Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown

As we consider Emerson (whom the late Harold Bloom called “God”) and Einstein, and Astra theology, and what is known about the universe in ancient and emergent minds, considering human and civil rights, peace, and the environment (Peace! Love! Freedom! Happiness!) … Continue reading →

Let us consider poetry as necessary for life as soil. Just because nutritious soil is necessary to life, all our lives on earth, does not mean it is not downright miraculous. A little clay here, rock there, dust, remains, odds … Continue reading →

WWRS? (What Would Rumi Say?) What does poetry have to do with it? Stay tuned for The Poetry Slow Down with Professor Barbara Mossberg.  Enjoy the video for this week’s episode on our Facebeook page.

Poetry Slow Down, our episode this week begins a series wherein we embark on ancient ships and rocky land routes to engage with trees, as people have always done, and I mean always. Since recorded history, our first forays into writing … Continue reading → The post ARE YOU TALKING TO ME? TREES TALKING TRASH AND GLORY, DISHING WISDOM, AND IT’S AN OLD STORY first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

As we celebrate Walt Whitman’s birthday, we consider how seriously as a poet he took joy (very). As it turns out, in fact, poets taking joy seriously is a thing. We’re slowing down today (you know you move too fast) … Continue reading →

CONFESSIONS OF KILLER OF CATERPILLARS, HEADS UP TO DEER (AND OTHERS) AT RISK, BEING RAPT, RAPTORMANIA, RAPTURE, AND RIPARIAN ECSTASY YOU HAVE TIME FOR IF YOU SLOW DOWN: Poems and Lyric Prose “On Life” and Utterly Necessary Living, Life, and … Continue reading → The post DOWN WITH WASTING-TIME SHAMING: WASTING TIME FOR GLORY first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

Never mind the headlines, there’s plenty of drama in the kitchen . . . it’s a lot.  A play in the making about a daughter raising her mother from the dead, an act of which her mother approves, although not the … Continue reading → The post MOTHER’S DAY: confessions when a writer is a daughter! first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

Please help yourself to an hour (plucked from Daylight Savings Time), slowing down (because you know you move too fast) for the up of the ThePoetrySlowDown that aspires to be a Holy Fire Reiki for your spirit (as poetry perhaps always has … Continue reading →

A consideration of what we consider slow news, and what’s at stake, for our own survival and for society at large. In which we take up the fate of earth and all life (including spiders—and you’ll be glad) (you truly will) … Continue reading → The post THE EYES HAVE IT: WHEN SO MUCH DEPENDS UPON A RED WHEELBARROW GLAZED WITH RAIN BESIDE THE WHITE CHICKENS. . . HMM . . . OBVIOUSLY SO MUCH DEPENDS UPON IT, BUT WHAT? WHAT IS POETRY’S NEWS ANYWAY? WHAT IS A WASTE OF TIME? WHO BROUGHT UP WASTE OF TIME? INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW. first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

In which our show showcases poets’ love of teaching (their poems are proof of the pudding) and in which I learn from students’ questions to me about the role and use of poetry in our lives, and, in their own … Continue reading → The post THE USE OF POETRY: REVELATIONS AND OTHER LEARNING FROM MY STUDENTS—REVEALING THE I, U, US OF GENIUS first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

A perspective on how we (should) spend our daily energies. A bossiness of poets weigh in, from the late (but always here) Mary Oliver, William Stafford, Raymond Carver, Emily Dickinson, Billy Collins, Lorine Neidecker, Alice Dunbar -Nelson, Gerald Manley Hopkins, … Continue reading →

Hello, and happy new year, O friends, O ears, hear hear! You’re slowing down for the Poetry Slow Down—you know you move too fast! You know you are supposed to slow down for your health, and mind, and spirit, and … Continue reading → The post CALLING ALL LOVERS: YOU NEED THE TREE—BUT THE TREE NEEDS YOU! THE POETRY OF THE EQUAL SIGN, AKA GENIUS, or what’s at stake in how we see and express our earth (clue: life and death–ours) first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

If “everything is alive” (Ian Chillag), e=mc2 (Einstein), things “must be sung,” “sing themselves” (Emerson), then a) you are alive, b) you are everything, c) you are a song. We’re all in this together, like penguins and bats, singing our … Continue reading → The post HOW YOU MATTER TO A TREE, AND FOR THAT MATTER, EVERYTHING (Clue: It’s the Poetry in You) first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

You’re under the weather, my friend, feeling stressed and blue! Dr. B has a potion that will do: It’s light as a feather, word flour and fat, called for when the world seems sour and flat! Just when you’re going … Continue reading →

(A GOOD LOOK IN SHIRTS, NOT SO MUCH ON YOUR COMPUTER), AND DAYS ARE DARK, AND THE NEWS IS FRIGHTFUL, IT’S TIME TO LET GO THE NEWS FEED FOR THE NEWS YOU NEED: POETRY! YOU NEED TO GET OUT YOUR … Continue reading → The post WHO IS YOUR VIRGIL? OR, WHEN YOUR SCREEN GOES PLAID first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

From ancient drama to today’s poetry, lyric wisdom suggests (do or  die –“miserably”) that our sense of success, “home” and other destinations, and goals need to be rethought. Living is fraught with perils and defeats—or are our “defeats” really something to … Continue reading → The post RECALCULATE: IN LIFE’S DIRECTIONS, SOMETIMES WE NEED TO REDEFINE WHAT WE MEAN BY HAPPY ENDING first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

So Poetry Slow Down! You’re slowing down here (hear hear!) with me, your host Professor Barbara Mossberg, Dr. B, and our production team, Zappa Johns and Nico Moss: you know you move too fast! This is our time to slow down, … Continue reading → The post YOUR MIND CAN TRANSFORM A NON MOMENT OR TERRIBLE TIME INTO MOMENT AND COMEDY: Poetry Takes On the Tragedy and Comedy of Life first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

In fact it leads to heartwarming knowledge about our own humanity! And we need to hear this! Now! So we’ll slow down to take that windy path where goats go, lambs gambol. I’m your host Barbara Mossberg, with this ministry … Continue reading → The post FELLOW MORTALS—Goats and Sheep, for a GOAT SONG: A Path Through Songs, Stories and Poems about Goats and Sheep, and Who Knew Where It Would Lead? first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

To eat or to be eaten, or both? That is the question. Life and death. What is our human fate and purpose? These are large questions, indeed, and poetry has some answers to get us slowed down in these hurtling … Continue reading → The post THE PLATED SELF: ON BEING TASTY–The Noble Fate or Great Misfortune of Being Tasty, as reflected on in poetry first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

“Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; … Continue reading → The post BLITHE SPIRIT OF POETRY LIFTING—AND SAVING–OUR WORLD THROUGH HOPE: A Defense of Poetry (Shelley, 1819) Alive and Well Today first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”―Thornton Wilder “Wonderful to be here”—Walt Whitman That’s Thornton Wilder and Walt Whitman, and this is Professor Barbara Mossberg, with Producer Zappa … Continue reading → The post HERE FOR THE PRESENT first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

Our #POETRYSLOWDOWN always says we are the news you need, the news you heed, the news “without which men die miserably every day” (Wm. Carlos Williams).  We are the news between the headlines, fast-breaking, late-breaking, heart-breaking news; we are the heart-making news. Here … Continue reading → The post In Memory of Anthony Bourdain THE POETIC CHEF: Stewing Those Lyric Chops– Tolstoys, Woolfs, Dantes in the Kitchen first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

In a dark time, the eye begins to see, I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood—A lord of nature weeping to a tree. I live between the heron and the wren, … Continue reading → The post THE DAY’S ON FIRE: It’s for the Birds first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

Theodore Roethke, In a Dark Time: In a dark time, the eye begins to see, I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood—A lord of nature weeping to a tree. I live between … Continue reading → The post THE DAY’S ON FIRE: It’s for the Birds first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

On this May day, as our on-air show live today from Helsinki celebrates the happiness in the hear and now, with ecopoetry, an anniversary show of poems of juice shared on this show over five years, no, six, no, seven, … Continue reading → The post A JUICY SHOW: INK IS DRIPPING FROM MY LIPS/THERE IS NO HAPPINESS LIKE MINE (Mark Strand); TODAY I WAS HAPPY SO I MADE THIS POEM (James Wright); NOW MAY CRIES OUT AGAIN, I’M HERE I’M HERE (Alicia Ostriker) first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

Ah, but the poets knew! Hear we are (hear hear!) at your Poetry Slow Down, our weekly hour news shoe since 2008—if the show fits, hear it!–the news you need, the news you heed, the news “without which men die … Continue reading → The post LIVE FROM THE DIPLOMAT, Stockholm, Sweden: CRY FOWL! HENPOWER (WHO KNEW?) first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

A radio-waving welcome to Congresswoman Pingree, new co-chair of Congress’ Caucus for the Arts; how arts have played key roles in critical legislation for civil and human rights, war and peace, and the environment, including making Presidential reputations for greatness … Continue reading → The post CAUCUS FOR THE HEARTS: WHY ART MATTERS TO CONSTANTLY KEEPING THE COUNTRY GREAT first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

(Would a tree ask this question?) Meanwhile, or is it rather kindwhile, but meanwhile in terms of ways and means, how do we spend our time when things are loosey goosey and goose droppings of news are drooping like rain—here (hear … Continue reading → The post WHAT IS YOUR RED LETTER DAY? Or, GOODNESS ON THE LOOSE, GOODNESS AT LARGE, and HOW DO WE EVEN KNOW WE ARE ALIVE? first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

I’M A LONELY STRANGER HERE (Clapton) here there is no place that does not see you (Rilke): YOU DO NOT HAVE TO GO TO PRISON—A POEM HAS YOUR BACK. Yes, there is an epidemic that on the surface seems bewildering, … Continue reading → The post YOU DO NOT HAVE TO GO TO PRISON—A POEM HAS YOUR BACK first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

A shoe for you, kicking up those poetic feet that will lift your spirits, the news you need, the news you heed, the news without which men die miserably every day—so says Dr. William Carlos Williams, and we’ll hear ideas for … Continue reading → The post HOW WOULD YOU SAVE YOUR TREE?–THE HOPE IN YOU: ALL IN OUR FUTURE’S HANDS first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

The Role of Poetry in Living Deliberately—the art and science of going to the woods, so to speak. And so we are! Speaking of the woods:: e.e. cummings’ sonnet of gratitude, amazement, for every thing, alive again today, ready to … Continue reading → The post BOSSY BARBARA’S GUIDE TO JOY PART ONE first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

And so it is, a plating of lyric memoir about food and hunger, on eating and being eaten, on who is eating (or not), on what is, and is not, eaten—like Thoreau’s Walden, Where I Lived and What I Lived For, … Continue reading → The post TABLE OF CONTENTS! first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

Top o the morning to you, Poetry community! Post-Valentines, in the thick of birthdays of civic leaders, we’re slowing down for our Poetry Slow Down, I’m your host Professor Barbara Mossberg, with our West Coast Producer Zappa Johns, broadcasting live … Continue reading → The post EARTH ON THE LINE! CALLING EARTH BACK! ENCOURAGEMENT FOR EARTH—WHO NEEDS OUR LOVING NOTICE, LOVING FEELING. POETRY FEET LEAP TO THE RESCUE (or, Wisdom of the Candy Hearts from the Eco-Literati) first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

Life and Death Stakes in Paying Attention, Your Own, Each Other’s, Our Earth’s, and What Amazed Poetry Has To Do With It. (Mary Oliver (a lot), D. H. Lawrence, Emily Dickinson (of course), John Muir (a lot), John Steinbeck, Arthur … Continue reading → The post ATTENTION MUST BE PAID (Death of a Salesman) AND OTHER PRAYERS/THE SPILL OUT OF YOU first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

When there’s a murder, we investigate “who dunnit.” When something’s gone wrong, we look for evidence. But what about when something goes right? With good acts, great acts, can we also investigate “who dunnit?” What’s the “weapon?” What’s the motive? … Continue reading → The post THE APOLOGY HEARD ROUND THE WORLD first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

The Poetry Slow Down with Professor Barbara Mossberg. In our show, broadcast live from Los Angeles, where John Muir died 103 years ago today, we consider his last words, sprawled as he lay in a hospital bed with the manuscript … Continue reading → The post A TIME TO REMEMBER JOHN MUIR AS A POET, AND THE ROLE POETRY HAS ALWAYS PLAYED IN CIVIC CONSCIENCE first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

My little chickadees! Hello! This is your Professor Barbara Mossberg and I’m greeting you this dark December day, one of the shortest and darkest of the whole year, with the sound of a chickadee, on THE POETRY SLOW DOWN with … Continue reading → The post THE NEWS OF CHICKADEE: RX IN A TIME OF STRUGGLE first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

An Emily Dickinson Poetry Shoe (if the show fits, hear it): how poets change our life and save the earth (and/or make it want to keep on), with music by Merrilee Rush, Kings of Leon, Yosef Islam, the former Cat … Continue reading → The post BLESS, YOU POETS! first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

What if we approached poetry as a stadium event, we’ll consider that and amazing poems that shine in darkness and lift us today, and how we need this light, in the context of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s national recruiting calls for … Continue reading → The post “HEARING IN THE DARKNESS THE EVERLASTING SONG OF US” (from Chuck Tripi’s “Agencies of Grace”): THE GAME OF POEMS (AN ANCIENT AND EMERGENT NATIONAL PASTTIME) AND FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, POEMS TO LIGHT US IN DARK DAYS AND FRIDAY NIGHTS first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

I’ll admit some of them run over a thousand pages. Some are translated from Sumerian on clay tablets. Some are from Spanish, Greek, French, olde English, and quirky as the day is long. Poetry, prose, drama, spoken, written, sung, they … Continue reading → The post TEN CLASSICAL TAKEAWAYS YOU NEED RIGHT NOW (AND SO DOES YOUR DAUGHTER, AND SO DOES YOUR GRANDFATHER) first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

I TOOK my power in my hand And went against the world; ’T was not so much as David had, But I was twice as bold. I aimed my pebble, but myself Was all the one that fell. Was it … Continue reading → The post BRAVERY: THE POETRY OF MORAL COURAGE first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

THE RADIO SHOE: Poetic footwork in the POETRY SLOW DOWN, with Professor Barbara Mossberg (“no place safe from poetry”), in which the news of poetry is a civic force of community building and health, and general happiness, and world peace, … Continue reading → The post ANGELS AND TREES—and what song and story has to do with saving the earth first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

And/or, You Are My Sunshine as Rocket Science: the Physics of Campfire Wisdom, with thanks to Thomas Friedman for “Stempathy,” and my contribution to the case for learning the world needs now, now more than ever: in calling for empathy, as scientists … Continue reading → The post STEMPATHY: WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT (SCIENCES, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, AND MATHS)?, OR, GENIUS–IT’S ALL ABOUT POETRY (AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN) first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

From October, 2013: “Today when persimmons ripen,” as Jane Hirshfield begins us, we’re slowing down—you know you move too fast—in this slowed time of year, where trees are strutting their structural moxie, revealed when their leaves take flight, sing the … Continue reading → The post Rebroadcast: *YOUR EFFULGENCE, THE BONES AND LIGHT OF IT–* *LET THESE POEMS TURN YOU RED GOLD ORANGE AND YELLOW: YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A TREE AND YOU KNOW IT* first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

And talk about poetry we will, with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Ada Limon, Ross Gay, and Emily Dickinson. She started it, really: she said “Nobody knows this little rose.” Now we know Nobody: Odysseus’ cunning way to describe himself when he escapes the … Continue reading → The post ALL THIS USELESS BEAUTY: DOES BEAUTY MATTER, WHY AND HOW COULD IT MATTER GIVEN TODAY’S NEWS, IS IT A LUXURY WE NO LONGER CAN AFFORD? QUESTIONS WE HAVE TO ASK, THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM WHEN WE TALK ABOUT POETRY. first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

From October 21, 2012: Bees, why bees, Dr. B? You’ve given us shows of moles and bats and hats and coots, roosters, birds, foxes, bears, butterflies, and even worms! How low can you go? You’ve had us walking, on our … Continue reading → The post Rebroadcast: EARTH’S ALPHABET BEGINS WITH B(EE): ON OUR BEES’ KNEES, OR, WHAT THE BUZZ IS ALL ABOUT first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

“Today when persimmons ripen,” as Jane Hirshfield begins us, we’re slowing down—you know you move too fast—in this slowed time of year, where trees are strutting their structural moxie, revealed when their leaves take flight, sing the song of gravity, … Continue reading → The post KNOW YOURSELF MORE DEEPLY (A SHINING GOLD TRUTH THAT WAS THERE ALL ALONG)–WE REVISIT YOUR EFFULGENCE, THE BONES AND LIGHT OF IT– LET THESE POEMS TURN YOU RED GOLD ORANGE AND YELLOW: NOTES FROM YOUR INNER TREE first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

From September 27, 2015: Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning, and sang.—Mary Oliver (from Swan) Mary Oliver knows worry. Shakespeare knows worry. … Continue reading → The post Rebroadcast: CAN I TALK YOU OUT OF YOUR WORRIES? (or do I even want to?) first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

THIS POEM: POETS SLOW DOWN TO CONSIDER THE QUESTIONS THAT MAKE US THANKFULLY HUMAN Whoever Brought Me Here All day I think about it, then at night I say it. 
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed … Continue reading → The post WHAT DO WE REALLY CARE ABOUT? POEMS KNOW. POEMS HAVE OUR NUMBER. WE CAN TAKE THEM AT THEIR WORD first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.

SLOW DOWN! YOU KNOW YOU MOVE TOO FAST A VERY UNECLIPSE TO YOU FOR A YEAR AND LIFETIME OF AMAZEMENT EVERYDAY WONDER Dazzling Poetry but You Don’t Need Glasses to Listen– All-Us in Wonderland, or, It’s News to Me   … Continue reading → The post LIVE FROM THE 4 CHICKS CAFÉ and the Emily Dickinson International Society Annual Meeting first appeared on Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown.