"A Lovely Wallpaper" offers up guided memorizations, featuring a new poem
each episode.
Proposing memory work as a challenge to the ephemeral language of our moment, host Abby
delivers
an exploration of each new poem in two parts. In the first act, she chats with a guest
about poetry and
memory. In the second act, she presents the episode's poem, as read by her guest, in a
special format
designed to work as a roadmap to learning it by heart.
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"A Lovely Wallpaper" offers up guided memorizations, featuring a new poem
each episode.
Proposing memory work as a challenge to the ephemeral language of our moment, host Abby
delivers
an exploration of each new poem in two parts. In the first act, she chats with a guest
about poetry and
memory. In the second act, she presents the episode's poem, as read by her guest, in a
special format
designed to work as a roadmap to learning it by heart.
In this episode, Abby interviews radical mycologist James Oliver about mushrooms and his work healing post-fire sites with mycelium at The Center for Applied Ecological Remediation (CAER). Together, they present the poem "Mushrooms," by Sylvia Plath. Recitation begins at 47:22
Mushrooms Sylvia Plath
Overnight, very Whitely, discreetly, Very quietly Our toes, our noses Take hold on the loam, Acquire the air. Nobody sees us, Stops us, betrays us; The small grains make room. Soft fists insist on Heaving the needles, The leafy bedding, Even the paving. Our hammers, our rams, Earless and eyeless, Perfectly voiceless, Widen the crannies, Shoulder through holes. We Diet on water, On crumbs of shadow, Bland-mannered, asking Little or nothing. So many of us! So many of us! We are shelves, we are Tables, we are meek, We are edible, Nudgers and shovers In spite of ourselves. Our kind multiplies: We shall by morning Inherit the earth. Our foot's in the door.
A Lovely Wallpaper
"A Lovely Wallpaper" offers up guided memorizations, featuring a new poem
each episode.
Proposing memory work as a challenge to the ephemeral language of our moment, host Abby
delivers
an exploration of each new poem in two parts. In the first act, she chats with a guest
about poetry and
memory. In the second act, she presents the episode's poem, as read by her guest, in a
special format
designed to work as a roadmap to learning it by heart.
