Episode 121: The Tie Breakers Episode

In this episode we discussed three very different poems by Oregon poet Lorna Rose, all three resulting in juicy conversation and resulting in three tie-breakers (none of them involving the same voting configurations amongst our team!). This was a big first for us. The episode was kicked off by a larger discussion (prompted by the first poem) around aspects of cultural appropriation and touched on facets of trauma and language. This wide-ranging discussion and the split in our voting pointed to the power and ambiguity of various elements in these poems.  In the end, a tie-breaking editor helped deliver two of these poems into PBQ’s pages! Have a listen!  Note: This episode was recorded in December 2021, so there will be a bit of time travel involved.  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, Marion Wrenn, Jason Schneiderman, Alex Tunney  Absentee voter for the tie-breakers: Samanatha Neugebauer    Links to things we discuss you might like to check out:    "Declaration" by Tracy K. Smith, an erasure poem of the Declaration of Independence  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/147468/declaration-5b5a286052461    "Native Son" by Richard Wright  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1992/07/20/the-hammer-and-the-nail    "Appropriate: A Provocation" by Paisley Rekdal  https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324003588    "How-To" by Anders Carlson Wee and retraction by The Nation  https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/how-to/    "Inside Kate Winlset's Mare of Easttown" Pennsylvania Accent, Vanity Fair  https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/04/kate-winslet-mare-of-easttown-accent      Lorna is a Pacific Northwest writer and speaker. Her narrative nonfiction and poetry have been recognized by Pacific Northwest Writers Association and the Oregon Poetry Association, and have appeared or are forthcoming in Scary Mommy, Jellyfish Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Writers Resist, and elsewhere. She's also a speaker and workshop leader. When not wrangling her two small children, she fantasizes about being interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air.     Author website                  Leaving Libya    I flood my lungs   with the wet stench of fish and bodies and fuel.   Dinghy motor whines against the night.      Salt air grinds my skin ‘til it’s threadbare and   there’s no sitting since leaving Sabratha.   Body clenches tight to its bones      and shrill muscles shriek and weep and lock up.   Damp t-shirt clings to goosebumped flesh under a   tattered orange life jacket. But what life?      Next to me a shaking woman holds her boney baby   and cries. She has shit herself.   Behind me a man mumbles and mumbles for water.      His eyes roll hollow,   mouth slacks open.   From his breath      I smell the thick stink of rot,   the gray smell of   forgotten humanity.      Lights of the Italian coastline appear and   my heart races,   vision blurs.  From somewhere behind there’s a jolt.   Yelling.   Floor tilts.      And the lights of Lampedusa go black.        Surviving the Rush    No music plays in   the general store in Circle, Alaska,   which is full of mukluks and      Wonder Bread.      Villagers fish the Yukon,   memorize river rise,   bet on      breakup.      Long ago miners arrived from Outside  to sift, chip   rip fortunes     from earth.      Stilts were drilled into permafrost and   structures were imposed and   all bustle and      rage.      Then claims fell dry and   no patience and Circle started to     wither.     The locals   picked up pieces of buildings, tried to   heal the      pock-marked ground.      Today a tourist’s crisp dollar might   mean something,   except the locals would have to tolerate      the perfumey tourist.      Villagers fish the Yukon,   memorize river rise,   bet on breakup. The soil smells of      fool’s gold and blood.