democracyroad

Enlighten Radio: July 24: Stas and I share living arrangements stories

The Poetry Show Podcast looks at Peggy Shumaker

This program was broadcast on EnlightenRadio.org, July 31, 2017 from Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Janet Harrison and John Case host.
 
Peggy Shumaker was born in La Mesa, California, but she grew up in Tucson, Arizona. Both her undergraduate degree (B.A. in English) and her M.F.A. in creative writing were earned at the University of Arizona. Before moving to Alaska, she was writer-in-residence for the Arizona Commission on the Arts. She is Professor emerita and former chair of the English Department and Director of the MFA program in creative writing at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Among her several collections of poetry are The Circle of Totems (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988), Wings Moist from the Other World (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994), Underground Rivers (Red Hen Press, 2002), Gnawed Bones (Red Hen Press, 2010), and, most recently, Toucan Nest: Poems of Costa Rica (Red Hen Press, 2013). Additionally, she has also published a memoir in lyric fragments, Just Breathe Normally (University of Nebraska Press, 2007) and a book length collaboration with artist Kesler Woodward, Blaze (Red Hen Press, 2005). In 2008, she founded Boreal Books to publish literature and fine art from Alaska. She has served as poet laureate of Alaska (2010-2012) and as President of the Board of Directors of the Associated Writing Programs. Persimmon Tree, a literary journal written by women over 60, recently announced that Shumaker will be taking over from Wendy Barker as poetry editor of the journal. She was chosen for a Fellowship in poetry  from the National Endowment for the Arts, as the Rasmuson Foundation's Distinguished Artist for 2014, and as the Artsmith Artist of the Year 2014. 
 
In an interview about Just Breathe Normally with Alberto Rios, she said, "We find our ways to transform—we transform what we cannot make better. And we transform it into art if we are lucky. We transform it into something tolerable if we are not so lucky." In another interview about Toucan Nest, she said, "When we pay mindful attention, the world amazes."
 
This week's featured poem is "Kus-sun-ar" from Gnawed Bones (Red Hen Press, 2010). The poem alludes to her recovery after a near fatal accident. 
 
KUS-SUN-AR
 
For an injured friend, 
he brings salmon fillets, fish
he caught dipnetting all night at Chitina.
Needle-nose pliers nipped out
all the invisible bones. 
 
Growing up at fish camp, he'd sneeze. 
Elders said, "Kus-sun-ar."
Otter. They invoked otter's name
to wish him close
to one who lives in more than one world. 
Shaman helper, on land, in water. 
 
He tells me otters live inside women, curled up
just above the stomach, 
and this feels true. I feel my otters, 
restless, disturbed. 
 
My hurt body can't rest yet, 
it was so close to the other world. 
 
I am an otter, skinned in the round, 
my pelt pulled off in one piece.
Stitched into a kit bag, 
I feel the shaman
feeding me salmon, 
placing his healing
into my emptiness. 
 
 
Writing prompt for the week: Think of a phrase or saying you heard as a child. Write a poem incorporating the phrase but also include a description of another scene that somehow resonates with the saying. You might even consider moving back and forth between the saying and the resonant scene or scenes. 

Winners and Losers: 7.28.17: skinny repeal, capito and mccain, death penalty, drug cartels and immigration. Clinton emails cause solar eclipse

This broadcast of the Winners and Losers Radio program was aired July 28, 2017. John Case and Mike Diesel host the Morning Zoo of Shepherdstown on diverse topics. Profiles in courage and cowardice are examined. Also: Union Edge looks at the connection between the drug trade and immigration policy. And -- a legacy excerpt for Best of the Left on the Death Penalty.
 
 

Winners and Losers Podcast 7.27.17: Case and Diesel Do a New Boy Scout Oath, DeathCare watch, and the Gettysburg address

This podcast of the Winners and Losers Radio Program was broadcast on EnlightenRadio.org July 27, 2017. John Case and Mike Diesel host a far-rangng discussion of a new Boy Scout Law and Oath in the wake of the so-called President's disgrace and disgust performance; also -- the meaning of Senator  Shelley Moore "I won't take away West Virginian's health care" Capito's vote YES on proceeding with a debate that could only end with making  that promise a lie. The Gettysburg Address tops it off.

Resistance Radio Podcast: Stewart and John on the Health Care battle, S.M Moore's capitulation, Resistance Poetry.

This podcast of Resistance Radio was broadcast July 26, 2017 on EnlightenRadio.org, hosted by Stewart Acuff and John Case

Richard Wolff on China, WV SOS on Trump Voter Info, Det Mike Queen on the Drug Wars

This podcast of the Winners and Losers Radio Program, on EnlightenRadio.org, was broadcast July 26, 2017 from Enlighten Radio Studio in Shepherdstown, WV. John Case and Gayle Becker host.  New School and socialist economics professor Richard Wolff discusses profits and China growth. West Virginia Secretary of State Communications Director Mike Queen discusses WV response to Trump request for confidential voter information. Detective Howard Wooldbridge of Law Enforcement Action Partnership discusses the many corruptions and unintended consequences of the war on drugs.

Living Arrangements -- Enlighten Story Hour July 24, 2017

Broadcast on Enlightenradio.org 7.24.17 in Shepherdstown, WV. Hosts Fanny Crawford and Stas Zielkowski

The Poetry Show -- Dan Albergotti -- July 24, 2017

Broadcast on EnlightenRadio.org July 24, 2017
 
Hosted by Janet Harrison and John Case
 
Dan Albergotti has a B.A. (1986) and M.A. (1988) in English from Clemson University in South Carolina. He went on to receive a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of South Carolina (1995). After teaching at the university level for a few years, he returned to school once more, this time to earn a M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (2002). Currently he is is a Professor and Chair of the Department of English at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina, where he also edits the online journal that he founded, Waccamaw. He is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Charon's Manifest and The Use of the World (Unicorn Press, 2013). Additionally, he has published two full length poetry collections: The Boatloads (BOA Editions, 2008), which was chosen by Edward Hirsch as the winner of the A. Poplin Jr. Poetry Prize, and Millennial Teeth (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014), which was chosen by Rodney Jones as the winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition. He has been published in Best New Poets, 2005, and in 2008, his poem "What They're Doing" was chosen for a Pushcart Prize. His other honors include a fellowship at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. 
 
 
In an interview published in storySouth, Daniel Cross Turner asked Albergotti what he thought the future of poetry was. Dan Albergotti replied, "More poetry. A series of heartbreaking disappointments and frustrating failures. Charlatans rewarded and geniuses dying unknown, their work forever lost. Despair, tears, syllables silent in the void. And the salvation of the human race." 
 
While his first book, The Boatloads, was written in free verse, his second collection contains many formal poems. This week's featured poem, "Is It Okay If We Don't Oscillate Tonight?" from Millennial Teeth (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014), is a sonnet composed entirely of questions. 
 
IS IT OKAY IF WE DON'T OSCILLATE TONIGHT? 
 
Is it okay if we don't oscillate
between self-forgiveness and self-loathing? 
Between the power to change things and fate? 
Between simple nakedness and clothing? 
 
Is it okay if the dull pendulum 
doesn't swing from one side to the other
tonight? If there's only a steady hum
and sleep and no thoughts of the dead mother? 
 
Could we escape self-scrutiny tonight
and find a tiny precipice of peace? 
Is that allowed? Could we shut out the light
and rest our face on our wife's shoulder, please? 
 
Could we, tonight, just listen to the weak, 
droning whir of the fan and not its creak?
 
 
Writing prompt of the week: Write a poem entirely composed of questions, including the title.