The Organist is a monthly experimental arts-and-culture program produced and distributed by KCRW. The editors of the award-winning monthly magazine the Believer, published in San Francisco by McSweeney’s, produce ten annual episodes of the podcast, which includes reported stories, interviews, comic radio drama, reviews, and more.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Poem as Screenplay: Six Video Collaborations
What's the difference between a poem and a screenplay?
According to these filmmakers, not much.
Good Kids
In this tragicomedy, two 15-year-old classmates see their parents exchange an illicit kiss and vow never to cheat on anyone.
— Abbe Wright
Blessed Are The Weak (For They Are No Good)
by Alexis Pope
This apple I hold with both hands
& step toward the sun
rising my temper out
of the earth. I hope to go
back inside for a few hours, light
my way into your center
parts. Each time I reach for
the apple, my fingers crush
& bend into each other like
a centipede trying to make
my dreams feel moist. The way
you answer every phone call with
another word for hello. What
are we doing here? This empty
mattress turned inside out & my
coils are exposed as well. For each
day I am naked & putting this
mirror to the window for you
to see exactly what I mean
when I say these
are not days exactly. Not minutes
but instead a pruning of less
than fruit. Which is what we are
to each other, I mean. I cut
myself open. I have not
one seed. You have exactly
three. My jealousy erupts
into something green & peeling
from my lap like the anchor
I never dropped into you, but
you see me there. Don’t you?
Under this desk I have hidden
for two months. I have tried
at shadowy. Have failed
at being wonderful. My hair
gets darker each morning
I look outside & see him. The field
goes on for what seems forever
but it’s not forever enough. Enough
I’ve had of rainstorms & no
flowers on the desk I am under. Under
you I died five times
last night. Don’t wake up
without me. Dream thesedays up a little for me. I have
no window to find you.
Alexis Pope is the author of the chapbook Girl Erases Girl (Dancing Girl Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Boxcar Poetry Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Anti-, and Sixth Finch, among others. She lives in Ohio where she co-curates The Big Big Mess Reading Series and is Contributing Editor for Whiskey Island Magazine.
This apple I hold with both hands
& step toward the sun
rising my temper out
of the earth. I hope to go
back inside for a few hours, light
my way into your center
parts. Each time I reach for
the apple, my fingers crush
& bend into each other like
a centipede trying to make
my dreams feel moist. The way
you answer every phone call with
another word for hello. What
are we doing here? This empty
mattress turned inside out & my
coils are exposed as well. For each
day I am naked & putting this
mirror to the window for you
to see exactly what I mean
when I say these
are not days exactly. Not minutes
but instead a pruning of less
than fruit. Which is what we are
to each other, I mean. I cut
myself open. I have not
one seed. You have exactly
three. My jealousy erupts
into something green & peeling
from my lap like the anchor
I never dropped into you, but
you see me there. Don’t you?
Under this desk I have hidden
for two months. I have tried
at shadowy. Have failed
at being wonderful. My hair
gets darker each morning
I look outside & see him. The field
goes on for what seems forever
but it’s not forever enough. Enough
I’ve had of rainstorms & no
flowers on the desk I am under. Under
you I died five times
last night. Don’t wake up
without me. Dream thesedays up a little for me. I have
no window to find you.
Alexis Pope is the author of the chapbook Girl Erases Girl (Dancing Girl Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Boxcar Poetry Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Anti-, and Sixth Finch, among others. She lives in Ohio where she co-curates The Big Big Mess Reading Series and is Contributing Editor for Whiskey Island Magazine.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
March 24th @ 2pm
Some of America's leading artists, scholars, and public figures will come together on one stage in April for an extraordinary evening celebrating the role of contemporary poetry in American culture.
On April 17, 2013, the Academy of American Poets will present the 11th annual Poetry & the Creative Mind, at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center.
Friday, March 1, 2013
The Castle Avenue With Trees
It will be this way and no other, he said. Who? The brunette,
now swallowing the afternoon fog and picking buttons
from my short sleeve shirt, it opens strangely, in a style
out of fashion. And I know: a hitchhiker who never enters! God
grant me charming words and smooth endings, grant me a slender
birch I can lean against and forget how life can humiliate us,
like a moon and flowers in the straps of a black weekend dress,
grant me trust in the possibility of a common uprising and cadence
of a blessing, once I could break it into a jubilant shout. Language
knows no private property. It will be this way and no other,
he said. Who? The brunette, who earlier was sipping beer foam,
he has friends down the hill, in the old Vodnik, he persuades me.
He doesn’t know there’s no need, really: I embrace a trunk and change
into white folds of bark, I am freshly peeled. Now write
the way I want, cut boldly, so it shows, the name for joy
that sprays. And a blowout. It is this way and every other.
By Aleš Debeljak, translated from the Slovenian by Brian Henry
now swallowing the afternoon fog and picking buttons
from my short sleeve shirt, it opens strangely, in a style
out of fashion. And I know: a hitchhiker who never enters! God
grant me charming words and smooth endings, grant me a slender
birch I can lean against and forget how life can humiliate us,
like a moon and flowers in the straps of a black weekend dress,
grant me trust in the possibility of a common uprising and cadence
of a blessing, once I could break it into a jubilant shout. Language
knows no private property. It will be this way and no other,
he said. Who? The brunette, who earlier was sipping beer foam,
he has friends down the hill, in the old Vodnik, he persuades me.
He doesn’t know there’s no need, really: I embrace a trunk and change
into white folds of bark, I am freshly peeled. Now write
the way I want, cut boldly, so it shows, the name for joy
that sprays. And a blowout. It is this way and every other.
By Aleš Debeljak, translated from the Slovenian by Brian Henry
Evil in All Its Disguises
“Hilary Davidson delivers the goods — an exotic,
atmospheric setting, a rocket-paced plot, and a bright, engaging heroine
in Lily Moore. EVIL IN ALL ITS DISGUISES is a top-notch mystery —
exciting, harrowing, and smart”
— Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of HEARTBROKEN
“Hilary Davidson is a rising star in the mystery genre”
— South Florida Sun-Sentinel
“Davidson has already achieved a remarkable fusion of
mainstream mystery appeal with a dark streak a mile wide. Her voice is a
fresh and welcome addition to the noir landscape”
— Los Angeles Review of Books
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