Resistance Radio: Stewart Acuff Interviews Fmr ILWU Organizing Director Peter Olney

This podcast of Resistance Radio was broadcast on Enlighten Radio April 4, 2017 at Enlighten Radio Studios in Shepherdstown West Virginia. Peter Olney is retired organnizing director for the ILWU (West coast longshore) union. He brings direct experience with NAFTA on both sides of the Mexican border to a conversation about patriotism and internationalism.

The Poetry Show on Enlighten Radio -- Afaa Michael Weaver

This podcast was broadcast February 27, 2017 on Enlighten Radio in Shepherdstown West Virginia.  The Poetry Show airs regularly Mondays, 7:30 -- 9:00 AM, EST.
 
 
Afaa Michael Weaver was born in 1951 in Baltimore, MD, the oldest of five children of working class parents. His mother was a beautician and his father was steelworker. He graduated from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, an elite high school, at age 16, and then enrolled in the University of Maryland. After two years he dropped out of college, married, and for the next fifteen years worked in series of manufacturing jobs. However, during those years he continued to write poetry and launched a small publishing company (7th Son Press) and a literary journal (Blind Alley) with his overtime earnings and a grant from the city of Baltimore. In 1985, he published his first book of poetry, Water Song (University Press of Virginia, 1985). In that same year he also won a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a fellowship
to the graduate creative writing program at Brown University. The fellowship was contingent on finishing his undergraduate degree, which he did at Excelsior College. Subsequent books include My Father's Geography (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992), Timber and Prayer (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995), Ten Lights of God (Bucknell University Press, 2000), Multitudes (Saraband Books, 2000), and the three books that form the Plum Flower Dance trilogy: Plum Flower Dance: Poems 1985-2005 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007), The Government of Nature (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013) which won the prestigious Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and City of Eternal Spring (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014). His two most recent publications are the chapbook A Hard Summation (Central Square Press, 2014), a cycle of thirteen poems about African-American history from the slavery to the current day, and the full length collection, Spirit Boxing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017), which centers on the years he spent working in factories. In 2002, he won a Fulbright scholarship, went to Taiwan, and taught at National Taiwan University and Taipei National University of the Arts. He currently teaches at Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts.
 
This week's featured poem is "A Nation of Hands," from his just published collection, Spirit Boxing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017). This poem begins as a descriptive list of actions undertaken by hands but takes a surprising turn toward the end. 
 
A NATION OF HANDSKneading dough on rough wooden tables, forwardand backward, in laundry tubs with scrubbing boards, sweat sifting down temples where hair lays sweetenedin curls, on the chests of arrested hearts, pushing down, praying the heart headed to the dust will stop and knowthe troubling grief it is about to summon, children's hands moving across blackboards to erase a day's studyand please the teachers, on sacred books above gesturessignifying which way to turn, parades of hopeful soulsheaded to righteousness in churches, temples, mosques, over the terrified mouths of men on decks of shipsoverwhelmed, about to founder full of fresh haddock, massaging the stiffened backs of our grandfathers, liftingmemories of our origins out of sheaths of muscle tissue, holding a frightened calf down to hush it to sleep, sucking back tears to think of tables it will feed, decidingin one last minute to let it go and eat vegetables instead, that mercy, or the mercy of walking in the full breezeof spring in Appalachia, your dress lifting under you, singing the surprise of love when it is full and bright, the applause held in suspended air when the dancesurprises, the music lifts to some impossible phrase, those mercies and the deep mercy of knowing handsare the openers of gates and clasped they are the keys.

Hound Dog and Abel Eakin -- Ring the Church Bell For Call To Meeting

This episode of Hound Dog and Abel Eakin is broadcast from Paris on the Potomac on Februrary 23rd, 2017 on EPIC Radio and has just enough nonsense to get you thru your first cup of coffee before having to swallow the live toad served up by the world each day for a working breakfast.

Fanny Crawford and Ellouise Schoettler share stories of women

This podcast of Storytelling wih Fanny Crawford was broadcast live on February 20, 2017 at EPIC Radio.

The Common Ground Festival, and Pipeline Struggles on Labor Beat

This podcast of the Labor Beat Program on EPIC Radio was recorded liveat EPIC studio in Shepherdstown, WV,  February 17, 2017 at 9 AM EST. Hosts JB Christensen and John Case talk first with Xavier Walter, an expert on energy efficiency and panelist at the Common Ground Expo at Shepherd University. and Joan Michelson, Green Connections Media, Washington, DC, who will be keynoting the Expo. Next, Larry Schultz, a personal injury and employment attorney, outlined legal  issues affecting public safety and property rights in connection with a proposed naturral gas pipeline into Berkeley and Jefferson Counties across the potomac river.

The Poetry Show on EPIC Radio -- Jan 30, 2017 -- Dame Carol Ann Duffy

Broadcast from EPIC Radio, Jan 30, 2017 from Shepherdstown, WV. The Poetry show airs 7:30 9:00 AM, Mondays.
 
 
Current poet laureate of the United Kingdom, Dame Carol Ann Duffy was born on December 23, 1955 in Glasgow, Scotland, the oldest of five children. The family moved to Stafford in the West Midlands of England when Duffy was six years old. When she was 16 years old, she met the poet and painter Adrian Henri, with whom she subsequently formed a more than decade long relationship. She attended the University of Liverpool, earning a degree in philosophy. At the time of her graduation in 1977, she has already published two poetry collections; however, she gained greater recognition when she won the National Poetry Competition in 1983. Her poetry collections for adults include Standing Female Nude (Anvil Poetry Press, 1985), Selling Manhattan (Anvil Poetry Press, 1987), The Other Country (Anvil Poetry Press, 1990), and The World's Wife (Anvil Poetry Press, 1999). Picador has recently brought out her Collected Poems (Picador, 1995), which includes these collections and four subsequent ones. She has also written seven collections of poetry for children, four plays, and edited numerous anthologies. Her work is enormously popular in the United Kingdom, and it has been reported that teenagers entering British universities to study English chose her poetry as second only to Shakespeare's. Appointed as poet laureate in 2009, she has set up new prizes, promoted festivals, and in general worked to increase the audience for and recognition of poetry and poets. For further information, she her website, www.carolannduffy.co.uk. 
 
Although it is a couple of weeks early, this week's featured poem is "Valentine," from Mean Time (Anvil Poetry Press, 1993), reprinted in her Collected Poems (Picador, 2015). This poem is an unconventional look at a gift for Valentine's Day, humorous, but with a bite. VALENTINENot a red rose or a satin heart.I give you an onion. It is a moon wrapped in brown paper. It promises lightlike the careful undressing of love. Here.It will blind you with tearslike a lover. It will make your reflectiona wobbling photo of grief. I am trying to be truthful. Not a cute card or a kissogram. I give you an onion. Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips, possessive and faithfulas we arefor as long as we are. Take it. Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring, if you like. Lethal. Its scent will cling to your fingers, cling to your knife.

EPIC Radio Interview with SAMMI BROWN, Jefferson County, WV, Jan 30

Sammi Brown, a young, multi-racial, dynamic activist and  a national and state leader of Young Democrats, interviews on EPIC Radio, broadcasting from Shepherdstown, West Virginia, Jan 30, 2017

Stewart Acuff's Inaugural RESISTANCE RADIO Show

Stewart Acuff, legendary organizer and labor writer, launches his own show on EPIC -- RESISTANCE RADIO.  This inaugural episode was broadcast on Jan 27 on EPIC Radio from Shepherdstown, WV, 11-12 Noon, EST. Stewart's guests include Rand Wilson, as leader of the Labor for Bernie campaign, and James Haslam - another legendary organizer from Vermont.