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Revenge of the Weeds: Talking with Poet John Bensko
Poet John Bensko recites his poem, "Weeds," and talks with Zachary Sussman about karma, conflict, and seeing beyond the film of familiarity.
Weeds
How we love your legs, how
in the midst of plenty
we have learned to knowthe hardship of hatred.
How your blade cuts us,
and the hooves of your stock treadour stalks to mud. In spring's
gentle sunlight we emerge from clover
and grow lush beside that other spring,the one of water you would wish
to lie down beside
were it not for us.When you burn us in the field
we rise to the sky
in orange flame and yielda smoke that blots the sun.
How then the wind may conspire
to turn us againtoward you. We cover you once
more, no longer in the green itch
you hated, but the darkness. -
Poet Pattiann Rogers: Everything out there is saying 'Yes.'
Pattiann Rogers recites her poem, "This Day, Tomorrow, And The Next," and talks with Zachary Sussman about how science is expanding the range of poetic possibilities.
This Day, Tomorrow, And The Next
When the blind and the deaf walk
together into the forest, one of them
understands the blackness of light
on a clear day. The other understands
the deep reach of stillness in a riot of green.Both alike feel on their faces
the floating threads and tatters
of occasional sun passing through
the canopy of overlapping branches,
close thatch of needles, uneven roof
of broad leaves. And both can name
the fragrances of sweet sap and damp
soil, sodden cones, rain-filled mosses.But neither encounters the burrow
of the fungus beetle leaving her eggs
in the dank of a fallen fir. Neither
is aware of the yellow of the jewelweed
to come. Neither is aware of the taste
of the salmonberry to be. Neither imagines
the spirit-deer made of thicket shadows,
the deer known only when imagined.Within their inevitable errors
e... -
Bangladesh Before the Flood, Part II
OnEarth Articles Editor George Black traveled through Bangladesh for this summer's cover story, The Gathering Storm. Hear more of Emily Voigt’s interview with Black about changing environmental and political climates in one of the world’s most at-risk nations.
» Read The Gathering Storm
» Watch Audio Slideshow: Bangladesh Before the Flood -
Audio Slideshow: Bangladesh Before the Flood
As global warming deepens its grip on the world, Bangladesh -- where tens of millions live just a few feet above sea level -- faces a grim prognosis. George Black, author of OnEarth Summer 08 cover story The Gathering Storm, says that Bangladesh “is really where everything converges. Not just topography, but also politics, because this is a Muslim country, it’s an incredibly poor country, it’s a very politically unstable country.... If this plays out as we foresee, you could be talking about major international security crises, humanitarian crises, etc.” (For more background on this story, read OnEarth editor Doug Barasch’s intro, A Storm Warning from Bangladesh.)
In preparing his article, Black traveled the country with landscape photographers Diane Cook and Len Jenshel. Take a trip through the Ganges Delta, with Cook and Jenshel’s photos providing vivid illustration of the story Black tells reporter Emily Voigt.
» Read The Gathering Storm
» Hear more George Black: Ban... -
At the Crossroads of Observation and Imagination: Talking with Poet Brendan Galvin
Brendan Galvin recites his poem, "Nest" and talks with Zachary Sussman about naturalism, observation, and the fine line poets walk between the perfect poem and going off the edge.
Nest
I found it near that corner where
some Septembers a skinny apple tree
hangs fruit the size of stoplights,
the nest itself a palmful,
fallen intact, the bottom so thin
I'd be thinking about
the faith of scarlet tanagers
had I looked up through it
and counted four blue-green eggs
mottled brown, and the nest itself
like a round of serendipity
aspiring to elegance,
tan grasses and a touch of dander
bound with darker rootlets
and forbs, meaning any herbs
that aren't grass or grasslike,
another collective name for weeds
like dogshade and rattlebox,
the nest itself hinting toward
the centrifugal, the way things go
when a tree one morning spins
its contents outward. -
Connecting GIs with Green Jobs
Jyl DeHaven, founder of Green Collar Vets, and John Wright, one of the program's participants, talk with Jori Lewis about establishing independence and job security through emerging green industries.
» Read Looking for a Few Good Men, from OnEarth's Spring 2008 issue
Related Links
» The Green Collar Solution, Thomas L. Friedman column, New York Times 10.17.07
» Millions of Jobs of a Different Collar, New York Times 3.28.08
» Green for All
» Apollo Alliance
» Switching to Green-Collar Jobs, Business Week 1.10.08 -
Memory, Age, and Love Poetry: Talking with Poet Daniel Mark Epstein
Poet and biographer Daniel Mark Epstein recites his poem, "In Late November," and talks with Zachary Sussman about memory, age, and what it means to be a “love poet.”
In Late November
Of the butterfly-bush, whose purple flowers
The monarch and the swallowtail
Sipped in August, near my windowpane
(Such a wealth of wings and flower clusters
I could hardly see the grass, the trees)
Only stalks and branches remain,
And panicles tipped with russet berries.
Now I see everything so vividly:
The young woman on her hands and knees,
Planting the meek shrubs three years ago --
Three short years and thirteen feet below --
Told me the light was perfect here and so
The plants would thrive, just wait and see
How gracefully the flowers would bear wings.
I would see her when she was not there,
Then go blind, standing right beside her.
How could I begin to explain such things?
Soon enough the blossoms reached my sill,
A floor above her terrace flat. Too late
For her to see the wonder she had wrou... -
Hard Choices: George Black on Compromise and the Conservation Ethic
OnEarth articles editor George Black reads his essay "Time to Be Unfaithful to Old Faithful," and talks with Emily Voigt about controversy and compromise in modern environmentalism.
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A Conversation with Poet Chard deNiord
Chard deNiord recites his poems, "Tree of Wisdom" and "Behold, The Lord God Bird," talks with Zachary Sussman about enlightenment, and recounts the strange, sad tale of a bird beyond imagination.
Tree of Wisdom
I am taken in by its stand and breadth,
marveling at its brawn and reach of branches,
studying each leaf like the page of a sacred book,
embracing its trunk like a void.
I hear the prophecy of a lark in the density
of foliage: "The vision awaits its time;
hastens to the end." Until this time arrives,
I am content to sit and stare and climb.
I am compelled to bet my life on the fact
that this is the first work of revelation,
calling a tree tree, leaves leaves.
It is the good work of a scientist.
It is the hidden work of a common man.
I say its name like the bird who can't stop singing,
Ten Thousand Things In One, and then this prayer,
Om mani padme hum. The jewel is in the world.
I lie in the shade of its canopy
and listen to the genius above deny her name.
I turn its green to... -
A Conversation With Poet Mark Halperin
Mark Halperin recites his poems "No Two Snowflakes are the Same" and "Quail in December," talks with Zachary Sussman about the mystery of human identity, and questions our faith in knowledge.
No Two Snowflakes Are the Same
How could anyone have checked, or is this
something else to accept on faith, like enough is enough
or what's good for big business
is good for the country and each time I love
you is said it's different? How do you tell
Africans, for whom it's usualto substitute egret feathers in
translations: no two plumes are a match, and why
does that sound that less dubious? Once you begin
asking there's the icy cold, the six-sided-
symmetry--too much that's unique to trust
induction. Here the rare returns like dustyou can't brush off and yearnings that go on
to become those persistent selves we resume
each morning as if by magic. The power of reason,
like past and future, could be a myth, and Hume,
be right: cause is no more than an habitual
association. Like doubt, but less ...
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Mowing the Lawn