“I take the content in, like a museum” –Margaret Ross
Poet Srikanth Reddy visits Tucson from Chicago and joins host Brian Blanchfield for an episode of poetry that rummages through, burnishes, and repurposes touchstones of Western literature and art—the shield of Achilles right on down. Epoch at a glance and the epic everyday. Poems by Robin Coste Lewis, Lisa Robertson, Margaret Ross, Barbara Henning, Mark McMorris, Barbara Claire Freeman, Alice Oswald, Ariana Reines, and Gertrude Stein. With musical selections by Kishi Bashi, Leikele47, John Lennon, Patti Griffin, and more.
Homer | from The Iliad, Book 18, tr. Robert Fagles. Penguin Books, 1998
Lisa Robertson | from The Men. Book Thug, 2006.
Margaret Ross | “Personal Life,” A Time Share. Omnidawn, 2015.
Robin Coste Lewis | from “Catalog 5, Emancipation and Independence,” Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems. Knopf, 2015.
Alice Oswald | from Memorial, Faber and Faber, 2012.
Barbara Claire Freeman | “Forward,” Every Day But Tuesday. Omnidawn, 2015.
Ariana Reines | from Coeur de Lion. Fence Books, 2011.
Barbara Henning | “Twice in One Lifetime,” A Day Like Today. Negative Capability Press, 2015.
Mark McMorris | “A Place Made of Thought,” PEN Poetry Series, PEN America Blog, 2015.
Gertrude Stein | from Tender Buttons. Dover Publishing, 1997.
SPEEDWAY & SWAN is a fortnightly one-hour free-format radio program that presents contemporary poetry against a context of variously compatible and offbeat musical selections. Culling from the exceptional libraries of his partners, the University of Arizona Poetry Center and KXCI 91.3 Tucson Community Radio, creator and host Brian Blanchfield is joined in conversation each episode by a rotating guest co-host who brings to the hour a selection of poetry from his or her personal canon, which, along with the freshest and best from the "new shelves," they read live.
Each show also features a recorded performance from Voca, the Poetry Center's audio archive of its legendary poetry readings since 1963. SPEEDWAY & SWAN represents a partnership between the Poetry Center, which will archive the show in listenable format with an annotated playlist, and KXCI, where the show streams live.
Since 1983, KXCI 91.3 FM has been committed to connecting Tucson and Southern Arizona to one another and to the world with informative, engaging, and creative community-based radio programming.
Brian Blanchfield is a poet and writer whose two books of poetry, Not Even Then and A Several World, have won him The James Laughlin Award, a Howard Foundation fellowship, and recognition as longlist finalist for the National Book Award. A poetry editor of Fence, he teaches creative writing at the University of Arizona and runs the downtown Tucson reading series Intermezzo. Contact: speedwayandswan@gmail.com.