Enlighten Radio Presents
last s top preview 2
last stop cafe
 
 
thursdays 6 pm
Hosts: Karen Valentine, John Case, James Boyd
test show 2
This Episode Recorded 7/2 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV
 
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Enlighten Radio Presents
Diamonds in my Coal Bucket
 
Appalachian poets deliver compelling and powerful stories and images of (among the) most ancient mountains. Dora Malech, Robert Lewis Weeks, Frank X. Walker, Sarah Loudin Thomas, Pauletta Hansel, and more...
Broadcast Wednesdays, 10 AM on player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case
This Episode Recorded 07072026 --
Mountain Mama
by Sara Loudin Thomas
 
Mountain MamaThere is truth in the trailer park
and honesty in the car on blocks.
Starvin’ Marvin and “as seen on TV”
live cheek by jowl with the likes
of handmade quilts and apple butter;
old-time music and the oral tradition.
Some folks say it isn’t True,
isn’t the way things used to be.
But lose a grandfather to the mines,
an uncle to the war, your mother
to a cancer that gnaws at her soul—
lose a child for no reason you can see.
Then you’ll find the fragile beauty
in the never-ending yard sale.
You’ll learn to love the tourists
who buy corncob pipes, coonskin caps,
and lumps of coal carved like bears.
When the giant timber companies
run the local sawmill out of money
and Aunt Eunice can’t remember your name—
when your best friend moves to California
and minimum wage is doing alright, man.
Then you’ll find the potent wisdom
in workers’ compensation, food stamps
and tonight’s lotto number—
dear God let me win.
A one in a billion chance is better
than watching the land your ancestors
cleared wash away . . . no wish away
on the promises of strip mines
and a future you can’t afford to wait.
At night, the lights from Wal-Mart glow
like the promise of a better tomorrow.
 
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Enlighten Radio Presents
The Last Stop Cafe: Preview
It Ends Here. The Last Stop
 
 
Player.enlightenradio.com
Hosts: Karen Valentine, John Case, James Boyd
Karen, James and John try out a new news follower show with a legacy WSHC style news show. Thursdays at 6 PM Eastern on player.enlightenradio.org
This Episode Recorded 6-25-26 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV
 
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Enlighten Radio Presents
 
When a man passes, the streets get shorter.
 
 
London streets, county roads, streets of Jerusalem, Is moonlight warmer than the city lamps? W. Ethelbert Miller, Amy Lowell and Naomi Nye headline the feeling of being followed, or following: Nobody?
Broadcast Wednesdays, 10 AM on player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case
This Episode Recorded 06/24/2026
Streets of Jerusalem
by Homer
 
Streets Naomi Shihab Nye 1952 – A man leaves the world and the streets he lived on grow a little shorter. One more window dark in this city, the figs on his branches will soften for birds. If we stand quietly enough evenings there grows a whole company of us standing quietly together. overhead loud grackles are claiming their trees and the sky which sews and sews, tirelessly sewing, drops her purple hem. Each thing in its time, in its place, it would be nice to think the same about people. Some people do. They sleep completely, waking refreshed. Others live in two worlds, the lost and remembered. They sleep twice, once for the one who is gone, once for themselves. They dream thickly, dream double, they wake from a dream into another one, they walk the short streets calling out names, and then they answer.
 
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Enlighten Radio Presents
 
Dark -- But Untwisted
 
 
Poems to the "black swan" -- associated with magical rarity, or fantasy contexts, except in Australia whence they originate. Jeanine Leane, Bridget Pegeen Kelly, Katharyn Howd Machan, more
Wednesdays 10 AM
Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case
This Episode Recorded May 18, 2026
Odile, The Black Swan
by Una Mcdonnell
Impossible to look at her without thinking dark water, depths where light doesn't reach. In the diner on Dalhousie, her presence commands the booth, though only the decrepit at the counter sees the water rising, water- line gurgling just beneath her chin. Flutter of a dark wing that briefly stretches. Sally, a regular, orders coffee between johns, eggs at 4 a.m. They arrive, sunny side silicon perfect. Minivans line up to glean sorrow from her eyes. If only I could dance, says Sally. When the sky turns pink, she'll sleep. Odile once had an act involving lit black candles and a snake. Smoke she could conjure on demand. Rose on stage, an angel from the black lake. They all desired her, but one. Before Champagne Rooms, loose laws, when looking was enoughShe holds her mug as if it could contain her. The transistor radio tin-tin-tins demented heart songs tie a yellow ribbon -- and getting caught in the rain --¦ and I'll never have that recipe again --Pale-skinned fries rise like broken limbs from plates, tendrils of vinegar seep down. The scent is grease, acid, hot breath and chrome. There are no new ways to be alone. There are no new ways to mourn.
 
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Enlighten Radio Presents
Will it be "Baseball", a fair game, or War
 
Stand Still, if you can.
 
 
 
Broadcast Thrsdays 11 AM, player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: John Case, James Boyd, Mike Cuccherini
Mike updates the Spring Trainin Explosioins. Mean while, we await the likelihood of world war from the dice roll of the "Thucydides Trap"
This Episode Recorded may 14 at the Red Caboose Studio, Harpers Ferry, WV
 
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Enlighten Radio Presents
 
Speakingof Rivers
 
 
Soulful flow of rivers: Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, Oliver Tearl, Pablo Neruda, KLathleen Raine, Don Domanski, Rabindranath Tagore
Broadcast Wednesdays, 10 AM on player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case
This Episode Recorded may 6, 2026
The Negro speaks of Rivers
by Langston Hughes
I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
 
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Enlighten Radio Presents
 
Stand Still
 
The Bristlecone Pine
A Magnificent collection of Tree Visions: Drink the undrinkable; Through a glass, darkly; The Trees are not lost. Joy Harjo, Adrienne Rich, Christian Wimen, WS Merwin, Jane Hirshfield. Poems of Peace.
Broadcast Wednesdays, 10 AM on player.enlightenradio.org
Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case
This Episode Recorded April 29, 2026
 
The Bristlecone Pine
by Mary Jane Myers
For centuries, the stalwart pine has stood __in this unwonted spot. Its shallow roots and resinous hard wood __shield it from drought and rot. __Thin soil, high winds, cold air: it thrives where other living things cannot. __Dear tree, please hear my prayer. __Lend me your purple cone to plant inside my heart, its chambers bare, __arteries hard as bone. __For from your potent seed, that germinates on bleak and barren stone, __fresh hope will sprout. Indeed, to love's avowals I'd once again accede.
 
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