KUSP's Poetry Show

Catherine Segurson, frequent Poetry Show guest and founder of Catamaran Literary Reader, joined host Dennis Morton on the February 14 Poetry Show for a review of the latest issue. This is issue #12 for the quarterly publication, which brings together high-quality art and writing, including some very fine poetry. We're fortunate to have such a quality arts publication originating here in Santa Cruz, and Catherine is the creative force responsible for the continuing excellence of Catamaran Literary Review.

February 14 is also Valentine's Day, so Dennis and Catherine found a number of love poems to share with listeners, drawn from past issues, along with other selections from the current issue.

Zack Rogow is the poetry editor for Catamaran (and also a past Poetry Show guest). He and Catherine work together to find poets and poems that work harmoniously within each issue, often paired with complementary works of visual art. Poets contributing to this week's Poetry Show included:

Luis Rodriguez - This Love

Joseph Millar - Love Sick

Alberto Ruy-Sánchez - The Erotic Forest

Dana Gioia - "Words, Words, Words"

Freya Rohn - Cottonwood

William Doreski - The Last of the Argonauts

Jacqueline Berger - Gone

Jimmy Santiago Baca - Esai

Paul Muldoon - Catamaran

On the February 21 Poetry Show, host Dennis Morton presented readings of a selection of African-American poetry to commemorate Black History Month. In the first half-hour, Dennis read poems and brief biographies of the poets. Many of the poems can be found on the Poetry Foundation website, and included:

James Weldon Johnson - The Awakening

Robert Hayden - Those Winter Sundays

Rita Dove - Canary

Al Young - The Blues Don't Change

Dudley Randall - The Ballad of Birmingham

Michael S. Harper - American History; Dear John, Dear Coltrane

Toi Derricote - Black Boys Play the Classics

Maya Angelou - Caged Bird

Harriet Mullin - Up From Slobbery

Natasha Tretheway - Entitlement

 

In the show's second half, we heard a number of recorded readings from a CD included with the book,  The 100 Best African-American Poems, edited by Nikki Giovanni (2010). The subtitle reads "(but I cheated)", acknowledging the fact that the book actually contains more than 100 poems.

Poet Kita Shantiris was the in-studio guest of host Dennis Morton on the Poetry Show for February 7, 2016. Ms. Shantiris will be reading for Poetry Santa Cruz this Tuesday, 7:30 PM, at Bookshop Santa Cruz, along with local poet Doren Robbins.

A psychologist who runs a non-profit mental health center, Kita Shantiris'  new poetry collection is titled What Snakes Want.

From her website:

Advance praise for What Snakes Want

"Something edgy and intense haunts Kita Shantiris' poems, always threatening to flare up just outside their frames. Like a great auteur, she teases us with implication, with slow builds, the sneaky reveal, with what you can't yet see. Or, she'll give us a flash of aftermath, letting us glimpse "a tub of red water" where the violence has already taken place. Carefully orchestrating her pace, Shantiris lets things dawn on us, which contributes to the sense of delicious discovery one has in reading this collection. Wanderlust, an ode to coffee shops, an erotic poem set in a gaudy Laundromat, a child lying in bed hearing her abusive father come home…it's all here, articulate, compressed, suspenseful. "It takes brandy to center me/glowing alone here." The reader will likely find herself glowing along with these poems."

—Amy Gerstler, author of National Book Critics Award winner Bitter Angel and other collections

"One could spend a lifetime with Kita's new and powerfully personal book of poetry, What Snakes Want. The poems speak of a life replete with love, loss, pain, honesty, insight, longing, sensuality, and a deep unabashed unsentimental appreciation for the very gift of life itself. The poems are accessible yet abound with rich imagery, beautifully wrought observations of the natural world and of our very human behavior, and they do so with an intensity of feeling and care that ultimately resound with hope as they reach in and touch the soul."

– Ed Harris, actor, screenwriter, director

Sunday's show featured a variety of readings by host Dennis Morton, plus recorded readings by a pair of American traveling poets. The show started off with several poems from Blue Yodel, a new collection by Ansel Elkins. Ms. Elkins, a native of Alabama,  is new to the Poetry Show reading catalog. One reviewer described her poetry as:  "A gorgeous, midnight-hued homage to Southern Gothic tradition".

 

Next, we heard several selections from Kita Shantiris' first full-length poetry collection, titled What Snakes Want. The readings served as a preview - Ms. Shantiris will be a guest next week on the Poetry Show, followed by a reading for Poetry Santa Cruz on Feb. 9.

Following were selections from the latest issue of Manhattan Review, continuing a survey of the new issue begun two weeks ago;  then a few selections from the latest issue of The Dark Horse (note that, as of this writing, information on the newest issue is not yet posted on the website).

Two poems were selected from Burnfort, Las Vegas, by Irish poet Martina Evans, a past Poetry Show guest. All past guest, with links to Podcasts of a appearances can be found at the alphabetical guest listing page. Several selections from a new collection titled Dead Man's Float, by Jim Harrison concluded the host readings.

 

The final ten minutes of this week's Poetry Show were given to a CD of live, sometimes extemporaneous poetry composition and reading by travelers Joshua Beckman and Matthew Rohrer, titled Adventures While Preaching The Gospel of Beauty.

Host Joan Maro welcomed local poet Danusha Laméris to the KUSP air studio for an hour to read and discuss Danusha's poetry, especially her recently-published first book - The Moons of August  (Autumn House Press, 2014). An introduction by Naomi Shihab Nye:

"Danusha Laméris writes with definitive, savoring power – in perfectly well-weighted lines and scenes.  Her poems strike deeply, balancing profound loss and new finding, employing a clear eye, a way of being richly alive with appetite and gusto, and a gift of distilling experience to find its shining core.  Don't miss this stunning first book."

 

 

Danusha Laméris is no stranger on the Poetry Show. Her previous visit as a guest poet was June 25, 2012. In addition to writing poetry, she enjoys teaching. Visit her website to learn more, and to stay current.

For this week's show, host Dennis Morton read works from a variety of poets, beginning with two whose work appears in the latest issue of the Catamaran Literary Reader: Dana Gioia and Al Young.

 

We hope to have Catherine Segurson, founder and editor of Catamaran, as a guest in the near future - to continue discussion of the new issue and the poetry therein. In the meantime, get your own copy of the latest issue before it sells out so you can read along and enjoy its selection of the visual arts that we can't show on radio.

 

Readings continued with selections from poets featured in the Fall/Winter 2015-16 issue (Volume 17) of The Manhattan Review, including D. Nurkse and Jeanne Marie Beaumont.

In the show's second half, a wonderfully serendipitous batch of readings were drawn from poetry collections contained in - as Dennis confided - "the box of books in the back seat of my car". Included were works by Stanley Kunitz, Lucille Clifton, Ellen Bass, Gary Snyder, and Harry Humes.

On this week's Poetry Show, host Dennis Morton was joined by local poet, poetry activist and frequent guest Len Anderson. As local poetry fans know, Len is the primary force behind the nuts-and-bolts operations of Poetry Santa Cruz (PSC). It was appropriate, therefore, that Len and Dennis talked first about upcoming PSC events and read poems by featured event readers. The latest "second Tuesday" event happens on January 12 at Felix Kulpa Gallery (note the location change from the normal Bookshop Santa Cruz location).

Len also shared poems from his two published collections, Invented By the Night and Affection for the Unknowable. Len's books, along with many other fine poetry collections by local poets,  are published by Hummingbird Press ("Poets of the Monterey Bay"). Hummingbird is another locally-created poetry entity, a publishing collective of which Len is a member.

For the first Poetry Show of 2016, host Dennis Morton devoted the first half to the latest issue of Rattle (#50). Selections included:

Cocktail Hour, by Michael Brosnan

The Theory of Everything..., by Christopher Buckley

It's Been a Week, by Maria Mazzioti Gallan

The Twenty Year Workshop, by Lynne Knight

The Prayer, by Rachel Rose

Our Beautiful Life, When It's Filled with Shrieks, by Christopher Citro

Work in Progress, by Rhina P. Espaillat

 

At halftime, we were treated to a musical setting of a poem by Paul Muldoon called Horses, composed and sung by Christine Tobin. To begin the second half hour, we first heard a poem called Fetch, by Tony Hoagland.

In the remainder of the time, heard a number of selections from a CD titled The Jewel Box: Contemporary Scottish Poems. This collection contains recordings of  Scots poets reading their own work, and is enjoyable just for the sound of the readers' voices - especially fun for poems written from varying depths of Scottish dialect.

Joan Maro joined Dennis Morton to co-host the last Poetry Show of 2015 on December 27.  In honor of the season, Dennis started off with a reading of Mrs. Scrooge: A Christmas Poem, by Carol Anne Duffy. Ms. Duffy is the current Poet Laureate of the UK, and composed this witty modernized distaff retelling of the Dickens classic in 2009.

Dennis finished off the show's first half with a tongue-in-cheek and appropriate follow-on poem by Steve Kowit, titled The Poet Laureate.

 

 

 

 

 

In the show's second half, Joan Maro shared poems from a collection titled Wideawake Field, by Eliza Griswold (2009). Ms. Griswold's experiences as a foreign correspondent provide many of the subjects.

In conclusion, all of us at the KUSP Poetry Show wish to all of our readers and listeners a Happy New Year.

On the Poetry Show broadcast of December 20, 2015, host Dennis Morton began by reading part of an essay by Dana Gioia, newly appointed Poet Laureate of California, followed by a few of his poems.

Next up were poems by Donald Justice, Katha Pollitt, Ramandeep Johal, Marge Piercy, Juanita Brunk, Tilly Shaw and John Updike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later on, we heard more recordings of poets reading their own work - from a CD we started playing last week, published by the Academy of American Poets, Audio Archive Anthology, Vol. 1. Poets we heard this time included:

Adrienne Rich

Philip Levine

James Wright

John Ashbery

Robert Creeley