READ TO ME with Becky Karush

READ TO ME with Becky Karush

By Becky KarushArtsBooks
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READ TO ME with Becky Karush episodes

  • READ TO ME from... Farming While Black
    This week on READ TO ME we go to the land! I read from the introduction to FARMING WHILE BLACK: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land by Leah Penniman. We look at the craft of guidebook writing. We savor the craft the global frame, and Penniman's expert use of it. We chomp on nutrient-rich sentences, and we see that mission statements do, in fact, have craft too. And we get to see food systems through the lens of apartheid, racism, freedom, community, and justice. We get to see Black traditions of organic farming and community agriculture. You're going to feel so fed, in every way.
    38 min
  • READ TO ME from... Burial by Ross Gay

    Today we read the succulent poem BURIAL by ROSS GAY. Get this— it's one sentence! It's a poem that travels from ash and roots to plums and a father dancing, and it's one sentence long! Find out how a single line loops into a circle, and feels as cozy as a garden chat, and raises the dead, all casual-like, with fun.

    20 min
  • READ TO ME FROM... Elizabeth Alina
    Today on READ TO ME I am highlighting another wonderful Gateless writer, Elizabeth Alina, and her piece WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU FELT LONELY, a writing & photography collaboration with her partner, Parker Pfister. Read with me as we experience the delight of a journey that starts with repression but ends in liberation. That starts and ends with a question. That invites you to run with it to freedom. That hangs out in the woods!
    32 min
  • READ TO ME from... Soul of an Octopus

    Today on READ TO ME, I read from THE SOUL OF AN OCTOPUS by Sy Montgomery. Sy's love for animals and the earth goes out beyond her skin into millions of other people's minds, into their bodies, so they sit crying on the sofa reading, and are so grateful for the heartbreak, and all the smoke it clears away. Come see how this love happens on the page.

    31 min
  • READ TO ME from... Rubeena Ianigro

    This week I'm reading MASKED BLESSINGS by RUBEENA IANIGRO. This sensuous poem charts an evolution from passion to ecstasy, to rage to little hip checks of jokes (via a clock!) to a spiritual evolution on the narrator's terms. What?!? How does all that happen in one poem? Come hear Rubeena wield power on the page — and hear how I ended up sitting next to her on a couch in New York City.

    25 min
  • READ TO ME from... Toni Morrison Was the Greatest American Writer
    Today on READ TO ME I read and love TONI MORRISON WAS THE GREATEST AMERICAN WRITER by Damon Young. He wrote it just after her death in August 2019. It's 700 words — and it goes from song lyrics to an ecology of black art to Toni Morrison as American literature itself to the central relationship of Toni Morrison and black people to America is it is today to Toni Morrison's legacy and directive. IN 700 WORDS. Devotees literature, disciples of truth, lend me an ear. There's a lot to love. Plus, we have a mini treatise on how this white woman can read and love this stupendous work by this black man without white supremacy stealing the show (and everything else). Maybe lend two ears?
    34 min
  • READ TO ME from... Food Can Hurt
    Today on READ TO ME we pull up a chair for Food Can Hurt by Rene Denfeld, a new essay published in the new online magazine WE FOUND TIME from Zibby Owens. Reading to you from the backyard shed, I love up commas and clauses, grains of salt and the authority of the body, and arcs to meaning that build and build. Lucky you! You get to savor Rene Denfeld's words!
    33 min
  • READ TO ME from... Ramona Quimby, Age 8

    Today on READ TO ME, we cook dinner with the greatest heroine in children's literature. Heck, all of literature! Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary. I wonder if Beverly Cleary chased after Ramona, like a mom gasping after a fast toddler. Or I wonder if writing Ramona was like coming to a buffet table always full. Either way, reading Ramona taught me to write, and Clearly gave solace to every independent heart.

    25 min
  • READ TO ME from... Beneth Sauer

    Today on READ TO ME, we read the poem SMALL-TOWN MONTANA, 2019 by Beneth Goldschmidt-Sauer. An accomplished, award-winning writer, Beneth's work is exquisite, sly, mischievous, and bold. And so smart. My goodness, so smart. And in direct lineage from Jane Eyre, the patroness of singular, passionate minds. Come with us into the grace of attention as we love this compressed and flaring jewel.

    20 min
  • READ TO ME from... Jane Eyre [Replay]

    I think we could listen in again to this passage from Jane Eyre because it shows the strength of the narrator while fulling immersing me into the scene. This is writing at its best, writing that took me away from the current pandemic, even if was just for a few minutes.

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    To the moors, to the moors we go! O, romantic and foreboding mists! O fierce upwelling of green! O proto-feminism, mettle, and a singular communion with God! O, O, Jane Eyre!

    23 min

About READ TO ME with Becky Karush

From the publisher's feed

On Read to Me, we practice listening — the invisible skill that fuels great work. We listen for what we love in an excerpt of exceptional writing, and then we put words to why it's so, so good.