All this year, Michigan Radio’s Morning Edition host Christina Shockley has been speaking with people from all walks of life about what 3 things they think we can all do to help improve the state. Our series is called “Three Things” and today, Christina speaks with author and poet Keith Taylor. (photo by Robert Turney)

Keith Taylor begins by urging Michigan residents to buy locally, but with a cultural twist. Taylor wants Michiganders to engage with the culture here in Michigan. He says, “Go to the play at the local high school or the local community college… If you’re going to buy a novel, don’t buy the James Patterson novel that they advertise on TV. Buy Elmore Leonard. He’s better anyway.”

As to how this might affect Michigan, Taylor believes that the redefinition of Michigan must take place culturally as well as economically. In order to redefine Michigan’s culture, Taylor says, “We have to have an audience, and there has to be an audience involved. This is not just a one-way street that comes from artists or cultural arbiters down to an audience. Almost always it’s the other way around. It comes from the audience up.”

School funding is the focus of Mr. Taylor’s second idea for the state of Michigan. Using the success of the Kalamazoo Promise as an example, Taylor says, “An investment in education has an incredible and very rapid effect on our quality of life and the quality of goods and services that are available to us.”

As to how school funding could be affected by an individual, Mr. Taylor points to simple things such as voting for a school millage. Taylor believes that even if you don’t have children, refusing to vote for a school millage may result in negative consequences for your community. He says, “That may affect the kinds of restaurants you have to go out to eat in. That may affect how often they pave your street. That may have effects you can’t even imagine.”

Mr. Taylor’s third idea is all about Detroit. While many may wish to discard the city now that the auto industry has crashed, Taylor warns against such thinking. “The state will not recover, the state will not be lifted up until the economy of Detroit is integrated with the rest of the state,” he says. Taylor continues, “There’re a lot of people who live there, still. It’s a big area. It is an economic hub. It is certainly a cultural hub… We have to have Detroit be part of our thinking.”

Regarding ways to get people to see what Detroit has to offer, Taylor urges people to change their attitude about Detroit. “I have never felt threatened in Detroit,” says Taylor, adding, “I feel very comfortable in Detroit, but I know lots of people all around the state who are afraid of the city, for whatever reason.”

While familiarity with the city may be the only way for Michiganders to grow comfortable with Detroit, Taylor says, “It is our major city. It is our experience of an urban environment. And the urban environment is part of the world culture right now, and if we want to experience it we have to experience it in Detroit.”

All this year Michigan Radio’s Morning Edition host Christina Shockley has been talking with people from all walks of life about what three things they think we can all do to help the state. Christina spoke with Thomas Lynch. He’s an author, poet and undertaker.

Thomas Lynch begins by urging Michiganders to be better citizens. “For me,” says Lynch, “I think that means swearing off of the TV from five o’clock in the evening until at least ten o’clock at night.” Lynch recommends spending that time going to other sources for our news and information.

Of political discourse, particularly that on cable-news programs, Lynch adds, “It seems to me very much like big-time wrestling with suits on, and I think we’d all be better citizens and have less of the nonsense and codswallop that passes for news if we just kept the TV off.”

Mr. Lynch’s second idea for Michiganders involves seeking out and recognizing our commonality. “One of our great assets and treasures is that we live in an ethnically and religiously diverse place,” says Lynch. However, noting that Michigan is home to some of the most segregated cities in the country, Lynch adds, “I think we intuit all of our differences and amplify them far too much.”

Lynch encourages Michiganders to seek out places and people that they are unfamiliar with and learn more about them. He says, “People of faith should be comfortable in other faith traditions,” adding, “Faith makes us more in common than apart.”

Not only does Lynch suggest that Christians should spend time in mosques and Muslims time in synagogues, he also thinks this idea of visiting places that may seem foreign should apply geographically. He says, “People who live in the exurbs and suburbs should spend more time in cities and city people should get out to the suburbs more to see how the rest of their fellow pilgrims live.”

For his final idea, Lynch wants Michiganders to read more to their children and grandchildren. Lynch wants to make sure that he gets to read to his grandchildren in the future, so he’s been recording himself reading some of his favorite stories. “I think we should read more,” says Lynch, adding, “I think we should do more poetry. I think poetry has its own sort of remedial values to the culture.”