large wooden dance floor and no smoking. This time the good times roll for a good cause, Portsmouth Community Radio. Note that this is a 21+ event.
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The Seacoast African American Cultural Center hosts “Burning with the Word: Flame with Ash, Fire without Hate,” a celebration of black contemporary poetry, on Sunday, Feb. 25, at the Discover Portsmouth Center.
The day’s schedule includes a free writing workshop and spoken word performances by some of the region’s top poets, including former National Poetry Slam champion Regie O’Hare Gibson. The public is invited to attend in honor of Black History Month.
John-Michael Albert, poet laureate of Portsmouth, organized the program with the help of music and poetry teacher Ayanna Gallant, who used to set up similar events at the University of New Hampshire while studying there.
To further the Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program’s mission of building community through poetry, Albert wanted to share a grander version of these events with the general public.
The program is named after a biblical passage in which Jeremiah can no longer deny the call to prophetize, despite its risks. “His word was in my heart as burning fire shut up in my bones,” it reads.
The poets participating are well-versed in poetry slams, timed competitions that are judged by anonymous audience members. Since there are no props, Albert said the key is eye contact and conviction. He said success depends on the ability to convince others to feel the same way you do.
The Seacoast African American Cultural Center works to celebrate the lives of black people, with emphasis on those of the Seacoast region. Albert said events like this heighten awareness about diversity and open dialogue about race.
Discover Portsmouth Center is at 10 Middle St. in Portsmouth. For more information, call 603-430-6027.
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Dear Sister: Letters from the Civil War on Display in Special Collections
Milne Special Collections and Archives is located on Level 1 of Dimond Library (Room 101). For more information call (603) 862-0346.
The Civil War has been called the bloodiest of all wars. More than 600,000 men gave their lives to the fight. Farmers and shopkeepers and teachers and blacksmiths and those many truly trained soldiers.
New Hampshire’s 18 regiments lost 4,882 men. The 5th New Hampshire Volunteers Regiment saw more casualties than any other unit in the war. And yet, in the day-to-day life of battle, there was the ordinary. Soldiers wrote home of the beautiful countryside; of resentments at missed promotions; of playing cards and football, and what they had for dinner.
And they wrote of the eagerness to fight. And, when they did, of it being like a game or a sport. They wrote of death. Of lost limbs and men’s cries so “horrible to hear.”
The essence of this war is captured in a new exhibit in Special Colletions that displays letters written between husbands and wives, between brothers and sisters, and men and their mothers. It’s captured in tintypes and brass buttons and maps and Confederate money. In a wallet and a sewing kit. But mostly, it is the letters that tell the story of those historic years.
“Confronting the South: New Hampshire People During the Civil War” opened Jan. 20 and runs through May. Among the letters displayed are those recently donated to the Milne Special Collections by the John Parsons family of Rye, whose gift of more than 200 correspondences spans the years between 1829 and the early 1900s. Several letters document the family’s involvement in the Civil War.
Dale Valena, curator of the University Museum, and senior Kyle Murphy, examine a book dating from the Civil War that is part of the museum’s new exhibit.
Kyle Murphy, a senior majoring in history and political science, has been working with Dale Valena, museum curator, and Bill Ross of the Milne Special Collections to transcribe the newly received letters.
Murphy is a self-proclaimed history buff and can’t remember a time when that wasn’t so. In a photo of him as a young boy, he’s wearing a Civil War uniform. Family vacations were spent at Gettysburg. A favorite birthday party had a Civil War theme.
“It has always been my passion,” Murphy says. “Ever since I was a kid, I knew the story. I knew the sides, I knew who won. I was fascinated.”
That fascination has been fed anew as he has helped sort the artifacts and letters for the new exhibit.
The majority of the Parson letters were written by George Gove and his sister, Julia Parsons, who was married to Warren Parsons. Gove served in the 5th New Hampshire Volunteers Regiment. He rose from private to captain, and was wounded several times but survived the war. Gove saw action at the Battles of Fair Oaks, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Petersburg, and wrote vivid details describing the events.
In a letter dated Dec. 28, 1861, he wrote, “Christmas was a holiday with us and through out all the camps. We had a foot race for a prize of $4, a wrestling match, same prize and a greasy pig…An old schoolmate of mine from the Maine 3rd was over and spent the day with me. Had an oyster supper.”
The majority of the soldiers on both sides were young men from small towns who had led quiet peaceful lives, and were suddenly being trained to kill. One of the panels in the exhibit titled “Seeing the Elephant” refers to seeing war and combat for the first time.
On Jan. 21, 1862, Gove wrote his sister, “…I feel anxious to see some rebels…” and, a month letter, “I want to be moving on and have a hand in whipping out the cowardly rascals.” Then, in June, Gove was in a makeshift hospital—a commandeered farmhouse where “the house and outbuilding we soon filled and by noon the whole large door yard was covered with the wounded their cries and groans were horrible to hear…Monday the surgeons were busy all day cutting of the arms and legs.”
“Being able to open the letters has humanized history—Lincoln, Lee. To have read the quotes; to know what people were thinking, and to read the reactions to the letters from those at home—it’s been incredible,” Murphy says. “As a history buff reading them, I’m on cloud nine.”
Adds Ross, “We tend to think about the politics and the military strategies of the Civil War. This is trying to bring out the human element. A soldier writes, ‘I’m fine. It rained last night. The biscuits are hard.’ You see the person, not the battlefield.”
Milne Special Collections and Archives is located on Level 1 of Dimond Library (Room 101). For more information call (603) 862-0346.
The University of New Hampshire Department of Music Faculty Concert Series presents the UNH Faculty Chamber Ensemble Saturday, February 25, 2012 at 3:00 p.m. in Johnson Theatre of the Paul Creative Arts Center. Works by Johannes Brahms, Heinrich Isaac, J.S. Bach, Max Bruch, Camille Saint-Saens, Edvard Grieg, Ryan Vigil, and Elliot Carter.
The concert is free and open to the public.
