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 to, bring about

The news you need, the news you heed, the news of “difficult” and “despised” poems “without which men die miserably every day” (Wm. Carlos Williams)

On the occasion of Earth Day, Shakespeare’s Birthday, John Muir’s Birthday, March for Science, and “everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes” (e.e. cummings)

USE YOUR WORDS: IN A TIME OF TERRORISM, CLIMATE CHANGE, RESISTANCE AND RESILIENCE: HOW POETRY MATTERS; HOW WORDS MATTER—AND HOW EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE TURNS TO—AND INTO—POETRY

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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 spine, have our back, hand it to us, nurture our hearts, and restore our sense of trust in our world. Our Poetry Slow Down is produced by Zappa Johns, out here on the West Coast, and I’m our host, in Eugene, Oregon, Track Capital of the World, by which we all know means the place of poetic feet, go Ducks!–with the news we need, the news we heed, the news without which men die miserably every day . . . in other words, news we can trust to be kind.

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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. A show in which I say, all right, let’s see what this poetry is really about when it comes right down to it–my mother’s dying and death. And in the process we’ll hear what nourished me and us–e.e. cummings, Emily Dickinson, Yeats, Eliot, Beckett, Mark Strand, Stanley Kunitz, Shakespeare, James Wright, Mary Oliver, and more.

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Live from Berkeley, words on behalf of earth and your own favorite tree and poets!

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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 are purple.” March, this Versace fashionista dude in a hat, comes panting to her door, and she opens it wide, so glad, takes him upstairs with her, ready for all he has to tell her, and she, because she’s Emerson’s Poet, air-lord, sea-lord, land-lord, to tell us.

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