Wherein the poet-podcaster barely masks the bad vibes plaguing him and shares an original poem about outer space.

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Revising an old friend poet who I used to love. Weird to reflect on how deeply a poet - as a reader - can change over the years. I hadn’t opened Jon Sands’ books in over half a decade (when can you say nearly ten years? seven? six? eight?) so join me as I leaf through The New Clean (2011) and It’s Not Magic (2019) and wander through some old poems.

In the pod, I mention a potty-mouthed epigraph. Here it is:

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Yesterday I was prepping some course materials for Intro to Creative Writing and I was, as one does when dealing with drama, looking to the words and wisdom of the Immortal Bard Himself. Well its too early to celebrate May the 4th and too early to celebrate old Bill Shakespeare but who gives a darn, here’s some Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher.

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Spring is upon us (and so is new music by Neko Case but here’s a great oldie) and with that comes some bad weather. I haven’t lived through a tornado of my own, which I suspect would ruin tornadoes and the Twister films for me, but not yet.

I have seen the wind and my roof get into a tussle that my roof ultimately lost. This is to say The Tornado Is the World by Catherine Pierce is a weird little monograph that was, seemingly, designed in a lab for me to enjoy.

Ben is extremely into tornadoes right now (check out Pecos Hank, a storm chaser and meteorology scholar Ben really likes), and I am reading This is Only a Test by B.J. Hollers which is a creative nonfiction reflection on the imagined perils of parenthood set during the actual perils of the Tuscaloosa tornado in 2011 (amazing book, check it out here). I’ll write more on this later, its prose, but very lyrical. For now, enjoy some (more) Catherine Pierce and enjoy the spring weather, even at its most tumultuous.

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Happy Easter! Last year we celebrated the holiday with some more explicitly “Easter” poetry this year we’re into breezier territory. Today, hear poem by Philip Schultz, and a poem by me (full text below) I wrote over 10 years ago while living in San Francisco.

What I Like and Don’t Like after Phillip Schultz

I like Ohio and most of the people in it, I

like my grandmother’s hands, how they

swim like fish through kitchen things

(cabinets, tupperware, cannery shelves)

do not like the fish she fries for Christmas,

but I rather do enjoy the snow when it pours,

like blankets slowly rising to the neck of a

lover. Mine; I like her.

I do not like dentists, like toothy grins, like

terrible jokes rolling eyes around their sockets

like a slow soul record, love a slow soul record,

love a slow dance to a soul record. Likes rockin’

out, Cincinnati style chili, does not like the Spice

Girls. Girls, likes those; floral print dresses

wrapped around slender legs, love those.

I like handwritten letters, like the instant gratification

of a mail-box epigraphed with wisps of pen strokes,

the handwriting of a heart bemused with likes, dislikes

(my body, the country between your hand and it)

enchantment, love that, conjured at the mere thought

of a pair of lips pursed with an unowned kiss, meeting

each corner of an envelope.

I don’t like imitation, but cannot help myself, likes

reading a good poet like a lover, loves reading my

lover like a good poem;

with eyes, with breath.

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Some William Carlos Williams from the gorgeous, and bizarre!, little book of poems Spring and All as spring (and all its allergens) takes ahold of us here in Central Ohio.

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During some spring cleaning I found Belt Publishing’s Car Bombs to Cookie Tables: The Youngstown Anthology and thought I’d share a few pieces. Enjoy.

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Perusing the City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology and recalling a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti I borrowed for a writing prompt (that I wrote about last month I hope you’ll read here).

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Welcome back everybody. We begin, as I did, with Billy Collins.

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This semester I am teaching Introduction to Creative Writing, and as the semester winds down into Spring Break, I wanted to get all the writers together to record a piece each student has written so far. What follows is a generous and beautiful exploration of creative writing from creative writers doing what they do best: explore, imagine, and interpret the world through their unique vantage points. Enjoy!

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