ALL THAT DAMPNESS AND RECKLESSNESS / GLADLY AND LIGHTLY / AND THERE IT IS AGAIN–BEAUTY THE BRAVE, THE EXEMPLARY / BLAZING OPEN

Recklessness . . . gladly . . . rambunctious . . . shining . . . our  show today takes its title from Mary Oliver,  “ALL THAT DAMPNESS AND RECKLESSNESS/GLADLY AND LIGHTLY,/ AND THERE IT IS AGAIN–BEAUTY THE BRAVE, THE EXEMPLARY,/BLAZING OPEN,” and CONNIE ELLISOR, “THE HEART IS RAMBUNCTIOUS,  RAUCOUS,  NERVY, SOLICITOUS, STRIDENT, and…

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ON A DELICIOUS DATE, ON A DELICIOUS FATE, YOU I MEAN, YOU, YOU ARE THE DELICIOUS FATE, AND OTHER WAYS WE THINK IN MARCH MADNESS GOING OUT AND GOING ON WITH LIONS

Poetry for a wild March, Hares and Coots, and plenty of leaping. This has been a wild week, Pi Day, Einstein’s birthday, Ides of March, St. Patrick’s Day, Ducks becoming number one seed, all having to do with the Poetry Slow Down, and in memory of John Updike, 85 ish today . . . speaking of hares . . . rabbits? Still alive for us as a writer, in this season of March Madness, about a basketball player, how about that?: “Ex-Basketball Player” (John Updike).

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WE REVISIT THIS THEME: CONTINUAL CHEERFULNESS IS A SIGN OF WISDOM

Irish Proverb: Cheshire Cat Magnetic Belts, Persian New Year, Pre-Gaming Ides of March, and St. Patrick’s Day, and Other News in and of and by Poetry

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EVERYTHING HAPPENS TO ME (Chet Baker): THE EMERGENCY OF BEING ALIVE (William Stafford): A REVISIT TO POETRY AS BRAIN ROADS– AND ALTERNATIVE LIFE ROUTES, SCENIC ROUTES, EVACUATION ROUTES, EXALTATION ROUTES, PRAISE, IN JUST SPRING

To the tunes of Chet Baker, Bob Marley, Billie Holiday, Joni Mitchell, and the Happy Wanderer, guest host Emily Dickinson helps us welcome March, along with e.e. cummings, William and Kim Stafford, Derek Walcott, Jorie Graham, Leigh Hunt, Elizabeth Bishop, Luis Garcia Montero, David Wright, Gerald Stern, Judith Viorst, Philip Larkin, Seneca, Rumi, Hafiz, Stephen Grellett, C. K. Williams, Eleanor Lerman, Mark Doty, Hilarie Jones, Marilyn Nelson, Kim Adonnizio, D. H. Lawrence, and yours truly . . . the news we need, the news we heed, the news without which men die miserably every day, according to our muse Dr. William Carlos Williams, physician poet healing himself, and us, with poetry: speaking of news–here was this in the newspaper, from a story about a woman who dies in a nursing home with agonized helpless witnesses trying to help

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