KRCB-FM: WordTemple: Recent Episodes
krcbproduction@gmail.com
WordTemple on KRCB features Northern California poet Katherine Hastings in discussion with poets and writers. The program showcases authors by presenting interviews and readings of their work, and exposes the KRCB community of listeners to a wide variety of voices and styles. Reconstructions highlighting the work of poets and writers posthumously will also be featured. From the Beats of San Francisco to Russia's Ratushinskaya, WordTemple will feature some of the most interesting work and stories in the world of literature.
More information at wordtemple.com
Katherine Hastings presents a recording of the book release party for this timely anthology. Recorded live at the WordTemple Poetry Series at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts in September 2017, over a dozen of the poets represented in the book read their work. Edited and published by Katherine (WordTemple Press), poets in the anthology include Devreaux Baker, Ellen Bass, Gillian Conoley, Sharon Doubiago, Camille T. Dungy, Annie Finch, Molly Fisk, Brenda Hillman, Jane Hirshfield, Lynne Knight, Mary Mackey, Jane Mead, Rusty Morrison, Melissa Stein, Laura Walker, Arisa White and many others, including several Sonoma County poets — Janine Canan, Sandy Eastoak, Terry Ehret, Kathleen Winter and more. Tune in and join the celebration of this terrific anthology of poetry written by women, but for everyone!
On today’s very special program, Hastings speaks with Cave Canem Fellow Cortney Lamar Charleston. His debut collection, Telepathologies, won the 2016 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize, selected by D.A. Powell. In 2017, Charleston was a recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. Lamar began writing and performing poetry as a member of The Excelano Project when he was an undergraduate studying economics and urban studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His poetry is described as a marriage between art and activism, and a call for a more involved and empathetic understanding of the diversity of the human experience. His academic background, coupled with his upbringing spent bouncing between Chicago’s South Side and its South and West suburbs influence his written work, grappling with race, masculinity, heteronormativity, class, family, faith and how identity is, functionally, a transition zone between all of these competing markers. Charleston’s poems have arrived at a time when we are reminded daily how important works like this are, as art, as a recording of history and as a call for change. From lyrics remixed from Kendrick Lamar and Tupak Shakur to Lucille Clifton and Barak Obama, from atrocities pulled from today’s news to what it means to grow up Black in America, these poems need to be read, must be heard, and then heard again.
“Cortney Lamar Charleston's poems testify in the eternal court of history; he speaks, as Aime Cesaire once did, "for miseries that have no mouth" and to liberate "those who languish in the dungeon of despair." Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner and nine slain members of Mother Emanuel AME Church―voices silenced through institutionalized racism and the unchecked power of hate―form the nucleus of this powerful indictment of an America still suffering the legacy of its slave-trading past. Timely, immediate, imperative; this is poetry from inside the center of the storm; an urgent and articulate call for change.” (D.A. Powell, judge of the 2016 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize)
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings airs a reading by Gregory W. Randall recorded at the WordTemple Poetry Series in June of 2017. Randall was celebrating the release of his first full-length collection of poetry, A Cartography of Selves. Susan Terris says “A Cartography of Selves is a series of complex, luminous poems. Some are in the voice of the poet, examining his many selves. Others are intimate views of the relationship of husband to wife, wife to husband, all told with a raw, loving, compelling urgency. There are also poems that delve into art, artists, music and nature, approaching these subjects with a similar sense of the transience of beauty.” Hastings says, “From the first poem in A Cartography of Selves where a young boy searches earnestly for the lunar Sea of Serenity as a place of refuge for himself and his mother, to poems where lovers discover each others bodies or “sit in lawn chairs in broad daylight/with shotguns and a case of beer,’ this collection offers a full palette of vulnerability, sensuality and surprise.”
Jodi Hottel sits with Hastings to discuss and read from her most recent collection, Voyeur, the result of her ongoing interest in poetry related to man other artistic forms, including literature and films. Marin County poet laureate emeritus, Joseph Zaccardi says “In Voyeur, a word that comes from the French meaning ‘one who views, one who sees’, (Hottel) composes her poems with a voraciousness of someone seeking to consume and somehow preserve every fiber of our senses; her poems are deftly crafted with a lyrical paintbrush of words like alabaster, bone who, and dry salt white ‘on a vast white canvas’, to touch and remind us of our shared human frailties and strengths.”
On today’s program WordTemple host Katherine Hastings revisits interviews and readings with three poets — John Hart, Fred Ostrander and Bob Hicok.
Poet and environmental journalist John Hart is the author of The Climbers (Pitt Poetry Series) and, most recently and to be included in a future program, Storm Camp. He is the winner of the James D. Phelan Award, the Commonwealth Club Medal in Californiana, and the David R. Brower Award for Service in the Field of Conservation. Editor of the literary magazine Blue Unicorn, Hart reads from his own work but also discusses his late father, Lawrence Hart, and the Lawrence Hart Seminars. Lawrence Hart taught a method of poetry writing he called Direct Sensory Reporting, a discipline any poet will find of interest.
Fred Ostrander was a highly respected poet and mountain climber, having conquered mountains in Nepal and Bhutan. He was the author of three collections, the most recent being It Lasts a Moment. His work reflects his concerns about the world, especially the environment. Ostrander died of a heart attack in 2016 and we’re pleased to have this reading recorded for WordTemple.
Bob Hicok is the author of many collections of poems, including The Legend of Light, winner of the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry; Plus Shipping; Animal Soul, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Insomnia Diary; This Clumsy Living; Words for Empty, Words for Full; Elegy Owed, also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Sex & Love. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, Hicok has taught creative writing at Western Michigan University and Virginia Tech.
Finally, Katherine Hastings announces a new anthology — Know Me Here — An Anthology of Poems by Women, which she edited and will present at the WordTemple Poetry Series on Saturday, September 23 at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts. Just some of the 43 poets in the anthology include Ellen Bass, Sharon Doubiago, Camille T. Dungy, Annie Finch, Jane Hirshfield, Danish Lamèris, Jane Mead and Kim Shuck. A number of Sonoma County poets are also represented, including Terry Ehret, Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Elizabeth Herron, Jodi Hottel, Julia Vose, and Kathleen Winter.
On July 1, 2017, English poet, actor, playwright, screenwriter, political activist and dramatist Heathcote Williams passed away. The author of several book-length polemical poems, including Whale Nation which has been called “the most powerful argument for the…worldwide ban on whaling;'” Sacred Elephant; Autogeddon; and Falling for a Dolphin, Williams invented his “documentary/investigative poetry” style to bring environmental and political issues to the attention of the public. He was also a magician, fire-eater and naturalist who discovered a new species of honey-producing wasp in the Amazon. If you haven’t heard of him, it may be because he eschewed publicity and public readings. Fortunately, you can hear Williams performing Whale Nation — host Katherine Hastings’ personal favorite of his works — this month on WordTemple.
Recorded live at the WordTemple Poetry Series, host Katherine Hastings presents Sonoma County poet laureate emeritus, Bill Vartnaw, John Shoptaw and devorah major.
Author of In Concern: for Angels and Suburbs of My Childhood, Sonoma County poet laureate emeritus Bill Vartnaw is also the publisher for Taurean Horn Press which has published Carol Sanchez, q.r. hand, jr., Kim Shuck and a dozen others. He was born and raised in Petaluma, CA and was an original member of the Bay Area Poets Coalition. Vartnaw has been a powerful and highly appreciated force in helping to plan and orchestrate the annual Petaluma Poetry Walk.
John Shoptaw was raised in the drained Mississippi River floodplain of the Missouri Bootheel, where he picked cotton, was baptized in a drainage ditch and worked in a lumber mill. He is the author of Times Beach, winner of the 2015 Notre Dame Book Prize and the 2016 Northern California Book Award in Poetry. He has also published a critical study, On the outside looking out: John Ashbery’s Poetry (Harvard UP 1996), and a libretto on Lincoln’s assassination for an opera by Eric Sawyer, Our American Cousin (BMOP Sound, 2008). He teaches poetry writing, ecopoetry, and Emily Dickinson in the English Department of the University of California at Berkeley. His essay “Why Ecopoetry?” was published in Poetry (September 2016).
devorah major celebrates her fifth collection of poetry, and then we became (City Lights, 2016). A California born, San Francisco raised, granddaughter of immigrants, documented and undocumented, major served as San Francisco’s Third Poet Laureate (2002-2006). She has two novels published, Brown Glass Windows and An Open Weave. In addition to her five poetry books and four poetry chapbooks, she has had two biographies for young adults, and a host of short stories, essays, and individual poems published in anthologies and periodicals. Among her awards is a First Novelist award from the Black caucaus of the ALA for An Open Weave and a PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award for her poetry book street smarts.
This month’s program features three poets — Terry Ehret, Erin Rodoni and Gillian Wegener — recorded live at the WordTemple Poetry Series.
Terry Ehret is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Night Sky Journey. Poet laureate emerita of Sonoma County, her poems have won several literary awards including the National Poetry Series, California Commonwealth Club Book Award, Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize and four Pushcart Prize nominations.
Erin Rodoni is an exciting new poet celebrating her first collection, Body, in Good Light. '“I walk toward you/barefoot,” writes Erin Rodoni, a poet who can speak with ease of private elegies and public journeys, of childbirth and of changing trains in Krakow"…Here is a book that journeys out into the world, and also inward, into the mysteries of private life of the body where “bliss, like a memory, can be unearthed by scent.”’ — Ilya Kaminsky
Finally, Gillian Wegener gives an entertaining and energetic reading from her second collection, In This Sweet Haphazard. Poet laureate emerita of Modesto, Wegener is an award-winning poet whose new book brings us from one astonishing place to another — the former Old Mill Cafe, Hurricane Katrina, forest fires, bulldozed almond fields, the redwoods of Humboldt County, and more.
In celebration of Women’s History month, today’s program features five iconic American women poets reading their own work: Gertrude Stein, H.D., Edna St. Vincent Millay, Louise Bogan and Muriel Rukeyser. With little to no interruption between poets, sit back and experience these historic recordings of our poetic ancestors. Each offered something new when they burst upon the scene and now, decades later, their work maintains its relevance. Listen to these poems as you would listen to music. How do they speak to you in 2017?
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings pays tribute to David Meltzer who died on December 31, 2016. Meltzer was, as Diane DiPrima put it, “one of the secret treasures on our planet. Great poet, musician, comic; mystic unsurpassed, performer with few peers.” On today’s program you’ll hear part of a reading Meltzer gave at the Beat Museum in San Francisco in February 2007 where, “Beats,” he said, “hang on the walls like wombats," an interview Hastings conducted with him at his home in March 2007, music performed by David with is late wife, Tina, and more. There is no better way to celebrate the gifts David Meltzer left the world than by listening to the man himself. Tune in and enjoy.
When I was a Poet
Everything was Possible
there wasn’t Anything
that wasn’t Poetry
— from “When I Was a Poet”, David Meltzer
Recorded live at the WordTemple Poetry Series in Sebastopol, three poets celebrate new collections — Sandra Angfang, Lee Slonimsky and Katherine Hastings. Introduced by Sonoma County Poet Laureate Iris Jamahl Dunkle.
Opening Poet Sandra Anfang is a prize-winning teacher, poet and visual artist. Her most recent collection is a chapbook from Finishing Line Press, Looking Glass Heart. Her poems have appeared in many journals including Poetalk; West Trestle Review; and Spillway, among others. Sandra is a California Poet/Teacher in the schools and the founder and host of the monthly poetry series, Rivertown Poets, in Petaluma, CA.
Lee Slonimsky’s new collection is Consulting With the Swifts — New and Selected Poems, 1982 — 2016. Many Sonoma County residents have been treated to his previous collections, including Pythagoras in Love (now translated into a French edition by Elizabeth Coleman); Talk Between Leaf and Skin; Money and Light; Red-Tailed Hawk on Wall Street; Logician of the Wind and Wandering Electron. Lee is also the author of a mystery, Bermuda Gold.
Visiting from New York’s Hudson Valley, Slonimsky is co-author with his wife, Carol Goodman, of an urban fantasy trilogy starting with the riveting Black Swan Rising. His poems have appeared in numerous places, including The New York Times; Best of Asheville Poetry Review and The Carolina Quarterly, and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize seven times. When he’s not walking and writing poems in the process, Slonimsky is the manager of a hedge fund, Ocean Partners, LP, and of its humane/vegan side pocket, Green Hills Partners LP.
“The best poems here, and they are many, all reclaim a moment from the clamor of the world; and each such poem in turn presents the attentive reader with a like moment of refuge…Like Monet with his haystacks or cathedrals, Slonimsky achieves repetition and variation without monotony…The poems invite us to focus, to traingulate, to seek out correspondences. Writing these poems helped Slonimsky to do these things; reading them helps us.” — Rachel Hadas
Sonoma County poet laureate emerita, radio host of WordTemple on NPR affiliate KRCB FM, and founder and host of the WordTemple Poetry Series, Katherine Hastings celebrates her third collection of poetry, Shakespeare & Stein Walk Into a Bar (Spuyten Duyvil, NYC, August 2016). Previous books include Cloud Fire; and Nighthawks.
Shakespeare and Stein Walk into a Bar is animated by the two most rewarding and replenishing of poetic forces: dexterous formal diversity and a fierce, unflinching searching. “Where to go from here?” the book begins, lifting us through “the world we’ve left to ourselves” and singing us at last to the still point where “We, too, dissolve” with “all of it finding its way — somewhere.” Shakespeare and Stein Walk into a Bar is more than a collection of poems; it is a quest fulfilled by destination. —Malachi Black, author of Storm Towards Morning.
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings carries on an annual December tradition. Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, we can always celebrate the great Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, reading his short story, A Child’s Christmas in Wales. Following Thomas, Hastings interviews Marin County poet Terry Lucas. Lucas reads from his first full-length collection, In This Room, talks about his press, Trio House, and his upcoming book Dharma Rain.
“There’s a dark and pungent biography half-hidden in these lines. There’s a boy who came to spend half a lifetime in fumbling foreplay with God, a clothing store clerk on Black Friday ushering you into the maw of America, … a man smitten with the geography of California…At the center of In This Room is a breath-taking sequence of poems, ‘The Gate,’ honoring the Golden Gate Bridge. At its rounding curve is a hilarious account of neighbors having a fight. Imagine the ghosts of Hart Crane and Larry Levis welcoming Terry Lucas to their fraternity.” — Alicia Ostriker
Katherine Hastings airs a reading by Susan Kelly-DeWitt given at Readers Books in Sonoma in October 2016. DeWitt is the author of ten collections of poetry, including her latest Spider Season. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow, her work has appeared widely in journals and anthologies, and has been featured on Ted Kooser´s American Life in Poetry. Jane Mead says ¨The poems in Spider Season reflect our human desire to weave the inner and outer worlds into an ordered pattern: like the spider´s web, these poems are delicate, made of strong filament, and vulnerable - impermanence proves to be a force as strong as the desire for order. This book beautifully renders the process, rewards and disappointments of this universal struggle.¨
Following DeWitt, Hastings airs an interview from 2011 she conducted with the late poet and activist Francisco X. Alarcòn. Although he died in January 2016, Alarcòn's work remains extremely relevant today. This is a segment not to be missed. His collections of poetry, some for adults, some for children, include Sonnets to Madness and Other Misfortunes; Snake Poems: An Aztec Invocation (winner of the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation); From the Other Side of Night/Del otro lado de la noche: New and Selected Poems; Ce Uno One: Poems for the New Sun; Borderless Butterflies: Earth Haikus and Other Poems; Laughing Tomatoes: And Other Spring Poems; and Canto condo/Deep Song, among others. His work portrays Latino and gay identity, the Nahuatl language, Mesoamerican history, mythology and American culture. He received the 1984 Chicano Literary Prize, the 1993 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and a Fred Cody Lifetime Achievement Award from the Bay Area Book Reviewers Association in 2002. In addition, he served as director of the Spanish for Native Speakers Program at the University of California at Davis, and taught for the Art of the Wild workshop and the California Poets in the Schools program. Juan Felipe Herrera called Alarcòn the "dark hummingbird, alone still and yet in motion in the arc of time."
Hastings also includes two pieces of music from Herbie Hancock's The Imagine Project.
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings presents a poetry party! On this program you’ll hear a wide variety of poets reading their work, music written by poets, poets reading with music and much more. Included are Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure with Ray Manzarek, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, June Jordan, Louise Bogan, H.D., Al Young, Gertrude Stein, Jake Berry, Sonoma County poet Gwynn O’Gara, the WordWind Chorus and much, much more! Where else in the North Bay are you going to hear poetry and music like this on the radio. Celebrate poetry and celebrate KRCB by tuning in for this very special program.
Host Katherine Hastings airs a recording from her WordTemple Poetry Series featuring Ada Limòn, Greg Mahrer, and Julia Vose.
Ada Limón is the author of four books of poetry, including Bright Dead Things, which was named a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in Poetry and one of the Top Ten Poetry Books of the Year by The New York Times. Her other books include Lucky Wreck, This Big Fake World, and Sharks in the Rivers. She serves on the faculty of Queens University of Charlotte Low Residency M.F.A program, and the 24Pearl Street online program for the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. She also works as a freelance writer splitting her time between Lexington, Kentucky and Sonoma, California.
“The lyrical genius of these poems sings to us of the perennial theme of home and our primordial ache of belonging. Ada Limòn captures all the nuances that these colossal words call to mind with the gorgeous voice of her diction, and the timbre of her images. Both soft and tender, enormous and resounding, her poetic gestures entrance and transfix.”
— Richard Blanco, 2013 Presidential Inaugural Poet
Sonoma County poet Gregory Mahrer reads from his first collection, A Provisional Map of the Lost Continent (Fordham University Press), winner of the Poets Out Loud prize. His work has been published in The New England Review, The Indiana Review, Green Mountains Review, Volt, Colorado Review, Haden’s Ferry Review and elsewhere, as well as the web sites Poetry Daily and Verse Daily. Several of his poems have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. In 2014 one of those poems, “Refrain,” received a Pushcart Special Mention. WordTemple is very pleased to host the Sonoma County release of this fine book. Come support your local poet!
“Let me say quite simply that Gregory Mahrer is the most dazzling poetic cartographer since Italo Calvino and Raymond Roussel, and Mahrer’s exquisite explorations of the imagination carry with them the same remarkable riches and glorious thirsts that we find in those great writers. Conceptually brilliant and relentlessly inventive, Greg Mahrer teaches us the many ways every map is made of language, and that geology, geography, and history must all be understood as deeply human psalms. In this astonishing new collection, there is only one direction left to the poet— beyond the page’s horizon.” — David St. John
Sonoma County poet Julia Vose opens the program. Author of Moved Out on the Inside (The Figures Press), Vose is the winner of an Academy of American Poet’s Prize. Her poems have appeared in Deep Down (Farrar Strauss and Giroux); This is Women’s Work (Panjandrm); Changing Harm to Harmony: Bullies & Bystanders Project (Joseph Zaccardi, editor); Digging Our Poetic Roots — Poems from Sonoma County(Katherine Hastings, editor); American Poetry Review; and Marin Poetry Center anthologies. Vose has taught and/or consulted poetry writing at San Francisco State University and UC Exension, as a Writer-In_Residence at Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco, and with California Poets in the Schools.
Heathcote Williams is an English poet, actor, dramatist, screenwriter. He has also written song lyrics, including a collaboration with Marianne Faithful. He has authored several book-length collections that are “documentary/investigative” poetry, including Autogeddon; Falling for a Dolphin; Whale Nation — one of the most powerful arguments for a worldwide ban on whaling — and the focus of today’s program, Sacred Elephant.
The work begins “The shape of an African elephant’s ear is the shape of Africa. The shape of an Indian elephant’s ear is the shape of India.” Sacred Elephant moves us through the life of elephants in their natural habitats without saving us from the horrors of their lives in captivity. As he did in Whale Nation, Williams underscores the poem with classical music.
WordTemple opens with a short tribute to East Bay poet and arts activist, Adelle Foley. Adelle, who passed away on June 27, 2016, was the author of Along the Bloodline, a collection of haiku praised by beat poet Michael McClure and California State Poet Laureate Dana Gioia. A second collection of her haiku is forthcoming. She served on the board of Poetry Flash for many years, as well as PEN Oakland. Married to poet, critic and radio personality Jack Foley, Adelle often performed her poetry with her husband — the duo creating lively, memorable evenings of poetry throughout Northern California and beyond. This tribute was created as a “last minute” homage; Hastings hopes to air more of Adelle Foley’s work in the future.
It’s not that I write
Because of what I see. I
See because I write.
— Adelle Foley
Following this tribute, host Katherine Hastings speaks with Lucille Lang Day, author of ten collections of poetry, including Self-Portrait with Hand Microscope (winner of a Joseph Henry Jackson Award in Literature); The Curvature of Blue; The Book of Answers; Infinities and her most recent book Becoming an Ancestor. Autobiography, ancestry, surprise, science, myths and the natural world are just some of the elements that make up this lovely new book. Included are deeply moving poems written during and after the death of her daughter, Liana, at the age of 50.
“Following centuries of fateful migrations, Lucille Lang Day becomes the California teller of tales that wow us with her own intimate versions of how need, time and again, restores our lives to living streams of love.” — Al Young, California Poet Laureate Emeritus.
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings presents a reading by Sonoma County poet Gregory W. Randall. Randall is the author of Double Happiness, winner of the fifth annual Camber Press Chapbook Award, selected by Mark Doty. Previous poetry collections include Blue Water Views; Uncommon Refrains; and A Room in the Country. From the cover of Double Happiness: Double Happiness is a tale of myth making and transformations. Modeled on the song cycles of Schubert and Schumann in which each song/poem unveils a new aspect of narrative and dimension of character, this sequence of eighteen poems chronicles episodes in the lives of two unnamed lovers…As life together unfolds, the lovers begin morphing from flowering trees to migratory cranes, even snakes eternally entwined in each other’s coils as they seek to move beyond a language of impermanence toward a desired immutability.”
Also, Hastings talks with local playwright, poet and novelist David Beckman about his upcoming play The Plot Against Shakespeare, to be staged this August at Shakespeare in the Cannery in Santa Rosa. You don’t want to miss this preview! Beckman studied playwriting at New York’s Circle in the Square Theater and, as an actor, toured with the National Shakespeare Company. The 6th Street Playhouse produced his full-length play Becoming Walt Whitman (which had previously been produced at Powerhouse Theatre in Santa Monica) to stellar reviews in 2010. His short plays have been produced in New York, Santa Cruz, Dallas, Santa Rosa and Monte Rio.
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings airs a special event held at the WordTemple Poetry Series on March 26, 2016 celebrating our new California State Poet Laureate, Dana Gioia. Gioia is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning poet and critic. Former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, he is the author of four full-length collections of poetry, as well as eight chapbooks. As Chairman of the NEA, Gioia succeeded in garnering enthusiastic bi-partisan support in the United States Congress for the mission of the Arts Endowment, as well as in strengthening the national consensus in favor of public funding for the arts and arts education (Business Week Magazine referred to him as “The Man Who Saved the NEA”). Gioia’s most recent collection, 99 Poems: New & Selected (Graywolf), was named one of the “Best poetry books” by the Washington Post in February 2016.
Joining the celebration are Arthur Timpe, a junior at El Molino High School and Sarah Condello, a sophmore at Analy High School, who recite poems learned for the Poetry Out Loud contest, and Daniel Redman who sings original musical settings for poems from Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.”
This month’s program features a conversation with Joseph Zaccardi, Marin County poet laureate emeritus and author of four collections of poetry, including Vents; Render; The Nine Gradations of Light; and, most recently, A Wolf Stands Alone in Water. “What is found here, to paraphrase William Carlos Williams, is an uncensored exploration of the human heart. Neither flinching from evil nor denying glimpses of the divine, Joseph Zaccardi guides the reader through visceral encounters with evils announced daily in the headlines (and even darker evils hidden from newsprint and camera) to acknowledge, ‘In everything that holds light, there is room for darkness.’” Yvonne Postelle
Following the interview with Zaccardi, Katherine Hastings brings us a reading by Jane Mead, recorded at the WordTemple Poetry Series in January 2016. Mead reads from her latest collection (her fourth), Money Money Money / Water Water Water. “A tough, wise, and beautiful book about the human destruction of the earth and everything trying to live here: ‘the poisoned planet poisoning.’ All this brilliant poet’s knowledge and experience have been gathered into the fiercae, grieving book, laid at the feet of our global kingdom and powers: ‘How much can you subtract now/How much and still get by.’” — Jean Valentine
Money, Money, Money/Water Water Water addresses not only the economic politics of water, but also the economic politics of investing in your own life. It’s costly, and this book counts the ways. It’s a book of ecooetics in an unusually large send — and one that contributes completely to the genre’s commitment to the political — but it also marks a structural advance in lyric poetry…” Cole Swensen
Mead is the recipient of grants and awards from the Whiting, Guggenheim and Lannan Foundations. She lives in Northern California where she grows zinfandel and cabernet sauvignon wine grapes on the property her grandfather purchased in the early 1900s. She teaches in the Drew University low-residency MFA program in Poetry and Poetry in Translation.
Host: Kathrine Hastings
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings interviews poet, performer, nonfiction writer and verse playwright Annie Finch, visiting from her home in Maine. Her most recent collection of poems, Spells, brings together poems written over a span of 40 years and reflects her passion for poetic craft, from lyrics to chants and more. Joy Harjo says “Annie Finch’s poetry is a pure tone that calls us home to the first impulse of poetry. We link to mystery. We lift off.” Molly Peacock adds “One of the most dexterous formal poets writing in the United States today, Annie Finch is at ease in a dazzling variety of prosodic modes, from the very short lyric to the sonnet to myriad metrical constructions in stanzaic forms…All of her considerable talents are on display in Spells.”
Also, Hastings speaks with Tamam Kahn, author of Untold — A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad. Untold demystifies the most influential women present at the dawn of Islam and introduces us to Muhammad’s wives, among them a successful merchant, the leader of an army, two Jewish war captives, and a Coptic Christian diplomat. “Swimming amid ‘the names of God,’ Tamam Kahn has written a brilliant and illuminating book, equally awesome in the depth of its research, the grace of its prose, and the beauty of its poetic voices Untold should be read with joy by any reader who hopes to transcend current stereotypes about Islam. It is a bridge between worlds.” — Alicia Ostriker
This month’s program features Sonoma County Poet Laureate Iris Jamahl Dunkle. In the first part of the program, host Katherine Hastings interviews Dunkle about her many-faceted poet laureate project and her connection to Jack London.
The second part of the program features a reading given by Dunkle from her latest collection, There’s a Ghost in This Machine of Air, at the WordTemple Poetry Series in January 2016.
Also: A short tribute to Francisco X. Alarcòn, who left us far too soon.
All this and more on WordTemple!
Host: Katherine Hastings
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings airs a live reading from the WordTemple Poetry Series featuring: Stephen Kessler reading from his translation Forbidden Pleasures — New & Selected Poems of Luis Cernuda, one of the great Spanish poets of the Generation of ’27; Devereaux Baker reading from her latest award-winning collection out of the bones of the earth; and Michelle Wing, author of Body on the Wall. This was a stunning evening of poetry, and now you can listen in right here on KRCB!
For more information go to www.wordtemple.com
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings airs Part 2 of the kick-off reading for Digging Our Poetic Roots — Poems from Sonoma County, the anthology that is the culmination of her poet laureate project. Tune in to hear more local poets read from this beautiful book. Also, light the fire, put up your feet and enjoy Dylan Thomas reading his iconic short story, A Child’s Christmas in Wales. This and more on WordTemple!
Digging Our Poetic Roots — Poems From Sonoma County — Part One
Recorded live at the WordTemple Poetry Series, Katherine Hastings airs readings from the release event of her poet laureate project, the anthology Digging Our Poetic Roots — Poems from Sonoma County. During this hour, you’ll hear many of the poets read their work from that book. Part Two to be aired at a later date.
Michael Palmer. Paul Hoover with the poetry of Maria Baranda.
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings airs an evening recorded at the WordTemple Poetry Series with Michael Palmer, Paul Hoover and the poetry of Maria Baranda.
Michael Palmer is the author of many collections, including Madman With Broom (Selected poems with Chinese translations by Yunte Huang, Oxford University Press, 2011); Thread (New Directions, 2011); and Company of Moths (New Directions, 2005), which was shortlisted for the Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize; Codes Appearing: Poems 1979 — 1988; The Promises of Glass; The Lion Bridge: Selected Poems 1972 — 1995 and his most recent collection, The Laughter of the Sphinx (New Directions, 2015).
Palmer is also the author of a prose work, The Danish Notebook. He has translated work from French, Russian and Portuguese, and has taken part in collaborations with painters and dancers, including work with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. He edited and contributed translations to Nothing The Sun Could Not Explain: Twenty Contemporary Brazilian Poets (Sun & Moon Press). Palmer's honors include two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writer's Award, a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, the Shelley Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of America, the Arts and Letters Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Wallace Stevens Award. His work has been translated into over thirty languages.
Paul Hoover is the author of over a dozen collections of poetry, including Totem and Shadow: New & Selected Poems; Edge and Fold; and Sonnet 56. He translated the poems of Friedrich Holderlin with Maxine Chernoff and, with Nguyen Do, translated Black Dog, Black Night: Contemporary Vietnamese Poetry and Beyond the Court Gate: Selected Poems of Nguyen Trai.
Last year, he won the PEN/America Translation Fund award from a field of 120 applicants for his translation of Nightmare Running on a Meadow of Absolute Light by Marìa Baranda. Tonight we celebrate that work. PEN/America says "One of Mexico's leading poets of the generation born in the 1960s and a powerful presence in all of Latin American poetry, Baranda is best known for her sweeping and incisive long poems. Her cry is resoundingly of sea, sponge, ant, and prayer, as related in rapture. Hoover deftly captures the drama of her cadences in Spanish."
Baranda was bon in Mexico City in 1962 and is the author of The Garden of Enchantment; Fiction of Heaven; and Arcadia, among others. She has won several literary awards and now, for the first time, we can enjoy some of her poems thanks to Hoover.
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings interviews several writers whose work appears in the anthology Cry of the Nightbird — Writers of Domestic Violence, including one of three editors, Michelle Wing. Hastings will also read the introduction written by Sonoma County Supervisor Shirley Zane. The anthology, which contains the work of 38 writers speaking out in prose and poetry, is an outgrowth of YWCA Sonoma County’s mission to end domestic violence in the county through awareness, education, and empowerment. Michelle Wing is an author, poet, and creator of the Changing Hurt to Hope Writers’ Series at the YWCA and edited the anthology along with Ann Hutchinson and Kate Farrell.
“By reading and thoughtfully considering the contributions of the writers featured in these pages, you join the ranks of those who recognize the devastating effects of domestic violence. More importantly, you help to begin a much needed healing in our community where one in our families are affected.” — Madeleine Keegan O’Connell, Chief Executive Officer, YWCA Sonoma County.
Michelle will also read from her collection of poems Body On the Wall published by Saddle Road Press in Hawaii. “These poems are like swallowed charcoal, purifying the toxins they’ve ingested. Brave, bracing, tender and true.” — Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint It Black.
Recorded live at the WordTemple Poetry Series, Katherine Hastings presents three poets. Malachi Black reads from Storm Toward Morning (Copper Canyon Press); Robert Thomas reads from his poetic novel Bridge (BOA Editions), and Sonoma County poet and wildlife biologist Maya Khosla, author of Keel Bone, reads new work.
This was an incredible evening at WordTemple not to be missed!
More information at wordtemple.com
Katherine Hastings takes a short break from poetry this month to present JOYCE CAROL OATES reading from her latest novel, The Sacrifice, a fictional account of the 1987 Tawana Brawley case. From the back cover of The Sacrifice: "When a fourteen-year-old girl is the alleged victim of a terrible act of racial violence, the incident shocks and galvanizes her community, exacerbating the racial tension that has been simmering in this New Jersey town for decades…A chilling exploration of complex social, political, and moral themes…The Sacrifice, is a major work of fiction from one of our most revered literary masters." Recorded live at Copperfield’s Books, Santa Rosa.
More information at wordtemple.com
April is National Poetry Month and WordTemple host Katherine Hastings will celebrate by airing a good number of poets reading or performing their work. Included in the line-up are Adrienne Rich, Tomas Transformer, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Michael McClure with Ray Manzarek. All this, and more, on WordTemple!
More information at wordtemple.com
This month's program features San Francisco poet and novelist Joan Gelfand reading from her most recent collection The Long Blue Room (Benicia Literary Arts, 2014.) “Gelfand floats you through the Russian River Watershed and onto streets of San Francisco with what feels like sleight of hand to the page.” — Doug Johnson.
Also featured is a recording with New Orleans born poet, Gordon Walmsley who was visiting Sonoma County from his home in Copenhagen. Walmsley reads from his novel Daisy: The Alchemical Adventures of a New Orleans Hermaphrodite and his three collections of poetry, including Echoes of a River — Poems of New Orleans and Beyond (Salmon Poetry, 2011).
More information at wordtemple.com
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings leaves poetry behind for one program to air a riveting portion of a panel discussion on sit-ins attended by James Baldwin, Malxolm X and LaVerne Cummings on April 25, 1961. After Malcolm X states his objections to sit-ins, saying there is nothing honorable about the word “sit,” Baldwin insists on redefining “manhood” and moving away from the concept of men as “warriors.” “Football players,” he says, “are not men.” Although some ideas and terms are outdated, much of this discussion remains relevant today.
More information at wordtemple.com
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings pays a special visit with Marin County Poet Laureate Emeritus Joseph Zaccardi. Zaccardi, a Vietnam War veteran with many interesting stories to tell through his powerful poetry, is the author of three books — Vents; Render; and The Nine Gradations of Light. Also, Hastings and Zaccardi discuss his poet laureate project and the anthology that resulted from it, Changing Harm to Harmony Bullies & Bystanders Project. This important book collects poems, letters and other writings on the subject of bullying from students and writers all over the country. “Here there is an opportunity for those involved to confront the experience in a way that is ultimately healing.” — Richard Cruwys Brown.
Finally, as a tribute to the 60th anniversary of Allen Ginsberg reading his famous poem, “Howl,” at the Six Gallery in San Francisco, Lawrence Ferlinghetti performs his moving poem “Allen Ginsberg is Dying.”
More information at wordtemple.com
On tonight’s program, host Katherine Hastings includes a short tribute to Mark Strand, U.S. Poet Laureate emeritus and Pulitzer Prize winner who passed away in November; Dylan Thomas reading his classic short story A Child’s Christmas in Wales; an interview with giovanni singleton and, finally, a poem read by Kenneth Rexroth. All of this and more on WordTemple!
More information at wordtemple.com
In October 2014, America lost two major poets: Galway Kinnell, who died from leukemia, and Carolyn Kizer who resided in Sonoma, CA and passed from age-related dementia. On tonight’s program, Katherine Hastings will feature the contributions of these two Pulitzer Prize in Poetry winners and share a number of their poems including “The Deconstruction of Emily Dickinson” and an excerpt from “Vapor Trail Reflected in a Frog Pond” by Kinnell, and “Pro Femina” by Kizer, among others.
More information at wordtemple.com
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings speaks with Mary Mackey who is celebrating her seventh collection of poems, Travelers With No Ticket Home (Marsh Hawk Press 2014) and Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet, author of The Greenhouse (Bull City Press, 2014), winner of the Robert Frost Place Chapbook Competition.
More information at wordtemple.com
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings talks with Beverly Burch about her most recent book, How a Mirage Works. Burch's first book of poetry, Sweet to Burn, won the Gival Poetry Prize and a Lambda Literary Award.
Next, Hastings interviews New York poet Lee Slonimsky who is celebrating his fifth collection of poetry, Wandering Electron. A frequent visitor to Sonoma County, Slonimsky's previous books include Talk Between Leaf and Skin; Logician of the Wind and others.
More information at wordtemple.com
Recorded live at the WordTemple Poetry Series in May 2014, host Katherine Hastings presents Miriam Bird Greenberg reading from the winner of the Sixteen Rivers Press Poets-Under-Forty contest, All night in the new country. Following Greeenberg, Ellen Bass reads from her third collection of poetry, Like a Beggar, published by Copper Canyon Press.
More information at wordtemple.com
During the month when America celebrates its independence, Katherine Hastings celebrates one of America's most famous poets, Walt Whitman. You'll hear a wide selection of poems from Leaves of Grass as well as some music inspired by Whitman's poetry. Born on Long Island, New York in 1819, Whitman was a major innovative voice in world literature, creating a new kind of poetry that confused the majority of the literary world at the time but remains unsurpassed in its passion and scope. Ralph Waldo Emerson called the first edition of Leaves of Grass "... the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom America has yet contributed." And it still remains "as contemporary as tomorrow."
More information at wordtemple.com
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings has a full line up today beginning with Patti Trimble performing two cuts from her CD In the Middle of the Night of the Road of My Life I Found Myself In a Tangled Wood. Hastings also talks with Todd Melicker, author of rendezvous, plays three poems read by Bruce Snider, author of Paradise Indiana, and pays tribute to the late Dr. Maya Angelou.
More information at wordtemple.com
Robert Sward, author of 30 books, reads from his latest collection New and Selected Poems 1957 — 2011. Recorded live at the WordTemple Poetry Series. Following Sward, Roy Mash reads from his first collection Buyer's Remorse — a "celebration of the small, the overlooked, the underrated," also recorded live at the WordTemple Poetry Series. Following Sward and Mash, WordTemple host Katherine Hastings plays three women poets. Do you know who they are?
In the fall of 2013, host Katherine Hastings arranged to visit Pulitzer Prize winning poet Carolyn Kizer, who is no longer appearing in public. She brought with her award-winning poet Annie Finch and Joyce Jenkins of Poetry Flash. It was a deeply moving and somewhat historical meeting of the four women. Tonight, Hastings reads an essay that Finch wrote about that visit and published with the Poetry Foundation. Following the essay, Pennsylvania poet Philip Terman reads from The Torah Garden and Rabbis in the Air.
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings opens the program with a reading by Pulitzer Prize in Poetry winner Carolyn Kizer that took place on International Women's Day, March 8, in 2007 at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts. Since Kizer is no longer giving public readings, this is a wonderful opportunity to hear one of America's most important contemporary poets. Following Kizer, award-winning poet Annie Finch, the author of six books of poetry, reads from her collection Calendars. Finally, Katherine Hastings reminds listeners that they are invited to participate in Digging Our Poetic Roots, her poet laureate project culminating in an anthology of Sonoma County poets.
WordTemple host and newly appointed Poet Laureate of Sonoma County Katherine Hastings introduces her poet laureate project, Digging Our Poetic Roots, and invites you to join in on the fun by reading and responding to poems she'll send out. Tonight, Hastings plays a "poetry party" segment that includes different styles of poetry — Robert Duncan, Carolyn Kizer, Anne Sexton and many more — and ends the program with an interview and reading by Nickole Brown, author of Fanny Says (forthcoming, BOA Editions).
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings airs a recording of a WordTemple Poetry Series event with Swedish poet KJELL ESPMARK and DANA GIOIA. These readings were major highlights of the 2013 WordTemple season.
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings, in a short tribute to Nelson Mandela, plays "Bring Back Nelson Mandela" from the Musical Sarafina. Following the tribute is a reading by T.S. Eliot, and then Dylan Thomas reads his beloved short story, "A Child's Christmas in Wales."
This week WordTemple host Katherine Hastings presents readings by Annie Finch and Kazim Ali.
Poet, writer, and performer Annie Finch has published more than twenty books and chapbooks of poetry and poetics. Tonight she will read from her most recent collection, Spells - New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press 2013) and Calendars (Tupelo Press).
Next, Hastings talks with the poet, essayist, fiction writer and translator Kazim Ali, who will read from his fourth and most recent collection of poems, Sky Ward (Wesleyan University Press 2013).
Katherine Hastings airs two readings recorded in Boston earlier this year.
Sydney Lea, Poet Laureate of Vermont and founder of New England Review, reads from his tenth collection of poetry, I Was Thinking of Beauty (Four Way Books, 2013). A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for his collection Pursuit of a Wound, Lea lives in Vermont and is active both in literacy efforts and conservation.
Mark Irwin reads from his most recent collection Large White House (New Issues, 2013). The author of six other collections, Irwin is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship, the James Wright Poetry Award and fellowships from the Fulbright, Lilly, and Wurlitzer Foundations. He lives in Colorado, and Los Angeles, where he teaches in the Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature Program at the University of Southern California.
Katherine Hastings pays tribute to the poet F.D. Reeve who passed away this summer (June 28) by airing an interview with him and playing a number of cuts from his poetry/jazz CD The Blue Cat Walks the Earth. Reeve was a much celebrated and award-winning poet, fiction writer, non-fiction writer, critic, father of the late actor Christopher Reeve, and translator — he even accompanied Robert Frost to Russia for his meeting with Nikita Kruschev in 1962. This, and more, on WordTemple!
Poet, professor and poet-in-residence at Sonoma State University, Gillian Conoley covers a host of interesting topics with Katherine Hastings and reads from her newest collection, Peace, including a poem dedicated to Gabrielle Giffords taking phrases from President Obama's memorial speech and phrases repeated on news radio. Following Conoley, Hastings play a portion of an earlier program with Paul Hoover reading from Sonnet 56.
Host Katherine Hastings interviews Dr. Bonnie Bergin, founder of Bergin University for Canine Studies, and two veterans who are the first instructors for the new Dogs Helping Veterans program at Bergin, Steve Moore and Daniel Fudge. Tune in to learn how this new program is helping our veterans of war suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder live fuller, healthier lives by working with service dogs.
Also - recorded live at the WordTemple Poetry Series, Iraq war veteran turned poet Hugh Martin reads from his award-winning book of poems The Stick Soldiers. Martin served six years as an M1A1 Tanker, participating in hundreds of missions including raids, conducting foot patrols, clearing routes for IEDS, disposing of unexploded ordinance and searching thousands of Iraqi vehicles. A graduate at Arizona State University, Martinis a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.
Recorded live at the WordTemple Poetry Series in February of this year, WordTemple host and series curator Katherine Hastings airs the performances of Kevin Simmonds and Mary Mackey.
Simmonds - poet, musician, filmmaker, writer - is the editor of Ota Benga Under My Mother’s Roof, a collection of narrative poems by Carrie Allen McCray. Ota Benga, “a strong yet gentle man from the deep Congo forest,” was brought to America in 1904 to be exhibited in the St. Louis Fair and then in 1906 at the Museum of Natural History. Finally, he was exhibited in a cage with an ape at the Bronx Zoo. On this program, you will hear about Ota Benga’s life and how he came to live with the poet’s family in Lynchburg, Virginia. You will hear not just the powerful poetry of Carrie Allen McCray, but songs composed and sung by Kevin Simmonds, and more.
Mackey reads from her latest collection, Sugar Zone, winner of the 2012 PEN-Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature. The culmination of many trips to Brazil, the poems in Sugar Zone are works of the jungle, the Amazon and more. Combining Portuguese and English, she creates poems that use Portuguese as incantation to invoke the lyrical space that lies at the conjunction between these two languages.
More information at wordtemple.com
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings presents an evening of poetry recorded while in Boston. Elizabeth Bradfield and Camille Dungy give separate readings and then talk together, responding to each other's work.
Elizabeth Bradfield is the author of Interpretive Work, which won the Audre Lorde Award and Approaching Ice, a book of poems about Arctic and Antarctic exploration that was a finalist for the James Laughlin Award from the American Academy of Poets. She has been awarded fellowships and scholarships from Stanford University's Wallace Stegner Fellowship program, the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference and the Vermont Studio Center. A naturalist who lives on Cape Cod, Bradfield spends time on expedition ships around the world. For 2012-2014, she is the Jacob Ziskind Visiting Poet-in-Residence at Brandeis University.
Camille Dungy is the author of Smith Blue, winner of the Crab Orchard Open Book Prize; Suck on the Marrow; and What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison. She is the editor of Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry; co-editor of From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems That Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great; and assistant editor of Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem's First Decade. A two-time recipient of the Northern California Book Award and a two-time NAACP Image Award nominee, Dungy has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, Caven Canem, the Dana Award, and Bread Loaf.
In the first of several shows recorded in New York and Boston, WordTemple host Katherine Hastings introduces KRCB-FM listeners to Pui Ying Wong and Tim Suermondt.
Wong, whose poetry has appeared in a wide variety of noted journals, is from Hong Kong and the author of the honest and moving book of poems Yellow Plum Season. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband Tim Suermondt.
Suermondt's poetry has also appeared in several renowned literary reviews. His latest published collection, Just Beautiful, is warm-hearted and funny.
Word Temple host Katherine Hastings welcomes Grace Marie Grafton, who reads from her collection Whimsy, Reticence & Laud: Unruly Sonnets.
Also joining Hastings is poet Lee Slonimsky, author of four collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Logician of the Wind. Slonimsky lives in New York but visits Sonoma County frequently where he gives readings and teaches poetry workshops.
Finally, in honor of th this month's Big Read Sonoma County, host Katherine Hastings will air a number of poems written by Emily Dickinson.
On this WordTemple show, host Katherine Hastings presents widely published poet Arisa White, author of Hurrah's Nest, her debut collection recently nominated for a 44th NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry, and A Penny Saved, Released in November 2012. Arisa, a native New Yorker, living in Oakland, California, is sure to delight our listeners.
Also, Sonoma County poet and painter Ed Coletti reads from his book When Hearts Outlive Minds, an exploration of the many ways he found to celebrate life even during the heartbreak of his father's decline and death.
This and more, on WordTemple!
Way back in July, the WordTemple Poetry series hosted Alicia Suskin Ostriker, reading from her new collection The Book of Life - Selected Jewish Poems, 1973 – 2011. KRCB aired this powerful reading. One of America’s premier visionary poets and critics, Ostriker has authored several collections of poetry and won numerous literary awards.
Then, Marin County poet Gerald Fleming turns the table on WordTemple host and poet Katherine Hastings and interviews her about her new collection of poems Cloud Fire, a profound and fertile collection of poems.
For our December WordTemple program, host Katherine Hastings takes a brief departure from poetry to present two stories. First, the 1941 radio play based on James Hilton's 1933 novel of the same title, Lost Horizon, starring Ronald Colman and Donald Crisp. (Colman also starred in the 1937 film directed by Frank Capra.) Following Lost Horizon, Dylan Thomas reads his classic A Child's Christmas In Wales. Finally, a little poetry: Arisa White reads with the Jessica Jones Quartet.
In the spring of 2011 over 20 poets were given a tour of the construction site of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge, the portion that was being replaced after a section of the old span collapsed during the Loma Prieta earthquake. One result of that tour was the publication of an anthology of poems and photographs, Everything Indicates - Bay Bridge Poems and Portraits. In celebration of this book and of the Bay Bridge's 75th anniversary, several poets read their work, including Tamsin Smith, Katherine Hastings, Kevin Simmonds, Jack Pitts, Ben Davis and others.
Also, WordTemple host Katherine Hastings talks this month with Bruce Snider about his prize-winning collection Paradise, Indiana. Snider is also the author of The Year We Studied Women. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow and the recipient of a James A. Michner fellowship, he teaches at Stanford University.
In an interview with WordTemple host Katherine Hastings, Pulitzer Prize nominated poet Diana O'Hehir reads from her latest collection Walk Me To Schenectady. This is the multiple-award winning poet's fifth collection; she has also published 5 novels.
Also, Terry Ehret reads from her latest collection of poems, Night Sky Journey (Kelly's Cover Press, 2011.) Previous books by Ehret are Lost Body, Translations from the Human Language; and Lucky Break.
Poet and writer F. D. Reeve talks with host Katherine Hastings about his friendship with Robert Frost, his son, the late actor Christopher Reeve, and reads from his collection, The Toy Soldier. You will also hear some of Reeve's poetry from The Blue Cat Walks the Earth read to jazz accompaniment.
Also - Sonoma County poet Kathleen Winter, winner of the Elixir Press Poetry Award, reads from her first full-length collection Nostalgia for the Criminal Past.
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings visits with Nathalie Handal, the author of Poet in Andalucía. This new collection is “a unique recreation, in reverse, of Federico García Lorca’s Poet in New York, considered one of the most significant books ever published about New York City.”
Also - For four years beginning in 1998, Katherine Hastings served as Alcatraz island’s first Docent. Her mission was to research historical documents stored at the old prison and write interpretive programs based on what she found. This month, Hastings presents a number of poems written by former Alcatraz inmates that she included in a program called Writers on the Rock - Inmate Poetry. You'll hear a poem by Rufus Franklin, who murdered an Alcatraz guard during an escape attempt by hitting him in the head with a hammer, a Mother’s Day poem written by the infamous mobster Al Capone, and others.
Sonoma County poet Marjorie Stein reads from her new book An Atlas of Lost Causes, published by Kelsey Street Press. Also, New York poet Lee Slonimsky reads from his two most recent collections, Money and Light and Logician of the Wind.
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings talks first this month with giovanni singleton about her new book, Ascension. A collection of serial poems written during jazz musician and spiritual leader Alice Coltrane's 49-day transition throught the bardo - and other poems as well - Ascension takes us through a daily practice of meditations on the nature of "self," and longing for less suffering in the world.
Then, Lorena Papayone Wolfman reads from her collection, My Mother's Necklace / El Collar de mi Madre. This collection is bilingual and emerges from a dreamlike ocean of imagery, feeling and sounds. The poems also have their roots in Wolfman's experiences at the IV International Poetry Festival in Granada, Nicaragua, where poetry was celebrated as the conscience of the Earth.
This and more!
In celebration of National Poetry Month, WordTemple host Katherine Hastings will air a wide variety of poetry and music including works by John Berryman, Gary Snyder, Muriel Rukeyser, William Stafford, and many others. Also, a centerpiece from The Atlantis Fragments by Donald Sidney-Fryer. This book, over 500 pages in length, contains all three volumes of Sidney-Fryer's Songs and Sonnets Atlantean. The work unfolds as a type of allegory about nature, an "extended ecological metaphor of our planet Earth" and is presented as translations not just from French, but from Atlantean. Imagine the first body of poems from Atlantis!
Matthew Zapruder, poet, editor, translator and winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, is the author of three collections of poetry - Come On All You Ghosts, The Pajamist, and American Linden. On this month's Word Temple program, he reads from a growing collection of new poems.
Gerald Fleming is the author of Swimmer Climbing Onto Shore and, most recently, Night of Pure Breathing, a collection of prose poems. He discusses his work with host Katherine Hastings, and reads from Night of Pure Breathing.
A dual milestone in City Lights history, When I Was a Poet is volume 60 of the Pocket Poets Series as well as their first book of poems by renowned Beat author David Meltzer. On this month’s program, Meltzer reads from that powerful book. Joining him is Julie Rogers, author of House of the Unexpected, forthcoming from Wild Ocean Press.
Also, contributing poets read from From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Synopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great (edited by Camille Dungy, Matt O’Donnell and Jeffrey Thomson).
"A gifted American poet with an unusually international sensibility." This is how Edward Hirsch describes Alissa Valles, a poet who was born in Amsterdam, grew up in the U.S. and the Netherlands and studied in London, Poland, Russia and the U.S. Tonight Valles reads from her collection, Orphan Fire, poems that explore the way a soul navigates the temporary dwelling in the body. Organized as a triptych, Orphan Fire is structured around the journey from entry to death. "Valles' poems refuse to be extinguished, they glow, they illuminate the fringes of our fear and celebrate our courage and frailty as we grope in the dusk searching for ways to be more human." - Jimmy Santiago Baca.
Also, Katherine Hastings speaks with Sonoma County's seventh Poet Laureate, Bill Vartnaw. Born and raised in Petaluma, Vartnaw is the founder of Taurean Horn Press and has published 14 books since 1974, including his own In Concern for Angels (1984). Vartnaw earned his MA in Poetics from New College of California. His work has appeared in various literary magazines.
Finally, a number of Sonoma County residents read some of their favorite humorous verse. Perhaps a little Ogden Nash, a little Wendy Cope.
WordTemple host Katherine Hastings plays T.S. Eliot reading "The Waste Land" followed by Dylan Thomas reading "A Child's Christmas in Wales."
On December 10, 1958, Langston Hughes - one of America’s most important poets, writers and playwrights - gave a stunning talk at U.C. Berkeley.
On this WordTemple, Katherine Hastings introduces and plays the entire reading. Hughes is known primarily for his portrayals of black life in the 20s through the 60s - his work stands as a pillar of the Harlem Renaissance and was among the most important in shaping that movement. Hughes is also known for expressing the influence of jazz in his work.
All together, he authored over two dozen books of poetry and prose, 11 plays - including one co-authored with Zora Neale Hurston - and his autobiography, The Big Sea. He called his poems "down to earth," grown from his own life. Here, he reads his poems and gives extraordinarily interesting background to his work. Did you know that Hughes wanted to be a streetcar conductor as a child and that he didn't write his first poem until after he was nominated "class poet" in the 8th grade? This program offers lessons in history, poetry, politics, race and humor in this rare personal talk by one of America’s greatest.
This month on WordTemple, host Katherine Hastings talks with Chicano poet and educator Francisco X. Alarcón, the author of Sonnets to Madness and Other Misfortunes; From the Other Side of Night; Of Dark Love, and many other collections of poems and poetry for young adults and children. Also, Susan Kelly-DeWitt reads new poems along with others from her collection The Fortunate Islands. Finally, in response to 70 of California’s State parks closing, several poets read from the new anthology What Redwoods Know - Poems From California State Parks. Sonoma County poets included in the book are David Beckman, Janine Canan, Ed Coletti, Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Katherine Hastings, Jodi Hottel, Paula Koneazny, Gail Larrick, Hannah Maggiora and Phyllis Meshulam.
Toni Mirosevich joins host Katherine Hastings to talk about and read from her latest collection of poetry, The Takeaway Bin, which draws inspiration from Oblique Strategies, a card game invented by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. "Over one hundred worthwhile dilemmas" are printed on a pack of cards and offer a set of possibilities to apply "when a dilemma occurs in a working situation." Mirosevich presents poems that reply to various daily dilemmas, specific or obscure.
Also, John Olivares Espinoza reads from his collection, The Date Fruit Elegies, his first full-length collection of poetry after his two chapbooks, Aluminum Times and Gardeners of Eden.
Paul Hoover presents from his new book Sonnet 56 published by Les Figues Press with an introduction by Ira Monk. The book mixes Love, Poetry and Shakespeare in a marvelous grab bag of form, wit and playfulness. Starting with Shakespeare’s sonnet 56 - Sweet love, renew thy force, be it not said / Thy edge should blunter be than appetite, - Hoover writes 56 poetic variations, turning Shakespeare’s sonnet into a series of new (and traditional) forms, including: "Villanelle," "Noun Plus Seven," "Limerick," "Blues," "Course Description," "Flarf," "Imagist," "Tanka," "Answering Machine," "Rilke," "Morse Code" and "Bad Writing." The result is tender portrayal of love and an excellent survey of the possibilities within contemporary poetry.
Melissa Stein is the author of Rough Honey, Winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize, selected and with an introduction by Mark Doty. Published by American Poetry Review with Copper Canyon Press, the poems in Rough Honey have been praised by Molly Peacock as "a miracle of a first collection." Major Jackson calls her language "seductively alert and textured enough to evoke rarely contemplated worlds." "Openness... of form, and of the receptive and longing body is Rough Honey's central subject..." (Doty)
"In the water, whales have become the dominant species/Without killing their own kind." WordTemple features English poet, playwright and actor Heathcote Williams reading his classic Whale Nation. Part poetry, part natural history and part ecologic statement with musical accompaniment, Whale Nation is a hymn to the beauty, intelligence and majesty of the largest mammal on earth.
The award-winning author of 17 books of poetry, anthologies, translations, stories and essays, Janine Canan presents her latest publication, Under the Azure - Poems of Francis Jammes. Not only are the translations gorgeous throughout, but Canan includes a forward by Jammes'' grandson, and an introduction that illuminates the life of Jammes, "poet of the Pyrenees."
"You don't read Francis Jammes, you breathe him, you inhale him - In Jammes' work, there is nothing but poetry and perfume - once you have abandoned yourself to him, you will think he is the only poet there is." - Andre Gide
Host Katherine Hastings also discusses works of Sylvia Plath.
WordTemple features Susan Browne, author of Buddha's Dogs, winner of the Four Way Books Intro Prize selected by Edward Hirsh, and Zephyr, Steel Toe Books. Also, poets Mary-Marcia Casoly, Jack Foley, Katherine Hastings and Melanie Moro-Huber present samples from their chapbooks that were published together as one book by Ahadada Press, Ahadada Reader 3.
In celebration of National Poetry Month, WordTemple host Katherine Hastings will play a wide selection of poetry and music on the April program, including the winner and runner-up of the Sonoma County High Schools 2011 Poetry Out Loud Championship, Phebe Hong (rt) from Santa Rosa High School and Joey Abrego from Montgomery High. Also featured in the program will be Elizabeth Bishop, Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Jennifer Sweeney, Stephen Vincent Benet, Wallace Stevens, David Bromige, Robert Duncan, Lynn Lonidier, Sonoma County poet Raphael Block and much, much more.
WordTemple goes a little bit Irish tonight, the night before St. Patrick's Day. Host Katherine Hastings airs recordings of two powerful short stories from James Joyce's Dubliners: "Eveline," read by Dearbla Molloy, and "A Little Cloud," read by Brendan Coyle. Joyce's poem, "O It Was Out by Donnycarney" is sung by the magnificent tenor Marc Heller . The show will also be sprinkled with some fine Irish-American music, thanks to Mick Moloney and Frank Patterson. Finally, Hastings will announce a poetry reading she will host at the Crossroads Irish-American Festival featuring Sonoma County poet laureate Gwynn O'Gara, Gillian Conoley and Kathleen Lynch. Sit back and enjoy great radio - stories, music and more - on WordTemple!
Bob Hicok, associate professor of English at Virginia Tech, is the author of six collections of poetry, including Animal Soul, which was a finalist for the National Books Critics Circle Award. Tonight he talks with Katherine Hastings about the sources of inspiration for the poems in his latest book, Words For Empty and Words For Full (Pittsburgh Press), including what is called "The Virginia Tech massacre;" John Hart, two-time winner of the Commonwealth Club Medal in California, discusses his late father, the poet, teacher and critical maverick Lawrence Hart; and Fred Ostrander, who developed his poetic skills in Lawrence Hart's circle, reads poems from his latest book, Petroglyphs, Blue Light Press.
Actor Patrick Stewart reads the four sonnets written by Antonio Vivaldi to correspond with his Four Seasons concertos; "Spring" and "Winter" will be read within those two concertos. Franz Wright reads from his latest collection, Wheeling Motel, with musical accompaniment. Santa Rosa poets Greg Randall and Toni Wilkes read from their latest chapbooks.
Internationally recognized for her gourndbreaking work, Judy Grahn is a lifetime artist, teacher and activist whose writing has been foundational to several social movements. As a poet and social theorist, her work has been widely published, distributed, anthologized, and translated. On this Word Temple program, Grahn performs some of her classic poems accompanied by singer, songwriter, musician Anne Carol Mitchell. Also included is a recitation of one of Grahn's poems by Ani DiFranco at Carnegie Hall. Later in the show, Howard Altmann talks with host Katherine Hastings about his latest collection of poems, In This House.
For four years beginning in 1998, Word Temple host Katherine Hastings served as Alcatraz island's first Docent. Her Mission was to research historical documents stored at the old prison and write interpretive programs based on what she found. Hastings presents a number of poems written by former Alcatraz inmates that she included in a program called Writers on teh Rock - Inmate Poetry, including a Mother's Day poem written by the infamous mobster Al Capone.
Also on the program, Hastings interviews Judith Tannenbaum, co-author of By Heart - Poetry, Prison and Two Lives, a book written with prison inmate Spoon Jackson, whom Tannenbaum met at San Quentin in the 1980s when she taught poetry at the prison.
And, as a prelude to a party held October 23rd at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts celebrating five years of the live Word Temple Poetry Series, Hastings plays recordings of three of the many artists who performed that night: Former California state poet laureate Al Young, Judy Grahn and singer/songwriter Anne Carol Mitchell.
Word Temple host Katherine Hastings interviews Taos, New Mexico poet Catherine Strisik, author of Thousand-Cricket Song.
Also, Molly Fisk reads from her latest collection, The More Difficult Beauty.
Word Temple host Katherine Hastings presents current San Francisco Poet Laureate Diane di Prima who reads from her book Revolutionary Letters. She also plays recordings of poet, hobo, organizer for the Social Democratic party and Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Sandburg reading his work.
Word Temple host Katherine Hastings pays tribute to East Bay poet and writer Leslie Scalapino, who died on May 28th of this year. Scalapino was recognized internationally as one of the most innovative writers in America. Her award-winning work challenged every boundary known to poetry, prose and more.
Also, Iowa poet Keith Ratzlaff, author of Then, a Thousand Crows; Dubious Angels: Poems After Paul Klee and more is interviewed.
Word Temple host Katherine Hastings talks with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Philip Schultz. Schultz has been celebrated for his singular vision of the American immigrant experience and Jewish identity, his fierce and tender portrayal of family life and his rich evocation of city streets. The program also introduces the life and work of Elizabeth McFarland, late wife of U.S. Poet Laureate Daniel Hoffman.
On December 10, 1958, Langston Hughes - one of America's most important poets, writers and playwrights - gave a stunning talk at U.C. Berkeley. This month, Katherine Hastings introduces and plays that entire reading.
For April, Word Temple host Katherine Hastings presents an hour of poetry and music in celebration of National Poetry Month. You'll hear high school student Giovanny Espinosa, winner of the Sonoma County portion of the national recitation contest Poetry Out Loud, and Brooke McLaughlin, the runner-up. Joyce Jenkins of Poetry Flash pays a visit, as does Pierre Reverdy, through poems translated and read by Dan Bellm. Recordings of Theodore Roethke and other poets will be played, and Hastings will pay a short tribute to Lucille Clifton.
Visiting from Deal in Kent, Lord Gawain Douglas, great-nephew of Lord Alfred Douglas - a poet and Oscar Wilde's lover - talks with host Katherine Hastings and reads his work. Cecilia Woloch, author of five award-winning collections of poems reads from her latest volume, Carpathia. Jack Myers was the author of 18 books of and about poetry including his most recent, The Glowing River, New & Selected Poems.
Katherine Hastings features three poets laureate: Carol Muske Dukes, poet laureate for the State of California; Albert Flynn DeSilver, Marin County's poet laureate; and Gwynn O'Gara, the new poet laureate for Sonoma County.
This month on Word Temple, Jim Powell reads from Substrate, his first collection of poetry in 20 years; and Laura Walker reads poetry from swarm lure and rimertown/an atlas. You will also hear a recording of the late poet Federico Garcia Lorca playing piano in accompaniment to La Argentina singing Los Cuatro Muleres.
This month on Word Temple, Katherine Hastings airs a tribute to Lenore Kandel who died in October (2009). Also, Hastings plays a recording of Dylan Thomas reading his story A Child's Christmas in Wales. Finally, Allen Ginsberg reads C'mon Pigs of Western Civilization Eat More Grease.
This month, The Selected Poems of Freidrich Holderlin will be read and discussed by the translators, poets Maxine Chernoff and Paul Hoover. Also, Rebecca Foust talks with host Katherine Hastings and reads from her first two award-winning collections, Dark Card; and Mom's Canoe.
Host Katherine Hastings throws a Poetry Party this month, featuring poetry and music from Yusef Komunyakaa, John Updike, Marilyn Hacker, and Anais Nin reading from her diary about French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director Antonin Artaud. Plus Kate Royal singing "I Have Dreamt" from Wuthering Heights, and poet Arisa White with the Jessica Jones Quartet. Also included is a visit from Sonoma County poet Michael Rothenberg who will give an introduction to Rockpile, a collaboration between Rothenberg and David Meltzer that will send them through eight cities in the U.S. to perform poetry and prose composed on the road with local musicians and artists in each city.
An in-depth interview with poet Brian Tso Jones, author or the award-winning collection, Raking the Hollow Bones. Also, host Katherine Hastings introduces the life of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anne Sexton.
Poet, critic, playwrite and radio personality Jack Foley performs a number of his poems and his ten-minute play, The Boy, the Girl, and the Piece of Chocolate along with his wife, poet Adelle Foley who will also read work from her book, Along the Bloodline, and more recent haiku. Following the Foley's, Alabama poet, songwriter, singer and musician Jake Berry perfroms segments from his magnificent work of poetry and music, Brambu Drezei.
Word Temple host Katherine Hastings introduces The Green Carnation, an 1894 novel by Robert Hichens that played a part in the famous trial and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde for homosexual activity, followed by a recording of Wilde's poem "the Ballad of Reading Gaol," written after he served two years in that prison.
In the second half of the program, Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes, reads James Joyce's The Sisters - his first published work of fiction which would later become the first story in The Dubliners.
Featured on Word Temple are Jane Hirshfield and Nathaniel Tarn. Born in Paris in 1928, Tarn was a leading anthropologist for many years, and the pioneering translator of Pablo Neruda. His own poetry was praised by Octavio Paz for it's "rich temperament, a remarkable linguistic inventiveness, and a vision both original and universal." Tarn talks with Katherine Hastings and reads from his latest collection, Ins and Outs of the Forest Rivers.
Jane Hirshfield, the popular author of six collections of poems including her latest book, After, reads new poems from her home in Northern California. Robert Bly says, "There is something subtle and new in Jane Hirshfield's poems...She has absorbed the vertical line through her discipline, and it gives her poems and intensity that doesn't kill ordinary life, or subdue the body as some vertical studies do."
Hastings also plays French music by popular French musicians and composers.
Katherine Hastings presents the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Ralph Waldo Emerson, reading from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, and Open Me Carefully - Emily Dickinson's Institute Letters. She also plays recordings of Teresa Gallagher reading Dickinson's poems and play music inspired by Dickinson's poems. Archibald MacLeish reads poetry by Ralph Waldo Emerson, including "Threnody," followed by a performance of Lou Harrison's "Threnody for Carlos Chavez."
Katherine Hastings interviews F. D. Reeve who reads from his latest book of poems, The Toy Soldier, and features several Northern California poets reading from the new anthology "For New Orleans" and other poems.
English poet, playwright and actor Heathcote Williams reads his green classic Whale Nation.
Katherine Hastings features Healdsburg Literary Laureate Vilma Ginzerg, San Francisco poet Dan Bellm, Armando Garcia-Davila and plays Kathleen Ferrier singing the art song "Down By the Salley Gardens," a poem by W. B. Yeats.
Katherine Hastings interviews Jerusalem poet and translator Peter Cole, author of The Dream of the Poem - Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain 950-1492.
Katherine Hastings celebrates National Poetry Month by featuring Al Young, Jake Berry, Michael McClure with Ray Manzarek, Allen Ginsberg with Bob Dylan and more.