Episode 113: The Call of the Wild (ENCORE)

Hello, Slushies! We hope you’re keeping cool out there. In this encore episode, KVM rhapsodizes about the joy of a sandwich made with a perfect summer tomato. And Jason shares his astute thoughts on the nature of motherhood. Join in while the panel takes on three poems from poet Sarah Elkins. And thanks, as always for listening.   Are you ready to get primal, Slushies? We look at poems of birth and mothering that call on the senses as they shift between what’s animal and what’s human in us. Kathy celebrates the pure, messy pleasure of a classic tomato sandwich and Jason reminds us why an irregular opening line can be the hook a poem needs, while we all marvel at a poem’s ability to dazzle us with changing perspectives, locations, and personas. Oh, and strong titles get some much deserved love too.   This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.    At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, and Dagne Forrest     Sarah Elkins is a poet, teacher, and reader. Sarah earned a BA with majors in English & Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and an MFA in Poetry from Pacific University. Sarah is the director of the West Virginia Interscholastic Cycling League where she works to get more kids on bikes. She and her husband, Max, own & operate Hammer Cycles bike shop in Lewisburg, WV. Author website: https://www.sarahelkins.com/   Birthing The summer before my son was born, I ate tomato sandwiches with mayonnaise, salt and pepper. The rain was so heavy in June, the fruit swelled on the vines and their skins ripped. I took big bites holding thick bread with two hands, pink rainwater running down both forearms to my elbows—everything reduced, then, to hunger. At night, curled on my side in the un-airconditioned dark I dreamt of big cats’ razor tongues dragging the length of my back, saber teeth at my throat, not tearing the skin but feeling for pulse, their muscled hips coaxing me  into the sweaty delirium of my final weeks.   The cats returned every night until twenty-six hours before I howled him into being, I opened. All the rain of June, and July leaving me for the hardwood floor where I crouched on all fours looking for flecks of vernix, tasting my wet fingers, sniffing the sweet water for signs it was time. The cats slunk away until now, eating this tomato sandwich, my first in twelve years— I recall I was a panther once.   From the Tall Grass I floss at night after steak and butter. My house: unguarded range, bison huffing, ice-faced, hooves stamping an echo stutter. I do nothing in this boundless nothing. No thought, no synapse firing. Still hands still stained—berry juice of an empty morning. This room-less space, a translucent thin will through which I, good sow, whiff my boy’s homing. His trek complete, except for the recount— bighorn sheep, bull moose, near miss, eagle plume. I toss one sleek mink to the catamount. The grass lies down; walls rise around my room.             Ursa fades. A house cat lurks in willow.             I sip gin, smooth the pelt of my pillows.