Tues. Dec. 10/ moved to Dec 17 - Emily Dickinson

Dec. 10, is Emily Dickinson's birthday.  It will be a time to dedicate the show to her poetry.
So come listen in and here her poetry for the hour. What a great way to start the day.

Emily Dickinson

First Week of December 2013

What a great week it has been on the radio.  It has been a joy to have Isabel Reddy with me on air to share with us her novel about the coal industry, with characters from various regions and perspectives all converging in very moving ways.
And then she came back again to read Truman Capote's, A Christmas Memory.  What a joy and delight to hear that story again. There is something very special about hearing these stories read aloud that brings them to life in very profound and personal ways.

Truman Capote

Isabel Reddy

november 26 2013 William Blake

William Blake's birthday is on Thanksgiving, and since I am not having a show that day I will be moving him to the Tuesday show. I know of Blake's etchings and artwork, but very little of his poetry. When I went on Poemhunter.com I found that he was number 13 in the top 500 poets. I was very surprised and want to get to know him better. Tune in for the show when I will be reading his poetry.

William Blake

November 21, 2013 C S Lewis

On November 22, 1963, C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley both died.  Also that day, President Kennedy was assassinated. The events of the deaths of the two authors was greatly overshadowed and generally missed by the news.
On Thursday, November 21, 2013, I will be reading the poems of C.S. Lewis on my show. Most people know of his Chronicles of Narnia, his Mere Christianity, his Screwtape Letters, and Surprised by Joy. But his poetry is not so well known. So to commemorate the little remembered anniversary of his death, I will be reading the little known poetic works of one of the great voices of the 20th centuries.
All are welcome.

C.S. Lewis

November 19 2013

Gettysburg Address

Poet Allen Tate

Today we celebrate three very different voices in American Literature: Allen Tate, Abraham Lincoln and Sharon Olds.
Today is Sharon Olds birthday as well as Allen Tate. It is also the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.

Poet Sharon Olds

November 14 Robert Louis Stevenson

November 13 is the birthday of R.L. Stevenson, the great Scottish Writer.  It will be a time to read his poems and perhaps a bit of his other writings.

Nov 12 Dostoyevsky

Tuesday, November 12 - We will be celebrating Dostoyevsky's birthday, which is either Oct 30, or November 11 1821.  I will be reading The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, as it is about a dream a man had on or about November 3rd.

What fun.

Dostoyevkyy

November 7th Albert Camus' 100th birthday

It is Albert Camus' 100th birthday. I knew only a little bit about him, having read the Stranger in high school or college.  What a life!  I read his address given upon the occasion of him receiving the Nobel Prize for literature along with several other essays.

Albert Camus

October 31 John Keats

This post is out of order, sorry.
October 31st is the birthday of John Keats.  What a joy to read his work.  It is amazing to think of all he did in his very short life.  I read the poem Isabella or the pot of basil along with a number of other works. 

John Keats

Tuesday Nov 5

On this day the show officially begins a two day a week format. We begin with the writings of Art Critic and teacher and writer John Berger. 
The second half of the show will be a reprive of Denise Levertov.  I was so moved by her poems that I ordered some more of them and would like to get to know her better, so we will have an encore of her poems.

John Berger in 2009

Nov 24 Denise Levertov

What a joy to meet Denise Levertov on her 90th birthday. 

from Poemhunter:
Born in Ilford, Essex, England, her mother, Beatrice Spooner-Jones Levertoff, was Welsh. Her father, Paul Levertoff, immigrated to England from Germany, was a Russian Hassidic Safardic Jew who became an Anglican priest. While being educated at home, Levertov showed an enthusiasm for writing from an early age. When she was five years old, she said later in life, she declared she would be a writer. At the age of 12, she sent some of her poems to T. S. Eliot, who replied with a two-page letter of encouragement. In 1940, when she was 17, Levertov published her first poem.

and this poem that moved me very much:

A Time Past

The old wooden steps to the front door
where I was sitting that fall morning
when you came downstairs, just awake,
and my joy at sight of you (emerging
into golden day—
the dew almost frost)
pulled me to my feet to tell you
how much I loved you:

those wooden steps
are gone now, decayed
replaced with granite,
hard, gray, and handsome.
The old steps live
only in me:
my feet and thighs
remember them, and my hands
still feel their splinters.

Everything else about and around that house
brings memories of others—of marriage,
of my son. And the steps do too: I recall
sitting there with my friend and her little son who died,
or was it the second one who lives and thrives?
And sitting there ‘in my life,’ often, alone or with my husband.
Yet that one instant,
your cheerful, unafraid, youthful, ‘I love you too,’
the quiet broken by no bird, no cricket, gold leaves
spinning in silence down without
any breeze to blow them,
is what twines itself
in my head and body across those slabs of wood
that were warm, ancient, and now
wait somewhere to be burnt. 

Oct 3 Emily Post's birthday

On Thursday, Oct 3, it is Emily Post's birthday and a time to read etiquette.  One can never have enough etiquette. It is always fun to read from Emily Post's work, how we can be more gracious and thoughtful.
Join the fun, 7 am on WRFR.org

Oct 2 Wallace Stevens

Wed., Oct. 2nd was the first time I tried out the show on a Wednesday and read works by Wallace Stevens.  I had heard of him before, but never read him before the other night. Several of his works I found to be very moving and I want to hold onto.
What a blessing to have someone to read who is easy to read and very thoughtful.

September 26 T.S. Eliot

On the 26th of September we celebrated T.S. Eliot's birthday.  He would have been 125 years old.
The celebration consisted of reading J. Alfred Prufrock again and again,  it was quite fun.  One gets different perspectives with different voices and reading it again.
"Let us go then you and I......."  off to WRFRlp.

Thursday September 19 Stevie Smith

We come up on the great English author and poet Stevie Smith. She was born Florence Margaret Smith and went by the name Stevie, she was born Sept 20, 1902 and died March 7 1971. She chose the name "Stevie" after a jockey she admired and her friends began calling her this name and she felt it would be a good pen name.

she described the world in which she grew up in the poem "A House of Mercy"

 It was a house of female habitation,
Two ladies fair inhabited the house,
And they were brave. For although Fear knocked loud
Upon the door, and said he must come in,
They did not let him in


and then there is of course her powerful poem,

Stevie Smith photo courtesy of poetryfoundation.org

Not Waving, but Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

Thursday Sept 12 Richard Wright

During tha last few years of Richard Wright's life he wrote many, many haiku. The author of such the classic Native Son which spoke in such a powerful and grand way found deep expression in the simple surroundings of his world near Paris. These are the poems of the day, and what a treasure they are to find. 

Richard Wright  photo courtesy of notablebiographies

September 5 Seamus Heaney

Today I read Seamus Heaney Poetry to commemorate his great life.
As he died on August 30th, it is of note that we remember one of our great poets.

thanks to speroforum.com for the pic.

June 13 2013

This is William Butler Yeats day on the air.  All Yeats, nothing but Yeats.

I am not his biggest fan, but I have great respect for him and he is one that needs a day to himself.
It is his 148th birthday.

William Butler Yeats

Thursday, June 6 2013

wow, it is already coming into June again.
On the 6th I am looking to read Garcia Lorca, whose birthday is June 5th, Alexander Pushkin and Maxine Kumin, whose birthdays are June 6th. It will be an interesting blend of three very different voices.

Frederico Garcia Lorca

Alexander Pushkin

Maxine Kumin

Expanding the Show

I am looking at expanding the show from just Thursdays, to include Monday through Fridays from 7 am until 8 am.  This would need to involve a team of people.  I have two others who are willing to work with me, but I am looking for at least five.  Not everyone needs to be readers on the air.  We will need people to work on the blog, as well as bring in resources and keep the calendar up to date.

If you are interested in participating in this exciting volunteer venture to enhance our local radio efforts please contact me.  peter_jenks@yahoo.com

May 30 2013 Walt Whitman

Last year I read Walt Whitman, probably for the first time.  I had read "Captain, My Captain" and bits and pieces of Leaves of Grass, but that was it. Then sitting down and just reading and reading Whitman opened my eyes to his genius.  What a treat. I will be reading him again this Thursday as we celebrate his 194th birthday, which will be on the 31st.

May 23

photo from nobelprize.org

Thursday, May 23rd is looking to be a day for Joseph Brodsky poetry.

thursday may 16

It is Studs Terkel and Adrienne Rich's birthdays so I will be reading from some of their work.
Also, I have raised the question of offering this show monday through friday from 7 to 8 am.
Having it offered more days would mean I would need more help, but that might be a good thing.

photo from the guardian uk

photo from porter square books

Emily Dickinson is on for May 9th!

I always look forward to the opportunity to read Emily Dickinson.  Thursday, May 9th is the day, this year.
Granted her birthday is December 10, 1830 but she died on May 15th, 1886 so I am moving it to the 9th in order to remember her as we come up on the 127th anniversary of her death.  As you can see, it doesn't take much for me to celebrate and read Emily Dickinson.

Thursday May 2

I generally know May Sarton from her journals, yet she considered herself first a poet. So this day was dedicated to her poetry. On her tombstone, it simply lists her as a poet.
Nice.
What a wonderful voice in the world of words.

April 18, 2013 Leonard Cohen

My wife came home with a wonderful book with the poem by Leonard Cohen, Dance me to the end of love as the text and pictures by Matisse. It was wonderful. I began wondering more about the writings of Leonard Cohen. His song Suzanne was a favorite of mine when I was a young teenager, and his Hallelujah has become a wonderful hit. But apart from his music, I know very little of his other writings.
I have known a little about him, that he was from Canada, but not much more. So, it became evident who I was going to read this Thursday. I was holding out for a local poet, but was instead blessed at the last minute by this wonderful writer.

April 4 2013

Today is Maya Angelou's birthday.  The whole show will be dedicated to her  poetry. This is an example of why I started this show. When listening to the Writer's Almanac, I would hear of someone's birthday but never hear any of their work. This thought is what led to this radio show. It is an attempt to celebrate the words of those people we remember on their birthday, or some anniversary and as a way to discover their work, that I so often have only heard about but never read much.

march 28

Thursday, March 28 was a wonderful time to discover Maxim Gorky, the great Russian writer. I read from his diary various stories of his.

Selma to Montgomery

Thursday, March 21 will be the anniversary of the march that finally made it to Montgomery from Selma. So I will be playing a sermon by Martin Luther King, Jr. and reading some of his writings.

Thursday

Karl Marx

Albert Einstein

March 14th is the date Karl Marx died, Albert Einstein was born and the Grapes of Wrath was published. So it will be a mixed show this week, celebrating these three events.  Check it out.

Snow and rain

Kenneth Grahame

Sorry for not having a show on Feb. 28th. I was looking forward to it. It was going to be much about George Herbert. He wrote great poems and had a great story.  But the weather kept me in bed.  Too much snow and rain this year. I am happy that February is over.  This week I am looking to read from the Wind and the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.  His birthday is this Friday, March 8.  The book was written in 1908. What a timeless classic.

Next Thursday - Feb 28 will celebrate Wales

Friday, March 1st is St. David's Day, the patron saint of Wales.  So, Thursday, Feb. 28th show will be a celebration of Wales. I am sure there will be something by Dylan Thomas, but there will be more.

W.H. Auden

This Thursday will be a morning dedicated to W.H. Auden, 21 Feb. 1907 - 29 Sept. 1973. We may have Erika Pfander come join as a guest reader. Check it out. 7 am Thursday.  

valentines day

This Thursday is Valentine's day and the show will be all love poems of various kinds.
Sounds like fun.

For Feb 7 It is Mr. Verne

Well, I have settled on Mr. Jules Verne for the show on Feb. 7.  On Feb. 8, it will be his 185th birthday.
His stories are well known to me, but I have never read them. So, this will be the day to begin a new friendship. Yay.

Thoughts for Feb 7 show round 1

I thought originally about Charles Dickens, as it will be his birthday on Feb 7.  But much was said about him last year on the 200th anniversary of his birth. It is also Sinclair Lewis' birthday, and Laura Ingalls Wilder. And on the 8th of Feb. we have John Ruskin, Elizabeth Bishop and Jules Verne's birthday.  There is much to choose from for this next weeks show. Any opinions?  

very cold day, jan. 24

Wow, it was cold coming in today.  And someone left the little heater on high in the studio, with the door closed. So it was a morning of cold and hot.  By the end of the reading, all my warm layers of closer were becoming a bit oppressive.

It was fun and challenging to read Jessica Keener's work, Night Swim.  It is very well written and the language easily flows as one reads it aloud.  Yet speaking from a non Jewish background and a man reading the journey of a young Jewish girl is a good exercise.  I think it is something worth doing more often. Reading  from very different perspectives can help us understand others better.  When I read this to myself, I imagine the voice of a young girl. But putting my own to it somehow engages me more in the character.

The story's characters and family dynamics are just that, chararcters and very dynamic. Thanks Jessica, for such a good story.

Next week, I am looking forward to reading short stories by John O'Hara. He is a wonderful and amazing short story writer. Short stories are a wonderful gift to literature. It is hard to distill a story to its essence in a short time, maintain engaging characters, full plots and keep it short.