Lance Stafford of Cloverton plays piano and sings lead vocals during the band's Aug. 6 performance at the In Session Music Festival in Topeka, Kan. Cloverton was the headliner of the inaugural festival, which took place outside of the Sunrise Optimist Building in North Topeka.

Rouse’s Reviews | A regular web column by Josh Rouse, who keeps his ear to the ground and his lens steady through life in T-Town

Manhattan has Country Stampede, Kansas City has Kanrocksas and now North Topeka has its own music festival: In Session.

The inaugural Christian music festival took place Saturday, Aug. 6, outside the Sunrise Optimist Building at 720 NW 50th Street, right across the street from Seaman High School. The one-day festival featured Manhattan-based Christian rock band Cloverton, whose single “Take Me Into the Beautiful” has received airtime on multiple Christian radio stations, including K-LOVE 88.9 FM in the Topeka and Manhattan area.

Other bands involved with the event included The Reach, from Topeka; Artfully Folded Paper, from Wichita; and the Plugged-In Band, from Lawrence. The event was unique in that the stage was constructed using two large hauling trailers and a large canopy. The crowd wasn’t huge, maybe about 200 people, but with planners hoping to continue this event annually, it has plenty of room to grow into a much bigger event.

Proceeds from the event went to Pleasant Hill United Methodist Church, which is raising funds to relocate to a more accessible area on 46th Street.

Want to see more? Check out this photo gallery and videos by Josh Rouse below.

Earlier this year, seveneightfive published an article about And Hell Followed With It, Bonar Menninger’s captivating narrative about the EF5 that swept through Topeka 44 years ago. Posting it online, we hope it will encourage more people to check out this fascinating, terrifying, and most of all informative account of T-town’s most horrifying tragedy.

- Robin Cremer, May 24, 2011

Be prepared for a tornado: review these safety tips, because it can happen here.

Book Review by Judith and Robin Cremer

Whenever a group of locals start talking about “the tornado,” there is rarely a need to say more to direct the discussion toward the EF5 whirlwind that cut through the heart of Topeka June 8, 1966. The behemoth ripped through the city, blasting a half mile-wide path of destruction and leaving deep emotional and physical scars on the hearts and minds of Topekans, young and old alike. The memory of that mighty wind resonates strongly with those who were there that Wednesday evening. The power of the experience has subsequently been passed down through stories shared by survivors that relate the awesome power of the unfettered forces of nature that were unleashed that day.

One of the vehicles helping to propel this transfer of experiences is Bonar Menninger’s new book, And Hell Followed With It, which fully documents the June 8 tornado, capturing both the history and the drama of this unforgettable event. Menninger gathered the stories, culled from over 140 interviews, to create a narrative that reads like one of the suspense novels on the market today. The fact that the reader is fully aware that this is not a story, but a true life account of actual events, makes the book all the more terrifying.

Bonar’s intense storyline focuses on a core group of citizens spaced throughout the city during the course of the hours that changed the life and landscape of Topeka. The text graphically details each individual’s story, relating their apprehension as the storm approaches, their terror during the time the whirlwind was actively in play and the hopelessness they felt in the aftermath. Readers get an unparalleled view of one of the most devastating disasters to ever befall T-Town.

The book includes chapters on the history of Topeka, as well as an overview of the science of early tornado detection. This information puts things into context and gives the reader a point of reference regarding the city’s warning system prior to that monumental evening of disaster.

Maps of the city placed strategically throughout the book also allow the reader to follow the twister’s brutal path of destruction; beginning at Burnett’s Mound, barreling through downtown and dissipating over the river near Tecumseh. Sitting at my kitchen table, I was able to look down the street and imagine the mayhem that took place as the massive winds ripped through the Oakland area. The graphic recollections in this book will undoubtedly likewise strike any Topekan who reads it as they pass by key modern-day landmarks described in the text throughout the city.

June 8, 2011 will mark the 45th anniversary of the Topeka tornado. This phenomenal book brings the events of that day back to life, definitely recording them for posterity. It clarifies the facts, discusses the myths and makes the story accessible to a new generation – and it’s first and foremost a good read.

Interview by Robin Cremer

I had a chance to speak with Bonar, and we talked about that eventful evening in 1966, that ultimately led to him writing And Hell Followed With It.

What motivated you to write this book in the first place?

Just a sense that the story deserved to be told after all these years. It was something I’d grown up with. I thought it was a fascinating tale, and I realized at the time of the fortieth anniversary in ’06, a lot of these people were getting up in years and if it was going to be done, it had to be done now. So I felt a sense of, for lack of a better term, civic responsibility, to tell the story.

The one scene from the book that drove home to me how terrifying this thing was, was when David Laird witnessed a two car garage being flung into the Capital dome like a “child would fling a dollhouse.”

You know, the Capital is a pretty formidable structure, and pretty imposing, and to see something that’s vastly bigger do something like that; throw a structure at it, like a monster, and then this huge roar. He said, I thought it was the end of the world, and I’ve tried to put myself in his shoes at that moment, and I believe that’s probably what I’d be thinking too, because it’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. All of sudden it’s Hell on earth! And where are you going to go? You better make a decision real quick or you’re not going to survive.

Any plans for a movie or DVD documentary? I think it’d make a fascinating movie.

Yeah, I rather see it made into a drama. That movie, Twister, as cheesy as it was, was like the 44th best selling movie of all time. I think there’s a real fascination with tornados and the things that they could do with special effects these days it wouldn’t be hard to do.

The way you wrote the stories, it reads like a really suspenseful action adventure type novel, only terrifyly true.

I appreciate that. I mean, that’s what I tried, because that’s what I always thought of it as. It’s just about the scariest thing I’ve ever heard about in my life, and so I tried real hard to capture the drama and the suspense.

[ republished from seveneightfive Jan. 15 - Feb 1 issue | story by Judith and Robin Cremer | photos contributed | photo of Bonar Menninger courtesy Facebook ]

“What dark thing have you done to me?” becomes a mantra in Rachel Zucker’s poem “What Dark Thing.” As this experimental poem explores how women feel captured by both marketplace and cultural position, its disjointedness reflects this capture as damaging. In Museum of Accidents (Wave Books), Zucker writes her lyrical poems in fragments to explore Twenty-First Century America, poetry, and memory.

One example of where her themes intersect is in “To Save America”:

4.
did you pack it yourself?
has it always been in your possession?
was it ever beyond your control?
did anyone ever give you anything?
is anything wrapped?
are there electronics?
do you have any gifts?

This clash of cultural tropes—the questions before boarding a plane with an anti-commericalism, anti-possessive theme from previously in the poem—help to create a glimpse of America’s anxiety.

Like in her previous books, Zucker’s themes revolve around family life, childbirth, and the connected fragilities, like in the poem “More Accidents”: “this is my family. this accident. these boys. this screaming. // the hard plastic edge of the car seat. the rhythmic crashing / of his short-haired boy-head against my collarbone.” These poems show heartbreak and vulnerability. Her use of years help to establish points in time, non-linear: “I’ll take you, my father said, 1968.” These disjointed phrases come together on the page inside of this sequenced poem.

I admire Zucker for bringing these issues of vulnerability and hopelessness in her work. Not every poem shows a broken speaker, like in “Poem” or “Don’t Say Anything Beautiful Kiss Me.” However, her risk-taking in her work, maybe from her work as a doula and being a mother, shows the heartbreak of what is not often spoken about—the pressures that come with motherhood. In the poem “Long Lines to Stave Off Suicide,” the speaker visits her son’s class:

I make pancakes with Abram’s class he asks Ami
and the teacher chose Luna and Cedric cried and cried and I
let him measure flour because he kept saying,
that’s your mom? your mom? I love your mom! it was weird
so I gave him butter and a blunt knife, hoped the teacher
wouldn’t mind and later found out Cedric’s mom
died in the towers

I couldn’t breathe when I heard it or believe what a good mother
I’ve been just by staying alive

While this poem includes the 9-11 tragedy, it also explores what newspapers and television might consider taboo—the anxieties and fears mothers have.

As “modern” as Twenty-First Century Americans might feel, there is still a need for women’s support and information. Where does a mother turn to cope with the negative emotions and fatigue that comes from child birth and raising a daughter or son? In Topeka, we have the Birth and Women’s Center alongside various support groups. For Zucker, poetry is an additional resource.