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November, 2008
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Writing Nature Poetry in Brooklyn: A Conversation with Colin Cheney
Listen above or download. Running time: 12 minutes, 40 seconds.
Poet Colin Cheney recites his poems, "South Brooklyn Casket Co." and "Roof-meadows," talks with Zachary Sussman about nature in urban spaces, and reads students' haiku from the River of Words project.
South Brooklyn Casket Co.
The casket makers by the Gowanus
have no dead to speak of, no dead
to question on the opening of other worlds.
School of milky fry, pulsing jellyfish,
a bag of oysters hung from the bridge:
each a place-holder.
The emptied cemetery November was
left me speaking through the throat-song
of a beauty rose, harmonium
& disturbance sustained on a single breath.
By the deli, the tang of last night’s sewage
on my tongue, a Jehovah’s Witness asks if I’m saved.
I say a woman I followed over the green water
this morning had the word Feel
tattooed on her neck, or maybe
I only want to tell him this, believing the scrawl
on that last vertebrae
marks the tunnel bearing tide from the buttermilk
channel to the de... -
Bees in Trouble
Some scientists suspect that pesticides are the cause of plummeting bee populations, which could have serious consequences for pollination and production of food crops.
Related: » OnEarth's groundbreaking report on colony collapse disorder
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Alan Burdick: Welcome to My Paperless World
Listen above or download mp3. Running time: 4 minutes, 45 seconds.
Science writer Alan Burdick reads his humorous essay, "Welcome to My Paperless World."
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Dreaming of a Paperless Life
Listen above or download mp3. Running time: 4 minutes, 35 seconds.
Author Alan Burdick talks with Emily Voigt about his ongoing fantasy of leading a paperless life and his upcoming book about finding, saving and wasting time.
Related:
» Listen to or read Burdick's contribution to OnEarth's Fall 2008 issue, "Welcome to My Paperless World" -
Poet Kevin Stein on Changing the Course of the Environmental Nightmare
Listen above or download the mp3 file. Running time: 13 minutes, 11 seconds.
Poet Kevin Stein recites his poem, “Mowing the Lawn,” and talks with Zachary Sussman about summertime, politics, and the global repercussions of our everyday lives.
Mowing the Lawn
Putt putt, I ride on fossil fuel, the juice of fern and leaf,
the muck of once-was. Putt putt, I warm our globe
one green acre at a time. As a boy, I mowed without gas power
as does my buddy Dean: Green Dean. Back then as now
it was economics not ecology. Have you priced a hybrid?
I pushed, I sweated, I earned a man’s allowance,
not unlike Tag, the bow-legged Japanese gardener
who plucked the lawn's eyebrows for my grandmother,
she of blue hair and lace gladiolas terraced along
the terra cotta porch. She of the voice that curdled milk.
Tuesdays he made landfall, hurricane of shears and clippers,
toting the lone mower he’d not so much push as chase.
Tag had no time for lost time, though just to be sure
the ...
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Mowing the Lawn