On this episode of Arts & Letters , we take a dive into the streams and rivers of the Ozarks in Arkansas and Missouri to learn the saga of North America’s largest amphibian, the hellbender salamander. Our guide is author, activist, professor and eco-poet Mark Spitzer, whose avant-garde epic poem, GLURK! A Hellbender Odyssey , serves as the basis for our journey. “The plight of this amphibian — an evolutionary phenomenon — has as much to say about humans and our relationship with the natural