Left Hand Poetry
After last week's foray into corporate pride-swallowing, I'm coming at you with a much more bucolic work, "Ode to MD 67." This one is straight from the heart and a little rough around the edges. For a couple of years I spent a lot of time on that old state road, and to the future it ultimately delivered me into.
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This week it's "Yes Man," a poem written about an actual experience I had. For more information about this and all my episodes, visit my blog:
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I hope you enjoy this little essay that was selected by a dear friend or me to read as part of an afternoon of music and poetry at my home town library a few years back. "Tiny Dog Infestations" is yet another absurd look into the fact that when people have a tiny dog they somehow always have more than just the one. There's also some historical context in there as well. It's all as true as you want it to be.
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The audio this week is a bit more ... intimate sounding than usual. The poem is "Mental Sorbet," which I describe the genesis of said phrase in the poem itself. It's something a bit odd for you as we head into a weird holiday season when I hit publish on this one. For those listening in 2020 (or likely too far into 2021) I hope you're safe & secure & that this episode provides a few moments of pleasantly odd distraction from whatever troubles you.
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Folks -- at this point, I think I can even say Friends -- I have a problem. Whenever snow starts falling out of the sky, my brain slips into a poetic mood and unbidden it begins to crank out verses about the stuff. My poetry books are littered with snow poems. And so we have this week's episode "On the Meaning of a Single Snowflake."
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"I Played..." is a bit of fantasy, tangentially appropriate in this season of dreams, but not Holiday-themed in any way, unless you consider peace, harmony, and music Holiday themes.
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Well, y'all seem to like it when I dig into the absurdity archive, so I pulled out one of my favorites from one of the weirder corners of my brain. I mean, it's been out in the world for about 8 years now, but it's probably new to you. That's right, this week it's "Avocado (dis)Information". See if you can spot the chemistry pun.
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This episode drops on American Thanksgiving, and as I'm in a thankful mood I chose "Thanks to English Teachers" for this week's poem, inspired by both those who taught me and my wife, who is herself an amazing and talented English teacher. For them, for her, I am thankful!
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I had originally meant to read this poem last week, but as I said then the events of the weekend had moved me to write some new poems. This week, it's "Capital Improvement," a poem inspired by events of the 2012 election that still ring true today - to me, at least.
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This week you get another two-for: "Victory," a piece celebrating the win for President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris and "Quiz Show Guru," an elegy for Alex Trebek.
info_outlineIt's the Halloween season, and though most of us in the US are in lockdown/self-isolation/quarantine this year, that doesn't mean we can't enjoy a little seasonal content. With that in mind, this week I bring you "Soon ... A Poem for All Hallow's Eve." Based on something that actually happened to me and then filtered through my fertile imagination, "Soon ..." tells a tale of a non-fatal encounter with Death.
I want to hear what you think of the podcast, whether it's a specific poem or the format, or whatever's on your mind! Leave a review or a comment in your podcast app, or catch me on Twitter @Lefthandrob.
After listening to the podcast (or while listening), visit one of these sites and donate for the cause, because All Black Lives Matter and my fellow white (and cis) people we need to get in the game:
Donate to the Souther Poverty Law Center
Donate to the Equal Justice Initiative
The poems will continue to flow, but so must the Justice.