Irving Toast, disembodied poet laureate from the late 1890's, has found his favorite haunting place at KRUU-LP 100.1 FM, "The Voice of Fairfield" on Sunday mornings at 10:30 am.

Though at times you may hear his ethereal jabbering wending its way through the microphone cords, his chosen earthly medium, and host of the show, is Fairfield poet Rustin Larson.

Irving, through Rustin, will be interviewing established and emerging poets and writers from the North American literary scene and hosting haunting literary performances from talent near and far.

Tune in this Sunday, April 20^th to catch a brand new interview with renowned New Hampshire poet, W. E. Butts.

Pour the pancake batter, Maybelle! This one is gooood!

Craig Deininger bats second on Irving Toast, Poetry Ghost with host Rustin Larson, Sunday, April 27 at 10:30 am!

Wander in the desert and contemplate badger-shaped galaxies with poet Craig Deininger in the next episode of Irving Toast, Poetry Ghost.

Deininger has been writing poetry seriously for over 20 years. He has studied at U-Mass and Oxford, and has a life of travels and adventures, which seem to fuel his insights.

Deininger is currently putting together a comprehensive manuscript of his work, including 40 out of 800 or 900 poems. His work has appeared in The Iowa Review, Glyphs, Riverbend, and Craig has taught creative writing workshops in Amherst, Moab, and Banner Elk.

So dim the lights and place your fingers lightly on the table. The spirits are about to speak

Tune in May 4th, 10:30 am CT as Suzanne Frischkorn pays a visit to the haunted studio (via phone call). Suzanne Frischkorn is the author of five chapbooks, most recently American Flamingo, (2008), and Spring Tide, selected by Mary Oliver for the Aldrich Poetry Award (2005).

Lit Windowpane, her first full-length book, will be released by
Main Street Rag Press in autumn, 2008. Her poems have recently
appeared, or are forthcoming in Ecotone, Indiana Review, Diode, No Tell Motel, MiPOesias, Salt Flats Annual, and the anthology Conversation Pieces: Poems That Talk to Other Poems, part of the Everyman's Library Pocket Poet Series (Knopf, 2007)

From 2001 to 2005 she served as an editor for Samsära Quarterly. She is the recipient of a 2007 Artist Fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism.

Sunday, May 18th at 10:30 am CST tune in for Mary Swander. (She brought her banjo!)

Mary's Swander's most recent work is a forthcoming book of poetry entitled The Girls on the Roof (Turning
Point Press, 2009). This long narrative poem is the story of a mother
and daughter stuck on top of the roof of catfish dive on the banks of
the Mississippi River for three days during the 1993 flood. There, they
discover they’ve both had an affair with the same man.

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.

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:

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.

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.

Poets: Bill Graeser and Dan Troxell.

Bill Graeser is from Long Island and is the
University's Locksmith. Dan is from Des Moines and is the host of
"Readings at Zanzibar's" (it's the KGB of the Midwest, sweetheart).
Hey, I've read there. This series rocks the beans in the roasting
machine.

L'chaim!

YO!  BABY-POP!  IT'S THIS PART THAT HAS THE KLEZMER MUSIC ON IT! 

Poets: Bill Graeser and Dan Troxell.

Bill Graeser is from Long Island and is the University's Locksmith. Dan is from Des Moines and is the host of "Readings at Zanzibar's" (it's the KGB of the Midwest, sweetheart). Hey, I've read there. This series rocks the beans in the roasting machine.

L'chaim!

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

Poet Dorianne Laux rumbles into the haunted studio (via phone call) and shakes things up with her unstoppable verse.

Dorianne Laux was born in Augusta, Maine, in 1952. She worked as a sanatorium cook, a gas station manager, a maid, and a donut holer before receiving a B.A. in English from Mills College in 1988.

Laux is the author of Facts About the Moon (W. W. Norton 2005), which was the recipient of the Oregon Book Award, chosen by Ai, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Her other collections include Smoke (BOA Editions, 2000); What We Carry (1994), finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Awake (1990), which was nominated for the San Francisco Bay Area Book Critics Award for Poetry.

Poet Dorianne Laux wraps it up with host Rustin Larson in a delicious 6 minute conclusion to her interview.

Then after a brief musical interlude, poet Rustin Larson reads his lyrical narrative essay "Elegy" which first appeared in the journal The MacGuffin in 1997. Ah, literary history. Can y'all smell it in the toaster? Whiff the sesame seed, the poppy seed, the garlic and onion bagels of beauty and truth.

Joseph Millar is the author of Fortune, from Eastern Washington University Press. His first collection, Overtime (2001), was finalist for the Oregon Book Award. Millar grew up in Pennsylvania, attended Johns Hopkins University and spent 25 years in the San
Francisco Bay area, working at a variety of jobs, from telephone repairman to commercial fisherman. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines including TriQuarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, DoubleTake, Ploughshares, New Letters, Manoa, and River Styx.

He has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in Poetry, the Moncalvo Center for the Arts, and Oregon Literary Arts. He teaches at Oregon State University, The University of Oregon, and Pacific University’s MFA in Writing Program.

KEEPING THE TIGERS BEHIND US by Glenn J. Freeman is the winner of the judge's prize in the Sixth Annual Elixir Press Poetry Awards. Judge Jim McGarrah says in the introduction: "Freeman fuses pop culture with Chinese philosophy, sophisticated poetic technique and a thorough knowledge of craft with street savvy rhythms and idiomatic expression in a masterful way." Glenn Freeman grew up in Maryland and has lived in Vermont, Minnesota, and Florida. His work has appeared in such publications as Poetry, The Cimarron Review, The Lullwater Review, Talking River Review and the anthology Leaves by Night, Flowers by Day. read more »

Craig and his cat, Fergus, head for the desert.  Like, this is the OTHER Deininger interview.  Different from the first one!  If Darth Vader's daughter is out there, sup?  Craig did this show and then zipped off for Pacifica to study mythology, PhD in fact.  He's is living in a tent in the desert with his cat, and has reported in exactly once.  Fergus has found his inner mountain lion, and Craig is watching the galaxies whirl and is writing about this strange life in the wilderness.

So, who says Rock L'Orange
can't write? Certainly not I, Irving Toast, your beloved disembodied
poet laureate! Rock L'Orange's short fictions are tres poetique and
come at you from all sorts of weird angles. I love 'em. He should be
more widely read. Let me repeat that. He should be more widely read.
Ah, but his writings shall hit the airwaves soon, and you shall give a
listen to his fictional Autobiography of Clerk Typist GS-5

In a reading recorded at the MUM Library on October 15th, 2008, Professor Larson intoned selections from his forthcoming book The Wine-Dark House (Blue Light Press).

Rustin Larson’s poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The Iowa Review, North American Review, Poetry East, The Atlanta Review and other magazines. Crazy Star, his latest collection, was selected for the Loess Hills Book’s Poetry Series in 2005. Larson won 1^st Editor’s Prize from Rhino magazine in 2000 and has won prizes for his poetry from The National Poet Hunt and The Chester H. Jones Foundation among others. A

Joy Lyle, Joy Lyle, Joy Lyle! This was a live reading taped on
Wednesday night, October 15th at the MUM Library. Most of you chose to watch the presidential debate that evening. Hey, I'm cool. But the Ghost was there to record Joy's rockin' reading and it is offered thusly on the next episode of Irving Toast, Poetry Ghost, 10:30 am, Sunday, October 26th and 1:30 pm, Monday, October 27.

How to describe Joy's reading? Oh, I listened to it on a CD with my eyes closed as I was driving down Highway 34 to Oskaloosa and babycakes I could SEE! I'm here to tell the tale aren't I? And now it's your turn!

Carolyn Guinzio is the author of Quarry (Fall 2008, Free Verse Editions, Parlor Press), and West Pullman
(Bordighera, 2005), winner of the Bordighera Poetry Prize. She holds an MFA from Bard College and has received awards from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, the Fund for Poetry, and the arts councils of Illinois and Kentucky. Her work has appeared in the journals Colorado Review, 42opus, New American Writing, Phoebe, and Willow Springs, among others. She lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Here's what they are saying about Carolyn Guinzio:

The mysterious Chinese convenience store's

second door

opens upon the darkened China

of the mind.

Its tea is some sort
of excursion

and temporarily deals
with the permanent.

A rider boards, wants to be left off

at the bridge.

The mask she wears:
watch parts, microscopes, radio antennae.

  The Ghost gives up a lyric/narrative sequence entitled "Pavement" by Rustin Larson for the next episode of Irving. One quarter rock opera, one quarter literary jam session, and a good half of a long poem in progress, we'll take fries with that, a swig of the oh-be-joyful, and worship our muses and literary goddesses at will, be there the frank fact of the winter moon shining over the shimmering snows or no.

Happy New Year, Charlie Brown!

 

"Molana" Jalaledin Rumi (1207-1273) was a poet and a scholar, a Sufi mystic, a learned theologian, and a seeker of the Divine inbibed in every human being, which is the ineffable meaning of life. He was an orthodox, sober professor until he met a wandering Sage – Shams of Tabriz (Persia) and was transformed into an enraptured lover of God. Through his life, teachings and poetry, he seeks to convey this meaning which can be found in this inner-dwelling divine of every human being.

confused puppet interviews himself; the
blues guitar goes twang; Rustin reads a robust rendition of some
rousing rural rarebits. This all happens Sunday at 10:30am/Monday 1:30 pm central.

Daffodils
bloom, fevers flash, nebulae hover,

pulse
white and yellow. Can you smile dawn and dusk
and pretend it doesn't hurt? The nurse

stops
a moment her whirl,

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.

"Robert Long is not like us poets who snivel in our ivory towers: he
lives in the good old, the hope to die USA. His muse is firmly
installed amidst the kitchenware, and he-- as the slang phrase puts
it-- really cooks. These poems are a perfect example what Hart Crane
means by 'talking USA'."

--Bill Knott

If anyone wants further information about Robert Long or his book, Blue, C. J. Pavone, publisher can be reached directly through snail mail at

Here's a poem to help get you through:

Chimpanzees live about 60
years in captivity.

While living in Germany in the 1980s Belinda began Gypsy Literary Magazine and Sanctuary Tape Series where she published writings and vocal performances of poets from many countries. Sanctuary ran about 6 years and Gypsy for 10 years before its resurrection in 2004. She also published many books under the VERGIN PRESS imprint including VOCES FRONTERIZAS, writings based on life on the U.S./Mexican border sponsored by the El Paso Public Library as well as THE GULF WAR: MANY PERSPECTIVES, EARTH TONES, IMAGES OF JIM MORRISON and HENRY MILLER AND MY BIG SUR DAYS.

I put the final edits on Radianthology #1 and it has been llama-tested and mother-approved and is ready for broad(web)cast on Sunday, April 12th at 10:30 am and Monday, April 13th at 1:30 pm (Central). http://www.kruufm.com. It features some wonderful word performances by Ray Succre, Patricia Fargnoli, Paul A. Toth and Jacob Russell.

And for good measure I threw in Craig Deininger reading (once again) "Perhaps the Aliens," a short episode of Dr. Whom by the BBC Radio Women's Auxillary (spoof), Mark Twain praising book royalties in the afterlife, my poem "Carroll Street" and yeah, I jam on my guitar once in a while. OK, a lot, as spacers, audio dingbats as it were. The ghost of Truman Capote also makes a cameo appearance for a public service announcement. All in a day's work.

Renowned national poet Marvin Bell visited the studios of KRUU recently and was interviewed by Irving Toast, Poetry Ghost's own Rustin Larson. This interview will air Sunday, May 31st at 10:30 am and Monday June 1st at 1:30 pm central time. In this fascinating program, Marvin reads selected poems from his latest books, talks about his long career as a writer and teacher, and discusses recent world events in the light of his poetry.

At last.

The truth about Frankenstein.

From: Freddy Fonseca
To: All Fairfield poets and writers

I'm inviting all Fairfield poets, including those who may have moved, to submit original poetry (published and non-published) to a space on my new website: Fairfield Creates Foundation, along with your photo and short bio. Eventually, the best of these poems will be selected for a book on Fairfield poets I'm planning to edit and publish. August 31, 2009 is the deadline for submissions.

The theme of this collection is "Fairfield's Poets As They'd Like To Be Remembered", which is the 'working title' of the book for now. Before you make your selections, I suggest that you ask yourself three questions:

Which of my poems would I like to be remembered by?
Which poems will I most likely be remembered by?
Which of these poems are really "me"?