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Frederick Livingston
919 Plays2 months ago
Frederick Livingston lives in the liminal space between experiential education, sustainable agriculture, and peacebuilding. His work has appeared in numerous literary and scientific journals, public parks, and bathroom stalls.
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Transcript
Introduction to Frederick Livingston
00:00:22
Speaker
excited to have Frederick Livingston on the show, um background ecology, poet, writer, creator, and Frederick, first of all, before going on too long, welcome on to the show and thank you for coming on to the show.
00:00:38
Speaker
Yeah, and thank you so
The Role of Bookstores in Community
00:00:39
Speaker
much for having me. It's such a good example of the value of ah local bookstores, like that word of mouth you could hear about someone in the area you want to talk to, and that's something that probably not going to happen on that certain website platforms. Yeah, for real, in in in in real life, in the a local bookstore near bra where I'm ah recording an Albany, Oregon browser bookstore. Nate Richmond, the owner. And I talk about that bookstore a lot, but um I've worked in a bookstore, and lovers of books, and in in you as a writer, and publishing books. It's nice to have a spot that's cool for writers, thinkers, you know to to browse through books. And also, in my mind, it's always like organizing like people who are like-minded. And that's how we connect. So it's great to connect that way.
00:01:33
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
Poetry, Activism, and the Environment
00:01:36
Speaker
ah I wanted to chat with you um because the kind of the the the the topics come up a few times in talking to writers and poets. I enjoy poetry and i'm kind of like the last few years have been reading a lot more poetry ah than I have before.
00:02:00
Speaker
And I like ah in reading your poetry about um this deep organic connection. And I'm going to struggle for words, particularly in front of a poet, but you know, like this organic, ah natural connection and this kind of like, um I would say, activism or vitality in in in your writing
Convergence of Interests: Education and Poetry
00:02:22
Speaker
and in your thinking. And I'm talking about the connection between word, thought, thinking about the environment,
00:02:29
Speaker
um and be inactive around some big issues like that. Could you kind of just introduce you know introduce the listeners a bit more to to your thinking and in in talking about ah your books, your writing, and and how you think about writing? Yeah, yeah absolutely. There are so many branches to explore in that question. I know. I know. My goodness.
00:02:55
Speaker
i think um I guess most specifically to like my meandering path of explored, you know, experiential education and sustainable agriculture and poetry and a lot of different paths that seemed scattered at first, but in retrospect, I see how they're all kind of leading towards the same ultimate goal of like cultivating a deeper relationship with the planet and building peace on a sort of global you know, many, many eons kind of scale. But um poems are kind of really where I start.
Poetry as a Medium for Deeper Truths
00:03:30
Speaker
those I sort of think of them as little seeds that I plant. And for me, poetry is kind of like how I reach for truth. I think when we um talk or when I'm writing prose, it's kind of a way of speaking, like kind of my mind to your mind. And poetry feels more like opening
00:03:50
Speaker
myself up to what I know at deeper and deeper levels, like things I might not know that I know. um And so it feels sort of more like listening. and i I think in my life path, I really found how I can connect that you know little piece to my larger way that I fit into the world as someone who identifies as an ecologist or someone who really wants and that really believes in a more
Frederick's Journey to Becoming a Poet
00:04:19
Speaker
fruitful earth. I guess that's sort of one metaphor that I returned to. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that. I wanted to i wanted to ah ah chat about art conceptually and then being and drop back specifically in the work that you do and your creativity.
00:04:39
Speaker
ah Was there a moment that you identified as an artist or you felt like I'm an artist and kind of inhabited that identity more fully? Did you always feel that? Do you struggle to feel that? um So seeing yourself as an artist, when and how did that happen? Yeah, I think it's not something that I just was born instantly feeling like I was a poet. um I think I really you know cut my teeth as a poet on the the show called Trivia King and Local Access TV in Olympia when I was a sixth grade. um that My middle school like put on a pretty silly trivia show and I was the resident of it. I brought such classics as i'm Ode to a Chair, where I sang the praises of a chair, or Ode to Awkward Silence, where I just stood in front of the camera for two minutes saying nothing. and and
00:05:36
Speaker
It's a I was inspired by poets maybe like Shel Silverstein um who are have very whimsical kind of tone. But then I think in in high school I you know took English classes of course in standard public education and poetry was kind of presented as something that was maybe fancy or kind of on a high shelf or I felt like I didn't really get it and that it wasn't so clear how to fit into my life or what I would do with that.
00:06:03
Speaker
um And I think it wasn't really until I started going to open mics and performances where people were really you know, carrying their truth forward and handing it to the audience and seeing how that charged the air between us with so much electricity and seeing how it could really be a catalyst for change and for, you know, personal and cultural growth. And that was when I so i started going to these events more often. I still didn't really identify as a poet maybe, but I saw the poll was there.
From Audience Validation to Personal Expression
00:06:39
Speaker
And I think my initial experiences were a lot of
00:06:43
Speaker
you know I would be so anxious when I'm waiting for my turn to speak and then you stand up from the mic and you say a few words really fast and you sit down and so much of the experience is about you know looking for validation in the audience and kind of you know expecting something else in return and the more that I sit in that space,
00:07:04
Speaker
the more that it becomes about what I need to say, like what ideas I need to put in the conversation. And i it's almost like I'm just waiting to let it come out of me. And it's not about, oh, what people think, and you know so much I can be much more present when I'm standing on stage. And that's sort of been my growth in that. But then at the same time that I was starting to get into open mics, I was studying an undergrad environmental science. And you I learned about all the ways that humans are killing trees and polluting stuff and killing each other. And you know there's just all these
00:07:42
Speaker
you know reasons for despair that are totally legitimate that i was studying in a formal way and yeah it also wasn't really clear to me how i fit into that like there's a huge problems and i'm this one person where does how do i connect those two things it just kind of seems irreconcilable and.
00:08:00
Speaker
the more that I've worked both in poetry and ecology, I see how they really feel like the same thing to me. They they come closer and closer the farther we move forward. And I think that's because it's it's more clear to me as i've studied as I've gone on to study and practice ecology more that you know It's not like we're waiting for 2% more GDP growth or one big crazy invention to solve environmental problems. It's really going to come down to our relationships to the planet, and that means to each other and to ourselves. And that's a space where i poetry gives a lot of freedom to reimagine how those pieces fit together.
00:08:43
Speaker
And so it wasn't really, I started to feel like, oh i yes, I'm a poet, when I saw how that was my entry to respond to these huge environmental issues that I didn't really have the language to sort of wrap around before, and but I see how that's my that's my role in it. Like if I can bring new ideas to the conversation, if I can um help help humans imagine different futures, because we have to imagine them before we can reach for them, right? like we have to have the ideas. And so if I can be part of that generative engine, then ah um it's clear to me where I fit into these you huge, really complex issues. And that's when I started like, oh yeah, i'll I'll tell people I'm a poet. I'll introduce myself as a poet. And now I feel less shy ah doing that. But it wasn't for most of my life that was the case. No. Wow. It's ah
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah, now now you introduce yourself that way. And I think like for me, just talking about poetry specifically, just to you know I studied ah some time ago as an undergraduate you know English literature at the University of Rhode Island and just adored writing and in in reading and and and did it just ah Just a lot of it in and had some traditional non traditional introductions to poetry which helps my mind and you know life goes on and there are these times for me intellectually where i go into different areas but doing the podcast it's been really.
00:10:18
Speaker
indicative to myself. like The first 10 episodes, I think I had three poets in the first 10 episodes I did you know when I first started. and it just seemed There's these signals to me that I was i was like reconnecting strongly like to the power of ah of of poetry. And just seeing it as such an effective and unique way of communicating and saying things that I'm sensitive to and being like,
00:10:46
Speaker
I know what that person like I know some of that soul of what they're saying and that immediacy that I feel in your response is like the live. You know being live on stage that kinetic energy.
00:11:01
Speaker
um That's where I think the organizing is and in the in the thinking is. I got a question and and feel free to riff off anything I was saying right there, but I got a question about, I'm always interested in people who do things spontaneously or stand up or the live mic or step into that space, poets, spoken word.
The Impact of Live Poetry Performances
00:11:24
Speaker
Um, I haven't done it formally ever like i've done other things artistically and I always Like to look in and see what that's like and what that experience is is like for you that immediacy of it uh scary thrilling Uh, I heard you say it was a journey for you to get to we could do that What what what is that live piece for you as a artist performer?
00:11:53
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely absolutely. That's a great question. a Like I said, I started out being very self-conscious about it and very much of it was just my own intellectual experience of, oh, what's going to happen? um But the more that I really sink into it, it becomes so much less about the words and much more about the presence I'm carrying and I'm giving other people. and I sort of visualize it as like speaking or even writing a poem is kind of like sculpting a vessel like almost like forming a bowl out of clay and you're handing someone your truth and
00:12:27
Speaker
that is it's so different than telling someone what to believe. It's not like, oh, you should think this. It's like, yeah this is what happened to me. and yeah It seems such an essential part of but what is so needed in this world. when we you know and Especially in America, we have a lot of difficulty connecting the people that have different beliefs than us. um but it's But a poem is not an argument. right It's not like trying to engage you in that way. It's just a testament of like I am feeling this in the air and moving it towards the audience and it's not a debate and I think.
00:13:04
Speaker
I think when art really invites us to be changed and when we come into an open micspace or even into an art gallery or you know another setting, um yeah any performance, and if we really are going into that space with an openness to receive something and be changed, it really unlocks us. And I kind of imagine it when I'm you know when i'm performing and a reading that we're almost ah reverting to some sort of primordial soup. But we're almost like elemental again, right? We're like, we can get curious what would happen if I connected this idea with this idea or this molecule or this molecule or this body with this body. And we're kind of reinventing the foundation that our beliefs rest on. We can reimagine our culture at a fundamental level. And so much seems free and up in the air.
00:13:58
Speaker
And that is very energizing to me, like to be able to get out of this stuckness where there's a lot of, in the environmental discourse, there's a lot of fatalism and like, oh, you know, humans are this way and so this is the outcome and there's a lot of problems. I'm just really getting fixated on this there. And performance is a way where I can fully acknowledge and embrace that, but not be stuck in it, that I can be moving through that. I can talk about pain or excitement or possibility and not um not just sink into it. And I think that is so so healing for me just in the performance itself, but also I think is what is really needed for our larger cultural evolution and feeling like into that it's really, it's exciting.
00:14:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's that's really great to hear. I think one of the things like ah sometimes and it's not necessarily like an envy thing. It's just I always look at on people can do particular things. And for me, it's that kind of like, um and I do it in spots, but really doing it and really that tightrope.
00:15:02
Speaker
ah kind of act of that live performance. And I think all the advances I've made to like speak publicly and to speak well publicly come from like a rudimentary or like overcoming so much where it was specifically the last thing I wanted to do on Earth for a few years in my teens and early twenties to be put in the spot to say things in front of others. And I'm like, anything else, Earth options, and and that and you know and I got through it in in different type of ways. So there's a particular enjoyment in thinking about it. I heard pieces of what you were saying in kind of like ah a journey and like the energy that you connect with that. Comfort in connecting with that energy. Stand-up comedy. I love stand-up comedy. i just I adore folks who can do that somehow like in that way. um and so I love that that energy again, the kinetic ah energy.
00:16:11
Speaker
um I was wondering, we'll get a couple more questions I'll ask after this, but I was wondering if you could chat about ah the moon and other fruits and ah about your about your writing and as it being formally collected you know as a book, being book lovers that we both are. Talk about your talk about
Compiling Poetry into Books
00:16:35
Speaker
your books. and in in your writing a bit and where where it shows up for you. Sure, yeah. The Moon and Other Fruits is the first book of poetry that I put together and it took many years. I think I didn't write them as a vision of being a book, but I often write instead of the way that some of my journaler might take a photo, but it kind of capture a moment and a place and a feeling or an experience of what's happening and preserve that.
00:17:04
Speaker
um And i find if i go back and read those i can kind of re inhabit that in some way that's been. helpful at different points in my life when I feel really disconnected. I'm like, oh, like I felt love very clearly in this moment. I felt this, and I can't really argue with my past self if that and makes sense. like yeah yeah and That's what I'm attesting to at that moment. yeah yeah and yeah the The Moon and Other Fruits, it took me many years of you know cobbling it together and sort of having a critical mass where it felt like right now it's a book, and then finding a publisher who was interested in you know taking on the project.
00:17:36
Speaker
my My tree book, ah the Trees or Bridges of the Sky, came kind of more quickly, more suddenly because um I had been studying at the University for Peace in Costa Rica, or studying sort of the intersection of environment and and culture and peace broadly. And I had produced this thesis at the end that What sort of a synthesis of the ideas i've been working on there but it was a big. You know dance academic text that people were kind of thrown off by me and the there the general public who like we're interested in the ideas maybe but didn't want to read that and so i. Check all that research and those ideas that i've been thinking on and turn it into a book that was more um hopefully.
00:18:19
Speaker
digestible or approachable for a wider audience. And so that, that one kind of came together more suddenly and, you know, almost magically. um And so now suddenly, here I am with two books when I went from not very much, you know, not that long ago. So it's, it's been a great, like foot in the door, because then you can say like, Oh, hey, I have this book that I want to read and sort of a seed that you can then plant
Books as Gateways to Reality
00:18:42
Speaker
as an event. so It's always a thing to have ah to have a book out, a piece of art and point for creators and artists. It's cool, and that's part of ah that's part of what I like connecting, being able to connect with you you know and in in and find out what's going on, seeing it on a bookshelf. It's a it's out in the wild. you know I do it in my show. It's an indie podcast, right so they get your stuff out there.
00:19:09
Speaker
You know, I like that vibe in being in Oregon and being near ah Portland, Oregon, primarily, there's such a, and they've been around so much art. So there's an environment for me, at least what I bounce around with that it's like,
00:19:26
Speaker
I'm bumping the tar everywhere. and it's ah it's It's a cool vibe and it's good to connect with you. All right, let me hit you with one of the ah ah philosophy questions, Formo. What is art? We've been talking about art creativity. What is what is art?
00:19:44
Speaker
so
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I talked about it a little bit. but um
00:19:52
Speaker
I really think it comes down to art is, in for me, art is an invitation to be changed. Or poetry specifically feels like language transcending itself. Like if I just wanted to tell you something, then I wouldn't need to write a poem about it. And I can just intentionally write down something I want to say, but the poem feels more ephemeral, like you kind of have to let it visit you. And so it's something that maybe we are open to, like art is something we,
00:20:19
Speaker
um open ourselves to rather than something that we can force or go catch. yeah I like it. um the
00:20:34
Speaker
You've given an answer to this and and what you said before, I ask and follow up ah the role of art or maybe the um the energy or the activism, not to put it before you, know four you ago but what what is the role of art?
Language, Metaphors, and Environmental Issues
00:20:50
Speaker
Yeah, this is something that I actually talk a lot about in my book, Trees and Bridges to the Sky, and sort of how I fit my own role as an ecologist into this art space. I think that we don't give enough credit for the power of language in our world. Like so much of the world is just human ideas. Like whether it's a war or borders or economies, like these things have real physical consequences of people that are caught inside them, but ultimately they're made of ideas and our agreement on what is true or what is normal. And I think recognizing that is a huge doorway into
00:21:27
Speaker
How much really is up in the air that we can change and specifically specifically like an example of that I talk about in my tree book. The metaphors we use to place humans in relationship to the earth ah industrial culture. I hear a lot, especially an academic writing that describes humans as parasites.
00:21:46
Speaker
on the planet. They're sort of, you know, sucking the life energy of the planet. And i I see where that comes from because there's a lot of real harm that we're doing and I don't discount that at all. But I also see how it leads us towards shame and scarcity.
00:22:01
Speaker
And i think it's the best response to that is like oh we should be more conservative or more restraints but like i think it's the worst it often takes us to. Overpopulation is too many people in texas to eugenics or two like just frantically trying to reduce ourselves until.
00:22:20
Speaker
We are nothing, which at best will slow down how long the earth has to live, you know, sort of palliative care. and And that's fundamentally different than imagining, like, what if humans are fruit? like What if we can put that language into the conversation?
00:22:34
Speaker
and The big difference to me is that you know fruit is still utterly dependent on the tree that it hangs from. like We're still utterly dependent on the earth, but we are the earth. And so it no longer makes sense to put ourselves in opposition to the earth. right like We're no longer attacking the earth. like We are the earth that we are trying to save. And that unlocks so much compassion and ability to see deeper motivations. like I feel like when I
00:23:06
Speaker
was studying environmental science in undergrad. The explanation I was given was that humans are just greedy until we destroy the planet, and that's just sort of a consequence of our nature. and that's yeah We throw our hands up. and But the more that I've sat with that and questioned that language and even my own like introspection through meditation that I've done throughout my life. I see how when I desire something or when I have some impulse of greed, what's underneath that is always like a fear of future scarcity or I'm not going to belong if I don't have this thing or I'm not going to be enough or there's all these underneath ne things and when we can
00:23:43
Speaker
go there, then we can meet each other at a much more human level that can really address these fundamental causes of war and pollution and all this sort of surface level things that we're fighting. And that ultimately is just a matter of language, right? Like it's something that we're moving through depending on how we talk about it. And um that that feels so much more hopeful than just getting stuck. And well, humans are this way or this way. And I absolutely think it's that the role of art to bring a looseness or or breaking those ideas open and having people really examine them and showing how much um how much we really do have influence over when there's so much you despair in our culture that gets stuck there.
00:24:32
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, it's it's tough to follow, but you had to say there. I was listening so and so so intently, but um ah thanks for your comments, like going you know kind of going through it and kind of the results of our actions.
00:24:48
Speaker
and um I think there was something you said about, we I think it was a ah radical shift of like of the fruit and thinking about in in a different way, fundamentally, in the language that you're trying to use, being like, look, if we're if we have it framed, at least in my head, if we have it framed in the wrong way, like It's always going to feel wrong and always feeling wrong has to be adjusted like somehow.
00:25:16
Speaker
and um i've ah I've engaged in meditation influenced by um um ah Tibetan, Shambhala, American kind of tradition or North American tradition, um and many other different techniques. And I love that you brought that up in just kind of everything that we're talking about. And, um you know, it might be put in terms of mindfulness and some of the discoveries are like, for me, I'd say like hungry mind, where like scarcity or like a negative mindset,
00:25:56
Speaker
And just speaking right to that, I want to mention one random thing, but I think it's on topic. ah One of my favorite podcasts is called Rooted Pod. And it's done by M. Grebner Gads. And I've listened to every episode. They're short 10 to 15 minute like loving episodes um about plants. And it's, they're delightful.
00:26:25
Speaker
And I listen to every episode and I was on one of her episodes and we talked about sunflowers and why they were particularly important to me. So in doing this show at times, I've been able to drop in some really cool, which feels like deep ecology or like fun areas.
00:26:43
Speaker
Heck, I did a like two and a half hour episode on Swamp Thing, which connects a lot of these things in my head like of ecology and like pollution being like my comic book brain.
00:26:56
Speaker
um So it's it's it's really it's it's really good to chat about this in really ah a wide ranging way. And in your writing too, the pieces I read not ah sequentially through the volumes, but some that were available online.
00:27:16
Speaker
um I likened it in my head to a guest I've had on the show, ah Craig Randall. who the way that words were used and crafted but just led to like a different change in my thinking like that was going on when I was reading your work and it was so it felt ah deep deeper than my common understanding of you know my my my knowledge of ecology and what's going on with climate change. So I found my consciousness changed with it. And so that's you know why we're chatting. No thanks so much. like Honestly, it's funny, but it's still surprising when people say, like oh, wow, I also feel the way I resonated with that. it's almost I almost forget that that could be an outcome. yeah like In some ways, we write so that we can connect and reach out and like join the conversation, but it's still almost
00:28:12
Speaker
you know Startling because there' um it's it's good to know that like there's other people out there that also feel that vibration. and then When you put words out there, it becomes, again, not about the words. but um the idea that you're trying to communicate to them. Well, it's something that to celebrate and I think there's such a scare around it where we think about the role of librarians being cut in our culture, and like warriors a lot of times for access to books, access to different ah thought, not banning thought, and be involved like in that where you see it's so like deeply important. For me, it's still a book. When you're a book lover or the bookstore that we talk about, it's like,
00:28:54
Speaker
find in a local zine in me. I'm like, wow, that weird tangent. I didn't know I was looking for it. It just found it. And it, you know, it vibes with me. So I still believe in the, I believe in the power of the book. And like whatever door calls to you, like I see those books as just another entry place that, you know, if art is a path of exploring what's true, deeper and deeper and deeper, you can come at that from music or from, you know, bad mitten or from,
00:29:23
Speaker
Ultra marathon running or whatever it is and if that's you know folks be word for like studying sunflowers I think it almost doesn't matter where you begin it's really the engagement of trying to get to the heart of reality that um We all share and you know, we need more books. because We just need more doorways everywhere Yeah, ah listeners chat with Frederick Livingston, you know, a lot of different words, artist, poet, ah writer, activist. ah So I like, like I said, being able to chat about these topics and in in really range around. I wanted to ask you the big question.
Existential Questions and the Quest for Meaning
00:30:03
Speaker
uh the why is there something rather than nothing uh question so why why is there something rather than nothing yeah and i i appreciate this question. a When i was saying about you know how to respond to this the more i say whether the more i really feel like the question feels like enough to me.
00:30:27
Speaker
And I can kind of try to unpack what I mean by that. But like there, there have been times in my life, you know, when I was talking about when I was an undergrad studying environmental science and I so much despair visited me and it's like so hard to connect with an answer to that question. Like, why are we here? Why am I specifically here? Why is life here? Like what, what is the reason to, you know, open my lungs and receive air or this next heartbeat and feeling so absent from that intellectually, but still in my body did, you know, the heart did beat, my lungs did fill with air. And, you know, all the cells in my body continue to, you know, move around just the right way that facilitates the process of my life. And
00:31:12
Speaker
I think it's easy to dismiss that as just a bunch of you know meat bumping into itself, just a bunch of like bumbling mechanics, but that doesn't really feel very satisfying to me. and The more that I think about it, the more I think really it's the question that is animating us.
00:31:30
Speaker
right like it's My heart is beating not because a certain number of heartbeats will occur until my destiny of being on this podcast with you or becoming a poet or becoming some end point, some answer. I think our culture does focus a lot on answers and that I guess when you die, then you have an answer what your life was about. You can look back and you can tell a story and there's a period at the end of the sentence, but that's not really what life, life is a process or a happening and unfurling. I really see that so much when I think about you know when life was just strands of DNA and some that somewhere four billion years ago and you know things have turned into toucans and you know tropical rainforests and narwhals and all these beautiful expressions and none of them really feel like an answer to me. They'd all feel like questions like, what if this could happen? like What if I had these wings? What if I had these flippers? What if you know
00:32:25
Speaker
What if I tried poetry? What if I, you know, went in this direction? And that feels so much broader and so much more alive or much aligned with what life is or how I experience life. And so ah it really feels less like an invasion of the question to me the more I think about it, but like really that is it for me. Like it is, we are trying to explore that through every moment, through the way that we live, through the way that we um show up in the world. And that,
00:32:56
Speaker
that feels like enough of a reason for my heart to be because it's wondering like, Oh, what is the next book could happen is next heartbeat. And that's enough to pull it forward into the future. And um I guess that's what really like feels true for me. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know right after you say all that assembly. Yeah, I dig that.
00:33:18
Speaker
Uh, no, thank you for you know, I think what's funny about the question like I talk about the question a bit is like, you know as important as it's supposed to be it's also like Clumsily pose when you pose it because folks say like it isn't it isn't that or like Put more in the forefront than nothing, you know show that there is something, you know, maybe from a non-duality eastern perspective that you know like there is nothing or you know like it preempts that type of argument so i still always think it's big of a question and how it's supposed to be the big one i also thinks it's always like clumsy and i like the clumsiness yeah yeah there's really value in asking it though like it's still like we have to ask them that so we can move through the question and try to explore and walk around inside of it and see what we can discover there and so i think there's
00:34:11
Speaker
Absolutely value in just opening up more you more doors. Yeah. ah Frederick, tell us about, um just in general, about ways um ah but ways to find your writing.
00:34:27
Speaker
um any sort of live performances, you know, the creative things that that you do. We're chatting here ah late August, 2024, but, ah you know, in the near future, like what you have some things going on, readings or where to find the book, you know, that big old net of a question there.
00:34:50
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. The great way to start is to go to your local bookstore and ask them to stock the book or even your library. You can ask them to carry it, um either the moon and other fruits or trees or ridges of the sky. It's also available online, kind of anywhere and where you can get books. There's a bunch of bookstores in the Pacific Northwest that carry the book on their shelves, but if you're not there, you can still get it anywhere else.
00:35:14
Speaker
um If you want to find me, a good place to go is just my name, fredericklivingston.com is my website. I have links to my books and other publications and other info about me. I try to, you know because getting a book you're told you're supposed to do some promotion and you know have social media and all that. yeah I got an Instagram, I was an early internet pioneer. I got an Instagram account last year. There you go.
00:35:42
Speaker
yeah so the Frederick Poet Tree, it's all one word. And you can follow me there. And I try to post when I have events, like tomorrow, for example, I'm doing a reading at the, in Corralis, there's a sustainability coalition does a edible garden tour and they wanted to bring um arts into that and like discuss the role of arts in sustainability. And so I'll be like resident poet, one of the gardens will be reading in the garden.
00:36:09
Speaker
if you happen to be in Corrales tomorrow. Who knows? Other events will be posted probably on my Instagram or my Facebook. And then I try to keep up because there's definitely a bunch in the fall. I'm going to do a reading sort of workshop conversation in the Manzanita on the coast and some more in Corrales. And there's a few more that I've been kind of planting seeds.
00:36:33
Speaker
and Edit a bunch, you know in the summer and spring when my tree book came out to kind of get some momentum for that But there's still definitely things people can look out for if they want to get in touch great now ah really enjoy it and um uh listeners um be sharing this in the show notes and uh yeah i mean uh i'm on you know with the instagram the show is on instagram pretty active there has an audience there and you know uh there's a vortex not to get sucked into i think regarding any of these areas at least for me uh social media wise but has a presence there and it's uh i think i'd like ah like to have fun with it and to be thinking about things but
00:37:19
Speaker
um it's It's been really super to connect with you. And in just thinking about the scope of the conversation, I really appreciate yeah ah chattting about ah you all these topics. And I could definitely see in hearing this conversation for myself as helping to create it with you, being like, wow, I had three questions over there as well. So a follow-up conversation would probably be like,
00:37:48
Speaker
ah super and kicking around the ah the philosophy. and dumb ah wanted to If you didn't mind, even though it's a it's it's a little bit dropping here at the end, I wanted to read something that I had read as far as one ah just a sentence or two of a bio you had written ah that I thought was just a really ah wonderful. So I just wanted to read that now if I could.
00:38:18
Speaker
Frederick Livingston lives in the liminal space between experiential education, sustainable agriculture, and peach building. His work has appeared in numerous literary and scientific journals, public parks, and bathroom stalls. I just love that line and I just wanted to read that It's from a video. And I just thought it kind of introduces or like ends or tries to sum up the range of the type of conversation, you know, on this show and are really, yeah really happy to kick it with you about these topics and, you know, look forward to try to connect even ah personally and locally and otherwise. And folks, listeners, check out Frederick Livingston in the ways we'll have in show notes and Ben.
00:39:06
Speaker
Great to connect with you and chat about the big topics that the listeners and myself enjoy. So thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm glad that you liked that part of the bio. My grad school had a call for poems that they were going to put in the bathrooms in school. Yeah. And so I entered my poems into the competition. That's nice.
00:39:30
Speaker
It's been so great to be able to connect with you and I appreciate the the chance to engage with these questions because it helps me kind of think through like what do I really believe and what is deeper in there and kind of dredging more out of me and um I appreciate the chance to walk around and articulate that. with you in the bathroom stalls too for myself. I would say half of the yeah half of the stickers for the podcast that you'll find out in the Wild Art Podcast are over there in the bathroom stalls and otherwise around Portland just trying to get those all the way around the world.
00:40:05
Speaker
got people were there You at. Hey, where are they gonna congregate? i'm not a I'm not a scientist like you are, but I do know that where people might end up congregating, so a great chat with you, Frederick, and hope to chat with you again soon.
00:40:22
Speaker
yeah
00:40:27
Speaker
This is something rather than nothing.
00:40:39
Speaker
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00:41:00
Speaker
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Speaker
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