In a poem called a “Song,” Linda Hogan crafts a song for turtles and other creatures killed through oil spills in the gulf. At once a praise song for the beauty of the sea, the earth, and its animals, this song also functions as a lament: for the history erased by industrial practices; for the lack of respect and love for living breathing other-than-human lives; for plastic and the plastic containers used to hold the body of a dead sea turtle. The poem veers towards a prayer, too, begging forgiveness for being “thrown off true.”
Linda Hogan is a Chickasaw novelist, essayist, and environmentalist. She earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs and an MA in English and creative writing from the University of Colorado-Boulder. Her books of poetry include Dark. Sweet., The Book of Medicines, Seeing Through the Sun, and many more.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Tiana Clark — My Therapist Wants to Know about My Relationship to Work
Joshua Bennett — Owed to Your Father’s Gold Chain
Abigail Chabitnoy — If You’re Going to Look Like a Wolf They Have to Love You More Than They Fear You.
M. Soledad Caballero — Someday I Will Visit Hawk Mountain
Rafiq Kathwari — Mother Writes to President Eisenhower
Caroline Bird — Little Children
Marilyn Nelson — The Truceless Wars
Richard Blanco — Looking for The Gulf Motel
Yusef Komunyakaa — Praising Dark Places
Hannah Emerson — Keep Yourself at the Beginning of the Beginning
Kyle Carrero Lopez — Ode to the Crop Top
Divya Victor — First Petition
Denise Low — Walking with My Delaware Grandfather
Rita Dove — Eurydice, Turning
Poetry Unbound — Season 5 Trailer
BONUS: An Invitation from Pádraig and Krista
Danez Smith — i’m going back to Minnesota where sadness makes sense
Craig Santos Perez — Rings of Fire
Alberto Ríos — December Morning in the Desert
Yehoshua November — 2AM, and the Rabbinical Students Stand in their Bathrobes
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
On Being with Krista Tippett
Pride and Prejudice
The Story of Mankind
Becoming Wise