WFHB

Our opening song is “Ezz-thetic,” from the 1961 release Ezz-thetics by George Russell.

In the conversation to come we’ll make reference to the American modernist poet Ezra Pound, and what the literary scholar Hugh Kenner termed “The Pound Era” in his 1971 book.

Pound is perhaps best known for the poetic movement he named Imagism and for his endlessly expanding book The Cantos. But he may be better known for his arrest for treason in 1945 for his over 300 broadcasts for “The American Hour” on Radio Roma attacking the United States, Roosevelt, Roosevelt’s family, Churchill, and the Jews while praising Hitler’s Mein Kampf and recommending eugenics to “conserve the best of the race” rather than commit “race suicide.” And yet even as Pound’s embrace and promotion of fascism was well-known, he was awarded the Bollingen Prize by the Library of Congress in 1949. Hugh Kenner’s first book about Pound was published in 1951.

But Ezra Pound is not our topic today. Rather we wish to sweep him aside to make space for other poets and other ways of reading and writing poetry. It takes some effort to discover how and why poetry can matter, especially when that poetry has been forgotten and those poets nearly purged from our literary history. Poetry matters very much when we confront the ideological capture of our institutions of learning – when we discover the politics of poetry. And poetry matters very much when the rehabilitation of the fascist poet coincides with the McCarthy era in America.

Today, we’ll resurface three poets on the political Left who wrote during the 1930s and 40s: Muriel Rukeyser, Genevieve Taggard, and Martha Millet.

Muriel Rukeyser is easily the best known of the three and her great poem series The Book of the Dead has recently been reissued by West Virginia University Press. It is a powerful account of one of the worst industrial catastrophes in American history, one that killed hundreds of workers, most of them African American. Our guest today, Sarah Ehlers, speaks of this work as a “history that hurts sung from a brick throat.”

Genevieve Taggard, a socialist affiliated with the Communist Party, actually published twelve books of poetry beginning in 1922 as well as a lively biography of Emily Dickinson.

Communist Martha Millet, a red-diaper-baby, was fired for her political views, and much of her work has gone unpublished or is out of print. One of those unpublished manuscripts is an investigation into the life, work, and influence of Ezra Pound tentatively titled The Ezra Pound Myth written during the same period that Kenner worked on The Pound Era.

GUEST

Sarah Ehlers is an associate professor of English at the University of Houston and author of Left of Poetry: Depression America and the Formation of Modern Poetics, published in 2019 by the University of North Carolina Press.

RELATED

U.S. Poetry and the Politics of Form by Sarah Ehlers (book review)

Recalling Poet Muriel Rukeyser and her Work on the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Disaster

Communism fo...

Our opening song is "Ezz-thetic," from the 1961 release Ezz-thetics by George Russell.

In the conversation to come we’ll make reference to the American modernist poet Ezra Pound, and what the literary scholar Hugh Kenner termed "The Pound Era" in his 1971 book.

Pound is perhaps best known for the poetic movement he named Imagism and for his endlessly expanding book The Cantos. But he may be better known for his arrest for treason in 1945 for his over 300 broadcasts for "The American Hour" on Radio Roma attacking the United States, Roosevelt, Roosevelt's family, Churchill, and the Jews while praising Hitler's Mein Kampf and recommending eugenics to "conserve the best of the race" rather than commit "race suicide.” And yet even as Pound’s embrace and promotion of fascism was well-known, he was awarded the Bollingen Prize by the Library of Congress in 1949. Hugh Kenner’s first book about Pound was published in 1951.

But Ezra Pound is not our topic today. Rather we wish to sweep him aside to make space for other poets and other ways of reading and writing poetry. It takes some effort to discover how and why poetry can matter, especially when that poetry has been forgotten and those poets nearly purged from our literary history. Poetry matters very much when we confront the ideological capture of our institutions of learning - when we discover the politics of poetry. And poetry matters very much when the rehabilitation of the fascist poet coincides with the McCarthy era in America.

Today, we’ll resurface three poets on the political Left who wrote during the 1930s and 40s: Muriel Rukeyser, Genevieve Taggard, and Martha Millet.

Muriel Rukeyser is easily the best known of the three and her great poem series The Book of the Dead has recently been reissued by West Virginia University Press. It is a powerful account of one of the worst industrial catastrophes in American history, one that killed hundreds of workers, most of them African American. Our guest today, Sarah Ehlers, speaks of this work as a "history that hurts sung from a brick throat."

Genevieve Taggard, a socialist affiliated with the Communist Party, actually published twelve books of poetry beginning in 1922 as well as a lively biography of Emily Dickinson.

Communist Martha Millet, a red-diaper-baby, was fired for her political views, and much of her work has gone unpublished or is out of print. One of those unpublished manuscripts is an investigation into the life, work, and influence of Ezra Pound tentatively titled The Ezra Pound Myth written during the same period that Kenner worked on The Pound Era.

GUEST

Sarah Ehlers is an associate professor of English at the University of Houston and author of Left of Poetry: Depression America and the Formation of Modern Poetics, published in 2019 by the University of North Carolina Press.

RELATED

U.S. Poetry and the Politics of Form by Sarah Ehlers (book review)

Recalling Poet Muriel Rukeyser and her Work on the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel Disaster

Communism for Kids...

Late last month in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the police shooting of a Black man named Jacob Blake set off riots and looting in a city just a little smaller than Bloomington, Indiana. Three months prior, the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin prompted a string of riots and looting that resonated throughout the country, from Portland to Chicago to New York City. Media outlets and politicians alike have condemned the riots and looting. In a moment of bipartisan agreement with President Donald Trump, presidential nominee Joe Biden suggested that rioting and looting are distinct from protesting. Biden’s statement follows decades of politicians and media outlets alike dividing protestors along the lines of looting and property destruction, equating looting and property destruction with the racialized violence of policing.

Though the riots and looting of the George Floyd uprising might seem spectacular or particular to our moment, looting as a strategy of black liberation is as least as old as the enslavement of black bodies. Looting is political, and it is a strategy that opens possibilities for freedom from within property relationships still defined by white supremacy.

This week producer Bradi Heaberlin speaks with Vicky Osterweil, author of the recent book In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action. In her book, Osterweil argues that looting is a strategy that has been utilized for centuries to fight enslavement and white supremacy. To make this argument, Osterweil draws on the history of property ownership, capitalism, and their ties to white supremacist society to show us how looting opens possibilities for a joyful life in common, in spaces reclaimed from white supremacy and capital, where people are able to help each other meet their needs and desires.

In recent weeks, coverage of Osterweil’s book on looting has been widespread, with interviews appearing in the New Yorker and NPR. In our interview with Osterweil, we focus on the political implications of looting as a strategy of collective liberation, grounding our discussion in the history of slavery, mass incarceration, and marronage in the United States.

GUEST

Vicky Osterweil is a writer, editor, and a regular contributor to The New Inquiry. Her writing has also appeared in The Baffler, The Nation, and Al Jazeera America. In Defense of Looting is published by Bold Type Books. She lives in Philadelphia.

RELATED

In Defense of Looting by Vicky Osterweil (The New Inquiry, on the Ferguson uprising)

Interview with Vicky Osterweil (Black Agenda Report)

MUSIC

“Perseverance” – Phil Ranelin

“The Invincible Youth” – Kamasi Washington

“Freedom Jazz Dance” – Miles Davis

“Freedom” – Charles Mingus

“Laugh to Keep from Crying” – The Nat Turner Rebellion

CREDITS

Episode Producer: Bradi Heaberlin

Host: Doug Storm

Audio mixing: Doug Storm

Executive Producer: Kade Young

Main Photo: Minneapolis, MN May 27 – A protester smashed a window at Target across the street from the 3rd Precinct, two days after George Floyd died in the custody of Minneapolis Police. (Photo by Aaron Lavinsky/Star Tribune via Getty Images)

Late last month in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the police shooting of a Black man named Jacob Blake set off riots and looting in a city just a little smaller than Bloomington, Indiana. Three months prior, the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin prompted a string of riots and looting that resonated throughout the country, from Portland to Chicago to New York City. Media outlets and politicians alike have condemned the riots and looting. In a moment of bipartisan agreement with President Donald Trump, presidential nominee Joe Biden suggested that rioting and looting are distinct from protesting. Biden’s statement follows decades of politicians and media outlets alike dividing protestors along the lines of looting and property destruction, equating looting and property destruction with the racialized violence of policing.

Though the riots and looting of the George Floyd uprising might seem spectacular or particular to our moment, looting as a strategy of black liberation is as least as old as the enslavement of black bodies. Looting is political, and it is a strategy that opens possibilities for freedom from within property relationships still defined by white supremacy.

This week producer Bradi Heaberlin speaks with Vicky Osterweil, author of the recent book In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action. In her book, Osterweil argues that looting is a strategy that has been utilized for centuries to fight enslavement and white supremacy. To make this argument, Osterweil draws on the history of property ownership, capitalism, and their ties to white supremacist society to show us how looting opens possibilities for a joyful life in common, in spaces reclaimed from white supremacy and capital, where people are able to help each other meet their needs and desires.

In recent weeks, coverage of Osterweil’s book on looting has been widespread, with interviews appearing in the New Yorker and NPR. In our interview with Osterweil, we focus on the political implications of looting as a strategy of collective liberation, grounding our discussion in the history of slavery, mass incarceration, and marronage in the United States.

GUEST

Vicky Osterweil is a writer, editor, and a regular contributor to The New Inquiry. Her writing has also appeared in The Baffler, The Nation, and Al Jazeera America. In Defense of Looting is published by Bold Type Books. She lives in Philadelphia.

RELATED

In Defense of Looting by Vicky Osterweil (The New Inquiry, on the Ferguson uprising)

Interview with Vicky Osterweil (Black Agenda Report)

MUSIC

“Perseverance” - Phil Ranelin

“The Invincible Youth” - Kamasi Washington

“Freedom Jazz Dance” - Miles Davis

“Freedom” - Charles Mingus

“Laugh to Keep from Crying” - The Nat Turner Rebellion

CREDITS

Episode Producer: Bradi Heaberlin

Host: Doug Storm

Audio mixing: Doug Storm

Executive Producer: Kade Young

Main Photo: Minneapolis, MN May 27 - A protester smashed a window at Target across the street from the 3rd Precinct, two days after George Floyd died in the custody of Minneapolis Police. (Photo by Aaron Lavinsky/Star Tribune via Getty Images)

Our opening song is “Brother Malcolm” by Archie Shepp, from his 1999 release Conversations. Archie Shepp, surely one of the great political philosophers of so-called Jazz, accompanies us throughout.

While preparing for this conversation another Black man, Jacob Blake, was shot in the back by police, this time in Kenosha, Wisconsin, but it could have been, likely has been, in any village, town, or city in what surely must be known as our American Dystopia.

Central to the political philosophy of Malcolm X is police brutality – this unaccountable violence undermines any claim that might be made to suggest progress has been made for Black residents in America – one can hardly suggest Black people are even considered citizens of the US in the eyes of white America.

In his new book, Black Minded, published by Pluto press, Michael Sawyer argues that the foundational concepts of Malcolm X’s political philosophy – economic and social justice, strident opposition to white supremacy and Black internationalism – are often obscured by an emphasis on biography. Black Minded demonstrates the way in which Malcolm X’s philosophy is an integral part of the revolutionary politics formed to alleviate the plight of people of African descent globally.

Today we’ll highlight some of Malcolm X’s appearances and speaking engagements throughout. These have been edited for concision.

We begin with Malcolm X on Black Nationalism – this is a selection from the well-known speech ”The Ballot or the Bullet” delivered in Detroit on April 12, 1964. It is distinct from the speech given in Cleveland on April 3.

GUEST

Michael Sawyer is assistant professor of Race, Ethnicity, and Migration Studies in the Department of English at Colorado College.

RELATED

Malcolm X: 2020 Edition by Michael Sawyer

BAR Book Forum: Michael Sawyer’s “Black Minded”

Malcolm Speeches and Appearances (YouTube)

Music under audio: “Malcolm, Malcolm – Semper Malcolm” by Archie Shepp (Fire Music)

City Desk, 1963

“The Harlem ‘Hate Gang’ Scare”

“The Ballot or the Bullet”

“The Black Revolution”

Poem – “Malcolm X” by Sonia Sanchez

Music for Poem – “Malcolm’s Gone” by Leon Thomas

MUSIC – Archie Shepp

“Brother Malcolm” – Conversations (1999)

“Call Me By My Rightful Name” – New Thing at Newport (recorded in 1965)

“New Africa” – The Way Ahead (1969)

“Th Cry of My People” – The Cry of My People (1973)

CREDITS

Producer & Host: Doug Storm

Executive Producer: Kade Young

Our opening song is “Brother Malcolm” by Archie Shepp, from his 1999 release Conversations. Archie Shepp, surely one of the great political philosophers of so-called Jazz, accompanies us throughout.

While preparing for this conversation another Black man, Jacob Blake, was shot in the back by police, this time in Kenosha, Wisconsin, but it could have been, likely has been, in any village, town, or city in what surely must be known as our American Dystopia.

Central to the political philosophy of Malcolm X is police brutality - this unaccountable violence undermines any claim that might be made to suggest progress has been made for Black residents in America - one can hardly suggest Black people are even considered citizens of the US in the eyes of white America.

In his new book, Black Minded, published by Pluto press, Michael Sawyer argues that the foundational concepts of Malcolm X's political philosophy - economic and social justice, strident opposition to white supremacy and Black internationalism - are often obscured by an emphasis on biography. Black Minded demonstrates the way in which Malcolm X's philosophy is an integral part of the revolutionary politics formed to alleviate the plight of people of African descent globally.

Today we’ll highlight some of Malcolm X’s appearances and speaking engagements throughout. These have been edited for concision.

We begin with Malcolm X on Black Nationalism - this is a selection from the well-known speech ”The Ballot or the Bullet” delivered in Detroit on April 12, 1964. It is distinct from the speech given in Cleveland on April 3.

GUEST

Michael Sawyer is assistant professor of Race, Ethnicity, and Migration Studies in the Department of English at Colorado College.

RELATED

Malcolm X: 2020 Edition by Michael Sawyer

BAR Book Forum: Michael Sawyer’s “Black Minded”

Malcolm Speeches and Appearances (YouTube)

Music under audio: "Malcolm, Malcolm - Semper Malcolm" by Archie Shepp (Fire Music)

City Desk, 1963

"The Harlem 'Hate Gang' Scare"

"The Ballot or the Bullet"

"The Black Revolution"

Poem - "Malcolm X" by Sonia Sanchez

Music for Poem - "Malcolm's Gone" by Leon Thomas

MUSIC - Archie Shepp

“Brother Malcolm” - Conversations (1999)

“Call Me By My Rightful Name” - New Thing at Newport (recorded in 1965)

“New Africa” - The Way Ahead (1969)

“Th Cry of My People” - The Cry of My People (1973)

CREDITS

Producer & Host: Doug Storm

Executive Producer: Kade Young

This is a repeat airing of an October 9, 2018 live interview with Micol Seigel.

***

In Violence Work, Micol Seigel shows how the police put violence to work for the state; policing being the quintessential translation of state power. She highlights a number of fallacies or myths, about policing: that it is civilian and distinguishable from the military; that it is a public service rather than a private endeavor; and that it is locally based and municipally controlled. Policing is in fact the human-scale expression of the state. A key issue in all of this is the way the police serve to clear the way for the operations of the so-called free market making it clear that what we call private and what we call public are useful fictions for the operations of Empire and Capital.

GUEST

Micol Seigel is a Professor in the American Studies & History Departments at Indiana University in Bloomington, whose new book is Violence Work: State Power and the Limits of Police, published by Duke University Press.

RELATED

On Police Force (Interchange)

Book Forum on Violence Work (Society & Space)

Police Training, “Nation-Building,” and Political Repression in Postcolonial South Korea by Jeremy Kuzmarov (Asia-Pacific Journal-Japan Focus, July 1, 2012.)

Police Aid and Political Will, US Policy in El Salvador and Honduras (1962 – 1987). Washington Office on Latin America. (pdf)

MUSIC

Television Theme Songs from Police programs

“Dragnet”

“Mannix”

“Hawaii Five-0”

“The Streets of San Francisco”

“Magnum P. I.”

“Barney Miller”

CREDITS

Producer & Host: Doug Storm

October 2018 Executive Producer: Wes Martin

This is a repeat airing of an October 9, 2018 live interview with Micol Seigel.

***

In Violence Work, Micol Seigel shows how the police put violence to work for the state; policing being the quintessential translation of state power. She highlights a number of fallacies or myths, about policing: that it is civilian and distinguishable from the military; that it is a public service rather than a private endeavor; and that it is locally based and municipally controlled. Policing is in fact the human-scale expression of the state. A key issue in all of this is the way the police serve to clear the way for the operations of the so-called free market making it clear that what we call private and what we call public are useful fictions for the operations of Empire and Capital.

GUEST

Micol Seigel is a Professor in the American Studies & History Departments at Indiana University in Bloomington, whose new book is Violence Work: State Power and the Limits of Police, published by Duke University Press.

RELATED

On Police Force (Interchange)

Book Forum on Violence Work (Society & Space)

Police Training, “Nation-Building,” and Political Repression in Postcolonial South Korea by Jeremy Kuzmarov (Asia-Pacific Journal-Japan Focus, July 1, 2012.)

Police Aid and Political Will, US Policy in El Salvador and Honduras (1962 – 1987). Washington Office on Latin America. (pdf)

MUSIC

Television Theme Songs from Police programs

“Dragnet”

“Mannix”

“Hawaii Five-0”

“The Streets of San Francisco”

“Magnum P. I.”

“Barney Miller”

CREDITS

Producer & Host: Doug Storm

October 2018 Executive Producer: Wes Martin

The current uprisings, which are beginning to threaten the status quo of policing in the United States and bringing the demands of abolition into the broad daylight of public debate, have created an unprecedented potential for radical change in the US.

But these threats and demands upon the carceral logic of state violence are not simply the spontaneous products of this current moment, and instead echo a long history of struggle against the racial encroachment of policing and the enclosure of human life.

We are joined today by historian and author Peter Linebaugh to talk to us about this long history of struggle, based both on his own experiences of resistance to enclosure and on the historical examples that motivate his work.

Linebaugh is most notably an historian of the Revolutionary Atlantic – a current in historical studies that trains a focus on the revolutionary and world-changing upheaval that engulfed the whole Atlantic system in the 18th and 19th centuries, giving way to the Industrial Revolution, the formation of new nation-states, and the expansion of a capitalist economic system.

But beneath the veneer of these world-historical events lie the struggles of those who fought on many fronts for a common humanity and for a livelihood held in common that became increasingly chiseled away at the hands of social, political, and economic exploitation. This is most persistent through-line in Linebaugh’s many works, from The Many-Headed Hydra, coauthored with Marcus Rediker, to his most recent book Red Round Globe Hot Burning: the transnational struggle to preserve, protect, and produce the commons against the looming threat of enclosure.

This struggle developed through the encounter between different sectors of the Atlantic working class – the enslaved, sailors, indentured servants, and others – who then had to resolve contradictions in order to assemble themselves into new “class compositions” capable of facing their exploiters. This process of composition is instructive for participants in today’s uprisings, who must also confront differential risks and stakes, and figure out creative ways to come together.

We begin our conversation with Linebaugh by asking him about his life and labor and the ideas and influences that have animated his work.

GUEST

Peter Linebaugh is a historian and the author of The Magna Carta Manifesto,The Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful History of May Day, and Stop, Thief!, among many others, and the co-author, with Marcus Rediker, of The Many-Headed Hydra. His articles have appeared in publications that include CounterPunch, the New Left Review, and Radical History Review.

RELATED

Freedom, Humanity, and Justice—A Triad of Virtues for the Human Race by Peter Linebaugh

Walking the Talk: The Revolutionary Abolitionist Benjamin Lay (Interchange with Marcus Rediker)

MUSIC

“Atlantic Black” Makaya McCraven

“Three Fifths a Man” Makaya McCraven

“The Digger’s Song” performed by Chumbawumba

“Prosperity’s Fear” Makaya McCraven

“Wise Man, Wiser Woman” Makaya McCraven

Host track- “Turtle Tricks” by Makaya McCraven

CREDITS

Host: Doug Storm

Episode Producer: Cole Nelson

Production Assistance: Hugh Farrell

Audio Editor/Mixer: Doug Storm

Executive Producer: Kade Young

The current uprisings, which are beginning to threaten the status quo of policing in the United States and bringing the demands of abolition into the broad daylight of public debate, have created an unprecedented potential for radical change in the US.

But these threats and demands upon the carceral logic of state violence are not simply the spontaneous products of this current moment, and instead echo a long history of struggle against the racial encroachment of policing and the enclosure of human life.

We are joined today by historian and author Peter Linebaugh to talk to us about this long history of struggle, based both on his own experiences of resistance to enclosure and on the historical examples that motivate his work.

Linebaugh is most notably an historian of the Revolutionary Atlantic - a current in historical studies that trains a focus on the revolutionary and world-changing upheaval that engulfed the whole Atlantic system in the 18th and 19th centuries, giving way to the Industrial Revolution, the formation of new nation-states, and the expansion of a capitalist economic system.

But beneath the veneer of these world-historical events lie the struggles of those who fought on many fronts for a common humanity and for a livelihood held in common that became increasingly chiseled away at the hands of social, political, and economic exploitation. This is most persistent through-line in Linebaugh’s many works, from The Many-Headed Hydra, coauthored with Marcus Rediker, to his most recent book Red Round Globe Hot Burning: the transnational struggle to preserve, protect, and produce the commons against the looming threat of enclosure.

This struggle developed through the encounter between different sectors of the Atlantic working class - the enslaved, sailors, indentured servants, and others - who then had to resolve contradictions in order to assemble themselves into new “class compositions” capable of facing their exploiters. This process of composition is instructive for participants in today’s uprisings, who must also confront differential risks and stakes, and figure out creative ways to come together.

We begin our conversation with Linebaugh by asking him about his life and labor and the ideas and influences that have animated his work.

GUEST

Peter Linebaugh is a historian and the author of The Magna Carta Manifesto,The Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful History of May Day, and Stop, Thief!, among many others, and the co-author, with Marcus Rediker, of The Many-Headed Hydra. His articles have appeared in publications that include CounterPunch, the New Left Review, and Radical History Review.

RELATED

Freedom, Humanity, and Justice—A Triad of Virtues for the Human Race by Peter Linebaugh

Walking the Talk: The Revolutionary Abolitionist Benjamin Lay (Interchange with Marcus Rediker)

MUSIC

"Atlantic Black" Makaya McCraven

"Three Fifths a Man" Makaya McCraven

"The Digger’s Song" performed by Chumbawumba

"Prosperity’s Fear" Makaya McCraven

"Wise Man, Wiser Woman" Makaya McCraven

Host track- "Turtle Tricks" by Makaya McCraven

CREDITS

Host: Doug Storm

Episode Producer: Cole Nelson

Production Assistance: Hugh Farrell

Audio Editor/Mixer: Doug Storm

Executive Producer: Kade Young