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.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, 
. . .
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, 
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
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 one thing led to another, which is the way of hats and poets and poems, and so she sings on our show, she brings my poem to life, and makes it shimmer and have panache and je ne sais quoi, and then she takes another one of my poems, Bones and Flesh, and sings that, and after this, you will be really slowed down, for what goes with hats, bats, of course, since I was just in Austin, Texas, an anthropologist observing crowds on Congress Bridge waiting for the nightly appearance of bats (Did you say bats, Professor Mossberg? I did) (Honey, did she say bats?). Yes, really, I did, I do, and what I immediately wondered was about the poetry of bats, and it turns out OF COURSE that great poets write great poems about bats! And we’ll hear D.H. Lawrence, Theodore Roethke (also on weeds, speaking of creepy crawly things creeping out gardeners), Mary Oliver, Carolyn Kizer, Robert Hass.
(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 (“And You Thought You Were the Only Oneâ€), Liam Rector (“Fat Men in Summer Suitsâ€), Derek Walcott, Frances Chung, Walt McDonald, David Woo, Rosanna Warren, Lewis Carroll, e. e. cummings, Charles Wright, Lynda Hull, Mark Jarmon; meditation on the Austin agencies of angels (insects, train) by your program host Professor Barbara Mossberg; reflections on the significance of the fact that many of Emily Dickinson’s poems can be sung to “The Yellow Rose of Texas†(with illustrations); the Harry Ransom Center at University of Texas, Manuscripts Collection; Albert Camus on traveling; upcoming Texas International Poetry Festival in September; CERN findings on the “God particle” for what makes matter and how poetry makes things matter; and more, and continuing . . . . Thank you for listening! Please write bmossberg@csumb.edu. And slow down, because you know you move too fast! Poetry’s the way. Chill.
Next week, live from our studios and returning to my hometown, Pacific Grove, and our Poetry Committee up to good: stay tuned!
© Barbara Mossberg 2012
—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. Williams, Jane Kenyon, Marilyn Nelson, Charles Berstein, W.S. Merwin, Stanley Kunitz, Tim Seibles, B Mossberg, and more . . . Â
. . . life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness . . . Â Continue reading
