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theotherpages · 3 years

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2021 Podcasts, Part 2

A reminder that all of the articles from this year’s poetry series are available as a podcast. Search on “Steve Spanoudis” to find all the episodes on iTunes, Anchor, Breaker, Spotify, Google Podcasts, RadioPublic and PocketCast. If you like the articles, please share.

Here are direct links to individual episodes on Anchor.fm:

12. Laila Chatti - Deluge - article by Kashiana Singh

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-12-Leila-Chatti-eun4c5

13. Tina Cane - Some Kinds of Fire

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-01---Tina-Cane--Anna-Akhmatova-euriuc

14. Richard Blanco - La Florida Room

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-14---Richard-Blanco-eutlfj

15. Michael Hamburger - Grape and Nut Letter - article by Nelson Howard Miller

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-15-Michael-Hamburger-euv861

16. Ted Kooser - In the Basement of the Goodwill Store

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-16---Ted-Kooser-ev0jd3

17. Keorapetse William Kgositsile - Anguish Longer Than Sorrow

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-17-Keorapetse-William-Kgositsile-ev40s

18. Melissa Balmain - Love Poem

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-18-Melissa-Balmain-ev653a

19. Kazim Ali - The Voice of Sheila Chandra - article by Kashiana Singh

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-19-The-gleaming-work-of-Kazim-Ali---The-Voice-of-Sheila-Chandra-ev7kld

20. Nora Dauenhauer - Amelia’s FIrst Ski Run

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-20-Nora-Marks-Dauenhauer-ev8fum

21. Vona Groarke - Still Life in Marble

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-21-Vona-Groarke-evaoi4

The full text of all articles is available at The Other Pages mirrors

on Facebook: https://facebook.com/theotherpages

And Tumblr: https://theotherpages.tumblr.com

(scroll down for content on either page)

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ubukhosi · 6 years

Video

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"Interview on SABC3 Trendz, Moeketsi Nchoba and myself Bukhosi Nyathi talking about the Tribute show to the late Prof Keorapetse William Kgositsile and the living legends program sponsored by the Department of Arts and Culture with the Funda Community College in conjunction with the incubation program". #art #poetry #music , #jazz #exhibition #kwk #mollowadishomo

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heavylinesuniverse · 6 years

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Falling Legends

Not so long since we mourned the death of Producer and Musician Robbie Malinga,and Poet Prof William Keorapetse Kgositsile. This morning we wake up with the sad news of the passing of the father of South African Jazz Hugh Masekela. POEM TO THE FALLEN by Heavylines I wish I knew people who could drag souls. Drag them back to their homes, Before their flesh separates from their bones, Before the…

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dyos · 11 years

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Poetry must flow in his blood

because even though his dad wasn't there, he was still a son of a pretty big South African poet.

#Earl Sweatshirt #OFWGKTA #Chum #Keorapetse William Kgositsile

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m0lli-w0pped · 11 years

Photo

Father and Son

#earl sweatshirt #Keorapetse William Kgositsile #odd future #earl and father #ofwgkta

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greedybitchcafe · 12 years

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Recollections

Though you remain

Convinced To be alive You must have somewhere To go Your destination remains Elusive.

-Keorapetse William Kgositsile

#Keorapetse William Kgositsile #Poet Laureate #South African #activist #poet #poetry

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theotherpages · 3 years

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30 Essays on The Best Words in the Best Order, 2021 Edition

We did it. Thirty articles in just over 30 days, on many different aspects of poetry, from themes and contrasts to structure, meter, and rhyme, to metaphors and patterns, to breaking things down and building them back up, from expansive views to introspection. I hope you had a chance to enjoy at least some of the articles. If you didn’t, just a reminder that all 30 are archived on https://facebook.com/theotherpages and https://theotherpages.tumblr.com. I will comment that more of you may be Facebook users, but Tumbler is way better at indexing and presenting than Facebook. The Other Pages is also beautifully presented on Tumblr.

Sincere thanks to Kashiana Singh and Nelson Howard Miller for their help. We were without the services of Bob and Robin this year. Nelson actually did his articles while recovering from Covid, and Kashiana while moving across the country and participating in her amazing stream of other events.

The podcasts were a new experience for me, though Kashiana had done it before. They are archived on https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis.

For the record, while tallies continue, we will probably finish up with over 12,000 reads this year, and over 1,200 reactions and comments on Facebook. The most read article featured Maria Nazos and a poem about domestic abuse. Second place was a poem by Ladan Osman on a child’s perspective of racial disparities. Third place was Kashiana’s commentary on Laila Chatti.

This year’s pieces also focused more heavily on contemporary poets. This was educational and highly enjoyable for me, including the opportunity to listen to, meet, talk with, and even get to know some of the poets featured. Please note that the “other” Kashiana, Kashiana Sharma, does not exist. She is one of the virtual residents of The Republic of Dreams.

Yes, we’ll probably do this again next year (“Yay! We’re being renewed for another season!”), but I think I’ll need to draft some additional editorial help.If you’d like to volunteer, let me know.

A catalog of this year’s episodes is included below. If you’ve liked any of this, please SHARE on your favorite social media platform.

--Steve Spanoudis.

1. Denise Levertov - The Room

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-01---Denise-Levertov-etm13r

2. Molly Peacock - The Flaw

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-02---Molly-Peacock-ettvmq

3. Terence Degnan - the yes no

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-03-Terence-Degnan-eu2bvk

4. Vassar Miller - Without Ceremony - article by Nelson Howard Miller

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-03-Vassar-Miller-eu49ut

5. Ladan Osman - The Key

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-05-Ladan-Osman-eu5vmv

6. Pat Mora - Curandera

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-06-Pat-Mora-eu65og

7. Maria Nazos - Waitress in a Small Town Seaside Tavern

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-07-Maria-Nazos-eubgl1

8. Hayden Carruth - The Ravine - article by Nelson Howard Miller

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-08-Hayden-Carruth-eublto

9. Eaven Borland - Becoming Anne Bradstreet

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-09-Eavan-Borland-eucpuc

10. Tishani Doshi - The Day We Went to the Sea

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-10-Tishani-Doshi-eul1fc

11. Yolanda Wisher - sonnet w/ cooking lexicon

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-11-Yolanda-Wisher-eun0hl

12. Laila Chatti - Deluge - article by Kashiana Singh

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-12-Leila-Chatti-eun4c5

13. Tina Cane - Some Kinds of Fire

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-01---Tina-Cane--Anna-Akhmatova-euriuc

14. Richard Blanco - La Florida Room

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-14---Richard-Blanco-eutlfj

15. Michael Hamburger - Grape and Nut Letter - article by Nelson Howard Miller

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-15-Michael-Hamburger-euv861

16. Ted Kooser - In the Basement of the Goodwill Store

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-16---Ted-Kooser-ev0jd3

17. Keorapetse William Kgositsile - Anguish Longer Than Sorrow

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-17-Keorapetse-William-Kgositsile-ev40s

18. Melissa Balmain - Love Poem

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-18-Melissa-Balmain-ev653a

19. Kazim Ali - The Voice of Sheila Chandra - article by Kashiana Singh

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-19-The-gleaming-work-of-Kazim-Ali---The-Voice-of-Sheila-Chandra-ev7kld

20. Nora Dauenhauer - Amelia’s FIrst Ski Run

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-20-Nora-Marks-Dauenhauer-ev8fum

21. Vona Groarke - Still Life in Marble

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-21-Vona-Groarke-evaoi4

22. Kashiana Sharma (f) - The View from Above

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-22-Kashiana-Sharma-fictional-evek5o

23. Fred Marchant - This is What the Mind Does

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-23-Fred-Marchant-evism2

24. Michael Torres - Because My Brother Knows Why They Call Them “County Blues,” but Won’t Tell Me Why

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-24-Michael-Torres-evlgs6

25. Khaled Mattawa - Bedtime Reading for the Unborn Child

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-25-Khaled-Mattawa-evn34c

26. Rita Dove - Dusting

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-26---Rita-Dove-evpoaa

27. Rainer Maria Rilke - Go to the limits of your longing - article by Kashiana Singh

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/20201-NPM-27---JoJo-Rabbit-and-Rainer-Maria-Rilke-e100ihe

28. Naomi Shihab Nye - You are Your Own State Department

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-28-Naomi-Shihab-Nye-e104bk7

29. Yonatan Berg - Unity

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-29-Yonatan-Berg-e106cpl

30. Jane Hirshfield - Three Foxes by the Edge of the Field at Twilight

https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis/episodes/2021-NPM-30-Jane-Hirshfield-e106jed

The full text of all articles is available at The Other Pages mirrors

on Facebook: https://facebook.com/theotherpages

And Tumblr: https://theotherpages.tumblr.com

(scroll down for content on either page)

#national poetry month #napowrimo #2021 #the other pages #theotherpages.org #Nelson Howard Miller #Kashiana Singh #steve spanoudis

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theotherpages · 3 years

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National Poetry Month Number 17 - Keorapetse William Kgositsile - Anguish Longer than Sorrow

You can listen to the podcast version of today’s article on Spotify, ITunes, Anchor, Breaker, or Google Podcasts. Click Here to access links. (https://anchor.fm/steve-spanoudis) Look for the podcast titled National Poetry Month at the Other Pages.

Welcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair, Kashiana Singh, and (Nelson) Howard Miller. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.

I have emphasized that poetry, because it has the ability to fix things in memory, to make them understood and memorable and give them emotional weight, is highly effective at saying the important things that need to be said in this world. Along with the things that amuse and entertain, that describe and narrate, that create wonder and introspection, we need poems that say the important things.

Earlier in this series we had poems from Ladan Osman and Maria Nazos that were in that category. Today’s poem by South African Poet Laureate Keorapetse William Kgositsile is very much in this vein, and if you remember nothing else from this year’s articles, I would like you to remember this one.

First, a few comments about the poet. Keorapetse William Kgositsile (1938-2018) was born and grew up in an impoverished South African Township, witness to many of the ills not only of Apartheid, but to the long-lived consequences of European colonialism on the African continent.

He became active in the African National Congress, as journalist and as an outspoken voice, but was urged, for his own safety, to leave the country in 1961. He spent most of his twenty years of exile in the United States, where, after earning his Masters at Columbia, he became a visible presence as a spoken word performer in New York. He taught at multiple universities and published ten collections of poetry and two more books on writing poetry.

Today’s poem, Anguish Longer than Sorrow, is about the accident of birth, or, as he describes it simply, referring to the children of families fleeing violence and starvation:

Empty their young eyes

deprived of a vision of any future

they should have been entitled to

since they did not choose to be born

where and when they were

So yes, if you have not figured it out yet, today’s discussion is about borders. In the U.S., discussions of the southern border have been an incendiary topic, fanned by political interests to polarize the population and garner money through fear. But the topic is global. This problem is everywhere.

Through my work with the Red Cross and its Missing Maps program (https://www.missingmaps.org/), I have spent many hours building maps of refugee areas around the world. When I teach a mapping class to volunteers, or to Red Cross employees or partners, a continued comment I make is that there are more displaced persons in the world right now, than at any time since the second world war. The Rohingya fleeing Myanmar, the Syrians fleeing the non-top devastation of their homeland, people from many African and Middle-eastern regions fleeing to Europe to escape famine and persecution. Palestinians who have lived their entire lives in refugee camps. Venezuelans fleeing food shortages and economic collapse.

Almost forty years ago, National Geographic famously ran a cover image of a shell-shocked teenage girl named Sharbat Gula, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Girl) one of many iconic images that resonate strongly with The words Kgositsile’s poem. The sadness, in part, is that there are so many such images.

Across the African continent in particular, the root of the violence in some areas stems from artificial boundaries drawn originally by colonial European powers, divvying up who gets to plunder and enslave which pieces. Those boundaries fragmented local societies and ethnic groups, creating countries that were, from the start, at odds with themselves. Kgositsile writes:

If destroying all the maps known

would erase all the boundaries

from the face of this earth

I would say let us

make a bonfire

to reclaim and sing

the human person

At the end of the poem, after talking about the horrors and burdens of the victims of displacement, ends with a simple declarative statement, almost a one-line manifesto:

to have a home is not a favour

Meaning, it should be a fundamental right. I am including links here in the text to Lyricline (https://www.lyrikline.org/en/poems/anguish-longer-sorrow-5908) where you can read the full text of the poem, and, more importantly, hear it in his voice, with his diction. I think it’s most impactful that way. It's also available on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6RXqJwOvMM) but without the text.

As another personal note, much of my own writing, the books and characters of The Republic of Dreams (https://www.facebook.com/therepublicofdreams), are displaced persons, many of them made homeless by the rising of the seas. I live at three meters above sea level, so I’m physically closer to that issue than many of you. And as my mapping activities show me on a regular basis, that is on the horizon as an inevitable issue. Let me end with a nod to Greta Thunberg, the personification of the world’s conscience on that issue.

Once again this is Steve Spanoudis for theotherpages.org.

Thank you for Listening. If you’re enjoying these commentaries, and the poem selections, please share them - either the text versions or the podcasts - on social media.

You can find more at theotherpages.org, or at The Other Pages on Facebook or Tumblr.

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