Podcast: The Poetry Show with Janet Harrison: Peggy Shumaker

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This program was broadcast on EnlightenRadio.org, July 31, 2017 from Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Janet Harrison and John Case host.


Peggy Shumaker was born in La Mesa, California, but she grew up in Tucson, Arizona. Both her undergraduate degree (B.A. in English) and her M.F.A. in creative writing were earned at the University of Arizona. Before moving to Alaska, she was writer-in-residence for the Arizona Commission on the Arts. She is Professor emerita and former chair of the English Department and Director of the MFA program in creative writing at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Among her several collections of poetry are The Circle of Totems (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988), Wings Moist from the Other World (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994), Underground Rivers (Red Hen Press, 2002), Gnawed Bones (Red Hen Press, 2010), and, most recently, Toucan Nest: Poems of Costa Rica (Red Hen Press, 2013). Additionally, she has also published a memoir in lyric fragments, Just Breathe Normally (University of Nebraska Press, 2007) and a book length collaboration with artist Kesler Woodward, Blaze (Red Hen Press, 2005). In 2008, she founded Boreal Books to publish literature and fine art from Alaska. She has served as poet laureate of Alaska (2010-2012) and as President of the Board of Directors of the Associated Writing Programs. Persimmon Tree, a literary journal written by women over 60, recently announced that Shumaker will be taking over from Wendy Barker as poetry editor of the journal. She was chosen for a Fellowship in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, as the Rasmuson Foundation's Distinguished Artist for 2014, and as the Artsmith Artist of the Year 2014.

In an interview about Just Breathe Normally with Alberto Rios, she said, "We find our ways to transform—we transform what we cannot make better. And we transform it into art if we are lucky. We transform it into something tolerable if we are not so lucky." In another interview about Toucan Nest, she said, "When we pay mindful attention, the world amazes."
This week's featured poem is "Kus-sun-ar" from Gnawed Bones (Red Hen Press, 2010). The poem alludes to her recovery after a near fatal accident.

KUS-SUN-AR
For an injured friend,
he brings salmon fillets, fish
he caught dipnetting all night at Chitina.
Needle-nose pliers nipped out
all the invisible bones.

Growing up at fish camp, he'd sneeze.
Elders said, "Kus-sun-ar."
Otter. They invoked otter's name
to wish him close
to one who lives in more than one world.
Shaman helper, on land, in water.

He tells me otters live inside women, curled up
just above the stomach,
and this feels true. I feel my otters,
restless, disturbed.

My hurt body can't rest yet,
it was so close to the other world.

I am an otter, skinned in the round,
my pelt pulled off in one piece.
Stitched into a kit bag,
I feel the shaman
feeding me salmon,
placing his healing
into my emptiness.


Writing prompt for the week: Think of a phrase or saying you heard as a child. Write a poem incorporating the phrase but also include a description of another scene that somehow resonates with the saying. You might even consider moving back and forth between the saying and the resonant scene or scenes.

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Enlighten Radio: Poetry: The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart

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Poets and Mechanics Friends Worship Group:Call To Meeting July 2, 2017

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Enlighten Radio:The Poetry Show -- June 19, 2017

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Enlighten Radio: The Poetry Show, Storytelling with Fanny and Stas,...

Enlighten Radio: The Poetry Show, Storytelling with Fanny and Stas,...: Monday, June 5, 2017  Lineup for Enlighten Radio 7:30 The Poetry show with Janet Harrison. Poet of the week is Chana Bloch. Noo...

The poetry show: Monday's poet is Chana Bloch

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Chana Bloch was born on March 15, 1940 in the Bronx, New York and died recently on May 19, 2017 in Berkeley, California. Her parents were Jews who had emigrated from Eastern Europe. She earned a B.A. from Cornell University, a M.A. in English literature and Judaic studies from Brandeis University, and Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on the poetry of George Herbert, an Anglican minister, an unusual choice perhaps for a young Jewish scholar. She later published a book on Herbert, Spelling the Word: George Herbert and the Bible. Her five collections of poetry are The Secrets of the Tribe (Sheep Meadow Press, 1981), The Past Keeps Changing (Sheep Meadow Press, 1992), Mrs. Dumpty (University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), Blood Honey (Autumn House Press, 2009), Swimming in the Rain: New and Selected Poems (Autumn House Press, 2015). A sixth volume, The Moon Is Almost Full is scheduled to be published posthumously in the fall of 2017. In addition to her critical studies and original poetry, Chana Bloch also published translations from the Hebrew and Yiddish, including works by Israeli poets Yehuda Amichai and Dahlia Ravikovitch, and a new version of the Song of Songs. From 1973-2005 she taught at Mills College, a women's college in Oakland, CA, where she also directed their creative writing program. Among her honors were two fellowships from the national Endowment for the Arts, one for poetry and one for translation, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and two Pushcart Prizes. For more information, see her website, www.chanabloch.com.  

When asked by Carol Dorf what she saw as her responsibilities as a poet, Bloch replied, "To tell the truth about life. Not to record the facts as a journalist, but to reach for a deeper truth with the power of the imagination. You bring many experiences together and make of them an amalgram that's richer, closer to the essential truth." 

This week's featured poem is "Alone on the Mountain," from Swimming in the Rain: New and Selected Poems 1980-2015 (Autumn House Press, 2015), originally published in The Past Keeps Changing (Sheep Meadow Press, 1992). 

ALONE ON THE MOUNTAIN

I climb up here only

to feel small again. Blue liquor

of distance: one sip and I start to lose

size, anger, the sticky burrs 

of wanting. If only, what if—let the wind

carry it away.

Wave after wave of shadow comes over

the mountain, like some great

migration. Up here

everything's painted the four

bare colors: sky, cloud, rock, shadow. 

To be the object of so. much weather! 

I'm the only one left at the end

of the last act. Everyone has died, 

or gone off to be married.

Look how that tree

catches the wind, strains like a kite against

its patch of sky. That's 

what I come for.

                                     An important cloud

is making its way to some other mountain, to the sea, 

scattering finches like poppy seeds. 

Writing prompt: 

There is a crucial distinction between solitude and loneliness. (You may not agree; you could write about that.) Recall a time when you were by yourself, either lonely or solitary, and write about it. Blend in details of your physical surroundings. 

Enlighten Radio:Neruda odes, storytelling, Jane Austen on Monday

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Enlighten Radio: The Poetry Show features Nobel Poet Wislawa Szymbo...

Enlighten Radio: The Poetry Show features Nobel Poet Wislawa Szymbo...: Enlighten Radio -- May 22, 2017 Wislawa Szymborska was born on July 2, 1923 near Poznań in western Poland, but in 1931 her family moved to K...

Th Poetry Show Features Poetry of Samuel Hazo -- May 8,2017

Janet's notes on this podcast of the Poetry Show on Enlighten Radio, aired on May 8, 2017 in Shepherdstown, WV.






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The son of Lebanese and Syrian immigrants, Samuel Hazo was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 19, 1928. After his mother died when he was only six years old, his aunt became the primary caretaker for his brother and him. In 1949 he graduated magna cum laude from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, and then enlisted in the Marine Corps, serving as a captain. Returning to Pittsburgh after his military service, he earned an M.A. from Duquesne University and a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. An extremely prolific writer, Samuel Hazo has published in many genres: novels, plays, essays, a memoir, a film script, and more than 30 books of poetry and translations. Among is recent publications in poetry are The Song of the Horse: A Selection of Poems 1958-2008 (Autumn House Press, 2008) and They Rule the World (Syracuse University Press, 2016). He founded the International Poetry Forum in 1966. The organization brought more than 800 poets and performers to Pittsburgh, including such luminaries as Seamus Heaney and Robert Pinsky. Additionally he taught English (1955-1998) and served as an associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (1961-1966) at Duquesne University. In 1993, he was appointed poet laureate of Pennsylvania, a position he held for a decade. His poetry is both personal and political, and has been praised by poets such as Naomi Shihab Nye and Martín Espada.


Responding with approval to a remark a friend wrote to him in a letter, "Knowing is stifling; not knowing is creative," Hazo commented, "We live in a world obsessed with the ultimate value of information and the pursuit of the factual over the ambiguous, the obscure or the mysterious." He goes on to draw an important distinction between the language of communication (everything from conversation to journalism, from text messaging to expository prose) and the language of communion (poetic statements, the arts and literature). He states, "Life, however, is by nature not static. It is ultimately a mystery; it has more in common with what we cannot know than what we do know."


This week's featured poem, "Only the New Branches Bloom," is from Song of the Horse: A Selection of Poems from 1958-2008 (Autumn House Press, 2008).


ONLY THE NEW BRANCHES BLOOM


Denying what it means to doubt,
this year's forsythias unfold
and flood the air with yellow
answers.
They say it's time
I opened up, time I learned
French, time I liked less
and loved more, time
I listened to the sun, time
I made time.
Why not?
Can days of making sense
of days that make no sense
make sense?
If nothing's sure
but nothing's sure, then reading
Montesquieu must wait.
Preparing for my enemies must
wait.
And gravity the hurrier
must wait because forsythias
are happening.
They make me
turn my back on forts,
insurance policies, inoculations,
wire barbed or braided,
bodyguards and all that folderol
of fear.
They say that this
year's blossoms will outlive
the lasting death of Mars.
There are no flowers on the stars.