Deepika Singh, Kim McMIllon, Tony RObles, Billy Mills, Donna Janelle Bowman, Martha Cinader, Zora Neal Hurston, Dao Strom, Laura Lengnick, Kenneth Yu, Dorsia Smith Silva, Jonathan Thirkield, Suzette Clark Bradshaw, Blagovesta MomCHedjikova, Martin Luther King jr,, Genny Lim

Our Summer Remix Number 5 brings together an eclectic tapestry of spoken word, poetry, personal reflections, and original music centered on themes of empathy, memory, healing, and self-expression.  

Featured Voices

AND ORIGINAL MUSIC THAT YOU WON’T HEAR ANYWHERE ELSE

Tony Robles, “The People’s Poet” was born in San Francisco and is the nephew of Filipino-American poet, historian and social justice activist Al Robles. He was a shortlist nominee for poet laureate of San Francisco in 2017 and the recipient of the San Francisco Art Commission individual literary artist grant in 2018. His two books of poetry and short stories, Cool Don’t Live Here No More – A letter to San Francisco and Fingerprints of a Hunger Strike (both published by Ithuriel’s Spear Press) take on the issues of eviction, gentrification and police violence in communities of color. He is…

At the 1964 Olympics, Billy Mills shocked the world and came from behind to win the gold medal in the 10,000 meters race. At the time, he set a world record of 28 minutes, 24.4 seconds and is still the only American to ever win a gold medal in the 10K event.

Martha Cinader is a poet and author living in Harlem, NY. Her young adult novel, Marq and the Queen Fish, is forthcoming in 2026 from Atmosphere Press. Cinader is the founder and Director of the Listen & Be Heard Network, where she hosts and produces The Listen & Be Heard Hour, and Beyond Borders, both non-commercial podcasts and syndicated radio shows on the Pacifica Affiliate Network. 

Blagovesta Momchedjikova, PhD, is a lover and writer of cities, who has been teaching at the Expository Writing Program at New York University since 1998. She is the editor of Captured By The City: Perspectives in Urban Culture Studies (2013) and Streetnotes: Urban Feel (2010); co-editor of Urban Habits (2025),

I remember the very day that I became colored. Up to my thirteenth year I lived in the little Negro town of Eatonville, Florida. It is exclusively a colored town. The only white people I knew passed through the town going to or coming from Orlando.

Genny Lim is an American poet, playwright, and performer. She is the ninth poet laureate of San Francisco, California, and the first Chinese American in the role.She was the Chair of Community Arts and Education Committee, and Chair of the Advisory Board for the San Francisco Writers Corps.

Jonathan Thirkield is a poet and digital artist. He is the author of two collections—Infinity Pool (University of Chicago Press Phoenix Poets 2024) and The Waker’s Corridor, winner of the 2008 Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets.

Donna Janell Bowman is an award-winning author of books for young readers, including Wings of an Eagle: The Gold Medal Dreams of Billy Mills, co-authored with Olympian Billy Mills and illustrated by S.D. Nelson; Step Right Up: How Doc and Jim Key Taught the World About Kindness, illustrated by Daniel Minter; Abraham Lincoln’s Dueling Words, illustrated by S.D.Schindler; and King of the Tightrope: When the Great Blondin Ruled Niagara, illustrated by Adam Gustavson.

Suzette Clark Bradshaw from western North Carolina, is a self-taught poet and sculptress. Her poems have appeared in Dead Mule, Branches, Women Speak, and more.

Dorsía Smith Silva is the author of In Inheritance of Drowning (CavanKerry, 2024), which was a finalist for the Whirling Prize and reviewed by Publishers Weekly. She is a multi-nominated Pushcart Prize nominee, Best of the Net finalist, Best New Poets nominee, Cave Canem Poetry Prize Semifinalist, Poetry Editor at The Hopper, and Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras.

Deepika Singh is an Indian native from Margherita, Assam. By profession, a teacher. She is a budding poetess. Her writings are a reflection of the everyday experiences she has. She thinks the correct words have the power to transform our culture. Her works were featured in various national and international publications.

Dao Strom is a poet, musician, writer, and interdisciplinary artist who works with three “voices”—written, sung, visual—to explore hybridity and the intersection of personal and collective histories. She is the author/composer of several hybrid-literary works, including including the poetry-art collection, INSTRUMENT, and its musical companion of song-poems, TRAVELER’S ODE, and the forthcoming TENDER REVOLUTIONS/YELLOW SONGS (2025).

Laura Lengnick, a renowned soil scientist, has three decades of experience in sustainability in U.S. agriculture. She has received national recognition for her work, including a USDA Honor Award. As the founder of Cultivating Resilience, she collaborates on climate resilience projects and authored the influential book, Resilient Agriculture.

Dr. Kim McMillon, a producer and playwright, has multiple notable works including the anthology Some Other Blues and Black Fire—This Time. She created the one-woman show Confessions of a Thespian and directed Voyages, both showcased at various theaters. Additionally, her essay “Ancestor as Refugee” was published in the SAGE Encyclopedia of Refugee Studies.

Kenneth Yu is an award-winning author from the Philippines whose short fiction has seen publication in his home country as well as overseas in the USA, Canada, Malaysia, and Taiwan.

“This collection is based on my experiences and observations as someone who witnessed Hurricane Helene and its impact on the community—particularly my mobile home community in Hendersonville,”

Yu has a knack for subverting expectations, crafting twists that are as surprising as they are inevitable . . . His worlds and characters—whether human or otherwise—are vast yet intimate, alien yet achingly familiar. This is a collection that doesn’t just tell stories; it ensnares, unsettles, and ultimately, astonishes.

This anthology is a collection of unpredictable stories of various genres—fantasy, science fiction, crime, horror and the supernatural—that touch on courage and fear, loss and resolution, denial and honesty, despair and hope…from an author who writes about being human in a world where the unseen is suddenly exposed.

Fifty years after the fall of Saigon, Dao Strom’s Tender Revolutions / Yellow Songs vibrates with the ramifications and ripples of Empire. A hybrid project comprised of writings, music, and visual ephemera, each of the four Yellow Songs books and the Tender Revolutions album reckon with the intimate consequences of the colonial project, reconfiguring them into complex and lucid, literal and figurative songs of selfhood. Embodied, critical, wholehearted, collective, personal, genre-defying—Tender Revolutions / Yellow Songs renders the brute force of history with tender precision.

In this striking debut, Dorsía Smith Silva explores the devastating effects of Hurricane María in Puerto Rico, highlighting the natural world, the lasting impact of hurricanes, and the marginalization of Puerto Ricans. These poems also focus on the multiple sites of oppression in the United States, especially the racial, social, and political injustices that occur every day.

Long before he was our beloved 16th president, Abraham Lincoln was known for his smarts and his knee-slapping humor. In 1842, his humorous writing style got him into a heap of trouble. When he clashed with his political rival, James Shields, Lincoln came up with a rascally mudslinging plan.

These pages are filled with grieving and making sense of a mother’s loss of a child as the world once again finds itself in a state of war. In 2001, Genny Lim’s daughter, Danielle Mai Ting Jue, died at the age of 19.

In the early twentieth century, most Chinese immigrants coming to the United States were detained at the Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay. There, they were subject to physical exams, interrogations, and often long detentions aimed at upholding the exclusion laws that kept Chinese out of the country.

Diving through illusions and phantoms of virtual realms and into the human desire for boundless possibility, Infinity Pool charts the ways technologies have become embedded in our minds, bodies, and lives. Immersed in a world of data streams, neural nets, spider algorithms, and electronic terminals, Jonathan Thirkield’s poems plumb the dissonances and shrinking distances between ourselves and digital technologies, imagining what becomes of the fragile machinery of the human body amid a rapidly transforming world.

This autobiographical retelling of Billy Mills’ journeys from being an orphan on Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation to his Gold Medal Win in the 10,000-meter race of the 1964 Toyoko Olympics. Inspired by this father’s words “the pursuit of a dream will heal you”, Billy was able to overcome poverty, racism, and severe health challenges to reach his goal and heal his heart.  

Living It! is Martha Cinader’s debut as the producer of her own album, and features an eclectic array of arrangements and musical styles. It was recorded in part in a studio in New York City, part in a studio in Hamburg, and part live at the Mojo Club in Hamburg, throw in some bonus tracks recorded live at WBAI Radio in New York, and a superb mastering session with Ralph “Pinguin” Kessler in Hamburg, and you get fourteen tracks! Cinader brings together the collective talents of Sabine Worthmann, who uses here sfx pedals generously with her accoustic bass and an…

Edited by Barbara Tran, Monique T.D. Truong and Luu Truong Khoi, Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry & Prose (Asian American Writers’ Workshop, 1998) heralds a new era for Vietnamese American literature. Here, for the first time, the most innovative contemporary Vietnamese American writers explore thematic and stylistic territory previously overlooked in other collections, which have traditionally focused on the all-too-expected theme of war. With works by such writers as Linh Dinh, Andrew Lam, Bich Minh Nguyen and Dao Strom. Second printing.

In this remarkable collection, Tony Robles transforms a bright-lit warehouse into a psychic landscape to illuminate one man’s efforts to reassemble a broken life. Where the Warehouse Things Are gives the satisfaction of a book of poetry as well as a novelistic sense of a place and its inhabitants fully rendered. — Ron Rash, author ofThe Caretaker

In Thrift Store Metamorphosis, Tony Robles astutely demonstrates the palpable currency of human interactions. His keen observations show us the necessity of reflection. In this mirror, we learn that everything and anything that we pay attention to has the capability to hold deep meaningful lessons for us and our lives. Robles makes us feel a range of emotion: sorrow, loss, love, regret, anger, rage, humor and hope. The poet reminds us with this essential collection, so goes the thrift store, so goes the world.

This book is a vessel/holding liquid for thirsty desirers/in the empty spiral of the universe/where detail is opinion/one moment is all it takes to answer/when the body calls. This book is just one answer in a life of calling. The storyteller lives inside the breath of home. Whatever home is chosen, whatever breath is owned. The desirer takes the moment we’re in and stretches out its every wrinkle. In the folds are new horizons, exploding the every day, line by line-inwards, so the shards are sort of slo-mo in their entry into gravity…We’re brought into the world of the writer.…

A collection of biographical stories and poems about fascinating people in history whose real dreams made a real difference. Developed in performance, these stories bring old tales to life for contemporary readers in a way that is both entertaining and informative.

Real world stories from the frontlines of climate change, resilience, and the future of food. CLIMATE CHANGE PRESENTS an unprecedented challenge to food and farming in the U.S. and beyond. Damaging weather variability and extremes capture the headlines, but more subtle changes caused by hotter summer nights, warmer winters, and a longer growing season have far-reaching effects on the land, people, and communities that feed us. This expanded and updated edition of Resilient Agriculture takes you beyond the headlines and the hype to shine a light on agricultural climate solutions with the power to cultivate new American foodways that are…

This is the unedited transcript of LBH s4e25, ©2026, Listen & Be Heard Network, all rights reserved.

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:30:46

00:02:41:40 – 00:03:01:49
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Audio Garden, where we cultivate our collective wisdom, nurture creativity, and spread love. My name is Martha Senator, and this is listen and be heard.

00:03:01:54 – 00:03:06:47
Speaker 2
Listen to me.

00:03:06:52 – 00:03:14:54
Speaker 2
To your true self, to yourself.

00:03:14:59 – 00:03:54:54
Speaker 3
Hello everyone and Namaste. I am Deepika Singh from Margarita, Assam, India. We often speak about the pain of women, the sacrifices, the silently and due. But today, let us pause for a moment to look at the other side. The silent scars of men. My poor scars in silence is a small attempt to give voice to those unvoiced emotions.

00:03:54:59 – 00:04:46:37
Speaker 3
Scars in silence. The Spain discriminate. Then why should my poetry years have elapsed yet the tagline men don’t cry breathes in silence. Do you know the pain of her father? Buried sacrifices. He beers with pride. Can you feel the pain of her son? His existence is tied with family’s dream. The suffocating burden of expectations chains his soul. Do you truly see the pain of her brother?

00:04:46:42 – 00:05:45:18
Speaker 3
He is like a shield who hides his dream to hold his family. Have you ever felt the pain of a husband? He credits the walls to shelter, to fortify his mile, hides the inner turmoil. Tough and iron will their staunch figures often overlook their wounds and scars, each enduring pain longs for healing. Despite the glossy, painted smile trapped in cycles of despair, their inner harmony is often untouched and it keeps on brewing.

00:05:45:23 – 00:06:09:06
Speaker 3
When tears pour down like monsoon showers, they are labeled as misfits with shackles of unbearable flashbacks. They held their head hike as they are meant to be because they are men. I’m a soul.

00:06:09:06 – 00:06:38:21
Speaker 4
In search of a vehicle to express. To express what? I’m not sure. I haven’t made up my mind yet. Perhaps from too many lifetimes of never, never quite succeeding. Each lifetime. I think at last, my big break. Going to tell the world how to live. How to be. I’ve been hung for heresy. Burned at the stake. Barely missed being boiled.

00:06:38:21 – 00:07:13:06
Speaker 4
And oil by ideas have never been popular. But my deaths have been there with the bust of them. But that’s not what life is for. Oh, no. Not to die. Life is for living. Living. The term is so elusive. I’ve yet to really be and feel who I am under this mask of skin, hair, eyes that don’t express me, which is something wonderful.

00:07:13:13 – 00:09:11:06
Speaker 4
I want to say God. God is whoever. Whatever you are. Just once. Just once. I want to scrape half to my destiny. The trouble is, I’ve yet to find out my destiny. It’s like clay still in the formation stage.

00:09:11:11 – 00:09:13:45
Speaker 3
I.

00:09:13:49 – 00:09:40:35
Speaker 5
It’s just. One of the most challenging things I had to do was to truly say to myself. I want to heal a broken soul. I want to pursue the Olympic Games, and I’m willing to do the training to make the sacrifices, to totally commit to the pursuit of trying to win a gold medal at the games to heal a broken soul.

00:09:40:40 – 00:10:26:28
Speaker 5
Fortunately, that Donna Janelle Bowman, she she brought so much to me in creating the book. She could take a thought I would share and she could put it into writing in a manner I felt it was being written by an elder. I like to elder speaking with a kind of a storyteller concept of the Lakota people, and she was able to do that, and I felt her breathing words to life.

00:10:26:33 – 00:10:44:04
Speaker 5
And I could do it, but not in the manner she did it. She truly, truly brought the life that you’re expressing to the book.

00:10:44:09 – 00:11:19:57
Speaker 5
The way I look at the young people today, my tribe. Sitting bull, one of our great leaders. When he surrendered, he simply said, let’s take let’s take the best of both worlds and build a new world for our children. Those words and those footprints committee became misleading. Treaty signed treaties, broken boarding school. Trauma, the genocide, the doctrine of discovery.

00:11:20:01 – 00:11:50:35
Speaker 5
So our Alba said it would take seven generations for our young people facing this devastating trauma to heal. That with my tribe. That seventh generation is in the classroom today. So I wanted to take the virtues of the values. They’re the they’re the group that can take the virtues and the values, culture, traditions, spirituality, along with their dream.

00:11:50:40 – 00:12:04:12
Speaker 5
And along with the person sitting in the chair next to them, into the horizon of America’s future, to choreograph and mature this incredible democratic experiment.

00:12:04:16 – 00:12:07:33
Speaker 5
Okay.

00:12:07:37 – 00:12:35:01
Speaker 5
And you’re listening to the lesson and be heard out and do your lives.

00:12:35:06 – 00:12:53:01
Speaker 6
Oh, my.

00:12:53:06 – 00:12:56:31
Speaker 6
Day to day.

00:12:56:36 – 00:13:00:09
Speaker 6
My God.

00:13:00:13 – 00:13:23:20
Speaker 6
In Washington. Oh, I.

00:13:23:25 – 00:14:00:57
Speaker 6
And I.

00:14:01:01 – 00:14:10:28
Speaker 7
American Negro Children’s Game December 23rd, 1936.

00:14:10:33 – 00:14:47:41
Speaker 7
La la la. And there’s a bluebird to give me sugar for. Yes. Out there for any old. La la. Give around the old. De la la la super. On the ocean for la la la la. Give me your heart. Yes. That was your me. Your home. De la la la la la la la la la.

00:14:47:46 – 00:15:10:04
Speaker 7
La la la la la la la. La la la la la la. You your la la la la de la la la la la. Oh, yes.

00:15:10:09 – 00:16:23:23
Speaker 8
This is the listen to be heard. Our for readers and writers. I Martha, Senator.

00:16:23:28 – 00:16:30:11
Speaker 9
The declassified the documents. Declassified documents.

00:16:30:16 – 00:16:54:25
Speaker 9
It’s the document and you will see declassified. Declassified. The documents from the original the document the airline airlines the documents tonight. And then we’ll move forward appropriately, and then we’ll move forward appropriately, and then we’ll move forward appropriately from there. Just night. We’ll move night, and then we’ll move night, and then we’ll move night, and then we’ll move the documents declassified.

00:16:54:25 – 00:17:20:45
Speaker 9
For the documents declassified. The diet. The diet of the diet. The diet. The last fight. The document and the documents. Declassified documents. You will see that. And you will see that. And you will see that. And you will see the documents yet and you will see the document yet, and you will see declassified. De de de de de de de de the document from the ratio of the document that the documents tonight.

00:17:20:47 – 00:17:38:16
Speaker 9
And then we’ll move forward appropriately and then we’ll move forward appropriately and then we’ll move forward appropriately from there. Just night, we’ll move night and then we’ll move night, and then we’ll move night, and then we’ll move to the documents declassified for the documents declassified the the diet, the diet, the diet. The doc classified the document and the documents declassified document.

00:17:38:16 – 00:17:58:13
Speaker 9
You will see that and you will see that, and you will see that, and you will see the document yet and you will see the document yet and you will see. De de de de de de de de de de de de de. The document from the document airline airlines the judges the document tonight and then we’ll move forward appropriately.

00:17:58:13 – 00:18:14:13
Speaker 9
Night. And then we’ll move forward appropriately. And then we’ll move forward appropriately from there. Just night, we’ll move night and then we’ll move night, and then we’ll move night, and then we’ll move on to the documents declassified. The documents declassified. The diet of the diet, of the diet. The diet of the doc classified the document and you will find the documents declassified document.

00:18:14:13 – 00:18:23:42
Speaker 9
You will see that and you will see that, and you will see that, and you will see the document yet and you will see the document yet, and you will see d d d declassified will see.

00:18:23:47 – 00:19:02:21
Speaker 8
A prayer for a young man, a prayer for a spirit. He hears it because he is here with us as one with the universe. We exchange energy every day. His soul to partake as we breathe life. As life teaches us about loss. The greater the gift, the greater the pain. To know. Each day gained was given and received, and believe in the ways it taught us to love, to nurture and hold dear, and not to fear.

00:19:02:23 – 00:19:32:33
Speaker 8
As life goes forward, around and back to the beginning. The ending a path that can’t be taken back because it’s been swept away by a thousand brooms. The rooms have been cleaned, the women have convened. The body will be laid to rest. The test of a mother’s faith, a space for grief and belief in angels. Say a prayer.

00:19:32:37 – 00:19:45:35
Speaker 8
Be there in spirit and Terra’s voice. Join yours.

00:19:45:40 – 00:20:11:49
Speaker 10
I think listening is a really crucial part of my own practice and being heard. I guess there’s a difference between listening and being heard, right? Like, I feel like listening is sort of at the core of so much. Like if we listen to each other, you know, I think that we’ll hear better and we’ll understand better. Certainly. And this the world’s very noisy in so many ways lately.

00:20:11:57 – 00:20:36:01
Speaker 10
I think it’s it’s harder for people to like the practice of listening is difficult. Yeah. Those are definitely things that I think about in collaboration. Interacting with other writers is like at core or practice of listening. So with She Who Has No Masters, it’s really like a practice of listening. Like we we talk about engagement like a poetics of engagement.

00:20:36:01 – 00:20:45:23
Speaker 10
But I think it’s like at that, you know, the heart of it is like being willing to listen to each other and learn from each other. Stop wasting food.

00:20:45:25 – 00:21:07:18
Speaker 11
That is based on so much research that suggests that one of the top five most cost effective kind of, I think of these as win win solutions that are low cost and high impact. That that stop wasting food is actually one of the top five things we can do to act on climate change.

00:21:07:23 – 00:21:08:54
Speaker 3
At this point.

00:21:08:59 – 00:21:17:04
Speaker 1
I know that’s working. I already told you, I don’t want to go up there.

00:21:17:09 – 00:21:21:40
Speaker 1
This is not I have.

00:21:21:45 – 00:21:35:30
Speaker 1
For weeks since I seems in such proportions, but not even the strongest of the succeeded in making a realized that I was trying to.

00:21:35:34 – 00:21:39:10
Speaker 1
What the next.

00:21:39:15 – 00:21:43:04
Speaker 1
Without. Without.

00:21:43:09 – 00:21:49:01
Speaker 1
You. Even after you.

00:21:49:06 – 00:21:52:25
Speaker 1
You sound.

00:21:52:30 – 00:22:20:33
Speaker 12
Was the poet is supposed to write about a hurricane should be skylights a pa not skip rocks, a beauty in walls of wind affixed to the puzzle. Pieces of the vortex eye spinning like a lost continent soul. How the lively whips to stun the mouths of gravity. Hissing without hesitation, engulfing the stench of uprooted dirt and grass. The poet is supposed to decode.

00:22:20:33 – 00:24:35:59
Speaker 12
The stanzas, shudder the name Maria into frail syllables to wish a hurricane a fast and gritty death. Not say is stubborn. Slow dances held intoxicating possibilities and mysteries.

00:24:36:04 – 00:25:11:42
Speaker 13
Daughter time cuts the run a mouthful. Ash Bedell harsh marble Polish slickers on an orange eyelets. Trick the pixels into flies. See through thoughts, catch stipple bruising on the moth’s edge. Ruby calyx tubing. Diamond skin drill fish river. SIP on shallow glasses, surfacing to ankle height, lowering the chin to the heart. The forehead enters summer incursions down the hillsides.

00:25:11:47 – 00:25:49:47
Speaker 13
Glaucous flowers, phosphorus opening your hair to the aerosol air, fairy clocks and the rest is luck. Sepal of the lithosphere beaded by the ether, where the ghosts of men appear. Skin as thin as paper is the record in the letter. Blood or knots of wood burnt on her clothes. Girls slip through the flow of morning traffic. A soldier feeds pomegranate seeds and water to kiss horizon, razor and wire.

00:25:49:49 – 00:27:06:16
Speaker 13
The cameras eye captures fissures in the code. Sunlight through a punctured sleeve. No snow on her sparrow. Brown shoulders, braided radioisotopes. Breath like whips of almost frozen lake weeds. Whistling blue corneal film. The earth splits like eyelids. Purple pools of pupil oil. Unspeakable leafless foil.

00:27:06:21 – 00:27:35:30
Speaker 14
And it has a very simple title called raindrop. The storm comes in quickly. The wind whipped snaps, slapping through the oaks and ash leaves, turning their pale sides upwards in defiance. Outside, in the safe shelter of the porch. I’ll wait. Expectant like a Christmas Eve child, I hear the rain now, hustling down the west ridge. It will make its way to me as surely as the obligated thunder speaks for the silent lightning.

00:27:35:35 – 00:28:03:01
Speaker 14
I close my eyes, inhale the sharp scent of raindrops hitting nearby potato hills, or whims of black earth nourish and hold a growing brood. I breathe in the settling smell of 1000 round drops, mixing with the red clay of my dusty rural road. Local cars past with tinted windows rolled up tight. The first heavy drops fall into the porch rail, ricochet wildly onto my hands and face.

00:28:03:16 – 00:28:27:06
Speaker 14
On this hot August day, I am anointed by the Alpha and Omega in this holy moment. I pray that if reincarnation exists, if I am allowed to come back to this planet again, I return as a single, simple raindrop. Oh, the honor to be one of many that watered the daisy plucked by the fingers of an adolescent girl.

00:28:27:11 – 00:28:52:23
Speaker 14
The flower petals for telling he loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. How incredible it would be to fall through the freezing sky, changed into a tiny speck of sleep and land with a six sided snowflake on the outstretched tongue of Laughing Child. Perhaps I could be one of the raindrops sent down to Texas to sue the drought thirsty throat of a long form cow.

00:28:52:28 – 00:29:16:54
Speaker 14
Maybe I would wind up in the pure water of a mountain stream and help cool the hooves of the big eyed doe as she bounds down the run, outwits the hungry wolf. Or the glory, the glory to be the sacrificial drop that puts out the last hint of fire from a marching clan man’s torch. Oh, that I could live yet again.

00:29:16:54 – 00:29:28:28
Speaker 14
And leave in this magnificent way. Hissing and having the final say.

00:29:28:33 – 00:29:30:01
Speaker 12
You note.

00:29:30:01 – 00:29:31:21
Speaker 8
To float.

00:29:31:25 – 00:29:32:57
Speaker 12
A message in a bottle.

00:29:32:59 – 00:29:37:01
Speaker 8
Floating in a dead sea zone. Tells the story.

00:29:37:01 – 00:29:37:16
Speaker 14
Of.

00:29:37:16 – 00:29:39:13
Speaker 12
Tomorrow’s tomorrow.

00:29:39:18 – 00:29:58:25
Speaker 8
Sorrow trails the dreams of men who fashion themselves saviors of our convenience caterers to our most dependable weaknesses. Makers of our mistakes, mongers of menial servitude.

00:29:58:30 – 00:30:08:25
Speaker 8
Note to executive of my estate. When I am of late.. To compensate everyone I did ever irritate.

00:30:08:28 – 00:30:08:59
Speaker 12
With.

00:30:08:59 – 00:30:09:06
Speaker 8
A.

00:30:09:06 – 00:30:09:33
Speaker 12
Penny.

00:30:09:35 – 00:30:20:33
Speaker 8
For my many digressions, obsessions, embarrassing observations and improbable contemplations.

00:30:20:37 – 00:30:31:09
Speaker 8
Note to paper this note will be dust like me. We will be the message. The media, the messenger matter lives.

00:30:31:13 – 00:30:34:30
Speaker 12
Note to take note. Freedom for.

00:30:34:30 – 00:30:36:40
Speaker 8
Some is freedom for none.

00:30:36:45 – 00:30:37:30
Speaker 12
Ruled by.

00:30:37:30 – 00:30:48:35
Speaker 8
The gun makers since day one. Glories the Santa story. For the will to kill. Ain’t no pill maker gonna fix wrong.

00:30:48:40 – 00:30:50:54
Speaker 14
Wow.

00:30:50:59 – 00:31:10:11
Speaker 8
Note to shred. We asked a question we knew she knew, we knew the answer to. He said. We said she did it because we told her to do it. We can’t say. But what if we did? What she saw doesn’t matter. Like what we do. He said, better you than me. So we’re free to say what we say.

00:31:10:13 – 00:31:21:52
Speaker 8
Do what we do to you, for you. Because he said, she said, we said. There’s nothing else we could do.

00:31:21:57 – 00:31:23:35
Speaker 8
We writers, right?

00:31:23:37 – 00:31:24:11
Speaker 4
We’re writing.

00:31:24:11 – 00:31:25:09
Speaker 12
Our legacy.

00:31:25:16 – 00:31:55:06
Speaker 4
It’s the one thing that will be left when I am, when I’ve passed on for my kids, for my future grandchildren. This is what’s going to be left. They will be able to look back on my books or short stories on poetry, and without me being on the planet, they’ll know who I was. Even if I’m not writing about myself by what I’ve chosen to write about, and the way I’ve written about it will tell them a lot about me.

00:31:55:11 – 00:32:40:06
Speaker 8
This is the listen and be heard. Our. Please visit our archives at listen and Be Broken.

00:32:40:11 – 00:32:42:18
Speaker 1
Here. Be heard.

00:32:42:21 – 00:32:47:25
Speaker 5
Or right now. Got some great music for the old. Some new stuff. Always send you stuff.

00:32:47:25 – 00:32:48:36
Speaker 1
Always cool stuff.

00:32:48:37 – 00:33:08:45
Speaker 5
So I’m going to be very quick. We got a lot of stuff to cover. I’m going to start off with impressions the South Central mix back in the day, Jonathan Mountain on bass, Bill McClellan on drums and Richard Worth of food, and Sean Keys myself on saxophones duction from back in the day from Giant Step, I think was one of the producers as well.

00:33:08:45 – 00:33:39:09
Speaker 5
The great John Coltrane’s impressions superimposed two months of King Junior. A riot is the language of the unheard all foolish on right after that, you’re going to hear my version of the Chinese aria. And lastly, for pushing his Tosca translates to and the stars were shining. That feature is features myself on saxophones, Krystal Choi on piano, Eman Edmonson Wells on bass, One Sense and drums, and Jonathan Crayford on keyboards as well.

00:33:39:11 – 00:34:06:47
Speaker 5
That was recorded in New Zealand in Auckland, new really not again. You only get to hear. Yea, I listen to be heard. The sound system, culture support, live music, support our music, support public radio podcasts. Like this. Okay. All right, you know what to do. Thank you all for Senator Bowie’s enjoy peace.

00:34:06:52 – 00:34:27:21
Speaker 2
So many young people have lost hope that they can be cynical. They see all the problems of the world. So many young men still has nothing to look forward to. A life of crime in the battlefields. They look around the world in their own.

00:34:27:25 – 00:35:51:58
Speaker 2
And we can’t keep having riots every summer in our schools. We can’t keep having all of these problems, problems, problems, problems.

00:35:52:03 – 00:36:34:56
Speaker 2
You.

00:36:35:01 – 00:36:52:30
Speaker 2
And we can’t keep. That is why you think we can’t keep having all of these problems.

00:36:52:35 – 00:37:00:04
Speaker 2
When I you.

00:37:00:09 – 00:37:23:58
Speaker 2
And it gives you that easy. I can’t wait to see the documentary that is in the middle of the year. And you gotta let me give you.

00:37:24:03 – 00:37:36:54
Speaker 2
Great problems that kind of deal. Ashkenaz last.

00:37:36:59 – 00:38:31:37
Speaker 2
We gotta learn from them.

00:38:31:42 – 00:39:04:54
Speaker 2
Yeah. Let him disappear in the kingdom of darkness. And if you’re a man in the film of the whole race, in the creation of the society, that all that we live together, the great man, they respect the dignity and the way to keep it that way. We every man.

00:39:04:59 – 00:44:10:11
Speaker 2
That is made.

00:44:10:16 – 00:44:18:42
Speaker 8
This is Blagoje Festa Montecchi reading her palm tree and dancers.

00:44:18:47 – 00:44:19:37
Speaker 3
Trapped in.

00:44:19:37 – 00:44:20:35
Speaker 14
The dark, shared.

00:44:20:35 – 00:44:23:11
Speaker 3
Back alley among several houses.

00:44:23:11 – 00:44:23:47
Speaker 14
On West.

00:44:23:47 – 00:44:30:06
Speaker 3
55th Street amidst barrels and bins and discarded materials.

00:44:30:11 – 00:44:32:33
Speaker 4
A tree. Taller than the.

00:44:32:33 – 00:45:20:35
Speaker 3
Buildings surrounding it, and so much finer and greener, stretching its long bony branches onto fire escapes, window panes, curtains, and clouds, and winds curiously and consistently reaching for more air, more sunlight, more New York City gossip inside every window it can pick into, but mostly the wall sized windows of Dance Studio to be the tree outside sees what the dancers inside feel, their extended arms contorted, bodies, splits, acrobatics, pulsations, Asian rhythms, heavy breaths, small steps, leaps, movements from somewhere far or from around here.

00:45:20:40 – 00:45:59:11
Speaker 3
Their sweat, frustration, hurt, uncertainty. Tears, smiles, joy. 14 tireless dancers and then one leader master, mentor, with the patience of spirit and who are just inspires, pushes, awaits, encourages them all, bringing a calm sweetness and grace over everyone. Is this his space? Are they his guests or is he theirs? They all come here to play, try things out, discover, make mistakes.

00:45:59:13 – 00:46:31:04
Speaker 3
Be strong, be weak. Be quiet. Be loud. Doubt. Trust. Cry. Sing. Think. Laugh in pairs, alone, but mostly together for two hours a day, three times a week. Every time it is different. The dancers inside see what the tree outside feels. The urban pressure of just wanting to be around, being among so many others, the tight space it has learned to call home and grow into.

00:46:31:16 – 00:46:37:52
Speaker 3
The little light, the little sky, the impossibility to move freely or ever the way they can.

00:46:37:54 – 00:47:03:30
Speaker 15
If you ask me why, I would tell you that it wasn’t because her, Maria left me with the bloated album of waiting for the black Black blackouts to skip between the trees. It wasn’t because the roofs unfurled and the doors retreated the hollow somewhere in the sky. It wasn’t because of the shells of water inching like new constellations across an endless night.

00:47:03:30 – 00:47:25:45
Speaker 15
It was the full circle of fear, the kind that stays in my mouth like neon jawbreaker, refusing to surrender, tailor made to dislocate words that I long to speak. I dread colliding against this familiar. When the memory gathers like burning hands around your throat.

00:47:25:49 – 00:47:28:30
Speaker 1
Out the leak.

00:47:28:35 – 00:47:44:13
Speaker 16
Throw out the peace. But when the piece on towards the sky. Not a piece with my index and middle finger together. To represent unity. Truthfulness with gods, to be still superstars. You don’t gotta reach that far just for you to take it. There is some money and look what I did with it. Show the hood they can make it.

00:47:44:18 – 00:47:44:45
Speaker 1
Next.

00:47:44:45 – 00:47:49:30
Speaker 2
Next or. Or should I go again? Step right up.

00:47:49:31 – 00:47:51:59
Speaker 16
Into it, man, I love it.

00:47:52:04 – 00:48:04:57
Speaker 17
The author of the poem is unknown, but according to Guinness World Records, it is believed to have been recited by a bride of Sumerian king Xu Sin, who ruled between 2037 and 2029 BC.

00:48:05:01 – 00:48:37:23
Speaker 18
Bridegroom dear to my heart, goodly is you, beauty honey. Sweet lion, dear to my heart. Goodly is your beauty, honey. Sweet. You have captivated me. Let me stand tremblingly before you bridegroom, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber. You have captivated me. Let me stand tremblingly before you, lion. I would be taken by you to the bedchamber.

00:48:37:33 – 00:48:52:09
Speaker 18
Bridegroom, let me caress you. My precious caress is more savory than honey in the bedchamber. Honey filled. Let me enjoy your beauty. Lion.

00:48:52:13 – 00:48:52:30
Speaker 2
Did you.

00:48:52:30 – 00:48:58:21
Speaker 1
Hear the present? Did you hear one of the follow up? I wanted to give.

00:48:58:25 – 00:49:01:09
Speaker 2
You all your morning.

00:49:01:13 – 00:49:11:35
Speaker 1
When your is and open up. And you open your.

00:49:11:40 – 00:49:24:33
Speaker 1
Do you hear me? Did you hear? Gentlemen. This gentleman. This gentleman. This gentleman.

00:49:24:37 – 00:49:39:49
Speaker 1
These gentlemen. What did you hear? To follow up. Did you hear me? Did you hear? I’m holding you. Can you hear me? And you. Can you open your up in your long, long, long,

00:49:39:54 – 00:50:00:30
Speaker 2
Long and long. And he has come along in I want you. Did you hear me? Did you hear? Did you hear? Did you hear me? Did you hear me ask him? You look. But, but, but but my.

00:50:00:35 – 00:50:06:06
Speaker 2
This gentleman is.

00:50:06:11 – 00:50:18:49
Speaker 2
Wanted to follow up on the one that I asked you. Ask him a question like this. Question. Or am I just. I just wanted to follow up on that.

00:50:18:54 – 00:50:54:11
Speaker 8
Please stick around. Listen to the sounds of the audio garden, and I’ll meet you on the other side of the bridge in about a minute. This is from here to Gaza. Death never saw itself becoming only the eerie silence just before having blew up and the olive trees burst. At that interminable moment, all the exits from Gaza sealed, and the key to your home became the mausoleum of your dreams.

00:50:54:16 – 00:51:20:21
Speaker 8
When the roof of darkness caved in, the Sea of Galilee turned red and there was nowhere to go. Time was a thief. Your memory froze. Little did you know. The terror in your heart had been there all along the birth. Like a little mouse trapped in a cage. Little did we Americans know that the distance from here to Gaza.

00:51:20:21 – 00:51:20:33
Speaker 2
Was.

00:51:20:33 – 00:51:54:42
Speaker 8
An illusion, and that the border between Palestine and Israel did not truly exist. Ever. Except in fiction. History is occupied territory, and whoever lives to tell it is the victor. There are no more lions, only hunters with power over life and death. What is left? Only stories of the Flower of Jericho. Only the place where Jesus lasted and fasted for 40 days and 40 nights.

00:51:54:47 – 00:52:25:40
Speaker 8
Knew nothing but stones to fill the empty Temple Mount. Your hunger echoes in its desecrated ground. And through the tunnels of insurgent prayers, never to be satisfied until the river returns to the sea. And the right of return is a reality. You will know that moment when life returns with the infallibility of spring. Your spirit will soar on the cords of the wind.

00:52:25:42 – 00:52:39:01
Speaker 8
Life will know itself.

00:52:39:06 – 00:54:26:40
Speaker 5
Right on piece. Thanks to Martha, our executive producer, and our new nonprofit sound system Culture funding all of this. Really? Thank you for your support. Please tell your friends this is the only place you’re going to hear this music, this radio art, the way that radio podcasts should be felt and experienced in our communities. All right. Second out.

00:54:26:45 – 00:54:27:57
Speaker 8
My name is Martha.

00:54:27:57 – 00:54:29:13
Speaker 13
Senator, your.

00:54:29:16 – 00:54:40:42
Speaker 19
Co-host on this adventure through the Audio Garden. And you can visit our archives at Listen to Me. Her net.

00:54:40:47 – 00:54:53:49
Speaker 20
When it comes of being an author and considering publishing, I want you to listen to your heart. And that will help your book be heard.

00:54:53:54 – 00:54:54:30
Speaker 3
Listen and.

00:54:54:30 – 00:55:16:49
Speaker 21
Be heard. Even if your voice shakes without knowing it, you may be saving a stranger.

00:55:16:54 – 00:55:19:04
Speaker 4
Listen as the.

00:55:19:04 – 00:55:20:04
Speaker 14
Sound enters.

00:55:20:04 – 00:55:23:06
Speaker 3
My inner ear and. Vibrates through.

00:55:23:16 – 00:55:24:30
Speaker 14
My inner plane.

00:55:24:30 – 00:55:24:47
Speaker 3
My.

00:55:24:47 – 00:55:26:42
Speaker 14
Biosphere, to each.

00:55:26:42 – 00:55:33:37
Speaker 3
Cell in my body. Can you hear me? Can you feel me? As we are more ancient than.

00:55:33:37 – 00:55:33:47
Speaker 14
The.

00:55:33:47 – 00:56:02:33
Speaker 3
Vibrating words that you are speaking. Receive me, reflect me. Receive me. Reflect me through the night. Be galactic stars. Be that strobe light that leads me home. Or the lighthouse guiding the way through the dark waves of the ocean. Alone in a boat we float. Commanding, demanding and expanding its fate. It’s never hope.

00:56:02:37 – 00:56:03:25
Speaker 4
We say.

00:56:03:25 – 00:56:06:23
Speaker 22
We don’t play Barbies anymore. But we do.

00:56:06:28 – 00:56:10:33
Speaker 3
Every morning and every night, on every screen and every magazine, we worship.

00:56:10:33 – 00:56:34:40
Speaker 22
Her and we repent. Flagellates our flesh like the worst of sinners. We hate ourselves. For her impossible youth bowed before her relentless grin. Are you tall? Tanned, skinny, smooth. Weightless. Hairless. Hip was flawless. Blond. Bionic. The mortal. Are your teeth white? Are your lips large? Is your stomach empty? Are you standing on tiptoe above you?

00:56:34:40 – 00:56:35:13
Speaker 2
Open up.

00:56:35:16 – 00:57:03:32
Speaker 22
Like breasts. Or are you a. Which are you a hive? Did you bring on the drought to summon the locust? Should we bring you alive? I tried to prove it. These questions are not questions. They are our inquisition in perpetuity. So I say enough. I say, if I say power to fat and flat and flabby. Power to short, saggy, shaggy.

00:57:03:35 – 00:57:19:16
Speaker 22
Harry. Dimpled. Pimple scarred. Hard. Wrinkled. Frizzy. Kinky. Curly. Power to cellulite, saddlebags, stretch marks, turkey maxi. Double chips. Round bellies, crossbeam DeepMind’s laugh, laugh laugh lines. Power boost. We have lived all of.

00:57:19:16 – 00:57:20:11
Speaker 3
Us warriors.

00:57:20:11 – 00:57:45:57
Speaker 22
Of at least 100 wars. I say do it. The lights know your nature as a different. It’s time we end the battle they’ve made us wage against ourselves. Mary Barbie in the cornfield. To me love the life led is here. All the life that is strong and green. And breathing for every one of us.

00:57:45:57 – 00:58:25:54
Speaker 3
Who dares to love herself. The world is born anew.

00:58:25:59 – 00:58:28:21
Speaker 2
You are.

00:58:28:25 – 00:58:39:11
Speaker 23
You are.

00:58:39:16 – 00:58:40:40
Speaker 3
Thanks, as always.

00:58:40:40 – 00:59:17:35
Speaker 19
To Davin Dial at Radio in Asheville, North Carolina, for introducing listen to be heard to the broadcast airwaves. Casey in Taos, New Mexico. Keep in San Antonio, Texas, Cacho in Ames, Iowa, and four in Red bluff, California and other stations that are part of the Pacific Affiliate Network. Support the dating the Audio garden in your community and our own listening be heard network host of.

00:59:17:40 – 00:59:48:54
Speaker 19
Please visit us at listening and sign up for our email newsletter and at our listening to your YouTube channel, where you will find unedited video interviews of our featured guests. My name is Martha and I want to thank you for listening and giving me the opportunity to be heard.

00:59:48:59 – 00:59:51:35
Speaker 2
And be heard.

00:59:51:40 – 01:00:00:01
Speaker 23
You are. You are not.

01:00:00:06 – 01:00:05:04
Speaker 23
Listen and be heard.

01:00:05:09 – 01:00:11:01
Speaker 23
Your true.

01:00:11:06 – 01:00:23:04
Speaker 23
Love. You are, you are, you are, you are.

01:00:23:09 – 01:00:33:30
Speaker 23
Listen, listen, listen, listen and be. Then be heard.

01:00:33:35 – 01:00:37:37
Speaker 23
You are full. Beautiful.

CREDITS– CO-HOSTS & PRODUCERS: Martha Cinader, Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. FEATURED GUESTS: Deepika Singh, Kim McMIllon, Tony RObles, Billy Mills, Donna Janelle Bowman, Martha Cinader, Zora Neal Hurston, Dao Strom, Laura Lengnick, Kenneth Yu, Dorsia Smith Silva, Jonathan Thirkield, Suzette Clark Bradshaw, Blagovesta MomCHedjikova, Martin Luther King jr,, Genny Lim MUSIC:  Just South Central, Jonathan Maron, Bill McCullen, drums, Richard Worth, flute, Tao Shuo, keys, Jay Rodriguez, saxophones. I luchava on la stele, Puccini’s Tosca, Jay ROdriguez, saxophones, Christo Troi, piano, Iman Edmondson Wells, bass, Ron Sanson, drums, Jonathan Crayford, keyboards. SOUNDTRACK, MIXING, MASTERING, SOUND DESIGN: Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. Executive Producer, Martha Cinader.

Do you want to be heard in the garden? Please consider contributing your audio content. We grow together when we nurture our network. Click here for more information.

Ahmed Abdullah & Monique Ngozi Nri

“Jazz and music of the spirit are about raising humanity.”

In this episode, trumpet master Ahmed Abdullah and Monique Ngozi Nri sit down with Jay Rodriguez Sierra and Martha Cinader to explore the sacred role of art in society. From early days in Harlem and time spent performing with Sun Ra to their present work with the Greenhouse Creators Consortium, they share insights on band leadership, spoken word, and building enduring institutions that uplift Black American culture and creative freedom.

Their music and poetry are also featured.

LISTEN TO OUR 24/7 livestream broadcast at wlbh.org!

Monique is currently the director of CUNY EDGE at Brooklyn College. As a partner in Melchizedek Music Productions , she works to bring the music of the spirit back into the community of Brooklyn and to ensure that the music is kept alive in our hearts and minds…

Ahmed Abdullah is a Harlem native who is an American Jazz Trumpeter and an educator in the Brooklyn area. Ahmed’s understands the importance that music is to play in our society was about the spiritual, socio-economic, and political aspects of the art whilst also addressing the imbalanced social structure.

In this captivating memoir, the first full-length account of life in the Arkestra by any of its members, Harlem-born trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah recounts two decades of traveling the spaceways with the inimitable composer, pianist, and big-band leader Sun Ra.

This first book of published poetry by Monique Ngozi Nri with artwork by Ellington “Jayne” Bliss explores the profound impact of the Biafran war on her identity and the themes of displacement, home, freedom, feminism, and deep connection.

00;00;14;07 – 00;00;24;27
Speaker 1
To you garden, where we hope to do our best to nurture to the.

00;00;24;29 – 00;00;32;23
Speaker 1
Writing. This is this lever on Mr. Saco.

00;00;32;25 – 00;00;46;18
Speaker 2
Sundiata.

00;00;46;20 – 00;01;11;15
Speaker 3
A dream for Amazon. My grandson. I’m talking to a boy who is trying to master the art of staying awake, balancing the hard facts of daily living against a smooth, cloudless mind in the making. I could tell by the way he suddenly laughs in his sleep, and signifies his descent into the kingdom of myth, where the world is forming behind his eyes.

00;01;11;18 – 00;01;24;06
Speaker 3
He points at me and calls me bird snow brave. I tell him, I heard that half the species of birds in America migrate to the city that was the great sick or.

00;01;24;06 – 00;01;33;07
Speaker 4
Something to and with us today is the great Ahmed Abdullah. And when the great and unique and buzzy and rain.

00;01;33;09 – 00;01;55;03
Speaker 5
Hey what’s up? This is Rodriguez for listen and be heard with Martha, Cinader and Ahmed Abdullah, a trumpet player, philosopher and innovator of American music and an important person in the culture of music, not just jazz. Ahmed, when you think back to your early years in New York. I mean, you were from Harlem.

00;01;55;04 – 00;02;05;26
Speaker 6
I was born the first 16 years of my life I spent in Harlem. And I need to just say that we call the music. We play jazz, the music of the spirit.

00;02;06;04 – 00;02;19;09
Speaker 5
See, now, this is something that I’ve gotten from you of many years of working with Craig, bringing, you know, and that’s something that’s coming up later because that’s so important. And it’s stuck with me. What first pulled you towards trumpet and jazz in the first 16 years of Harlem?

00;02;19;10 – 00;02;50;18
Speaker 6
No. Was exactly in the first 16 years of Harlem, because my sister died when I was 13 years old, and she was the one who introduced me to the music by way of recording that she would play constantly, called Diana Jams. Three trumpet players. Wow. Clark Terry, Maynard Ferguson and Clifford Brown on it. And that was like played during the time that I was growing up.

00;02;50;21 – 00;03;04;23
Speaker 6
She left the planet in 1961, and the only way I knew to deal with her, her leaving the planet was to pick up a trumpet. So my whole life has been in celebration of my big sister.

00;03;04;24 – 00;03;09;29
Speaker 5
That’s beautiful. Like that. Amazing. How are you feeling about the music and the scene currently?

00;03;10;00 – 00;03;34;03
Speaker 6
I think that we’re in a very, very strange place as far as the music is concerned. A number of the people who were innovators as far as this music is concerned have left the planet. And so we’re left with Miss Match of of people who are trying to define what the music is all about. I think we’re somewhere in between going forward.

00;03;34;03 – 00;03;44;00
Speaker 6
And so I think that that’s where we are, the condition that we are in socially and politically resonant with the cultural statement.

00;03;44;03 – 00;04;01;07
Speaker 5
For people who know your name from Sun Ra. How would you describe you are as an artist in your own words, if they’re only know you from Sun Ra? Like when it came to that period, we’re asking is how was your experience? I know that Greg has this experience and and I always find it that it was a very moving for artist to have played with him.

00;04;01;07 – 00;04;21;18
Speaker 5
I know I met John Gilmore and I took some lessons, and it’s really important for people to understand because people are talking nowadays about Afrofuturism, but they don’t understand the the natural thing that was occurring along with the political environment, but also what was being said and what the genius of what, of what was going on. And how would you describe who you are as an artist when it relates to him?

00;04;21;18 – 00;04;49;24
Speaker 6
I get a lot from him. I got an understanding the music was sacred. Did did you needed to be called to play music? That it was in fact a vocation? I got the idea of building enduring relationships from him to creating relationships that work and that, and that you stayed with them to make them work.

00;04;49;27 – 00;05;19;29
Speaker 6
I, interestingly enough, even though he wasn’t a person who was a parent, he had us all as his children. So I got the idea that one should work with one’s one’s family very closely at working with him because he created a family with that, with that band. So, you know, I met Monique while I was working with him in 1891, and we had been together since then.

00;05;20;00 – 00;05;56;19
Speaker 6
We’d been together for 34 years, and we have raised our family, you know, my two sons from another relationship and outdoor two. So the idea of building, enduring, enduring relationships, it’s something I got from him as well. And in the idea that this when I say the music is sacred, that comes back to the idea that jazz is the music of the spirit, the spirit of our African ancestors, which is about moving humanity forward in some way.

00;05;56;20 – 00;06;31;07
Speaker 6
So. So I got an understanding of the the practice that we do as the practice of the Buddhism of Odin get killed. And he when he said that we atone scientists. Right. That’s you. And the most powerful tones I know are those tones numb your whole ring, get killed.

00;06;31;10 – 00;06;49;11
Speaker 5
What is it about the music and sound that made you feel about what you were experiencing even at that time? That said, this is my path, something you were going to do, but it’s also a part of you. Some people play music, as you know, and it’s not a part of them. You know what I’m talking about. And that’s a very special thing to have and to evolve into.

00;06;49;13 – 00;06;52;21
Speaker 5
I know that Martha and I have spoken very profound about that.

00;06;52;22 – 00;07;28;16
Speaker 7
I’m Martha, Senator, for listening be her network. And we’re joined by Hernan Romero, my co-host and producer, and Ahmed Abdullah and his wife, Monique, Ngozi and Reith. But I wanted to just talk a little bit about what has brought us together today, which is the Greenhouse Creators Consortium, of which we are members, and you are a member as well as the two of you as a not for profit group.

00;07;28;17 – 00;07;33;27
Speaker 7
If you could just tell us the name of the group and like your mission as a not for profit.

00;07;33;28 – 00;08;06;25
Speaker 6
I would group is called Open Fortress. And Open Fortress is something that we have been doing since we came together. In fact, we were when we were married. It was part of our wedding address. Our Buddhist wedding addressed it. We should create an open fortress. And we were told Kazu Fujii was the person who married us. And he told us we should stay together five years and ten years and 15, and now we’re together 34 years.

00;08;06;25 – 00;08;26;05
Speaker 6
And then as we were able to develop with each other, we could create an open fortress that brings other people together as well. But the first thing was that we had to create a dynamic relationship with each other. So, absolutely.

00;08;26;05 – 00;08;42;05
Speaker 7
And an extension of that from my point of view, seems to be sister’s place, which you both have a history there. Maybe you could talk a little bit about what sister’s placements to the community.

00;08;42;06 – 00;09;15;18
Speaker 6
Absolutely. This this place is, is part of the legacy that I got from working with the idea of building institutions and institutions that are relevant to people of African descent. So when I left the central in 1997, I actually started working on my memoir and the memoir I was working on, which has now been published. It’s called A Strange Celestial Road My Time in the Sun Ra Orchestra.

00;09;15;24 – 00;09;42;21
Speaker 6
I started working on it. It was published by Blank Forms, which is the publishing company here in Brooklyn. So I, I started working on that in 1997. I started and as a result of working on it, I was asked to be the music director of this place by the founder of Sisters Place, whose name is Biola Plummer. And and that was in 1998.

00;09;42;21 – 00;10;09;19
Speaker 6
And so I wound up being the music director there for from 1988 and to 2023 when the book was published. So and and we’re still Monica and I, still working, and we have a production company that’s called Melchizedek Music Productions and actually was created first to to bring life into the Sun Ra Orchestra after Sunrise left the planet.

00;10;09;20 – 00;10;43;26
Speaker 6
So we actually created Meltzer Music Productions in 1995, after sun, After Sun, where I left the planet, John Gilmore was leaving the band, and then Marshall Allen took over the leadership of the band, and we then formed the production company in 1995 to help Marshall move the band forward, and that lasted for a couple of years. And then we then I decided to work on the book, which is which is then had led me into Sistas Place in 25 years later.

00;10;43;26 – 00;11;03;29
Speaker 6
And it also led me into teaching, because when I finished the book, I started teaching at the New School in 2001, and then I started teaching at an elementary school, which was right down the street from sisters based in 2005. So those are the things.

00;11;04;01 – 00;11;32;00
Speaker 7
Are interesting. So you’re both writers, actually. Then I want to bring Monique into the conversation. And Monique, you’re a poet and also published by Melchizedek is Who We Be. How did that where’s the origins of that book? I imagine there, intertwined with the story we’ve been hearing from Ahmed, who We Be.

00;11;32;03 – 00;12;05;22
Speaker 8
Is my first published book, and it’s kind of towards the end or the middle of the trajectory. Because I had been reading and singing with the band dispersions of, of your bra for, I would say, 32 of the 34 years that we’ve been together. But I felt that I wanted to polish my skills as a poet.

00;12;05;24 – 00;12;35;22
Speaker 8
I worked alongside Louis Reyes. Rivera was known as the janitor of history and and an excellent poet for many years in the band. But I also saw the fate of. Oh, it’s like Sekou ATA, who whose work was excellent, but who had not as much poetry written down.

00;12;35;24 – 00;13;03;17
Speaker 7
So I wanted to ask you I wanted to talk about that a little bit because you perform as well. So you you’re a storyteller. You you I think you make a point of that, making that point in your book. And so what to you is the relationship there between poetry and spoken word, like you said about Sekou Sundiata?

00;13;03;17 – 00;13;05;07
Speaker 7
And in your approach to that.

00;13;05;12 – 00;13;35;02
Speaker 8
I’m not I’m not a huge fan of spoken word. I guess maybe as many people have maybe have difficulty with with the term. I call it jazz and music because while the poetry is spontaneous and different in each time, there is a considerable amount of work. And I know this to be a fact with Sekou that goes into the work.

00;13;35;04 – 00;14;17;11
Speaker 8
Before before we produce or perform it, I think spoken word has the gives the idea that one just opens one one’s mouse and speaks which is which is to me, not it. And there are you know, there are one of the things that I did I went back to school and got my MFA in poetry, in part because I wanted to learn more about and different vessels for delivering my work, different forms, different structures, different ways of doing of of presenting the work.

00;14;17;13 – 00;14;27;06
Speaker 8
And I have a different level of, of skills in the way that I deliver my poetry. There has to do both with the MFA.

00;14;27;07 – 00;14;51;18
Speaker 5
Presenting these amazing artists that you should all check out what I do, I’m a sound designer and a musician and composer, so I enjoy finding things. And one of the things that I found that I really enjoyed was a recording that I found online by Ahmed, featuring Monique and a few other artists for work entitled Diaspora Dispersions of the Spirit of Ra.

00;14;51;23 – 00;15;16;27
Speaker 5
We will play an excerpt from that amazing work, and you will hear Ahmed on trumpet. And I took an amazing poem, also recorded live but at a different time place Times Square, where else? Read by Monique and it’s called stockpile. Ahmed and Monique are in the same tempo. And this is the beauty and the great things that we as artists and musicians can do.

00;15;16;28 – 00;15;28;24
Speaker 5
No AI needed, you know, two live performances put together. So I hope you enjoy it. I hope Ahmed and Monique enjoy it too. I think it’s going to be a surprise for them as well. All right. Enjoy. Peace.

00;15;28;25 – 00;16;01;01
Speaker 8
The stockpiling of desiccated bonds on the death root of an obsessed tooth. The stockpiling of the foliage in the pine forest of the skull, the stockpiling of aerosols in the pink smoke of a human corpse. Stockpiles of Agent Orange. Agent blue agent white acid burning like the hot puff of a race horse on the tongue. Look at it through.

00;16;01;01 – 00;16;03;22
Speaker 9
The antibodies of the body.

00;16;03;25 – 00;16;41;15
Speaker 8
Look through the multiple vaccines about thing in the vein. Through the cross infection. The viruses stockpiled in the mouth to the benzene vapors shooting into the muscles of the stars, to the gaseous bowels of the military fantasies through the white radiation of delirious dreams. Look, this stockpile Mary’s that stockpile to mix and release a double stockpile of prisms exploding into the shadows of disappearing space.

00;16;41;18 – 00;17;17;10
Speaker 8
Global incapacitation. Zero and boom. This is the nuclear bleach of reality. The inflated side of edema. The filthy dampness in the scientific pants of a peace prize. The final stockpile of flesh dancing and the terrible whooping cough of the wind. And even if you think you have a shelter that can survive this stockpiling of communal grains. Tell me, where are.

00;17;17;11 – 00;17;19;03
Speaker 9
You going.

00;17;19;05 – 00;18;24;16
Speaker 8
With the sucks liver of mustard? Flint. The split breath of hydrogen fumes, the naval pit of invisible clams, the biological lung of human fleas, the cost of genetic synergetic bladder of sponges. Words made of keloid scars. Poems in the numb section of the chromosomes. Just where do you think you are going with that stockpile of contaminated stink? Listen, when I think of the tactile and missiles plunging into the rancid quarters of the sun, the artillery shells of wiretapping steaks hissing and vomiting into the depths of a colorless sky, the accumulation of fried phosphoric gratified on the fragile first distance of the moon, the pestering warheads of death wings stockpiling feathers in the brain, and the

00;18;24;16 – 00;18;59;15
Speaker 8
mass media lava of lies stockpiled in the plasma of the ears, and the stockpiling of foreign snap in the fluxes of the blood, and the stockpiling of shattered spines in the chromium suits under polystyrene sheets. I look at this stockpiling, at this rotting dedication, and I make myself understand the target. That’s why I say I’m into life. Preservation of life now.

00;18;59;18 – 00;19;20;05
Speaker 8
Revolutionary change now. Before the choking. Before the panic. Before the penetration of apathy. Rises up and spits fire into the toxic tears of this stock pile.

00;19;20;07 – 00;19;23;12
Speaker 10
Thank you very.

00;19;23;14 – 00;19;55;29
Speaker 7
Monique and Inri. Com. And people can see about your book who we be. But you do also have writings about music on there that people can also read. I want to turn this back over to non to talk to. Ahmed a little more. I’m sorry. Your audio is not the greatest, Monique, but we would like to hear more about what’s coming up with your performances.

00;19;56;00 – 00;20;25;28
Speaker 7
As you say, Monique performs with Ahmed and coming up in September will be the culmination of festival that we’re having, the Greenhouse Creators Consortium, and there’s different events leading up to that. But so each group in the consortium are, you know, doing their own thing, as we clearly hearing here. And we’d like to hear a little more about what we can expect in the next few months.

00;20;26;00 – 00;20;27;04
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.

00;20;27;05 – 00;20;47;09
Speaker 6
I’m very excited about the idea that we are working together and is a collective of 5013. It’s, it’s something that I believe that we have been preparing for all along. The cooperative and collective.

00;20;47;12 – 00;21;13;25
Speaker 6
Format is something where you are able to draw lots of strength from the people who are working together, you know, in the, you know, no, no one person has all of the answers. But when you get a group of people working together who are focused on an ideal, you can get something that approximates, you know, as close to perfection as we get on this planet.

00;21;13;28 – 00;22;01;05
Speaker 7
So yes, I know, and it reminds me when I really enjoyed my visit to Sister’s Place and Ferron a clef was being featured that evening, along with Or not. And you were talking about the loft scene and celebrating that back in the. You know, and I feel like it’s a similar type of spirit that that loft scene that you were so much a part of in celebrating was, was, was also a coming together of independent artists who were looking for alternative spaces and to make things happen on their own.

00;22;01;07 – 00;22;32;29
Speaker 6
You know, I believe if we look at the music, you would see that that has been the the trail that has been laid out for us. And all we’ve done is like, I think from generation to generation is attempt to improve upon it because we, their collective forces that are opposed to creativity in this country and, and they are working together and they gather to suppress your creativity.

00;22;32;29 – 00;22;42;29
Speaker 6
And so it becomes our job if we really understand what we’re up against to work together collectively to move humanity forward.

00;22;43;00 – 00;23;24;18
Speaker 5
That’s a very, very, very well said. That’s exactly. It’s interesting that you said that I was going to ask you the same thing about the lock scene, and but you answered the question. It was about how how that scene and the local community influenced the way that you it’s a musical question, improvising and band leading. But I think one of the things that people are, not that I think that that I admire about you and respect about you, that I’m also adhering to along with Craig and Martha, is that humanity aspect of what we’re against, like seeing the reality of the the powers that be that are working against the community as a whole, black,

00;23;24;18 – 00;23;47;27
Speaker 5
white and all, you know, but really have been at play in the black American community from the get go, you know, and and so part of it is not just education of music, but the music of life and the way of life with a lot of compassion. That’s the only thing that keeps us kind of sane. But I think that you answered that perfectly.

00;23;47;27 – 00;24;07;14
Speaker 5
I guess one of the things that I was thinking about was, I’m sure as a young musician of other young musicians, sometimes they wonder about improvization and they everybody wants to know, like it’s some secret as opposed to this language, a language that you speak that’s beyond color. And somebody like, let’s say Marcellus was placed there by the forces that beat nothing wrong.

00;24;07;14 – 00;24;31;09
Speaker 5
All good. But understand what that implies and what it does and what it doesn’t do and what it doesn’t answer, what it’s not giving. It’s not opening the doors. It’s kind of done on purpose. It looks like a nice thing. But if you don’t let the world and humanity and the compassion of culture and respect it and let it thrive on its own and nurture it by getting the hell out of the way that speaks to Sun Ra and what you’re what you’re saying.

00;24;31;09 – 00;24;48;18
Speaker 5
I was going to ask you about that, about the concept and sound of, you know, and what you’re reaching for as an artist. That was the next question. Your trumpet sounds particular. How would you describe your concept for people who have never heard you, what you’re reaching for when you play? But more importantly, I championed that humanity in you.

00;24;48;18 – 00;25;17;23
Speaker 6
I think they when we understand this, what we’re in, you know, there’s been a consistency as far as as far as my understanding of music from time immemorial. We’ve always been trying to show our humanity in the music. And that’s why I think that every generation, every mode, every expression of this music is important because it’s an evolutionary process.

00;25;17;23 – 00;25;55;23
Speaker 6
And so none, no era of this music, I think, needs to be discarded, because it’s always been about attempting to show that he manatee. And I’m just part of that, you know, that continual evolutionary process. Because if you if you understand where we’re at, we’re in a place that is negated the humanity of African people and therefore negated the humanity of all people, because if you oppress one particular portion of the population, you’re going to be oppressing other people as well.

00;25;55;28 – 00;26;18;04
Speaker 6
That is, you have to have that. It has to has that effect. And so when you’re raising up, you know, you’re raising up African people, you’re raising a ball of humanity. And as essentially what the music that we call jazz, the music of the spirit is all about. It’s about raising humanity and letting see the full humanity of us.

00;26;18;08 – 00;26;30;11
Speaker 6
You know, the nakedness of us, you know. And so we can then and that relates to who you and she and her and him and everybody else is, you know.

00;26;30;13 – 00;26;41;17
Speaker 7
For the musicians, because they’re not asked in particular about the trumpet, maybe you could talk a little more personally about how that does apply to, to your playing.

00;26;41;18 – 00;27;10;22
Speaker 6
Yeah. Yes. Well, the same thing. My voice, my voice comes to my trumpet and my, my voice also comes to the physical voice that I had. You know, because I do sing, I do recite poetry. And so it is about the human voice and the human voice. So I’m always trying to get that out of my sound. You know, in the way that I approach, playing the trumpet is exactly like that.

00;27;10;22 – 00;27;14;00
Speaker 6
To make a a human statement to the trumpet.

00;27;14;03 – 00;27;40;11
Speaker 11
I wanted to say about Sisters Place. That one of the things that I said is that culture is a weapon, and the interaction between the audience and the musicians is of a particular quality. You were talking about the last movement, but usually, you know, when people go in there on a Saturday night, they may be tired out. They may be, you know, upset from the week.

00;27;40;17 – 00;28;27;15
Speaker 11
Generally speaking, we come out of this place on a joyous note. So the music lifts us to be able to go back out into the world and face another, another day. And that that happens 99.9% of the time. When we when we engage in the music insistence. So I think that’s something that I should I want to emphasize, because it’s not just about bringing the music back into the community, is also about the synergy that happens between the musicians and the people in Sisters Place, which then reinvigorates and to go back out and do the work, do the politicking, do all of the important work, the people that people need to do.

00;28;27;17 – 00;28;54;01
Speaker 11
And also in the we sing the music of South Africa, we sing music from Brazil. We sing a lot of folk music. Yeah. So diaspora is both dispersions of the Spirit of Ra and the music of the diaspora. And so we do, as I say, a lot of.

00;28;54;07 – 00;29;06;24
Speaker 8
Music that might traditionally be called folk music, but it brings people together, as I was saying, in terms of the voice, and we tend to sing a lot together. Also, without.

00;29;06;24 – 00;29;25;10
Speaker 12
Books, I don’t know where I would be, to be honest. I really don’t know if I didn’t have my aunt, who if I didn’t have Nikki Giovanni, I don’t know. I like the only thing I could connect to possibly my trajectory of who I am as a person would then be my music. We the people have the power to be heard.

00;29;25;10 – 00;29;26;10
Speaker 12
So remember that.

00;29;26;10 – 00;29;52;07
Speaker 13
The time to act is now. It’s time for a social transformation.

00;29;52;10 – 00;30;04;24
Speaker 1
You are, you are.

00;30;04;26 – 00;30;08;03
Speaker 1
Eager.

00;30;08;06 – 00;30;22;05
Speaker 1
To.

00;30;22;08 – 00;30;28;06
Speaker 14
This is the listening. Be heard our.

00;30;28;09 – 00;30;32;13
Speaker 7
And so when’s the next time that diasporas appearing?

00;30;32;17 – 00;30;53;11
Speaker 6
That’s a good question. I don’t think we have anything on the horizon. September. September 19th you’ll be performing for the. At boxing. We in-house creators collective performed. Nothing has come up yet, so that will probably be our next perform.

00;30;53;15 – 00;30;57;09
Speaker 7
For the GCC festival. And so parks.

00;30;57;11 – 00;31;40;19
Speaker 6
There are things that are happening. I’m going to be playing at the Vision Festival later on this month with William Hooker in a group of other musicians. So yeah, so that, you know, so yeah, we have things that we do on a regular basis, this series that we are coming to a close tomorrow. I was talking to Craig Harris about this yesterday, in fact, because, we, Monique and I and Craig were at the Juilliard in February when we heard this young trumpeter whose name is playing music of Sun Ra.

00;31;40;22 – 00;32;09;24
Speaker 6
He’s a 20 year old trumpeter and and he’s from Ghana by way of London. And we, I talked to him right after he performed the Juilliard. And he’s been playing at Smalls and and busy Gillespie’s club. You know, the club that they have at Lincoln Center. What is his. Yeah. But we wanted to bring him into the African American community and introduce him to the community.

00;32;09;24 – 00;32;12;06
Speaker 6
So we’re doing that tomorrow.

00;32;12;08 – 00;32;15;06
Speaker 7
And in the meantime, though, there are recordings, right.

00;32;15;07 – 00;32;55;02
Speaker 6
Of the besides putting out Monique’s book of poetry, we’ve also recorded, diaspora meets Afro horn. We in 2019, Jazz and music of the spirit out of Sisters Place, and that is a recording that we did that represents what we the the latest reflection of what we’ve been doing over the last few years. And it is something that, as I said, we own, we put it out ourselves and Melchizedek Music Productions item like that.

00;32;55;05 – 00;32;56;13
Speaker 7
Fabulous.

00;32;56;15 – 00;33;15;11
Speaker 5
It’s fantastic. That’s you know. Exactly. I was going to it’s really great conversation. We got to do more of these with you guys, man. You know, I know that for you like obviously jazz and black music, there’s a tradition, you know, based that you understand and feel.

00;33;15;13 – 00;33;37;08
Speaker 5
And what do you think? How consciously do you think about the tradition versus pushing the new territory? It’s something that’s what people call new territory. I think you kind of answered that because it’s about humanity. And that’s an ever, ever changing and bringing the community together. Here’s this young African trumpet player coming, and you’re you’re bringing him into this.

00;33;37;08 – 00;34;02;07
Speaker 5
So he is even though he’s playing the music of Sun Ra, because he’s playing in a new time, it becomes alive, it’s new, it’s real. And so I guess that answers that question. Is there anything specifically of yours that that that you feel points to a clear statement of who you are musically right now and a recording of yours that you that you’ve done, that you’ve like, this is what I’m doing or hasn’t happened yet.

00;34;02;09 – 00;34;24;11
Speaker 6
Good question. I would say that we need to have more artists telling their stories. One of the reasons that I wrote my book was that I thought that the story that was told about Sun Ra was inaccurate. Okay. It was one person’s view, but it was from outside in. And I think that we have to do the inside out.

00;34;24;11 – 00;34;38;26
Speaker 6
So we have to tell our own stories. And so if we want to understand that this is a music that comes in, is about to raising up humanity, we have to tell that story because everything anybody else is.

00;34;38;28 – 00;34;52;22
Speaker 5
One last question. What if you were to if you were Monique, both of you, if you could change one thing about how jazz history or the or history is told or taught, what would you change? Monique? You would you like to address that?

00;34;52;23 – 00;35;24;26
Speaker 8
Well, it’s an old chestnut, but I’m I’m always asking, where are the women and what were the women doing? So Celine Washington just posted a few weeks ago, a thing about Lucille Armstrong and her role and her the way that the way that she worked with Louis, which is a very different story from from the story that perhaps we might have imagined.

00;35;24;29 – 00;35;33;17
Speaker 7
Well, for our for our listeners who may not, maybe you could, like, give us a brief something about what her story is about.

00;35;33;18 – 00;36;10;00
Speaker 5
She’s a musician, very well studied and very overlooked, and was working with King Oliver and really taught, really helped evolve Lewis. Lewis wouldn’t be playing the way he was. It wasn’t for her sharing her musical knowledge and love of the music and and helping him emotionally, spiritually as it made me and helped him break away not only as a person of knowledge and depth, as a great musician, that she was also as a great human being that happened to love Lewis for who he was and saw the amazing gift that he already had, and saw his genius before anybody could.

00;36;10;01 – 00;36;13;19
Speaker 5
Even before Lewis could see it, she saw it. That’s heavy.

00;36;13;19 – 00;36;17;14
Speaker 8
That kind of I was trying to say, which is that she saw the potential in here.

00;36;17;15 – 00;36;30;24
Speaker 7
Thank you. And I’d like to ask you, for our listeners, I’d mentioned Monique’s website, but how can people learn more about Sister’s Place, about your publishing, about your not for profit?

00;36;30;25 – 00;36;53;13
Speaker 6
This displays, as a website, Just Sister’s place and and my. You can Google trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah and you will be able to find my website comes under Melchizedek Music Production actually. But Trumpet Alchemy of Beauty will lead you right there.

00;36;53;15 – 00;36;58;17
Speaker 7
Thank you and Monique one more time about your website as well, please.

00;36;58;20 – 00;37;10;08
Speaker 8
It’s Monique and Ghazi and re, which is Monica e n g o z I n r i.com.

00;37;10;10 – 00;37;25;12
Speaker 7
Thank you so much. Yeah, we we’d like to ask all our guests if they could improvise a little and just give us a phrase or a little quotation about using the phrase listen and be heard.

00;37;25;15 – 00;37;36;00
Speaker 6
Listen. You heard. If you listen and you hear, you are bound to find out. Higher level of consciousness.

00;37;36;00 – 00;37;37;24
Speaker 7
Thank you. Monique.

00;37;37;26 – 00;37;48;12
Speaker 8
And listen, listen, listen and you will hear. Listen, listen, listen, listen. You will be heard.

00;37;48;18 – 00;38;23;13
Speaker 7
Thank you so much. Ahmed and Monique, this is. I’m Martha, and I’ve been joined by Ernani. Ramiro for the Listening and Be Heard network. We’re launching this new podcast for the Greenhouse Creators Consortium, which is in, you know, has members from around the New York City area and beyond. And we’ll be putting on we have a festival going on basically until September, which culminates.

00;38;23;15 – 00;38;42;16
Speaker 7
And I met you actually were instrumental in putting us this together. Maybe we could finish with just talking about the date and the place where we will all come together finally, and what’s going to probably be an amazing group of performances.

00;38;42;18 – 00;38;48;06
Speaker 8
Will be a poetry and art making workshop on the 18th.

00;38;48;08 – 00;39;19;07
Speaker 6
Yes, the poetry not making workshop on the 18th, probably Andrew Drury’s place. The date is September 19th and the place is the Soapbox Gallery and the Soapbox Gallery is is 636 Dean Street, which is in the Fort Greene Park Slope section of Brooklyn. And September 19th is it that will be the premiere of the Greenhouse Creators Creators Collective.

00;39;19;08 – 00;39;21;26
Speaker 7
Fabulous. Aaron on any party.

00;39;21;29 – 00;39;40;10
Speaker 5
Looking for it. Thank you so much for giving us your time. Ahmed and Monique and what a wonderful thing to be able to interview both of you and and just learn about you from another place besides the bandstand and besides the music. But the music of life is what I always say. And it’s what an honor. What an honor it is.

00;39;40;11 – 00;39;41;21
Speaker 5
Thank you.

00;39;41;23 – 00;39;42;12
Speaker 6
My pleasure.

00;39;42;14 – 00;40;07;18
Speaker 7
I’ll post as much as we can on the episode post, which this is the first episode of the Greenhouse Creators Consortium new podcast. We’ll be back with another configuration of the members to talk more about life and art and music and poetry and what’s going on and what’s going on with our festival. So please visit us at listen and Be Heard.

00;40;07;20 – 00;40;12;02
Speaker 7
Net a project of sound system culture.

00;40;12;04 – 00;40;14;02
Speaker 6
All right. Yes, please.

00;40;14;03 – 00;40;43;28
Speaker 5
Thank you. Martha, for always making this happen. We’re going to close off the show with a with a piece from Ahmed’s memoirs, A Strange Celestial Road. My Time in the sun. Rocket truck, a very moving autobiography with readings by Monique and Henry. And it features Don Chapman exact support. Marius George Graham, percussion. And of course, Monique. And to the enemy.

00;40;44;01 – 00;40;55;09
Speaker 5
All right, now check it out. Thank you very much. And support. Listen and be heard. Network and sound system. Culture.

00;40;55;11 – 00;40;55;28
Speaker 5
The cold.

00;40;55;29 – 00;40;56;22
Speaker 6
Never seems to.

00;40;56;22 – 00;40;57;05
Speaker 3
Come.

00;40;57;05 – 00;41;20;28
Speaker 6
What I expect. But always comes with its supposed to. This one came on a Sunday morning in April of 1975. I was in bed with the Abo day, who was pregnant with what would turn out to be our twin sons. She answered the phone. I’ll never forget the incredulous way she handed it to me, as if the creator, him herself, were on the other end.

00;41;21;01 – 00;41;44;15
Speaker 6
She whispered while cupping the phone with one hand, I is somebody. This is pretty amazing to me as well. I tried to calm myself enough to say hello. The voice on the other end was deliberate, matter of fact, and very southern. Somehow I knew that in the years to come I would become quite familiar with it. This is sandbar.

00;41;44;23 – 00;42;13;15
Speaker 6
I’ve been trying to get hold of you. I could feel an intense sense of excitement running through me. Sunrise. Been trying to find me in 1975, in New York City, and especially in Brooklyn, where we lived. Sun RA was it. They didn’t come any bigger, at least not in the music known as jazz. In the more than ten years since sunrise had migrated to New York from Chicago, he he’d made his presence thoroughly known.

00;42;13;18 – 00;42;50;11
Speaker 6
He’d become a folk hero in the black community, especially among people who considered themselves a way of African American culture. Yarborough and I were among those people I met a day born Cheryl Taylor about three years before, when our destinies literally collided on Sixth Avenue in an eighth street in Greenwich Village. She was working for a jeweler on Third Street known as Dial Sedan, and I was coming from a rehearsal with my horn in, in case the handle of my case snapped just as I bumped into her.

00;42;50;17 – 00;42;57;14
Speaker 6
She was the most attractive woman I had ever seen up until that point.

00;42;57;16 – 00;43;26;20
Speaker 6
She had a had completely shaved in an East African style, and she wore beautiful silver earrings. We began a conversation that resulted in our going on a date that evening, December 9th, 1972, to hear the Freddie Hubbard man at the Beacon Theater on the Upper West Side. Our two children were the result of that fateful meeting. Sun RA had rendered himself a unique artist by owning his own record label and publishing company.

00;43;26;20 – 00;43;54;28
Speaker 6
As he did. His independence was both an asset and a hindrance. The asset was that he played where he wanted, how he wanted, with and for whom he wanted. The hindrance was lack of recognition. So in the early 1970s, when Sonny, as he was called, and his business partner Alton Abraham had licensed ABC Paramount’s Impulse! Records to distribute several of their 1950s recordings, which up to that point had been modestly available.

00;43;54;29 – 00;44;28;17
Speaker 6
Things began to change. Sun RA was well on his way to becoming a major international star. By 1975, when I received the call, he was already there. When I hung up the phone on that Sunday in April. I immediately turned to face a person whose bright eyes revealed the same mixture of surprise and joy I was experiencing. The potential birth of our sons, moreover, endowed daisy binding skin with the radiance reserved for those who bring forth to young.

00;44;28;19 – 00;44;50;29
Speaker 6
She had been favored by the creator, who appeared not to warn any to be unaware of this fact. She had been blessed with full lips and her nose just flat enough, along with almond shaped eyes and engaged neck. They gave her an aura of royal. And I’d written a song for a called Ebony Queen. The pregnancy had affected her in another interesting way.

00;44;51;01 – 00;45;13;18
Speaker 6
She had lost weight everywhere except in her stomach. Her shoulders had become so thin she looked almost undernourished. It was as if all of her food went to the babies while making her stomach seem incredibly huge. A moment ago, she’d been trying to hear my conversation with Sun Ra by putting her chin on my shoulder. Now she wanted a report.

00;45;13;21 – 00;45;38;02
Speaker 6
Ahmed, was that really Sun Ra? What did he want? Yes, it was really him. I said, well, what he wants. You repeatedly asked. He wants me to play with him. Where? She is here in Brooklyn, at the east. At the East wind. He didn’t say exactly when, but it seems like it’s going to be sometime this month. He said he wants me to come to Philadelphia to rehearse with him.

00;45;38;04 – 00;46;00;12
Speaker 6
To Philadelphia. I could feel her enthusiasm dimming. I thought you promised that you wouldn’t go out of town until the babies were born. I know I did, sugar, but it’s only going to be for a day, and the babies are due until next month. They. Besides, this means I can earn a little extra money. I could probably earn more tonight than I do in a week working at that copying job.

00;46;00;14 – 00;47;34;04
Speaker 6
This seemed to Re-Animator. And bring her back and bring back some of her initial.

00;47;34;06 – 00;47;37;13
Speaker 8
Terra firma.

00;47;37;16 – 00;48;22;13
Speaker 15
Feet from on the ground, rooted like ancestors and palms beside the sea of stormy protests and hurricanes, lands, land of mine and going home across fields where feet are blown to other lands. Terra firma firma. Solid, solid, packed earth free to walk on in spite of quakes and other low line rumblings. Five fathoms down. Who walks with me on higher ground?

00;48;22;15 – 00;53;07;27
Speaker 15
Terra firma who knows, knows the certainty. Free and unfree, free and unfree. Clear yet not clear. Truth yet not true. Terra firma. Terra firma. Who walks with me on higher ground. Who walks with me on higher ground.

00;53;07;29 – 00;54;06;20
Speaker 14
Around with the concept of what it is and how it should grow. And my idea at the time was to reintroduce myself to the literary community, from which I felt a bit estranged, and to be a good member of that community and serve its needs, which is for authors to be able to have a forum of platform to talk about their work, their new books through craft, and for us to engage with each other and to embody the network that we are, because we are the network and listen and be heard.

00;54;06;27 – 00;54;53;13
Speaker 14
Network is nothing but a growing group of people who communicate and help each other out to nurture each other, water each other, shine light on each other, and admire us when we flower and and harvest our fruits, when they’re right to be enjoyed. After much practice and deliberation. And this show has grown and blossomed in ways that I could never really have imagined when I first began.

00;54;53;16 – 00;55;47;28
Speaker 14
And yet, it’s growing into what I envisioned it to be, which is for me to be part of a family and to, you know, do my part in that family. And my part seems to be to bring people together and engage them in conversation and have conversations that lead to action and creation and even beauty and enjoyment. And I hope that you feel the same way about listening to be heard, and would welcome your participation as another creator inventor listener who also needs to be heard.

00;55;48;01 – 00;56;22;26
Speaker 14
And there are various ways that you could become involved in this entirely commercial free hour, either by contributing segments or contributing finances, or just leaving a comment and letting us know if we’re making a difference in your life. If you’d like to come back from week to week.

00;56;22;28 – 00;56;24;09
Speaker 14
Thanks, as always.

00;56;24;09 – 00;56;24;14
Speaker 7
To.

00;56;24;15 – 00;56;25;15
Speaker 14
David Dial.

00;56;25;17 – 00;57;01;06
Speaker 7
At Radio in Asheville, North Carolina for introducing, listen and be heard to the broadcast Airwaves Kitchen in Taos, New Mexico. Kept in San Antonio, Texas. Oh, in Ames, Iowa. And four in Red bluff, California. And other stations that are part of the Pacific Affiliate Network for cultivating the audio garden in your communities and our own listening be heard network host of W.

00;57;01;08 – 00;57;25;11
Speaker 7
Please visit us at listening and sign up for our email newsletter and at our Listen and Be Heard YouTube channel, where you will find unedited video interviews of our featured guests. My name is Martha Cinader, and I want to thank you for listening and giving me the opportunity to be heard.

00;57;25;14 – 00;57;46;05
Speaker 5
Thanks to Martha Cinader, our executive producer, and our new nonprofit Sound System Culture. Thank you for your support. Please tell your friends this is the only place you’re going to hear this music, this radio art. The way that radio podcasts should be felt and experienced in our communities.

00;57;46;08 – 00;57;53;09
Speaker 1
Right? Second, many believe.

00;57;53;12 – 00;57;56;08
Speaker 1
You are.

00;57;56;10 – 00;57;57;12
Speaker 1
Beautiful.

CREDITS– CO-HOSTS & PRODUCERS: Martha Cinader, Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. FEATURED GUESTS: Monique Ngozi Nri, Ahmed Abdullah. POETRY: Sekou Sundiata, Monique Ngozi Nri. MUSIC: Diaspora Dispersions of the Spirit of Ra, Ahmed Abdullah, Don Chapman, Marius George Graham. MIXING, MASTERING, SOUND DESIGN: Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. Executive Producer, Martha Cinader.

Do you want to be heard in the garden? Please consider contributing your audio content. We grow together when we nurture our network. Click here for more information.

Featuring Shirley ANcheta, Tony Cranston, Saumya Choudhury, Meredith Leigh, Martha CInader, Tony Robles, The Cipher Crew and Nana on Violin

Another sizzling summer remix from our Maestro, Jay Rodriguez Sierra. Remix 4 features poetry from Shirley Ancheta for the great poet Al Robles. We hear a dragon story from Tony Cranston, host of a popular storytelling radio show in London, more poetry from your hosts Martha Cinader and Tony Robles, and also the Cipher Crew from Malcolm X’s Birthday bash earlier this year in Harlem, NYC. We feature the amazing Nana on violin, visiting from Berlin, who joined Martha and Jay at IBeam in Brooklyn for an improvisational session.

Tony Robles, “The People’s Poet” was born in San Francisco and is the nephew of Filipino-American poet, historian and social justice activist Al Robles. He was a shortlist nominee for poet laureate of San Francisco in 2017 and the recipient of the San Francisco Art Commission individual literary artist grant in 2018. His two books of poetry and short stories, Cool Don’t Live Here No More – A letter to San Francisco and Fingerprints of a Hunger Strike (both published by Ithuriel’s Spear Press) take on the issues of eviction, gentrification and police violence in communities of color. He is…

Martha Cinader is a poet and author living in Harlem, NY. Her young adult novel, Marq and the Queen Fish, is forthcoming in 2026 from Atmosphere Press. Cinader is the founder and Director of the Listen & Be Heard Network, where she hosts and produces The Listen & Be Heard Hour, and Beyond Borders, both non-commercial podcasts and syndicated radio shows on the Pacifica Affiliate Network. 

Saumya Choudhury, an Indian poet and cultural organizer, founded Delhi Poetry Slam in 2013, promoting performance poetry in India. After transitioning to digital platforms, she created Poem Pajama and engaged with Santhali tribal communities. Recognized internationally, she hosts writing retreats and teaches poetry, supporting emerging writers and exploring themes of identity and loss.

Tony Cranston is a renowned author, storyteller, and teacher with over 40 years of experience worldwide. Originally stationed in the UK, Cranston has traveled to over 50 cities, reading stories and collecting many as he goes.

Meredith Leigh, with over 20 years in sustainability and food systems, has owned farms, a restaurant, and engaged in diverse consulting. An award-winning author of “The Ethical Meat Handbook” and “Pure Charcuterie,” she is transitioning back to the nonprofit sector while pursuing fiction writing in Asheville, North Carolina.

“This collection is based on my experiences and observations as someone who witnessed Hurricane Helene and its impact on the community—particularly my mobile home community in Hendersonville,”

Talking Stories is a global storytelling platform rooted in east London, bringing together voices from local communities and across the world. With an equal focus on London-based creators and international storytellers, the program showcases poets, writers, elders, and emerging voices from every continent, creating a rich dialogue between place, memory, and imagination.

Across Latitude & Language brings together voices from across the globe—poets of different races, homelands, and histories, woven together by something quietly powerful: the shared weight of being human. In a world increasingly fractured by borders and conflict, this collection reminds us of the quiet universality of feeling. From the ache of personal loss and unspoken guilt to reflections on vanishing cityscapes and shifting faith, this anthology captures the full spectrum of human experience. Within its pages are poems that grieve, question, remember, and observe—the everyday and the extraordinary.

This autobiographical retelling of Billy Mills’ journeys from being an orphan on Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation to his Gold Medal Win in the 10,000-meter race of the 1964 Toyoko Olympics. Inspired by this father’s words “the pursuit of a dream will heal you”, Billy was able to overcome poverty, racism, and severe health challenges to reach his goal and heal his heart.  

Living It! is Martha Cinader’s debut as the producer of her own album, and features an eclectic array of arrangements and musical styles. It was recorded in part in a studio in New York City, part in a studio in Hamburg, and part live at the Mojo Club in Hamburg, throw in some bonus tracks recorded live at WBAI Radio in New York, and a superb mastering session with Ralph “Pinguin” Kessler in Hamburg, and you get fourteen tracks! Cinader brings together the collective talents of Sabine Worthmann, who uses here sfx pedals generously with her accoustic bass and an…

In this remarkable collection, Tony Robles transforms a bright-lit warehouse into a psychic landscape to illuminate one man’s efforts to reassemble a broken life. Where the Warehouse Things Are gives the satisfaction of a book of poetry as well as a novelistic sense of a place and its inhabitants fully rendered. — Ron Rash, author ofThe Caretaker

In Thrift Store Metamorphosis, Tony Robles astutely demonstrates the palpable currency of human interactions. His keen observations show us the necessity of reflection. In this mirror, we learn that everything and anything that we pay attention to has the capability to hold deep meaningful lessons for us and our lives. Robles makes us feel a range of emotion: sorrow, loss, love, regret, anger, rage, humor and hope. The poet reminds us with this essential collection, so goes the thrift store, so goes the world.

This book is a vessel/holding liquid for thirsty desirers/in the empty spiral of the universe/where detail is opinion/one moment is all it takes to answer/when the body calls. This book is just one answer in a life of calling. The storyteller lives inside the breath of home. Whatever home is chosen, whatever breath is owned. The desirer takes the moment we’re in and stretches out its every wrinkle. In the folds are new horizons, exploding the every day, line by line-inwards, so the shards are sort of slo-mo in their entry into gravity…We’re brought into the world of the writer.…

A collection of biographical stories and poems about fascinating people in history whose real dreams made a real difference. Developed in performance, these stories bring old tales to life for contemporary readers in a way that is both entertaining and informative.

Ethical Meat is meat from an animal that had a good life, a good death, a good butcher, and a good cook. Ethical Meat is a movement that seeks to repair entire regional meat supply chains, and much work is underway by brave hardworking farmers, butchers, processors, chefs and cooks. Working to create the capacity for ethical meat has been a speciality for Meredith for the past 20 years. As a former vegan turned livestock farmer, owner of a butcher shop, restaurateur, non-profit executive, mother, educator, and writer, she has vast expertise in the systemic as well as granular details…

This is the unedited transcript of LBH s4e23, ©2026, Listen & Be Heard Network, all rights reserved.

00;00;12;00 – 00;00;32;06
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Audio Garden, where we cultivate our collective listener, nurture creativity and spread. My name is Martha Cinader and this is listen and be heard.

00;00;32;08 – 00;00;37;14
Speaker 1
Listen and be bird.

00;00;37;16 – 00;00;45;15
Speaker 1
You’re listening to her because you can and must make a difference with the better in this world. Listen and Be Heard is.

00;00;45;15 – 00;01;18;08
Speaker 2
Radio program that’s part of the Pacific Radio Network. We focus on writers of all. John was poetry, children’s memoir, fiction, creative nonfiction, and now we’re taking on a lot of other elements addressing concerns of indigenous communities, music. And it just just runs the gamut of everything that nourishes the soul. In fact, I’ve been involved as one of the host co-host, have some interviews coming up fairly soon in the next couple of weeks, so it’s something that I really enjoy.

00;01;18;09 – 00;01;25;00
Speaker 2
I just got a whole lot of pleasure and it’s something that very passionate about, and I’m glad that it’s here. Hey hey hey. Good.

00;01;25;07 – 00;01;52;23
Speaker 3
Stamos, everybody. What is up? Hernan? Ramiro. Over here. Straight from Brooklyn. You know, formerly known as Jay Rodriguez. I hope you enjoyed the show. So much. Good stuff. Let’s keep it going. Since VH listen and be heard, our summer remix right now. Later on.

00;01;53;01 – 00;02;06;00
Speaker 4
Something you said might help me by is, you know. Yeah. Drive happy, man. You got to cross paths. And I heard it. I bought it on a number that let it never rest.

00;02;06;02 – 00;02;07;09
Speaker 3
Hold on.

00;02;07;12 – 00;02;52;14
Speaker 5
Yeah. I wanted to ask you, what does listening and being heard Nina to you. Thank you. Listening and be inherited. Two separate things. You can listen to anything. You can listen to music while you’re cleaning. You can listen to a sermon or anything in the background while you devote your attention to something else. But when you’re being heard, that means that what you hear, what you hear, you’re actually reflecting on and you’re applying that source, your actions either towards the situation or towards the person you understand.

00;02;52;15 – 00;03;01;29
Speaker 5
So if someone if you approach me and you tell me, hey, mom, you know.

00;03;02;01 – 00;03;29;04
Speaker 5
You took my laundry and washed it, and you get asking me if, you know, I was okay with that, right? If I if I’m just listening to you, I’m like, all right, my God. And I’ll move on with my daily routine or whatever it is I’m doing for the household. But if I’m if I’m hearing you, if I heard you, then the next time I do laundry, I will approach you and say, hey, listen, I’m about to do laundry.

00;03;29;05 – 00;03;36;01
Speaker 5
How would you like me to do your laundry? Is it. Do you want me to do your laundry? Do you understand?

00;03;36;04 – 00;03;36;22
Speaker 1
Thank you.

00;03;36;23 – 00;04;36;27
Speaker 5
So make sure when I ask you to do something.

00;04;36;29 – 00;04;39;24
Speaker 1
For Al Robles, I had.

00;04;39;24 – 00;05;10;06
Speaker 6
Felt them to the water buffalo. They come from far and lighted gates. They lead us out of our city streets into the sleeping blue of water. All of his crossing together inside their curved horns. Voices whisper us back from our wanderings on Kearny Street. We are far from the lettuce fields. The cockfights, the blood of the pig and still father.

00;05;10;07 – 00;05;40;15
Speaker 6
Trapped in memory comes the arrival of workers. Boats of cane fields. Waking in the arms of dark men. I have not always known their tender presence in this city. Cradled by two bridges. The old ones, disguised as dog spirits, lit the bones. Willy for the dead. The wind spins us in this ordinary world. And till someone nearly broken with desire to be lifted to another country.

00;05;40;15 – 00;06;18;13
Speaker 6
In his heart. Remembers the feel of the animals black hair. The slow but powerful carabao walk in the dark. They chase us into dream. Into what voices that bathe in the blue night. Like the blue awakening of fish.

00;06;18;16 – 00;06;23;22
Speaker 1
I’d like to tell you the very first story I ever wrote, and it was published worldwide.

00;06;23;22 – 00;06;52;02
Speaker 7
Seven world languages at Portuguese, Spanish, English, Chinese, Berea, Arabic, and so on. I was so surprised that I could actually write a story and be so successful with it and won’t go. It’s called A dragon’s wish. Long, long ago, an old China. They lived a little girl called May. Not May means pretty, but this little girl was called Mami because she was twice pretty.

00;06;52;03 – 00;07;17;27
Speaker 7
She was pretty on the outside, but she was also pretty on the inside. Were counted the most. She had a good heart. Now, Mami lived with her granddad, who was called Lao Nan. Now Nan means man and low means old. So his name was Old man. It’s quite a nice name in Chinese for a granddad. And they lifted the house in a little village.

00;07;17;28 – 00;07;46;03
Speaker 7
We were very happy, but at long I now couldn’t work in the fields anymore. But he was still very, very skillful with his fingers. And he can have dried a clothing. You could make dragons and phoenixes for weddings. You could include all kinds of things on silk costumes for weddings. And they paid for it. And this night he’d been working all night to finish a costume for a little girl in the next village.

00;07;46;06 – 00;08;16;02
Speaker 7
It’s going to be a birthday. Louis of the goddess Guanyin, the goddess of the poor. The goddess, the fish and people. The goddess of dragons. So it came the next morning to me, said, Mami, can you take this to the little girl in the next village? And she said, yes, of course. So they wrapped it up in brown paper, tied it up and stream, and off she went out to the village, up the hill, past the graveyard and into the forest.

00;08;16;04 – 00;08;23;16
Speaker 7
The village is on the other side of forest. Thus she’s walking through the forest. She suddenly had this battle.

00;08;23;20 – 00;08;29;11
Speaker 8
I don’t know how I do it. Oh.

00;08;29;13 – 00;08;37;05
Speaker 8

00;08;37;07 – 00;08;42;26
Speaker 7
Being a clever, smart little girl. They may hid behind the trees and looked out.

00;08;42;27 – 00;08;53;08
Speaker 3
You’re listening to listen and be heard. Our careers and writers brought to you by listening to be heard network and by sound system culture. All right, now, back to a dragon’s wish.

00;08;53;15 – 00;09;15;28
Speaker 7
When she. Saw these. Big men with hairy chest and big Aaron sticking out to the ears. Oh, and they were laughing. I know you know what they did. They had a baby dragon. They caught it, tied it up onto the ground and were beating it with sticks and just laughing. And the dragon was calling out, and please leave me alone.

00;09;15;28 – 00;09;24;05
Speaker 7
I won’t hurt you. Haven’t done anything. I’m just a baby dragon. But they just laughed and laughed and beat the dragon.

00;09;24;08 – 00;09;37;17
Speaker 7
And Mimi was so so so sorry for the dragon. But what could she do? She’s just here to go. And they were big pirates. Bandits. She did not know what to do.

00;09;37;19 – 00;10;00;15
Speaker 7
Then she had an idea. She untied the parcel, took out the costume of the onion, and stood upon a rock where everybody could see her. And in the biggest, loudest voice she could muster for a little girl, she pointed, said, leave that dragon alone.

00;10;00;18 – 00;10;26;16
Speaker 7
And the bandits turned around to see who would dare. Put their speak to them in such a fashion. When they looked and they saw us standing on the rock, they saw the goddess Guanyin. I said, oh my goodness, everybody look, it’s the Goddess Guanyin! We’ll be in trouble now. Please grab your things and run! And so they all ran up because they were bullies.

00;10;26;16 – 00;10;51;27
Speaker 7
And you know, bullies are just cowards. And they were scared and they ran off and quickly may make claim come from the rock and untied the dragon. And that dragon was so thankful when he said, Mami, I know who you are. I know why the call you made me. And because you have a good heart, I’m going to give you three wishes.

00;10;51;29 – 00;11;12;25
Speaker 7
What would you wish for? But she said straight away. Oh, I want lots and lots and lots and lots of money. And so all of a sudden the drag waved his claws, and in front of her were bags and bags of gold and silver coins. Then she said, right. I want some diamond rings, and I want a crown.

00;11;12;26 – 00;11;38;19
Speaker 7
And what? Jewelry and bracelets and necklaces. And straight away the dragon waved his clawed. She was covered in jewelry and the crown. And for third wish she asked for a big house to be built at the end of the village for her and Nan to live in, and the dragon pointed and said, go back home and you will find your granddad and your home.

00;11;38;21 – 00;11;48;23
Speaker 7
So they went back, and the granddad was standing outside the door of his new home, and they lived happily ever after.

00;11;48;26 – 00;11;57;23
Speaker 7
Until one day somebody in the village began to get the sniffles, and they began to.

00;11;57;24 – 00;11;59;06
Speaker 8
Sneeze.

00;11;59;09 – 00;12;29;11
Speaker 7
And they felt all shimmery and cold, and they were aching, and they went to bed to try to get better. But they never did get better. You’re just died. Someone else got the stiffness for cold and chilly, and they went to bed to try to get better and never woke up again. Aunties. Uncles. Babies, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, young and old, all little by little, got the slivers and called and went to bed.

00;12;29;12 – 00;12;36;05
Speaker 3
You listen to listen and be heard. Our for readers and writers. Hey, I hope you’re enjoying our story as part of our summer remix.

00;12;36;10 – 00;13;06;13
Speaker 7
They may spent all our money to bring doctors from far and wide, but nobody could find anything. She sold all the jewels in a crowd to bring more doctors. But nobody could find a cure. And then one day now known. Got the slippers. And he took hold and shivering. And he went to bed to try to get warm.

00;13;06;16 – 00;13;43;08
Speaker 7
And may. May said, oh, no, oh no, no, Nan, not my granddad. No, I’ve only if only I had those three wishes again. And somebody way above the clouds heard her, and the dragon appeared again. But said mermaid, I know what’s happening because you’re a good girl and you have a good heart. I’m going to give you those three wishes again.

00;13;43;11 – 00;14;11;02
Speaker 7
Now what would you wish for? It may make you money. And jewels were no good, and it came to it. So she said, I wish that this plague, this disease, would go away. I’d never come back again, so no one would be ill. And the dragon said, so be it. And it never came again. But when they thought, what about all the people who died?

00;14;11;05 – 00;14;32;04
Speaker 7
And now Nan, who was ill, can they all be all be better? And can they come back again? And the dragon slowly pointed his claw up to the hill, to the graveyard, and all his aunties and uncles and brothers and sisters are young and old. Came down the hill. There were all alive again, and everybody hugged and kissed each other.

00;14;32;04 – 00;14;57;06
Speaker 7
And there was a great big celebration all day. But she still had one wish left, and she didn’t know what to wish for. She thought and thought, man is no good Jews. And how good she thought and thought. And then she thought, I know I’m going to give you Mr. Dragon that wish. The tiger was so surprised he’d never had a wish before.

00;14;57;08 – 00;15;27;08
Speaker 7
He never thought of it before. Everybody just took their three wishes and used up. He’d never been given one back before. He didn’t know what to do with it. He thought and thought and thought. And then he said, I know what I wish for. I wish that from now on, all us young trackers can disguise ourselves as little boys and girls like you, so that no one will ever see us again as a dragon and be able to capture us and beat us up again.

00;15;27;08 – 00;15;45;26
Speaker 7
And that, boys or girls, is why dragons are not seen to this day. Because they’re all disguised as little boys and girls like you. Maybe even going to your school. How would you know?

00;15;45;28 – 00;16;15;17
Speaker 9
Please visit our archives at listen and Be heard. Yet the governments and discover the governments and different governments and the governments and different parts of the world have become less democratic. And there is a critical mass in different parts. Governments and different parts of the world have become less remote. And governments and different governments and different, the governments and different governments and different parts of the world have become less democratic.

00;16;15;17 – 00;16;38;20
Speaker 9
And there is no curtailing of freedom of speech and expression, even in India. There has been a lot of censorship for the last ten years, even more than there has been over in the past. But one of the things about, you know, Indian society is that we’ve always been, you know, very flourishing ground for different ideas. So the governments in different parts of the government.

00;16;38;21 – 00;16;43;23
Speaker 9
The government, the government. The government, the government.

00;16;43;25 – 00;16;47;26
Speaker 8
And for two months.

00;16;47;28 – 00;16;55;09
Speaker 9
The government in different parts of the world. The government. Government.

00;16;55;11 – 00;17;03;27
Speaker 9
The government itself.

00;17;04;00 – 00;17;27;18
Speaker 9
The government and different governments, the governments and different the government and the governments in different parts of the world have become less democratic. And there is, you know, corrective government in different parts. The governments in different parts of the world have become less remote. And the government and the government and different, the governments and different governments and different parts of the world have become less democratic.

00;17;27;18 – 00;17;54;19
Speaker 9
And there is, you know, curtailing of of speech and expression even in India. There has been a lot of censorship for the last ten years, even more than there has been aware of the past. But one of the things about, you know, Indian society is that we’ve always been, you know, very flourishing ground for different ideas. The governments in different parts of the government, the government, government.

00;17;54;21 – 00;17;55;24
Speaker 9
The government.

00;17;55;24 – 00;17;59;22
Speaker 8
Of government in different going to.

00;17;59;28 – 00;18;04;18
Speaker 9
The government of different parts of the world is that it’s.

00;18;04;20 – 00;18;12;07
Speaker 8
About it’s. It’s it’s, it’s it’s.

00;18;12;09 – 00;18;15;28
Speaker 9
The government.

00;18;16;01 – 00;18;36;04
Speaker 9
The government and different government, the government and different governments, the government and different parts of the world have become less democratic. And there is a critical moment in different parts governments and.

00;18;36;06 – 00;19;18;27
Speaker 10
Is important. Mujeres negras, Afrocentric estén, circuitous literario. La mujer estamos tomando su role desde no habia no Atacama. El espacio Q. La nueva generation de la la nueva. No tenga qué trapezius a? Rato con difficulty ser negro por support. Entonces son sueno absolute star in Cuba a verb encontrar mujeres Amy Canto de las olas y las melodious del Coral Esportiu.

00;19;18;28 – 00;19;29;28
Speaker 10
Lo q respiration soy poesia negra del mar.

00;19;30;00 – 00;19;30;15
Speaker 6
I think.

00;19;30;16 – 00;19;51;12
Speaker 11
Seagulls are my favorite, at least in the way we were talking yesterday, and I was seeing if you could flip over the thing that was in your mind, the way the gulls spin and twirl in mid-flight, surprising themselves. Your mind is young and deep for its age. Like tall grass that lives in a hurry. Out of it now comes a red wing blackbird.

00;19;51;12 – 00;20;14;25
Speaker 11
Just up and over the seed tips a clean shock of red across its shoulders. It is after something, some bug of existence. And so it goes down and black and up and bright, doggedly beautiful. The gulls dive down to and crash against the water. Just as I hunt for ways to show you that you are fit for the world, just as you are.

00;20;14;28 – 00;23;35;04
Speaker 11
Across the marsh the gulls beat and hundreds of directions. Study. Twisting, freefall, float. Weaving something unsayable. It’s that we have this one life and everything is an idea ever the winning strike that breaks just below the surface and manages to fetch something shining.

00;23;35;07 – 00;24;07;10
Speaker 6
About for Al Robles, I had felt them to the water buffalo. They come from far and lighted gales. They lead us out of our city streets into the sleeping blue of water, all of us crossing together inside their curved horns. Voices whisper us back from our wanderings on Kearny Street. We are far from the lettuce fields. The cock bites the blood of the pig.

00;24;07;12 – 00;24;39;15
Speaker 6
And still farther, trapped in memory comes the arrival of workers boats, of cane fields, waking in the arms of dark men. I have not always known that gender presence in this city cradled by two bridges, the old ones, disguised as dog spirits, lit the bones. We leave for the dead. The wind spins us in this ordinary world. Until someone nearly broken with desire to be lifted to another country.

00;24;39;15 – 00;25;00;09
Speaker 6
In his heart remembers the feel. The animals black hair, the slow but powerful carabao walk in the dark. They chase us into dream into what is that? Bathe in the blue night. Like the blue awakening of fish.

00;25;00;11 – 00;26;38;07
Speaker 3
Hernan, Ramiro. For listen and be heard. And you’re listening to listen and be heard. Our for readers and writers.

00;26;38;09 – 00;26;38;26
Speaker 8
So listen.

00;26;38;26 – 00;26;39;04
Speaker 9
And be.

00;26;39;04 – 00;26;40;26
Speaker 7
Heard our. You can find.

00;26;40;27 – 00;26;42;26
Speaker 9
Our reading list of.

00;26;42;26 – 00;26;49;06
Speaker 7
Every book that we’ve ever. Mentioned on this podcast at listen to be heard.

00;26;49;09 – 00;29;53;03
Speaker 8
Net.

00;29;53;06 – 00;30;21;03
Speaker 12
You are.

00;30;21;05 – 00;30;22;00
Speaker 7
This is.

00;30;22;00 – 00;30;28;04
Speaker 13
The listening be heard. Our.

00;30;28;06 – 00;30;58;00
Speaker 13
My alerts, my knee jerks, my tics and trembles and fears and sneers on my character. Those subterranean blues, those many hues of you’s not being here for me. So there is no need to be. To remember what. Remember who. Remember why you cried and insisted you didn’t know why or how or who. Because you didn’t and you were three and it’s still just all the way.

00;30;58;00 – 00;31;19;27
Speaker 13
It has to be because it’s what it is, which who knows what or who it is or cares or where is clothes? In the park, in the dark, in a parking lot, at the gas station. On a nation, nation, nation of my soul. There’s a hole I don’t fit in that fits me. There’s a goal. There’s a foal in the headlights.

00;31;19;28 – 00;31;46;02
Speaker 13
They are so bright. And my brother dies before my eyes in the street. And the beat goes on the heap. The neat stacking and books, the sideways looks. The trucks that took your cookies. Looky, looky. Who do you think you are? You are, you are, you are. You are the star in a constellation. The far flown floozy, boozy.

00;31;46;08 – 00;32;31;03
Speaker 13
Fraternize with flossy, newsy, naughty body, body buddy buddy not so warm and cuddly, more like ugly monster. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Every day. To pray, to pray, to pray, to pray, to pay, to play, to play. To say anything but what’s bothering you that’s so hard to do?

00;32;31;05 – 00;32;35;12
Speaker 13
Hunched over.

00;32;35;14 – 00;33;14;23
Speaker 13
Over soldiers. That in my ears is that fear feeling all too beyond my years. And the cold makes me shiver, but not enough to know ahead of time to put on that sweater. Even though it was itchy and I didn’t like. And I liked my sisters better. Always. Everything was better, bigger, better. Not me. I felt ugly. Mom said I was back and didn’t have friends, but I wasn’t, and I did, I think, but I’m not sure I’m ever sure.

00;33;14;24 – 00;33;42;24
Speaker 13
Never certain what’s behind the curtain. But everyone is reaching the memos but me. Everybody is reading the memos but me. I’m shivery. I’m slippery. I don’t want to know. I think you want to know. But who are you slipping off the right side of the page who can’t stop herself there? So she would have you believe that she didn’t conceive herself.

00;33;42;24 – 00;34;06;12
Speaker 13
But here she is trying to claim there’s a reason she didn’t get the memo trees in his memory. She has to speak the plain truth in the plain day. To say what? There is no other way to say how it’s all pay to play in the street. In the beat of the times. The lines that distract from the facts of strife.

00;34;06;12 – 00;34;48;06
Speaker 13
The life of lies. Until we wise, wise enough. Up, up. Drink from the cup. The Holy Grail is from the slot pair. The that grits grow from the scum and drumbeat of my heart. Saying make art, make, just make and fake the memories maybe. Or make the memories. Which is fine. But mine are all mine. If I remember them or not, I might have forgot to unforgettable the regrettable repetition of our mission as I try to get to the end of the page with something that’s old, something real, which is in the past.

00;34;48;06 – 00;35;03;29
Speaker 13
How is that last? A fast girl, a gas, a task? Don’t ask because I don’t know. I don’t want to know. Don’t send me any medals. No demos. Because I already know what you did.

00;35;04;02 – 00;35;06;23
Speaker 3
And a series.

00;35;06;23 – 00;35;09;01
Speaker 8
Of quatrains, somewhat.

00;35;09;01 – 00;35;17;28
Speaker 14
Similar in structure to the villanelle.

00;35;18;00 – 00;35;42;03
Speaker 11
We really do have to remember that the main culprits in this situation are petrochemical companies and large corporations and well and gas, big oil, big gas, and the political framework that’s attached to that. And so if we can just breathe and remember that, then I think it’s easier to be like, okay, I’m just going to pick one thing today or I’m going to try to help my teenagers form this habit, right?

00;35;42;04 – 00;36;18;19
Speaker 11
Turning the lights off, maybe over whether the banana peel goes in the compost or the trash and not beating ourselves up if we’re not checking every box.

00;36;18;22 – 00;36;19;09
Speaker 2
This is a.

00;36;19;09 – 00;36;22;07
Speaker 3
Poem dedicated to.

00;36;22;10 – 00;36;59;01
Speaker 2
Billy Mills, who is a elder. He was the winner of the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games 10,000 meter track race, and author of the new children’s book wings of an Eagle. And this is a poem for him. It’s called The Circle. A race is run in a circle, an oval, the shape of an eye, a blink, a lifetime begins at minds curvature.

00;36;59;04 – 00;37;53;02
Speaker 2
The shape of ritual song. Pain, a dance, an offering of bones. Kindling. Songs whose breath sweeps across wind and earth a race run by fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, seven generations feet planted, held aloft upon mother’s fertile earth. The silent gun begins the race a race towards dignity, a race towards the meaning of our names. A gun whose silent ring stays in our ears across 10,000 seasons.

00;37;53;04 – 00;38;33;03
Speaker 2
A race towards harvest. A race that never ends. Look at Mills, look at Mills. And announcer’s voice cries out on Mother Earth’s stage of constant rotation. The stage of our eyes in what we behold, never to be withheld, positions changing, coming full circle. And what have we won? My father, my uncle and those that came before. And all the things they should have said and done.

00;38;33;06 – 00;39;39;27
Speaker 2
Have now been said and done. A race one and lost and one again and again. Billy, thank you for running that race. Lifting us from shadows like the wings of an eagle.

00;39;39;29 – 00;39;40;15
Speaker 6
The first.

00;39;40;15 – 00;40;17;29
Speaker 15
Rule is to create relationships of mutual benefit or reciprocal relationship. And so thinking through what that means very, very specifically is thinking through all the relationships in the food system and making sure that each relationship of parties are being cared for.

00;40;18;01 – 00;40;53;05
Speaker 7
This is to listen and be heard. Our brought to you by listen and be Heard network. You can visit our archives at listen and Be heard. Net where you are also welcome to contribute to our efforts in creating this entirely commercial free podcast and radio show.

00;40;53;08 – 00;41;09;21
Speaker 3
Hey everyone, this is Jade Rodriguez. So no one has any Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. Hope you enjoying our summer remix to listen and be heard. Our readers and writers, back.

00;41;09;21 – 00;41;13;17
Speaker 9
To it. Thank you. There we go. Where all my.

00;41;13;17 – 00;41;14;13
Speaker 6
Money gone.

00;41;14;14 – 00;41;15;16
Speaker 9
There we go.

00;41;15;19 – 00;41;16;09
Speaker 13
Has it gotten.

00;41;16;09 – 00;41;39;03
Speaker 9
Stuffed on the inside of the lovers. Who can’t get the trust of me out their mouth. Has it found a home in all the homes it’s visited? Whose cha is it sitting in that? Some of it is sunk itself into seats. That money goes. There’s out there inhaling those same spots, opaque to catch a whiff of my memory.

00;41;39;06 – 00;41;58;09
Speaker 9
There’s some rotting in the hands of a man who first helped me when I greeted the world. Maybe my honey was too potent from birth. There’s even more rotting in the hands of a man that was meant to be a mentor. But my honey sheen to sticky for him to not want to see. Just how did he didn’t matter that he was closer in Asia.

00;41;58;09 – 00;42;22;00
Speaker 9
The man who first took my honey without asking y’all. You taking my honey without asking why? When did I become the bee? And you? I mean, dumb keeper. When did my body start producing honey? Just to be stored in different places? Right when I become so lost in all the noise that the buzzing just started to sound like music, right?

00;42;22;02 – 00;42;43;21
Speaker 9
Tweak melodies. No one thinks twice about when did I lose the will to say, you can’t have none of my honey, it’s my honey. I may have dropped some along the way, but it wasn’t for you. I may have shared it with some not worthy, but that doesn’t make it less pure. I’ve even shared it with someone who didn’t even want the honey.

00;42;43;29 – 00;43;09;04
Speaker 9
They only took it because it was free. Something like the tasting a sample of something they might like except when they didn’t like it. I never got my honey back. My body of a charter was just now a little less full. Just just just wishing I could get some of my honey. Regretting having allowed myself to be pried open that way.

00;43;09;04 – 00;43;32;24
Speaker 9
But I was told I would be handled with care, even convinced I would be kept in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight. The perfect environment for me to thrive in. So I let the top of my honey crouch watch as the sneaky stripped out of me let unclean things take a dip, hoping they love the taste of me after cleaning me off.

00;43;32;27 – 00;43;57;07
Speaker 9
Even when I knew I didn’t want them to, I let them dip into my anyway, even in moments I didn’t want it to my honey. So that must mean I wanted it to. Right? And make sense then to need a sense of approval from the keeper. But did it make sense? Given away all my honey like I don’t got no god damn sense.

00;43;57;09 – 00;44;23;19
Speaker 9
In hopes that someone would care and love me past all this tense Charleston my honey a bit. And hope that them telling me how good my honey takes would finally make me appreciate the jar its captain. Thing is, I know my honey tastes like your favorite delicacy to be cherished and cherish her. I will because she takes real good to me.

00;44;23;21 – 00;44;39;23
Speaker 9
And if she takes real good to me. How dare I say to you about mama? Yeah. Oh, that was beautiful. Thank you.

00;44;39;26 – 00;44;43;01
Speaker 7
For life. Which I am in the presence.

00;44;43;03 – 00;45;16;24
Speaker 16
1000 bricks and a few weeks is the beginning of the first partition to wear less partition. It’s raining prices. Which is? Which is raised less partition. Places, places, places like your life. And think about that. And this is one thing that’s always flat. For that matter, was already in the fourth quarter to that particular one was always which I was.

00;45;16;29 – 00;46;43;21
Speaker 16
I was dealing with Israeli prices. In any significant economic endings, partition is always next partition. Find and book ages of the great anonymity. I am only the with our brains. How deep is our our ability to run the results on this story and the age requests from our bureau in 20 2132. Traveling to support.

00;46;43;23 – 00;46;50;10
Speaker 13
To we want anything.

00;46;50;13 – 00;46;50;27
Speaker 17
Why?

00;46;51;02 – 00;47;01;09
Speaker 13
Why do we need what we clearly don’t we?

00;47;01;11 – 00;47;04;22
Speaker 17
We can get along.

00;47;04;25 – 00;47;11;28
Speaker 17
Without.

00;47;12;01 – 00;47;14;21
Speaker 17
But.

00;47;14;23 – 00;47;21;24
Speaker 17
Do we need to live?

00;47;21;27 – 00;47;28;00
Speaker 17
We need to eat through drink.

00;47;28;03 – 00;47;41;01
Speaker 17
We need our mothers to touch us, care for us. See this?

00;47;41;03 – 00;47;44;07
Speaker 17
But why?

00;47;44;09 – 00;47;56;18
Speaker 17
Doing more? More than that?

00;47;56;21 – 00;48;05;20
Speaker 17
Branches of matter. If it doesn’t matter.

00;48;05;23 – 00;48;15;16
Speaker 17
I will freeze. I will eat and drink. I will live.

00;48;15;19 – 00;48;21;20
Speaker 17
It doesn’t matter what I want.

00;48;21;22 – 00;48;28;27
Speaker 17
I will have no once.

00;48;28;29 – 00;48;45;27
Speaker 17
I won’t ask this pen to flow. Smooth the page I won’t break to read how I think things should be. Rest. And when it all to pay attention to me.

00;48;46;00 – 00;48;48;14
Speaker 17
I.

00;48;48;17 – 00;48;56;07
Speaker 17
Will pay attention and ask nothing about one to.

00;48;56;09 – 00;49;02;25
Speaker 17
I don’t need to want.

00;49;02;28 – 00;49;14;01
Speaker 17
To what is to be unholy, a hole to be filled with what?

00;49;14;03 – 00;49;25;17
Speaker 17
What is, is what it is. What want it to be without me, without my without why? Just the same bird song.

00;49;25;20 – 00;49;49;29
Speaker 17
As long as the day. The way to lighten the load and be grateful for not one to.

00;49;50;01 – 00;51;11;17
Speaker 7
Acrostic the poem in which the initial letters of the lines spell a name or a title.

00;51;11;20 – 00;51;16;22
Speaker 3
Support the listen and be heard. Network and sound.

00;51;16;22 – 00;51;17;08
Speaker 7
System.

00;51;17;08 – 00;51;19;14
Speaker 3
Culture and ink.

00;51;19;16 – 00;51;20;22
Speaker 7
Great..

00;51;20;24 – 00;51;21;02
Speaker 7
So.

00;51;21;02 – 00;51;22;06
Speaker 3
That we can keep on.

00;51;22;06 – 00;51;24;21
Speaker 7
Bringing you this beautiful music.

00;51;24;23 – 00;51;29;16
Speaker 3
And these beautiful statements in giving our people in our.

00;51;29;16 – 00;51;45;04
Speaker 7
Community all around the world a voice that they may heal and grow and inspire. All right now, all the best. Peace out.

00;51;45;07 – 00;51;51;23
Speaker 12
Me me me.

00;51;51;26 – 00;51;59;00
Speaker 12
Me.

00;51;59;03 – 00;52;01;29
Speaker 12
Me.

00;52;02;01 – 00;52;20;16
Speaker 7
I want to tell you that what you say. Being able to have something to say, such as being a good listener, you know, because you have to learn, you have to listen and gain knowledge. And then you can.

00;52;20;19 – 00;52;21;16
Speaker 13
The time goes.

00;52;21;16 – 00;52;26;08
Speaker 7
By so quickly here in the audio garden. My friends and.

00;52;26;08 – 00;52;26;16
Speaker 13
I have.

00;52;26;16 – 00;52;33;21
Speaker 7
So enjoyed that time here with you.

00;52;33;23 – 00;53;14;03
Speaker 7
One of the pleasures of gardening audio gardening is listening to your garden grow. If I went back, or if you went back to listen to the pilot episode almost three years ago now of this show what you could do, we have all of our archives at listening to Be Her Net. You would hear me by myself making the show, fooling around with the concept of what it is and how it should grow.

00;53;14;06 – 00;54;05;17
Speaker 7
And my idea at the time was to reintroduce myself to the literary community, from which I felt a bit estranged, and to be a good member of that community and serve its needs, which is for authors to be able to have a form of platform to talk about their work, their new books, their craft, and for us to engage with each other and to embody the network that we are, because we are the network and listen and be heard.

00;54;05;23 – 00;54;52;12
Speaker 7
Network is nothing but a growing group of people who communicate and help each other out to nurture each other, water each other, shine light on each other, and admire us when we flower and harvest our fruits, when they’re right to be enjoyed. After much practice and deliberation and this show has grown and blossomed in ways that I could never really have imagined when I first began.

00;54;52;19 – 00;55;46;28
Speaker 7
And yet it’s growing into what I envisioned it to be, which is for me to be part of a family and to, you know, do my part in that family. And my part seems to be to bring people together and engage them in conversation and have conversations that lead to action and creation and even beauty and enjoyment. And I hope that you feel the same way about listen to be heard, and would welcome your participation as another creator inventor, listener who also needs to be heard.

00;55;47;00 – 00;56;21;22
Speaker 7
And there are various ways that you could become involved in this entirely commercial free hour, either by contributing segments or contributing finances, or just leaving a comment and letting us know if we’re making a difference in your life. If you like to come back from week to week.

00;56;21;24 – 00;56;59;29
Speaker 7
Thanks, as always to David Dial at PVM Radio in Asheville, North Carolina for introducing, listen and be heard to the broadcast Airwaves Kitchen in Taos, New Mexico, Kep in San Antonio, Texas, KHOU in Ames, Iowa, and KFI in Red bluff, California, and other stations that are part of the Pacific Affiliate Network for cultivating the audio garden in your communities and our own listening be heard network host of W.

00;57;00;03 – 00;57;24;07
Speaker 7
Please visit us at listening and sign up for our email newsletter and at our Listen and Be Heard YouTube channel, where you will find unedited video interviews of our featured guests. My name is Martha Senator, and I want to thank you for listening and giving me the opportunity to be heard.

00;57;24;10 – 00;57;47;19
Speaker 2
Thanks to laugh, the Senator, our executive producer, and our new nonprofit Sound System Culture. Thank you for your support. Please tell your friends this is the only place you’re going to hear this music, this radio art, the way that radio podcasts should be felt and experienced in our communities. All right. Check it out.

00;57;47;21 – 00;57;52;07
Speaker 12
Many of you are.

00;57;52;09 – 00;57;55;05
Speaker 12
You are.

00;57;55;08 – 00;57;55;20
Speaker 12
You?

CREDITS– CO-HOSTS & PRODUCERS: Martha Cinader, Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra, Tony Robles. FEATURED GUESTS: Shirley Ancheta, Tony Cranston, Saumya Choudhury, Meredith Leigh, Martha Cinader, Tony Robles, The Cipher Crew. MUSIC: Nana, Violin, Jay Rodriguez Sierra, all other instruments. SOUNDTRACK, MIXING, MASTERING, SOUND DESIGN: Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. Executive Producer, Martha Cinader.

Do you want to be heard in the garden? Please consider contributing your audio content. We grow together when we nurture our network. Click here for more information.

THe Intuitive Writing Podcast hosted by Elizabeth Perlman

This is an unedited transcript of s1e1 of the Intuitive Writing Podcast. ©2026 The Listen & Be Heard Network. all rights reserved.

00;00;00;17 – 00;00;31;02
Speaker 1
Low. And welcome to the Intuitive Writing Podcast, a production of The Intuitive Writing Project, a writing based empowerment program for girls and gender expansive youth. We are dedicated to giving young writers a safe, encouraging, non-critical, unconditionally supportive space to write their story, speak their truth, and assert their voice both as writers and as leaders. For a bit of background.

00;00;31;05 – 00;00;55;29
Speaker 1
My name is Elizabeth and I created this program 11 years ago because it’s what I wanted and needed when I was young, a supportive place to be truly seen and heard. That’s why we use the Amherst Writing Method, a radically nurturing and empowering writing methodology. I wish everyone learned in grade school. You can read more about the Amherst Method on their website.

00;00;55;29 – 00;01;27;06
Speaker 1
And in Pat Snider’s groundbreaking book, Writing Alone and with others. But the basic principles and the ones that guide all of our classes are number one. Everyone is a writer with important stories to tell. Number two, everyone has their own unique voice, a voice that needs to be heard. And number three, our voice will grow stronger and clearer the more it is supported and positively affirmed in our classes.

00;01;27;06 – 00;02;00;27
Speaker 1
Everyone writes together, everyone shares their writing, and then everyone takes turn, giving each other grounded, positive feedback. By that I mean we repeat back and lift up the words, lines, phrases or concepts that really resonated for us. Since we can’t violate the sanctity of our classes by recording what goes on there, these one on 1 or 3 people conversations are designed to provide a little glimpse, a microcosm of what happens in the classroom.

00;02;01;00 – 00;02;30;07
Speaker 1
You can also read about our org and read our students words as they were published on our blog. The Intuitive Voice with the links below. If you enjoy listening to one young reader reader words and talk about it, imagine how powerful it is when six young writers are reading their words and giving each other positive, affirming feedback. It’s pretty life changing, and there’s a lot more I could say about it, but I’ll let these young writers speak for themselves.

00;02;30;10 – 00;02;57;21
Speaker 1
On behalf of all the writers at the Intuitive Writing Project, I want to thank you for supporting their voices, for being present and really listening to the wisdom, insight and brilliance of young people today. I’m so honored and excited to be interviewing one of our original writers, our OG Audrey Lambert, who is here with us today to talk about one of her more recent pieces of writing.

00;02;57;23 – 00;03;17;00
Speaker 1
Audrey, if you would introduce yourself to our audience, tell us your current age, where you’re going, your age, pronouns, where you’re currently going to school, what you’re setting. And then if you would mention to our listeners when you started writing at the At the Interior Writing Project.

00;03;17;02 – 00;03;34;13
Speaker 2
Okay, I’m Audrey, I you see her pronouns. I’m 20 years old and I go to read college in Portland, where I am majoring in English with a with an emphasis in creative writing.

00;03;34;16 – 00;03;40;17
Speaker 1
So awesome. And you started in.

00;03;40;19 – 00;03;42;02
Speaker 2
Fifth grade. So like.

00;03;42;04 – 00;04;11;23
Speaker 1
Grade you were in. I know I said this before when we were interviewing with somebody else, but I want to say it again, because this is going to make you the most famous writer of the intuitive writing project for ever, for as long as we. You are our most famous writer, because you were the only one from our very first class who continue to write with us all the way through into you graduated, and even now you are at college studying fate of writing, and you got to write with us.

00;04;11;24 – 00;04;34;04
Speaker 1
We had a little sort of alumni class this past summer, and you and several other people wrote there. So you are. If I could give you some kind of Oscar for that, I’ll figure it out. Someday I’m going to give you an award for it. But I’m so grateful that you’re here. You have so much to teach and illuminate because you have been writing for so long.

00;04;34;04 – 00;05;05;18
Speaker 1
Some of us start later. Actually, I’m even though I wrote the whole time when I was younger, I didn’t really start sharing my writing until much later in life. So I think your experience of having written from the from basically age ten, you have already like a history of knowledge about writing. So I thought I would ask if you would share a little anecdote about your first memory, or one of your first early memories of writing before you came to our program when you were really little?

00;05;05;21 – 00;05;35;02
Speaker 2
I remember I think it was probably first or second grade. I think it was second grade. We had to write like a how to book, like how to something, and I wrote How to Get Dirty, which I didn’t realize was like kind of in, in Yuendumu because I was a little baby. But I wrote about, like, playing in the dirt and, like, going in my creek in my backyard and stuff.

00;05;35;07 – 00;05;53;01
Speaker 2
And my teacher was like, you have to publish this. Like, it’s so great. Looking back on it, I’m like, why would she say that? With a title like How to Get Dirty written by a seven year old? Like, I don’t know what she was thinking, but I thought that was pretty funny.

00;05;53;07 – 00;06;09;15
Speaker 1
Oh, that’s so cute. Well, I think it’s when you know that it’s when you said you were seven. Immediately I was thinking of mud puddle two, and I’m sorry she was as well. But if you didn’t have the context, that would be a very weird.

00;06;09;17 – 00;06;14;25
Speaker 1
That’s so brilliant. Also, it’s just a creative idea because that’s something that.

00;06;14;27 – 00;06;21;12
Speaker 2
Yeah, I want it to be. Not like the other kids in the class to be different.

00;06;21;14 – 00;06;36;16
Speaker 1
Yeah. And also, it’s kind of a early feminist piece because the girls are so conditioned to be clean and tidy, like boys are allowed to be dirty and girls have to be clean. So that’s kind of radical.

00;06;36;19 – 00;06;41;23
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, I might have a bit to do with growing up with an older brother, but.

00;06;41;25 – 00;06;43;09
Speaker 1
Oh.

00;06;43;11 – 00;06;46;05
Speaker 2
I don’t know. I was a weird kid. I guess.

00;06;46;08 – 00;07;13;01
Speaker 1
You were a magical kid, I love it. Okay, so a big departure from that first piece. Actually, you’ve been it’s been such an incredible honor to watch the evolution of your writing. And it’ll school. You wrote the most fantastical fictional stories and continue to do so in high school. And it’s been recently. I feel like you’ve been finding your voice as a poet as well, which is just so cool.

00;07;13;01 – 00;07;35;19
Speaker 1
And all of your pieces are really deep and profound. So I’m going to have you. Honestly, it was hard to choose which piece to have you read, because I want everyone to read all of your writing, and hopefully we’ll get one of your own personal anthologies published soon so people can. Meanwhile, you can go on our blog Intuitive Way, or you can actually look up several of Audrey’s pieces.

00;07;35;19 – 00;07;57;04
Speaker 1
And the piece that I’m going to have you read today is the one that you wrote this summer, and I encourage listeners to click on the link under this podcast so you can follow along and see how it’s written and see where the line breaks are. And there’s a play on words towards the end, which you will appreciate most if you are reading it.

00;07;57;06 – 00;08;24;08
Speaker 1
The title is just write r I t, but just know in advance that we’re playing with right and right, right and writing w r I t I t right. So just know we’re playing with right and right. So if you would go ahead and be just right okay.

00;08;24;10 – 00;08;48;06
Speaker 2
Just right. You’re so shy. They say you’re so quiet. But don’t you know how loud it is in my skull. You can’t hear it. Thoughts like a spinning top. Sorry, I don’t feel like speaking to you. Nothing personal really. It’s just. I don’t think you could navigate these echoing canyons. I can barely read the map myself. And the white water is too dangerous for you.

00;08;48;08 – 00;09;12;29
Speaker 2
Trust me, you’ll prefer the quiet. Sometimes there’s too much for me to say for me to say it. Other times you asked me a question and my rapid river turns lazy. The skull is a barren desert pin drop silent so I scrape it, scrape up whatever tumbleweeds are left at the bottom of the barrel, then choke out some stuttered, half coherent something just to satiate you.

00;09;13;01 – 00;09;32;21
Speaker 2
And as soon as I’ve said it, the dam and the drought dry canyon cracks and my skull floods with everything I should have said. You’re so quiet, they say, and they look at me like I’m a goddamn ghost town. Head in the clouds and full of helium. Sorry I’m better with words when I don’t have to really say them.

00;09;32;28 – 00;09;58;26
Speaker 2
It’s all about timing, really. I never have the right thoughts at the right time. I say too little and I think too late. There must be something wrong with my brain to mouth correspondent. Because my brain to hand to pen to paper junction is so much smarter. You’re so quiet. They say I’m not, I’m not. I’m just thinking too fast or too slow going.

00;09;58;28 – 00;10;09;04
Speaker 2
Must have stolen the gist, right? Maybe that’s it. Just right. Just right. I’m not quiet. I’m a writer. I save my words for later.

00;10;09;06 – 00;10;44;15
Speaker 1
Oh, I love that so much. It moved me to tears a little bit, I think. Is it so relatable? And I think so many people who are writers deeply understand the truth that is being expressed here. I can’t describe in words how deeply I relate to that whole, especially the second to last stanza. There must be something wrong with my brain to mouth correspondent because my brain to hand to pen to paper junction.

00;10;44;15 – 00;11;03;21
Speaker 1
It’s so much smarter. God, I have a just writing about this the other day that when I was young, when I was like grade school and middle school and high school, I really thought I had brain damage because I couldn’t. I felt like I couldn’t get the words that were in my head out of my mouth. I still feel like that, but it’s evolved a little bit.

00;11;03;22 – 00;11;32;12
Speaker 1
Now. The problem is even more complicated, but the way that the writer has described it, I feel like it. It absolutely would speak to the soul of virtually every writer on earth. It’s such and the pain of being called being misunderstood. I think that’s what also moves me. The repetition of what the world quote says, you’re you’re so quiet.

00;11;32;12 – 00;12;03;18
Speaker 1
And then that’s such a oh my God, that’s like not seeing the truth of the person at all. And I love how the writer conveys the complexity, the depth, the kind of, I would call it the genius that’s actually happening inside of them that they can’t just, like, spit out. I like that line so I can check out some stuttered, half coherent, coherent something just to satiate you.

00;12;03;19 – 00;12;25;02
Speaker 1
Like you have to say some things, you’re going to say something. And then of course, it’s not anything like what you wish you could have said that damn. In the drought dry canyon, cracks in my skull floods with everything I should have said. That is the story of my life. Like coming home afterwards and being like, why didn’t I say that?

00;12;25;04 – 00;12;50;14
Speaker 1
Actually, it’s usually I go someplace and I don’t articulate myself right. And I come home and I start journaling about it. And when I’m writing, then I figure out what I want to say. But I just think in addition to being so relevant to and relatable to every writer, I think it’s so beautifully and powerfully expressed thoughts like a spinning top.

00;12;50;16 – 00;13;14;28
Speaker 1
Oh my gosh. And this idea that like, people think they want to know what you’re thinking, but do they? I don’t think you could navigate these echoing canyons. I can barely read the map myself. And the white water’s too dangerous for you. Trust me, you’ll prefer the quiet. That’s such a great line. Thank you. My God, I also love.

00;13;15;01 – 00;13;38;10
Speaker 1
They look at me like I’m a goddamn ghost town. Head in the clouds full of helium. It also makes me think about. I love reading about ghosts. This is probably how ghosts feel that they can’t communicate with us either. And they’re probably really frustrated. They’re like, I have complicated thoughts too. And people just assume that it’s something like there’s nothing there.

00;13;38;12 – 00;14;02;09
Speaker 1
I’m also reminded of that phrase, still waters run deep, which is something most people don’t understand. If there’s silence, they think there’s nothing there. But this writer makes it so clear. There’s so much more going on beneath the surface. And then, of course, your final stanza is just a total mic drop. Goldilocks must have stolen the just right.

00;14;02;10 – 00;14;30;11
Speaker 1
Maybe that’s it. Just right. And then this is where, if you can, people can click on the link and see the writing. It goes from just read GHC to right, which is that’s the antidote. I love how the writer expresses the frustration of being able being a writer more than a speaker, which can really all relate to and then reclaims their power.

00;14;30;13 – 00;15;02;00
Speaker 1
I think that the last three lines are just such a reclamation. I’m not quiet. I’m a writer. I’ll save my words for later. It’s like socket. This is I have got so much more going on and this is how I communicate. I commute, communicate on paper with written language and you guys just have to wait for that. Wait till my next novel comes out, then you’ll know it’s on my mind.

00;15;02;03 – 00;15;14;03
Speaker 1
It’s so good I, I want to share this with. Actually, I am going to be sharing this next week with middle school class, and we’re going to use this as a prompt. And I think they’re going to be.

00;15;14;05 – 00;15;14;28
Speaker 2
So honored.

00;15;14;29 – 00;15;48;11
Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, they’re going to be blown away, as you know, when you’re in middle school, college age, I mean, high school sounds. Yeah, they’re going to be really inspired that you’re in college. And I just think it gives I think the most important part of this is that as the writer is expressing her frustration and claiming her power, she is simultaneously giving permission to all other writers to first of all know you’re not alone and to claim your own power as a writer.

00;15;48;13 – 00;16;14;16
Speaker 1
And that’s that’s the little misunderstood thing about claiming power is that it actually gives. The more we all own our power, the more everyone else is free to do the same thing you give it is permission, 100% permission given to all writers who struggle with this, which is including myself. Okay, so now I want to ask you about your creative process.

00;16;14;18 – 00;16;37;24
Speaker 1
This particular piece. I don’t even remember what the prompt was that night, although I always usually say, just write whatever. But I want to ask you if you remember when you started, when you started out, did you have a clear idea of what this piece would be, or did it just happen? And or what was surprising to you about the process?

00;16;37;26 – 00;17;08;23
Speaker 2
I think if I remember correctly, the prop was something about like, write about something that makes you angry or something or something that like, you’re misunderstood about something like that. And I mean, my whole life people have called me shy and quiet, and I hate that. I it’s absolute pet peeve of mine. And I know I’m not the most like social person, but it’s still it’s it feels like an insult, even if it isn’t.

00;17;08;29 – 00;17;36;15
Speaker 2
And I think I sort of just wanted to get that out there first and then, I don’t know, I think I was thinking a lot about how even academically, like, I’m not the most like participatory in class because I feel like I start, I have an idea and I start talking, and then I forget what I’m saying, and I just feel like I sound so stupid in my classes with very intelligent people.

00;17;36;18 – 00;18;07;01
Speaker 2
But then I sit down and I write an essay and I’m like, I am smart. Like, I yeah, I do have thoughts about this. I just am horrible at articulating them verbally. And so I think that’s something that I find pride in, that I’m able to write well academically and creatively. And I think, yeah, that’s kind of brought me to the just right area of the poem.

00;18;07;01 – 00;18;14;13
Speaker 2
And I think I just, I don’t know, I think it flowed very like organically through me because it was a little bit of a rant in some ways.

00;18;14;14 – 00;18;16;22
Speaker 1
Yes.

00;18;16;25 – 00;18;29;16
Speaker 2
And then I think I was just, I just started to like the too fast or the too slow, and that just made me think of Goldilocks. And I was like, oh, there it is. There’s the the big ending, big fat.

00;18;29;17 – 00;18;41;19
Speaker 1
So that’s so interesting. And it’s like the too fast, too slow sort of stumbled out of you like you intuitively did it without thinking. And then that led to the next, the final.

00;18;41;21 – 00;18;42;06
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;18;42;13 – 00;19;02;20
Speaker 1
I want to make a quick plug, because what you’re talking about totally comes from this great book. Did you ever read the name of the book is Just Quiet, and then the subtitle is The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. Have you heard of that book or did you read that?

00;19;02;22 – 00;19;04;26
Speaker 2
I haven’t, but that’s sounds great.

00;19;04;28 – 00;19;29;23
Speaker 1
I’m going to give you that book because I think everyone I’ve talked to who is on the side feels so validated. And when you were just saying about it’s you hate when people are like all that stuff, that is 100% a judgment. Particularly in America, different cultures have different values. You know, like Asian cultures generally value more quiet, reflective behaviors.

00;19;29;23 – 00;19;47;25
Speaker 1
But America is the biggest extrovert obsessed country ever. And one of the things you talked about in this book is like, even if you’re not an extrovert, you feel like you have to act like one, and there’s all this judgment about it, and it’s just it’s actually a real problem. It’s such a problem that she had to write a book about it.

00;19;47;25 – 00;20;15;04
Speaker 1
So I think you’re going to be like, but the way, funnily enough, even though she like describes the science and all of the like all these studies that she’s done about it, I still feel like you’ve expressed the problem more eloquently and concisely in this poem than she did in her entire book, and also the solution, which is just claim your powers or why they’re talking is weird.

00;20;15;09 – 00;20;46;16
Speaker 1
We’ve talked about this before. I mean, I am technically an extrovert, but I do feel like there is some kind of weird disconnect between my brain and my mouth, and I have trouble speaking all the time words I’m always. Anyway, one of the things that we’ve talked about before, that if you think about it too much, makes it almost impossible to speak, is if you think about words that we’re saying are just weird sounds we’re making with our tongue and our breath, and they’re just sounds.

00;20;46;16 – 00;20;53;27
Speaker 1
And there, I mean, objectively meaningless sounds. But you know what I’m saying? And I know what you’re saying. And how weird is that?

00;20;54;02 – 00;21;07;29
Speaker 2
That’s so weird. It’s like anytime I think about, like, the process of speaking, it really like, I’m like, what? How did we get here? Like, what am I? What am I doing? I’m. I’m making these noises, and they all have me.

00;21;08;01 – 00;21;09;26
Speaker 1
Right.

00;21;09;28 – 00;21;11;03
Speaker 2
Close my mind.

00;21;11;05 – 00;21;31;28
Speaker 1
Well, and, you know, because you’ve extensively studied Spanish, we were just talking about this the other day that it’s easier for you to read than to speak. It has two different things. And there are sounds in Spanish like the, the double are. Yeah, that is a movement of one’s tongue that I cannot for the life of me replicate.

00;21;31;28 – 00;21;37;24
Speaker 2
But no, I’m bad at that too, which is part of the right speaking problem for me.

00;21;37;26 – 00;22;04;02
Speaker 1
Right? But it’s so crazy that as babies, we can so easily learn whatever the people are doing around us. But once we’re older, it’s like, what are words I have? Some people are amazing and speak like eight languages and it’s incredible. And I feel like English is hard enough. Oh my God, I barely do that one. But we are much more comfortable writing.

00;22;04;02 – 00;22;27;20
Speaker 1
So unfortunately I have to keep asking you to talk about writing. So if you just could give advice to any writer of any age, but especially young writers about your what you figured out over the last oh my God, if you were, remember writing your first piece when you were 7 to 7 when you wrote the book? Yeah.

00;22;27;22 – 00;22;34;05
Speaker 1
So that math, what was that? Seven minus? Is that 14 years now?

00;22;34;07 – 00;22;35;28
Speaker 2
Yeah. 13. 14. Yeah.

00;22;35;29 – 00;22;55;15
Speaker 1
Okay. You have been writing for over a decade. In your experience, what do you do to get ideas and also where and or what do you do when you think you have an idea and you start writing and then you’re like, I’ve got nothing else. How do you get out of being stuck?

00;22;55;17 – 00;23;18;16
Speaker 2
I think for in terms of ideas, I feel like a lot of times I’ll just have one sentence or one line. That or something I’ve been thinking about that sort of has is a starting point, a jumping off point for me, and I’ll just sort of rewrite from there and see if that comes. Anything comes out of it.

00;23;18;19 – 00;23;45;08
Speaker 2
And like otherwise, for inspiration, sometimes I get stuff from songs or even just like, I don’t know, the the internet or like the news, I don’t know, I’ll read something and I’ll think a certain like collection of words and that will spark something and I’ll get like fixated on that. And then I’ll, I have like a notes apple of like sentences that came to my head or things that I read that I just thought were interesting.

00;23;45;08 – 00;24;07;21
Speaker 2
And sometimes if I don’t have anything, I’m not generating anything. I’ll go back to that and pull something from there and see what I can do with that. And then in terms of getting stuck, once I start writing something, it’s actually happened to me for one of my creative writing classes recently in school, I had a line that I really liked and I like.

00;24;07;22 – 00;24;24;08
Speaker 2
That’s where I wanted my short story to be about, and I wrote the first sentence and I just couldn’t. I couldn’t get away. I couldn’t get away from it. So I moved that to the end and wrote to it. I made it my end, the beginning.

00;24;24;10 – 00;24;25;13
Speaker 1
That’s so great.

00;24;25;14 – 00;24;27;20
Speaker 2
Which was yeah, it was super helpful.

00;24;27;24 – 00;24;29;09
Speaker 1
That’s so interesting.

00;24;29;11 – 00;24;56;03
Speaker 2
I mean, I think too, like, I’m still learning a lot of stuff. Like we had a visiting writer came and Chang, who wrote a collection of short stories called Gods of Want. It was really beautiful, really, really incredible writer. And she came and talked to our class and like, bed for the whole English department, basically. And she had so many interesting thing things to say.

00;24;56;05 – 00;25;30;02
Speaker 2
Like she was very like anti like the traditional writing route. Like she talked about how your title can be your inspiration point. And I’ve done, I’ve tried doing that because of her. And yeah, just like taking a metaphor and making it literal and having that become like the magic of the story. Like, for example, what her example in class was like, if you wanted to say like the sun looks like a yoke of an egg, you make the sun a yoke and have it be like dripping down and like.

00;25;30;03 – 00;25;31;00
Speaker 1
Make.

00;25;31;02 – 00;25;35;05
Speaker 2
A metaphor something literal and see where that takes you and your writing.

00;25;35;08 – 00;25;36;16
Speaker 1
And that.

00;25;36;17 – 00;25;41;20
Speaker 2
That has been really generative for me too. So she is incredible.

00;25;41;22 – 00;25;47;18
Speaker 1
That’s so inspiring. That’s another prompt I’m going to share. Tell me her name again because I want.

00;25;47;19 – 00;25;50;04
Speaker 2
To commend Chiang.

00;25;50;06 – 00;26;10;00
Speaker 1
We’ll put this in the notes. Okay. That’s amazing. I think it is at the root. What you’re describing is it’s a process of you have to leap when you find it’s like jumping rope. You have to find your moment and jump into the rope. And it may or may not pan out, but you just got to jump and get started.

00;26;10;00 – 00;26;26;29
Speaker 1
And then once you’re in there, then you’ve got to trust that something else will kick it in the same way that you were inspired by that line or that idea, that phrase. You’re trusting that once you follow that inspiration, there will be like, it’s like one word, like.

00;26;27;01 – 00;26;50;29
Speaker 2
Even sometimes if I’m writing and I like, have a goal that I’m writing towards, but there’s something else that comes up, like as I’m writing that’s more interesting to me, then I’ll follow that. And just sometimes you have to ditch your original idea too. It’s not. It doesn’t. You don’t have to, like, put yourself into a box and you know, you can let the writing process be creative.

00;26;50;29 – 00;26;53;27
Speaker 2
And not just like.

00;26;53;29 – 00;27;19;17
Speaker 1
That is so brilliant that and that says, explain so much about the quality of your writing through the years. So many times it’s very normal. You know, there’s a bunch of prompts and a couple people are like, yeah, I’m not really inspired. I don’t want to write about it, and we have to talk about it. You have never in my entire whatever I Love in years ago, you lacked for an idea, and I think it’s because of exactly what you just said.

00;27;19;17 – 00;27;31;14
Speaker 1
You really let the process be creative and you trust it, and you, like kind of. It’s almost like you like surrender to it. Like you’re like, I’m in the river. Where are you going to take me?

00;27;31;16 – 00;27;49;26
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think once I have something, my brain, like a lot of times when you give us prompts, I’m immediately like, I pick something out of it. And I’m like, okay, I’m thinking about what I’m going to write. And it’s like, already up here. And then I start writing and it’s like getting away from me and I’m like, okay, reel it in.

00;27;49;28 – 00;27;58;12
Speaker 2
What do you want from the stream of what’s coming out of your head? What do you want to write? And then I pull from that and.

00;27;58;12 – 00;27;58;15
Speaker 1
I.

00;27;58;15 – 00;28;03;25
Speaker 2
Love that. Yeah. I don’t know where I learned that. I don’t know how I do that, but it’s.

00;28;03;25 – 00;28;41;08
Speaker 1
Your intuition. Yes you are. You’re you are the the icon of intuitive writing because you do follow your intuition and intuition is, you know, it’s the it’s like the wholeness of who you are. It’s all parts of yourself integrated. And I think that kind of brings in when you were saying, sometimes you think it’s going to be about this, and then you realize the piece is actually going to be about this and let it be about this other thing to not try to control, micromanage it, because it does feel to me, that’s your story as it shows up so clearly in your stories, like they have a life of their own once you get them

00;28;41;08 – 00;28;51;15
Speaker 1
started. It’s like the characters and I’ve read about this, people say, like, once you find the character, it’s like they are telling you what they need to say and you’re just transcribing.

00;28;51;16 – 00;29;12;07
Speaker 2
No, sometimes I must look so crazy sometimes when I’m writing because I’m like, I’ll like be having this conversation, but like, I’m two people or like however many people I’m writing about, and it’s like, I’m like everywhere. And then I’m like, okay, wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. I need to write this down before I forget what I’m the conversation I’m having.

00;29;12;09 – 00;29;34;14
Speaker 1
I think that’s amazing. I think that’s true for you have a talent for fiction writing, which I I’m not I don’t have that strength. It’s amazing. And I don’t know that there’s a way that one can. If you think about every fictionalized story ever invented, I don’t know that you can write it without having those conversations in your head, and I think everybody goes through that.

00;29;34;16 – 00;29;51;17
Speaker 1
But I think the trick is trusting the process and not trying to be like, oh, I thought Mrs. Smith was going to have a red hat, but I just wrote that she has a Purple Heart. Why did I write The Purple Heart? And then you get all tangled up and you’re just writing new you. Seems Mrs. Smith has a purple hat.

00;29;51;18 – 00;29;52;17
Speaker 1
That’s what’s happening.

00;29;52;20 – 00;30;16;19
Speaker 2
So I think, too, like, if you get things down, like when you have them, you can edit them out later. Like if there’s something like if it takes you a direction and then you’re like, maybe not. But like if you follow it, it’ll get you somewhere. And then if you decide that’s not where you want to be, like, you can pull it back, you can take whatever was working from that.

00;30;16;19 – 00;30;18;23
Speaker 2
Continue on that way.

00;30;18;25 – 00;30;38;02
Speaker 1
Okay. That reminds me of one more question, and this will be our last question and editing. So what generally happens in our classes is we only have time for that first draft. And then you share the first draft and we give feedback. And I know you edit stuff a little bit afterwards, but your first drafts are pretty amazing.

00;30;38;07 – 00;30;59;04
Speaker 1
But I’m sure in college you have to edit. So how do you there’s this really great line that I always think of when I’m editing. It’s a British man who said, murder your darlings, and that is when you’re editing. Sometimes you have to get rid of the line that you thought was so great. It’s not actually as important as the other stuff later.

00;30;59;07 – 00;31;06;13
Speaker 1
How is your editing process changed now that you’re like, yeah, in college.

00;31;06;15 – 00;31;24;24
Speaker 2
I think, like I’m definitely still like learning and it can still be like sort of resistant to me to edit, but like at the same time, I’m so critical of myself that like once I step away from a piece, I come back to it and I’m like, God, what was I talking about? What am I trying to say?

00;31;24;27 – 00;31;37;07
Speaker 2
But I think, like, I think it’s different from poetry to fiction writing. I think with poetry you can be a lot more like almost mathematical about it. Like.

00;31;37;09 – 00;31;38;23
Speaker 1
Oh, certain.

00;31;38;24 – 00;32;07;18
Speaker 2
Like, I don’t know, commas, spacing, whatever. But there’s also like, like my poetry classes in the past, like you would always have us take everything that we had written and combine it into one chunk of prose, and then rework that format and see if that was better than the format we had before. And just like, move things around, move stanzas from the end to the beginning, like all that kind of stuff, which I think was really helpful.

00;32;07;20 – 00;32;35;29
Speaker 2
And I think in terms of like fiction writing, I think for me it’s like trying to tie things together, because a lot of times I’ll throw things on the page and it’s just like not cohesive or there’s not like a theme or something. And I’m writing and I’m not thinking about theme or like meaning. And then I have to go sit down and be like, okay, what was I trying to say?

00;32;36;01 – 00;32;44;21
Speaker 2
How can I make it like prevalent? Not obvious, but like something there, like there’s something there, you know?

00;32;44;24 – 00;33;00;18
Speaker 1
Yes. Oh my God. I do that so often. And I think that’s really great advice to like, because it’s so easy to get tangled up in your words and go on on. It’s weird detours and I always have to stop and be like, wait, what am I trying to say here? And I think it is. Yeah, that’s part of the editing process.

00;33;00;18 – 00;33;21;02
Speaker 1
You have to you have to try things. You have to go down these weird paths and then you’re like, wait, wait, wait, what, what was I what was my point? And then you come back because you never know. That’s the thing about writing. And that’s why I think it’s so important to never edit your first draft, because sometimes you may feel like you’re just saying drivel, and it makes no sense.

00;33;21;02 – 00;33;39;29
Speaker 1
But later when you look at over it or read it out loud, you’re like, oh, that line was the best line. I didn’t even realize what an amazing line that was at the moment. So you just have to take risks and try it, and then you can always you can’t edit a blank page. You can only edit it once you’ve written stuff.

00;33;40;01 – 00;33;58;21
Speaker 1
So I love that you take risks. I love that you try different things. I love that you know how to bring yourself back in when you go on detours, which we all do. I think it’s I think detours are important, though, because sometimes that’s the only way to discover things we weren’t expecting.

00;33;58;24 – 00;33;59;27
Speaker 2
I really agree with that.

00;33;59;28 – 00;34;22;06
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. Audrey, you are such a brilliant writer. I can’t wait to just watch the rest of your life world. Take note, Audrey Lambert, you’re going to be seeing her books out in the world someday. You’re going to want to have some autograph. You’re going to want to come see her. This is just the beginning of your long literary career.

00;34;22;08 – 00;34;50;25
Speaker 1
Actually, this was something that Thoreau know. Emerson. I think it was. Ralph Waldo Emerson said he first read the first poem he read from Walt Whitman, wrote, you know, the 19th century. But he said, I greet you at the beginning of a square. I’m paraphrasing, not maybe glorious, another adjective. But that’s what I feel like. I feel like I’m reading at the beginning of a glorious career.

00;34;50;28 – 00;35;02;06
Speaker 1
And thank you for sharing, and I hope everyone will read your words on the screen so they can see how your the structure of your poem. It was so incredible. Thank you so much, Audrey.

00;35;02;08 – 00;35;03;26
Speaker 2
Thank you for having me.

For our first whirl at podcasting, we listen to Intuitive Writing Project alum Audrey Lambert read her powerful, feminist poem, “The Praying Mantis” in conversation with her fellow writer Josephine Poff and founder Elizabeth Perlman. You can read the full piece on our blog, Intuitive Voice: https://intuitivevoice.org/2022/08/05/the-praying-mantis/ 

To learn more about our organization, visit us at:
https://www.intuitivewritingproject.com/

Thank you for your time and presence, supporting the voices of young women!

Elizabeth has a BA in Media Arts and a Masters in Transformative Arts, the study of creative expression for healing, connection, and growth. She is also a certified Group Leader in The Amherst Writing Method. Before launching TIWP in 2013, Elizabeth worked for over a decade as a graphic designer and art director in the advertising industry.

Word Magic: The Power of Writing to Reframe Your Story & Reclaim Your Intuition by Elizabeth Perlman is a self-help book that uses writing as a tool for self-discovery, healing, and empowerment, drawing from her “Intuitive Writing Project” for women and girls. It offers practical guidance and over 150 writing prompts to help readers trust themselves, reframe negative narratives, and find their inner wisdom through…

This compilation of 27 poems was written over the course of 25 years, from 1998 to 2023. (The title is reflects the author’s extreme delay in sharing her work—and yes, that is a unicorn finger puppet, taking time to smell the azealas!) The main theme of every poem is self-empowerment: remembering who we really are and reclaiming our innocence, our freedom and our joy. A…

LISTEN TO A NEW EPISODE FIRST AND THIRD TUESDAYS AT 7PM EST on WLBH Radio at WLBH.org!

CREDITS– HOST & PRODUCER: Elizabeth Perlman. FEATURED GUEST: Audrey Lambert, Josephine Poff. Hosted by Listen & Be Heard Network.

Picked for you from the audio garden

s4e22
July 2, 2026

Welcome to the Listen & Be Heard Hour Summer Remix Season! Summer Remix 3 is a special blend picked from the audio garden and remixed by Hernán Ramiro for your listening pleasure.

Featured in the remix: Martha Cinader, Shizue Siegel, Shirley Ancheta, Mosab Abu Toha and Tony Robles. An exclusive live recording at the Blue Note of Principals of Freedom by Jay Rodriguez Sierra.

[link to transcript]

Shizue Seigel is a third-generation Japanese American writer, visual artist and community activist who explores complex intersections of history, culture and spirituality through prose, poetry and visual art.

Tony Robles, “The People’s Poet” was born in San Francisco and is the nephew of Filipino-American poet, historian and social justice activist Al Robles. He was a shortlist nominee for poet laureate of San Francisco in 2017 and the recipient of the San Francisco Art Commission individual literary artist grant in 2018. His two books of poetry and short stories, Cool Don’t Live Here No More – A letter to San Francisco and Fingerprints of a Hunger Strike (both published by Ithuriel’s Spear Press) take on the issues of eviction, gentrification and police violence in communities of color. He is…

Martha Cinader is a poet and author living in Harlem, NY. Her young adult novel, Marq and the Queen Fish, is forthcoming in 2026 from Atmosphere Press. Cinader is the founder and Director of the Listen & Be Heard Network, where she hosts and produces The Listen & Be Heard Hour, and Beyond Borders, both non-commercial podcasts and syndicated radio shows on the Pacifica Affiliate Network. 

MOSAB ABU TOHA is a Palestinian poet, short-story writer, and essayist from Gaza. His first collection of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and won the Palestine Book Award, the American Book Award, and the Walcott Poetry Prize. Abu Toha is also the founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, which he hopes to rebuild. He recently won an Overseas Press Club Award for his “Letter from Gaza” columns for The New Yorker.

Laura Lengnick, a renowned soil scientist, has three decades of experience in sustainability in U.S. agriculture. She has received national recognition for her work, including a USDA Honor Award. As the founder of Cultivating Resilience, she collaborates on climate resilience projects and authored the influential book, Resilient Agriculture.

“This collection is based on my experiences and observations as someone who witnessed Hurricane Helene and its impact on the community—particularly my mobile home community in Hendersonville,”

“A powerful, capacious, and profound” (Ocean Vuong) new collection of poems about life in Gaza by an award-winning Palestinian poet. Barely thirty years old, Mosab Abu Toha was already a well-known poet when the current siege of Gaza began. After the Israeli army bombed and destroyed his house, pulverizing a library he had painstakingly built for community use, he and his family fled for their safety. Not for the first time in their lives.

In this remarkable collection, Tony Robles transforms a bright-lit warehouse into a psychic landscape to illuminate one man’s efforts to reassemble a broken life. Where the Warehouse Things Are gives the satisfaction of a book of poetry as well as a novelistic sense of a place and its inhabitants fully rendered. — Ron Rash, author ofThe Caretaker

What does it take to develop and sustain a career in creative arts. Twenty-two San Francisco Bay Area writers and artists of color trace their journeys as creative activists. They draw from legacies and challenges of roots in Native America, Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Muslim world. Their lived experience as creative changemakers brings authencity and humanity to today’s pressing issues—from the pandemic to racism, immigration, social justice, gender, LGBTQ issues, healing, and community building. They create not just for themselves but to inspire others to help build a just and compassionate society.

CREDITS– CO-HOSTS & PRODUCERS: Martha Cinader, Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra, Tony Robles. FEATURED GUESTS: Shizue Siegle, Shirley Ancheta, Mosab Abu Toha. MUSIC: Live Recording at The Blue Note of Principals of Freedom by Jay Rodriguez Sierra. SOUNDTRACK, MIXING, MASTERING, SOUND DESIGN: Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. Executive Producer, Martha Cinader.

Do you want to be heard in the garden? Please consider contributing your audio content. We grow together when we nurture our network. Click here for more information.

Picked for you from the audio garden

[link to transcript]

s4e21
June 25, 2026

Welcome to the Listen & Be Heard Hour Summer Remix Season! Summer Remix 2 is a special blend picked from the audio garden and remixed by Hernán Ramiro for your listening pleasure. We hope that you will listen, move, laugh, cry and be heard!

Featured in the remix: Eileen Tabios, Martha Cinader, Hernán Ramiro reads Henry Dumas, Dorsía Smith Silva, Latasha Natasha Diggs, Mary Oishi, Wordslanger, Brian Kimmel, Judy Talaugon, Jen Soriano

Brian Kimmel is a multiheritage Indonesian American, and grandchild to Pacific Northwest author, Martha Walandouw Lohn. He co-authored Lohn’s memoir, Blue Skies, Troubled Waters, and edited the first Indonesian language version. A poet, memoirist, lyricist, composer, musician, and scholar-practitioner, Kimmel guest lectures and recitals internationally on narrative technologies and the expressive arts.

Dorsía Smith Silva is the author of In Inheritance of Drowning (CavanKerry, 2024), which was a finalist for the Whirling Prize and reviewed by Publishers Weekly. She is a multi-nominated Pushcart Prize nominee, Best of the Net finalist, Best New Poets nominee, Cave Canem Poetry Prize Semifinalist, Poetry Editor at The Hopper, and Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras.

Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra – Musician, Composer, Producer

Lan Duong is Associate Professor in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Treacherous Subjects: Gender, Culture, and Trans-Vietnamese Feminism and coeditor of Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora: Troubling Borders in Literature and Art. Her poetry has appeared in Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose, Bold Words: Asian American Writing to Span the Centuries and Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Writing.

Judy Talaugon is a Chumash and Filipina Land Protector from the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. She is the daughter of farmworkers and immigrant leaders. Growing up among Mexican and Filipina communities in California, she has been a long-time activist in numerous struggles, ranging from human rights to housing, land rights, and the fight against white supremacy.

Martha Cinader is a poet and author living in Harlem, NY. Her young adult novel, Marq and the Queen Fish, is forthcoming in 2026 from Atmosphere Press. Cinader is the founder and Director of the Listen & Be Heard Network, where she hosts and produces The Listen & Be Heard Hour, and Beyond Borders, both non-commercial podcasts and syndicated radio shows on the Pacifica Affiliate Network. 

Mary Oishi was the child of an American soldier and a Japanese bride from World War II. She grew up with her father’s relatives in a white supremacist enclave in rural Pennsylvania until finally reuniting with her mother in 1987. Since arriving in Albuquerque in 1999, she has performed and published poetry “in the spirit of changing the world through the power of art.” Besides her print and Internet publications, she has published a chapbook, Naked without Shame, in 1988, and a poetry CD, kiss the world awake, in 2004. She hosts The Blues Show on KUNM, 89.9 FM in

MOSAB ABU TOHA is a Palestinian poet, short-story writer, and essayist from Gaza. His first collection of poetry, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and won the Palestine Book Award, the American Book Award, and the Walcott Poetry Prize. Abu Toha is also the founder of the Edward Said Library in Gaza, which he hopes to rebuild. He recently won an Overseas Press Club Award for his “Letter from Gaza” columns for The New Yorker.

Zakiyyah’s creative journey began as a child when, at the age of three, she won her school’s Valentine’s Day Poetry Contest. Early exposure to the arts through Mount Vernon’s Creative Arts Program allowed her to act in plays alongside talented peers, including saxophonist Michael Philips. Outside the program, she trained under Tina Satin—who also taught Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington

Existing in the liminal space of sound of spoken word and music, Sista Zock introduces a unique Afro Jazz Fusion Sound with a touch of Hip-hop. Her latest project, Zock Solid, Where the Stem Meets the Root, features a collaboration with Abiodun of The Last Poets, adding depth and resonance to her musical journey.

Tribunal Rising commemorates the 1992 International Tribunal movement in the city of San Francisco to dismantle the legacy of Christopher Columbus and the Myth of Discovery. In 1990, “[a]t the culmination of the Special International Tribunal on the Human Rights Violations of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War in the US, the American Indian Movement extended a call to national liberation movements and anti-imperialist allies, united by a shared vision of justice and equality. This vision emerged from a deep-seated commitment to human dignity and the elimination of age-old practices that perpetuate hatred and inflict both psychological and physical harm.”…

In this striking debut, Dorsía Smith Silva explores the devastating effects of Hurricane María in Puerto Rico, highlighting the natural world, the lasting impact of hurricanes, and the marginalization of Puerto Ricans. These poems also focus on the multiple sites of oppression in the United States, especially the racial, social, and political injustices that occur every day.

The Balikbayan Artist– inspired by and dedicated to Venancio C. Igarta (1912- 2000), the real-life leading artist of the Manong Generation–

Blue Skies, Troubled Waters, tells the story of twin sisters Ath and Kath, born in New Jersey, in 1933, whose family is deported to the Indonesia due to their father’s undocumented status. Their new life is shattered when, in 1941, Japan invades, and the family is imprisoned.

Living It! is Martha Cinader’s debut as the producer of her own album, and features an eclectic array of arrangements and musical styles. It was recorded in part in a studio in New York City, part in a studio in Hamburg, and part live at the Mojo Club in Hamburg, throw in some bonus tracks recorded live at WBAI Radio in New York, and a superb mastering session with Ralph “Pinguin” Kessler in Hamburg, and you get fourteen tracks! Cinader brings together the collective talents of Sabine Worthmann, who uses here sfx pedals generously with her accoustic bass and an…

“A powerful, capacious, and profound” (Ocean Vuong) new collection of poems about life in Gaza by an award-winning Palestinian poet. Barely thirty years old, Mosab Abu Toha was already a well-known poet when the current siege of Gaza began. After the Israeli army bombed and destroyed his house, pulverizing a library he had painstakingly built for community use, he and his family fled for their safety. Not for the first time in their lives.

Eileen R. Tabios says, “Poetry is a decolonized language.” She proves it through her autobiography that begins with her first book that she wrote as a 2-3-year-old toddler and focuses on her poetry inventions: the hay(na)ku, the Murder Death Resurrection Poetry Generator, and the Flooid. This is a unique and thought-provoking autobiography by a poet who claims poetry is not words.

Written by the “pandemic poet laureate” of Albuquerque, Sidewalk Cruiseship draws on Oishi’s remarkable ability to illustrate the world around her and the people in it. Separated into eleven short sections by traditional Japanese tankas, the poems in Oishi’s newest collection take on the macro and the micro. They respond to the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the contentious political climate as they draw readers in to witness intimate moments of people and scenes within Oishi’s beloved city of Albuquerque. The poems explore such themes as mental illness, the joys and sorrows of motherhood, what it is to be a woman…

In propulsive and formally inventive verse, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs examines how trauma reshapes lineage, language, and choice, disrupting attempts at reconciliation across generations. Questioning who is deemed worthy of public memorialization, Diggs raises new monuments, tears down classist tropes, offers detailed instructions for her own international funeral celebrations, and makes visible the hidden labors of care and place. From corners in Harlem through North Carolina back roads, Diggs complicates the concept of “survivor,” getting to the truth of living in the dystopia of poverty.

This book is a vessel/holding liquid for thirsty desirers/in the empty spiral of the universe/where detail is opinion/one moment is all it takes to answer/when the body calls. This book is just one answer in a life of calling. The storyteller lives inside the breath of home. Whatever home is chosen, whatever breath is owned. The desirer takes the moment we’re in and stretches out its every wrinkle. In the folds are new horizons, exploding the every day, line by line-inwards, so the shards are sort of slo-mo in their entry into gravity…We’re brought into the world of the writer.…

A collection of biographical stories and poems about fascinating people in history whose real dreams made a real difference. Developed in performance, these stories bring old tales to life for contemporary readers in a way that is both entertaining and informative.

Activist Jen Soriano brings to light the lingering impacts of transgenerational trauma and uses science, history, and family stories to flow toward transformation in this powerful collection that brings together the lyric storytelling, cultural exploration, and thoughtful analysis of The Argonauts, The Woman Warrior, What My Bones Know, and Minor Feelings.

CREDITS– CO-HOSTS & PRODUCERS: Martha Cinader, Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra, Tony Robles. FEATURED GUESTS: Eileen Tabios, Martha Cinader, Hernán Ramiro reads Henry Dumas, Dorsía Smith Silva, Latasha Natasha Diggs, Mary Oishi, Wordslanger, Brian Kimmel, Judy Talaugon, Jen Soriano, Sandra Esteves SOUNDTRACK, MIXING, MASTERING, SOUND DESIGN: Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. Executive Producer, Martha Cinader.

Do you want to be heard in the garden? Please consider contributing your audio content. We grow together when we nurture our network. Click here for more information.

Judy Talaugon and Martha Cinader at AUntie’s Table.

[link to transcript]

Season 2 Episode 9
June 20, 2026

In a freely ranging conversation about what’s going on, Martha and Judy discuss patriarchal and hierarchical structures and the importance of reclaiming feminine energy and fostering conversations about truth and healing. The conversation also touches on the value of young people’s perspectives and the need for intergenerational dialogue.

Dillon Williams: H.I.S. Services

Judy Talaugon is a Chumash and Filipina Land Protector from the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. She is the daughter of farmworkers and immigrant leaders. Growing up among Mexican and Filipina communities in California, she has been a long-time activist in numerous struggles, ranging from human rights to housing, land rights, and the fight…

Martha Cinader is a poet and author living in Harlem, NY. Her young adult novel, Marq and the Queen Fish, is forthcoming in 2026 from Atmosphere Press. Cinader is the founder and Director of the Listen & Be Heard Network, where she hosts and produces The Listen & Be Heard Hour, and Beyond Borders, both non-commercial podcasts and syndicated radio shows…

Tribunal Rising commemorates the 1992 International Tribunal movement in the city of San Francisco to dismantle the legacy of Christopher Columbus and the Myth of Discovery. In 1990, “[a]t the culmination of the Special International Tribunal on the Human Rights Violations of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War in the US, the American Indian Movement…

Living It! is Martha Cinader’s debut as the producer of her own album, and features an eclectic array of arrangements and musical styles. It was recorded in part in a studio in New York City, part in a studio in Hamburg, and part live at the Mojo Club in Hamburg, throw in some bonus tracks…

This book is a vessel/holding liquid for thirsty desirers/in the empty spiral of the universe/where detail is opinion/one moment is all it takes to answer/when the body calls. This book is just one answer in a life of calling. The storyteller lives inside the breath of home. Whatever home is chosen, whatever breath is owned.…

A collection of biographical stories and poems about fascinating people in history whose real dreams made a real difference. Developed in performance, these stories bring old tales to life for contemporary readers in a way that is both entertaining and informative.

CREDITS– HOSTS: Martha Cinader, Judy Talaugon. Sound Design: Hernan Ramiro. Theme Music: Mana Luca, arranged by Jay Rodriguez Sierra.

Picked for you from the audio garden

[link to transcript]

s4e20
June 18, 2026

Welcome to the Listen & Be Heard Hour Summer Remix Season! Summer Remix 1 is a special blend picked from the audio garden by Martha and remixed by Hernán Ramiro for your listening pleasure. We hope that you will listen, move, laugh, cry and be heard!

Featured in the remix: Judy Talaugon, Crystal Cauley, Shirley Ancheta, Mikey Cullen, Yvette Murray, Azucar, Caitlin Jans, Brian Kimmel , Craig Harris, Tony Robles, Karla Brundage, Nick Courtright, Laura Lengnick, Meredith Leigh, Dorsía Smith Silva, Suzette Clark Bradshaw, Vanessa Lee Miller, Elizabeth Perlman and Martha Cinader.

Brian Kimmel is a multiheritage Indonesian American, and grandchild to Pacific Northwest author, Martha Walandouw Lohn. He co-authored Lohn’s memoir, Blue Skies, Troubled Waters, and edited the first Indonesian language version. A poet, memoirist, lyricist, composer, musician, and scholar-practitioner, Kimmel guest lectures and recitals internationally on narrative technologies and the expressive arts.

Caitlin Jans is the co-founder of Authors Publish Magazine and the Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish, as well as The Poetry Marathon. She has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and has taught at Seattle Pacific University, and Berkeley College,  Her work has been published widely including: The Rumpus, Poets & Writers, The Adroit Journal, The Fiddlehead, The Literary Review of Canada, and Killer Verse (Knopf).

Craig Harris, trombonist, composer, bandleader, and sonic shaman. … his musical journey began with the Sun Ra, … place among creative music’s … leaders.

Crystal Cauley (1980-2024) was the founder of the Black History Collective of Henderson County, and Black Business Network of WNC. She was a host of The Versers of Color open mic. She served on Hendersonville’s Historic Preservation Commission and on many other community boards and was a tireless advocate for her community.

Dorsía Smith Silva is the author of In Inheritance of Drowning (CavanKerry, 2024), which was a finalist for the Whirling Prize and reviewed by Publishers Weekly. She is a multi-nominated Pushcart Prize nominee, Best of the Net finalist, Best New Poets nominee, Cave Canem Poetry Prize Semifinalist, Poetry Editor at The Hopper, and Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras.

Elizabeth has a BA in Media Arts and a Masters in Transformative Arts, the study of creative expression for healing, connection, and growth. She is also a certified Group Leader in The Amherst Writing Method. Before launching TIWP in 2013, Elizabeth worked for over a decade as a graphic designer and art director in the advertising industry.

Judy Talaugon is a Chumash and Filipina Land Protector from the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. She is the daughter of farmworkers and immigrant leaders. Growing up among Mexican and Filipina communities in California, she has been a long-time activist in numerous struggles, ranging from human rights to housing, land rights, and the fight against white supremacy.

Karla Brundage is founder West Oakland to West Africa Poetry Exchange and author of three books of poetry, including award winning, Blood Lies: Race Trait(or), Swallowing Watermelons, and co-author of Mulatta–Not so Tragic. Her work as editor and publisher for Pacific Raven Press has and Tar Baby Quarterly included authors in the Bay Area, Hawaii, Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya.

Laura Lengnick, a renowned soil scientist, has three decades of experience in sustainability in U.S. agriculture. She has received national recognition for her work, including a USDA Honor Award. As the founder of Cultivating Resilience, she collaborates on climate resilience projects and authored the influential book, Resilient Agriculture.

Martha Cinader is a poet and author living in Harlem, NY. Her young adult novel, Marq and the Queen Fish, is forthcoming in 2026 from Atmosphere Press. Cinader is the founder and Director of the Listen & Be Heard Network, where she hosts and produces The Listen & Be Heard Hour, and Beyond Borders, both non-commercial podcasts and syndicated radio shows on the Pacifica Affiliate Network. 

Meredith Leigh, with over 20 years in sustainability and food systems, has owned farms, a restaurant, and engaged in diverse consulting. An award-winning author of “The Ethical Meat Handbook” and “Pure Charcuterie,” she is transitioning back to the nonprofit sector while pursuing fiction writing in Asheville, North Carolina.

Mikey Cullen, a dynamic Dublin-based poet and multidisciplinary artist, blends his talent as a teacher, actor, filmmaker, and lyricist to create compelling poetry that resonates personally and universally. Known for his emotionally charged performances, Mikey’s work has been featured in various anthologies and publications, and he has performed at major Irish festivals. He actively participates in social activism, promoting causes like Palestinian rights and Irish unity, while also exploring music and film.

Dr. Nick Courtright is Founder and CEO of Atmosphere Press, a literary hybrid publisher that provides meaningful and rewarding experiences to writers. He is the author of the poetry collections The Forgotten World, Let There Be Light, and Punchline. His latest book, on literary interpretation, is In Perfect Silence at the Stars: Walt Whitman and the Meaning of Poems.

Simone “Azúcar” Nikkole is a songwriter, screenwriter, author, Spoken Word poet, and Sí.Nik Productions and L.A. Sugar Factory founder. Her work is featured in Silver Tongue Devil Anthology (Amazon), Poets Without Limits IncarNATION Anthology, Mo’ Joe Anthology along with The Voices Project, Learn to Love and Enhance Online Magazines.

Suzette Clark Bradshaw from western North Carolina, is a self-taught poet and sculptress. Her poems have appeared in Dead Mule, Branches, Women Speak, and more.

Tony Robles, “The People’s Poet” was born in San Francisco and is the nephew of Filipino-American poet, historian and social justice activist Al Robles. He was a shortlist nominee for poet laureate of San Francisco in 2017 and the recipient of the San Francisco Art Commission individual literary artist grant in 2018. His two books of poetry and short stories, Cool Don’t Live Here No More – A letter to San Francisco and Fingerprints of a Hunger Strike (both published by Ithuriel’s Spear Press) take on the issues of eviction, gentrification and police violence in communities of color. He is…

A poet, playwright and freelance journalist, Lee-Miller was born and raised in Hilo. She often travels to perform Hawaiian in verse and drama at literary events across the country and to venues from working-class pubs to the British Library and Pembroke College, Oxford. Often described as a Hawaiian language activist, she describes her decades-long struggle to keep ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i alive as essential to preserving Hawaiian culture.

Yvette R. Murray is an award-winning poet and writer. She has been published in Chestnut Review, Emrys Journal, Litmosphere, A Gathering Together, and others. She is the 2022 Susan Laughter Meyers Poetry Fellow, a 2021 Best New Poet selection, a Watering Hole Fellow, and a Pushcart Prize nominee. She is a board member of the South Carolina Writer’s Association and the Poetry Society of South Carolina, and a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators. Find her on Twitter @MissYvettewrites.

With rhythm and repetition to engage children, five narrators take turns highlighting what they notice in their world, each focusing on one of the five senses. We are there with them:A girl sees a “haint blue door at Grandma’s house / Rocking chairs waiting on the porch.” On special days, we hear the marching band play—ba-da-dum-bum.

“This collection is based on my experiences and observations as someone who witnessed Hurricane Helene and its impact on the community—particularly my mobile home community in Hendersonville,”

The Shan Van (feat. Mikey Cullen) was released on February 7, 2025 by Vocht Records as a part of the album The Shan Van (feat. Mikey Cullen) – EP

The idea for this collection, Sisters Across Oceans, was inspired by the much needed conversation between influential Black women across the diaspora.

Karla Brundage’s Blood Lies: Race Trait(or) is about race. It is about the history of race, about imposed racial definitions like mulatto and quadroon.

Word Magic: The Power of Writing to Reframe Your Story & Reclaim Your Intuition by Elizabeth Perlman is a self-help book that uses writing as a tool for self-discovery, healing, and empowerment, drawing from her “Intuitive Writing Project” for women and girls. It offers practical guidance and over 150 writing prompts to help readers trust themselves, reframe negative narratives, and find their inner wisdom through the act of writing. The book synthesizes Perlman’s experience leading writing classes, presenting writing as an effective way to build self-love and confidence.

Sidepiece Sanctifications is the second poetry chapbook of work written by Simone “Azúcar” Nikkole. In Sidepiece Sanctifications, Simone “Azúcar” Nikkole documents the journey of love, infatuation and three-way relationships. She explores the experience of “the other woman” or “sidepiece” in a romantic relationship and how the woman returns to herself in recognizing her true self worth and value. Join and enjoy this scandalous journey with her and go where many people are afraid to venture.

Tribunal Rising commemorates the 1992 International Tribunal movement in the city of San Francisco to dismantle the legacy of Christopher Columbus and the Myth of Discovery. In 1990, “[a]t the culmination of the Special International Tribunal on the Human Rights Violations of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War in the US, the American Indian Movement extended a call to national liberation movements and anti-imperialist allies, united by a shared vision of justice and equality. This vision emerged from a deep-seated commitment to human dignity and the elimination of age-old practices that perpetuate hatred and inflict both psychological and physical harm.”…

In “Hush, Puppy” a neighborhood, a city and memories are more than just a neighborhood, a city and memories. “Hush, Puppy” is a call and response praise song to the antimony of being Black and Gullah and Southern in Charleston, South Carolina and the world. This chapbook explores familial, societal and community relationships with spice and a dash of humor. “Hush, Puppy” braids love and wrath into one lyrical plait. Meet “Hush, Puppy” at the intersection of the past and the future, sip the bitter tea of its history to explore where we are today.

This compilation of 27 poems was written over the course of 25 years, from 1998 to 2023. (The title is reflects the author’s extreme delay in sharing her work—and yes, that is a unicorn finger puppet, taking time to smell the azealas!) The main theme of every poem is self-empowerment: remembering who we really are and reclaiming our innocence, our freedom and our joy. A secondary theme is the healing power of nature, which is also conveyed in the full-color nature photographs taken by the author, a graphic designer by training.

In this striking debut, Dorsía Smith Silva explores the devastating effects of Hurricane María in Puerto Rico, highlighting the natural world, the lasting impact of hurricanes, and the marginalization of Puerto Ricans. These poems also focus on the multiple sites of oppression in the United States, especially the racial, social, and political injustices that occur every day.

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“The illumination in LET THERE BE LIGHT is not found in the answers given, but in the humanity of asking tough questions beautifully and truthfully. This is, in the end, the meaning of enlightenment, and, evidently, compelling verse.”-Kwame Dawes

“By turns elliptical and aphoristic, macrocosmic and microcosmic, timeless and contemporary, PUNCHLINE is not a book of poems for those who merely want to be diverted or amused; this work is for readers who consider poetry the natural sibling of philosophy.” – Nicky Beer

Blue Skies, Troubled Waters, tells the story of twin sisters Ath and Kath, born in New Jersey, in 1933, whose family is deported to the Indonesia due to their father’s undocumented status. Their new life is shattered when, in 1941, Japan invades, and the family is imprisoned.

Living It! is Martha Cinader’s debut as the producer of her own album, and features an eclectic array of arrangements and musical styles. It was recorded in part in a studio in New York City, part in a studio in Hamburg, and part live at the Mojo Club in Hamburg, throw in some bonus tracks recorded live at WBAI Radio in New York, and a superb mastering session with Ralph “Pinguin” Kessler in Hamburg, and you get fourteen tracks! Cinader brings together the collective talents of Sabine Worthmann, who uses here sfx pedals generously with her accoustic bass and an…

As Whitman averred, “there are millions of suns left”. And in that spirit, Nick Courtright avers, and irrefutably, that the meaning of Whitman’s project leans into futurity, into eternity. With In Perfect Silence at the Stars, the art of close-reading becomes a Vastation, an experience without limits.

In this remarkable collection, Tony Robles transforms a bright-lit warehouse into a psychic landscape to illuminate one man’s efforts to reassemble a broken life. Where the Warehouse Things Are gives the satisfaction of a book of poetry as well as a novelistic sense of a place and its inhabitants fully rendered. — Ron Rash, author ofThe Caretaker

This book is a vessel/holding liquid for thirsty desirers/in the empty spiral of the universe/where detail is opinion/one moment is all it takes to answer/when the body calls. This book is just one answer in a life of calling. The storyteller lives inside the breath of home. Whatever home is chosen, whatever breath is owned. The desirer takes the moment we’re in and stretches out its every wrinkle. In the folds are new horizons, exploding the every day, line by line-inwards, so the shards are sort of slo-mo in their entry into gravity…We’re brought into the world of the writer.…

A collection of biographical stories and poems about fascinating people in history whose real dreams made a real difference. Developed in performance, these stories bring old tales to life for contemporary readers in a way that is both entertaining and informative.

Ethical Meat is meat from an animal that had a good life, a good death, a good butcher, and a good cook. Ethical Meat is a movement that seeks to repair entire regional meat supply chains, and much work is underway by brave hardworking farmers, butchers, processors, chefs and cooks. Working to create the capacity for ethical meat has been a speciality for Meredith for the past 20 years. As a former vegan turned livestock farmer, owner of a butcher shop, restaurateur, non-profit executive, mother, educator, and writer, she has vast expertise in the systemic as well as granular details…

Real world stories from the frontlines of climate change, resilience, and the future of food. CLIMATE CHANGE PRESENTS an unprecedented challenge to food and farming in the U.S. and beyond. Damaging weather variability and extremes capture the headlines, but more subtle changes caused by hotter summer nights, warmer winters, and a longer growing season have far-reaching effects on the land, people, and communities that feed us. This expanded and updated edition of Resilient Agriculture takes you beyond the headlines and the hype to shine a light on agricultural climate solutions with the power to cultivate new American foodways that are…

CREDITS– CO-HOSTS & PRODUCERS: Martha Cinader, Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra, Tony Robles. FEATURED GUESTS: Judy Talaugon, Crystal Cauley, Shirley Ancheta, Mikey Cullen, Yvette Murray, Azucar, Caitlin Jans, Brian Kimmel , Craig Harris, Tony Robles, Karla Brundage, Nick Courtright, Laura Lengnick, Meredith Leigh, Dorsía Smith Silva, Suzette Clark Bradshaw, Vanessa Lee Miller, Elizabeth Perlman and Martha Cinader. SOUNDTRACK, MIXING, MASTERING, SOUND DESIGN: Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. Executive Producer, Martha Cinader.

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Muhammed Al-amin Sanusi, Tony Robles, Martha Cinader, Hernan Ramiro, Karla Brundage, Faloguni Shah, Teru Nakamura, Alex Blake, Victor Jones

[link to transcript]

s4e19
June 11, 2026

Mas Inspires, a a 17-year-old spoken word artist from Abuja, Nigeria, shares his journey from overcoming a stammer to finding purpose through poetry. He highlights the resilience and creativity of young people in Nigeria, who are building opportunities despite challenges. His performances, which often address themes of justice and sustainable development, have led to opportunities such as performing for Nigeria’s former vice president and receiving scholarships for his education. He founded the NextGen Creative Network, a youth-led organization that aims to empower young African creatives and leaders.

Poetry You Won’t Hear Anywhere Else: from Martha Cinader, Tony Robles, Karla Brundage

Music You Won’t Hear Anywhere Else: A Love’s Reflection by Hernan Ramiro, tenor saxophone, flutes, Faloguni Shah, vocals, Teru Nakamura, bass drum. Jay Rodriguez Trio live dedication to Sonny Rollins: That’s All, I Can Only Give You Country Walks in Springtime. Jay Rodriguez, saxophone, Alex Blake, bass and Victor Jones, drums.

Muhammed Al-amin Sanusi, widely known as MasInspires, is a Nigerian spoken word artist, advocate, and performer. Often referred to as a “poetvocate”, he uses his poetry and platform to campaign for climate change, social justice, and child rights. MasInspires has performed on prominent global and national stages, including pieces for the United Nations, African Union, ECOWAS, and the 68th UN Tourism Regional Commission.

With rhythm and repetition to engage children, five narrators take turns highlighting what they notice in their world, each focusing on one of the five senses. We are there with them:A girl sees a “haint blue door at Grandma’s house / Rocking chairs waiting on the porch.” On special days, we hear the marching band play—ba-da-dum-bum.