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 AS OUR NEW YEAR BEGINNING MORPHS INTO MID-WINTER AND POETRY IS EXPOSED LIKE SO MANY TREE TRUNKS SHORN OF LEAVES: WE SEE OUR MORAL STRUCTURE OF HUMAN SOCIETY. IN SUCH HOOPLA AS GLOBAL BIRTHDAY PARTY AND FEDERAL HOLIDAY WE EXPLORE A PHENOMENON: HOW OUTLIERS BECOME LITERAL INSIDERS—HOW THEY ARE TAKEN TO HEART, TAKEN TO MIND, AND CHANGE OUR WORLD. Through the lens of Martin Luther King, Jr., we see an odd couple as roots of civil and human rights leadership, the poets Robert Burns and Henry David Thoreau, both roosters in the barnyard, the lady’s man and no-body’s man, both poor and struggling for a place to live, a way to live, both unfashionably and eccentrically and passionately concerned equally with equality and the dignity of fellow man and species, human rights and nature, both dying young in their 30s and 40s, not living to see their words inspiring people to change the world—like Abraham Lincoln, like Martin Luther King, like John Muir, like Gandhi . . . WHEN WE CELEBRATE MLK, THE POWER OF A DREAM, WE FURL A FLAG OF THE POETRY THAT AROUSES COURAGE AND CONSCIENCE AND THE DREAM ITSELF—AND FACE MYSTERY: HOW CAN A SET OF WORDS HERE AND THERE MATTER SO MUCH? STILL? AROUND THE WORLD?
© Barbara Mossberg 2015
Produced by Sara Hughes. Podcast BarbaraMossberg.com
