Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Podcast Feed: Recent Episodes
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As we consider Emerson (whom the late Harold Bloom called “God”) and Einstein, and Astra theology, and what is known about the universe in ancient and emergent minds, considering human and civil rights, peace, and the environment (Peace! Love! Freedom! Happiness!) … Continue reading →
Who understands e=mc²? It takes a genius, right? Do we think genius is beyond us? That genius is Einstein maybe, but not you? Do we think Einstein is in his own orbit, far removed from us? We may think knowledge … Continue reading →
Let us consider poetry as necessary for life as soil. Just because nutritious soil is necessary to life, all our lives on earth, does not mean it is not downright miraculous. A little clay here, rock there, dust, remains, odds … Continue reading →
WWRS? (What Would Rumi Say?) What does poetry have to do with it? Stay tuned for The Poetry Slow Down with Professor Barbara Mossberg. Enjoy the video for this week’s episode on our Facebeook page.
Poetry Slow Down, our episode this week begins a series wherein we embark on ancient ships and rocky land routes to engage with trees, as people have always done, and I mean always. Since recorded history, our first forays into writing … Continue reading →
As we celebrate Walt Whitman’s birthday, we consider how seriously as a poet he took joy (very). As it turns out, in fact, poets taking joy seriously is a thing. We’re slowing down today (you know you move too fast) … Continue reading →
CONFESSIONS OF KILLER OF CATERPILLARS, HEADS UP TO DEER (AND OTHERS) AT RISK, BEING RAPT, RAPTORMANIA, RAPTURE, AND RIPARIAN ECSTASY YOU HAVE TIME FOR IF YOU SLOW DOWN: Poems and Lyric Prose “On Life and Utterly Necessary Living, Life, and … Continue reading →
Never mind the headlines, there’s plenty of drama in the kitchen . . . it’s a lot. A play in the making about a daughter raising her mother from the dead, an act of which her mother approves, although not the … Continue reading →
Please help yourself to an hour (plucked from Daylight Savings Time), slowing down (because you know you move too fast) for the up of the ThePoetrySlowDown that aspires to be a Holy Fire Reiki for your spirit (as poetry perhaps always has … Continue reading →
A consideration of what we consider slow news, and what’s at stake, for our own survival and for society at large. In which we take up the fate of earth and all life (including spiders—and you’ll be glad) (you truly will) … Continue reading →
In which our show showcases poets’ love of teaching (their poems are proof of the pudding) and in which I learn from students’ questions to me about the role and use of poetry in our lives, and, in their own … Continue reading →
A perspective on how we (should) spend our daily energies. A bossiness of poets weigh in, from the late (but always here) Mary Oliver, William Stafford, Raymond Carver, Emily Dickinson, Billy Collins, Lorine Neidecker, Alice Dunbar -Nelson, Gerald Manley Hopkins, … Continue reading →
Hello, and happy new year, O friends, O ears, hear hear! You’re slowing down for the Poetry Slow Down—you know you move too fast! You know you are supposed to slow down for your health, and mind, and spirit, and … Continue reading →
If “everything is alive (Ian Chillag), e=mc2 (Einstein), things “must be sung, “sing themselves (Emerson), then a) you are alive, b) you are everything, c) you are a song. We’re all in this together, like penguins and bats, singing our … Continue reading →
You’re under the weather, my friend, feeling stressed and blue! Dr. B has a potion that will do: It’s light as a feather, word flour and fat, called for when the world seems sour and flat! Just when you’re going … Continue reading →
(A GOOD LOOK IN SHIRTS, NOT SO MUCH ON YOUR COMPUTER), AND DAYS ARE DARK, AND THE NEWS IS FRIGHTFUL, IT’S TIME TO LET GO THE NEWS FEED FOR THE NEWS YOU NEED: POETRY! YOU NEED TO GET OUT YOUR … Continue reading →
From ancient drama to today’s poetry, lyric wisdom suggests (do or die –“miserably) that our sense of success, “home and other destinations, and goals need to be rethought. Living is fraught with perils and defeats—or are our “defeats really something to … Continue reading →
So Poetry Slow Down! You’re slowing down here (hear hear!) with me, your host Professor Barbara Mossberg, Dr. B, and our production team, Zappa Johns and Nico Moss: you know you move too fast! This is our time to slow down, … Continue reading →
In fact it leads to heartwarming knowledge about our own humanity! And we need to hear this! Now! So we’ll slow down to take that windy path where goats go, lambs gambol. I’m your host Barbara Mossberg, with this ministry … Continue reading →
To eat or to be eaten, or both? That is the question. Life and death. What is our human fate and purpose? These are large questions, indeed, and poetry has some answers to get us slowed down in these hurtling … Continue reading →
“Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; … Continue reading →
“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.―Thornton Wilder “Wonderful to be here—Walt Whitman That’s Thornton Wilder and Walt Whitman, and this is Professor Barbara Mossberg, with Producer Zappa … Continue reading →
Our #POETRYSLOWDOWN always says we are the news you need, the news you heed, the news “without which men die miserably every day (Wm. Carlos Williams). We are the news between the headlines, fast-breaking, late-breaking, heart-breaking news; we are the heart-making news. Here … Continue reading →
In a dark time, the eye begins to see, I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood—A lord of nature weeping to a tree. I live between the heron and the wren, … Continue reading →
Theodore Roethke, In a Dark Time: In a dark time, the eye begins to see, I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood—A lord of nature weeping to a tree. I live between … Continue reading →
On this May day, as our on-air show live today from Helsinki celebrates the happiness in the hear and now, with ecopoetry, an anniversary show of poems of juice shared on this show over five years, no, six, no, seven, … Continue reading →
Ah, but the poets knew! Hear we are (hear hear!) at your Poetry Slow Down, our weekly hour news shoe since 2008—if the show fits, hear it!–the news you need, the news you heed, the news “without which men die … Continue reading →
A radio-waving welcome to Congresswoman Pingree, new co-chair of Congress’ Caucus for the Arts; how arts have played key roles in critical legislation for civil and human rights, war and peace, and the environment, including making Presidential reputations for greatness … Continue reading →
(Would a tree ask this question?) Meanwhile, or is it rather kindwhile, but meanwhile in terms of ways and means, how do we spend our time when things are loosey goosey and goose droppings of news are drooping like rain—here (hear … Continue reading →
I’M A LONELY STRANGER HERE (Clapton) here there is no place that does not see you (Rilke): YOU DO NOT HAVE TO GO TO PRISON—A POEM HAS YOUR BACK. Yes, there is an epidemic that on the surface seems bewildering, … Continue reading →
A shoe for you, kicking up those poetic feet that will lift your spirits, the news you need, the news you heed, the news without which men die miserably every day—so says Dr. William Carlos Williams, and we’ll hear ideas for … Continue reading →
The Role of Poetry in Living Deliberately—the art and science of going to the woods, so to speak. And so we are! Speaking of the woods:: e.e. cummings’ sonnet of gratitude, amazement, for every thing, alive again today, ready to … Continue reading →
And so it is, a plating of lyric memoir about food and hunger, on eating and being eaten, on who is eating (or not), on what is, and is not, eaten—like Thoreau’s Walden, Where I Lived and What I Lived For, … Continue reading →
Top o the morning to you, Poetry community! Post-Valentines, in the thick of birthdays of civic leaders, we’re slowing down for our Poetry Slow Down, I’m your host Professor Barbara Mossberg, with our West Coast Producer Zappa Johns, broadcasting live … Continue reading →
Life and Death Stakes in Paying Attention, Your Own, Each Other’s, Our Earth’s, and What Amazed Poetry Has To Do With It. (Mary Oliver (a lot), D. H. Lawrence, Emily Dickinson (of course), John Muir (a lot), John Steinbeck, Arthur … Continue reading →
When there’s a murder, we investigate “who dunnit. When something’s gone wrong, we look for evidence. But what about when something goes right? With good acts, great acts, can we also investigate “who dunnit? What’s the “weapon? What’s the motive? … Continue reading →
The Poetry Slow Down with Professor Barbara Mossberg. In our show, broadcast live from Los Angeles, where John Muir died 103 years ago today, we consider his last words, sprawled as he lay in a hospital bed with the manuscript … Continue reading →
My little chickadees! Hello! This is your Professor Barbara Mossberg and I’m greeting you this dark December day, one of the shortest and darkest of the whole year, with the sound of a chickadee, on THE POETRY SLOW DOWN with … Continue reading →
An Emily Dickinson Poetry Shoe (if the show fits, hear it): how poets change our life and save the earth (and/or make it want to keep on), with music by Merrilee Rush, Kings of Leon, Yosef Islam, the former Cat … Continue reading →
What if we approached poetry as a stadium event, we’ll consider that and amazing poems that shine in darkness and lift us today, and how we need this light, in the context of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s national recruiting calls for … Continue reading →
I’ll admit some of them run over a thousand pages. Some are translated from Sumerian on clay tablets. Some are from Spanish, Greek, French, olde English, and quirky as the day is long. Poetry, prose, drama, spoken, written, sung, they … Continue reading →
I TOOK my power in my hand And went against the world; ’T was not so much as David had, But I was twice as bold. I aimed my pebble, but myself Was all the one that fell. Was it … Continue reading →
THE RADIO SHOE: Poetic footwork in the POETRY SLOW DOWN, with Professor Barbara Mossberg (“no place safe from poetry), in which the news of poetry is a civic force of community building and health, and general happiness, and world peace, … Continue reading →
And/or, You Are My Sunshine as Rocket Science: the Physics of Campfire Wisdom, with thanks to Thomas Friedman for “Stempathy, and my contribution to the case for learning the world needs now, now more than ever: in calling for empathy, as scientists … Continue reading →
From October, 2013: “Today when persimmons ripen, as Jane Hirshfield begins us, we’re slowing down—you know you move too fast—in this slowed time of year, where trees are strutting their structural moxie, revealed when their leaves take flight, sing the … Continue reading →
And talk about poetry we will, with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Ada Limon, Ross Gay, and Emily Dickinson. She started it, really: she said “Nobody knows this little rose. Now we know Nobody: Odysseus’ cunning way to describe himself when he escapes the … Continue reading →
From October 21, 2012: Bees, why bees, Dr. B? You’ve given us shows of moles and bats and hats and coots, roosters, birds, foxes, bears, butterflies, and even worms! How low can you go? You’ve had us walking, on our … Continue reading →
“Today when persimmons ripen, as Jane Hirshfield begins us, we’re slowing down—you know you move too fast—in this slowed time of year, where trees are strutting their structural moxie, revealed when their leaves take flight, sing the song of gravity, … Continue reading →
From September 27, 2015: Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning, and sang.—Mary Oliver (from Swan) Mary Oliver knows worry. Shakespeare knows worry. … Continue reading →
THIS POEM: POETS SLOW DOWN TO CONSIDER THE QUESTIONS THAT MAKE US THANKFULLY HUMAN Whoever Brought Me Here All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed … Continue reading →
SLOW DOWN! YOU KNOW YOU MOVE TOO FAST A VERY UNECLIPSE TO YOU FOR A YEAR AND LIFETIME OF AMAZEMENT EVERYDAY WONDER Dazzling Poetry but You Don’t Need Glasses to Listen– All-Us in Wonderland, or, It’s News to Me … Continue reading →
From August 30, 2015: Advice & love letters we savor, letters we take literally to the table. . . from Pablo Neruda (a foodie) to Sandra Gilbert (a foodie), Emily Dickinson (a foodie) to Thomas Jefferson (a foodie), and many … Continue reading →
From July 6, 2014: ALMOST AT TIMES, A FOOL— WE WISH . . . HUMANITARIAN CLOWNING: THE WISE FOOL AND OTHER WISDOM ROLES © Barbara Mossberg 2014
From July 20th, 2014: COMMON GROUND AMONG FOUR POETS ON A RANDOM FRIDAY EVENING—THE THEME IS DUST AND WHY IT MATTERS TO YOU AND ME AND, IT SEEMS, POETS EVERYWHERE, EVERY TIME Let’s slow down, you and I, when the … Continue reading →
As Dr. B travels this week, we’re looking back on this episode from July 2015: From 14th century Queen’s College, broadcast live for radiomonterey.com, produced by Zappa Johns, with Professor Barbara Mossberg, on the news we heed, the news we heed, the … Continue reading →
This radio show, Poetry Slow down, is so lyrically wet that you will be drenched in river imagery, you will need to dry off after the show. Is there a river in your life? We all have a river in … Continue reading →
(Yes, you read right!). People might not think of either of these two poets in terms of comedy or even robust spirit–much less joy in being oneself, living this life— an obscure life extinguished after decades of early debilitating illness, … Continue reading →
Yes: it all begins with sound, with wave, and of course, our voices are ways we connect with each other, our brain waves, becoming voice, and radio waves, and I think it makes sense on the imagery of waves that … Continue reading →
In which we hear from Zappa Johns about new-fangled farfalle from the internet’s video games of virtual physics for “interactive fiction in the digital era (that would be now), including “Car Boys and BeamNG.drive, the poetry in the news this week … Continue reading →
A theory brought to you through blood, sweat, tears, and fears, through the post post-Civil War South, by your own fearful Dr. B, host of our PoetrySlowDown, recreating the experience of John Muir’s post-Civil War 1000 Mile Walk to the Gulf, … Continue reading →
5 plays coast to coast in two days: a view of poetry’s transforming role in civic and personal life. In which we consider The Great Comet of 1812, a musical of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, that covers Victor Hugo’s … Continue reading →
There’s not a lot of it—on the surface—apparently—but what’s there is good-hearted and heart-breaking and moving and shaking, human beings at their humblest and poets at the most yearning and wistful and creative. In this show I reflect on my … Continue reading →
No, not the revenge of the Fifth—this is your Poetry Slow Down, with a special intergenerational Star Wars unit devised by your intrepid geek nerd techy Producer Zappa Johns and host Dr. B, and Zappa is fresh from Orlando, Florida, attending … Continue reading →
Live from Denton, Texas, where poetry grows tall and thick as thistles Occasion: time (n.), case, juncture, event, instance, incident, occurrence, circumstance, point, spot, position; chance (n.) possibility, opportunity, opening, season, contingency, stage; reason (n.), cause, ground, motive, justification, rationale, … Continue reading →
Occasion: time (n.), case, juncture, event, instance, incident, occurrence, circumstance, point, spot, position; chance (n.) possibility, opportunity, opening, season, contingency, stage; reason (n.), cause, ground, motive, justification, rationale, explanation, excuse, basis; cause (v.) motivate, induce, prompt, elicit, effect, give rise … Continue reading →
WHEN TERRORISM THREATENS OUR TRUST IN OUR WORLD—WE LOOK IN POETRY FOR A WORLD WE CAN TRUST, beginning with Spine Poetry. We’ll not only learn about spine poetry (you have your own right now) but how it can give us … Continue reading →
ON WHICH SO MUCH DEPENDS: REALLY? THAT’S A POEM? THAT’S WHAT WITHOUT WHICH WE DIE MISERABLY EVERY DAY? The case for poetry (life and death) at a time when such things are being questioned as unnecessary in our civic life. … Continue reading →
Live from Berkeley, words on behalf of earth and your own favorite tree and poets! The Poetry Slowdown © Barbara Mossberg
Dickinson and Eco poets Denshosha? Wetzeng? A talk with Kim Stafford . . . Emily Dickinson serves as earthling terran hostess for the season and our show today on March 5, for, as she says, “We like March. His shoes … Continue reading →
Hello my peoples, an iambic greeting to you this fair morning as we slow down—you know you move too fast—for our Poetry Slow Down, I’m Dr. B, your professor Barbara Mossberg, with our West Coast producer Zappa as in Frank … Continue reading →
A consideration of what we consider news, and what’s at stake, for our own survival and for society at large. In which we take up the fate of earth and all life (including spiders—and you’ll be glad) (you truly will) … Continue reading →
Our show reviews a history of writing passionately about earth, with conscience and anguish and infinite belief in the reader to do act on behalf of earth, focusing on David Brower (Archdruid of John McPhee fame, and Sierra Club director) … Continue reading →
In which football is bandied about as a theme and metaphor (of course) of what poetry is all about: football is a handy lens which gets us philosophical and full of insight; in such illumination, Emily Dickinson comes to light … Continue reading →
We tell you on this show that we are all about the news at the top of the hour, the news without which men die miserably day, the news we need, the news we heed, the news inside the fast-breaking, … Continue reading →
Thoreau’s Lines A Tattoo (Temporary but Permanent on the Inside) (“put it on your bicep, Dr. B!), or a Whitman “flag of my disposition, and what those words together mean in our times. A show of green sleuthing as we … Continue reading →
SO . . . HOW SHOULD WE BEGIN? YOUR TRUSTY DIY GUIDE TO A NEW YEAR, BEING NEW THE POETRY WAY. A Guideline to a New Year, the Poetry Way. Hello friends, who lend me your ears, we’re hear together … Continue reading →
As we ring in the new year, we think about the days when January wasn’t even a month, much less the herald and threshold of a new year, and how to get things started right, with cleaning, you heard me, … Continue reading →
Making an End: On Doing It Right: The Poetry Way WRAPPING IT UP: POETRY AS PRESENT, A GIFT IN OUR LIVES “WITHOUT WHICH MEN DIE MISERABLY EVERY DAY (“To Asphodel, That Greeny Flower, William Carlos Williams)—a wrap and rap of … Continue reading →
We slow down to remember not only Muir’s anguish for the Hetch Hetchy Valley which he tried to save, as much as he wrote about it, but the love of light, love of earth that animated him and made him … Continue reading →
A celebration of an earth-struck poetry-loving man, as a geologist “rocks” around the clock. John Muir’s death certificate lists him as a geologist, but it’s not as a geologist that we name hospitals, stars, glaciers, schools, trails, flowers, and forests … Continue reading →
Our celebration John Muir and of the 100th anniversary of the National Parks Service will be heading your way December 19th! Listen early as Dr. B gives us a teaser of the upcoming episode.
I shall grow old but never lose life’s zest, Because the road’s last turn will be the best.—Henry Van Dyke “THE DIFFERENCE MADE ME BOLD: CELEBRATING EMILY DICKINSON’S LIFE OF SERVICE, IN HONOR OF HER 186 BIRTHDAY, THE MEANING SHARING … Continue reading →
“i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday, and this is the birthday of life, and of love and wings, and the gay great happening illimitably earth –e.e. cummings WELCOME to our Poetry Slow … Continue reading →
“The explorer finds little evidence for any of the way Homer describes Troy . . . Yet here, in the mind’s eye, stood an awe-inspiring city with soaring battlements dominating the plans. Homer and the bards were not deliberate liars, … Continue reading →
To occasions, when we’re knocked down, low, heavy heart, how we have it in us to do so, how we’re called on to do so, called for, and what poetry has to do with it. A rousing show, to lift, … Continue reading →
Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.—Einstein I’m trying to find something true that can’t be expressed by math.—J.D. Roberts Can haiku save the day? We know sonnets can. It’s all about … Continue reading →
When you’re in the dark woods, and the way is lost, and a lion, leopard, and she-wolf are snarling, blocking your way, you (evolved radio show listener) might think of Dante’s Rx, the Roman epic poet Virgil, or Rumi’s peoples … Continue reading →
The Dynamite Genius of Bob Dylan and the Nobel Prize Committee, Dynamic Connection Between Nobel and Dylan: What is literature? Who’s asking? All of a sudden, everyone is. And the point is, it is Everyone. The Odyssey was sung. We … Continue reading →
Criticism is said to have killed an enthusiastic diva and John Keats and been dead wrong (and snarky) about . . . well, name your favorite—Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau, Scott Fitzgerald, J.D. Salinger, Henry Miller, we love … Continue reading →
All things birth-day, thinking of Ta-Nehesi Coates’ Between the World and Me, A Parent’s Thoughts (coming soon to a neighborhood near you), and tomorrow, the first day of school, a new year, a new life: WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR … Continue reading →
Dante, Shakespeare, Elizabeth Bishop, T.S. Eliot, Rumi, Shakespeare, e.e. cummings, Thoreau, Ta-Nehesi Coates’ Between the World and Me, Alain de Botton’s The Architecture of Happiness, and Terry Eagleton’s The Meaning of Life, to the music of Simon and Garfunkle, Stevie … Continue reading →
Have fun my dear, my dear, have fun–Hafiz I have conversed with the spiritual Sun. I saw him on Primrose Hill—William Blake Our news from London and Paris and those who “converse with the sun on how to live a life. … Continue reading →
You’ve seen the headlines–Let’s start, O Poetry Flight of Listeners, with a way to begin the morning anew, morning being whenever you are awake, and now is a good time—from Psalms, This is the day the Lord has made, let … Continue reading →
WHEN IN THE MIDDLE OF OUR LIFE WE FIND OURSELVES IN A DARK WOOD WHERE THE DIRECT WAY IS LOST—HOW “WILD, HARSH AND INPENETRABLE—“SCARCELY LESS BITTER THAN DEATH—“THINKING OF IT RECREATES THE FEAR—(Dante, The Inferno), HOW AND WHY TO GO … Continue reading →
A Show for Pre (and Ali) On the way to the phenomenon of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s tour de force on Alexander Hamilton, the power of books and poetry to excite and move our world, Viet Tang Nwhen (Viet Thanh Nguyen)’s The … Continue reading →
I Found Myself in the Stories He Told—Richard Rodriquez, on William Saroyan WE THE PEOPLE: THE ROAD TO HAMILTON, PART ONE, live from Broadway-New York and Helsinki, the 40th Fulbright Anniversary and the Maple Leaf and Eagle Conference on North … Continue reading →
On this aMayzing Mother’s day, as our show today celebrates the “here in the hear and now, podcast at BarbaraMossberg.com, produced by Zappa Johns, slowing down and heating it up, with poetry “without which men die miserably every day (Wm. … Continue reading →
IT’S MAY! YOU’VE GOT TO GET UP OUT OF BED AND GREET THE DAY! WITH THE COFFEE OF THE POETRY SLOW DOWN With Professor Barbara Mossberg Get up, get up for shame . . ./Get up, sweet-Slug-a-bed . . . … Continue reading →
Exploring angels through the lens of poetry, from Angels of Bread to the Necessary Angel, the Better Angel, the Industrious Angel, the Child Angel, Angel on Wheels, Angel in the House, Guardian Angel, the Angels in America, Angels Who Have … Continue reading →
Awake for Travel, the Sphinx, and Ramona the Pest and the Dawnzer Light (Happy Birthday, Beverly Cleary!) Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.—That’s Henry … Continue reading →
The Improbable Role of Poetry Changing People’s Lives and What April Has to Do With It, or, MY LIFE IN TERMS OF A QUEST OF CRUEL AND CRUELER APRILS:– THAT APRIL ‘TUDE and more true confessions. . . THE POETRY … Continue reading →
Recklessness . . . gladly . . . rambunctious . . . shining . . . our show today takes its title from Mary Oliver, “ALL THAT DAMPNESS AND RECKLESSNESS/GLADLY AND LIGHTLY,/ AND THERE IT IS AGAIN–BEAUTY THE BRAVE, THE … Continue reading →
Poetry for a wild March, Hares and Coots, and plenty of leaping. This has been a wild week, Pi Day, Einstein’s birthday, Ides of March, St. Patrick’s Day, Ducks becoming number one seed, all having to do with the Poetry … Continue reading →
Irish Proverb: Cheshire Cat Magnetic Belts, Persian New Year, Pre-Gaming Ides of March, and St. Patrick’s Day, and Other News in and of and by Poetry I love this Irish proverb, continuous cheerfulness is a sign of wisdom, because I … Continue reading →
To the tunes of Chet Baker, Bob Marley, Billie Holiday, Joni Mitchell, and the Happy Wanderer, guest host Emily Dickinson helps us welcome March, along with e.e. cummings, William and Kim Stafford, Derek Walcott, Jorie Graham, Leigh Hunt, Elizabeth Bishop, … Continue reading →
What the Old Guys and Wise Guys mean to today’s young leaders and scholars—a snapshot onto our world, a wake-up call, and that’s waking up to smell the coffee and see with amazement the morning sun rising gloriously. To the … Continue reading →
To the music of “Gravity by The Perfect Sphere, “Defying Gravity, Wicked, “Fly Me to the Moon, Frank Sinatra, “You Make Me Feel Brand New, Stylistics, “Love (Is All There Is), Beatles, and “Skiddamarink, we start with William Stafford’s poem … Continue reading →
A tree-mendous show that takes off from Shakespeare’s tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,/ Sermons in stones, and good in everything to reflect on the headline “news this week about trees from The Hidden Life of Trees: What … Continue reading →
Words from Galileo to John Glenn, Archibald MacLeish to Einstein and Emily Dickinson, Ray Bradbury, Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley, WallaceStevens, William Cullen Bryant, John Brainard, and Lola Ridge from DUBlin, with music “I Will Survive, “Happy Days, “Starman,“Woodstock, “Oh … Continue reading →
“So called lifeless rocks—Star Power–the Life in Stones: Who Knew?—a rocking show on new science and old poetry—We will rock you from Homer to Shakespeare to John Muir—to T.S. Eliot–to D.H. Lawrence—to Ruth Padel –and even yours truly, You Are … Continue reading →
Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say, ‘It is in me, and shall out.’ Stand there, baulked and dumb,stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand and strive, until, at last, rage draw out ofthee that dream-power which every night shows … Continue reading →
YOUR FEETS TOO BIG: WAKE FOR JOHN EATON AND LIVE BROADCAST FROM ABROAD WRITERS, DUBLIN Welcome to our Poetry Slow Down, I’m your professor Dr. B, Barbara Mossberg, with Producer Zappa John, our Mr. Z, for radiomonterey.com, podcast at BarbaraMossberg.com, broadcast … Continue reading →
I shall grow old but never lose life’s zest, Because the road’s last turn will be the best.—Henry Van Dyke “The difference made me bold—celebrating Emily Dickinson’s life of service, in honor of her 185th birthday; the meaning sharing one’s … Continue reading →
The music says it all: Roberta Flack, Killing me softly with his song Wizard of Oz, Courage (Lion’s Song) Pinocchio—Jiminy Cricket “When You Wish Upon a Star Footloose, “Almost Paradise Elvis, “It’s Now or Never Sound of Music, Climb Every … Continue reading →
That’s Nikki Giovanni, her Kidnap poem, kidnapping you today for our annual Thanksgiving PoetrySlowDown ANK OU ERY UCH, or, LET’S GIVE THANKS FOR THE POEM I’M WRITING (AND THESE WORDS I EAT) and this is your host Professor Barbara Mossberg, as … Continue reading →
I reflect that kind is three quarters kin. Our bonds, the actual equation of us, the Mayan saying, you are my other me. Emily Dickinson’s I’m Nobody draws us in to this secret shared identity. We are in this together. … Continue reading →
A show about memory and the spirit and spirits of what we treasure and hold precious when we slow down, and the role of Muse, of poetry, in bringing life to life. Music is “Memory,” from Cats, Got a Lotta Living … Continue reading →
(with thanks to Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, and Kenneth Helphand, Defiant Gardens, Thoreau, Walden, Edmund Rostand, Chanticler, Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, and a few maverick rooster-loving emperors and poets … Continue reading →
A radio show that ponders and bounces rating systems as we traverse our world. What do we bring to the table of life? And if marvelosity is “not a word then how do we know what it means? Because you … Continue reading →
Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning, and sang.—Mary Oliver (from Swan) Mary Oliver knows worry. Shakespeare knows worry. You know worry. I … Continue reading →
“THE [EXTRAORDINARY] JOY OF TASTING TOMATOES, APPLES, AND PEARS (William Martin) POETRICIAN, n. Nutritious Character of Poetry, a show in which we consider poetry a soil necessary for growth, in the UN’s Year of the Soil–the viewpoint of poetry as … Continue reading →
To music of Counting Crows, Lady Gaga covering Carol King (“You’ve Got a Friend—and you do), Billy Joel “Piano Man at Shea Stadium the night before its demise, Boys to Men “End of the Road, and the dulcet pipes of … Continue reading →
Our New Show Is Hot Out of the Oven and Ready to be Plated! We’re featuring the launch of the Tupelo Press 30-30 Project and the 9 well-known writers committed to a poem a day to support poetry shenanigans. …Precious … Continue reading →
Advice & love letters we savor, letters we take literally to the table. . . from Pablo Neruda (a foodie) to Sandra Gilbert (a foodie), Emily Dickinson (a foodie) to Thomas Jefferson (a foodie), and many more. Music by Bob … Continue reading →
“I notice I keep saying this and this seems to be my theme. It is a philosophy of life. That if you do it, if you hokey-pokey it, put your whole self in, that is, your memories, your fears, your … Continue reading →
Lively Arts and Classical Poetry As Survival Schemes and Shenanigans . . .news from the Bard to Nietzsche to Dante to Star Trek, of the Clown, the Fool, The Witch, the Dodo—Us in the Poet’s Mind Writ Large and Personal. … Continue reading →
OF RESILIENCE AND HOW POETRY MATTERS AS WE (LIMP) (HOBBLE) FORWARD WITH PANACHE AND VERVE (THAT IS MY STORY AND I’M STICKING TO IT), OF GRATITUDE FOR THE WORDS OF GRACE AND KINDNESS AND IMAGINATION AND BRAVERY OF THIS LISTENING … Continue reading →
From 14th century Queen’s College, broadcast live for radiomonterey.com, produced by Zappa Johns, with Professor Barbara Mossberg, on the news we heed, the news we heed, the news “without which men die miserably every day (William Carlos Williams, who knows … Continue reading →
Featuring Kathleen Dean Moore, Charles Finn, and ringleader Charles Goodrich, gathering a company of poets, with host Professor Barbara Mossberg for radiomonterey.com, Sunday live noon–1pm, PST, produced by Zappa Johns Job 12:7-10 “But ask the animals, and they will … Continue reading →
How can poetry be written and listened to, when the world breaks our hearts? A midsummer, anni-verse-ary show in the midst of news Mathew Arnold’s Dover Beach: Doesn’t it sound like it could be written today, of today—the question, … Continue reading →
FROM OREGON’S FAMED HAYWARD FIELD TO INTERNATIONAL LEADERSHIP ASSOCIATION WAVES OF POSSIBILITY CONFERENCE, TO GRADUATION CEREMONIES, TO ANNIVERSARIES OF YEATS AND MY MOTHER’S BIRTHS, AND GERARD MANLY HOPKINS AND ANNE FRANK’S DEATHS, FEATS OF LEAPING SHENANIGANS AND SPRUNG RHYTHMS OF … Continue reading →
Gordon Lightfoot, Wherefore and Why: The Touch of the Poet as Poetry Engages the World and Makes a Life Out of It The music for our show today probably says it all—Nat King Cole’s That Sunday, That Summer, Stylistics You … Continue reading →
TAKE A FEAR AND TWIST IT: OR STIR; OR MAKE IT BLUE(S): WHEN IT’S TOO HECTIC, WHEN THE NEWS IS TOO HARD, TWIST, STIR, SING THE BLUES, IN OTHER WORDS, SLOW DOWN QUARK-LAND! WHEN SOMETHING’S THE MATTER! As in THE … Continue reading →
PITCHING WOO: BIRTHDAY, EARTH DAY, BEING ALIVE AND ELATION EQUATION (it’s pretty quantum) In which we hear (hear hear!) love tributes to life itself, including and especially when all seems pretty precarious— Me on an erupting volcano (what was I … Continue reading →
What is all this juice and all this joy?—Gerard Manley Hopkins O to have my life henceforth a poem of new joys! To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on —Walt Whitman Do you love … Continue reading →
Poets Noticing the Overlooked, Succumbing to the Despised, Forsaken, and Frankly Hated Yep, it’s everything you hate—well not YOU, of course, poetry listener, but—well, yes, you, at least me, or sometimes me: the things we sweep and kill, poison and … Continue reading →
Emily Dickinson serves as earthling hostess for the season and our show today on March 1, for, as she says, “We like March. His shoes are purple. March, this Versace fashionista dude in a hat, comes panting to her door, … Continue reading →
BELLWETHERS: STUDENTS READ JAMES WRIGHT’S “I HAVE WASTED MY LIFE: Good News for the Future Generations THE POETRY SLOW DOWN with Professor Barbara Mossberg February 22, 2015 Sunday Noon-1 pm radiomonterey.com bell·weth·er noun: bellwether; plural noun: bellwethers 1 the leading … Continue reading →
Things are heating up here in the state of Oregon where the governor just resigned—Valentine’s Day—coincidence? It’s all about love, it seems to me, and there’s a history of leaders brought down or giving up their power for love. There’s … Continue reading →
POETRY MAKES YOU SMARTER, WISER, BETTER AT BEING HUMAN, HEALTHIER, AND MORE HAPPY: SCIENCE SAYS, HISTORY SAYS. Medical research, neuroscience studies, cultural history– from these points of view, is not all poetry ecopoetry, the poetry that connects human imagination and … Continue reading →
I and you have been thinking of a poetry superbowl, an all star-team, Emily Dickinson, wide receiver (“the spreading wide my narrow hands to gather paradise), QB, is it Emerson, calling the plays for The Poet? Yes, Walt, you’re the … Continue reading →
POETRY SLOW DOWN news WAITING ROOM RX –What To Feed The Elephant in the Room “miraculous beings come running to help (Rumi) Your A Team When It Matters Most A recent MOHS surgery to remove cancer from one’s nose (n.b.: … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN WITH PROFESSOR BARBARA MOSSBERG CULTURAL HISTORY—AND MYSTERY PRE-GAMING ROBERT BURNS DINNER, THE DYI GUIDE TO EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW AND DO FOR HAGGIS (GAG), AND WHAT IT HAS TO DO WITH THE MLK HOLIDAYAND MORE … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN as a New Year rolls in on sound waves of poetry: I COULD DRINK A CASE OF YOU (AND STILL BE ON MY FEET): you, Life, are that light, that kind of light we celebrate … Continue reading →
GOOD LOOKING: PRESENTS, PRESENCE, GIFTS, RE-GIFTS: HERE FOR THE PRESENT, POETRY FOR THE HERE (HEAR HEAR!) AND NOW, A Winter Solstice show during the Ursid meteor shower, in which we consider the immortal Ramona the Pest—Beverly Cleary’s four-year-old, Thornton Wilder’s … Continue reading →
MUSIC: Tiptoe Through The Tulips, ANY VERSION You heard right! Yes ma’am! It’s time to celebrate Emily Dickinson’s birthday, and so we are, with her poems on flowers, and her mind on flowers, quite possibly a flower, and not a shrinking … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN Dr. Barbara Mossberg Radiomonterey.com Produced by Sara Hughes December 7, 2014 © Barbara Mossberg 2014“ink is dripping from the corners of my lips/there is no happiness like mine/I have been eating poetry—Mark Strand, 1934-2014 Everything is so … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN Radiomonterey.com podcast BarbaraMossberg.com Founder and Host, Dr. Barbara Mossberg Producer, Sara Hughes November 23, 2014 © Barbara Mossberg 2014 LET’S GIVE THANKS FOR THE POEM I’M WRITING (AND THESE WORDS I EAT) My life has been the … Continue reading →
IT’S PREGAME TIME FOR BARBARA MOSSBERG’S POETRY SLOW DOWN, Livestreamed radiomonterey.com Sunday Noon-1 pm PST, Podcast BarbaraMossberg.com OFFENSE AND DEFENSE AND WINNING THE DAY: POETRY IN A TIME OF FOOTBALL—Who’s in? But Dr. B! Surely you’re kidding! We’re sitting here—we … Continue reading →
DARKNESS SICKNESS—Scandinavian malady (or melody?); Headline today in email subject line: NASA quells rumor, days of darkness in December; Are you curious about dark matter? Elaine Buldoc writes: “And thou shall learn to love even the darkness for without it … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN RADIOMONTEREY.COM Dr. Barbara Mossberg Produced by Sara Hughes November 2, 2014 © Barbara Mossberg 2014 AS THE EARTH TURNS, A GAME CHANGER OR, THE EPIC LENS: A LOOK AT OUR EARLIEST POETRY THROUGH THE LENS OF STUDENTS … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN RadioMonterey.com Podcast BarbaraMossberg.com Dr. Barbara Mossberg Produced by Sara Hughes October 26, 2014 © Barbara Mossberg 2014 NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THESE POEMS: RECIPES FOR HOW TO COOK A WOLF (don’t worry, it’s … Continue reading →
Verve: creative enthusiasm, vitality, syn.: energy, dynamism, vigor, vim, dash, spirit, life, animation, get up and go, brio, panache; ant.: lethargy. WHAT’S AT STAKE? ONLY THE FATE OF THE EARTH Jonathan Schell in The Fate of the Earth identified apathy … Continue reading →
Poetry slow down, screech! Break, for heart-breaking heart-making heart-shaking news without which “men die miserably every day. Hello, RadioMonterey.com, this is your host Professor Barbara Mossberg, with producer Sara Hughes, and we’re taking to heart, our heart’s aroused, by William … Continue reading →
From Frank Zappa to Bob Dylan, Walt Whitman to Percy Bysshe Shelley, Emily Dickinson to George Eliot, Rabbi Burns to Shakespeare, Thoreau to Robert Kennedy, we hear thoughts on what goes into the phenomenon of thinking of “my country, and … Continue reading →
I, OGRE: WILD THING! UMTRAMMELED SPIRITS—AND UNBOUND, AS WE HEAR IT FOR THE INNER AND OUTER OGRES AND CELEBRATE THE POET’S STAND UP ROLE IN PERSONAL AND CIVIC RESILIENCE, By which I mean, Poetry Slow Down, O evolved listeners of … Continue reading →
Noting the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, pondering The Washington Post experiment with violinist Joshua Bell, mourning Robin Williams and Joan Rivers, reflecting on community theater productions of Shrek the Musical and Into the Woods, fairy tales, and Sir … Continue reading →
What do Jesus Christ, Hugh Laurie, and George Bush have in common? Right, they all write about camels. The poetry of camels—you asked for it! Never has the Poetry Slow Down, Radiomonterey.com, podcast BarbaraMossberg.com, produced by Sara Hughes, had … Continue reading →
I READ THE NEWS TODAY OH BOY—AND WHAT EMILY DICKINSON HAS TO DO WITH IT: A SHOW INSPIRED BY A BIRTHDAY WITH THE EMILY DICKINSON INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY, THE DAY’S HEADLINES OF GLOBAL DAILY ANGUISH, AND POETRY’S NEWS “WITHOUT WHICH MEN … Continue reading →
COMMON GROUND AMONG FOUR POETS ON A RANDOM FRIDAY EVENING—THE THEME IS DUST AND WHY IT MATTERS TO YOU AND ME AND, IT SEEMS, POETS EVERYWHERE, EVERY TIME Let’s slow down, you and I, when the evening is, let’s slow … Continue reading →
ALMOST AT TIMES, A FOOL— WE WISH . . . HUMANITARIAN CLOWNING: THE WISE FOOL AND OTHER WISDOM ROLES THE POETRY SLOW DOWN RADIO MONTEREY.COM Dr. Barbara Mossberg Produced by Sara Hughes July 6, 2014 © Barbara Mossberg 2014 livestreamed … Continue reading →
Updated 7/2/16 I WAS MADE 4 SUNNY DAYS (Thank you, The Weepies)—Doesn’t this sound just like you? Of course you were made for sunny days—except Sophia who was made for rainy days. What better way to invoke the star in … Continue reading →
“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.― Thornton Wilder “Wonderful to be here—Walt Whitman POEMS PRESENT PRESENCE AS GIFT–Dedicated to the Pacific Grove Poetry Collective, a treasure—A SHOW … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN Founder and Host Dr. Barbara Mossberg June 8, 2013 LEADERS READ. THEY ALWAYS HAVE. THE MOST BRAVE AND BOLD AND IMAGINATIVE LEADERSHIP TO TRY TO SAVE THE WORLD IS FOUNDED ON POETRY. THAT’S RIGHT! HERE’S CHAPTER … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN KRXA 540AM Dr. Barbara Mossberg Produced by Sara Hughes May 4, 2014 © Barbara Mossberg 2014 TELL US HOW YOU LISTEN! WE NEED TO KNOW! Visit barbaramossberg.com Call us at 831-531-8306 Email drb@barbaramossberg.com TODAY I WAS HAPPY … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN KRXA 540AM Dr. Barbara Mossberg Produced by Sara Hughes April 27, 2014 © Barbara Mossberg 2014 APRIL IS THE CRUELEST MONTH . . . STIRRING DULL ROOTS OUT OF THE SPRING RAIN . .THAT APRIL! LOCK THE … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN Live on KRXA 540AM Dr. Barbara Mossberg Produced by Hal Ginsberg Podcast Produced by Sara Hughes at BarbaraMossberg.com April 20, 2014 © Barbara Mossberg 2014 NOON-1 PM SUNDAY PST The only news I know Is bulletins all … Continue reading →
POETRY SLOW DOWN KRXA 540AM Dr. Barbara Mossberg Produced by Sara Hughes April 13, 2014 © Barbara Mossberg 2014 GET YOUR GLOVES ON—NO, NO, NOT BOXING, IT’S AN ENGAGEMENT OF THE MIND, TIME TO GET ON YOUR KNEES AND … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN KRXA 540 AM Dr. Barbara Mossberg Produced by Sara Hughes April 6, 2014 © Barbara Mossberg 2014 THE HEART IS A SPONDEE (Charles Wright, Journal in the Year of the Ox): AND SPEAKING “POEMS THAT MAKE GROWN MEN … Continue reading →
POETRY SLOW DOWN KRXA 540AM Dr. Barbara Mossberg Produced by Sara Hughes March 30, 2014 © Barbara Mossberg 2014 BUDS: PAEANS FOR THIS MESSY TIME OF YEAR AS WINTER TURNS INTO SPRING, LOVE AND FISHIN AND WHAT EARTH IS UP TO … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN KRXA 540AM Dr. Barbara Mossberg Produced by Sara Hughes March 23, 2014 c Barbara Mossberg 2014 “Be joyful because it is humanly possible. ― Wendell Berry THE IMPEDED STREAM IS THE ONE THAT SINGS, AND WINE … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN KRXA 540AM Dr. Barbara Mossberg Produced by Sara Hughes February 9, 2014 © Barbara Mossberg 2014 THE SHENANIGANS OF DESIRE: LOVE’S PLAY BOOK, A COOK BOOK FOR FEASTING ON YOUR LIFE (IF MUSIC BE THE FOOD OF … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN KRXA 540AM Dr. Barbara Mossberg Produced by Sara Hughes February 2, 2014 © Barbara Mossberg 2014 HAMMER, BELL, SONG, AND OTHER POETRY IN THE NEWS: A CASE OF MURDER IN DISPUTE OVER POETRY/PROSE; THOUGHTS OF PETE … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN KRXA 540AM Dr. Barbara Mossberg Produced by Sara Hughes January 26, 2014 © Barbara Mossberg 2014 IF MUSIC BE THE FOOD OF LOVE PLAY ON (THE BARD)—AND IF POETRY BE LOVE OF FOOD, AS POETS PLAY … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN KRXA 540AM Dr. Barbara Mossberg Produced by Sara Hughes January 19, 2014 © Barbara Mossberg 2014 VOICES OF FIERCE MODESTY AND MAJESTY: “A MAN’S A MAN FOR A’ THAT; “THIS MESSAGE WE SMUGGLE OUT IN ITS … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN KRXA 540AM Dr. Barbara Mossberg Produced by Sara Hughes January 12, 2014 © Barbara Mossberg 2014 Starting off January right, the news we need, the news we heed, the news without which “men die miserably every day—“ … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN KRXA 540AM Podcast BarbaraMossberg.com Dr. Barbara Mossberg Produced by Sara Hughes January 5, 2014 © Barbara Mossberg Music Feeling Good, Nina Simone You Make Me Feel Brand New, Stylistics Start Me Up, The Rolling Stones Save Me, … Continue reading →
THE POETRY SLOW DOWN KRXA 540AM Dr. Barbara Mossberg Produced by Sara Hughes December 28, 2013 © Barbara Mossberg We alchemists look for talent that can heat up and change. Lukewarm won’t do. Halfhearted holding back, well-enough getting by? Not here.—Rumi … Continue reading →
“I will take the sun in my mouth and leap into the ripe air Alive with closed eyes to dash against darkness—e.e. cummings Will you come said the sun? Soon said the moon. How far said the star. I’m … Continue reading →
THIS JUST IN: MID DECEMBER NEWS WITHOUT WHICH MEN DIE MISERABLY EVERY DAY—front page news, science says optimism is important for brain and body health–and what poetry has to do with it—from the poignant to the sublime, from a woman … Continue reading →
“HEARING IN THE DARKNESS THE EVERLASTING SONG OF US (from Chuck Tripi’s “Agencies of Grace): POEMS AND FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, POEMS TO LIGHT US IN DARK DAYS AND FRIDAY NIGHTS, reflections about Emerson’s national recruiting calls for “The Poet and … Continue reading →
In Memorium, Antonina Rumore Clarke, June 13 1920-Nov 23-24 2010.Music: Amazing Grace Camp Granada RESPECT I Will Survive verb verb: grace; 3rd person present: graces; past tense: graced; past participle: graced; gerund or present participle: gracing 1.1. do honor or … Continue reading →
CYRANO (opening his eyes, recognizing her, and smiling as he speaks: the actor must try to convey the multiple meanings of the word panache, a feather, the plume in his hat, display, swagger, attack, or just spirit.): My panache. “I … Continue reading →
All hands on deck! Let’s hear it for our Poetry Slow Down, the news we need, the news we heed, the news “without which men die miserably every day: so says William Carlos Williams, whose day job was an OB/GYN and … Continue reading →
DELIVER US, SEND US: LET’S HEAR IT FOR LETTERS, “JOY OF EARTH/DENIED THE GODS, IN POETRY INSPIRING A RESURGENCE OF LETTER WRITING (YOU KNOW YOU NEED TO GIVE AND TO RECEIVE), considering Billy Collins, Emily Dickinson, Derek Walcott, Charlotte Bronte, … Continue reading →
Reprise: One Year Later! ZZZZZZ I’m your host, Professor Barbara Mossberg, for our sweeeet humming show today called: STAYIN ALIVE: FROM THE LIPS OF THE BEE GEES TO EARS OF UNIVERSE: WE RETURN TO OUR TOPIC OF EARTH’S ALPHABET BEGINS … Continue reading →
YOUR EFFULGENCE, THE BONES AND LIGHT OF IT-- LET THESE POEMS TURN YOU RED GOLD ORANGE AND YELLOW: YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A TREE AND YOU KNOW IT The Poetry Slow Down with Professor Barbara Mossberg on KRXA 540AM, live … Continue reading →
POETS’ TAKE ON CAPITOL “NEWS—WOULD THE GODS DO ANY DIFFERENTLY? IF HOMER IS ANY EVIDENCE, WE MAY YET FACE A HAPPY ENDING. MEANWHILE, SPEAKING OF HAPPY ENDINGS: BIRTHDAYS OF TWO WRITERS OF OLD-SCHOOL COMEDY, SYLVIA PLATH AND E.E. CUMMINGS, FELLOW … Continue reading →
We always take advice from poets, Derek Walcott’s Love After Love (“The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself . . . “), Rumi (“Say Yes Quickly), T.S. Eliot (“Let us go then, you and I . … Continue reading →
Are We a Mean Culture When It Comes to Proclaiming Beauty? Not You, O Listener: read on– ” . . . again the spotlight is on the poet writing the poem—out of darkness, out of silence–she is a tragic … Continue reading →
Language arts in the news this week: the news without which “men die miserably every day. So here is to living happily today—hear-hear—as in the earliest poetry which was recited, stories told, and to aid the speakers’ memory, it was … Continue reading →
All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up … Continue reading →
The news we need, “without which men die miserably every day (William Carlos Williams)—in this case, news that we ALL came from Mars. From Kabir to Shakespeare to John Muir to Gary Snyder, we’re celebrating what poets make of science … Continue reading →
BURNING AND LEARNING NEWS: WHILE FIRES RAGE WE RENEW OUR APPRECIATION FOR WILDERNESS, AND THE VITAL ROLE OF LANGUAGE IN HOW WE SEE AND TREAT OUR EARTH, ON THE OCCASION OF THE 97TH ANNIVERSARY OF OUR NATIONAL PARKS SERVICE On … Continue reading →
Chuck Tripi’s poem Janet’s poem Rumi she sent! TODAY, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be … Continue reading →
This is good news for all of us. Many of you know 65 and all of us hope to know. Some did not make it but lit the way of aging with commando* hope—going forth, being in the moment, unprepared, … Continue reading →
A TRUE HAPPY HOUR IT’S TIME FOR RUMINATIONS: NEUROSCIENCE ON SPONTANEOUS AND INSTANTANEOUS HAPPINESS, A PRACTICE OF MIND-FULL-NESS, WITH RUMI AND PRACTICIONERS ANDREW WEIL AND RICK HANSON, WITH WHAT POETRY HAS TO DO WITH IT ALL, INCLUDING WHAT TO MAKE … Continue reading →
To the coooool notes of the Beatles, “Hey Jude (“better better better better), Frank Sinatra’s “I Wish You Love (“and in July, a lemonade, to cool you in the summer shade), Simon and Garfunkle, “Bridge Over Troubled Waters (“like a … Continue reading →
WELL I DECLARE: LAYING IT ON THE LINE, POST JULY 4 REFLECTIONS ON GAME-CHANGING DECLARATIONS, PURSUITS AS FAR AS POETRY GOES, IN LOVE, LIFE, INDEPENDENCE, RIGHTS, AND OTHER KINDS OF HAPPINESS Featuring Edna St. Vincent Millay, Duane Esposito, Oscar Wilde, Thomas … Continue reading →
Music: Annie Get Your Gun, I’ve got the sun in the morning and the moon at night Beatles, Hard Day’s Night Machine Gun Kelly, Invincible Man of La Mancha, The Impossible Dream (lyrics, Joe Darion) Dedicated to Nelson Mandela *SPLENDOR … Continue reading →
“SURELY JOY IS THE CONDITION OF LIFE—Henry David Thoreau Welcome to our Poetry Slow Down, KRXA 540AM, think for yourself radio with Producer and icon Hal Ginsberg, whose vision of poetry on this show was excited by a poem about … Continue reading →
GALL AND NERVE, GUTS AND GLORY –THE POETRY OF INDIGESTION, PAIN, AND GLORIOUS PHYSICAL DESIRE TO RUN AND TO WIN (AND EVEN LOSE) IN LANES AND LINES, POETIC FEET . . . HOMAGE TO STEVE PREFONTAINE AND THE PREFONTAINE CLASSIC. … Continue reading →
For Scientist Jim Sedell CALLED, CREEKSIDE ANY TIME MORNING, ANY PLACE WALDEN, ANY MOMENT ALIVE, AWAKE: GOING TO THE WOODS TO LIVE DELIBERATELY . . . . WITH MOM’S PIE BERRY PIE AND PBR–THE HORSE LEAVES THE BARN, THE TRILLIUM … Continue reading →
OF COURSE WE’RE HEARING POETRY ABOUT MOTHERS! I WON’T LIE TO YOU, THERE IS NOT A WHOLE LOT IN OUR HUMAN HISTORY OF POETRY ABOUT MOTHERS. YOU WOULD THINK, AS A TERRAN ARCHEOLOGIST FROM THE SIRENS OF TITAN THAT IN FACT WE … Continue reading →
A JUICY SHOW: POETS DEFINE AND PRACTICE THE JUICE, PROVIDING ANSWERS FOR WHEN WE EACH ARE POSED THIS QUESTION IN THE HEADLINE NEWS—ASKED OF OUR PRESIDENT, NO LESS, DO YOU HAVE THE JUICE? Just what is meant by this metaphor? We’re going … Continue reading →
Finding Eden (snake, weeds, and all) in Our Own Back Yards: The Poetry of Community Garden: Earth Day, John Muir’s Birth Day, lots of robust Muir poetry with notes of Milton, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, William Cullen Bryant, Gilgamesh, and our contemporary … Continue reading →
Welcome to our Poetry Slow Down, KRXA 504AM, Think for Yourself Radio, produced by Sara Hughes, I’m your host Professor Barbara Mossberg, all because of the life of Senator William Fulbright: How is it that in going away, from all … Continue reading →
Ears of our ears are opened! Thank you mr. e. e. cummings, you ARE indeed alive again today and so are we,—slowing down for our Poetry Slow Down, I am your host Professor Barbara Mossberg, alive again today, on the … Continue reading →
We will begin with news on the topic of wisdom and the struggle to make a life of meaning and purpose and solace AND cheer—enduring —which will take us to some great poems on what and how to make of … Continue reading →
William and Kim Stafford, Emily Dickinson, Derek Walcott, Jorie Graham, Leigh Hunt, Elizabeth Bishop, Luis Montero, David Wright, Gerald Stern, Judith Viorst, Philip Larkin, Seneca, Rumi, Hafiz, Stephen Grellett, C. K. Williams, Eleanor Lerman, Mark Doty, Hilarie Jones, Marilyn Nelson, … Continue reading →
Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck we could have. It is a total waking up. Why should we grieve that we have been sleeping? It does not matter how long we have been unconscious. We are groggy, … Continue reading →
All hands on deck! Ahoy! Avast ye, mates! This is your captain Professor Barbara Mossberg of our Poetry Slow Down, a radio show for when nights are long and you’re lying awake, pondering your fate. Fate. How we meet our … Continue reading →
What would John Muir think of the current Executive Director of the Sierra Club affixing himself to a White House gate and being arrested? He would stand and cheer, along with the trees, as Henry David Thoreau’s model inspires civil … Continue reading →
Welcome to our Poetry Slow Down, KRXA 540AM, from the Think for Yourself Radio Team, Hal Ginsberg and Producer Sara Hughes, I’m your host Professor Barbara Mossberg, and I love our radio community as we listen on air to poetry, … Continue reading →
I and you have been thinking of a poetry superbowl, an all star-team, Emily Dickinson, wide receiver (“the spreading wide my narrow hands to gather paradise), QB, is it Emerson, calling the plays for The Poet? Yes, Walt, you’re the … Continue reading →
Top of the morning to you! We’re weathering together this late January day. We’re celebrating in this time that ancient civilizations didn’t even consider real time—it was just a no count time of no time they waited out til spring! … Continue reading →
RAVENS, SKYLARKS, AND A LEADERSHIP CURRICULUM: LEADERS’ POETRY, THE NEWS WE NEED, A TWO PART SHOW CELEBRATING PRESIDENT OBAMA’S INAUGURATION, MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY, THE FILM “LINCOLN,” BARACK OBAMA, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, MARTIN LUTHER KING–THE POETS THEY READ, THE POEMS THEY … Continue reading →
“Sometimes I lie awake at night at and ask, Where have I gone wrong? Then a voice says to me, this is going to take more than one night.—Charles Schulz, Peanuts. Do you remember Peanuts’ “I love mankind—it’s people I … Continue reading →
This is the story of how we begin to remember . . . These are the days of miracle and wonder (Paul Simon): MAKE IT NEW (Ezra Pound): Do we make endings only to have beginnings? Are we like a … Continue reading →
(“To Asphodel, That Greeny Flower, William Carlos Williams)—a wrap and rap in which we consider the new core curriculum standards devised in 45 states that mandate poetry be restricted in schools in a nonfiction to literature and poetry ratio of … Continue reading →
This is the time of year and days on which I think most of John Muir, the man striding on our California quarter– not Earth Day, his birth day, which you would suppose, but when he died at a Los … Continue reading →
I shall grow old but never lose life’s zest, Because the road’s last turn will be the best. —Henry Van Dyke “THE DIFFERENCE MADE ME BOLD: CELEBRATING A POET’S LIFE OF SERVICE, IN HONOR OF DICKINSON’S 182 BIRTHDAY . . … Continue reading →
“THE DIFFERENCE MADE ME BOLD: CELEBRATING EMILY DICKINSON’S LIFE OF SERVICE, IN HONOR OF HER 182 BIRTHDAY, THE MEANING SHARING ONE’S LIFE CAN MAKE TO THE SPIRIT WITH WHICH WE EACH GO FORTH BOLDLY WHERE NO ONE HAS BEEN BEFORE, … Continue reading →
Bring me home in sunlit spangle yet again (Kim Stafford) (Portland, OR) TODAY’S GOOD NEWS OF SPECIES PRESERVATION and POETRY—A SLOW WALK ON THE WILD SIDE, THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: ELEPHANT ROSE-TU DELIVERING, THE FATHER-SON NEXUS OF KIM AND BILL … Continue reading →
IN THIS HAPPY PLACE MY SERIOUS HEART HAS MADE: CELEBRATING SINCERITY–JACK GILBERT AND THE POETRY OF MAGNITUDE, INCLUDING LINDA GREGG, GERALD STERN, C.K. WILLIAMS, AND MORE POETRY IN THE NEWS, HALLELUIAH–LEONARD COHEN, CAVAFY, AND CULTURAL COMMENTATORS JOHN PENNER (LA TIMES) … Continue reading →
How much is up in the air, how much is up to us? What are our choices? What’s yes and what’s no, what’s up and what’s down, what’s charm and what’s strange, what’s bottom and what’s top? Okay, Poetry Slow … Continue reading →
Bees, why bees, Dr. B? You’ve given us shows of moles and bats and hats and coots, roosters, birds, foxes, bears, butterflies, and even worms! How low can you go? You’ve had us walking, on our knees, falling from the … Continue reading →
To the tunes of “Ode to Joy to “Wake Up Little Susie to wisdom from “Hair: HAVE THOREAU WILL TRAVEL, or, Thoreau’s Joy Has Legs– Aesthetic Correctness, Being Bossed by Poet Life Coaches: Push Ups for You! On Your Knees! … Continue reading →
Poetry of Dean Young, Pablo Neruda, Emily Dickinson, James Dickey, Lewis Carroll, Lois Entwistle, Kahill Gibran, Oprah Winfrey, Tony Hoagland, Charles Wright, Shakespeare, Thoreau, William Blake, Thomas Hardy, Carrell Hawkins, Jack Gilbert, John Fuller, Gerald Stern, Linda Gregg, Mary Oliver, … Continue reading →
Poems and news of one’s inner wild, from your host’s experience of being delicious to a bear (“Night Hunger, Wild Hunger) and inner lion DNA, to Galway Kinnel’s “The Bear, and more, Carl Sandburg’s “Wilderness,” and Gary Snyder, “How Poetry … Continue reading →
Wait, Dr. B—I can see where this is going with Whitman clearly a rocker but with Tennyson and Dickinson, I think you’re kind of stretching it, no? and Eliot? With all due respect ma’am you may be out there just … Continue reading →
homage and quaff to Sir Peter Shaffer, Charles Wright, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot, Walt Whitman, Mary Oliver, James Wright, Yeats, Chuck Tripi, notes of e.e. cummings, Dylan Thomas, Shakespeare, Homer, and Dave Barry. It’s my little homage—Lettice … Continue reading →
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. … Continue reading →
Our show begins with a poem on a hat left by a member of the Pacific Grove (Ad Hoc) Poetry Committee at residence of truly yours, Poet in Residence for said city; Susie Joyce made it into a song, and … Continue reading →
(Derek Walcott) : SUMMER POEMS TO COOL YOU DOWN, AND SPEAKING OF HOT JULY, TEXAS POETRY, featuring professor poets Paul Riffin and Wendy Barker, with poems and thoughts by Ruth Stone, Willis Barnstone, Mark Doty, Naomi Shahib Nye, Mark Bibbins … Continue reading →
—leave it to poetry to figure it out: David Whyte, Gratitude.org, Gratitude Is the New Old Happiness, and Poetry Expressing Gratitude for All We Can Say, two shows of gratitude including Albert Goldfarth’s “Library, a trailer of Bruce Beasley, C.K. … Continue reading →
Slow Down, Slow Down! That’s what I say—what say you? Welcome to our Poetry Slow Down, KRXA 540AM Think for yourself radio, what a trust in who your self is, what the doctor ordered for our society! I’m Professor Barbara … Continue reading →
Thank you for joining us for today’s show, Buddha and Benches; and This Just In: The News—gossip was the original news, which became poetry, the way we “knew the “news—gathered to hear it as we do right now, and we’re … Continue reading →
I I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and am not contain’d between my hat and boots, Aand peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good, Tthe earth good and the stars good, … Continue reading →
e.e. cummings says it all in his invocation “i thank You God for most this amazing, the gratitude expressed in robust humility and grand spirit for every thing that is “natural, “infinite, “yes. Spirits of trees are leaping greenly. He … Continue reading →
(Poetry of Emily Dickinson, e.e. cummings, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Theodore Roethke, Stanley Kunitz, Barbara Mossberg aka Fat Lady Flying) THAT APRIL! This April. This here April. –-No locked doors here, April’s welcome on our Poetry Slow Down, as we note Emily … Continue reading →
It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous—T.S. Eliot I cannot rest from travel, I will drink life to the lees, come, my friends, tis not too late to seek a newer world, that’s Alfred, Lloyd Tennyson, exhorting … Continue reading →
To the tunes of Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Etta James, Frank Sinatra, and Louis Armstrong, we are Poetry Slow Down, stopping to listen, we are heeding Gerald Stern, Yes SIR! Welcome to our show today, with me your host … Continue reading →
RECIPES OF UNNECESSARY ESSENTIALS –FOR A DAY OF LOVE, A WAY OF LOVE, IN POETRY’S PANTRY, or, how to have your cake and eat it too and give it away with poetry—including steaming fragrant poems by Poet Maker Bakers Pablo … Continue reading →
Frank Sinatra, Natalie Cole, Radio Jones sing of it, Shakespeare bards it, Dickinson escoffiers it: the topic is dust. Yes, dust. Glorious dust. I cannot get away from this theme of sweeping and cleaning. I am like Monica on Friends. … Continue reading →
MORE DUST UP ON POETRY’S PHILSOPHERS OF SWEEPS AND SACRED SWEEPINGS, FROM RUMI, KABIR, HAFIZ, TO WENDELL BERRY TO WILLIAM CRONON, TO EMILY DICKINSON TO RITA DOVE TO JULIANNA BAGGOTT TO GINGER ANDREWS TO ELEANOR LERMAN, TO DOROTHY BARRESI AND … Continue reading →
My heart rouses to bring you news, that concerns you and concerns many men. It is difficult to get the news from despised poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. That’s Dr. William … Continue reading →
A show which starts humbly in musings of humble arts, sweeping and ironing, and ends with a transcendent vision of transcendent arts of sweeping and ironing as nothing less than Truth and Beauty, and along the way picks up four … Continue reading →
A FRESH START IN THE NO-COUNT NEW YEAR, featuring Henry David Thoreau’s Chanticleer and the Morning Risers, a cast of thousands of epic minds from every culture and clime: who doesn’t write about morning? Gerard Manley Hopkins, Edward Hirsch, Billy … Continue reading →
John Muir, of such currency in our culture that California’s quarter features him, died almost one hundred years ago today, Christmas Eve, at a hospital here in Los Angeles. On his death certificate, his occupation was listed as “Geologist. . … Continue reading →
“I’ve known rivers. That’s Langston Hughes. Perhaps the human soul has known rivers forever. Certainly there are soulful songs about rivers in our lives today. There’s Paul Robeson’s Old Man River, and Moon River and Billy Joel’s River of Dreams, and Joni Mitchell’s “wish … Continue reading →
Bring Forth the Nobody and Send In the Clowns: The Wild Spirit of Emily Dickinson’s Creativity and Freedom We Celebrate on Her Birthday “lest any doubt that we are glad that they are born today I have come to … Continue reading →
In Memory of Ruth Stone, b. 1915, d. Nov 19, 2011 And honoring Robert Hass, former poet laureate, Library of Congress “Gratitude is the moral memory of mankind. Georg Simmel Thanksgiving, Football, Pumpkins, Shopping, a Little Time Out! It is … Continue reading →
From my journal: I read the paper, The San Francisco Chronicle, that Christer puts for me in the back room to savor and drink my first cup of coffee before the morning email. This day’s first page deals with a … Continue reading →
My heart rouses to bring you news that concerns you and concerns many men. It is difficult to get the news from despised poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. You know who … Continue reading →
What is not flighty but soars? You, Poetry Slow Down Listeners! “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Kahil Gibran “I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position … Continue reading →
Live from Butterfly Town, USA. We’re talking about butterflies today, in honor of their incredible desire and ability to migrate thousands of miles—straight here. The haven Monarch butterflies come home to is Pacific Grove, where I’m Poet in … Continue reading →
Greetings, fellow harvesters of earth’s bounty in mental and literal fields, psychic soil which nourishes and sustains us. I am thrilled to return to you, at this time of traditional harvest celebration, following our recent full moon, the time of … Continue reading →
Notes to our producers: I don’t know if I am going to get through this show without crying. . . thinking about 9-11 and the ways people use words in our times of greatest calamity is so moving to me—how the … Continue reading →
Whoa! What’s happened to your knees? You are dripping with mud! There’s grass all over you! Well, yeah, I was listening to The Poetry Slow Down, a program discussing amazing poetry of what we see when we get down with … Continue reading →
Dr. B, with all due respect, what if we are slowed down . . . way slowed down . . . TOO slowed down . . . stuck in traffic, waiting for a storm, waiting out a storm . . … Continue reading →
This is my letter to the world who never wrote to me– That’s Emily Dickinson, posting from her Amherst bedroom, and this is your host of post, Professor Barbara Mossberg, welcoming you to The Poetry Slow Down. We’re featuring bloggers … Continue reading →
O something pernicious and dread! Something far away from a puny and pious life—Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself (The Joys, 196) Walt Whitman–he’s escaped what afflicts you and me, “something escaped from the anchorage, and driving free. Now, Poetry … Continue reading →
I have been thinking a lot about the word “let in our language. The past two weeks, we heard Linda Gregg’s poem “Let Birds–Let birds . . . do what? You can see Poetry Slow Down how this has slowed … Continue reading →
We DO move too fast! What’s wrong with that, Professor B? The early bird gets the worm! Well, if we’re going sixty miles an hour and it’s all a blur, or we’re so overscheduled and stressed and harried we can’t … Continue reading →
Thanking you, Poetry Slow Down, for joining me on this summer day, for an hour away, a way, as we go on vacation, for more poetry of the tourist kind, the tourist mind, perhaps disoriented, as Billy Collins wants to … Continue reading →
It’s that time of year when people, maybe you, maybe you right now, go on vacations, which means, vacate, empty, leave home, leave the everyday routine, and be tourists. You are saying, Oh not me, I don’t want to be … Continue reading →
Music: We’ll hear strains from “Old Man River, 16 Tons (ya load sixteen tons, what’ya get, another day older and deeper in debt), Paul Simon, “Still Crazy (after all these years), Jacques Brel, The Old Folks Loveliest of trees, … Continue reading →
I caught the happy virus last night When I was out singing beneath the stars. It is remarkably contagious – So kiss me—HAFIZ And so our Sufi 14th century poet frames our impassioned show today, how nature is interpreted as … Continue reading →
Our show ponders Ezra Pound’s injunction to the poets to “make it new. We are thinking of the relation between making something new, and making news. The rare good news story about the sighting of the rare Sierra fox whom … Continue reading →
Our music for today’s show sets the scope of our tribute show on the poetry of mothers, about mothers, for mothers, to mothers: you’ll hear “I Turn to You, the theme song from Harold and Maude (Maude’s maternal advice to be … Continue reading →
“Don’t you know it, don’t you know I love you, he said. He was shaking. He said: I love you. There’s an art to everything. What I’ve done with this life, what I’d meant not to do, or would have meant, maybe, had I understood, though I have no regrets. … Continue reading →
Our Poetry Slow Down’s title takes off from Alicia Ostriker’s “April, with notes of birthday glads Shakespeare and John Muir, speaking for Earth Day, and the theme today of “I’ll Take It, I’ll Make It, Anywhere I Am (Pray It … Continue reading →
CRUEL AND TAXING APRIL(S). April perturbs and taxes the mind of Emily Dickinson and T.S. Eliot, while Thoreau doesn’t worry about how to do justice to this season; he proclaims morning as the season of the day, the time of … Continue reading →
A KNOCKING OF FOOLS, TREES, AND RESURRECTION FROLIC With notes of “April, come she will, Dylan’s standing in the doorway cryin,’ You Are My Sunshine, and What kind of fool Am I, we take up the malignment of April, poetically … Continue reading →
FOR MOLES AND HEDGEHOGS AND BADGERS AND BALLOON MEN AND ALL EMERGENT IMPROBABLE WILD CHARACTERS IN OUR LIVES, our show today is about love, improbable love, and life improbably emergent in just Spring. It all begins in Brooklyn with Death … Continue reading →
in midst and mists of epic storms, Gerard Manley Hopkins, with Charles Tripi’s “Get Up, (W.E. Henley’s “Invictus, Tennyson’s “Ulysses), and paean “Imaginary Brooklyn, W.S. Merwin’s “The Blind Seer of Ambon and more, Karen Bryant (responding to John Muir) as … Continue reading →
Music: Joni Mitchell ., Big Yellow Taxi (we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden) Jonathan Elias, Requiem for the Americas, Songs from the Lost World Stephen Stills, Garden of Eden Elvis Presley, Love Me Tender You don’t think … Continue reading →
I am the daughter of manifest destiny, Spawned by the Brooklyn Bridge A BROOKLYN STATE OF MIND, continued: what is Brooklyn to you, Poetry Slow Down community, on the theme of slowing down our hurried minds with poetry: Is Brooklyn, … Continue reading →
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm—That’s Ralph Waldo Emerson, and hello, this is Professor Barbara Mossberg, welcoming you to the Poetry Slow Down, KRXA 540’s Think for Yourself radio, and enthusiasm has been in the air. I’ve been researching … Continue reading →
“It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.”–Gertrude Stein. And so we’re going to take a lot of time, an hour today, for our Poetry Slow … Continue reading →
NEED SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS?– CALLING FOR POETRY AND MUSIC EDUCATION, a mellifluous show that tells it like it is, at The Poetry Slow Down, think-for-yourself KRXA 540 AM on California’s Central Coast, and internationally at www.krxa540.com. Continuing the theme of … Continue reading →
When the President of the United States responds to a public massacre, an attack on America’s elected leaders and processes, calling for us to enlarge our moral imagination–question! What is moral imagination? Question! What is being called for, and how … Continue reading →
The new year slumbers Restless beneath quilted white Dreaming of roses— That’s California State University Professor Pam Baker, haikuing it up in mid January, and this is Professor Barbara Mossberg, hi you, haiku, Pam’s grand slam haiku, we’re at the … Continue reading →
this is not a dark show, but a show filled with imagination’s colors and invoking of lifesaving creativity at a time of darkness If I keep a green bough in my heart a singing bird will come. Chinese proverb Give … Continue reading →
(Foy, did you say, Dr. B? Did she say foy?—no, I think, oy—as in oy vey?–shh) Our cryptic and elusive (and sly, no?) title points to a foxy trail: think a little “oy and a lot of “foy, a literal … Continue reading →
News We Need in the Darkest Time of Year: “The Search is on for rare Sierra red fox (San Francisco Chronicle, Monday, December 13, 2010) and other Good News About the Earth as poets are brought into play for the … Continue reading →
The page is Emily Dickinson’s stage, backstage, theater open 24/7. Dickinson dresses up, dons costume, makes herself up, for the role as immortal poet. And so she sets the stage for the drama of her life: how to convert being … Continue reading →
BLITHE SPIRITS: Hail to thee, blithe spirit– that’s Shelley, to the skylark, and I’m Professor Mossberg, hailing you, inviting the skylark in you to join me in our Poetry Slow Down, and we’ll find out more about the man who … Continue reading →
Speaking of thanks, in our series on life-saving wisdom thanks to poetry, we’ll consider the art of gratitude, the practice of thank you, the devotion of poetry which gives to us a way to see our world, our plights, our … Continue reading →
Today we go backstage with your radio host to see behind the scenes of The Poetry Slow Down, the reading of the day’s mail with poems sent in by listeners, and how that in turns impacts—okay, deliciously detours– the plans … Continue reading →
Does anybody really know what time it is? Drat Daylight Savings—or bless this conundrum? Who can say. The Poet can say, says Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson waxes forth in Crystal Blue Persuasion, in purple prose effusions, on a new day … Continue reading →
Robert Frost, in his poem October, beginning the hours of this day slowly, making the morning last, as Poet Paul Simon says on our show’s signature song, to Frost’s “make the day to us less brief, his slow! Slow! savoring … Continue reading →
In which we consider the relationship between gardening and poetry from earliest times, as poets wipe soil from their hands to pen their thoughts on the inextricable connections between the act of creating and co-creating Truth and Beauty out of … Continue reading →
Life, I Insist! It’s Autumn, and we’re in the mood. Change is in the air, and what does the universe portend? We hear from poet gardeners who see poetry and gardening inextricably connected, gardeners writing in their eighties and nineties, … Continue reading →