Poet and editor Joshua Marie Wilkinson joins host Brian Blanchfield for an episode guided by the memory of C. D. Wright, her work and her influence. Featuring, too, poetry about the momentary: riverside, roadside, and moving on. Poems by Wright, Besmilr Brigham, Frank Stanford, Ed Roberson, Hoa Nguyen, Dot Devota, Anne Tardos, Gabriel Gudding, Fred Moten, and William Carlos Williams.
With musical selections by Erma Franklin, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band with Doc Watson, Lee Moses, Jarvis Cocker, and David Bowie
C. D. Wright | from Cooling Time. Copper Canyon Press, 2005.
C. D. Wright | “Approximately Forever,” Tremble. Ecco Press, 1996.
Frank Stanford | “Blood Brothers,” The Singing Knives. Lost Roads Press, 1972.
Ed Roberson | “Transit Authority,” To See the Earth Before the End of the World. Wesleyan University Press, 2010.
Anne Tardos | three poems from Nine. BlazeVOX Books, 2015.
Hoa Nguyen | “Tower Sonnet,” Tales of the Crackling. Ugly Duckling Books, 2015.
Fred Moten | “Regroundings,” Hughson’s Tavern. Leon Works, 2008.
Gabriel Gudding | from “Amnicola,” Literature for Nonhumans. Ahsahta Press, 2016.
Dot Devota | “Vow,” Division of Labor. Rescue Press, 2015.
William Carlos Williams | “Iris,” Pictures from Breughel, 1962, Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams. New Directions.
C.D. Wright | from Deepstep Come Shining. Cooper Canyon Press, 1998.
Besmilr Brigham | “All Day the Big Monarchs Fly,” Heaved from the Earth. Lost Roads Press, 2015.
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.