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 Celebration, the Star Wars gathering, our man on the ground, so to speak, with the stars, on Star Wars, and we’ll have his thoughts for us, its epic meaning to his life, and my reflections of its relation to our times, our very headlines of the day, and U.S. and world history, and poetry (of course), including Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and the book and film Wizard of Oz, and then of course it’s Mother’s Day, and we’ll slow down for the poetry of that, including my own poem about my mother, and I’ll update you on my trek in the letter and spirit of John Muir’s equally epic-inspired 1000 Mile Walk to the Gulf.
I just was in Florida and we’re live from Savannah, Georgia, where he spent a long week, botanizing and trying to stay alive, buoyed by the nature . . . . and stars . . . . starving for bread but fed on epic imagination, and like George Lucas’ Star Wars, Shakespeare and Civil War are much on his mind. We’re talking about cherry pie, I mean, journeys (what was I thinking?–this hunger I’ve got from recreating John Muir’s Savannah sojourn has riddled my brain) and what the stories of (hungry) journeys mean to us: why Star Wars matters so utterly over four decades to generations, why John Muir became so instrumental in transforming our earthly landscape (including seeing it as food), and speaks to us over 100 years later more powerfully than ever, and our own birth journeys, and so Dr. B, how do you put this all together? Aha, it seems the common feature of our show today is revealed as . . . Mother . . . Earth! Our experience on this earth, and how we think about it! And what does that have to do with poetry? Aha! As it turns out, and you knew this, evolved hearts and minds of our Poetry Slow Down, everything! It shall all be revealed . . c Barbara Mossberg 2017Â
THE POETRY SLOWDOWN
With Professor Barbara Mossberg
Produced by Zappa Johns
May 7, 2017
© Barbara Mossberg 2017
