UNO Horizons: Speakers Helping Us See Tomorrow Today

UNO Horizons is launching as part of the 50th Anniversary year events. It will present three major speakers and coordinate with a host of other departments and offices as they present speakers and lectures throughout the year.

Jeff Corwin - Animal Planet Host & Leading Conservationist
November 20, 2008

Jeff Corwin, conservationist and host of "Animal Planet," kicked off the University of New Orleans free speaker series, UNO Horizons: Speakers Helping Us See Tomorrow Today, on Thursday, November 20 at the UNO Lakefront Arena.

Maya Angelou - Internationally Renowned Poet
February 12, 2009

Poet, playwright and actress Maya Angelou shared her work and experiences and delivered a message of hope and inspiration to a crowd of about 3,000 on February 12 at the UNO Lakefront Arena as part of the free speaker series,  UNO Horizons: Speakers Helping Us See Tomorrow Today.

New Orleans and its university, the University of New Orleans, have been a "rainbow in the clouds," striving to overcome the many obstacles brought on by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, she said. Many wept and prayed watching the community's struggles and were inspired by the collective courage of the city's citizens.

As further inspiration, Angelou shared the following original poems with the UNO community.

The Health-Food Diner

No sprouted wheat and soya shoots
And brussels in a cake,
Carrot straw and spinach raw
(Today, I need a steak).

Not thick brown rice and rice pilau
Or mushrooms creamed on toast,
Turnips mashed and parsnips hashed
(I'm dreaming of a roast).

Health-food folks  around the world
Are thinned by anxious zeal,
They look for help in seafood kelp
(I count on breaded veal).

No smoking signs, raw mustard greens,
Zucchini by the ton,
Uncooked kale and bodies frail
Are sure to make me run
to
Loins of pork and chicken thigs
And standing rib, so prime,
Pork chops brown and fresh ground round
(I crave them all the time).

Irish stews and boiled corned beef
And hot dogs by the scores,
Or any place that saves a space
For smoking carnivores.

Angelou was commissioned to compose the following poem, A Brave and Startling Truth, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.

A Brave and Startling Truth
Dedicated to the hope for peace, which lies, sometimes hidden, in every heart.

We, the people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth 

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cook our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And face sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and 
   daughters
Up with bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pannants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And the children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace

When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi
   who, without favor,
Nurtures all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the
   dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people, on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That, in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing,
   irresistible tenderness,
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

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