Latest / Backward Mutters Poetry Podcast / Fall Again
Transcript
- 0:01SPEAKER_00: You are listening to the Backward Mutters Poetry Podcast.
- 0:04SPEAKER_00: Please visit online at backwardmutters.substack.com.
- 0:08SPEAKER_00: There you can subscribe via your favorite podcast player and read the newsletter.
- 0:12SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Randy Edwards.
- 0:16SPEAKER_00: For the past month,
- 0:18SPEAKER_00: I've had the joy of participating in Rabbit Room Poetry's poetry workshop led
- 0:23SPEAKER_00: by Wild Goose Words poet Ashlyn Michaela Ohm.
- 0:27SPEAKER_00: I don't know why I'm always surprised,
- 0:29SPEAKER_00: but there are so many amazing poets out there putting words together in ways
- 0:33SPEAKER_00: that ignite my imagination and inspire my heart.
- 0:38SPEAKER_00: Over the course of the four week workshop,
- 0:40SPEAKER_00: groups of poets gathered via Zoom to workshop their own poems together.
- 0:45SPEAKER_00: It was wonderful.
- 0:47SPEAKER_00: I was first introduced to a group of poets like that during the pandemic in 2020
- 0:51SPEAKER_00: when Rabbit Room's annual October conference hutchmoot had to go homebound and
- 1:11SPEAKER_00: The Poetry Pub writing community held a Zoom open mic
- 1:15SPEAKER_00: as Hutch Mood Homebound concluded,
- 1:17SPEAKER_00: and I read, for the first time in my life, a poem I'd written out loud to others.
- 1:25SPEAKER_00: It was an incredible blessing.
- 1:28SPEAKER_00: It has been so much of a blessing that I've continued to write with,
- 1:32SPEAKER_00: be inspired by,
- 1:33SPEAKER_00: and get to know those poets more deeply over the six years since that open mic,
- 1:37SPEAKER_00: and that gathering has continued each month since.
- 1:43SPEAKER_00: During these four weeks,
- 1:44SPEAKER_00: it was especially encouraging to see many whom I've gotten to know through
- 1:49SPEAKER_00: that open mic leading breakout rooms during this workshop.
- 1:53SPEAKER_00: All are such good poets and people.
- 1:56SPEAKER_00: Carissa Sylvia,
- 1:58SPEAKER_00: Mark Rico, Elizabeth Wickland, Rachel Donahue, Ashlyn Michaela Ohm, Jen Rose Yoquel.
- 2:05SPEAKER_00: Those are only the ones that I personally know.
- 2:08SPEAKER_00: And what's more, this poetry workshop introduced me to other wonderful poets and people.
- 2:15SPEAKER_00: Madeline Gaggenheimer, Anna Taylor, Dave Philippot, and others.
- 2:20SPEAKER_00: Have I told you that poets are the best?
- 2:24SPEAKER_00: As I said over the course of the four weeks, we workshopped our poems with one another.
- 2:29SPEAKER_00: The listening ears, encouraging words, helpful feedback, and camaraderie blessed my socks off.
- 2:36SPEAKER_00: The poem I wrote...
- 2:38SPEAKER_00: Was not the one I started out to write.
- 2:40SPEAKER_00: Our breakout room facilitator shared a draft of a poem she was working on
- 2:45SPEAKER_00: that talked about tomatoes.
- 2:47SPEAKER_00: Did you know that there is a variety of tomato named Mortgage Lifter?
- 2:53SPEAKER_00: What a name, I kid you not.
- 2:56SPEAKER_00: And by the way, breakout room 13 is still waiting to hear the next draft of that poem.
- 3:04SPEAKER_00: We're looking at you, Day.
- 3:07SPEAKER_00: The subject of tomatoes hijacked my brain.
- 3:11SPEAKER_00: I was taken back to the Augusts of my formative years and later to my own adulthood
- 3:16SPEAKER_00: when August was the time for canning tomatoes
- 3:19SPEAKER_00: and especially making my great-great-grandmother Summer's chili sauce.
- 3:25SPEAKER_00: Canning is an all-day production and making chili sauce is a vinegar,
- 3:31SPEAKER_00: spice, and sugar up-to-your-elbows Olympic event.
- 3:36SPEAKER_00: That memory,
- 3:37SPEAKER_00: being so personal to me,
- 3:39SPEAKER_00: and especially this year, inspired me to take up the season of the month of August.
- 3:47SPEAKER_00: Through the engagement of the workshop and the challenging
- 3:50SPEAKER_00: of Breakout Room 13's members, I wrote and rewrote versions of the poem.
- 3:56SPEAKER_00: The poems are what I understand to be autuminals.
- 4:02SPEAKER_00: They do tinge with nostalgia.
- 4:05SPEAKER_00: Longing can,
- 4:07SPEAKER_00: and fall does,
- 4:09SPEAKER_00: lend itself to the sentiment, and sentiments can take on manifold expressions.
- 4:14SPEAKER_00: Though I won't read it for you here,
- 4:16SPEAKER_00: I've included the first version of the poem at the bottom of the notes
- 4:20SPEAKER_00: to satisfy any curiosity, but I'll read the latest version for you now.
- 4:25SPEAKER_00: I say latest because, as one poet has said, poems set up like jello.
- 4:32SPEAKER_00: And I agree,
- 4:33SPEAKER_00: they do take a final shape,
- 4:34SPEAKER_00: but though they can congeal into a shape,
- 4:37SPEAKER_00: they really don't seem to ever stop wiggling.
- 4:41SPEAKER_00: So, thank you poets.
- 4:44SPEAKER_00: Thank you Rabbit Room.
- 4:45SPEAKER_00: Thank you Poetry Pub.
- 4:47SPEAKER_00: Thank you Breakout Room 13, which I was lucky enough to be assigned.
- 4:52SPEAKER_00: The poem is so far titled August.
- 4:55SPEAKER_00: August.
- 4:59SPEAKER_00: August.
- 5:02SPEAKER_00: August smells like tomatoes stewing,
- 5:07SPEAKER_00: tangles in spiderwebs,
- 5:10SPEAKER_00: foams with hot breaks like malt ale brewing sounds evening with katydids.
- 5:19SPEAKER_00: August clings damp with practice field grass,
- 5:24SPEAKER_00: blows with a hurricane,
- 5:27SPEAKER_00: cools on the counter to mason jar snaps, Steams like afternoon sun rain.
- 5:37SPEAKER_00: August steps to a marching band's beat,
- 5:41SPEAKER_00: Rolls way with the first school bus,
- 5:44SPEAKER_00: Comes parent proud, but leaves bittersweet, Empty nests, now two of us.
- 5:56SPEAKER_00: August grows you,
- 5:59SPEAKER_00: summer now over,
- 6:01SPEAKER_00: Teased gold and silhouette light,
- 6:05SPEAKER_00: Though wrinkled with years, My fall lover, you grow with autumn delight.
- 6:18SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to the Backward Mutters Poetry Podcast.
- 6:21SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Randy Edwards.
- 6:22SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.