Poetism Part 1: Patrick Rosal and The Doors with Fang Liu
Happy July! While Stan and the usual Back in America podcast are on a hiatus this summer, Podcast Editor Josh Wagner will be hosting a new series entitled Poetism, tracing the foundations of and influences behind American poetry and music.
Each week, Josh will invite a guest on the air to talk about an unusual pairing of a poem and song––seeing how they overlap and converse with one another. In the process, we hope to expose listeners to new poets and songs and make a case for the enduring relevance of poetry in an age of digital and visual media.
In our inaugural episode, Josh is joined by Fang Liu, a linguistics major from Stanford, to talk about memory and imagination in Patrick Rosal’s 2015 ekphrastic poem “Children Walk on Chairs to Cross a Flooded Schoolyard” and The Doors’ “Wild Child” off of the 1969 record The Soft Parade.
Stay tuned for next week’s episode on sensations of loneliness through the Airborne Toxic Event’s early 2000s bop “Numb” and poet Lisa Robertson’s R’s Boat (2010).
From the conversation:
"I don't believe in mystery and then I'm reminded what it's like to be in America, to kneel beside a six-year-old, to slide my left hand beneath his back and my right under his knees." -- Poetism Part 1- Patrick Rosal and The Doors with Fang Liu
"how disaster works, how it can turn a child back into a glistening butterfish or finches and then they'll just do what they do which has teached the rest of us how to move with such natural gravity." -- Poetism Part 1- Patrick Rosal and The Doors with Fang Liu
You might also like:
• Poetism Part 7: Can you describe it all? Scott Stevens on the Cocte...
• Poetism Part 6: Can you experience? Michael Leon Thomas on Whitehea...
• Poetism Part 2: Are we numb yet? Lisa Robertson and the Airborne To...
