To occasions, when we’re knocked down, low, heavy heart, how we have it in us to do so, how we’re called on to do so, called for, and what poetry has to do with it. A rousing show, to lift, hoist, heave us aloft–down to earth wisdom from THE PoetrySlowDown with Professor Mossberg, “the news we need, the news we heed, the news without which men die miserably every day” (and we won’t let that happen, ever). And on this note we sing of Leonard Cohen, a supermoon pulling our heart’s tides.

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Standard Podcast [ 59:50 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.—Einstein

I’m trying to find something true that can’t be expressed by math.—J.D. Roberts

Can haiku save the day? We know sonnets can. It’s all about the math. It’s all about the equals sign, the existential triumph of it, the metaphor.

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Standard Podcast [ 59:32 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

When you’re in the dark woods, and the way is lost, and a lion, leopard, and she-wolf are snarling, blocking your way, you (evolved radio show listener) might think of Dante’s Rx, the Roman epic poet Virgil, or Rumi’s peoples who come running with stretchers of grace, to take you through hell and out of it, or, the kitchen? That’s what I’m thinking too. What you have at hand may be just what the Dr. (B) ordered, and that’s the ingredients for banana bread. It’s October, the days are dark and darker, and we have more and more need of all things yellow, red, and orange, so here’s a show with your own Poetry Slow Down host, plating recipes. So come on in, my cherished peoples, grab a plaid blanket, and we’ll talk about crisis du jour with soup de jour, chef solutions, the poetry way. Hear what and who’s being eaten, who’s not eating, all the dish, delish, we’ll dish it out.

Sunday, Noon-1 pm, PST, radiomonterey.com

© Barbara Mossberg

Standard Podcast [ 59:37 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Dynamite Genius of Bob Dylan and the Nobel Prize Committee, Dynamic Connection Between Nobel and Dylan: What is literature? Who’s asking? All of a sudden, everyone is. And the point is, it is Everyone. The Odyssey was sung. We teach it today as literature. When poets take to the stage rather than the page: our show today considers the case for Dylan’s music as literature as old as the hills.

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Standard Podcast [ 58:55 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Criticism is said to have killed an enthusiastic diva and John Keats and been dead wrong (and snarky) about . . . well, name your favorite—Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau, Scott Fitzgerald, J.D. Salinger, Henry Miller, we love these stories of not the last laugh but the continuing and eternal comedy of immortal life, the poet’s respect for the Truth and Beauty of the living word.

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Standard Podcast [ 59:50 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download