Poetry & Popular Culture Goes West

Lured by the promise of pinot noir, trout fishing, whale watching, and the spirit of poets like Gary Snyder and William Stafford, Poetry & Popular Culture hits the Oregon Trail this week and permanently heads out west to its new home in Salem, Oregon, and the Willamette River valley. Moving from Iowa City has not been unemotional (goodbye Foxhead, goodbye Prairie Lights), but verses like the one pictured on the postcard to the left reassure us that poetic treasures aplenty await us in the Pacific Northwest as well as in the Heartland. Framed by two images (a panoramic view of the river valley, and someone canoeing in front of Mount Hood), "Sunset on the Willamette" reads:

The sun sinks downward thru the silver mist
That looms across the valley, fold on fold,
And sliding thru the fields that dawn has kissed,
Willamette sweeps, a chain of liquid gold.

Trails onward ever, curving as it goes,
Past many a hill and many a flowered lea,
Until it pauses where Columbia flows,
Deep-tongued, deep-chested to the waiting sea.

O lovely vales thru which Willamette slips!
O vine clad hills that hear its soft voice call!
My heart turns ever to their sweet, cool lips,
That, passing, press each rock or grassy wall.

Thru pasture lands, where mild-eyed cattle feed
Thru marshy flats, where velvet tulles grow,
Past many a rose tree, many a signing reed,
I hear those wet lips calling, calling low.

The sun sinks downward thru the trembling haze
the mist flings glistening needles higher and higher.
And thru the clouds—O fair beyond all praise!
Mt. Hood leaps, chastened, from a sea of fire.

"Sunset on the Willamette" is by Ella Higginson (1861-1940) who, like William Stafford, was born in Kansas and later moved to Oregon and (after marrying) Washington. A poet and short story writer whose work appeared in publications like McClures, Harper's Monthly, and Colliers, Higginson was made poet laureate of Washington State in 1931 and served as campaign manager for the first woman elected to the Washington State House of Representatives (Frances C. Axtell in 1912). Her poem "Four-Leaf Clover" was especially popular, appearing (among other places) in Edmund Clarence Stedman's An American Anthology from 1900. If you want to learn more about Higginson, head on over to the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies at Western Washington University which has 18 boxes of her writing, scrapbooks, and other materials available for scholarly research.

Radio Rhymesters? An Interview with "Irving Toast, Poetry Ghost"

A couple of weeks back, news broke in Iowa City that the local public radio station WSUI would no longer commit to broadcasting visiting authors reading from their work on "Live from Prairie Lights." When literary luminaries such as Marvin Bell and current Poet Laureate of Iowa Robert Dana started getting all hot and bothered over the apparently dismal future of radio poetry, it got "Poetry & Popular Culture" wondering about how other poetry radio shows are also faring. So we went a-looking. Turns out, we didn't have to look (or listen) all that far. Just down the road from Iowa City, radio poetry appears to be doing just fine on KRUU 100.1 Fairfield.

Every Monday and Sunday, KRUU airs “Irving Toast, Poetry Ghost” with host Rustin Larson, who features live readings and interviews with new and established poets. "Poetry & Popular Culture" managed to catch up with Larson and chat a little bit about radio, poetry, “Live at Prairie Lights,” and the mysterious KRUU muse—Fairfield’s turn-of-the-century poet laureate Irving Toast.

Chasar: When did you first think "Aha! I need to put poetry on the radio in Fairfield," and how did you make that happen?

Larson: I said "Aha!" in April 2008. In years past I'd attempted to create a venue for poets through a magazine called The Contemporary Review. That lasted a few years and had maybe 80 subscribers at its peak. Even cheaply produced magazines cost more than what they bring in, so I eventually lost heart and gave up the project.

But I still wanted to create some sort of showcase for writers. James Moore, KRUU’s station manager, had for a long time wanted to get me on board with a show. He told me I could do whatever I wanted, so I told him I wanted to do this poetry reading/interview show. I'd made lots of contacts over the years, and my first interview was in mid-April 2008.

Chasar: What happens to poetry when it's on the radio?

Larson: Many things can happen. In a phone interview the distorted sound of a voice on the line can make a poem sound even more elegiac, kind of like a long lost love speaking from the other side. Face to face in the studio, poets give their all. They produce better than regular readings—maybe because they know it's not live but a pre-recorded show; it's almost like they’re creating short recorded books. Since it's also an interview program there isn't this sense of floating aimlessly in space. I'm there to help channel the flow of ideas.

Chasar: Was there really a Fairfield poet named Irving Toast?

Larson: Irving Toast is the true spirit of poetry that lives in the hearts of all people. In some cultures he may go by a different name, but in my household he is known as Irving, and he has a robust imaginary history I hint at in my blogs.

Chasar: The true spirit of poetry? Didn't that go out with the Edsel?

Larson: What's an Edsel? I'm kidding. The spirit of poetry is alive. There’s so much interest in poetry here in Fairfield. A fellow here has created a kind of dinner theater out of poetry at a local cafe. The Maharishi University locksmith is a poet, and quite a good one. The bookstores and coffee houses are wonderful about hosting readings, open mics, and concerts. It's not just here, though. I have nearly 1000 Facebook contacts from all over who are into poetry; many of them have literary presses or host podcasts or radio shows too. Some have appeared on my show (archived and downloadable at http://www.kruufm.com).

Chasar: How can you make a go of it when WSUI and “Live from Prairie Lights” can't?

Larson: I'm sad "Live from Prairie Lights" was canceled. It did great things for writing, and it really created an event rich in atmosphere each time folks gathered for a reading. But as my station manager says, KRUU is Local Public Radio, not National, so we're not beholden to NPR for sponsorship, consultants or dictates. We don't have any specific formula for how each slot must bring in X amount of money or listenership.

We are who shows up, and our mission is to give voice to the community—to empower folks to ask questions and create programming themselves. We have 100 people producing 80 shows a week, have logged 60,000 volunteer hours, draw 100,000 visitors to our web site, and last year had an entire operating budget of $24,000. We do it without shoestrings—via listener support, underwriting, benefit concerts, small grants, partnerships and donations.

Chasar: Has Garrison Keillor called you yet?

Larson: No, but it would be great to talk to him! I think his Writer's Almanac is another great example of the spirit of poetry being alive. I don't know how many hits his web site gets, but I bet it's a bunch. It's a resource I've used to find poems myself.

A version of this interview appeared in the Iowa City Press-Citizen on Wednesday, December 17, 2008.

"Put Readings on YouTube"

Here's the skinny on what's been happening literature-wise in Iowa City of late. After several years of application-making, bell-ringing, and horn-tooting, Iowa City was named a UNESCO "world city of literature," joining Edinburgh, Scotland, and Melbourne, Australia as the only other cities in the world with that designation. Check out the press release yourself here. Way to go, Iowa City.

At the same time, as it was becoming clear that Iowa City would indeed achieve "world city of literature" status, Iowa Public Radio announced that it would be dropping "Live From Prairie Lights" from its programming schedule. For as long as most people remember, "Live From Prairie Lights" has broadcast visiting poets and fiction writers reading, well, live from Prairie Lights Bookstore in downtown Iowa City. Apparently, though, a number of forces conspired to drive listeners away. The show's host was boring. The readers (like many readers) didn't perform their work with any particular flair. And the show ran once or twice on air which, as you and I both know, simply ain't gonna fly in an age of YouTube and podcasts. Are you gonna rearrange your schedule, wait until 8 pm, then tune in your crystal set to listen to a boring reading followed by an even more boring set of questions? "Poetry & Popular Culture" sure isn't.

But the old-time codgers here in Iowa City—many of whom haven't listened to "Live From Prairie Lights" in ages (and many of whom would privately admit that the show actually is pretty boring)—have been lamenting the passing of the wireless torch and the demise of the radio show. How horrid, they say, that on the eve of being designated the world's third city of literature Iowa City should strip away its literary radio programming. Some heavies like former Iowa Poet Laureate and Writers' Workshop teacher Marvin Bell and current Iowa Poet Laureate Robert Dana have weighed in on the controversy.

And what follows is Mike Chasar's take on the topic, a view officially endorsed by "Poetry & Popular Culture."

Appeared in the Press-Citizen on November 25, 2008

Put Readings On YouTube

Congratulations, Iowa City, for being designated UNESCO's third City of Literature. Via the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the International Writing Program and other innovative and historically significant literary efforts, you have changed the way writing happens in the United States and around the world.

It is now time to remember that history, stop lamenting the disappearance of "Live from Prairie Lights" from Iowa Public Radio and seize on that disappearance as an opportunity to reimagine what such broadcasts might look and sound like in a digital age where podcasts and YouTube reach a much larger audience than WSUI and Julie Englander ever could.

Radio poetry history

Literature has long been a part of public and commercial radio programming. In the 1920s, poetry radio shows emerged as popular parts of the media landscape. Some shows -- like Ted Malone's "Between the Bookends" and Tony Wons's "R Yuh Listenin'?" -- were broadcast nationwide and had large, avid audiences who not only waited by their sets to hear poems read aloud to live organ music, but who flooded the studios with fan mail as well.

At the height of his popularity in the 1930s, Malone's show received more than 20,000 fan letters per month. Much as I hesitate to mention that other state university north of Ames, you can go there and read some of these fan letters yourself, which are now in the Arthur B. Church Papers in the Special Collections Department of that university's Parks Library.

Malone and Wons weren't the only ones to dazzle first generation radio audiences with poetry. A.M. Sullivan's "New Poetry Hour" on WOR (New York) strove to broadcast poetry of only the highest literary quality. Eve Merriam's Out of the Ivory Tower on WQXR (New York) featured Leftist poets reading their work. Ted Malone was known for showcasing "amateur" poetry sent in by his listeners, but he also read poetry by Shakespeare, Keats, W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot.

And on the eve of World War II -- when radio was the major source of up-to-the-moment news for many Americans -- NBC broadcast Edna St. Vincent Millay's book-length propaganda poem "The Murder of Lidice" to a nationwide audience of millions. It was performed by Hollywood actor and two-time Academy Award nominee Basil Rathbone and was accompanied by a chorus of singers. Not only was that broadcast shortwaved to England and Europe, but the poem was translated into Spanish and Portuguese and beamed to South America as well.

Finding today's audiences

Those days may be over, but audiences still await -- though they're not sitting in Prairie Lights, nor, apparently, are they sitting by their radios diligently tuning in to Iowa Public Radio.

Instead, they are online watching "The Daily Show" and Tina Fey impersonate Sarah Palin on YouTube. They are downloading podcasts. They tune in at their convenience, but they do so in enormous numbers.

"Live from Prairie Lights" should find a model in President-elect Barack Obama, who recently gave the weekly Democratic radio address not just on radio, but also for the first time on YouTube.

If, as one university official claimed, "Live from Praire Lights" is a "standard-bearer" for Iowa City's literary culture, then it should not be constrained by the time tables of either a bookstore or a public radio schedule. It should be recorded in video and audio formats. It should be posted online for listeners to access at their convenience -- at a coffee shop, at work, or even (anachronistic as it might sound) at a fireside.

The readings of Iowa City's writers and visiting writers should be posted on YouTube where people not just in Iowa City, but around the world, can access them. Imagine the global audiences who might tune in to hear participants in the International Writing Program read from their work.

If "Live from Prairie Lights" really is the "gem" that people say it is, then why not share that wealth with as many people as possible? That would not only be a move in keeping with Iowa City's leadership and innovation in arts and letters, but the mark of a true world city of literature as well.