SoundPages
SoundPages is produced by Jack Straw Cultural Center as part of the Jack Straw Writers Program. This podcast features interviews and live readings from artists in the Jack Straw Writers Program. Each year a series of twelve episodes is produced featuring the current Jack Straw Writers and curator.-
Cargo – Emily Bedard
Emily Bedard’s poems are full of wild, vivid, and unusual imagery: Her disappointing moments in life gather in one room, each visible in its own horrible failure; she gives advice to younger girls about dating, sex, and love; God takes her car for a joyride and enjoys the experience.
2015 Writers Program Curator Kevin Craft asks Emily about her manuscript, Cargo, the title relating to both human trafficking at the Seattle Port and the invisible individual experiences we all carry with us throughout life. Both agree that her poems are full of “the everyday surreal.”
Music by St. Helens String Quartet, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Shift – Martha Kreiner
Martha Kreiner‘s poetry is deeply intertwined with her work as a nurse. She sends herself poetic time surveys throughout her work day to give herself “the opportunity, just randomly, to look around the world and pay attention.” She talks with 2015 Writers Program Curator Kevin Craft about how her nursing influences her poetry and vice versa.
Music by St. Helens String Quartet, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Darling – Ross McMeekin
Ross McMeekin is fascinated by family relationships and constantly explores them in his writing. Writing, he says, allows you to explore different careers and to “slip into the skin of a bunch of different lives that you could never have done in your own real solid skin.” He can’t escape the pull, the magnetism, of family dynamics; these themes continue to shape and direct his stories.
He reads a short story, Darling, part of a collection in the works. We meet Sammy, a young girl who is being introduced to her baby sister, and we experience all her anger and sense of injustice around this change that everyone but Sammy completely ignores.
Music by St. Helens String Quartet, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Divorce – Jeanine Walker
Jeanine Walker, poet and musician, relates how her parents’ divorce when she was 10 has shaped her poetry. She explores family, bonding, separation, and escape in several poems containing her own experiences or imaginings of different lives. Poetry allows her to explore her own experiences and create deeper understanding of the changes in her and her family’s life.
In Divorce, the central poem of her upcoming manuscript, Jeanine captures the moment where her parents told her family of their divorce, how both parents, the children, and their home are affected by the words finally spoken aloud: “The house stood still like a horse. Big eyes ablink. In the unknowing few moments before a shot . . .”
Music by St. Helens String Quartet, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Childhood – Erin Malone
2015 Jack Straw Writers Program Curator Kevin Craft interviews poet Erin Malone about her choice of themes for her recent works about child abduction and death. The poems she reads at the Jack Straw May Reading Series share perspectives from varying experiences: the passage of time, exposure to death, fading memories, and grief.
Music by St. Helens String Quartet, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Subduction – Kristen Millares Young
Kristen Millares Young seeks to discover empathy through her characters. The different perspectives that appear in her writing unfold into a story that sheds light on the human condition.
THIS PODCAST CONTAINS ADULT LANGUAGE.
Music by Victor Noriega/2 Trios, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Excerpts from My Past My Way – Raul Sanchez
Raul Sanchez connects to his readers with his unreserved storytelling about his own background. With bright descriptions and mixed English and Spanish lines, Sanchez’s poems paint cultural scenes that open a world to his audience.
Music by Victor Noriega/2 Trios and produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Selected Work – Margot Kahn
Margot Kahn reflects on her cultural heritage through the lens of her teenage self. Her memories and observations reveal a warm innocence and resonate as a coming of age story.
Music by Victor Noriega/2 Trios, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Visits to the Border – Susan V. Meyers
Setting the scene with memories of a childhood border crossing, Susan V. Meyers examines the significance of geographic boundary lines. Drawing on her experience of the U.S./Mexico border as an adult and providing background and history on its institution, Meyers stitches together thoughtful ideas on a complex issue.
Music by Victor Noriega/2 Trios, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Chapter 1: Will and Trust – Gigi Rosenberg
Gigi Rosenberg constructs a personable and engaging account of her relationship with her mother and the complexities that emerge posthumously. Rosenberg’s current project is How I Lost My Inheritance: A Mother/Daughter Memoir.
Music by Victor Noriega/2 Trios, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
