Hampdenfest

Enjoying my first week back at Loyola, I eagerly waited for the local neighborhood arts festival known as Hampdenfest. Reminiscing last year’s festival, I was met with flashbacks of thrilling toilet races, aromas of freshly prepared food, and charming local music. It took seemingly no time before my roommate and I were dropped off just blocks away from the spirited atmosphere of West 36th Street. Departing from the bus we joined the ostensibly extended Hampden community; exploring dozens of vendors, grazing on a plethora of tasty treats, and even joining the masses for a flavorsome experience at the Charmery. It seemed as if just as soon as I got there, I had already devoured well more than my fair share of off-campus goodies subsequently switching my attention to the local art and music. I found the spacey art most interesting due to each artist’s different use of mediums to portray their abstract perceptions of the world around them. Shortly after completing our tour of all three music stages this years’ experience at Hampdenfest was drawing to a close.  Even though I experienced Hampdenfest with my roommate, it was ultimately the diversity of music, food, and attendees that we loved most about the event.

The poem Learning to Read captures the power of reading and subsequently the comprehension and personal responsibility that follows, while also noting the hardships those who weren’t educated face. Like those who were never taught to read, I think those who are close-minded and not open to experiencing events similar to Hampdenfest are at a disadvantage. Hampdenfest was able to engage numerous communities throughout Baltimore while allowing them to coexist and engage with one another in ways I couldn’t have imagined before my attendance.

Mending Wall a poem by Robert Frost shows the relationship between two neighbors and mankind interminable desire to build barriers between one another. The narrator is found constantly asking the neighbor the importance of the wall, all the while being the one to know the walls weaknesses even repairing the wall by himself at times. Although the wall divides the two neighbors, its preservation results in an annual tradition and a parallel maintenance of their friendship. In this instance, Hampdenfest can be considered the wall bringing the community together as one despite the differences of those attending.

Jill McDonough’s poem Accident, Mass Ave, is a hastily misinterpreted accident. The unnamed speaker is assumingly a Bostonian who quickly responded to her environment and situation verbally berating the offending driver. As the speaker continues to criticize the women aggressively, she notices the miraculous lack of damage to both cars. In this poem, Jill McDonough illustrates how easy it is to get caught up in the predetermined motions of a situation without living each in the present.

Correspondingly Father Peter-Hans Klovebach discusses the importance of Jesuit communities like Loyola and the foundation of Jesuit values. He goes on to discuss the divide created by technology and the “rift” it induces in the quality of education throughout the world. Referring to “diakonia fidei” or service among others especially being the disadvantaged. Just as Jill McDonough showed the importance of living in the present, Father Klovenbach challenges us to continually analyze the environments in which immerse ourselves hoping we as individuals can promote change.