Join us as we consider a pack of poems by Pier Wright, and the complexities of pacing, prosody, and narrative poems with strange and powerful images: memory, tenderness, a “magnificent young moose,” & the magic of being caught in the act. Kathleen “Gratitude” Volk Miller, champion explicator and advocate for gratitude and neuroplasticity, analyzes the “small pointy hats of hope” as lovers entwine. Jason “Gorgeous Vectors” Schneiderman loves sticky collisions. Gabby and Alex and the crew ponder happy endings and surprises that feel like “Objective correlatives,” sl...
Join us as we consider a pack of poems by Pier Wright, and the complexities of pacing, prosody, and narrative poems with strange and powerful images: memory, tenderness, a “magnificent young moose,” & the magic of being caught in the act. Kathleen “Gratitude” Volk Miller, champion explicator and advocate for gratitude and neuroplasticity, analyzes the “small pointy hats of hope” as lovers entwine. Jason “Gorgeous Vectors” Schneiderman loves sticky collisions. Gabby and Alex and the crew ponder happy endings and surprises that feel like “Objective correlatives,” slushies. Spoiler: Marion “Sunshine” Wrenn makes an appearance from future past, or future perfect, or…something like that. It all makes a great story.
Slushies, what is your “embarrassing at the moment but will be funny later” story?
This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist A.M.Mills, whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.
Pier Wright attended Kalamazoo College where he was influenced by the poetry of Con Hilberry and later by that of Diane Seuss. The first poetry reading he ever attended, and has never forgotten, was Robert Bly reading from Silence In The Snowy Fields. He received a Post-Baccalaureate & Masters degree from The Art Institute of Chicago. As a student he discovered Fairfield Porter, Monet’s large Water Lilly paintings at at Musée de l'Orangerie, Terry Winters, Mary Heilmann, Philip Guston’s late paintings, Giotto, Noguchi, etc.. Influences include Prayer Wheels, Marie Howe, Chris Martin, Peter Matthiessen, Stephen Dunn, John Cage, Ornette Coleman, Joni Mitchell, Phyllida Barlow, the ceramic work of Toshiko Takaezu, and, most recently, the writings of C.D. Wright. While living as a hermit for several years at the end of a peninsula in N Michigan he began working with Michael Delp. He has been the director of Wright Gallery since 2002 and is recently married.
Socials: Instagram is pierdwright, Facebook is Pier Wright, and website is pierwright.net (paintings)
Driveway Poem
we arrived early at the house by the subshop
after the bar closed
it was cold and being new at love
the only way we thought to keep warm
was by undressing completely, with great urgency
in the front seat of the Ford
then my foot got stuck in the horn
just as our friends began arriving
we couldn’t have left even if we’d wanted to
with all the cars having parked behind us
so we went to the party anyway
me with my shoes untied
you unfolding yourself from the car like a magnificent young moose
the night sky on one side of you and the stars over there
the way you had of entering a room back then
as though by just walking the muddy path to the stoop
a lotus popped out
Gratitude
what was once impotent in me
remains in this fiery house
on a small lot, crap lawn
every roughed grief
the small pointy hats of hope
red hibiscus bushes wilting in a row
the heat slicked fur of a sleeping hound
a house made not of things
but the relationship between things
such as the desire two bodies have
when flying blindly toward each other
at incredible speed
so, when I ask if I can make you breakfast
what I mean is, I am thankful you are finally here
The Hibiscus, Key West
we shared thin, raw, slices of tuna,
conch salad, cracked stone crab claws,
drank dark rum, tripped over the noisy chickens
on our way to your room.
drank more rum from plastic cups,
then a table broke, the matching chair in pieces,
waltzing together across worn linoleum
like aging Tantric porn stars.
waking to Cuban coffee, I remember eggs,
while waiting for a bus to Miami
you wrote your number on a napkin.
I tried calling several times,
a memory persistent as the fly banging
on this kitchen door screen.
Mother’s Day
what a day in the garden
pulling out the knotweed
the clover and spurge
forgiving you for leaving so soon
the way they cut your head open
I recall a dream
I find you in a dumpster it’s hot
your bones are missing
and you can’t get out
just now before dark
beside the thistle and burdock
your cheeks wet I ask if you are hungry
I chop potatoes eggs olives
how tender the early dandelion greens
are tossed with sea salt
bitter with lemon
drizzled with the good oil
I keep for company
