Poetry in a Recession
April 10th, 2010
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From Homer to Chaucer to Rita Dove, poetry has plumbed and expressed human strife, love, and everyday realities. Bob Hicok (Virginia Tech) worked for twenty years in the automotive industry. His poems explore the lives of family and friends coping with economic devastation in Michigan. Also: Kevin Shortsleeve (Christopher Newport University) is co-editing an anthology documenting nonsense literature from all over the world. And: In her poem, “Empty Nest,” Lisa Russ Spaar (University of Virginia) explores how a familiar place changes through time. Spaar is the recent winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an essayist on the subject of how poets’ personal odysseys intersect with a desire to understand humanity.
If you want to hear the full version of Lisa Russ Spaar’s Empty Nest, follow this link (or right click or ctrl+click to download the mp3).
http://www.virginiafoundation.org/vfhradio/wgr/wordpress/download/poems/emptynest.mp3
There’s an interesting reading of Bob Hicok’s poem “In These Times” on the Newshour website:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june09/bobhicok_04-30.html
Enjoy!