Podcast appearances and mentions of gregory orr

Written in the key of grief and the melody of praise, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer sits down with Raghu to discuss her newest poetry book, The Unfolding.Enjoy your own copy of The Unfolding to read Rosemerry's heart-opening poems! Purchase the book HEREThis week, tune into Rosemerry and Raghu's conversation on: The loss of Rosemerry's son and fatherLiving through seasons of extreme griefUnderstanding the gift of a poemOppositional feelings experienced at the same time (pain + joy, etc.)Recognizing how desperately we need eachotherThe Grand Quilt, The Medicine of Surrender, and more poems written and read by RosemerryBrave prayers and the things that open us / help us growInspiration from Gregory Orr and Leonard CohenHow grief strips us naked and makes us vulnerableRaghu sends us off with a beautiful Kabir poem from the book Painting from the Palette of LoveAbout Rossemerry Trommer:Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is an American poet associated with Colorado. She was Poet Laureate of San Miguel County, Colorado from 2006–2010, and was named Poet Laureate of Colorado's Western Slope by the Telluride Institute from 2015–2017. Most recently, Rosemerry published The Unfolding, a book of poetry exploring grief. Rosemerry was featured on TEDxTalks to discuss the art of changing metaphors and created an album of poetry called Dark Praise with Steve Law. Check out Rosemerry's website, Wordwoman, and her daily poetry blog, A Hundred Falling Veils. You can also join Rosemerry in an immersive daily experience of poetry and reflection on the Ritual app.“So many people reached out to help me… they'd say, ‘What can we do?' And I'd just say, ‘Open me. Help me stay open. Please, help me stay open.'” – Rosemerry TrommerSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this short bonus episode we're catching up with filmmaker Gregory Orr, who's back to share exciting news about the Blu-ray release of his updated documentary, Jack L. Warner: The Last Mogul. Gregory is also making an appearance at the Warner Studios Tour on November 30th, so we get the full details.Purchase JACK L. WARNER: THE LAST MOGUL on MoviezyngClick here for more info on the November 30th eventFollow Gregory Orr on Facebook MovieZyng Affiliate The BEST place to buy all of your Warner Archive and Boutique DVDs and Blu-raysDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupOtaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. www.otakumedia.tv

TVC 619:1: Ed welcomes filmmaker Gregory Orr, son of William T. Orr, the original head of television production at Warner Bros. Studios, and the grandson of Warner Bros. co-founder Jack L. Warner. Calendar year 2023 marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of Warner Bros.; to mark the occasion, Greg has just released the director's cut of his 1993 documentary Jack L. Warner: The Last Mogul, an unvarnished look at one of the founding fathers of the American film industry, all told through Warner Bros. film clips, personal home movies, exclusive interviews with such luminaries as Shirley Jones, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Pat Buttram, Sheila MacRae, and Debbie Reynolds, and more than forty minutes of new material—all in high definition. The release of the director's cut marks the first time that the film has been shown in the United States in its entirety, as it was intended. Jack L. Warner: The Last Mogul is available now for streaming on demand on all major platforms and on DVD through outlets such as MovieZyng.com. Use promo JACK through the end of August and receive 10 percent off your purchase of the DVD through Movie Zyng. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They're great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Vision Films has Released Remastered Documentary ‘Jack L. Warner: The Last Mogul' In Celebration of Warner Bros. 100th Anniversary I am celebrating the Transactional VOD and DVD release of the celebrated documentary Jack L. Warner: The Last Mogul. Produced by Jack Warner's grandson, filmmaker Gregory Orr, the film reveals the inside story of the man behind the movies and the famous studio, Warner Bros., that he and his brothers launched one-hundred years ago this month. The film's release coincides with the studio's centennial celebrations, and has been updated with new Warner Bros. film clips, rare home movies, and a new soundtrack—all in High Definition from 4K masters. From a family member with unmatched access comes the portrait of a Hollywood legend whom Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, James Cagney, Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, and Bugs Bunny called “boss.” Synopsis: In an age of legends and glamour Jack Warner reigned supreme. From humble beginnings, he and his brothers founded Warner Bros. studios. For over fifty years he held the crown, and with it made movie history—from flickering silents to wide-screen color epics. An insider's account of the man Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, and Bugs Bunny called "boss.” Trailer:    • Jack L. Warner: T...   Featuring archival interviews with Shirley Jones, Debbie Reynolds, Sheila MacRae, Jack Warner, Jr., Neal Gabler, Jack Warner, and many more. Narrated by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

Today on The Neil Haley Show, Neil "The Media Giant" Haley and Kim Sorrelle will interview Gregory Orr of The Jack L. Warner: The Last Mogul.   Los Angeles, CA (April 24, 2023) - Vision Films Inc. (“Vision”) announces the  Transactional VOD and DVD release of the celebrated documentary Jack L.  Warner: The Last Mogul on May 9, 2023. Produced by Jack Warner's grandson,  filmmaker Gregory Orr, the film reveals the inside story of the man behind the  movies and the famous studio, Warner Bros., that he and his brothers launched one-hundred years ago this month. The film's release coincides with the studio's centennial celebrations, and has been updated with new Warner Bros. film clips,  rare home movies, and a new soundtrack—all in High Definition from 4K  masters. From a family member with unmatched access comes the portrait of a  Hollywood legend whom Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, James Cagney, Errol  Flynn, Ronald Reagan, and Bugs Bunny called “boss.”   Synopsis: In an age of legends and glamour Jack Warner reigned supreme. From humble beginnings, he  and his brothers founded Warner Bros. studios. For over fifty years he held the crown, and with it made  movie history—from flickering silents to wide-screen color epics. An insider's account of the man Bette  Davis, Errol Flynn, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, and Bugs Bunny called "boss.”  Trailer: https://youtu.be/bzW3XEnq5qo  Featuring archival interviews with Shirley Jones, Debbie Reynolds, Sheila MacRae, Jack Warner, Jr., Neal  Gabler, Jack Warner, and many more. Narrated by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.   

Today on The Neil Haley Show, Neil "The Media Giant" Haley and Kim Sorrelle will interview Gregory Orr of The Jack L. Warner: The Last Mogul.   Los Angeles, CA (April 24, 2023) - Vision Films Inc. (“Vision”) announces the  Transactional VOD and DVD release of the celebrated documentary Jack L.  Warner: The Last Mogul on May 9, 2023. Produced by Jack Warner's grandson,  filmmaker Gregory Orr, the film reveals the inside story of the man behind the  movies and the famous studio, Warner Bros., that he and his brothers launched one-hundred years ago this month. The film's release coincides with the studio's centennial celebrations, and has been updated with new Warner Bros. film clips,  rare home movies, and a new soundtrack—all in High Definition from 4K  masters. From a family member with unmatched access comes the portrait of a  Hollywood legend whom Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, James Cagney, Errol  Flynn, Ronald Reagan, and Bugs Bunny called “boss.”   Synopsis: In an age of legends and glamour Jack Warner reigned supreme. From humble beginnings, he  and his brothers founded Warner Bros. studios. For over fifty years he held the crown, and with it made  movie history—from flickering silents to wide-screen color epics. An insider's account of the man Bette  Davis, Errol Flynn, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, and Bugs Bunny called "boss.”  Trailer: https://youtu.be/bzW3XEnq5qo  Featuring archival interviews with Shirley Jones, Debbie Reynolds, Sheila MacRae, Jack Warner, Jr., Neal  Gabler, Jack Warner, and many more. Narrated by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.       

Gregory Orr is a poet who is known to be a master of the short, personal lyric. About Gregory, Mary Oliver wrote “He speaks now, in these many short poems, which in their entirety are really one long poem, of mysteries, of those things –emotions, situations, mind and heart states–which are beyond the definitive.” Gregory is the author of more than 10 collections of poetry. He has also published a beautiful book about lyric poetry called Poetry as Survival along with a stunning memoir, The Blessing. His latest book of poetry is Selected Books of the Beloved.In this conversation we talked about lyric poetry, anxiety, surviving trauma and the power of art to save a life.In 2018 Gregory performed a poem-and-poems-set-to-music using his “beloved” poems, featuring the Parkington Sisters. We didn't get to discuss this during our conversation but you can check it out here: The Beloved Poetry & Music | Video You can read more about Gregory on his website http://gregoryorr.net/. His wife, painter Tricia Orr's art can be found on her website, http://www.trishaorr.com/. Finally, you can listen to Gregory's conversation with Krista Tippett for the On Being podcast here.This episode was audio produced by Katie McMurran. Music is by Madisen Ward.

Gregory Orr buzzes back into the Hive to talk with Dion O'Reilly about his newest book, Selected Books of the Beloved. We talk about John Keats's "Lines Supposed to Be Addressed to Fanny Braun," the difference between epic and lyric poetry, and the dangers of the false Beloved. Gregory Orr was born February 3, 1947 in Albany, New York. He grew up in the rural Hudson Valley. At the age of twelve, he was responsible for the death of a younger brother in a hunting accident, an event that powerfully influenced his ideas about trauma, silence and poetry. When he was fourteen, his family moved to Haiti, where his father worked as a doctor at the Hospital Albert Schweitzer in Deschapelles. The family returned to the States a year later, after his mother's sudden death. In 1965, at the age of eighteen, he worked as a civil rights volunteer in Mississippi. During that time, he was kidnapped at gunpoint in rural Alabama and held for a week in solitary confinement in the town of Hayneville. These events of his youth form the basis of his memoir, The Blessing, which tells the story of his childhood and how he came to poetry. The author of more than 10 collections of poetry and several volumes of essays, criticism, and memoir, Gregory Orr is a master of the short, personal lyric. His poetry has been widely anthologized and translated into at least 10 languages. Observes critic Hank Lazer, “From Burning the Empty Nests (1973) to the present, Orr gradually developed the ability to fuse his incredible skill at visual precision—the signature of his image-based work in his very first book—with an insistent musical quality, joining visual precision with a beauty of sound.”

I don't remember the exact details surrounding my introduction to Gregory or his work. I do remember that upon my first reading, I was captured. In fact, one of my favorite live performance moments ever was sitting with my friend David dark, who's also been a guest on this podcast several times, at a reading of Gregory Orr's at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., and having one of those shared when I grew up, I would like to be like that moments. I could say quite a bit about his work in order to set this up. Instead, I would like to get you directly to the interview he reads from a most recent volume of his towards the tail end. And I'm so glad that he did. I think you will be too. Enjoy this. Links for Gregory OrrWebsite - http://gregoryorr.netLatest Book - Selected Books of the Beloved

Gregory Orr reads from his book Last Love Poem I will Ever Write. Dion O'Reilly and Gregory Orr discuss the "threshold," the boundary between the tolerable and intolerable and how poetry crafts disorder, revealing tools to survive or, even better, to discover the Beloved. We discuss the lyric poem, the villanelle, and how moments of bliss and pain turn us into poets and lovers of poetry, bringing deeper meaning to our lives. Greg has a new book, Selected Books of the Beloved, that came out in August 2022.

Selected Books by the Beloved by Gregory Orr by Poets & Writers

A number of years ago, I sat in on a reading by the poet Gregory Orr. Gregory Or was then (and is now) a favorite poet of mine. In fact, he's a favorite writer of mine. He was maybe five or six pieces into this reading when a conversation struck up between two of the other gentleman in the room. Sitting behind me, I heard one of them saying, loudly enough for me to hear,  “I don't understand any of this” I'd definitely heard that about poetry or about poems before. I've probably even said that even as an English major and someone who writes poetry. “I don't get it” So, that's not the remarkable part of the story; to say or hear “I don't understand this poem or poetry.”  What was notable was that the person he was talking to gave that moment of pause and said…“Actually, not everything is meant to be understood.” This need or desire and me to understand is, in essence, an expression of control. When I talk about “getting” something, when I talk about “understanding” something, part of what I mean by that is that I have a kind of power over it. Part of what good (if not great) poetry does is it disorients me to my own language; the words I normally would use to identify, name, pin down and control the world around me. Great poetry gives me the opportunity to get an attitude over my own life; to re-orient myself and my perspective to be, in fact, charmed again by the life I'm actually living. And while you will not find in me an enemy of liberalism on the whole, what you will hear me say is that a strict literalist understanding of life, scripture, relationship, and humanity steals from me the sacred joy and gift of being named in my life. See. when I name myself or a name my world, I generally do so (unfortunately) in a posture of power and control and in usefulness. All the while, near the heart of my being, is the desire to be more than useful  to be more than understood and more than powerful too, in fact, be loved And to be Beloved is a thing I can only be named from outside myself. Deeper than that: To receive that Title from someone else, from a culture, or from God, requires me to be in a position of powerlessness requires me to be in a position in which I don't get to understand I simply get to receivePoetry primes the spirit, primes the mind, loosens to grips I have on the language by which I will control my life my definitions and postures me to actually become someone who can be loved. and is that not the thing in life that is simply wider, deeper, stronger, and better than any form of understanding: love One of the great tragedies of religious culture and religious practice is the propensity to lean towards literalism. Bot because literalism is an enemy in and of itself; it's simply a limited way to understand the language by which we talk about humanity and the divine and history and relationship. Some things, yes, should be understood. But only in the service of posturing me to love my world better. The need I have (and desire I have) to understand the world around me should always be subservient to the deeper desire to love my world. To understand you should not be my goal; To love you well should.  And yes, sometimes when I don't understand you and I don't understand “why you are the way you are,” it can be more difficult to love you. On the other hand, sometimes the desire to just “get you” is too small a goal; I don't get the great joy of discovering and learning and having to expand in order to receive you as you are. And that is the call of great poetry; to pause long enough to listen to the pattern, to the rhythm, to the placement and the choice of the words on the page or uttered by the author's mouth. That I would open myself up slightly wider to a different understanding of the same word that I might receive that word might receive that reality on a deeper level in a different way.And if I can do that with languagethen maybe I can do that with the people around me.Culture is usually formed and shaped and solidified by the words we use to identify the lines between people; I'm here you're there and this is our relationship. Poetry takes those words and sometimes unpacks them and sometimes unpacks us with them. That we might look around our lives and inside ourselves and say something more like this:  “I don't understand and that's probably not just OK; that's probably good. Because I'm not here to ‘get it… I'm here to love well.'”

Gregory Orr reads his poem, “This is what was bequeathed us.” This poem is included in our “Taking the Long View” playlist on Spotify, which we created to get grounded in reflection that will be with us the day after the U.S. election and far beyond, whoever wins. Find more of Gregory’s poems on our website, where we’ve recently launched an entirely new way to Experience Poetry.

It's been something—this year of 2020: the pandemic, the quarantine, the killing of George Floyd and the ensuing protests, the wildfires currently occurring up and down the west coast, the looming November election . . . It's been a year of great challenges, and a year of hope for true and lasting change. How will this year—and how will we—be remembered? In this episode, Matt and Alvin read pieces circling the theme of remembrance, written before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Additionally, they share a summary overview of the situation for Underground Writing, as well as program updates, forthcoming projects, and great news about a just-announced grant. LINKS OF INTEREST: 'Last Will and Testament' – Sherman Alexie 'No Many of Them, It's True' – Gregory Orr (part of the “The World Has Need of You” collection) 'Orpheus and Eurydice: A Lyric Sequence' – Gregory Orr 'Poetry as Survival' – Gregory Orr 'Orpheus, Eurydice, Hermes' - Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Steven Mitchell) Hope in These Times: e-deliverable writing worksheet Underground Writing's active writing workshops: Mount Vernon Migrant Leaders Club in the Mount Vernon School District Skagit County Community Justice Center Skagit County Juvenile Detention Skagit Valley Recovery Site (hosted by Brigid Collins) YMCA Oasis Daylight Center The Change list of suggested books Long Way Down - Jason Reynolds I'm Still Here: Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness - Austin Channing Brown The Vintage Hughes - Langston Hughes Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison The Winter of Our Discontent - John Steinbeck Letters to a Young Inmate is in the home stretch, launching later 2020 Academy of American Poets Community of American Magazines and Presses National Book Foundation COVID 19 pandemic PNW wildfire smoke Underground Writing: a literature-based creative writing program serving migrant, incarcerated, recovery, and other at-risk communities in northern Washington through literacy and personal transformation.

by Gregory Orr

Join me for an episode that is part autobiographical, part solidarity with Pride and Black Lives matter, part poetry, part science, and part Buddhism. Sounds a bit chaotic, doesn't it? Yet I hope you find some relevant order. Sharing a recent experience with my own revisiting of internal trauma sparked by the external trauma of pandemic politics and social unrest, I tried to find order in the chaos through poetry and, of course, Buddhism. Every life has some chaos because as the poet Gregory Orr writes, "there is a great deal of disorder in experience." Or stated through a Buddhist lens, "the unenlightened life is suffering." Yet, in the suffering and chaos there may be a new heartbeat; the birth of a new order, if we lean in and keep going with strong back and soft front.

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-432 – Running through the Pandemic  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4432.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to episode 4-432 of the RunRunLive Podcast. How are you doing?  Really, how are you doing?  This is a powerful question.  I find myself slipping more and more into a coaching and advising role as I get deeper into my career.  And these past couple weeks I've found that to be a very useful and powerful question.  And a gift.  How are you doing?  Start your conversation by leaning into that zoom call, smiling, in a concerned way into that grainy laptop camera and asking ‘How are you doing?' Then sit back and be prepared to listen, to be empathetic.  To nod understandingly.  That's an enormous gift you can give these days. I'm doing ok.  I've been working on my nutrition still.  I've gotten close to 170 a couple days but keep popping back up to 175 ish as soon as I eat something.  It's a bit frustrating.  I'm not getting enough miles in my training to move the needle.  We've got a good and timely show today.  I sit down with our friend Dr. Greg to talk about some practical strategies for coming out of the apocalypse.  In section one I'll talk a bit about some strategies to turn all these nascent runners into life-long runners. In section two I'll talk about made up things, probably also timely. So – they canceled Boston.  It had been rescheduled to September.  But, they sent an email to us yesterday that the race was being canceled.  It seems like you can get a refund and there is going to be some sort of virtual race, but it will take a couple days for all the details to be sure.  If you were paying attention you got to see Mayor Marty Walsh.  That is the face of every Irish politician in Boston right there.  May-yah Mahty.   That's the face of the Statey at the airport waving you along.  ‘Yah can't Pahk Heah!”, or leaning in your car window looking for ‘License and Registration'.  Anyhow… I was running on a charity bib this year, not sure how that works now.  I'm out of qualification.  Funny thing is that I'm in good shape.  I've got no injuries and have been basically training since December!  With my recent weight loss and nutrition I'm running fast, for me.  I think the only thing missing is a couple big volume weeks and I could race well.  I've been doing a lot of shorter tempo runs and have been hitting good paces even on my tired days.  I don't feel like I'm in great shape.  I feel like I'm old and tired and slow.  My legs are achy and sore especially my quads on the uphills – but my tempo is in the mid-7's – which is a minute off my PR's from 20 years ago – but I only need an 8:13 to BQ. .  I am slogging away at the virtual race across Tennessee.  Falling behind as it were with my puny 30 odd miles a week.  C'est la vie.  Went for a bike ride yesterday.  Did about 26 miles in around an hour and a half.  Almost got decapitated.  True story.  I was rolling down this big hill towards the end of my ride.  Maybe going 20-25 miles per hour on Fuji-san, recovering from having just struggled up said hill.  There was a big construction dump truck coming up the hill in the other direction. You know the ones; used to carry great loads of dirt and rocks around from construction sites.  Now, our roads here is New England tend to be a bit rough towards the edges and I usually try to stay out of the gutter where the roughest bits are, especially when going fast.  I had looked over my shoulder and I was the only one on the road in my direction.  I was therefor riding out towards the center edge of the lane, keeping my eye on the truck as well because for some reason people sometimes drift over into your lane and I was not going to win that argument.  Apparently, this guy, and I'm sure it was a guy, had thrown some long lumber boards into the empty back of the dump truck.  I suppose when he started they were sticking out the back.  Those trucks are pretty bouncy and the lumber had drifted with the jostling and was sticking out of the truck sideways into oncoming traffic.  I'm not sure it was low enough to actually get me, but at the last second I ducked under it.  I felt a bit violated but not decapitated.  I'll take violated over decapitated most days.  As I turned around to yell some salty language it did look like he was stopping to fix this potential pedalist guillotine.  That's a story I'm not going to tell my wife.  On with the show. About Zero ZERO — The End of Prostate Cancer is the leading national nonprofit with the mission to end prostate cancer. ZERO advances research, improves the lives of men and families, and inspires action. Link to my ZERO page: (for Donations) … I'll remind you that the RunRunLive podcast is ad free and listener supported.  What does that mean? It means you don't have to listen to me trying to sound sincere about Stamps.com or Audible.. (although, fyi, my MarathonBQ book is on audible) We do have a membership option where you can become a member and as a special thank you, you will get access to member's only audio. There are book reviews, odd philosophical thoughts, zombie stories and I curate old episodes for you to listen to.  I recently added that guy who cut off is foot so he could keep training and my first call with Geoff Galloway.   “Curated” means I add some introductory comments and edit them up a bit.  So anyhow – become a member so I can keep paying my bills.   … The RunRunLive podcast is Ad Free and listener supported.  We do this by offering a membership option where members get Access to Exclusive Members Only audio and articles. Member only race reports, essays and other bits just for you! Links are in the show notes and at RunRunLive.com … Section one – Advice for new runners -   Voices of reason – the conversation Greg Milbourne Dr. Milbourne is a licensed psychologist specializing in work with children, families, couples and adults across the lifespan. From retirement home residents coping with end of life issues to an office practice helping families, couples, adults and children, Dr. Milbourne focuses on obtaining and maintaining good physical and mental health. “

We often explore on this show the places in the human experience where ordinary language falls short. The poet Gregory Orr has wrested gentle, healing, life-giving words from extreme grief and trauma. And right now we are all carrying some magnitude of grief in our bodies.Gregory Orr is the author of two books about poetry, Poetry as Survival and A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry, a memoir, The Blessing, and twelve collections of poetry, including How Beautiful the Beloved and The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write. He taught at the University of Virginia from 1975 to 2019, where he founded the university’s Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing.This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Gregory Orr — Shaping Grief With Language." Find more at onbeing.org.This show originally aired in May, 2019.

We often explore on this show the places in the human experience where ordinary language falls short. The poet Gregory Orr has wrested gentle, healing, life-giving words from extreme grief and trauma. And right now we are all carrying some magnitude of grief in our bodies.Gregory Orr is the author of two books about poetry, Poetry as Survival and A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry, a memoir, The Blessing, and twelve collections of poetry, including How Beautiful the Beloved and The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write. He taught at the University of Virginia from 1975 to 2019, where he founded the university’s Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.orgThis show originally aired in May, 2019.

Ron Riekki and I had a great conversation about his work, his life, and our common experiences.  He is a Saami, Karelian, Finn, and Greek writer with many writing credits. He's studied with Anne Beattie, John Casey, Jayne Anne Phillips, Anselm Hollo, and Stuart Dybek, to name a few! He also hung out with actor Sean Penn! Do give a listen and learn about this fascinating writer! http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com/episodes https://rariekki.webs.com/ You can order "Posttraumatic" here: https://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9781732336162/posttraumatic-a-memoir.aspx You can order "My Ancestors Are Reindeer Hers and I am Melting in Extinction" here: https://www.amazon.com/Ancestors-Reindeer-Herders-Melting-Extinction/dp/1627202102 "In My Ancestors are Reindeer Herders and I am Melting in Extinction, Ron Riekki presents a collection of non-fiction, short stories, and poetry about the Karelian- and Saami-American experience. In true nomadic fashion, his writing takes the reader to Kuusamo, Utah, Berkeley, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Lake Mohave, Yosemite, Karelia, and a hazmat facility where all the animals on site have been forgotten. A mix of Anselm Hollo, Gregory Orr, Eric Torgersen, and Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, Riekki’s writing forces the Saami-American voice to be heard, a voice that some might not even realize exists. It does. Furiously." You can order "Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice" here:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1611863082/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0 You can order "The Many Lives of the Evil Dead" here: https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/the-many-lives-of-the-evil-dead/ Bio:  Ron Riekki is a poet and award-winning screenwriter. He is the author of My Ancestors are Reindeer Herders and I Am Melting In Extinction: Saami-American Non-Fiction, Fiction, and Poetry, U.P.: A Novel, and Posttraumatic: A Memoir. He edited five anthologies: The Way North (Michigan Notable Book), And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917–2017, Here: Women Writing on Michigan's Upper Peninsula (Independent Publisher Book Award), Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice, and The Many Lives of The Evil Dead: Essays on the Cult Film Franchise. He's published his writing in The Threepenny Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Wigleaf, Spillway, Poetry Northwest, and many other literary journals. Riekki is Saami-American, Karelian-American, and Finnish-American. If he ever got a tattoo, it'd say Sisu. His home is the north. The far north. No, farther than that.

VT 2019 – The French Farce (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/Vermont2019.mp3] Link Farce. A farce is a comedy that aims at entertaining the audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, and thus improbable. Farce is also characterized by physical humor, the use of deliberate absurdity or nonsense, and broadly stylized performances. … Covered in dirt, sweat and sawdust.  There I was, laying on the table in the emergency room at my local hospital.  A nice thick maroon swell of blood blobbing out of the gash on my shin.  Waiting for the doctor-lady to come back.  You might think this would make me cranky.  But, on the contrary I was having a pretty good day. It was, ironically, Memorial Day.  A long weekend and I had gotten a lot done, including running the marathon in Vermont.  I was relieved to have that off my agenda, be done training and back to working on other stuff.  Like cutting up the trees I had felled in the yard.  Then the machete glanced off a branch and I whacked myself square on the shin bone with that long, heavy, sharp blade designed for slicing. Right on the shin bone.  Nothing serious just a bit of a rent on the protective covering of skin that keeps the red stuff in.  Editor's note: “Rent”, to divide, usually violently or abruptly from the middle English Renden and Old English Rendan. I staunched it with a rag from my chainsaw box and hobbled inside for some awkward first aid.  I flushed it out with Bactine and taped a bunch of gauze to it, wrapping the tape around my calf, ending up with something that you might see in an old war film or maybe an even earlier mummy movie.  That held it in place long enough for me move enough trees out of the driveway to get my truck out.  I drove to the emergency room. I wasn't looking forward to the emergency room.  On a major holiday it was sure to be filled with drunken yahoos, with “hold my beer” accidents.  I brought along a book and was going to start working on this report for you in the hours of waiting that I anticipated.  But, I was positively thrilled with service.  I barely had a chance to sit down in the squeaky, vinyl, institutional seat when I was called.  I was attended to by no less than 4 or 5 charming, enthusiastic and competent medical professionals.  It turned out that the doctor-lady on duty's favorite thing was stitches.  We had a great chat and I was in and out in 45 minutes!  They were impressed that I could tell them exactly how much I weighed.  They were almost as impressed with me having run a marathon in Vermont the day before as I was impressed with myself for, well…just being me.  It's a curse.  I drove home and finished chopping up my trees.  … The next night I went to the local Red Cross and tried to give blood.  I see you rolling your eyes.  Chris, what the hell?  You run a race Sunday, your put yourself in the Emergency room Monday, why are you trying to give blood on Tuesday?  In my defence they really want my blood.  They are on me serval phone calls and emails a day about how much they want my blood.  But, I'm usually in the middle of a training cycle and can't really afford to tapped of my basic circulatory life essence.  Consequently, I try to schedule blood donations for after my target events.  The nerve of them.  After begging me for weeks and putting me through all the preliminaries, they turned me away when I told them of my recent forestry mishap.  Apparently there is have some silly rule about ‘no open wounds'. I mean, you're after my blood, wouldn't this be a positive proof point that I've got some to spare? … No worries.  On to my next thing.  I like to be tightly scheduled.  I'm happiest when I have a nice pile of tasks in my que.  That's how my weekends go in the spring and summer.  A yellow sticky pad list of chores in my pocket that I try to get done to have that warm fuzzy feeling of accomplishment from washing the car or folding the laundry or … maybe even running a race.  … Teresa had come home from the City to pick up some stuff Friday.  We had to do a bike swap. I had procured a new city bike for her.  A city bike is a bicycle that is perfectly functional but has a low value and low probability of being stolen.  The 40-year-old Schwin I had previously procured was broken.  She had managed to crank out the bearing, which is not something I'm going to fix on a bike where the tires are worth more than the bike.  I procured a ‘new' old bike, cleaned it up, got most of the gears working, and transferred the rack from the old-old bike Saturday morning.  As we are all destined to do, I have turned into my father.  I had to drive her back into the city on Saturday.  I had to be in Vermont Saturday night as well. … I had packed up my race stuff.  Since I was driving, I didn't need to be picky.  A little of this, a little of that.  I opted to go back to my old Brooks baggie shorts with the bike short liner, because they have enough pockets to carry all my standard race stuff. A couple gels, a baggie of Endurolytes, a small thing of lube. I was trying to make the 7:00PM deadline to pick up my bib in Vermont.  Burlington is about 3 hours and change from my house.  After the side trip to the city it was going to be tight.  … The weather forecast called for clear skies Saturday slowly changing to rain in the evening, then into thunderstorms through the morning.  I try not to think too much about the weather when I'm approaching a race.  There really isn't much you can do about it. No sense wasting your energy fretting. It was starting to drizzle when I pulled into the race expo hotel in South Burlington with 8 minutes to spare.  I was able to get my bib and pick up a couple Expresso Love Gu's – old-school nutrition.  In a change of pace, I got a medium shirt, instead of a large due to my current waifish deportment.  Then I wandered off in the strengthening showers to find my campground.  My comfy rustic home to pitch my lonely tent for the evening.  … To get to my camp I was routed right by the race start/finish area. Which was nice.  The college town of Burlington sits on the edge of Lake Champlain.  The race course for the marathon is a sort of figure 8 that goes out north of the city, turns around and runs back through the city, turns again and comes back by the park again to go north, again, then comes back south along a bike trail at the edge of the lake to the finish.  Eyeballing it on the map I thought I might be able to walk to the race start in the morning from my camp.  The bike trail that the race finishes on runs right by the edge of the campground.  I measured it to be over a mile by the road. I figured I probably wouldn't want to hike that, especially in a storm, in the morning, and definitely wouldn't want to hike back after the race.  I called Brian to see what his plans were. He told me he wasn't racing. He was running with his son Chris.  Good for him.  That completes something special for him.  Running a marathon with every one of his kids.  But, for me, I wouldn't be able to pace with him. Did I mention I was racing?  Yeah, I had a goal.  I was trying to spin that fitness from my Boston training cycle into a qualifying race.  I thought it would be a no-brainer.  I was in good shape.  This was supposed to be a more reasonable course.  I'd just hang on to the back of the nearest pace group to 3:30 and be done with that.  Piece of cake.  … Checking in to my camp site it was raining fairly hard now, and of course, as I unrolled my tent it started pouring.  I was trying to hurry but that just made things slower.  The way these tents work is that there isn't a real roof.  The roof part is a screen, a mesh, to I suppose, let your foul camping breath and farts out.  But that let the rain come right through.  The way you make it watertight is to string another bit, called a fly, over the open part, which was giving me trouble in the wind.  Picture ma trying to do all this in the pouring rain and wind.  I must've looked incredibly pitiful.  Hold that picture in your head next time you think hiking the Appalachian trail is a good idea.  Some guy even ran over from a neighboring camp site to help me.  At least it wasn't dark out yet. The good news was that I was right next to the shower & bathroom facilities buulding. The bad news was that I was right next to the shower & bathroom facilities building.  Lots of traffic. Lots of lights.  People wandering around.  I took a few minutes to pump up my mattress. This all seemed like a great idea when I set it up last month.  Not so much now.  Soaking wet.  Pumping away in my little tent with the rain beating on the sides. … Now I'm thinking I should have some sort of meal before I crash out in my soggy hidey hole.  I did what any sentient 21st century droid would do and asked Siri for a grocery store nearby.  I was thinking maybe a Wholefoods or something similar.  But, Burlington, being an old New England Town, is filled with corner grocery stores. Basically, one room affairs with beer, chips and lottery tickets. I was getting tired at this point, so I gave up and bought a turkey sandwich and a beer. I returned to my campground and sat in my truck, thinking how sad a spectacle I was soggy, in my truck with the rain pouring down, chewing on a gas-station sandwich.  Having paddled my canoe through these types of adventures before and thought to myself, smiling a bit, ‘this will make a great story'.  I was worrying a bit about logistics for the morning.  I didn't want to hike the mile plus to the start in a rainstorm.  I decided I would drive in early and find a place to park. They said there was municipal parking, but after my ‘grocery store' adventure I wondered what that would be like, or if it even existed.  Ce'st la vie.  Time for beddy-by.  … In normal conditions my tent, mattress and sleeping bag are pretty darn comfy.  These weren't exactly ‘normal'. It was storming hard, with blowing wind and driving rain. I could hear the waves crashing down on the lake shore with a steady roar. The spotlights on the facilities lit up my tent like an operating theatre. I crawled into my tent, dragging mud and water with me.  Crawled into my sleeping bag and wrapped my throw away shirt around my head like a bandage to block the light, put my phone on airplane mode and set the alarm for 5 AM. That should give me plenty of time to get ready and find a parking spot. Now, on a normal night, in the campground, hard up against the communal bathroom, I probably would have been kept awake by the noise of the park denizens coming and going and recreating. This was not a normal night. I considered my good fortune. The roar of the waves and the wind and the steady drum of a hard rain was like a meditation track, right?  White noise.  The song “The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” was running slyly through my head. “The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Of the big lake they called 'gitche gumee' The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead When the skies of November turn gloomy” That's when I realize that I had to pee.  At the same time I realized I would rather have my bladder explode and die of sepsis than go out int o this storm.  Then I fell asleep.  A couple hours later I woke up to an eerie, (no pun intended), silence.  I was woken up by pause in storms.  It was a bit before 11:00 and I thought, now would be an excellent time to make a run for the facilities next door.  As I started moving around I realized that there was a fair amount of water inside my tent.  Whether it was from me bumping the sides or the rain coming sideways under the fly, I don't know. My sleeping bag was wet.  As I extracted myself and went to the rest room I thought that this might be a problem if the storms returned and temperature dropped a bit more.  Woke by quiet after 10.  Goodtime to pee.  Sleeping bag wet.  So, we held an executive meeting in my head and decided to sleep in the truck for the rest of the night.  It was surprisingly comfortable with my sleeping bag and the seat all the way back.  I slept great.  … My 5 AM alarm woke me to a humid, cool morning with scattered, pudgy clouds.  I was still worried about parking so I got my stuff on and drove into town.  Not only was the parking garage available and deserted, I'm pretty sure it was free.  The gate was open and the display had some sort of non-descriptive announcement.  I didn't have too many options for breakfast so I ate one of the SpringEnergy gels I had brought.  They're more like baby food than race gels.  My next mission would be to find a cup of coffee somewhere.  I took $5 with me and went out to walk around the start area.  After a few laps I found a gas station with some coffee and checked that box.  That left me with another problem.  Now I had $3 left over that I didn't know what to do with.  I could just drop it on the ground.  I could try to carry it.  In the end I just handed to some guy in a Bruins shirt.  He was confused.  He was pretty sure I was up to something nefarious.  … Then I just hung out in the park and stretched and relaxed.  It was partially sunny, very humid with a bit of wind and lots of puddles.  The race starts at 7:00 now, ever since the heat incident of 2 years ago.  Looking out over the lake there were towers of blackish clouds.  As I wandered about someone called my name and it was Brian and his son.  I was glad to see them.  Glad to have someone to chat with.  We hung out and listened to the race announcements.  Bart Yasso was saying something to the assembled throng.  There were maybe 3,000 people in the race.  Lots of 50 staters.  A nice size for a race.  About 15 minutes before the start the announcers came on and told everyone to leave the park and take shelter in the parking garages.  Apparently one of those black clouds out over the race had us in its sites.   The crowd filed out of the park across the street and down the road.  Brian, his son and I went into the Courtyard Hotel lobby.  We chatted with some of the folks in there, but basically stood around for 45 minutes while another small storm cell passed over.  That's a first for me.  They let us go back to the race start after the danger had passed.  Speaking of passing, I got passed by Bart Yasso leaving the hotel.  I said hi but he was in a hurry to get back to the announcing.  We found our corrals.  I hunted down the 3:30 pace leaders.  And we were off and running about 7:45.  It was a bit humid but nothing terrible.  I hung close to the pace leader and we were quickly up to pace.  There were two pacers for 3:30.  They did a good job. They kept us within 5 seconds of the pace even with the rolling hills, the hard lefts and rights, and the slight wind.  They did something really useful.  Instead of running together one guy ran about 50 to 100 feet behind the other guy.  I started out with the lead guy but then filtered back to the second pack.   The effort was steady but not hard.  I felt fine.  … It was hillier than I had surmised from Brian's description.  There was one long hill back into the city that wasn't steep but was a nice long pull.  There was a pretty good head wind in one direction.  It was useful to be in the pack and I was able to draft the pacer.  There were some good crowds in the city but not much as you got out of town.  When the sun came through the clouds it was a little hot.  I was staying on my nutrition, taking enough water and sipping from my bottle of F2C.  The gels they had on course were maple syrup gels.  Which is fitting for Vermont, but basically, you're drinking pancake syrup.  I knew the “big hill” was coming up at mile 15ish.  As we turned back towards that hill I put a little extra fuel in the fire and dropped the pace a bit.  I knew, from my training I had some faster miles in me.  I figured I'd put a little buffer between me and the pace group in case I struggled on the hill.  I thought that once I got over the hill, I could relax into the rocking chair and just glide home.  … Up to this point I was pacing well.  Not easy but not hard either.  Race pace. The hill was a monster.  For some reason it really knocked me back on my heels.  I had to grind it out.  I lost some time but stayed ahead of the pace group.  I was suffering badly as I neared the top, but I got over it.  On the back side of the hill I was trashed and focused on finding a recovery pace.  My hips were tight.  My stride was painful.  That high hamstring tendonitis was biting me in the ass.  Remember when I said I “had some good training runs and some not so good since Boston”?  Remember how I said I had somehow managed to give myself tendonitis in the ass?  Well, one of those workouts was a 20+ mile tempo run.  And what happened on that run was I got to about 16 miles and this tendonitis flared up.  It hurts.  Like some monster biting your ass.  It makes it hard to lift your legs and makes running up hills really hard.  It makes it hard to keep your stride length.  I ended up doing a fair amount of walking at the end of that workout.  This showed up again at Vermont after the big hill about 16-17 mile in.  It wasn't the ‘wall' I had plenty of calories.  It wasn't cramps, I had plenty of salt.  It was this pain in my ass that kept me from holing my pace.  And that's where I stopped racing and started limping in.  In a few minutes the 3:30 pacers went by me. I said “That hill was a bitch.”  He said, “Yeah, but it's done now.” I said, “Yeah, but so are my legs.” At this point I still had about a 2-1/2 minute cushion but I could race anymore and had 8-9 miles to go. There were still some rolling hills and each of those little rises hurt like hell.  I threw in the towel and started walking and jogging, just to get it done.  I ran by my camp ground a couple more times and thought about just leaving, but my truck wasn't there, it was downtown.  I was depressed and having dark thoughts.  I thought to myself “Now I know why those people cheat.  You can put in the work and do all the right things and what do you get?  Nothin.  That's why they cheat.:” I might even have had a thought or two about how I'm just getting slower and what's the point of staying in a world that's just a constant loss of ability?  Such is the death march.  When you get into the death march late in a race you notice there are people there doing the same death march pace you are.  You see them walking, stumbling, summoning the strength to run a bit, walking some more.  The comradery of zombies.  It wasn't awful physically.  I was fit enough to not be physically suffering.  Not like a calorie crash.  Not physical exhaustion.  My HR was fine.  I just couldn't get my legs to turn.  And my mind had left the building.  I was done.  Done with training.  Don't with chasing unicorns.  Done with it all. At one point the course cuts through a wooded section in the high miles.  Just a short bit of trail to connect to road sections.  With the rain and the runners it had turned into a mud hole.  I felt bad for the runners who were still racing.  Also, late in the race, in one of the neighborhood sections, there was a bunch of people, a couple neighborhood families handing our Budweiser pony cans.  I had no desire for a can of beer but one of the guys in front of me took one, took a sip and immediately dropped it in a big splash of foam.  The guys handing out the beers yelled at him for dropping it.  It was a bit surreal.  Finally we found our way onto the bike path for the last couple miles back to the finish.  I came upon a guy clutch his calf, hopping around and screaming with a cramp.  I dug out the rest of my Endurolytes, gave him two and said “chew these, to get the salt into your system.”  Hope he had some water with him.  With the late start it was pretty hot and really humid.  It didn't impact me.  I was out of the fight before any of that would have hit me.  As I was pulling into the finish, I was trading places with an older, grey haired woman wearing a singlet from one of the regional running clubs I know.  I thought to myself, ‘great, my finishing photo is me being out kicked by this lady!”  I wasn't in a good place mentally.  I managed to find a pretty fast last mile heading into the finish.  It didn't matter.  I had turned a 2-1/2 minute buffer into a 12 minute hole with a 3:47 finish.  I got my medal and a bottle of water.  I stood around waiting to see if maybe Brian and his son weren't close behind me since I lost so much ground.  I had passed his daughter out on the bike path and she hadn't seen them yet.  I saw the club singlet and congratulated her.  She turned around and said “Chris?” Turns out it was Linda one of the Goon Squad runners.  We had a long talk catching up.  She was coming off AFib surgery and starting her recovery.  The doctors had told her to quit running and it took her a long time to find a doctor who could give her a correct diagnosis and fix it. Now she's on her way back.  I got my truck and made my way back to the campground.  I didn't see any reason to sleep over another night, so I broke it down and loaded up.  I stopped to tell the kid I was leaving early and he insisted on giving me my $36 back. Good Karma.  … I drove the sunny, warm day home to get back onto my list of chores.  I must tell you I was relieved to get this race over with.  But, now I'm out of qualification and I don't have the time or the energy for another campaign this summer.  Maybe I can't make the standard? I don't know.  I kills me to give up, but I'm not having fun anymore and my body is talking to me.  I need some time off.  It took me a few days to come to grips with not running Boston.  I'm not making any proclamations.  But, I'm ok with letting it go after 21 years.  I'm not saying I am.  I'm saying I'm ok with it.  That's the best I can give you coming out the back of this farce of a long weekend.  I'm ok with it.  … “To be alive: not just the carcass / But the spark. / That's crudely put, but … / If we're not supposed to dance, / Why all this music?” – Gregory Orr

VT 2019 – The French Farce (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/Vermont2019.mp3] Link Farce. A farce is a comedy that aims at entertaining the audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, and thus improbable. Farce is also characterized by physical humor, the use of deliberate absurdity or nonsense, and broadly stylized performances. … Covered in dirt, sweat and sawdust.  There I was, laying on the table in the emergency room at my local hospital.  A nice thick maroon swell of blood blobbing out of the gash on my shin.  Waiting for the doctor-lady to come back.  You might think this would make me cranky.  But, on the contrary I was having a pretty good day. It was, ironically, Memorial Day.  A long weekend and I had gotten a lot done, including running the marathon in Vermont.  I was relieved to have that off my agenda, be done training and back to working on other stuff.  Like cutting up the trees I had felled in the yard.  Then the machete glanced off a branch and I whacked myself square on the shin bone with that long, heavy, sharp blade designed for slicing. Right on the shin bone.  Nothing serious just a bit of a rent on the protective covering of skin that keeps the red stuff in.  Editor’s note: “Rent”, to divide, usually violently or abruptly from the middle English Renden and Old English Rendan. I staunched it with a rag from my chainsaw box and hobbled inside for some awkward first aid.  I flushed it out with Bactine and taped a bunch of gauze to it, wrapping the tape around my calf, ending up with something that you might see in an old war film or maybe an even earlier mummy movie.  That held it in place long enough for me move enough trees out of the driveway to get my truck out.  I drove to the emergency room. I wasn’t looking forward to the emergency room.  On a major holiday it was sure to be filled with drunken yahoos, with “hold my beer” accidents.  I brought along a book and was going to start working on this report for you in the hours of waiting that I anticipated.  But, I was positively thrilled with service.  I barely had a chance to sit down in the squeaky, vinyl, institutional seat when I was called.  I was attended to by no less than 4 or 5 charming, enthusiastic and competent medical professionals.  It turned out that the doctor-lady on duty’s favorite thing was stitches.  We had a great chat and I was in and out in 45 minutes!  They were impressed that I could tell them exactly how much I weighed.  They were almost as impressed with me having run a marathon in Vermont the day before as I was impressed with myself for, well…just being me.  It’s a curse.  I drove home and finished chopping up my trees.  … The next night I went to the local Red Cross and tried to give blood.  I see you rolling your eyes.  Chris, what the hell?  You run a race Sunday, your put yourself in the Emergency room Monday, why are you trying to give blood on Tuesday?  In my defence they really want my blood.  They are on me serval phone calls and emails a day about how much they want my blood.  But, I’m usually in the middle of a training cycle and can’t really afford to tapped of my basic circulatory life essence.  Consequently, I try to schedule blood donations for after my target events.  The nerve of them.  After begging me for weeks and putting me through all the preliminaries, they turned me away when I told them of my recent forestry mishap.  Apparently there is have some silly rule about ‘no open wounds’. I mean, you’re after my blood, wouldn’t this be a positive proof point that I’ve got some to spare? … No worries.  On to my next thing.  I like to be tightly scheduled.  I’m happiest when I have a nice pile of tasks in my que.  That’s how my weekends go in the spring and summer.  A yellow sticky pad list of chores in my pocket that I try to get done to have that warm fuzzy feeling of accomplishment from washing the car or folding the laundry or … maybe even running a race.  … Teresa had come home from the City to pick up some stuff Friday.  We had to do a bike swap. I had procured a new city bike for her.  A city bike is a bicycle that is perfectly functional but has a low value and low probability of being stolen.  The 40-year-old Schwin I had previously procured was broken.  She had managed to crank out the bearing, which is not something I’m going to fix on a bike where the tires are worth more than the bike.  I procured a ‘new’ old bike, cleaned it up, got most of the gears working, and transferred the rack from the old-old bike Saturday morning.  As we are all destined to do, I have turned into my father.  I had to drive her back into the city on Saturday.  I had to be in Vermont Saturday night as well. … I had packed up my race stuff.  Since I was driving, I didn’t need to be picky.  A little of this, a little of that.  I opted to go back to my old Brooks baggie shorts with the bike short liner, because they have enough pockets to carry all my standard race stuff. A couple gels, a baggie of Endurolytes, a small thing of lube. I was trying to make the 7:00PM deadline to pick up my bib in Vermont.  Burlington is about 3 hours and change from my house.  After the side trip to the city it was going to be tight.  … The weather forecast called for clear skies Saturday slowly changing to rain in the evening, then into thunderstorms through the morning.  I try not to think too much about the weather when I’m approaching a race.  There really isn’t much you can do about it. No sense wasting your energy fretting. It was starting to drizzle when I pulled into the race expo hotel in South Burlington with 8 minutes to spare.  I was able to get my bib and pick up a couple Expresso Love Gu’s – old-school nutrition.  In a change of pace, I got a medium shirt, instead of a large due to my current waifish deportment.  Then I wandered off in the strengthening showers to find my campground.  My comfy rustic home to pitch my lonely tent for the evening.  … To get to my camp I was routed right by the race start/finish area. Which was nice.  The college town of Burlington sits on the edge of Lake Champlain.  The race course for the marathon is a sort of figure 8 that goes out north of the city, turns around and runs back through the city, turns again and comes back by the park again to go north, again, then comes back south along a bike trail at the edge of the lake to the finish.  Eyeballing it on the map I thought I might be able to walk to the race start in the morning from my camp.  The bike trail that the race finishes on runs right by the edge of the campground.  I measured it to be over a mile by the road. I figured I probably wouldn’t want to hike that, especially in a storm, in the morning, and definitely wouldn’t want to hike back after the race.  I called Brian to see what his plans were. He told me he wasn’t racing. He was running with his son Chris.  Good for him.  That completes something special for him.  Running a marathon with every one of his kids.  But, for me, I wouldn’t be able to pace with him. Did I mention I was racing?  Yeah, I had a goal.  I was trying to spin that fitness from my Boston training cycle into a qualifying race.  I thought it would be a no-brainer.  I was in good shape.  This was supposed to be a more reasonable course.  I’d just hang on to the back of the nearest pace group to 3:30 and be done with that.  Piece of cake.  … Checking in to my camp site it was raining fairly hard now, and of course, as I unrolled my tent it started pouring.  I was trying to hurry but that just made things slower.  The way these tents work is that there isn’t a real roof.  The roof part is a screen, a mesh, to I suppose, let your foul camping breath and farts out.  But that let the rain come right through.  The way you make it watertight is to string another bit, called a fly, over the open part, which was giving me trouble in the wind.  Picture ma trying to do all this in the pouring rain and wind.  I must’ve looked incredibly pitiful.  Hold that picture in your head next time you think hiking the Appalachian trail is a good idea.  Some guy even ran over from a neighboring camp site to help me.  At least it wasn’t dark out yet. The good news was that I was right next to the shower & bathroom facilities buulding. The bad news was that I was right next to the shower & bathroom facilities building.  Lots of traffic. Lots of lights.  People wandering around.  I took a few minutes to pump up my mattress. This all seemed like a great idea when I set it up last month.  Not so much now.  Soaking wet.  Pumping away in my little tent with the rain beating on the sides. … Now I’m thinking I should have some sort of meal before I crash out in my soggy hidey hole.  I did what any sentient 21st century droid would do and asked Siri for a grocery store nearby.  I was thinking maybe a Wholefoods or something similar.  But, Burlington, being an old New England Town, is filled with corner grocery stores. Basically, one room affairs with beer, chips and lottery tickets. I was getting tired at this point, so I gave up and bought a turkey sandwich and a beer. I returned to my campground and sat in my truck, thinking how sad a spectacle I was soggy, in my truck with the rain pouring down, chewing on a gas-station sandwich.  Having paddled my canoe through these types of adventures before and thought to myself, smiling a bit, ‘this will make a great story’.  I was worrying a bit about logistics for the morning.  I didn’t want to hike the mile plus to the start in a rainstorm.  I decided I would drive in early and find a place to park. They said there was municipal parking, but after my ‘grocery store’ adventure I wondered what that would be like, or if it even existed.  Ce’st la vie.  Time for beddy-by.  … In normal conditions my tent, mattress and sleeping bag are pretty darn comfy.  These weren’t exactly ‘normal’. It was storming hard, with blowing wind and driving rain. I could hear the waves crashing down on the lake shore with a steady roar. The spotlights on the facilities lit up my tent like an operating theatre. I crawled into my tent, dragging mud and water with me.  Crawled into my sleeping bag and wrapped my throw away shirt around my head like a bandage to block the light, put my phone on airplane mode and set the alarm for 5 AM. That should give me plenty of time to get ready and find a parking spot. Now, on a normal night, in the campground, hard up against the communal bathroom, I probably would have been kept awake by the noise of the park denizens coming and going and recreating. This was not a normal night. I considered my good fortune. The roar of the waves and the wind and the steady drum of a hard rain was like a meditation track, right?  White noise.  The song “The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” was running slyly through my head. “The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Of the big lake they called 'gitche gumee' The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead When the skies of November turn gloomy” That’s when I realize that I had to pee.  At the same time I realized I would rather have my bladder explode and die of sepsis than go out int o this storm.  Then I fell asleep.  A couple hours later I woke up to an eerie, (no pun intended), silence.  I was woken up by pause in storms.  It was a bit before 11:00 and I thought, now would be an excellent time to make a run for the facilities next door.  As I started moving around I realized that there was a fair amount of water inside my tent.  Whether it was from me bumping the sides or the rain coming sideways under the fly, I don’t know. My sleeping bag was wet.  As I extracted myself and went to the rest room I thought that this might be a problem if the storms returned and temperature dropped a bit more.  Woke by quiet after 10.  Goodtime to pee.  Sleeping bag wet.  So, we held an executive meeting in my head and decided to sleep in the truck for the rest of the night.  It was surprisingly comfortable with my sleeping bag and the seat all the way back.  I slept great.  … My 5 AM alarm woke me to a humid, cool morning with scattered, pudgy clouds.  I was still worried about parking so I got my stuff on and drove into town.  Not only was the parking garage available and deserted, I’m pretty sure it was free.  The gate was open and the display had some sort of non-descriptive announcement.  I didn’t have too many options for breakfast so I ate one of the SpringEnergy gels I had brought.  They’re more like baby food than race gels.  My next mission would be to find a cup of coffee somewhere.  I took $5 with me and went out to walk around the start area.  After a few laps I found a gas station with some coffee and checked that box.  That left me with another problem.  Now I had $3 left over that I didn’t know what to do with.  I could just drop it on the ground.  I could try to carry it.  In the end I just handed to some guy in a Bruins shirt.  He was confused.  He was pretty sure I was up to something nefarious.  … Then I just hung out in the park and stretched and relaxed.  It was partially sunny, very humid with a bit of wind and lots of puddles.  The race starts at 7:00 now, ever since the heat incident of 2 years ago.  Looking out over the lake there were towers of blackish clouds.  As I wandered about someone called my name and it was Brian and his son.  I was glad to see them.  Glad to have someone to chat with.  We hung out and listened to the race announcements.  Bart Yasso was saying something to the assembled throng.  There were maybe 3,000 people in the race.  Lots of 50 staters.  A nice size for a race.  About 15 minutes before the start the announcers came on and told everyone to leave the park and take shelter in the parking garages.  Apparently one of those black clouds out over the race had us in its sites.   The crowd filed out of the park across the street and down the road.  Brian, his son and I went into the Courtyard Hotel lobby.  We chatted with some of the folks in there, but basically stood around for 45 minutes while another small storm cell passed over.  That’s a first for me.  They let us go back to the race start after the danger had passed.  Speaking of passing, I got passed by Bart Yasso leaving the hotel.  I said hi but he was in a hurry to get back to the announcing.  We found our corrals.  I hunted down the 3:30 pace leaders.  And we were off and running about 7:45.  It was a bit humid but nothing terrible.  I hung close to the pace leader and we were quickly up to pace.  There were two pacers for 3:30.  They did a good job. They kept us within 5 seconds of the pace even with the rolling hills, the hard lefts and rights, and the slight wind.  They did something really useful.  Instead of running together one guy ran about 50 to 100 feet behind the other guy.  I started out with the lead guy but then filtered back to the second pack.   The effort was steady but not hard.  I felt fine.  … It was hillier than I had surmised from Brian’s description.  There was one long hill back into the city that wasn’t steep but was a nice long pull.  There was a pretty good head wind in one direction.  It was useful to be in the pack and I was able to draft the pacer.  There were some good crowds in the city but not much as you got out of town.  When the sun came through the clouds it was a little hot.  I was staying on my nutrition, taking enough water and sipping from my bottle of F2C.  The gels they had on course were maple syrup gels.  Which is fitting for Vermont, but basically, you’re drinking pancake syrup.  I knew the “big hill” was coming up at mile 15ish.  As we turned back towards that hill I put a little extra fuel in the fire and dropped the pace a bit.  I knew, from my training I had some faster miles in me.  I figured I’d put a little buffer between me and the pace group in case I struggled on the hill.  I thought that once I got over the hill, I could relax into the rocking chair and just glide home.  … Up to this point I was pacing well.  Not easy but not hard either.  Race pace. The hill was a monster.  For some reason it really knocked me back on my heels.  I had to grind it out.  I lost some time but stayed ahead of the pace group.  I was suffering badly as I neared the top, but I got over it.  On the back side of the hill I was trashed and focused on finding a recovery pace.  My hips were tight.  My stride was painful.  That high hamstring tendonitis was biting me in the ass.  Remember when I said I “had some good training runs and some not so good since Boston”?  Remember how I said I had somehow managed to give myself tendonitis in the ass?  Well, one of those workouts was a 20+ mile tempo run.  And what happened on that run was I got to about 16 miles and this tendonitis flared up.  It hurts.  Like some monster biting your ass.  It makes it hard to lift your legs and makes running up hills really hard.  It makes it hard to keep your stride length.  I ended up doing a fair amount of walking at the end of that workout.  This showed up again at Vermont after the big hill about 16-17 mile in.  It wasn’t the ‘wall’ I had plenty of calories.  It wasn’t cramps, I had plenty of salt.  It was this pain in my ass that kept me from holing my pace.  And that’s where I stopped racing and started limping in.  In a few minutes the 3:30 pacers went by me. I said “That hill was a bitch.”  He said, “Yeah, but it’s done now.” I said, “Yeah, but so are my legs.” At this point I still had about a 2-1/2 minute cushion but I could race anymore and had 8-9 miles to go. There were still some rolling hills and each of those little rises hurt like hell.  I threw in the towel and started walking and jogging, just to get it done.  I ran by my camp ground a couple more times and thought about just leaving, but my truck wasn’t there, it was downtown.  I was depressed and having dark thoughts.  I thought to myself “Now I know why those people cheat.  You can put in the work and do all the right things and what do you get?  Nothin.  That’s why they cheat.:” I might even have had a thought or two about how I’m just getting slower and what’s the point of staying in a world that’s just a constant loss of ability?  Such is the death march.  When you get into the death march late in a race you notice there are people there doing the same death march pace you are.  You see them walking, stumbling, summoning the strength to run a bit, walking some more.  The comradery of zombies.  It wasn’t awful physically.  I was fit enough to not be physically suffering.  Not like a calorie crash.  Not physical exhaustion.  My HR was fine.  I just couldn’t get my legs to turn.  And my mind had left the building.  I was done.  Done with training.  Don’t with chasing unicorns.  Done with it all. At one point the course cuts through a wooded section in the high miles.  Just a short bit of trail to connect to road sections.  With the rain and the runners it had turned into a mud hole.  I felt bad for the runners who were still racing.  Also, late in the race, in one of the neighborhood sections, there was a bunch of people, a couple neighborhood families handing our Budweiser pony cans.  I had no desire for a can of beer but one of the guys in front of me took one, took a sip and immediately dropped it in a big splash of foam.  The guys handing out the beers yelled at him for dropping it.  It was a bit surreal.  Finally we found our way onto the bike path for the last couple miles back to the finish.  I came upon a guy clutch his calf, hopping around and screaming with a cramp.  I dug out the rest of my Endurolytes, gave him two and said “chew these, to get the salt into your system.”  Hope he had some water with him.  With the late start it was pretty hot and really humid.  It didn’t impact me.  I was out of the fight before any of that would have hit me.  As I was pulling into the finish, I was trading places with an older, grey haired woman wearing a singlet from one of the regional running clubs I know.  I thought to myself, ‘great, my finishing photo is me being out kicked by this lady!”  I wasn’t in a good place mentally.  I managed to find a pretty fast last mile heading into the finish.  It didn’t matter.  I had turned a 2-1/2 minute buffer into a 12 minute hole with a 3:47 finish.  I got my medal and a bottle of water.  I stood around waiting to see if maybe Brian and his son weren’t close behind me since I lost so much ground.  I had passed his daughter out on the bike path and she hadn’t seen them yet.  I saw the club singlet and congratulated her.  She turned around and said “Chris?” Turns out it was Linda one of the Goon Squad runners.  We had a long talk catching up.  She was coming off AFib surgery and starting her recovery.  The doctors had told her to quit running and it took her a long time to find a doctor who could give her a correct diagnosis and fix it. Now she’s on her way back.  I got my truck and made my way back to the campground.  I didn’t see any reason to sleep over another night, so I broke it down and loaded up.  I stopped to tell the kid I was leaving early and he insisted on giving me my $36 back. Good Karma.  … I drove the sunny, warm day home to get back onto my list of chores.  I must tell you I was relieved to get this race over with.  But, now I’m out of qualification and I don’t have the time or the energy for another campaign this summer.  Maybe I can’t make the standard? I don’t know.  I kills me to give up, but I’m not having fun anymore and my body is talking to me.  I need some time off.  It took me a few days to come to grips with not running Boston.  I’m not making any proclamations.  But, I’m ok with letting it go after 21 years.  I’m not saying I am.  I’m saying I’m ok with it.  That’s the best I can give you coming out the back of this farce of a long weekend.  I’m ok with it.  … “To be alive: not just the carcass / But the spark. / That’s crudely put, but … / If we’re not supposed to dance, / Why all this music?” – Gregory Orr

There are places in the human experience where ordinary language falls short but where poetry can find a way in. Gregory Orr has used lyric poetry to wrest gentle, healing, life-giving words from one of the most terrible traumas imaginable. On a hunting trip with his father at the age of 12, he accidentally shot and killed his younger brother. Since then, he says he has found consolation in words and story. “What’s beautiful about a poem is that you take on this chaos and this responsibility, and you shape it into order and make something of it,” he says. Gregory Orr taught English at the University of Virginia from 1975 to 2019 and founded its Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing. His books of prose include “The Blessing,” “Poetry as Survival,” and “A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry.” He is the author of over 10 books of poetry including “How Beautiful the Beloved” and a forthcoming collection, “The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write.” Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

There are places in the human experience where ordinary language falls short but where poetry can find a way in. Gregory Orr has used lyric poetry to wrest gentle, healing, life-giving words from one of the most terrible traumas imaginable. On a hunting trip with his father at the age of 12, he accidentally shot and killed his younger brother. Since then, he says he has found consolation in words and story. “What’s beautiful about a poem is that you take on this chaos and this responsibility, and you shape it into order and make something of it,” he says. Gregory Orr taught English at the University of Virginia from 1975 to 2019 and founded its Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing. His books of prose include “The Blessing,” “Poetry as Survival,” and “A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry.” He is the author of over 10 books of poetry including “How Beautiful the Beloved” and a forthcoming collection, “The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Gregory Orr — Shaping Grief With Language.” Find more at onbeing.org.

How can writing and reading poetry be a lifeline in times of trouble?Ahead of a visit this weekend to Baltimore, poet and professor Gregory Orr tells us how he came to poetry after the tragic death of his younger brother in a hunting accident. He shares how poetry rescued him from overwhelming guilt and grief, and helped him regain an awareness of life’s beauty.Gregory Orr will be at the Joshua Ringel Memorial Reading on Sunday, April 22 at Hodson Hall on the Johns Hopkins University Homewood Campus. The event is starts at 5 pm. More information here.

Gregory Orr The Blessing: Poetry as Survival Join Michael Lerner in conversation with Gregory Orr, considered by many to be a master of short, lyric free verse. Much of his early work is concerned with seminal events from his childhood, including a hunting accident when he was twelve in which he accidentally shot and killed his younger brother, followed shortly by his mother’s unexpected death, and his father’s later addiction to amphetamines. WARNING: Because of the subject matter, listeners should be prepared for what is, to some, emotionally difficult content. Gregory Orr Gregory was born in 1947 in Albany, New York, and grew up in the rural Hudson Valley. He is the author of nine collections of poetry, including How Beautiful the Beloved (Copper Canyon Press, 2009); Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved (2005); The Caged Owl: New and Selected Poems (2002); Orpheus and Eurydice (2001); Burning the Empty Nests (1997); City of Salt (1995), which was a finalist for the L.A. Times Poetry Prize; and Gathering the Bones Together (1975). He is also the author of a memoir, The Blessing (Council Oak Books, 2002), which was chosen by Publisher’s Weekly as one of the fifty best non-fiction books the year, and three books of essays, including Poetry As Survival (2002) and Stanley Kunitz: An Introduction to the Poetry (1985). Read more about Gregory Orr on Poets.org. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.

Gregory Orr The Blessing: Poetry as Survival Join Michael Lerner in conversation with Gregory Orr, considered by many to be a master of short, lyric free verse. Much of his early work is concerned with seminal events from his childhood, including a hunting accident when he was twelve in which he accidentally shot and killed his younger brother, followed shortly by his mother’s unexpected death, and his father’s later addiction to amphetamines. WARNING: Because of the subject matter, listeners should be prepared for what is, to some, emotionally difficult content. Gregory Orr Gregory was born in 1947 in Albany, New York, and grew up in the rural Hudson Valley. He is the author of nine collections of poetry, including How Beautiful the Beloved (Copper Canyon Press, 2009); Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved (2005); The Caged Owl: New and Selected Poems (2002); Orpheus and Eurydice (2001); Burning the Empty Nests (1997); City of Salt (1995), which was a finalist for the L.A. Times Poetry Prize; and Gathering the Bones Together (1975). He is also the author of a memoir, The Blessing (Council Oak Books, 2002), which was chosen by Publisher’s Weekly as one of the fifty best non-fiction books the year, and three books of essays, including Poetry As Survival (2002) and Stanley Kunitz: An Introduction to the Poetry (1985). Read more about Gregory Orr on Poets.org. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.