Our front porch; Sally Rogers

The following program is produced by Central Michigan University public radio production of our front porch is made possible in part by grants from the Waveland music organization a nonprofit historical and educational organization and elderly instruments a folk jazz and bluegrass music and record store with mail order services located in Lansing Michigan. I hate that idea. Welcome. Pull up a chair and join us for an hour of music recorded live on our front porch.

Here's your host. John Scheffler. Hello I'm John Scheffler. Welcome to our front porch on the program today we'll be hearing from a very dear friend of ours Sally Rogers. This is a concert which was recorded in October of 1983. Sally is a Michigan native who now lives in Connecticut. And I say she's a very dear friend because she performed during our very first season of local broadcast here on our front porch in February of 1980. And in order for her to make that appearance in February of 1080 she had to cut short a tour in Bermuda where she was touring so she could come back in the dead of winter. Three foot of snow and join us on our front porch. I'm very pleased to share this music with you here on our front porch today. Let's join Sally Rodgers in concert on our front porch.

Thank you. What he forgot to mention is that the weather is awful in Bermuda and they don't have heaters and I didn't have a sweater I had to go to a yard sale to buy a sweater. I had come back to Michigan where I could get warm you know. Well all the other sorts of traveling this is about traveling the song and you get to sing along just to your heart's content and then some. Of those people in the shower you know that are taking their time to

join in with us. When. I am home.

Our hands out. From home. Two friends.

That hour and 20 minutes to Traverse City that it took me the other day took me two and a half hours and it felt like

a long time travelling anybody who was smart enough not to come here tonight in the rain. God bless you and I hope you're listening to this on your radio and safe and sound and snug in your bed. The weather's awful. It's you know you can tell when taxes are are few and far between I mean we're paying them but they're not getting to the roads is what's the problem you know. There's there's there's these ruts you know the roads are supposed to be rounded like this so that all the water drains off it. I learned that finally after years I realized that's why they have to spend so much money on roads because they have to build these little mounds in the middle so that the water drains off well the road between here and Traverse City there. There are these nice little mounds with two ruts on either side and the the ruts collect all the water and that's where your tires go. It's sort of an automatic car wash effect. Only it's dirty water. Quite a ride anyway. Now don't you remember the rocky mountain side where.

The sun go down and. Had never been born blue eyes shine. Down the road.

Never will believe what no man says is hanging from the scaffold high. The.

Story for this. Ride. Down. The road. This is good.

True. True. True. Thanks.

Thanks. Well if you're frightened at all by ghost stories there's nothing like to erode our really gets. So this is another one. This is one from last January I believe. I think a man named Thomas Campbell wrote the words and it talks about it's called the grisly bridegroom meaning supernatural and it's about what I want to tell you. Right down minute where it is easy as you can. You are young and ill luck. To sleeping with a man. The snow was deep the moon was full as it show the cab in full.

His young bride rose with. It and ran barefoot through the door. He up then followed fast unsure and an angry man was he. But is young it was. And oh please. He followed the tracks in the new fallen snow call announced aloud her name but all only the dingle. Yeah I'll back it him head. Then the hair stood up along his back and his eye angry mind was gone far away. And the two fought to. Get out. They both put it track on her nightgown and the snow as it might on a

bed sheet. But the tracks that lead from. One another. He knew feet. He first started a new wall going back and then he began to rub off on her. But it's cool I returned all of. It. And hunted him into an empty bed to wait for him. As the law is in a career then beware where all truth. Be agreed. Brother. Thank you thank you.

You know it is the farmer who feeds us all and this year the farmers had a really hard time of it. The people who are the only people I think who weren't really terribly affected by this summer are people like my husband who grow grapes for a living in Connecticut and in Michigan you know this hot dry summer was something they've been waiting for for at least a century. And there it was. So they did real well but boy driving through Indiana and Illinois the crops are really burnt up. Now this is a song about a farmer who didn't necessarily have that problem. But when he got old enough to retire decided to and as is true in many cases when farmers in this part of the country retire often other members of the family are no longer interested in carrying on the tradition and going through the great agonies of being a farmer. And putting up with the weather and everything else. So he had no one really to take over the farm and I'm not sure who did buy the farm from him but it was a wheat farm you know and I'm not even sure exactly where it was in Michigan but his

granddaughter Kitty Donahoe wrote the song for him. After he moved to Florida. While I spent most of all to gether the word gods are so good he does it. And Harry said she don't regret it. Her life is complete. Now was. Kids are grown. Let the country for another home in the city

get things done she says. But 30. Desire to get out. See above. But there. Was a lot off. When his heart is still in the bag. Whoa mo. So we loaded up pickup truck. Changed our address and Pat told our old friends goodbye and we drove home with it.

Now we live in a tin can and. Feel like another man and go into a movie is all up on the weekends and playin cribbage. Joe. Harriott she's in her bra. I'm doing something all the time with the ladies on the street. She's sees every day. Sometimes. Was. It Iraq.

A special thanks I send out to Kitty who wrote that if she's listening tonight thank you very much for writing that song. This is a song about another farmer. This is about my grandma who's 96 now and getting on I must admit. But this is a song we can all sing together. And your part goes like this. Oh my goodness go with me in style and if you know it go right ahead and sing it right now so that I have to teach you and was lead in Michigan so and so thanks again to show your philosophy. Oh yeah with you.

I. Think I Love My Life. City life too. But I watch the spring expand. Oh go with me and stuff. And will probably was and so and so. Well across the board shirts will says their own three children. And their fourth child little dust and she raised them with a loving hand.

And she ran through to the Times Agnes strong and I want to go with me when I was so wild. Well cross over to we go. To the show. Now three have gone past like the. Children with me. And they all joined in the song. Time. To agree we miss now 12 years and four hours to go with me

and was Michigan so wild. We'll cross to show you some. Oh and thank. You just put out a poster of people who have been here in the past and one of the people on that poster is Bob Franke and he wrote this song In fact I believe he wrote it right around the time that he did this concert for you. And it's truly one of my favorites now. He wrote it for some friends who are getting married and it goes like this.

Just. Before I leave. Just

the other. Day. To meet another.

Do we need three of these guys to forgive each other. We've beggars. Thank you. Thank you. I've just gone

from the cup. Anyway I go. Son you go. Son. So it's out in the West but I love the sun and children take the first step in the sun the sun walk jailed and take the first step in the sun. So walk walk to the south and west but take the first step in a walk and children speak the first word in the circle love talking the first word in the sun.

Talk to the south to the east and west but speak the first word in a. Hope to be married in the sun. So I hope to be married in a circle to land to the east and west. Hope to be married in the circle. I hope to die. Yeah she's in a sauna. Then rain to the east and the West but spread my asses in a circle.

Circle a die and a man be born in a circle. So the birth day born in the circle love the sun so that the birth day. Didn't know it was did the sun and rain to the east and the West. My babies are born in the sun on a birthday. Thanks to it. Well I was sitting back there trying to think of a song to sing that I hadn't known for a while and and and I didn't come up with any. Great earth shaking things until this fella came up to me said. He said Well where are you from in Michigan I swung from Beulah originally and I live out in Connecticut now and he said oh we're from the St. Joe Valley and St. Joe Valley

clicked right now. Oh yeah that song about St. Joe is about pumpkins too. Boy how appropriate you know it just flashed before my eyes and I said I hope I know the words Well I'm not sure if I do but I'm going to try. This is a song about. The St. Joe River Valley before the nuclear plants were put there and when they still could grow pumpkins that were normal size now they are enormous. Actually in Goshen Indiana Goshen Connecticut this guy milk fed a pumpkin and it went it got twins. What. I'm serious I'm serious assault picture. Then there was a stamp a stamp that had two pumpkins on it and he injected the stem over the summertime with milk. Every day a quart of milk a day. Just guess how big they were. Just guess go ahead you know 500 pound each I mean now is that big.

That is enormous to do in about five. Hundred pounds that's I can't even fathom 500 pounds a pumpkin or a thousand pounds of pumpkin. They took it down to the sling and to put it on a tow truck to carry them down. Now this song is not about £500 pumpkins this is about your normal everyday Halloween variety. And it's called back where the pumpkins grow. To the sky. And the thought just to go.

To a valley. No. No towers in. Granite. The railway running through. Life with. Running water. And alongside. The back were. Back. Folks further. Up the back.

To go. To the alley. Where the pumpkins girl. To. Grow. Up and learn the word mother when she was little. And you're part of. The. Truth. On the banks of. The glow of the bright. Dreams could come true I'd still be there with you. It. Could come

true. On the banks of. The Club. Home country where the wild to the far away from. The. Good comes through on the banks of gold. It's.

True. The wild long cold water. On the south

come on the banks of his own. And. Come on the banks. Of the day. Thank. You. Take.

Heart. Do you. Want him. To. Go. Take.

Him. Out. I was told.

Atlanta.

Join me for a moment before they take you and your friend. Your true. Friends your husband and your lie. Just think on all the people that you care for and in just a few more years these doors were locked and all this stuff. And who are often out there will be no notice to smell on it except the memories that we each take with us through the night. For the things that we remember the things that we just we on not just the future but all history.

Just if no one keeps saying where we are. No one tells the story. Did we have no help me to imagine our world. Like this is the moment. Human A is everything a creature whose voice Smith and to show all this how did a bomb fall in the forest. No one. If there is no way to it we will all be and dog work not just the night but. And they're on the grid.

And the time to spend thought. What. Do you owe it. To you. What. Kind. Of your life.

Thank. You. Thank you. I mean. Thank you. Oh says another nice message in it. I'd like to send this at some friends of mine who had a pretty hard time

lately net's Frank and Shelly and I think this is a good win for them. By Dan Rogers. She went down last October when opposing diving. To. Get a. Drink in and felt no pain. She was doubtful. Oh and the Mary-Ellen Cardus at those below would just stuff by the board. When she finally was she was. Well above the pumps and. She went down it was to pick a lane but the Mariella knew hardihood Roddy's again. The owners wrote her off not a nickel and she liked the feel of it and that is.

2 1. 0. 0 0. Talk to her all winter. But. Do the men both the beloved and. Home with. A brand new. Wife. In the car.

Oh never this during low rent. What. The. Oh the love. How. Would.

You. Like that. No matter what you blog. Like the. Above. Sally Rogers recorded in October of 1983 on our front porch.

Thanks for joining us here on the program today. Next week we'll have music from the performers of our theme song. The group is fiddle fever. Be sure and join us then. I'm John Schaffler Wishing you the best of health until the next time we meet. The executive producer and host of our front porch is John Schaeffer the co-producer and technical director is Dan bracken. Production of our front porch is made possible in part by grants from the Wheatley music organization a nonprofit historical and educational organization and elderly instruments a folk jazz and bluegrass music and record store with mail order services located in Lansing Michigan. Comments about our front porch should be sent in care of your local public radio station. This is NPR National Public Radio.

The following program contains the frank language of poetry. If you feel you may be offended by such language please tune a way into backing for half an hour. Welcome to readings from the poetry project. This week's reading by Robert Creeley was recorded at the St. Moritz Church in New York City 30th of May

19. A fourth. Eileen introduces the reading. It's a great honor for me to be introducing Robert Creeley my favorite poet on Memorial Day in 1904. I've been bragging for years about affinities and things I feel I share with Robert Creeley mainly that we have the same number of E's in our name. And he was born in the same town I grew up in. His father was a doctor in the same hospital where I had my adenoids and tonsils removed. But if I shared these things with that Kerney I wouldn't be talking about it tonight. And we would not be here. It's Rob Crilly that the poetry of Robert Creeley that is something really to be excited about and compared to the mediocrity of a solar eclipse that could get rained out. Rob Crilly is a real event. Thank you. Eileen I'm gonna remember that I was at one point characteristically teaching in

Buffalo and had gotten into this extraordinary early bleak culdesac view of either the poems of Robert Lowell and she'd written this really extremely it's perceptive call on Robert LOL which I remember save the day entirely. I love that I love that I'm not tough in some simplistic sense but I love that basic new bit basic Boston clarity. OK I want to because a another very old friend is here tonight and the most loyal publisher a human being ever had. Omarion Boyers. I'd like to honor the fact that she's up there but her last nickel into the publication of his collected prose and it's a large book and an expensive one but well worth the money. And.

So therefore and deliciously collects everything everything of that order that I did that I'd published. So I want to begin with something from that. Yeah. This is curious thinking and then another. Gordon Baldwin's being here of the back to Bill Innes in the old days exponent of having been wakened by sirens toward the middle of the night then assumed the police were abroad in a town of 800 people at midnight so that they might be coerced into subservience and made to comply with the police. Imagination of a decent order. Awful. Why wrings hands and wonders why why there is was a full moon. Perhaps that is why the police have chosen that night. Later Z tells a story of being roused at 5:00 to answer a fire alarm and when they got there find an empty house now gutted with flames and they are helpless to do more than watered down the outbuildings the

bronze and watch the house burn into the rosy dawn. Z lifts the bottle to drink and becomes languorously. The sucking lips smoothed over the nozzle the nozzle the puzzle the police. In a free country in a country where police and of the imagination is free free agents their uniforms a very blue and their badge is very large in silver. They make a glittering a righty formally from any point not occupied by them we see as few or others or many. They may be the same. It is their way of dress the disarms that which stands as they can't stand us. Nobody comes. Having none zero recalls Wrentham Massachusetts at the time of the 1938 hurricane in which many elms fell a sadly stalwart army. He was puzzled that they all do not fall in the same direction to point the same way.

But interlace across the streets holding hands or limbs all day the winde wrote. A Moveable Feast time town the tally on this program poet Allen Ginsberg reads white shroud and talks about his diaries and the poetic process. Allan Ginsburg's early collection of poems How will survive censorship trials to gain its prominent place among the most widely read and translated books of this century. That was in 1956 when Ginsberg was one of the rebellious and innovative beat poets.

Now Allen Ginsberg is one of the few poets with whom most Americans are familiar and the public and critics are more than ready to read his poem white shroud sequel to the classic cut ish and the title poem of his forthcoming volume of poetry. It has been said of Ginsburg's work that it helped to catalyze a psychological revolution that has become a permanent part of our cultural heritage. The author of 25 volumes of poetry and prose. Alan Ginsberg is an instructor at the new robot Institute interview in reading you're about to hear were recorded at Allen Ginsberg's home on New York's Lower East Side. OK Alan tell me first what's your typical day like. What you do in a day. On Monday varies depending on what time I go to bed. Last. Night I was. Up cleaning the house I discovered good money and so I cleaned the window sills in the sink in the. Room. What was it in the store till about 4:00 in the morning after. Reading the Times after going out shopping around midnight. After working at

home till midnight got up around 10 checkout my doctor sat awhile. Sabbaton meditated a bit. And chatted with Harry Smith a friend who is here. Then the phone rang in the room. And. Printmaker came to show me a recent film that I made photos then generally my I'd have breakfast. But before I do that I by my bedside I have this notebook. One of many. That's just about 1945 which is this says notebook journal beginning May 20th 1984 New Smyrna Beach. I've had several in between when I travel but this is for bed. Household. Home and. I'm really the right Green Tortoise right. Today's events are not right at all. Wake up in the middle

of the night and make something like the other day. Hard feelings I know what I'm going through hard feelings to phrase it with him and so the hypnogogic sleep. Mrs. Right value. For that was this morning actually I got up around 10:15 and wrote down they've invented point data so refined that each molecule of the fabric has a coordinate numbering field connection to electronic impulse setting. Computerized intelligence total control by telephone or index board manual handle the color of the hose is read in operation it looks like a rubber Red Hose the thickness of a strong middle sized snake. They can lift itself or move around as it as if life. I saw that last night I caught a glimpse of it just now turning over in my morning sleep. Then.

That's it. You told me once that that your basic question writing poetry was to get closer and closer to your original thoughts. Yeah. And now after 30 or 35 years of writing poetry are you actually capturing those first thoughts. Well he's not quite so much a progressive thing and getting closer and closer usually. So it's as if you're. Traversing geological geographical terrain to get to the Grand Central Canyon is of the it's just that. It's more in the line of do you notice what you notice. Why are you noticing it or do you remember it a day later. Gee that was a funny face that guy had on the subway. And not. Not having noticed it at the time consciously. So it's a question is sifting through the myriad impressions that come on the spot work in memory and noticing the vividness of them or their recurrence. And that would be like the original mind. So in this piece of writing this morning did you actually remember.