Hooray! Hello everybody. Thanks for coming. I'm John Smolle, librarian with the San Francisco Public Library's General Collections and Humanities Department. While we're waiting for just a few more people to arrive, I have a few announcements to share about upcoming library events and also a pre-COVID test and vaccination information. After these few announcements, I will turn the microphone over to our beloved poet Kim Shuck, who has been leading these poem-jampo to readings with me since 2018. And as you all know, whose birthday we are celebrating. So I'm going to share my screen with you. This month, San Francisco and our library celebrate Chanel Miller's bestselling memoir on transcending sexual trauma, Know My Name. Chanel Miller is an artist as well as an author, and she currently has an exhibit up at the Asian Art Museum across the street from the main library. She'll also be giving an author's talk next month at SFPL, so stay tuned. On February 21st, San Francisco Creative Writing Institute authors read aloud their responses to the coronavirus pandemic. Featured readers include Paul Corman Roberts, Holly Hardy, Alexander Costulus, as well as San Francisco's seventh and eighth poet, Lawrence, Kim Shuck, and Tongo Eisen Martin. The following day, February 22nd, SFPL's On The Same Page Book Club will discuss Namwally Surpell's acclaimed novel, Old Drift, which is a fantastic reimagining of Zambian history, past and future. You've probably heard about SFPL's To Go program, so you can reserve and pick up books, DVDs, CDs, magazines, you can make your reservations online, or you can just telephone us and we'll put them on hold for you. The main libraries open seven days a week, and about 10 of the branch libraries are also part of this curbside service program. As you know, we're still in the midst of a raging pandemic, so please remember to wear your mask when you're out in public. If you live or work in San Francisco, you are eligible for free COVID tests. You can go to the website sf.gov slash city test SF. I'll put this address in the chat. If you live in San Francisco, you can sign up to get notified when you're eligible for a vaccination. You can also find out where vaccinations are taking place in your neighborhood, and I will put both of these website addresses in the chat. So that ends my announcements. I'd like to turn the microphone over now to Kim Shuck. Please give a warm welcome to Kim. This is definitely party hat. My son is making thumbs up because my kids got me this hat. You know, poetry's in the eyes of the holder after all. Here we are. I'm going to start by asking Deborah Miranda to share a poem. We're sort of going from from east to west so that, you know, people can be released at appropriate time for their time zone. Deborah Miranda, what's to say about Deborah Miranda, apart from just absolutely supportive wonderful friend somebody I was incredibly disappointed to find out had released a book on one of my favorite books with line adults and release, which meant I was winning nothing like that here. Question on a lonely poet. Really powerful lady and just has an incredible book of poetry out recently so please welcome Deborah. Kim. Happy birthday and thank you everybody for welcoming me here. This is so good to see so many friends and so many familiar faces. I'm coming to you from Monican land in Virginia and I'm happy to read a poem for Kim. This is called how to love the burning world. It has a little epigraph from Barry Lopez. Is it still possible to face the gathering darkness and say to the physical earth and to all its creatures including ourselves fiercely and without embarrassment. I love you and to embrace fearlessly the burning world. Tell yourself it's like sitting at the bedside of your mother, scorched with cancer, her hand already almost ash in yours.  You want to look away. You want to find a cave, drink yourself into oblivion, sleep while ugliness smolders. Admit it.  Instead moisten her tongue with a sponge, bathe dry skin with lavender cream, braid her hair with tender trembling fingers. Take care not to pull the knots. Stay in the room.  For the eons she waited before you realized her brilliance, her wisdom.  You aren't required to love the flames, but love the burning world. You owe her that. Fear is no dishonor. Her fever's so hot even metaphors melt at a touch. Memorize her. Praise each scar on her body. Beauty ablaze. Pray for a clean ending, a phoenix purification. Pray for mercy. Pray for the only thing that can save us now. Every lesson she ever taught us about the sweet bitter grace of transformation. Yeah, I'm an expert. There I am talking while muted. Thank you so much Deborah. My pleasure. There's a trick about listening and hosting at the same time that sort of relevant to playing guitar and singing at the same time. It's a bit of a trick that you know with practice. Apparently I might get better at it. So, Malaya, do you have a poem with you? I don't remember if I'd ask. Yeah, I don't. I'm sorry. That's fine. I probably failed to ask because that has been my brain of late. I'm going to, Jenny Davis, do you have a poem to share? Thank you. All right. This is my niece and a really high end linguist and an incredible professor. And I get to brag on her a little bit because of that, but also just a real support and emotional and spiritual and all other ways. I love you to get this poem. So this poem is called How to Read a Book of Poems. It's an occasional poem on reading a book of poetry for my birthday. And it goes to a view of things. Reading a new book of poems means throwing out those etiquette lessons they give to rural native kids. So we won't be an embarrassment if we never make it out of there. Keep your napkin on your lap. Don't tuck it into your shirt. This isn't a barbecue. You can compliment the meal, but do it quietly.  Loom the soup away from yourself. Don't shovel it into your face. You don't want to get something on your clothes. It's important to look like you aren't hungry. Definitely not like you need it to live. A book of poetry should be savored appreciating each course on its own merit. The slow tasting of each line, words held lingering on the tongue, trying to identify each ingredient, flagging which sections to go back and try again. But I can never stop myself from devouring the whole thing at once, gobbling page after page with both hands. I have never been able to hide when I was hungry. There we go. My computer runs on hamster power. So if occasionally things take a moment, I have failed to give the hamster enough kibble, which is all my fault, but there we are. For a moment there, I knew exactly who I was going to next. Kim, do you want to read next? Kim and I have decided we are absolutely cousins of some sort. We haven't quite tracked down what the connection is, but it's very likely anyway. Because if you are a Cherokee of any kind, you're probably cousins with every other Cherokee we just don't know. I think I'm unmuted. I'm going to read one poem out of everything. I'm going to read my poem that I wrote for you, because it's your birthday, or at least your belated birthday. So we're going to celebrate you. So if because I am a mutt, I mispronounce something, I apologize ahead of time, but I think I have this. The name of the poem is Iguodal, and it's from this book, but I just took a note off of Ginny Davis. It's much smarter to look at your screen when you read. So thank you for teaching me that. I have to read them over and over your songs, chant them till they fill empty torn corners inside my belly.  The difference between the downside of diaspora, and the upside of the clan system is that you my sister would be here, drawing your stitches sinew tight, or rather we both be back there, where we belong, not just to each other, but to a circle of seven mountains and a mound, unleveled by a farmer's plow. Thank you. I spent a couple of years denying compliments to that. But what I'm going to say about poetry, I think this about poetry, I think we use other people's phone words to like a crowbar to crack things open in ourselves. But I think it's particularly pointed, I feel it particularly pointed with certain people, because, because we rhyme in our heads, you know that our thoughts rhyme without ever having, you know, with not necessarily having grown up together and without necessarily having spent as much time as we would like together. I really thank you for that. I reserve the right to be a little catty today. And I'm probably going to get fairly emotional. Because that is the thing. Okay, Kim to the okay, I know you just kind of got in, but I'd love to do the phone. So, Kim, is the current poet laureate of Alameda. Thank you. Among other things. Yeah, happy birthday. Congratulations on conclusions here. Current poet laureate ship, whatever you call it. Wonderful. So, I have, I have one short thing that I'm reading as sort of a preface to another thing. And the, the first thing is what I is inspired by you, I couldn't actually write about you but it was I was inspired by you. See inspiring. A far cry from the song the deer size. When the arrow flies as the crow cries, we gather around the poem, the word, and the silence becomes flame becomes heart becomes the ordained rhythm of sky and see salt that sings and spills the blues in a harmonic convergence, where Otis Redding and Otis Spann still croon the wolves to sleep. Something tragic something true something broken something grew. What do we become when we become what we become year leaping over year after year, straying from the dance, surrendering wind, summoning ashes of the past. What cauterizes one moment to the next to the next flickering wing, unchast flame, waking and sleeping waking and sleeping a synergy of compulsions of solutions contusions. The machines of morning hamper the machines of night, a waking dream, a dream of waking some puzzle portent. Lift the wing found the flame wheeled the clock becoming becoming becoming. Thank you, Kim. You inspire me as well lady. You've got a pretty good cohort. Really good. There are some, there are some other indigenous poets I would love to produce out to San Francisco as the, I guess the rented making a little bit. But what's true is that they really only ever hire one of us for every university ever. There's never more than one of us. People live miles and miles away from one another, and are only really able to communicate. For a long time it was really great getting up very early and living my, my cup of tea with a couple of friends who were teaching in Michigan and Oklahoma and various other places. I just noticed my brother is here. Hey, Dave. That's my baby brother, y'all. Paul, Carmen Robert. Share me a poem, my dog.  For thousands of years, a fire desert wash 50 miles downwind from Nellis area ones primary flight line houses highways intersections etched in red rock time pulsing with the home of the cosmos beneath which lie exposed all the forever places where they spit in their hands and shake like ancient star crossed cowboys, making their way beyond a horizon with each passing eon. How is it we have come to this place without permission. Does the base commander know his flight path is observed every night by shades of rates and centuries of the wind. Enough this fire desert crossroads staffed by forms of life science has no explanation for. Here's the distant rhythmic Russell of the cactus and sage brush, a rustle growing closer, increasing in volume and frequency until the first fingers of the dental breeze flutters across your cheek becomes a swaying invisible fan as pitch swells to the rattling and ringing of dust dry branches nettles and long failed seashells. Deep within Doppler's fat base bottom builds a din like Congress piped through a hollow aluminum amplifier and straddled like slim pickings on a free range improvised nuclear device. Could it be an f 16 and f 15 and a 10 oh no far more insidious than those killers. It is the pounding low and war of key air and its gaggles of little Ikemen's under their e g and g banner on their way to groom lake on their way to perform strange dark miracles of magnetism and sound and light. The outline of a passenger jet reserved for pale skin terrorists hurtling over the horizon of your valley of fire now kicks up a cacophony amongst a commune of the dead who have chosen to rest beneath the pale eye of a half moon. 100 years ago a cavalryman lost his way off the Colorado Basin with less than a week's worth of water and a buckboard with his sand show of a burrow. They never left the floor of this wash. The state funded memorial marker indicates the exact spot the cavalryman was found beneath his buckboard, hiding in vain from the relentless Mojave son, next to the corpse of the burrow. I make it out to where the cavalryman cavalryman is buried like every person brainwashed with entitlement I failed to ask permission. By night, gusting tubulars of wind sprint from sagebrush to sagebrush outpacing my trek from the highway memorial marker across a treacherous desert marine to a good Christians grave marker, standing half a football field away. The endless mass of dark blots out the bone white beacon of crucifix and cuts loose with a howl that is the very sound of the wind, which traverses the void between this world and the abyss. On swarms of tiny bats congest the airspace above my head, yet I resolved to trench forward to the sacred site, a king sized hell bats or as high above all the other tiny flying mice, running a kamikaze route directly toward my head, each time I was turned away, because I failed to ask permission. This world has been colonized by Vegas neon flinging itself 200 miles in every direction through the desert and up into the universe. Soon enough in one peak moment the key jet reaches a point directly overhead and the phenomenon reverses an inevitable shift, the pitch of the jet engines drop, the wind falls away. The plain lights now grow smaller and smaller till they blink out over the near mountains, which all resemble medicine been sleeping eternally beneath the humming singing galaxies and sons of God, the roar of Congress fades north and before it is completely gone. The last thing you notice is the rustling of the sagebrush and cactus and other foliage, as it is already settling down, not finishing until all the other traces of the flight line have passed. And soon enough all that is left are the watchers and the wraiths and the guardians, whom some may call shape shifter or vampire or ghost of a burrow ensconced in the red rock highway, wash of starlight and the watched for thousands of years. Wow. So for those who don't know, Paul Corman Roberts has been my good right arm for this adventure of being the poet laureate of San Francisco. My first right arm was the a Matthews who has now gone on to do a degree in New York. So, when people say that I've done a great job, they need to keep in mind that a lot of the jobs that I've done is due to community, which is the way we do everything in my world. So, I do have to thank my wife Doug failings for every cup of tea that got packed and put in the van for after the meeting. Every zany trip across the city to North Beach from near city college in order to get to a reading being stuck on the bridge heading over to the East Bay for other reading. And then, really, most of the other people in this room for all the help that I've gotten from everybody for a voucher for years of years of free poetry lessons that at readings listening to you and my kids as represented by one of them that I know the other one somewhere off. For all of the patients that you've exercised with me not being there for you and just, I could thank everyone I see on my screen right now for the incredible things they've done in which they and I'm going to ask for this figure to read right now. You reminded me early on. What was really powerful for me about poetry by watching it be powerful. Lorda. Hello. Well, the host has probably before we would you like to. Yes, myself. Oh, sorry. Hello, good evening and Feliz Compleños cam. Thank you for inviting me and yes I'm going to go and read the poem. Very grateful for you for your friendship. But what you continue to do with the poem. True shepherd of the word, the community and those all around around us and you know I got to me all kinds of people because of you but I know I'm quiet and I'm very grateful that you just always pulled me out. Here's here's the true love. So I'm. I'll be reading some new work. And it's part of a long. I've been hearing numerous about you. Under the moon. Could this cheese mess be true about the sweaty angel we both ran into who was collecting all the flowers that bloom upon the summer's departure. And autumn's arrival, right by a ballpark, a small town's ballpark, the kind of town that has one stoplight one main street. And the smell of mode as alpha, and we took them home and we both slept with the angels body.   We were walking lips upwards towards the light of a moon or a star that is a sun somewhere further than Jupiter. As near as Mercury or tongue salty with each other's flesh, or what flesh, or what woman flesh. The echo between our buildings was the echo of a human chest and I don't know drunk on the church of a hummingbird and the wetness of a hotspot flower, a flower that blooms at the end of the night, a flower that is impossible here. Like the impossible roses on Diego gathered up on the mountain of the Bayak Otonan scene. I lift my eyes to the wisp of clouds. Can you tell how alike we are, how honey drips in the same amount of time as your time. Can you feel how tenderly fragile a flower's petals are, their skin so soft. What were we trying to shout. If not warmth and skin, if not my face on the curve of your neck and between your legs my face felt so warm.  We were like two whole bodies. The tribe of roses, hot sauce and marigolds, all of us, all of you, all of me. Thank you. Yes, taking me longer than normal to find my unmute button, but there we are today. So I saw out of the corner of my time. Okay. There you are. I was looking for your name written down again. Okay. Oh, gosh, I think we, I mean, I have a lot of friends I've made through policy. Today is better organized than me and she's also cooler. And does really noble work and that she works with high school students who would drive me back crazy really quick. I only had a couple of them in my house at the time, and didn't have to deal with them 20. But, and they still on occasion rattled my cage a bit. I am in awe of the work that's using my lady and use another person. Here's the thing, if I am ever desperately in need of a leader at really last minute. He will come out for me. It's a valuable, valuable thing. Thank you, my darling share of home, please. Also, this is another person who first thing needs to be celebrated because we're, and Kimmy to right there are a whole bunch of us aquariums right here in this room. Yeah. Yeah, so not just my birthday but a bunch of them, but also okay. Here now. Hey everybody. I was a little late I've been working from home and I was still working and then I looked down at the clock and I was like, oh no. So, you know, I don't have a poem about it yet, but I have been noticing a lot of writing that's coming through the internet that's vilifying teachers.  I don't have a poem about it yet. But I thought it was worth it to mention that I have three pieces that I've picked out for you today. And this first one is called lies that pass as history lies that passes history are the worst kinds of lies, because they linger like flies on rotten meat. Magity thoughts eating into the brains of young people who grow up and don't know that they are lying to children who grow up and don't know that they lie to children who grow up and don't know what's true or how to even recognize an honest face. But I'm learning truth by reading history that doesn't tell only one side of the story. I can't think I can't help but think of genocide forced labor slavery, people expendable thrown away casually is wiping up water with a paper towel, a waste. It's confusing. See me now.  Tell me something real. Tell me something true. I don't want your history, unless I'm part of it too. This next piece is entitled money comes and goes, unless you're a billionaire in tech, of course, and the money never goes, it just comes. But I'm not a billionaire and I'm not in tech. I'm more like a lab rat, something for the AI to play with. It's unlikely that the billionaires who created our problems will solve them as that would interfere with the money that comes so easily through their attention extraction business model. It's brain fracking data trafficking, efficient advertising, and that's how our money goes. And then I'm going to close with this one last piece.  We can't see ourselves any more than we can see each other.  Is she hiding back there somewhere in mirror land? I have my suspicions about the ability of science to describe how a mirror really works. What if it's not the mirror, but the eye, and how we see collectively is racism, a societal dysmorphia that results in self hatred and self harm. What would it be like to be the light particle wave, something not quite yet described to be the light in the mirror reflected deflected redirected. Does a light particle see its own intensity and flinch? And if I can barely see myself and you can barely see yourself, what does that mean when we look at each other? We change how we change who we see.  Thanks everybody for listening. Thanks for being here today. I'm reminded once again how many truly great poets I know. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone. My name is Lauren Cedric Lee Kim. EK is probably another one of our cousins. Oh, gosh. The view just changed again, and now I'm having to stare at myself, which is awkward, but I know that Lauren is here somewhere, you know, I cannot see right now. You're looking at my own. So if Lauren. I'm looking at Lauren Etoe as a reading at the Mechanics Institute that Tonga Heisen Martin and I were doing. And she actually, I think, come to here at Tonga. And really the rest is in this history, we've become really close and I committed the violence on her of making her do her first open light reading without warning and just sticking her on stage. It's going rather well, I feel. Sure, you follow my darling. Wow, isn't so wild that that was what like maybe two years ago. It's a lot a lot has changed and it has been a gift and it is such an honor to celebrate you on your birthday. And I think just the folks on this call are all lovely humans and incredible poets and it is such a gift to share space in honor of the one and only Kim Chuck. This is my home today called arrival as we, especially given what's happening violence perpetuated against the Asian community in this moment I wanted to channel this as a love letter, both to Kim, and also to folks who may need a reminder in this moment. Arrival as we are women hum in my blood, forced to play God cradled their knives with a gentle hand lifted gazes to the horizon and summoned air tucked it into laugh lines a tea cup a birthmark a prayer for generations yet to unfurl knowing breath is never promised always, these days, always, always. Remember this inhaling sunrise and bird song, we never arrive alone. Thank you so much. Just notice somebody asking somebody else. For about books. And I think I'm not mistaken. Everybody who's read so far either has a published book, or is about to have a published book. So it's totally worth knowing that. I just had a really incredible chapter. I don't know. Anyway, they've all been published and many of them have been part of the poem of the day project as well. So, that wasn't a requirement. It's just kind of happening. I was going to ask Denise Louisa, she had a poem to share. She's looking at real life. Thank you for asking, and I do have one short one and happy birthday. Planetarium experiment. So if the heavens in half at vortex of the Milky Way, the zodiac meets at equinoxes, Aries the Ram tips, Libra's balance. At solstice points. Devil goat Capricorn chases the scuttering crab. Comet shoot across planets orbs and stars fall into creases. Peruvian creatures mixed with Mayan jungle animals, a golden ray Peruvian sun wanders Norway. Pray to gods of gravity to untangle chaos to smooth stars back into place curve to refit. Thank you. Thank you. Denise Louisa was the poet laureate of Kansas. She was a publisher and published a chapter of Clink's poem of mine called Peacewater, the publishing house with men and publications. Totally worth looking at the work as well. Amazing. I'm going to do a different thing now I'm going to ask that. Oh, you know what the problem is, I was sitting here going I can't see, and I'm not sure why. There we are. I'm going to ask that people who haven't read who do have a poem with them that they'd like to share to throw a thumbs up on their screen. And if you don't do that I'm going to call you out. So you know, to be fair. All right, Bobby, I see your son up there. Let's go with you next. Bobby Coleman, a stalwart of the poetry scene in the city. And somebody who's been also incredibly helpful to me. Go for it, Bobby. Can you hear me now. Yeah, you hear me. Good. This is titled. And it's for the host. She doesn't know how to say, uh, nor I'm sorry, I don't have time. She doesn't know how to say that'll sort itself out. Knowing it won't until sometime much later. Not without her poetry in action. But why is it that way? Why is it? Can we see it in her eyes? Somewhat. Yes, sure. Or in her rhythms. Uh huh. Uh huh. But look also. In the other places. The unique. Untranslatable in between entirely. Authentic liminal places. The parts that live the sacred hole. The torn up drafts that turn into a masterpiece. The part that does grow on trees grows up with trees. Big Oaks and also the frightened ones buckling sidewalks. Dodging dogs. DPW and political bullies. It grows too big for this world of greased palms. And birch rulers. Like a plant that thrives. Like a healthy young person's feet. Like a plant that grows on trees. Like a plant that is ready for the new shoes. She will fill while growing and going further. Thank you. Here I've been trying to figure out how to say. With. Very limited success. I've got it. Is that Dax you have right there, Jenny? It is such an honor to have Dax here for my birthday. I've been experiencing one another's test. Of late.  So. The light is, and yeah, I'm avoiding responding to. Right now. Thank you. A Vata. Happy birthday. You know, it's an honor to be here with all these amazing poets. Thank you. What can I say? Anyway. I just wrote, so I don't usually read something that I just wrote, but this one. Kim and I spent a lot of time talking about. A lot of the folks that a lot of other folks have forgotten. And so this one. It's called. Never alone. We have never been alone. Marcus Garvey or total Schoenberg, and all those other incorruptible ancestors who show their contempt for slavery and servitude by spitting in the face of evil.  We were never alone. We were never alone. We were never alone. Zumbia Palmarez, Kauaiya, aka John horse, Harriet Tubman and Argentinas, our beautiful, brilliant ancestors manifest themselves in life saving rhythms, rhythmic vitamins like Samba, Rumba, Landon, they sing to us in daydreams and dance with us on stages. Their tears become our paintings, our books, our way. We will never be alone. Yeah. It's on the wall. Then Mark Vessie, Granny, Manny, Aloso, Yes, and gospel Nanga, the unstoppable freedom fighter hero, a better cruise who reincarnated themselves in each and every one of us. Hell no, we are here. We are free. And no matter what they say, we're here today and we're here to stay. We are the voice of the millions of ancestors whose names we never got a chance to know. Ancestors who know that some of us are brave enough to know their truth and promise to wear their sacrifices all over our actions, a sacred legacy that will never be forgotten and forever live in the heart of our souls and never let us forget to remember the price they paid for us to know that we were never alone. We are never alone and we will never, never ever be alone. Hey, thanks for listening to my words. Thanks for those words. Well, here. Norma, you don't have a poem. Well, I was going to send you a poem that I'd written inspired by you. So I have a poem. This was written after one of the first times I think I heard you at a reading. I think it was at the Berkeley Public Library. And I was blown away. As I was just getting to know your work. And in the Q&A, I asked kind of a rhetorical question. I was just mulling it over myself and you engaged it. Yes. I didn't know who I was talking to. So this poem is called. What would it mean? And it starts with an epigraph from Kim's response to me. The truth is fugitive. What would it mean? I meant to ask to acknowledge and announce a weaver laureate of the town. In the place where they said poet somehow equals truth keeper. So many words are twisted against the people. Weaving itself is a deep. A soft. A sturdy. That is a girlish metaphor. As well as literal work. Tide. To everything. To weave is to rhyme to rhythm.  The sacred materials held together merely. By juxtaposition or strung perhaps between two shells. To tiny stones. Needed. Like sweat weighing down the sticky fabric twined and died. In order. Unlike the sometimes disorderly truth. That our hands might. Divine a pattern. Our mouths can only mimic. Earth tones. Primary hues. Cries of the spider mother. In a way. To make their mother. Depositing her eggs. Speechless on the branches. And in every crevice. The younger ready now. To make their getaway. To make it home. They hunger for their mother. In a way. We can barely imagine. Thank you. My screams is something really creepy just now. And I was like. Yeah. Now what do I do? Please answer. Keep running. There are other poets here. One of whom I'd love to hear, but I don't know her well enough. Yeah. I came to listen and I've been loving listening. So. I don't want to make you feel bad, but if you want to read something, I'd love to hear it. Okay. Well, maybe somebody else go and I'll. Try to find something because I really came to listen, but. I get it. I get it. I like leaving things a little bit open. To change. Tango is here. And I hadn't seen him here before, but I'm not sure. He's here. And I would love to hear one of his songs. Tango. Is in Martin is our current. In San Francisco. Right on. First, you know, happy birthday. You know, on behalf of. All of us who continue to depend on you. And you're on any leadership. We are. Is a groovy new phone. The boss belongs to the masses now. I got the boss likeness on a string like a love poem. Wild stride speeches replace memories of the boss. We got machine guns in the communist bar tonight. We're naturals in the communist bar boundaries are just a little death. We stand outside the gates of San Francisco listening to some good preaching. Congratulations.  Merchants are phonetic white flight. Luckless in there for a well armed primitive business. Reaching down into the patterns of your soul making for funny stories. I didn't name any schools why they had those kids in those cages. Joy returns to decent revolutionaries puts a hermitage in the fascism thanks for losing thumb in your shoulders family and needed guy crawling in between the bullet heat yes our grandparents guy.  We become and go along both sides of humor of acts as a foot race to public property remilitarized pork improve celestial pork platinum minted pork. Choose your words carefully pork. The first mirror was clay the first human was not humanity recommencing near the white power it would be nice to sound universal. It's like a life's work depends on replicating Birmingham caravans or particulate Birmingham, one of five shells flying at the state capitol sign thank you for the resources.   Legislation some dimension fuse to decide a loud steps copper summer rise but still some blood involved still some necessary slums involved. Black tag armies masked in Western height and primary emotions, the latter cocaine both worked and not worked enough images can be cousins. What happens when you step outside the country sugar gorgin. What good are you all to the world sitting in heaven, who we gonna lay out books for who's going to test the knives at night and sing to the gaps in between shadows gas between our love. Who's going to teach our knives to sing tobacco road teaching that they are family picture black socialists in a perfected bone yard in a tributary bone yard whispering the cheekbone. Deming the wind, a black socialists who will live for 100 years in this graveyard to make this point that we're in too much pain for naming ceremonies that ancestors need to inflict on the world are continuity.  I used to dream of revolution and even enjoy the dream. Right on.  One of these days I will manage to convince people that the might. Any might I might have his loans in very small pieces from everybody. It's an honor to have been able to wield some of that. You know, it's a huge honor. And, and it was, it was weird to realize.  So we, we went over 24 streets and go get burgers because I am a simple creature and so I said I would like for dinner. But I don't eat as much burger joint.  And I went. Yeah. Like well congratulations. Okay. Then we get into the restaurant. We're sitting there in a former student of mine is there and, and with his parents and he mentioned it, which made more sense to me because you think people who studied with you would recognize your name and the piece of history was six but then we ran into an old friend of my partner who then mentioned it and I thought is this really going to be like three and a half years of it. Is that really what it's going to be because I got to tell you, Doug is really my social credential my human credential, I would sit under my desk, pretty much all the time reading books and writing books. If I didn't have to be in public periodically, I'm not the social one of, you know, the litter David in fact who's sitting there with the social one of the kids, not me. He's also the funny one with some of you are going to find difficult to believe but it's very true. So, the family humorous. So then we took a trip across the country, and a friend of ours, this is, this is the how I met Malaya Powell actually, and I thought I'd met her before. When we were planning the trip, we were invited to suffer at their place that's imposed and I said yes, and I thought we've met before, because I can't keep things straight, as much as it does look like I sometimes keep things great. And a friend of ours, but that's a room and a hotel info, because it was all very complicated, but we got booked at this room and as I'm checking in to dump our stuff out of the vehicle, so that we can go up and eat dinner with Malaya which was spectacular dinner. So I'm checking in miles from home. And I'm having no problem with women and everything's working and I had anxiety because an extensive working place and I'm essentially a poster, you know. So I'm ID and I have the same. So we've been eating in the car so my scarf is like covering the taco scene. I'm loud. I can't seem to eat these days that dumping food usually a thought on mostly my right. And the person who was checking in somebody down the counter says, in this really loud voice in, in, you know, colonial New Mexico tile work room that was back. I was at poets, and I just, I went I'm, I'm a poet, you're the poet lawyer to San Francisco and I'm sure I turned absolutely purple because taco staying and tired and driving for a very long time and headed off to dinner and checking in and everybody and I just, I, it was a moment where I was really unhappy, but I should have predicted it because as we were pulling in there was a rabbit in the parking space and that is always. So, a voice behind me that I was pretty sure I recognize that is this the first time that's happened how long has this been happening to you. I turned around in the midst of saying this is very new, and I don't know for sure. But I thought it was Terry Gilliam, at which point now I really can't talk, because this is one of my big heroes in the world. And whoever it was looked at me and said I have found it useful to have a character to play when things like this happen. It makes it a little easier and then I'm more prepared. And I went. And he said do you know where the vending machines are for the candy bars. And I said no, there's a sign right there that says that washing machines are off that way and they like to keep the coin operated stuff together. And he nodded and walked away and I still don't know if it was him, but I'm pretty sure it was. It was a really terrifying moment. And then we had to try to find Malaya's house which is just exactly out past with GPS. She is about five houses, like when I say exactly she is GPS failed five houses before her house so we were like driving up and down her little road going. It's somewhere right here. And then they stepped out of the house. So the whole laureate thing of San Francisco was a much bigger deal than I thought. And when I agreed that I would do it if I was chosen I kind of thought it was what I'd been doing, just more of it, you know, organizing poetry and doing those things. There's something remarkable about basically saying something to somebody that they suspected all along which is your work if you could as anybody else is half as fast and twice as loud as you think you have to take a deep breath the microphone is yours and the audience is on your side. And really that is the trick to being a poet that is all of the tricks being for it. And people are remarkably grateful for carrying that little thing for now you have all of my sister that and friends with people. Michael horse told me, I sound like a name dropping the biggest man but he's been a friend for years and he had told me. We have to talk because now you're going to be. You're going to be not famous but something like it. And I thought it was really funny. Because I hadn't thought of that. And he said, so I have to tell you who you have to be nice to. And I said okay Mike, who do I have to be nice to, and he said everybody, you have to be nice to everybody. And that is not that is a taller efforts and you can imagine sometimes because some of the stuff that I've been approached with the absolute entitlement that some people have approached me with has been remarkable just gobsmacking, you know, and my response, potentially from years of studying at the feet of David check with the sarcasm, my response is to come back with something and, and as some of you know, I can do that. I can do that. But you kind of have to swallow it a little bit. And that's the real challenge of being nice to everyone. But the fun part about that is that if they came to you not looking for niceness they won't remember you being nice to them anyway. And that's not a bad thing to have on your side. I have been tap dancing for a few minutes waiting for KR more to walk into the room. She has done that. So I don't have to tap dancing. Can I, can I do something really quick. Yeah. But one second. Never Miranda and you take care of sleep well. And I'm so grateful that you could make it. Bye bye honey. All right. Go for it KR. Okay, can we all and Mike and sing happy birthday. Okay, one, two, three. Happy birthday to you. I'm going to channel your wish, so think it and then I'll blow. Got it. And I thought it was bad when everybody was in the same room. And many more. That's wonderful. I know that there are some people in here who have perfect pitch and perfect timing, so that was been slightly awkward for some of you. When I sing happy birthday, you know why I play the drums. Well, are you going to read a poem, my dear? I didn't plan for that because I didn't know. I know this whole one up, I can tap dance a little longer. All right. I'll read you.  Lady Viking. Where is it? A tall and laky woman with rings on every finger once told me that her lungs warehouse snare drums closest to an artery that one way streets to her decisions. Of course, we became fast friends. And next to her. I imagined a world where we women could be free to love one another purely. The kind of friendship that when holding hands, rings go forgotten. Fingers grow confused. This world is possible. Ladies with gas lamps tucked inside rib cages. Torches blazing inside our thighs. Highways made by our bare feet. Scarlet fire seasons chronicled by sapphire and garnet around our heads. I cannot tell my new friend this. So instead, I wrote her a love letter on a bar napkin. Dear Lady Viking. I want to climb into your mouth. Salvage your tired words that retire below a rooftop of memory made of you and me. With you, I want to hold female gravity in my hand. Swim inside your burning stomach. Listen to your loud heart in a seashell roosting in a lost man's ears. That's it. I didn't plan to read. I didn't know I made the cut. So I was just don't torpedo your work. That was beautiful. Thank you, mom. I'm very grateful for you. So you're grateful for everybody here. And a lot of people decide. I really need to think. I really need to think. This particular event. On the regular has been me and John. And at least one of the AG team at the San Francisco public library. And they giving me a really soft landing because there's some things about me that we're about to see and miss a smiling and smiling. And I'm not sure if you can. I'm not sure if you can. Which is difficult to advertise. I like to decide what order people read in later. Which is difficult to advertise. And difficult to feel like it's under control. And I keep Kenny mostly. You're right. It's been Kenny mostly. And I've been pulling rabbits out of my hat for three and a half years. For this event. And I keep there is always the rabbit in that hat. And I've never had to cook it too hard. I've never had to cook it too hard. I have a different perspective. You won't know that until you see me do it a hundred times in a row and have it keep working. I don't know why it worked. It might be that I keep carrots in my pocket. I don't know. But there's always a rabbit in the hat. And I've never have to cook it too hard. San Francisco Barry is an incredible place for poetry. I don't know if that's everywhere. In the world, but it's certainly true here. It might be part of what the city is. Because it seems like that's been pretty consistent through the years. And I'm told. By people who know that it was true before the invasion. So. I'm really grateful to the people who've made this possible. So, you know, not to leave her out ever. Michelle Jeffers is incredible. Just incredible. Consistently wonderful. And has been enormously supportive. And if I'm being really honest. Michelle. It was Michelle's idea to do the poem of the day. Although it kind of came about this way. We're not done yet. She asked, because I post the poem of my own pretty much every day. And she has said, do you want to do that on the San Francisco public library site? And I thought. So you're asking me. Do I want to publish completely unedited morning using. Before coffee. So that, you know, half of literary world can see them. And the answer is no, no, I don't want to do that. But what I'd rather do is publish other things that I've already read and made sure are actually okay. So that's how that that ended up happening. And it was her idea at its core. Florence did you want to read a song? Or are you ready to not do that? Since I can't hear you. Yes or no. You'll need to unmute yourself. Yeah. Okay, I'll read. Hold on. Okay, I might, I'm going to read a poem that I read for an event that Norma, I think in Kimmy, that we were at in front of the ice facilities. It's a very short poem. So I'll read it in English and then I'll read a new version of this of the poem in Spanish. It's very short. Okay. And it's a poem about, I guess, the importance and the limitations of words. Lullaby. Eyes and trees. Eyes and trees. And maybe a B. I know words will not stop the armies or the tortures. Still I draw imaginary trees. Eyes and trees. Eyes and trees. And even a B. And Spanish. Cansion de cuna. Ojos y árboles. Ojos y árboles. Y quizás una beja. Sé que las palabras no detendrán ni a los ejércitos ni a las torturas y estos días pienso en poca otra cosa. Pero aún dibujo árboles imaginarios. Arboles y ojos. Arboles y ojos. Y quizás una beja. Thank you. Thank you. I totally know I put you on the spot and I do appreciate it. But you had it. So there we are. Thank you. So. I'm going to look one more time, make sure that I haven't missed out anybody who really wanted to share a poem. I know there are people here who, who poems. You want to do one? Yeah, I'll read one. I've been on my family kicks. Because of the project that I've been working on. And this one also comes. From my book, Pride Out Laughing. It's about my family. I'm going to read one more time. It's about going through ancestry. You know, those motherfuckers. Could be a black. You know, I could live without knowing some of these things. But it's called her. Sometimes I feel like I'm not part of this world like close encounters of a third kind for I damn near lost my mind when I found out the man that I called father. Wasn't mine. DNA vital statistics and records and senses only provided more questions than answers. Like the fact that my birth certificate is a delayed registration. 15 years after the fact. My sister is considered an abstraction for we are half of one who is whole in the truth. He still holds, but I will not let him have that control over me.  I remember our last dance and our favorite songs and I still have visions of you rocking baby girl to sleep in your arms. So I might not know why, but the truth is real love requires no bloodline. But I know her. You see, here she is. And it's L2A1C4. And I could chase her back 5000 years and more than I could ever imagine. I was born in the West African, language of the cliques, mongoloid and pygmy tribes survived the cross-atlantic trip through my maternal line. I learned of my great-great-grandmother Sally frankly and how she became Halsey, how she begot my great-grandmother Betsy who married a king.  I am her. Thank you. As always, my lady. Honestly, thank you so much. Happy birthday. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you all for this. I see that. Exactly. I see that Anissa is doing the thing I was about to do verbally, which is advertising. Our next two column champs are going to be dedicated to the concept of violence against women. Yeah. And it's really an incredible lineup for both of the reading. Very strong women, all of them. And I am delighted. So you should come back. The 11th of March. And then you can't remember the date for April, but the 11th of March for sure. And we're going to deal with some of this stuff. We're not going to resolve it, but we're definitely going to talk about it. It's part of the one city one book. And I think it's one of the things that we're going to talk about in that it's inspired. Well, we ended up doing it for that, but almost everybody in the lineup has. Written about violence against women. And there will be a lot of different perspectives. And it is definitely something to think about twice. Because I've come with a. None of us. Whole country. Be prepared and bring your big kid on these. And I'm happy to see what my partner is up to judging from the sudden death in dance with. Probably watching some of this. I'm going to go investigate that. I love you all. And, and I'm grateful. And thank you for making me miss people a little bit less. I mean, I do love my house. And I do love my partner. And I love the. The street cats that I feed. I don't know. They don't cover them every day. Make it a little easier. But it's nice to see other things. Oh, thanks. I will say hi to that. Thank you all. A lot of family show that tonight, which is not always. So it's kind of exciting. Thank you. on March 11th. Happy birthday again. Happy birthday. I will see you on the 11th. Happy birthday. Love you Ken. Happy birthday. Happy birthday Kim. Thank you. Happy birthday Kim.


From soldiers radio and television, this is the Army Now, a 200-year-old fortress finished a makeover thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers. Fort Norfolk reopened after nine months of renovations just in time to celebrate the anniversary of the War of 1812. Appropriate that this ceremony should take place at exactly the same time that America commemorates the 200th anniversary of that same war. With tall-mested ships and modern naval vessels lying just offshore. And military and civilian re-enactors walking around from the period who can help you imagine that you have stepped back in time. The fort was one of 19 originally commissioned by George Washington in 1794 for Coastal Defense and is the only one that remains standing. That's the Army Now from Soldiers Radio and Television.


All right. It's my pleasure to introduce to you Ellen Blix. Ellen Blix is a professor of midwifery science at Oslo and Akerhus University College in Oslo, Norway. She was educated as a midwife in 1986. She attained an MPH in the year 2000 and a doctor pH in 2006. Ellen Blix has worked as a clinical midwife for 20 years, most of the time in a small local hospital in northern Norway. She's also worked in bigger university clinics as a community midwife and in projects in Lebanon, the West Bank, and Cambodia. Her research areas are place of birth, duration of labor, fetal surveillance, and normal birth. Ellen, turn on your microphone and away you go. Thank you. Thank you very much, Lorraine. Is my microphone on now, Lorraine? Yes, it is, and you sound good. Thank you. So thank you very much for inviting me to speak at this conference, and congratulations with the International Midwifery Day. And I want to invite you to Norway during this talk. And we have just been to Romania. And thank you to Elisa and Irina for a very interesting and almost heartbreaking presentation from Romania. And this is another story in Norway. And in case you didn't know, Norway is in northern Europe. It is stretching from very far towards the north.  And we are all rich countries. Norway is one of the richest countries in the world. We have good health systems, and we have health registries, and we have very good birth registries. And Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and also Iceland. We have a common history, a common culture. We are the same ethnic group. And we have almost the same language. In Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, we can understand each other when we talk. Norway is a very big country with few inhabitants. We are a little more than 5 million people in an area of more than 304,000 square kilometers. And that is 10 times the size of Belgium. We have a few cities, and we have huge rural areas. Here on the photo, you can see all those big blocks there. That's the barcode area in Oslo. It's the newest and most modern part of Oslo. And down there, you can see a part of the Lofoten Islands in northern Norway. We have less employment than other countries in the area, and other countries than Europe. And we are rich also because we found a lot of oil 30 years ago or 40 years ago. And most women, also those with the children, are part of the work stuff. They are working outside their homes. The breastfeeding rates are among the highest in the Western world, and we have paid parental leave. And mothers and fathers can stay at home until their child is one year, and they will have some money for it. Most inhabitants are ethnic Norwegians. But we have one indigenous group, and you can see a photo of a mother and her baby and the grandmother up there in the left corner. And it is about 40,000 Tami people, and they are living in the northern part of Norway and in Sweden, Finland, and Russia as well. And they are declining because of the influence of the majority, and only a third of those who say they are Tami people, they can speak the Tami language. But it's still a living language. We have a growing immigration population, and 15% of all the inhabitants in Norway are first or second generation immigrants. But they are unequally distributed along in the country, because in the Oslo, the capital area has more than 30% immigrants, while other areas have very few. But most of the immigrants come from Poland, from Somalia, Sweden, Lithuania, Iraq, Pakistan, and of course we have refugees, though, from Syria and from Afghanistan and also other countries. All health care during pregnancy and childbirth is free of charge. And also illegal immigrants are granted emergency health care. And pregnant women who are, for instance, asylum seekers who have not got the permission to stay in Norway but who still stay illegally, they are granted maternity care without risking to be arrested and deported. We probably all agree that there is a need in almost all countries for a new model for maternity system that focuses on optimizing biological, psychological, social and cultural processes and strengthening women's capabilities. And I think that most of you are familiar with this model or framework from the Lancet series on Midwifery from 2014. Now I will tell you about Midwifery and maternity care in Norway, but we should have this model in mind. And in the end of the talk, we can see what is working well and where there might be need for improvements or change. And about the... We should also think about if our practice is in line with evidence-based recommendations. We have strong evidence for recommending continuity of care. We have strong evidence for recommending intermittent auscultation in low-risk births. And we have strong evidence for one-to-one care during the active phase of labor. We are about 3,000 registered midwives in Norway. And we work at the most countries in antenatal interpartum and postpartum care, most of us. I know a little about midwifery education. Almost 200 years ago, we had the first midwifery school in Norway. And that is a school where I am working now. So we have educated midwives for almost 200 years. And we will have a big celebration in 2018. As in many other European cities, there was a public maternal hospital where poor women and unmarried women could be cared for free. And midwives and medical students could be trained. And 200 years ago, to be trained as a midwife, you should not be younger than 20 years old and not more than 30 years old. And married women with own children were preferred, with experience from childbirth. And they were supposed to be good women. So they had to go to the priest in the town or the place they came from. And he should recommend them. And it was not necessary that they could read in that time. But it was an advantage. But to become a midwife today, you have to be a qualified nurse first and have a bachelor in nursing. And with minimum one-year work experience as a nurse. So we do not have direct entry in midwifery schools in Norway. We have five schools. And two of them offers midwifery education at the master's level. And that is the one in Oslo and Intensberg, number four and five. The others are working towards master's programs. And it takes two years in the midwifery school to become a midwife. And a total of one year is clinical practice and the rest is theory. As in other countries, the role of the midwife is supposed to be that she is an autonomous practitioner in pregnancy, childbirth, and post-natal care. And we also have a role in women's sexual and reproductive health, even if midwives that, even if few midwives are working within these areas. But you can be a counselor in the contraception. And give advice to women with problems in their menopause also. And the organization of maternity care in Norway is that antenatal care is both in primary and secondary care. Birth care is almost only in secondary care, apart from a few home births that are taken care of by independent midwives. And postnatal care is also in primary and secondary care. And now, in this lecture, I will just talk a little about antenatal and postnatal care and concentrate on intrapartum care. And in antenatal care, women are cared for by midwives and GPs. And we have national guidelines from the health authority. And they are very good. They are evidence-based. They are a bit old. They are from 2005, but they are under revision now. And according to these guidelines, the women should be able to choose between a midwife or a GP. Or she can go to both and mix you to that they share the antenatal care. But many places, there are too few midwives employed to offer midwifery care to all women. And there are also some professional tensions or conflicts and who is going to be the lead carer in antenatal care. And for the time being, it is more or less a GP. And healthy women will have a routine ultrasound screening at the hospital, but the rest of the checkups and will be in the primary care. And midwifery practice in antenatal care is like many other countries. As you can see here on the list, and what is special in Norway is probably that we have midwives working with preventing tick leaves in pregnant women. I don't know if that's so common in other countries. And that is that big organizations or municipalities, they will employ a midwife. And she will go around to ensure that the pregnant women working there have a good work condition so that they don't go early on in the tickly. And that can be things that they can have a good chair to sit in or the possibility to have a five-minute rest every hour and put the legs up. Or maybe she should do something else than her usual tasks. And this has been a success. A lot of the rates of sick leave in pregnancy have declined very much since this was introduced. It's not everywhere, but it is many places. And then postnatal care that women are usually offered a very short stay in hospital. And some hospital offer postnatal care at a patient hotel where the woman can have a room where she can stay with her husband or partner and see who she wants. And she can have help if she needs that. And the rest of the care should be in the primary care. And some years ago, we had a health reform indicating that women and also other patients should stay as short as possible in the hospital. And then the follow-up should be done in primary care. But when it comes to maternity care, the women are discharged from the hospital early. But the municipalities who should take the primary care have not been staffed up to take care of the women in their home. But it will hopefully improve. And also we have a national guideline for postnatal care. They are very good and they are evidence-based and very good, promoting women's own abilities and promoting breastfeeding. What is probably special about Norway is our high breastfeeding rate. And we have a long tradition of that. And we also have a national advisory unit on breastfeeding. And this is financed by the health authorities. And their tasks are to increase knowledge and establish and monitor best practice standards. And that is the baby-friendly hospitals and baby-friendly neonatal units and baby-friendly health stations and so on. And to do research, and they give advice to health authorities and health care providers, not to mothers. And they are staffed also by midwives and others with special education on the breastfeeding. We do not have any representative users' organizations for maternity care. And that's the pity, and I hope it will come. But we do have a strong users' organization for promoting and supporting breastfeeding. And they consist of mothers with experience of breastfeeding and special training in counseling. And mothers who have the problems or questions can call or send an email, and they will get help. And they also work politically. And then I will talk more about intrapartum care. But first, I would like to say that Norway and also the other Nordic countries are good and safe places to give birth and to be born, compared to other places in the world. We just heard how it was in Romania, for instance. We have access to free health care during pregnancy and childbirth, and they are well-organized and they're free of charge health care and vaccination programs for all children. Mothers and also fathers can have a leave to take care of the new child. And we have access to clean water, to safe and good housing. Everybody can have an education. And there are rights for women. There are rights for employees and for children. There is, for instance, it's forbidden to beat and hit children in Norway. And in general, we get decent paid for our work. And when we get old, we can retire it and we still have money to live for. But everything is, of course, not perfect. For example, there is a small but increasing group of poor people here in Norway, as well as in other countries, falling outside the society. And this causes unhelp. Also when it comes to maternal and neonatal outcomes. And maternal death is death in a woman during pregnancy and within 42 days after birth or abortion. And the maternal mortality rate in Norway is 7 per 100,000 live births. And we just heard that it was 31 in Romania. So that is much higher. And this is about four women every year in Norway. And most midwives are so lucky that we have never experienced that their mother died. And the rate is varying widely across the world. From the lowest is in Singapore with three and the highest in Chad with 1,100 per 100,000 live births. If we in Norway had the same rate as Chad, almost 700 mothers would have died every year. And that is two mothers every day. And perinatal deaths and stillborns are stillborns and deaths in the first seven days of life. And it is 3.5 in Norway and that's among the lowest in the world. And this has been stable for about the last 10 years. And this means in crude numbers, it means that we have about 230 perinatal deaths every year. The global perinatal mortality rate is 20 per 1,000 births. And it's 47 where it is highest. So while medicalization of normal birth is a serious problem in Western countries, the problem in poor countries is the lack of access to medical care and, of course, poverty. Because poor people are carrying the heaviest burden here. I am so lucky that I have grandchildren. And when my daughters-in-law and my daughter were in labor, I was not worried about their lives or the lives of the babies. I was worrying about if they got good support from their midwives to manage labor pain, about unnecessary interventions. And I was very worried about early clamping of the cord and matters like that. If I had been living in Chad, for instance, I would have been worried about the life of my daughter or daughter-in-law and about the child. When it comes to intrapartum care, it is mainly in hospitals. But there is a midwife attending absolutely all births. Also, if there is an electric caesarean section, a midwife will take care of the woman before the caesarean. She will take her down to the operation theater and take care of the baby afterwards and make sure that the woman can have the baby as soon as possible. And remember, I told you about the guidelines for postnatal and antinatal care. We also have guidelines for intrapartum care, but they are not made by the health authorities. They are made by the association of gynecologists and obstetricians. And they have taken some midwives with them while making these guidelines. But not users and the quality could have been better. So I hope that the health authorities will also make guidelines in the future. And Norway also has a principle of differentiated maternity care. And that is a parliament resolution from 2001 and again in 2009. The aim is to offer women individual and appropriate care and to avoid medical intervention, having little proven benefit in low risk labors. And we have 46 birth institutions and almost 60,000 births every year. And maternity care is organized at three levels. I will talk about that a little later. This map shows birthing institutions in Norway. There are 40 of them are in hospitals and six are freestanding midwifery units. The freestanding midwifery units, they are organized under a hospital. So they are in secondary care. And there are also four alongside midwifery units in hospitals. The number of birthing institutions has declined over time. It is, in 1980, it was almost 100 institutions and now it is 46. And now about the three levels of care. It is specialised units in bigger hospitals and it is units in smaller hospitals and then it is midwifery-led units and we also have home births. And level one, it is specialised units in bigger hospitals and they usually have more than 1,500 births annually. And there are midwives of statisticians, pediatricians and anesthesiologists available all the time and they have a neonatal intensive care unit close to the delivery unit. And there are also some other rules, they are both equipment and that they should do research and so on. And the next level is level two, that is delivery units in smaller hospitals. And they usually have between 1,500 and 400 births annually. And there will always be a midwife present and the obstetrician and anesthesiologist will be on call. And some of these hospitals also have a pediatric service but not an intensive unit. And there are selection criteria, women with some special conditions will be referred to a level one hospital. And within our hospitals, within level one and two hospitals, we have differentiated care within the unit. And that means that at admission, when the woman comes to the unit in labour, the attending midwife will make a selection and she will decide if the woman is low risk or if she has a higher risk for complications. And low risk women are often called green group women and those with risk for complications are called red women. And then they are allocated to green or red care. But they will be in the same unit. And obstetricians will not be involved in the low risk women, the green women. And low risk women should, for example, not have a TTG going on, that would be intermittent auscultation. And then the selection process will, of course, go on through all the births. So the woman will be allocated to a red group if there will be some complications or if she has an epidural also. And we have a few alongside midwifery units in Norway and they are all in bigger university hospitals. And we have had, we used to have two more, but both of them are closed in spite of good results. And they're closed for political reasons and economic reasons. And about 7% to 8% of all births in Norway are in alongside units. And water births are quite common in these units and also in some hospital units. And two of these hospitals to have alongside units, they have decided that all low risk women should start labor in the alongside unit. And the idea behind this is that it may will promote more normal births. And we have a few freestanding midwifery units. And most of five of them, we have six units and five of them are in northern Norway. And in the northern part of Norway, almost 10% of all births are in freestanding units. And as I told you, Norway is a very big country. And northern Norway is almost half of the country, but there is only 10% of the population are living there. So it's between four and 5,000 births in northern Norway. But they have six, five freestanding midwifery units and five hospitals there. So there are a lot of institutions, but few births. And these freestanding units, they are usually connected to a health center or a small local hospital without obstetric unit. And there are about 600 births on these six units annually altogether. And there are usually long distances to the nearest obstetric unit from 16 to 28 kilometers. And sometimes that involves a ferry or a mountain passage also. And the Norwegian health authorities do not organize home births. And the woman herself must find a midwife willing to assist the birth. But the health authorities will pay the midwife for assisting the birth, but not for being on call or for transport to the woman's home. And home births are most common in and around the biggest cities and not the very common in rural area. And we have national guidelines for planned home births. And they are quite good. And I will say that they are evidence-based. I was in the group making these guidelines. But it's quite a pity that so few women are choosing to birth at home. But there are few midwives willing to attend home births. And it is not common. And many women have never heard about home births. So as I told you, we have a decentralized system in Norway, and we have many small institutions. But if we look at the total births, we can see that half of all births they were happening in five hospitals, five bigger hospitals. And 28% of all births were in eighth and medium big hospitals. So three quarters of all births are in 13 hospitals all together. And then 17% of all births were in 11 institutions with a size from 500 to 1,500 births. And a small proportion in 22 institutions, small institutions. So we have small hospitals also. And we have a few planned home births. We have more unplanned home births than planned home births at ULA. And we also, of course, have some births happening under during transport to the hospital. Our Caesarean section rate is about 17%. And we have 10% of the operated vaginal deliveries. But the Caesarean section rate varies between institutions from 13 to 26%. So there are variations. And here is the showing variation. But this is not between institutions. This is between regions. So it's quite big differences. There is on the western part of Norway, where you see this yellow line. They have only almost 14% of Caesarean. And there are hospitals who have even a little less than that. And other interventions in labor, we have an increasing rate of induction of labor. And it is 18% no. We have 16% effeceotomy. And oxytocin augmentation, they are at least 35%, probably more. And one third of all women have effeceoral analgesia during labor. And these are interventions when not induction of labor. But effeceotomies, and oxytocin, and also effeceoral analgesia, the midwark can influence much on that. And effeceotomies are usually cut by the midwark. And we can see there are great variations in effeceotomy rates also across the country between different regions. And they are varying. And this is the variation in oxytocin augmentation rate. That is also varying quite a lot across the country. And we have this differentiated birth care. But what are the effects of the differentiated birth care in Norway? And what is evaluated? In the different kind of unit. And as I said, Norway is one of the richest countries in the world. And then I think also we have a responsibility to do research, to spend some of the money on research on our health care system. So I have tried to find out what is done in evaluating this different kind of unit. And these are studies on midwifery led alongside units in Norway. And we have only three studies about that. And these three, they are all led by midwives, these studies. And the first one, Lukaster, that is an observational study describing the transfers and outcomes of women who plan to give birth in the ABC unit, alongside midwifery units in Oslo. And the next one is a cohort study comparing healthy prima parrots women who started labor in an alongside unit with a comparable group who gave birth in the conventional obstetric unit in the same clinic. And the third one is a randomized controlled trial where women were randomized to three different units and the outcomes were compared. And we have found, and these studies report the same what we see from other countries, that there are less interventions in labor in women who start their care in midwifery led units. But we could not, none of, neither Ada or Barnett could report significant differences in operative delivery. And that is probably because we have a quite low Mediterranean section rate in Norway. And then it is this midwifery led freestanding unit. And there are only two studies who have looked on them. And both of the studies are quite old, from 2001 and 2002. And both of them are observational studies. But this first study is Jan Hoft and co-workers. They evaluated the results after the small obstetric unit in Lufoten Hospital in the northern Norway was reorganized to become a midwife managed unit in 1997. And this was what we called a modified midwifery led unit as it was possible to perform caesarean sections there in cases where transport to the central hospital was impossible because this hospital is on an island. And it can be quite harsh weather conditions there. And they found that 70% of the women in the catchment area gave birth in the unit. And 94% had uncomplicated birth and the transfer rate was 6%. And the other one is Nina Smith and co-workers. They evaluated outcomes from birth in old freestanding maternity homes in Norway in a two-year period. And they found that less than 2% of the women ended with an operated delivery and 10% were transferred. But they found that 35% in the catchment area could deliver safely in the freestanding maternity home. So that was a different finding that the first one, they found 70%. And data for these studies, they were collected more than 15 years ago, almost 20 years ago. And since then, thousands of women have given birth in freestanding maternity homes. And the results should have been documented. Because all births in Norway are documented in the medical birth registry. But the problems with birth in midwifery units and also home birth are that the transfer are not recorded. So if the woman is transferred, the birth would be registered as a hospital birth. So it's difficult to evaluate by using the medical birth registry. And then it is this practice with differentiating care within the obstetric unit. And then we have, I found three studies about that. But it's only one who compares, who is a comparative study. And that is the first one near same. And she compared outcomes of two obstetric units in a hospital in Oslo. And the units were identical. But one of them implemented a special protocol for management of low risk labors. The others did not. And the new protocol led to a small but statistically significant increase in rate of spontaneous vaginal deliveries in primiparous women, but not in multi-paros women. And the two others were observational studies. And they just did how many low risk women when they came to the unit. And that was about 60%. And 40% of them again turned to be high risk during labor. And I have done a study evaluating outcomes as the planned home birth. And we find the same as they do in other studies from Europe and from the Western world. That it's less interventions in women that plan to give birth at home, compared to low risk women in a hospital. And then it's the questions. I know which mid-wise autonomous practitioners. And I would say yes and no, because within the frames of guidelines and laws, we can practice autonomously. We can be leaders in most of our practice areas and we can influence on policy. But the medical paradigm is dominating and there is an increasing focus on risk. And in intrapartum care, we are very focused on risk. And it is getting more and more. And the question is how can we find the balance to take care of those who have complications and in the same time promote normality for all the others. And there is also another challenge I want to mention. And I guess you have it in other countries as well. And that is that the midwives are losing some authority among our users. And there are midwives very active on social, and not midwives, but there are women very active on social media. And the demand and the craves are that they should decide themselves to have a caesarean section, to have epidurals. And it is like they want to tell what they want and they want obstetricians and midwives to deliver what they want. And this is a challenge, I know that. And it is important to meet that and to discuss. But I think this is a difficult matter. It is not so widespread in Norway yet. I have been involved in some of these discussions. So we had some discussions about epidurals and if all women should be offered an epidural and so on. And it's not so easy to take these discussions always. But then I tried to look where the Norwegian model may improve. And I found that we have excellent first-line management of complications and medical obstetric and neonatal services. But I think we can improve in all other areas in this model from the Nancy series. And I think especially in philosophy. And I think that we have that in common with many other Western countries. And also evidence, we don't really follow evidence-based practice. There are lots of CTG monitoring when there is no reason for it. And we have a few models of continuity of care, but not many. And in the big hospitals, there is no chance of having a midwife present during active phase of labor, not usually, at least. And the principle of evidence-based care is weak in the periphery and obstetrics in Norway. And evidence-based guidelines may be accepted, but not necessarily believed in and followed. And interventions are still introduced without proper evaluation of its effects. But it is still so in Norway that midwives still belongs to one of the most respected groups.  And there are, we have far from the situation that you have in other countries. But there are some professional methods and who is going to be the lead carer and so on. But midwives are the only experts of the normal birth in Norway. To become an obstetrician, there is a requirement to have 30 assisted vaginal deliveries, 15 bridge deliveries, 30 caesarean sections, and no requirements to assist at normal deliveries. So thank you for listening to me. And thank you, Ellen, how informative that was. I've gathered a number of questions. And if you have other questions, please put them in the chat. We have about five minutes or so for a question. And Misaki, if you just want to wait one minute, I have some questions that I'll put in chat first. So first of all, Salin had a number of really good questions. And the first had to do with was there any move or lobby for direct entry education for midwives in Norway? Move a lobby. There are a lot of midwives who would like to have direct entry education. And there was a serious try a couple of years ago to have that in Tromsø University in Northern Norway. But it failed. And the problem is also that the nurses have a very strong association and a lot of influence. And they are very much against that midwifery should be a direct entry education. All right, good one. And I'm going to collect these ones. They're all related, again, from Salin. And she wanted to know...


What's going on everybody? This is 1718 prism cello one pack break number 33. Good luck. Jaspy's case breaks calm Now I'll tell you about later Joe Let's roll the dice and go seven times one two three four five six and seventh and final time Ryan down a sandwich I Personally think if the case is hot the case is hot and if the case is in the whole the whole case is gonna be in That's my belief with that NT at least from the few that I've seen Remember the giveaway spots will be done at the end of the break the one giveaway spot actually I Could see I could easily see a case that has a jaw has a Zion. All right. There's the one pack of cello Crazy day. I don't know where the paper is so we're not printing a list actually Good luck. All right. Later. Will have a good night. I'll take this it's this is itch Brogdon Lou will Six man like Oh I thought that was Mitchell silver. We hit one earlier. It's Tony Bradley. No fans Tony Bradley. We want a Mitchell Green mellow nicks a couple nice things Not the best players though. All right now for the the big thing in this one We're taking all 30 names the top names are gonna win a $900 NT pick your team number six team random spot After hard six three to three one two three four Five and six and final time name on top Mike Saumich, it's been hot. Dang There you go, Mike didn't have a few spots. Sorry to everybody else, but appreciate you giving it a try on jazz piece case breaks calm


What's the word y'all welcome back to called game Kenny for real whatever you want to call eventually this channel will be named called game I like that y'all have taken this thing and try and like giving it to me again I didn't come up with called game It's been in the basketball NBA community for a very very long time But like yesterday last night she gives us Alexander hit a game winner and bleach report tweeted She called game and a lot of y'all were tagging me in that tweet like they still in your whole flow again It ain't something I came up with it ain't mine Yeah It will be eventually man be sure to leave a like on the video subscribe if you knew I'm gonna be giving a lot of NBA opinions in today's video. You may disagree, which is completely okay. Use that comment section Let's have this conversation. That's what this community is about So I've decided that the called game show would be me going through the slate of games that I thought were interesting It's not a daily thing because some days it's not gonna be anything to talk about But there are a decent amount of games yesterday that were excited think about this Christmas all all terrible Booty disgusting yesterday a lot of these games were fun or enjoyable single-digit overtime double overtime games It's ridiculous. Everybody's watching yesterday in the NBA look like it's stunk But now today where people don't have anyway, let's start with the first game of the day This game started off so much earlier than the other ones I'm not complaining about it because it allowed me to really hone in on this game And this was a good game for me Because I was trying to figure out how good the Atlanta Hawks are and I guess I'm still trying to figure it out Because in the first game of the season they went against a g-league team Chicago Bulls and the second game of the season They wouldn't get some if it's Grizzly's who are still missing Jaren Jackson, Jr I can't wait to see them go against like one of the top teams one of the for sure playoff teams around the league and see How they how they fare but through two games man The Atlanta Hawks were a team that go into the season are projected to be like seven seed eight seed and through two games They look a lot better than that. I must admit man Trey young I hate how like some players coming into the league They get this little stamp on their name very early in their career and Trey young got that stamp of a guy That's gonna be putting up great numbers on bad teams throughout his whole life Which is like how what makes y'all think that bro? He was an early lottery pick everybody that is an early lottery pick is usually gonna come into a team That sucks So yes, he was putting up good stats on bad teams But if you really were watching the games you knew that the when the Atlanta Hawks had Trey young on the floor last season They were a solid okay Average team when he was off the floor. They were the worst team in basketball So now this season the front office puts pieces around him. They make some signings They're younger guys are getting better and now he has a legitimate NBA quality team And of course he looks still looks good that y'all got to stop painting these players for for what they Going are going to be based on how they perform in their first couple seasons That's just the most dumb thing possible, but through two games They look really good the fact that Trey young has such a high uses rate And he just doesn't turn the ball over it's just a testament to how good of a player He is 36 points He's got this neck y'all and this pissed me off the first game in a season where he will get past his first defender And he'll kind of slow up and he'll get him on his back and he'll get the shot up And that's a foul the man shot 17 free throws in this game 17 And I can't even complain because he just he has found the ability to draw the foul now I know a lot of people hate that when it comes to the viewing aspect of basketball That's why James Harden has such a bad name for some people but as far as being a basketball player Those are easy easy points 15 for 17 from the field or from the free throw line I mean what coach wouldn't want their player doing that and this is another thing about this Alen Hawks team yesterday. They were missing Six rotational pieces yesterday and still looked really really good Let me count out the six for y'all. They're missing Galanari They're missing Rajan Rondo Chris Dunn and Yaka Okong will click appella and Tony snail You may disagree with the Tony snail being a rotational piece But Tony snail is a rotational piece and they still look good now might be a thing that like Less is more like I can't imagine six players coming into this team that already has looked good through the first two games And you know somebody's minutes is getting cut it might be Brandon Goodwin It might be a Nathan Knight who who looked pretty solid for a guy I didn't even know existed until a couple days ago The Alen Hawks are a good team and I like that Laurie Pierce is coaching them Well, the defense doesn't look bad and again, they are missing some of their better defensive players John Collis doesn't project to be a very good defensive center in his league Click appella is usually going to be there for this team, but they didn't look bad defensive I don't have much to say about the other side of the ball when it comes to the Memphis Grizzlies because again They're still missing Jiren. John Moran is still an electric electric player I can't wait to Jaren Jackson comes back and hopefully somebody in the comment section Is there a timetable because me and my guys were talking about this And we couldn't find a single report about when we when people believe that Jiren Jackson junior will be back Let's get to the second game of the day, which was the okc Thunder versus the Hornets This is not a game that I paid an extreme amount of attention to I'm going to admit it One thing that I really hate about like NBA media and I understand it's about clicks and hell I work for a company that is about clicks, you know, it's a house of highlights It's it's about getting people to watch highlights But they put these some younger players on the pedestal while while not talking about others And of course Lamello ball is that guy from this drag class no matter what Lamello ball does whether he stinks or he's really really good He's going to get a post on house of highlights He's gonna get something about on bleach report about it and just like just let him live and just like how about we post Anthony I were to just look very very good through the first two get it's just so weird how things work And of course it is a popularity contest when it comes to social media I understand that but it's just it it puts an unfair pressure on Lamello ball and not gives enough credit to some of The other rookies out there. That's what I mean And again Lamello ball didn't he did he did okay this game people were mad that he only played what 15 minutes Yeah, 15 minutes and it's a game. He actually scored He scored 13 points of 15 minutes and people are said that he wasn't playing but For being honest from what I've saw from this game again I wasn't you know magnifying glass on this game the other guards ahead of him just looked better yesterday and I Turned this game off when they were up by what like 10 Okay, she was about like 10 with a couple minutes ago I was like, okay, that's a wrap and then my those bridges turned into Tracy McGrady And he was like I got us and I'm gonna get us back in this game and then eventually say you saw Alexander called game Now I think that Sam Pressley's about to do this thing where he always does or he did with like Chris Paul and some of these other Dudes were like they get a veteran player. He's gonna look good And we're gonna flip him for a first-round pick and that's what George Hill looks like to me George Hill was magnificent throughout this game He looked like a veteran on a team full of younger players and same thing with Al Horford Who didn't shoot the ball relatively well, but he looked like a veteran on the team of young players and eventually they win this game And you know what? I'm looking forward to when okay, she starts to lose not that sounds very sinister sinister But I like the the post that people would like you you just help the tank and it's a picture of K. Cunningham in a okc jersey, but K. Cunningham will be a bull because the bulls absolutely stick Let's get to one of the more excited games of the day, bro. The Cavaliers are fun I'm looking for any team to hold my attention because my team Stinks and the Cavaliers and the Kings have been those those teams are the first two games of the season again I didn't watch their first game, but I went back to watch it in today's game or last night's game I was really into that because dear girls is playing and then I was really trying to see what sex land looked like There's some really good names for for teams out there sex land is one of them Collin Sexton and deers Gardner look like a good backcourt through the first two games of the season again defensively They're going to struggle being under-sized guards, but offensively they they look potent I still can't figure out or this is something a drum and it's gonna have to figure out who the hell he is on this team He had a good game, but there was moments in this game where I think he thought he was the star player and Nope, you're not anymore, but congratulations to him for hitting free throws That was something we weren't saying about him a couple years ago Sex land is fun. It really is Isaac Acuro ended with zero points I'm looking at but it didn't feel like that his defensive impact was definitely there There's the plate and I don't know if it was the end of regulation or the end of the first overtime We're Jeremy Grant got the ball from their grows and Isaac Acuro closed out and prevented Jeremy Grant from even getting the shot up Even getting the shot up The calves are fun. I don't want to spend too much time on them because I again I don't know if they're gonna be a playoff team I doubt they're gonna be a playoff team, but through the first two games of the season they look fun Madden versus Wizards, I did not watch a single minute of my apologies to the Wizards fans out there only to Bradley Beal put a 40 and lost I'm gonna I'm gonna eventually watch them in its entirety coming up this season Next game same thing. I have no watch a single sit next minute Why would I do such a thing? Why would I torture myself when I'm already torturing myself with the Chicago Bulls?  I thought we're gonna come in and be as good as some people thought Um, I didn't even have us in the playing game y'all I don't I don't think that's who we are But the fact that we have got absolutely terrorized is something that's different Like there's difference between bad and being awful and I expected us to be bad and not awful and through the first two games We are awful And that's all I'm gonna say about that the Marta Rosen it took him 11 seasons y'all It took him 11 seasons, but the Marta Rosen is here and he has a jump shot a three-point shot specifically The Marta Rosen went from a guy when he was with the Raptors that I would consider probably a little bit overrated to being traded to the Spurs and now he is super underrated.  DeMar is very good I want him to have another all-star parents again The Western Conference is ridiculously tough when it comes to all-star appearances, but I want him to have it, bro He's shooting the three ball. He's shooting the Hey Hey, that's a different monster. We have been talking about it for 10 years If he got a jump shot if you got a three-point shot specifically the offense around him will be so much more fluid And here we are two games to the season and exactly that the Raptors whoo through two games It's been kind of rough man It's a team that I thought that with their veteran leadership that they'd be able to face adversity and do the first two games They face a lot of adversity on court adversity They haven't been able to put it together And I don't know what part of that is the fact that they're they're away from home and all of these type of things But they have not lived good through the first two games in a season The next one has a lot to do with with car Anthony Towns and D'Angelo Russell. I talked about Anthony Edwards a little bit earlier Really good. The first overall pick is good at basketball y'all and he needs more spotlight And it sucks because maybe it's because he's in Minnesota Which doesn't make sense because Lamello's and Charlotte These are smaller market teams give Anthony Edwards a microphone Let him talk because that man is hilarious and he's very good at basketball and they are two and no I don't want to overreact to the timbles because last season they started off very good as well And then they made that one tweet that was like we're good and then they lost like 20 in a row That's what it felt like. They were like 19 and 1 in 20 games So I don't want to overreact but um, they look they look solid man Which is crazy because I was this didn't this didn't like a team I'm going to admit that I'd look that and be like this is going to be a good team because they just lack defensive impact on that team Um, they got rid of Ronnie Hollis Jefferson again Who wasn't going to be a guy that's going to change your franchise But having Jake layman start was a big question mark to me I think the first game of the season Jake layman didn't do anything and the second game of the season He didn't do anything either.  Wow Wow They're putting out a lot of line-ups that is four guards and carthony towns And it's not looking bad because um, joshie kogi can defend his own Cool. The next game has to do with the sons and the the kings who I mentioned earlier is one of my league past teams The kings are super super fun. Um, one thing that that is Pissing me off through two games is yandere aida looks afraid to play basketball I don't I don't if you aren't watching the games. You don't understand what i'm saying But he looks afraid like his hands aren't as good as they were last year throughout two games Um, he's not crashing the glass like you want him to he just looks afraid to play basketball. Why? I just traded for him in fantasy. Why? Be better, please get better And maybe that's him feeling out what it is to play with chris paul and and all these guys that hopefully he'll get better Um, but the kings the air fox is everywhere on the court and that's that's exactly what we wanted, man They went from a team that was one of the most fun teams two years ago Pace was amazing last year They stunk and the pace was trash and now they're back on that trajectory to be a fun NBA team again And that's all I want from the kings. I don't know if they're gonna be a playoff team I'm not here projected to be to see if they're a playoff team But if you want a fun team to watch night in and night out the sacramental kings of that My only thing is that they're a western western conference team So their games are super late. So in order to watch them, you got to stay up a decent amount The last game Is the rockets versus the trailblazers?   He's he's probably better than what he got paid this off season. Um, but with james harden to spawn feed in him What did he finish with 31? She's 31 and james harden hitting those two back-to-back threes I know he turned it over in regulation and he turned it over in overtime to like close out the games, but I think throughout the the whole thing that's going on with james harden right now I think a lot of people are not Appreciating james harden the basketball player anymore and the fact this man had 44 and 17 assists in a game where they were missing zha wall um boogie cousins and Uh, eric gordon they were missing three really good rotational pieces david and wabba played big minutes And david and wabba should not be playing big minutes for any nba team anymore Uh, they were in this this game with a team that a lot of people project to be one of the better western conference team this season james harden is an amazing basketball player and I think that people aren't really It's it's a Media thing. It's a fan thing. We're like instead of just appreciating the basketball we have on court We want to talk about the things like I made a tweet yesterday that was like as long as james harden is on your team You're a playoff team that's that's objectively so far throughout his career a fact that he's been able to do that He's that type of beast and somebody's like, yeah, but he can't make it to the finals Which okay, he hasn't been to the final since he was okc, but like it's just Can we just appreciate what we get from the players and i'm not specifically talking about james harden This could go for lebron. This could go for luke or this could go for all the players Instead of just us appreciating basketball for what it is on court People find a way to make a narrative driven when in reality bro as a fan of basketball I couldn't give a damn if james harden ever makes a finals. I enjoy watching him play basketball at the end of the day I just do shout out to cj. They needed his performance and he was there throughout the first game dame is just trying to facilitate trying to get his teammates involved and knew a teammates and That's not who dame is dame go drop 30 and today he did um and that's that's pretty much it Um, hopefully you enjoyed the video if you did leave it a like subscribe if you knew um call game