Poetry Hour on KOPN
Thanks to Anne and the gang at the Columbia Downtown Poetry Club, I got to read poetry on the local radio! I also got to meet a few poets from Jeff City (Gumbo Bottoms Single Pot Still Poetry Society), and one of them gave me a collection of the society’s poems, which was very exciting. There were musicians performing, too: Billy Haring, Dylan McCord and Kind Kurt.
This was a lot of fun. Except for the mics and headsets, the radio station didn’t look anything like Frasier. The lights were dim and there were perennial Christmas lights on the ceiling. Everyone was super nice and supportive and chill.
The first poem is at 53:15, and it’s called “Hate.” Tactful as ever, I upset the host. Sorry Mike! He handled it like a pro, though. Next time this peculiar situation arises, I’ll try to remember to read a life-affirming poem instead of a hate-affirming one.
No, of course I wasn’t nervous! …Okay, yes, I was nervous. I don’t know how I get stage fright reading in front of six people and a mic. Heck, sometimes I get stage fright just reading whatever I last wrote to two or three people at the Columbia Poetry Club. I’m getting stage fright right now, thinking about it. But it’s good for me. As I recall, it was a lot easier reading things aloud that were written by other people. There’s an extra layer of vulnerability, when you are the one who wrote it.
The second poem is called “Caught” and it’s at 1:41:36.
You should listen to the whole episode, though, because there’s lots of really good stuff in there!
And donate to your local radio station. Better yet, donate to mine! Imagine how boring radio would be without these good people mixing it up out there.
Until next time! ❤︎
Hello Sarah!
So sorry I did not respond before now — no good excuses other than I have been rather consumed with a project of my own, a book called If Only Dogs Could Sing, which is a work in progress. But you know how sometimes you get going on a thing and you wake up at crazy hours with it in your head and there is nothing for it but to get up and follow the lead.
Your Hate poem certainly contained some sobering truths — definitely Hate IS a monster. I have to wonder if it is the thing that got ahold of the host’s nephew…very sad when this happens. (In my circle a friend’s nephew was shot five times…awful) Thank you for sharing and it was so good to put a voice to your name after all this time 🙂
I was thinking about turning my blog posts into a book, maybe even just a cookbook, and I got started with that a few weeks ago (another part of my excuse I suppose), then got overwhelmed, so turned to the other. Maybe you have thought of compiling your poems into a bound volume?
I did not get to the other poem of yours on the show yet because for some reason my computer just wouldn’t play it. I will try again later. Right now heading out to go get milk with mom. We have a great farm nearby where I pick it up (raw milk it is!) and a little shop that has some other goodies we like. It’s beautiful fall weather here — the sky as blue as you could want. I hope it is equally lovely there.
All the best to you always, Patricia
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