Poetry of Dean Young, Pablo Neruda, Emily Dickinson, James Dickey, Lewis Carroll, Lois Entwistle, Kahill Gibran, Oprah Winfrey, Tony Hoagland, Charles Wright, Shakespeare, Thoreau, William Blake, Thomas Hardy, Carrell Hawkins, Jack Gilbert, John Fuller, Gerald Stern, Linda Gregg, Mary Oliver, Kirk Douglas/Betty McMicken, William Carlos Williams, Taylor Mali, Marjory Snyder, A.A. Milne, Jennifer K. Sweeney, and Walt Whitman, speaking of falling (in love with our poets), and yours truly, Professor Barbara Mossberg.Welcome to our Poetry Slow Down, KRXA 540AM Think for yourself radio, in our studios today with Producer Sara Hughes, I’m your host Professor Barbara Mossberg, Poet in Residence of Pacific Grove, America’s “home town,†and it’s my home town, can you imagine a city having an official residence for a poet, called the Poet’s Perch, donated by a citizen, and a citizenry that when we say, show up on Forest Avenue for a poetry reading of poems about food, and we say we want to have a flash mob for Pablo Neruda’s poetry,  more than 25 otherwise dignified citizens show up and vigorously chant and express the odes of Neruda, making his lyrics on tomatoes, onions, lemons, salt, and fried potatoes SING, that’s the kind of place it is, and
you can see this on You Tube:Â http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FBYr1Uhf9c
Our program begins with a sad story by one of our listeners, a young medical student who fell, not from grace, but down the stairs, and lay there piteously for some time before hauling himself to his car and getting himself to class, after which he went to the ER and by and by learned he has a fractured foot and now is wearing a boot. But every cloud has a silver lining, as they say (who is this THEY wonders Thoreau? And me, too, I wonder, too, says Emily Dickinson), and so I began to think of poetry of consolation and joy about falling down stairs, falling in general, and broken feet! Because feet, after all, are dear to a poet’s heart.
Thank you for your open ears and mind and slowing down with poetry! For full text and any comments or questions, I would be delighted: write me at bmossberg@csumb.edu.
© Barbara Mossberg 2012
