NCPR Podcasts: Giving Voice

Poet Chase Twichell is the founder of Ausable Press and author of six collections of poetry. The most recent is Dog Language, published by Copper Canyon Press in 2005. Dale Hobson talked with the author on a broadcast of Open Studio before a live audience in Keene Valley, NY. They discuss poetry of place, and the author reads her poem "The Paper River."

Michael Czarnecki is a rare animal—a poet who makes a full-time living through his art. From his home base in the Finger Lakes, he spends many days each year on the road, reading his work and conducting workshops. His company, Foothills Publishing, has brought forward the work of countless other poets in more than twenty years of collections and anthologies. He will be in the North Country next week, holding workshops and readings in Canton and Tupper Lake. Dale Hobson talked with him by phone to see how he does it all.

Michael Czarnecki will be at the Canton Free Library on Tuesday, April 29. As part of the Brown Bag Luncheon series, he will conduct a Palm of the Hand Memoir Writing Workshop at noon, followed at 7 pm by a reading of his Travel Works poetry and non fiction. On Wednesday at 7 pm, he will be at the Goff-Nelson Library in Tupper Lake for a reading of his travel writing, followed the next day at 7 pm by a Palm of the Hand workshop.

Giving Voice goes green this month on the theme of "Repair, Reuse, Recycle." We repair to the Readers & Writers archive from April 2006 to reuse a poem of Dale Hobson's about recycling old poems into new ones: "Editing Old Poems is Like a Cuban Taxi."

Matt Frank is a recent arrival in the North Country, coming here via Illinois, Alaska and Phoenix. A poet and a food writer, he teaches English and creative writing at Jefferson County Community College, and makes his home in Alexandria Bay. For our Giving Voice series, Dale Hobson talks with him about his writing, and about the sometimes painful process of growing as a writer. He reads the poem "The Dressmaker's Dummy" from his collection, Sagittarius Agitprop.

Dale Hobson's New Year's resolutions are all "continuing resolutions." Here is a new poem for the New Year: Loose Ends 2007.

Russell poet John Berbrich spent a rowdy youth growing up on Long Island. Many years later the stories and characters of his childhood and teen years have elbowed their way to the front of his poetic imagination. He stopped by the studio this week to read a few of his poems, and to talk with Dale Hobson about what makes a good story, and what makes a good poem.

Elaine Handley, Marilyn McCabe and Mary Sanders Shartle come together from their respective parts of the Adirondacks to make poetry within a tradition of Adirondack women writers that is old as the hills. Their collaborative chapbooks, Notes From the Fire Tower and Glacial Erratica have won the Adirondack Center for Writing’s award for Best Book of Poetry two years running. Dale Hobson talks with the authors about their work and their traditions at Marilyn McCabe’s get-a-way along Clifford Brook in the Town of Keene.

It was a sweltering night in the Fields coffeehouse in Potsdam, with a loud buzz of traffic, fans, ice-grinders and table talk competing for the microphone—but that didn’t deter folks from coming out to hear a group reading by members of SLAP, the St. Lawrence Area Poets. Dale Hobson sat down with SLAP member JeanMarie Martello to find out more about the new writers’ group.

Rather than find someone to talk to on the topic of poetry and the outdoors, Dale Hobson decided to actually go outdoors and to write himself a new poem. In this Giving Voice we follow Dale downstream into Stone Valley in the Town of Colton.

Poets are often asked “Where do you find your inspiration?” Sometimes the answer is a person—a mentor or teacher whose words and example are life-changing. In this Giving Voice, we hear poet Maurice Kenny talk about the century-old Mohawk elder, teacher, storyteller, activist and naturalist Ray Fadden, and hear a few of the poems he inspired.