Maureen is the author of Apparition Wren, published by Main Street Rag in 2007.

 read more »

J. P. Dancing Bear, Sunday, June 15th at 10:30 am, central time.

J.P. Dancing Bear lives in Northern California. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in hundreds of publications including Shenandoah, Mississippi Review, Cimarron Review, Poetry East, North American Review, Atlanta Review, Verse Daily, The National Poetry Review, Poetry International, Marlboro Review, Hotel Amerika, Interim, Seattle Review, Permafrost, Puerto Del Sol, Controlled Burn, Cranky, Rattle, Americas Review, and Slipstream.  read more »

Mark Cox chairs the Department of Creative Writing at UNC Wilmington and teaches in the MFA in Writing Program of Vermont College. He is the recipient of the Whiting Writers' Award, a Pushcart Prize, a Kansas Arts Commission Fellowship, two awards from the Vermont Council on the Arts, and a Bread Loaf Writers' conference Fellowship.

Cox has published poems in such magazines as American Poetry Review, Poetry, and Crazyhorse. Ampersand Press published his chapbook, Barbells of the Gods, in 1988. Godine published Smoulder, his first full-length collection in 1989. His second collection, Thirty-Seven Years from the Stone, and his latest book, Natural Causes, were both published by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

Michael Carrino's second book of poetry, Under This Combustible Sky, is a richly-peopled collection whose denizens are portrayed in a stark light, like that of certain Hopper paintings, a light no less beautiful for its starkness and hard edges. Reading these poems, one realizes that in lives so full of defeat there are redemptions in solitude, and victories within the sacredness of the moment. 'For me,' Carrino writes in the poem "Cat, Rose, Musical Score", 'self absorbed and anxious, objects explain/ passion, obsession; how you have/ no control unless you agree/ before dancing white on white in silence--/ we are what we arrange.' This could well be a statement of the aesthetic brought to the arrangement of this book: a pure witnessing, at times, of a moment's details which speak volumes of the poem's subject in a language that is both economical and plainly spoken, yet rich in its precision.

I think of the poem "The Woman" in which a photograph of a soldier's Korean mistress is ogled and handed around the family table, a favorite conversation piece:  read more »

Sunday, May 11th at 10:30 am CT tune in for some Emerson, Pavese, Complicated Pasta and a tribute to the late Robert Long's poetry!

Robert Long's poems appeared in dozens of magazines and anthologies, including The New Yorker, Poetry, and Partisan Review, as
well as three earlier collections. He taught at several colleges and
universities, including La Salle University, where he was
writer-in-residence. He died on October 13, 2006. Blue was his last published collection of poetry.  read more »

Next episode: Sunday, August 3 at 10:30 am CT tune in for a fascinating interview with Jim Autry!

Autry is the retired president of the Meredith Magazine Group, and had a distinguished career as an editor and publisher. Autry has been active in many civic, charitable, and arts organizations, most notably working with disability rights groups for more than 35 years. He served as president, chairman, and chairman emeritus of the Epilepsy Foundation of America. He is a founding member of the board of Peoplefor the American Way. He is also a founder of the Des Moines National Poetry Festival.  read more »

Tune in Sundays at 10:30 am central or Mondays at 1:30 pm central.