Transcript
Speaker: You know that thing you love that your friends and family don't want to hear about anymore? Tell it to us, Patty and Charlotte. We want to learn all about your weird and wild obsessions or your perfectly normal hobbies that you've taken just a little too far.
Speaker: We want to dabble in your curious interests. Can we interest you in today's episode?
Speaker: Hello, Charlotte. Hello, Patti. i'm so happy to see you for our Just the Two of Us episode follow-up. What's been interesting you recently?
Speaker: What has been interesting me recently? I went, I was in Chicago last week for work. And while there, I went to a couple of things that were fun.
Speaker: But one of them was i went to a yoga class with my friend Laura. And it's a local yoga studio, Wild Light, in the Portage Park, Old Irving neighborhood.
Speaker: ah the owner, Kelly, I had met when Laura and Kelly came here to see a camp show in St. Louis, and she's delightful. And she does a lot of really cool things that are beyond yoga, because I'm not really a yogi. I have nothing against it, but I'm just never got into it.
Speaker: I was having like a crisis moment one morning, saw a spider web, which always reminds me of Laura because she loves spiders and spider webs. And then that day i get an email from Wild Light Studios about a Reiki training that they're doing. And so i signed up for it. So i am going to be doing like an all-day Reiki training and it's Reiki 1. So it's kind of just getting your body in tune with it, learning what Reiki is, being able to do it for yourself. Yeah. And it's from like nine to six um with this person, Olga, who does Reiki healing and and training at the studio. So it was really cool to then, after having signed up for that, be in the studio and in the space, which I had done once before.
Speaker: like a New Year's Eve sound bath there. So that's how I got on their mailing list. And man, I got to tell you, I love a mailing list. I i really do. i find out so many cool things. So yeah, I signed up for that. And I just feel like it's part of the pieces that I'm trying to put together and figuring out like what I want to do next with my with my life and like getting to a better place emotionally, physically, mentally.
Speaker: yeah. Oh, my God. That's what's been interesting me. i would never have guessed that. i I have always wondered about Reiki. I've never had it done. I've never, you know – just I don't really know that much about it. So so have you had it done? and then now you Okay, so you've never had it done. You're going to learn how to kind of do it on yourself and start to learn how to do it on others?
Speaker: I think there's like a Reiki too where you can start to learn how to do it on others and maybe even start like a business. But I've heard amazing things about Reiki. I had looked into – years ago doing massage therapy because I do feel very like I don't know. My mom, my parents would always be like, you such a healing touch and like whatever. I just feel very called to that, but I don't like touching people. And so I was like, would it be weird, do you think, if I like came in with latex gloves to massages? And then also like we have a very good family friend who was a masseuse and she's amazing, but it was, you know, she would talk about how hard it was on her body and the longevity of it. And also how hard it is to make a living. So all that being said, do know about Reiki and just how powerful it is. And people have even said that they do it remote. I've heard that, yeah. Yeah. So I don't necessarily see this as my career move.
Speaker: Though who knows? I'm not putting it out of the realm of possibility. But just more so ah a possible tool to use in kind of internal discovery.
Speaker: I have heard that like for career kinds of changes or or think big things like that, that it's it's helpful to think of it as going towards your interests or your curiosity versus some sort of like specific outcome or some sort of like deciding on your end goal.
Speaker: Yeah. Look at that interest. I know. Because we did change up the question. We changed it up to to fit our our theme.
Speaker: Yeah. It's a focus on it because that's really, yeah, what what got us going in the first place. So then I'll turn it around back to you. What's been interesting you recently? Well, recently, Adam and I went to the Pacific Northwest area where there was a family wedding on his side. And then i have friends in on Vancouver Island and then also a friend in Tacoma. So we did a lot of driving around, a lot of going around, spent some time in Seattle, some time across the the Puget Sound in in Washington and Vancouver Island, kind of all over, so a lot of driving. But it was while there was this really bad heat wave here in Colorado and out there, they had just finished with a heat wave, and so it was in the 70s the whole time.
Speaker: and oh my God. that's amazing weather for trip. know. I know. And the ocean is everywhere. and long story short, i of course, was zillowing places that I want to live. and And there, I mean, the place where the hotel was like for the wedding was this little town called Paulsbo. And we were walking around and I was saying,
Speaker: Like this place is giving Cabot Cove ah with less murder. as far as you know. Well, and then as soon as I said that, this was like in the evening, this I don't know, some sort of a ye olde sports car thing.
Speaker: pulled up and just like slammed on the brakes and these two dudes came out and like kind of harassed this guy who was with his partner and kid and like a baby stroller. and I was like, oh no, did i manifest this like murder? She wrote S situation. Like they were harassing him as if they knew him. It was really kind of scary and weird. Nothing happened as far as we know.
Speaker: But was like, maybe it is Cabot Cove. Yeah.
Speaker: So moving out there is interesting me and also stationary, Japanese stationary. But that's a whole other thing. That's just ah when I lie in bed at night and try to go to sleep. I look up stationary and pens and pen cases. and Really? Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. Okay, wait. Can you please explain to me what is Japanese – well, before we go to Japanese stationary – Your friends who live on Vancouver Island, like that always – all of those islands around there seem so idyllic and so magical.
Speaker: Do they – how do they – do they like have to commute for their jobs? Do they – how do they do it? How do they make island life possible? Yeah.
Speaker: They had been living in Vancouver, but it it was just, I think it was getting to be like, just, they needed a break essentially. um And a break from city life. And it's just a, I think a burnout situation too. And so they moved out there where My friend, she her family has a cabin at a lake there. And then they bought a house that's over kind of by the ocean. So it's it's pretty sweet. It's like, okay, we're near the ocean for our home. And then we go to the lake for our vacation.
Speaker: But it is kind of a more rural area. So I think that's part of... how it's it's possible, but it's also very, very different and just a new set of challenges. Because they have kids too. So like the kids going to school in a totally different kind of setting.
Speaker: But it's it's it was really beautiful. it was like coming from Colorado and then going out there. Everything's green. Everything's blooming.
Speaker: It's beautiful. just completely different. The trees are like a million feet tall. Yeah. Oh my god. Yeah. It's amazing. I remember the first time – so I've only been to Vancouver itself once in Canada, right? I mean, are there two parts of Vancouver? Like does Vancouver exist in Washington too?
Speaker: Okay. So went to Vancouver in Canada um on a family trip and I think I was like in my teens and i was a vegetarian at the time – They actually had vegetarian things on all menus at all restaurants, which was still very new. Like even in Chicago, places would be like, I don't know. You can have some lettuce or like just take off the meat of your burger. You know, it was very whatever. Fries,
Speaker: yeah Yes, yes. Have a side of fries. Yeah. they were so They already had so many places that had recycling everywhere. They had places where you could refill your water bottles, which was still new to even have reusable water bottles as like a mainstay. And the trees were so big that I have pictures of my 16-year-old self or whatever inside of a tree, like just hanging out. It was big enough, like the base of it was big enough for me to fit in it. And it wasn't even like a hollowed out dead tree. It was still alive with that much space for somebody to just hang out.
Speaker: And then there were also these humongous plants that had leaves that were so huge and they looked like cabbage. And so we were pretending that we were cabbage patched kids. And so we'd sit in them and then just have like, you know, the huge cabbage leaf around our head. And it was still like disproportionate because we were too small for how big they were. It was just...
Speaker: unreal it was unreal it's amazing and this is completely unrelated to the foliage or the greenery but one of the most exciting things that happened there was for like two years or more since i went to a halloween party at one point and had a bush light apple flavored, their seasonal bush light. have been looking for it and they had it in, they had it there. my and um And apparently it's, it's all around the, the, uh, North, the Pacific Northwest. Uh, I had just, I don't know. I had been like talking about it and then I looked down and then i was like, Oh my God.
Speaker: Yeah. This is the You are really manifesting. I'm manifesting. Yeah. Maybe the wrong things, but. It's, you know, you're just trying out your powers. You didn't know you had them. Yeah. So. For me, that was the right thing at the right time. Yes. Wait, so they have it year round. It's not just.
Speaker: That, yeah. Well, even here I couldn't find it seasonally. So it might just be that it's in certain areas more than others. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, too bad you flew because then you couldn't like bring them back with you. yeah And we did bring like three into Canada – out of Canada because they apparently – – First of all, they they do have them in Washington, I later learned. so But second of all, they limit how much liquor you can bring out of Canada and into the U.S. But apparently beer, they're like, whatever. They don't care. That doesn't count. That's not liquor. And especially Bush Light Apple, go for it. We're not worried about that taking off. Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, man, how fun. And it's fun when there still are things that are regional like that. Like I remember the first time I had Mr. Pibb was when we were in the mountains in West Virginia as a kid. And it was like at the cabin commissary where we were staying. And I i tried it and I was like, this is amazing. But then when it came to Chicago, I was like, wow, but it's never as good. You know, there's it's just fun that there are certain things that are you can only get regionally.
Speaker: Yeah, just harder to find and make some special. Yeah, if Bushlight Apple was everywhere, I'd be like, this is just apple juice and beer mixed together because it really is what it is. But since I haven't been able to find it for so long, I was like, oh, this is the promised land.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Mainly because I made fun of it a lot before I drank one. Before when I first saw it, I was just making fun of it. And then I had it. I was like, oh I was wrong.
Speaker: um Okay, so now what is Japanese stationery? It's just stationery that's from Japan. Oh, okay. They just are really into stationery and they do a good job with it. and they Like the type of paper it is? or it's like It's like paper. I'm thinking it also pens, erasers. um but They're also into planners and like paper.
Speaker: Just all sorts of cute little things like washi tape that um people who know what to do with that would use.
Speaker: So I've been looking at like gel pens because I didn't know there was a difference between that and ballpoint pens. What? Where were you in the late 90s? I don't know. I think I must have thought, well, they both come from a ball point, right? Don't they?
Speaker: No. no No. What have I been using? What's this? This has gel and a ballpoint. Well, then maybe that's – I don't know. i don't know what that is. But there were like – I remember the gel pens that came out where the ink was had sparkles in it. So it was like iridescent colored, you know, to everything. And it was like metallic pinks. Yeah, that exists.
Speaker: ah Yeah. Yeah. So that exists. People are into – fountain pens that's a hobby yeah and have you ever done calligraphy or any of those types of skills not really i I think probably in Chinese school when I went to Chinese school when I was in middle school and high school think we learned a little bit of the brush painting okay yeah calligraphy but other than that not not much have you but i i could imagine doing like chinese characters writing in chinese in in a fountain pen would be just m lovely i guess so i've never known how to use a fountain pen i can't
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: beginner fountain pens and like how to beginners i was like oh good it's not something that you just pick up you there are beginners yeah Right. Like I think my grandma had one and I would try to use it and it's like every once in a while you'd get it at the right angle and it'd be like, oh, it's working. But then you'd like try to turn it to keep, you know, like to get it again as you're writing the rest of your letters. And it's like, no, I don't I don't know. It's very hit or miss.
Speaker: yeah Well, for now, you're just enjoying looking at the things, which is really part of joy. Yeah. joy look I look at the things, I put them in the shopping cart, and then i move on with my day and I don't buy them.
Speaker: And that's how I get my dopamine. There you go. Good job. My daily dose. Part of my daily dose.
Speaker: We all have some big doses these days. So today we're doing the follow-up to our interview with Tyler Hurula, who is senior editor with South Broadway Press, which is a press that's based out of Denver um that publishes poetry.
Speaker: And specifically, recorded some revolutionary poetry. And so The homework assignment that Tyler gave us was to look at and read the poems that South Broadway Press nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Speaker: And yeah Patty's going to tell us a little bit about that, what that prize is. So the Pushcart Prize is the best of the Small Presses series. It's published every year since 1976. So this will be their 50th, big one. um It's the most honored literary project in America, including highest honors from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Speaker: Since 1976, hundreds of presses and thousands of writers of short stories, poetry, and essays have been represented in annual collections. Each year, most of the writers and many of the presses are new to the series.
Speaker: Every volume contains an index of past selections plus lists of outstanding presses with addresses. So that's pretty nice that it's been going on for so long and that it kind of compiles everybody's nominations all in one place.
Speaker: Well, I think it would be a great way to find new poetry, new presses and journals to read. Yes, I so agree.
Speaker: and so South Broadway Press had six nominees this year. And so we'll be going through those, both the poets themselves, as well as some information about the the poems that were submitted and nominated.
Speaker: Yeah, we thought we would say just a little bit. i mean, you can go to the site and read them yourselves. In fact, and you sure we recommend it. Yeah, but we will at least tell you what the poems are and then give like a little snippet or something that resonated with us. So first poem they have listed here, we'll go in the order they have listed, is Because Every Girl Has a Pomegranate Poem in Her by Monica Fugley.
Speaker: And I'm sorry if I'm pronouncing that incorrectly. Sounded good. I also really love that they have corresponding artwork with each of these. Yeah. Yeah. That's really fun.
Speaker: And the artwork is really beautiful. If you take a look, it I think it really just added a lot to to each one in the presentation. It's just, it's gorgeous. So in this poem...
Speaker: I loved it's this is towards the beginning, but um I loved the line, how the French call them grenades. And that's talking about pomegranates. And had never known that or thought about it. And I just kept thinking about it. And then that because it's towards the beginning, And then it's followed by the lines, they're brilliant speckled red, these tiny bombs. It makes them just something like more potent than fruit, you know, even though fruit can be quite potent and Yeah.
Speaker: Absolutely. And even how she's like, I drag the knife lightly along the skin and you're like, Ooh, this is like murder. Or it was very evocative of how to think about just preparing a pomegranate, which is incredibly hard to do. Although Martha Stewart has a great trick. So of course she does on how to get all the seeds out with ah just a wooden spoon.
Speaker: But thinking of fruit and all that it symbolizes was really just beautiful. Yeah, I would agree. And so definitely take a look at that one because we could go into so much more detail, but I don't i don't think that we will be able to. yeah Okay, and then the next one is One Foot in the New Year by Leo Rose Rodriguez.
Speaker: And a line that resonated with me from this one, i travel the earth with one foot on each side of gender, a border as imaginary and dangerous as any nation's boundary, no secure footing in either.
Speaker: this one, i i really enjoyed how there's the use of boundaries and borders in a lot of different ways.
Speaker: One foot in one thing and one foot... in another. And then just as a kind of a side note, the title is One Foot in the New Year. And then there's a sort of a sub heading that's for Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish New Year.
Speaker: It put everything into context for me. because i I didn't really know a lot about Rosh Hashanah. And so i i looked it up. And there's also a reference to aidid which is an ah Islamic holiday. And so then that also gives the poem like a different kind of depth and meaning.
Speaker: Yeah. And that they make reference to their name as well. i don't have time to explain to the cab driver why my face and name are at war. when I state myself who hears how carefully I've chosen and it's Leo Rose and I'm like, Oh man.
Speaker: Yeah. The how carefully I've chosen part that I was thinking about that for a while. Like, yeah, cause there is, that's like an actual specific choice that's made.
Speaker: in part kind of like in a, in a world that where you're like sometimes made to choose. Yep. All right. The third poem is Geranium by Aspen Everett.
Speaker: One of the lines is, A few of the lines. Your geraniums are malnourished, monotone gray. Where is the wild thing you once knew?
Speaker: Was domestic chosen for you? But actually, this is the poem that I was thinking of when we were talking about the weather, because one of the lines even before that is, the gray tone of your voice contemplates weather as if that there is as if that were the only geranium your throat could grow. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. which I take to mean we're always talking about the weather. But you know what? The weather is always there, and it's it's all messed up right now. Yeah, yeah. Nevertheless.
Speaker: Yeah. I thought this one was lovely, and it made me think of how Tyler said they're not a nature poet because this is all about nature, you know, like a little antelope and a chrysanthemum, which – Two of the poems mentioned chrysanthemum, which I thought was very interesting. One from Aspen, this one, and then one from a poet that we'll hear from in just a minute. But yeah, so much, so much about nature and the birds and the animals and the flowers and...
Speaker: ah Yeah, I was thinking about what Tyler said, too, because with this one, at one point it said, yeah, the um remember the buildings will fall. Do not let them take you when they topple. And in my head, I was like, what will Tyler write poems about when the buildings topple and there's just nature left?
Speaker: Feelings. There are always feelings. That's true. That's true. There's the internal world nature. Yes. Yes. The next one is they say the rice won't grow without blood. And this is by Sreeja Naskar. And one of the things I just thought was amazing about this, so they give a bio at the bottom of each, which is really helpful and just lovely to kind of get to know them and see where else they are going to be or have been published. But Sreeja is a high school poet. Yeah, I saw that.
Speaker: And based in India. So it's really cool, like just how global these submissions were. And because I think, no, not Aspen, someone earlier was is also based in Minnesota. So it's just cool to see that people are from kind of all over, not just Colorado, even though South Broadway Press is based in Colorado.
Speaker: And this one really talked all about kind of ancestors and the hard work and what comes from it. And even with hard work, there still is no promise of freedom or a full belly. And before I read the bio, I was thinking like, oh, my gosh, this speaks to the natives of the United States. And this speaks to, you know, the enslaved and then freed people.
Speaker: um black people of the united states and then to read oh this is about her ancestors experience her grandparents in india it just really i was like this is such an unfortunately global story you know or like a story of the world that we that too many people in marginalized and oppressed communities can really relate to but beautifully written. And I also loved the use of the parentheses. I do parentheses all the time in my communications, overuse them for sure, but I i really liked it. Yeah. I wondered about the parentheses. There are, i do use them a lot too. And, and these are very, very intentional.
Speaker: And I think I'm still kind of figuring out like, some of the intentions of it. Yeah. But ah the yeah, this one was, was amazing. And I really loved um in her little bio at the end of the bio, it says she believes in the quiet power of language to unearth what lingers beneath silence, which is such a cool way to describe poetry in particular.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The next one is Scribe by T. Lydia McKinney. And this one, i was like, okay, it's cool. I like this. Definitely made me think of when Tyler said the way that you put the words on the page is part of a poem as well and part of that process that she really enjoys.
Speaker: So this is all about, well, it starts out talking about the pronoun we, And then uses we don't play that, we the people, you know, all repeating we in all of these different ways. And I liked it. And then when I read t Lydia McKinney's bio, a.k.a. The Prodigy Truth, then understanding that they're a poetry slam finalist in San Antonio as well as Houston in Texas,
Speaker: as well as an advocate, a performing artist, a social worker, i was like, oh, this is the type of piece that I would want to hear performed live or performed, you know? And I think that it would be even more powerful than reading it quietly in my head.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree. Although I think that they did a really good job of putting lots of like spaces in spots where you can really get a sense of what it would sound like. I really liked, i mean, I really, this might be, well, we shouldn't choose favorites. I really enjoyed this one. Um, yeah.
Speaker: I liked how surprising some of the lines were. Like you think you kind of know where it's going and then something like the next line kind of changes it up for you. And so it was just surprising the whole way through. And it made me look some things up like Jussie, i had forgotten.
Speaker: Yeah. I had forgotten about Jussie. Yeah. Yeah. So things like that were just kind of – cool to be looking into and being like oh yeah this like this has some depth that um you wouldn't necessarily know until you remember that whole incident with jesse so you you remember this i mean it was a chicago thing right where yeah he happened to be in chicago while they were filming was it empire
Speaker: Empire, thank you. And the debacle that was kind of the investigation into it and the back and forth and Kim Fox's involvement. And yeah, i I do remember and just like kind of how complicated it was and that it really ruined him and his career.
Speaker: Essentially, he... I think alleged and then was convicted of hiring two people to beat him up and then claiming that he was assaulted in a hate crime, essentially. Right. Yeah.
Speaker: And then a whole series of events that unfolded after that. Right. Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, that's kind of the, part of the background, i guess, that like gives context to this poem.
Speaker: Yeah. And that is interesting how you said, like you looked it up. There were a few things that I looked up throughout the poems. And I love that when, as we discussed with Tyler, your poets are so intentional with the words that they use because you use so few of them and you want it to really mean something. And so there were quite a few words that I had to look up and,
Speaker: was grateful to have looked it up and learned, you know, the meaning. And it doesn't take me out of it. It's more like, oh yeah, I see why you used that because it sounds so beautiful. And so to use a synonym that maybe would have been easier, you know, for the masses to understand wouldn't have sounded as good or, you know, um evoked such a feeling.
Speaker: Yeah, or might have had a slightly different meaning that wasn't quite right. Yeah.
Speaker: So the last one is a poet Wheeler Light. And the poem is I do not care if you are across the country. And the artwork with this one is really lovely. It's the image is Louis K. Harlow, but it's very much a prairie scene, you know, like a tree in the middle of a grassy area that's either dying or just in fall where it's lost all of its leaves and birds running, you know, flying away from it. But one of the things I really liked about this is so often it's the title and then the title is used again as the opening line of the poem, but he just goes right into it. He's like, I do. Okay. So the the title, I do not care if you are across the country.
Speaker: Or down the country or around the country. So it's like he just goes right into it. It's like that is my start and here I am. This being that he – when I read his bio and seeing that he is from – or at least he received his m MFA in creative writing from University of Virginia, i was like this feels very –
Speaker: mountain-like way of talking. like i And I don't know necessarily that it is, but it's a way of talking that is not familiar to me where it's just – but it but expresses so much.
Speaker: I do not care if you're my friend or my best friend or a collection of memories It just, it was both, it's, I don't know how to say this, but it's like such a cool way of putting into perspective kind of both basic ideas, but tearing them apart in a way that it's like, oh yeah, this is complicated, you know, distance and friendship and relationship. Yeah.
Speaker: And it felt like it was kind of talking about somebody that you miss either because they live far away or you no longer speak to them or they're dead. And yet having these memories can still allow you to be connected to them.
Speaker: So it was beautiful. Yeah. And also, i don't know if you felt this, but maybe it was just the fact that the word country is used so often. it it made me think a lot about our country and how divided it is.
Speaker: And i wonder if there's a part of it that's like speaking about that divide too. Oh, yeah. I hadn't thought of that, but that makes a ton of sense.
Speaker: Yeah. mean, there's all kinds of divides like that. You are a world away. I am a world away. When I stare into the middle of nowhere, you are there laughing at the joke. The laughter is kind of like the thing that that makes other things go away, other cares kind of go away.
Speaker: Yeah. Which I completely agree with. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, this is important. I'm going to keep bugging you until you acknowledge me because this is important. It's like totally not important, but it's, it's what matters. Right. It's like, yeah, it's the thing that brings us together.
Speaker: Yeah. Mm hmm. Those are the six nominees for the Pushcart Prize from South Broadway Press. And I enjoyed them.
Speaker: Yeah. We talked a little bit about what it was like reading them, um like looking things up. getting a sense more of the context and of the poets themselves and how it makes it like a richer experience. Yeah.
Speaker: I had started reading these books that are, there's, there's a couple of them and they're related to Poetry Unbound, which I believe is a podcast. And one of them,
Speaker: is called 50 Poems to Open Your World by Padraig Otuama. And then there's another one that is called, i believe, 44 Poems on Being with Each Other.
Speaker: And what I like about this is that he gives a little intro just like a little intro on a black page with white lettering about his, something that he's saying about the poem.
Speaker: Then there's the poem. And then he goes into more depth about the poem. And sometimes he talks about, his process of reading it and looking things up and what poems that it might be referring to or doing an homage to or yeah and so that is how I wish to read all poems is to have somebody explain them to me But in lieu of that, I kind of tried to do what he does, which is to to look up things in the poem and look at some of the things that he looks at. So I highly recommend these books and the podcast. Yeah, that's amazing because it's basically kind of helping you to learn how to read poetry.
Speaker: Yes, exactly. Otherwise, no idea, even though it did I've taken poetry classes, but still no idea. Well, and there's the whole like, do I like it or not? And then once I know more about anything, i usually gain more of an appreciation about it. So it it is also interesting to think about him as your guide, it's like, do you trust this person? And he might not know really what this person who wrote the poem meant by this or whatever, but it's, telling he's telling what he, based on his knowledge,
Speaker: sinks And then also how he felt or what it what it brought out for him in, oh, the reference to a deer means this or whatever. Yeah.
Speaker: He does a good job of, like, if he's not sure, i mean, he might say, like... okay, here are the questions that it brings up or here are some of the things that we might think about when we read these lines. But then sometimes he's listened to or read interviews with the poet and so he will know like what their intention was based on what they've said. So that's that's cool. But yeah, he does he does a good job of being like, here are the possibilities instead of like, here's what it is.
Speaker: Uh-huh. Oh, that's great. Yeah. I found that I did have to read through each of them at least twice. and I also had to be quiet, couldn't have anything else on and needed to just focus on it. Part of what kind of took me out and I could have addressed this was reading it on my phone. um Just, you know, there's even one that wasn't, I don't think it was nominated, but was submitted by that one of the poets that was. And they were like, you know, note from editor, we recommend that you read this on a desktop or at least in landscape, you know, things like that, that I thought was really useful. So I do think being on my phone, just, I don't know, poetry on a phone, it just felt not right. um
Speaker: But, but yeah, having to read it at least twice where it's like the first time through to just kind of get it in. And then the second time through to read it, hear it a little bit better, focus on some words, look up things that I had to go back over certain lines a couple of times. Cause sometimes they would just sound so good that I'd zip through it. And then I'd be like, wo wait, you know, what, what was said there? So it's, it's very, it's an active read or an yeah active reading.
Speaker: Definitely. Yeah. And I can only imagine how much work and time and effort in revising went into writing them. Because you're right, you know, you were talking about what Tyler was saying about the intention of every single word and space. Like there's one of the poems I'm trying to remember which one where the spaces are important but then there's also two spaces in the middle of one of the lines and you can just barely tell and that's intentional too yeah yeah those it's it's pretty it's pretty amazing how just a small number of words can evoke kind of a whole world whole mood
Speaker: So accessibility. I think that this made poetry feel more accessible to me. i was I had been starting to feel like it was more accessible with the poetry unbound. But then reading these poems, I think then that helped me to access these poems. So I almost wonder if i hadn't read those books, if I would know as much, like, it's okay to Google stuff while you're reading these. It's, you know, it's okay to, to like do these things or this is how you can look at it and try to you can look up the, the poet and try to understand more about that,
Speaker: you know, where they're coming from too, in order to understand the poem. So like all those things probably helped if I hadn't known to to try some of those things out, it might've felt less accessible.
Speaker: And now was the poetry unbound? Is that something that you came across during your poetry therapy courses? It was before that, I think. It was just at a bookstore and cool it looked it looked interesting.
Speaker: And might have been just as I was starting to get kind of interested in poetry, but it was it was just what I needed. and then speaking about the the poems themselves, they are just available on the website and that is awesome.
Speaker: So yeah they are very accessible in that sense. You don't have pay it's so cool to see them. So what did you think, Patty, about accessibility? incredibly accessible, like you said, in that you can get to it on their website. They have it available. um There is a lot of poetry out there that you can find being performed or or just on websites for free. So there's very little barrier to entry in that way. And then in terms of being able to appreciate it and understand it, those are kind of different. So I think you can appreciate it without fully understanding it and knowing that there are books, like you said, that can help you kind of learn how to go about understanding makes it even more accessible. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, and then the the choices of poems and poets who are included by South Broadway Press, I think is also accessible too.
Speaker: When I was an English major, I learning a lot of poetry by... ye olde white man from olden times a lot lot of the time. And so now it's it's much more like open up to people who straddle borders and boundaries and who have all kinds of identities and, and write about them and then make, make the, the poetry like more accessible to broad range of people.
Speaker: And then also talking about topics that are probably not as covered over the, the history of poetry that's in like the so-called canon of literature. Yeah. So exposing people to different experiences or thoughts or ways of being in the world.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. What's the likeliness of you integrating this into your... life which also let's mention you and your uncle wrote haiku isn't that poetry yeah yes entire year so yes we did we emailed haikus to each other for a year at least well one a day or if we missed a few days we'd catch up and send a few nice That was really fun. So i recommend for anybody who wants to stay in touch with somebody in a fun way.
Speaker: yeah i Likeliness of integration. So for a while, i had been like reading this, the book that I keep referencing, like the Poetry Unbound books, I would read like one a day in the morning. And yeah, it was so nice. And ah had this whole like morning routine I was trying out based on the book The Miracle Morning, which I do not recommend because because you can – looked up a summary of the book and they summarized it in, i don't know, three paragraphs. I recommend looking for a summary of it um but because it's basically like, in the morning, do these things and that'll help you do well in life and in your day.
Speaker: And so I started doing the all these things and one of them was the poems. But I started to think it might – I did start to notice that it was feeling really good. And started to think it might just be the poems. Like it might be pulling out a book, looking at a poem and really thinking about it for a while as a start to the day. yeah That was just really starting the day out right. So I might try to go back to that again because I haven't done that in a while.
Speaker: What a cool idea. yeah to kind of just make you meditate on something lovely. Or horrible, but written in a lovely way. Right. Yeah, the art of it. Yeah.
Speaker: Cool. What about you? What's your lowest? Yeah, I don't know I think maybe i will consider getting some more poetry – Or even like you said there that the Poetry Unbound is likely a podcast, you said you thought. Yes. So maybe I'll even check that out. And that might be a good entryway for me because I really I do enjoy it. So and.
Speaker: i I like your idea of incorporating it into a morning routine. So maybe i'll maybe I'll give that a try like all of next week, seeing if how that helps with my overall start to the day.
Speaker: Yeah. Maybe I'll try it too. That'll give me motivation to do it. we'll be we'll We'll send each other photos of ourselves reading poetry. Yes. Like a good old Marissa accountability. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, we willll well we'll have to post them too just to make sure that we're accountable for realsies. It's not just to ourselves. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker: All right. Integrating several of our interests. Yes.
Speaker: Thank you again to Tyler and to South Broadway Press. This was amazing to have kind of yet another interest to be.
Speaker: Be interested in. no yet another interest to learn about. um And so with that, we'd like everybody to rate, review, subscribe, share our podcast, and also to stay interesting.
Speaker: And stay interested. Bye. bye e Thanks for listening to today's episode. Please subscribe, comment, and like the podcast. Follow us on Blue Sky Social at CanWeInterestYouIn. Send us an email at CanWeInterestYouIn at gmail.com. And join us next time.
