Dr. Barbara Mossberg » Poetry Slowdown

First of all, welcome to our PoetrySlowDown—you’re slowing down with me, Professor Mossberg, aka Dr. B, with our Producer Zappa Johns, and the idea for the show is from Simon and Garfunkle’s 59th Street Bridge Song—slow down, you move too fast, you’ve … Continue reading →

As we consider Emerson (whom the late Harold Bloom called “God”) and Einstein, and Astra theology, and what is known about the universe in ancient and emergent minds, considering human and civil rights,  peace, and the environment (Peace! Love! Freedom! Happiness!) … Continue reading →

Let us consider poetry as necessary for life as soil. Just because nutritious soil is necessary to life, all our lives on earth, does not mean it is not downright miraculous. A little clay here, rock there, dust, remains, odds … Continue reading →

WWRS? (What Would Rumi Say?) What does poetry have to do with it? Stay tuned for The Poetry Slow Down with Professor Barbara Mossberg.  Enjoy the video for this week’s episode on our Facebeook page.

Poetry Slow Down, our episode this week begins a series wherein we embark on ancient ships and rocky land routes to engage with trees, as people have always done, and I mean always. Since recorded history, our first forays into writing … Continue reading →

As we celebrate Walt Whitman’s birthday, we consider how seriously as a poet he took joy (very). As it turns out, in fact, poets taking joy seriously is a thing. We’re slowing down today (you know you move too fast) … Continue reading →

CONFESSIONS OF KILLER OF CATERPILLARS, HEADS UP TO DEER (AND OTHERS) AT RISK, BEING RAPT, RAPTORMANIA, RAPTURE, AND RIPARIAN ECSTASY YOU HAVE TIME FOR IF YOU SLOW DOWN: Poems and Lyric Prose “On Life” and Utterly Necessary Living, Life, and … Continue reading →

Never mind the headlines, there’s plenty of drama in the kitchen . . . it’s a lot.  A play in the making about a daughter raising her mother from the dead, an act of which her mother approves, although not the … Continue reading →

Please help yourself to an hour (plucked from Daylight Savings Time), slowing down (because you know you move too fast) for the up of the ThePoetrySlowDown that aspires to be a Holy Fire Reiki for your spirit (as poetry perhaps always has … Continue reading →

A consideration of what we consider slow news, and what’s at stake, for our own survival and for society at large. In which we take up the fate of earth and all life (including spiders—and you’ll be glad) (you truly will) … Continue reading →

In which our show showcases poets’ love of teaching (their poems are proof of the pudding) and in which I learn from students’ questions to me about the role and use of poetry in our lives, and, in their own … Continue reading →

A perspective on how we (should) spend our daily energies. A bossiness of poets weigh in, from the late (but always here) Mary Oliver, William Stafford, Raymond Carver, Emily Dickinson, Billy Collins, Lorine Neidecker, Alice Dunbar -Nelson, Gerald Manley Hopkins, … Continue reading →

Hello, and happy new year, O friends, O ears, hear hear! You’re slowing down for the Poetry Slow Down—you know you move too fast! You know you are supposed to slow down for your health, and mind, and spirit, and … Continue reading →

If “everything is alive” (Ian Chillag), e=mc2 (Einstein), things “must be sung,” “sing themselves” (Emerson), then a) you are alive, b) you are everything, c) you are a song. We’re all in this together, like penguins and bats, singing our … Continue reading →

You’re under the weather, my friend, feeling stressed and blue! Dr. B has a potion that will do: It’s light as a feather, word flour and fat, called for when the world seems sour and flat! Just when you’re going … Continue reading →

(A GOOD LOOK IN SHIRTS, NOT SO MUCH ON YOUR COMPUTER), AND DAYS ARE DARK, AND THE NEWS IS FRIGHTFUL, IT’S TIME TO LET GO THE NEWS FEED FOR THE NEWS YOU NEED: POETRY! YOU NEED TO GET OUT YOUR … Continue reading →

From ancient drama to today’s poetry, lyric wisdom suggests (do or  die –“miserably”) that our sense of success, “home” and other destinations, and goals need to be rethought. Living is fraught with perils and defeats—or are our “defeats” really something to … Continue reading →

So Poetry Slow Down! You’re slowing down here (hear hear!) with me, your host Professor Barbara Mossberg, Dr. B, and our production team, Zappa Johns and Nico Moss: you know you move too fast! This is our time to slow down, … Continue reading →

In fact it leads to heartwarming knowledge about our own humanity! And we need to hear this! Now! So we’ll slow down to take that windy path where goats go, lambs gambol. I’m your host Barbara Mossberg, with this ministry … Continue reading →

To eat or to be eaten, or both? That is the question. Life and death. What is our human fate and purpose? These are large questions, indeed, and poetry has some answers to get us slowed down in these hurtling … Continue reading →