Docupoetry

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Wisconsin Public Radio

Prx, Philosophy, Knowledge, Wpr, Ttbook, Wisconsin, Society & Culture

4.7 • 844 Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2024

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rooted in reality, written with a keen observer’s eye, and shaped with a sense of song, documentary poetry tells the truth in an artist’s voice. For generations, through wars, crisis, and political upheaval, documentary poets have helped make sense of some of our most difficult moments – by expressing what might otherwise be impossible to say. So what are they writing about today?

This episode was produced in partnership with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

Original Air Date: January 13, 2024

Interviews In This Hour:

The gospel of Suncere Ali Shakur — This is how I drew you — The poetry that bears witness to the everyday

Guests:

Philip Metres, Suncere Ali Shakur, Kaia Sand, Camille Dungy

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey friends, it's Anne.
0:06.5	I lived in the first century of world wars.
0:10.8	Have you ever wished there was a different way to read or hear the news?
0:15.3	Slowly I would get to pen and paper.
0:19.4	Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.
0:23.6	For generations, through wars and political upheaval,
0:27.6	poets have been reporting what they observe in a literary genre called documentary poetry.
0:33.6	Garbage bag of belongings.
0:35.6	Grandmother's ashes in your tent, hands cupped over a can of belongings. Grandmother's ashes in your tent.
0:38.3	Hands cupped over a can of flames.
0:41.3	On this week's to the best of our knowledge, we bring you docupoetry,
0:45.3	talking with today's writers who are covering climate change,
0:48.3	the housing crisis, parenting, and more, inverse.
0:52.3	My whole life, the whole life.
0:55.0	All of it is material for the poem.
0:58.0	Keep listening. Wisconsin Public Radio It's to the best of our knowledge.
1:16.3	I'm Anne Strange Amps.
1:31.9	I'd like you to meet Sincere Ali Shakur.
1:34.5	All right, let me see you here.
1:35.8	All right.
1:37.9	Okay, I got it.
1:40.7	A community activist currently based in Cleveland,
	...

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