In late August and early September 2008 a number of poets, musicians, and storytellers associated with the Minnesota Men's Conferences and Robert Bly had been invited to the UK to perform over a period of two weeks. This troupe of artistic brigands included Robert Bly, Martin Shaw, Danny Deardorff, Judith-Kate Friedman, Thomas R. Smith, Jay Leeming, Ben Dennis, Timothy Young, the Brothers Frantzich, Tim and Paul, and Gioia Timpanelli.  We were guests at the West Country Storytelling Festival, various coffeehouses, radio programs, schools, and other venues.  Martin's home in Ashburton, Devon served as our base, and friends, Jonny Bloor, Sarah Delfont, Joe Delfont, and many others gave us generous assistance throughout.  This episode shows how much fun we had sharing poems.
The opening music is from Pundela's Farewell by The Spirit House Quartet. The end music is the musical accompaniment of Glen Helgeson on the poem Tears with Timothy Young on their CD, Riding a Dark Wind

In 2007 Robert Bly introduced me before I read for the Minnesota Men's Conference. This was one of my favorite readings. A number of the poems were published in my second book, Herds of Bears Surround Us published by Red Dragonfly Press in 2010.

Josh Schmidt gave me, and the men attending the winter conference in 2024, tasty musical notes behind my poems.  This is a repeat of an earlier podcast.

Here' a clip from the conversation with poets Thomas R. Smith, dougie padilla, and storyteller and publisher, Walton Stanley, about my insistence for the physical aspect of poetry.

So many young don't practice the oral arts and cannot read poetry very well. Here is a 1958 recording of the great American poet, Carl Sandburg, reading one of his Rootabaga stories from his 1922 collection.  We can learn so much by listening to masters read or recited their work.

Since October 2020 Walton Stanley and I have met monthly on zoom with men from the Australian based Fifth Direction. We always begin and end our sessions with poetry.  Here's Walton reading some interesting poems from June 2026, April 2026, and October 2025.

In 1999 my wife Dalyce was playing her violin with a group of friends. They specialized in kirtan chants. I was working on new versions of Rumi poems at that time.  When I found this recording I knew it had to be revived.

So often we identify with a character in a story or a tale. But what if those characters are not people, but parts of our individual psyches? In the Haughty Princess tale what if we think of the princess as a representation of the ego, privileged and unwilling to commit to anyone or anything? One of the greatest tasks of a human being is to have the ego at the appropriate level of consciousness and work with the soul.  This short tale addresses the process for finding that balance. 

On May 8, 2008 I was invited to speak to the United Christ Community in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.  With the musical accompaniment of Yata Peinovich and Dalyce Elliott, I addressed the community about a special love for the divine feminine.  The original recording, provided by the community had been overloaded with volume and inaudible. Thankfully, Greg Schuette of Bathtub Studios in Minneapolis was able to work digital magic and retrieve the complete presentation, with audible if flawed sound.  

On May 15, 2026 Dalyce Elliott Young and I performed music and poetry from our 2011 CD Perfect Harmony.  This episode is the recording of two of the evening's pieces, Ibn Hazm's Overhanging Boughs, and Ibn El-Arabi's Perfect Harmony. Brothers Jesse and Ryan Dermody provided percussion for these two pieces.