Perhaps you’ve had the experience of standing on some nondescript street corner, minding your own business, when a stranger comes along and tries to chat you up. Maybe you found yourself thinking "I hope this person’s not a murderer” — a fear which typically seems dramatic. But when Rachel Gladstone had a similar type of run in with her neighborhood exterminator, she was shocked to find just how plausible that concern actually was. Rachel Speaks with poet Alicia Marie Brandewie about a series of unsettling encounters with the pest control man up the street. Then Alicia takes Rachel’s surprising narrative and turns it into poetry.

Versify is a production of Nashville Public Radio and The Porch — Nashville’s nonprofit literary center.  Editing for this episode came from WPLN’s Mack Linebaugh with additional editing by Anita Bugg. The episode was written, hosted, and produced by Joshua Moore. Today’s story and poem were recorded by Sean Clark at Coco’s Italian Market in February of 2018.

The music is by Blue Dot Session and Lee Rosevere — found through the Free Music Archive.

*The show is distributed by P-R-X. *