March 31, 2013 Steve Saari reads poetry, Candy Shue reviews Hazel White, and we talk nature poetry

This week we had a bit of a grab bag show, including a poetry submission, a book review, and an insightful (ahem!) conversation about nature poetry. First, we played an audio submission from Minnesotan poet Steve Saari, who luckily discovered himself to be a writer later in life, and who shared with us his beautiful poems, which are strongly influenced by his interaction with his natural, social and professional environments. He pays enormous attention to the every day habits and occurrences in a given place, those that we often forget to notice. And in this vein, Candy Shue joined us again in the studio to read her review of Hazel White's Peril as Architectural Environment (Kelsey Street Press, 2011). White, who is the author of many books on gardening and landscape design, investigates "language and poetry as ecosystem." As always, Candy did an incredible job of presenting and responding to this book of eco-poetics. After the break, we had our own conversation about nature poetry, what it is capable of doing and how it interacts with the environment and the body. We talked about ideas of what eco-poetics can do and how we might trouble the traditional concept of nature poetry. Candy also talked about how culture affects how the speaker sees the land and rights to that land. Lastly, we talked about writing reviews and what responsibilities we take on when we present a writer's work to the world. 

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March 24, 2013: Chris Daniels Part 2

This Sunday we played the second half of our interview with Chris Daniels. During this segment, we talked about Chris's translation work, most specifically that of Fernando Pessoa, a Portuguese writer who wrote under 81 heteronyms. Through discussing how Pessoa used varying personas in his work, we came to discuss the human personality as other than 'monolith.' We as people are able to change our thoughts and points of view, and for Chris, poetry is a way of working through this fluidity.  Also, the act of translation allows the opportunity to try on another persona. We talked about the considerations of form and language in translation work. The conversations inherent in translation (and in poets' interviews) create a social space for poetry, where a poet can engage with another poet. We were reminded of the fun and beauty in poetry, along with its inherent value, which we should remember if ever we question why we write.
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March 17, 2013 Chris Daniels Part 1

On March 17th, we played part one of our interview with poet and translator Chris Daniels. We opened and closed with his reading of "Ode to the West Wind," which we had the pleasure of hearing live at Occupy Oakland in late 2011. During our conversation, we talked about his chapbook porous nomadic, (airfoil, 2010), which challenges ideas of form and ownership. In this vein, the chapbook opens with a number of epigraphs; Chris later added addenda erratum, including more quotes that have influenced his writing. He discussed how his poetry and translation are a manifestation of "art as a social act," how politics inform his writing, and his engagement with the baroque. He talked about his translation work, especially the works of Fernando Pessoa, and how he came to love the Portuguese language. Lastly, during this segment we discussed the culture around poetry and writing poetry in Brazil, in contrast with the United States. We will play part two next week!

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Excerpt from porous nomadic

Excerpt from porous nomadic

March 10, 2013 Toni Mirosevich Part 2!

On March 10th, we played the second half of our interview with writer Toni Mirosevich. We spent the majority of this section talking about her book of poetry The Takeaway Bin, (Spuyten Duyvil, 2010), which employed Oblique Strategy prompts. The book is divided into three sections which focus on 'human frailty,' politics and hope. Toni talks about what the takeaway is both in the book and in life. She talks about the Oblique Strategy cards specifically and how they attempt to offer ways to address an issue from in an indirect way, as well as how those cards helped spur the pieces in the book. Toni works in both prose and poetry and discussed how these different forms can manifest an idea. She references her aikido practice: "If you're thinking about it, it can't happen." In other words, being too directive in writing can be stifling. We had a rich discussion about how the mind works in the process of creating.
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March 3, 2013 Toni Mirosevich Part 1!

This past Sunday we played part one of our interview with Toni Mirosevich. Throughout the interview we discussed her books The Takeaway Bin, (Spuyten Duyvil, 2010), poems inspired by Oblique Strategies, a card game created in 1975 by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, and Pink Harvest: Tales of Happenstance, (Mid List Press, 2007) a collection of creative non-fiction. When reviewing the pieces in The Takeaway Bin, Toni generously shared with us her process and decision making in her form, as well as her sense of play when choosing what to include in her poems. In her creative non-fiction, Toni pays great attention to human error and imperfection. We discussed how detail, (the 'smallest door'), reveals the emotion or conflict of a story. Tune in next week when we play part 2!
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February 24, 2013: Kathleen Fraser Part 3

Sadly, this is the third and last installment of our interview with the fascinating and fabulous Kathleen Fraser. Kathleen talked the various ways she constructs her work. She discussed collaging her journal entries and creating an artist book for Charles Alexander at Chax Press. She read her piece written for Norma Cole, which originally sought to capture the experience of Easter in Italy, but ended up becoming "hi dde violeth i dde violet" (from her recent book moveable TYYPE, Nightboat Press, 2011), a poem generated when she physically cut up her words to create collages on her walls. In the second half of the show, Kathleen talks about her ground-breaking journal HOW(ever) which focused on women poets at a time when they were ignored. We close the show by reading Marianne Moore's poem 'Poetry' which inspired the title of this amazing journal.
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