Rose Petals and Poems to a Society Which is Flipping
  • ephemera
  • offset-printed
  • black-and-white
  • 27.8 x 21.5 cm.
  • [1] pp.
  • edition size unknown
  • unsigned and unnumbered

Rose Petals and Poems to a Society Which is Flipping

Sandra Hochman, Adrienne Scott

Rose Petals and Poems to a Society Which is Flipping

description

Political flyer / poetry work published 1971 by Sandra Hochman and Adrienne Scott in conjunction with a guerrilla theater action in New York City.

"A gentle and lyrical attack on "the myth that growing old is terrible" was mounted on West 57th Street yester day by a group of women artists, poets and writers who have formed a "guerrilla theater" to put on "street theater demonstrations."

The women performed for two hours, starting at 11:30 A.M., in front of the Henri Bendel women''''s apearel store on the south side of West 57th Street near Fifth Ave nue. Roughly 1,500 people watched the demonstration for varying lengths of time, and some joined in the dancing, including one 80-year- old man.

Both in subject and in manner, the performance was largely spontaneous. The players met together at 9 A.M. and decided shortly be fore going out that the question of growing old would be a theme of their first demonstration. Several of them dressed as old women. An other wore a mask with the, legend under it, "No one likes to look at an old face."

The players were Sandra Hockman, poet and novelist, the author of "Walking Papers" Adrienne Scott, film writer collaborating with Miss Hockman on the screenplay of that novel; Martha Edelheit, Devon Meade and Anita Margin, all painters. To their delight, Carole-Bayer, the lyricist, came along, decided to join in, and shortly made up lyrics about old age that the players and some spectators sang. "We send our youth to Vietnam to be killed and yet we try, to put old age under the carpet, to sweep death under the carpet," Miss Hochman said. "We send our young abroad to be killed, and the old people stay at home try ing to look young and hiding from death."

Miss Scott said, "People are treated like objects. Just like you Would send an old car to the junkyard, you send an old person to a nursing home." Their demonstration, was intended to assert that "age is beautiful," the women said.

At one point some players pelted the people nearby with rose petals. "You''''re petering your ideas," a bystander punned, to which one of the players replied, ''''Yes, we are petalers of ideas.''''"
-- from "Growing Old Theme of Women''''s Rally," published in The New York Times, June 23, 1971.

$125.00
Condition:  Good. Folded in four. Moderate handling wear with overall creasing and bumping of corners including a 4.3 cm. dog-ear to top left corner of page. Otherwise clean and unmarked.
[Object # 37371]