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 down and go then, and go to Innisfree, and let’s sweep out the dust in our minds, the dust from which we came and to which we go, the dust which we are, stars are, and poets know it, poets have always known it. Welcome to our Poetry Slow Down, RadioMonterey.com, podcast BarbaraMossberg.com, produced by Sara Hughes in our home studios, and I’m your host Professor Barbara Mossberg, bouncing and prancing around with the poetry scene up in, out West
In Oregon, at Eugene’s epicenter of poetry, what’s shaking at Tsunami Books, to get on its wave-length, our poetry sound waves to you, dear listener, joining the Central Coast vibe, So in poetry’s mind sweeping we discover dust, primary matter, what’s deep and abiding in us, what remains, what’s immortal, and generates new life, like. . . poetry: sprinkled with images of divine dust! This is a case of the human brain making lemonade out of lemons. The poet mind dazzled, dazzled by dust . . . we’ll hear voices from Scott Landfield’s Tsunami Bookstore Stage, Dorianne Laux, Joseph Millar, Maxine Scates, and Danusha Lameris, great poems that each have to do with . . . dust—that is, the heart of the matter, what matters, what endures. We’ll take this lens of insight into what’s the matter with poems on dust by Marilyn Nelson, Mary Jo Bang, Frank Bidart, C. K. Williams, Albert Goldfarth, Shapespeare, Book of Common Prayer, Emily Dickinson, and Walt Whitman. We’re hearing great, moving poems, all coincidentally dealing with dust . . . which just goes to show. All of this thinking about dust was caused by considering poems I loved, seemingly a random selection, of Dorianne Laux, Joseph Millar, Danusha Lameris, and Maxine Scates, the brainchild of Scott Landfield at Eugene Oregon’s Tsunami Books, epicenter of poetry dust ups, shake ups, with poetry tslams (I read I’m Shaking It I’m Making it but the woman in the mirror doesn’t move at all, and now I see that’s all about mortality—_ . . . but Poetry Slow Down, stars do it, universes do it, planets, meteors, us, it’s all about dust, the secret that poets have their eye on for us, getting to the heart of the matter, so when we dust we’re getting tangled up in life and death and questions of infinity and immortality and resurrection and what remains and endures and generates new life and is never done, so when you’re dusting later on, remember Monica on Friends, after she vacuums, she dusts the vacuum cleaner, you can never dust enough, because it’s the thing itself, it’s what’s the matter, it’s matter, and speaking of that, how YOU matter, Poetry Slow Down, thank you for joining me today and our moving Tsunami team, at Radio Monterey.com, podcast BarbaraMossberg.com, the news we need, the news we heed, the news ‘without which men die miserably every day,†with producer Sara Hughes, and I’m your host, Professor Barbara Mossberg, write me at drb@barbaramossberg.com, you make my day!
© Barbara Mossberg 2014
