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The Spot: Poetry in Archives

AMC
Just like in Mad Men, John Ciardi will be making his own cameo on today's episode of The Spot.

This week on KALW's showcase for the best stories from public radio podcasts and independent radio producers... 

Studs Terkel in Conversation with American Poets, Episode 1,” produced by WFMT Chicago, originally aired April 2015.

On today’s show, we’ll hear stories from two masters of the audio documentary medium, starting with Studs Terkel. A long-time and well-celebrated radio personality and interviewer who was based at WFMT in Chicago. Since his death in 2008, WFMT has been mining through interviews from Studs’ archives, and releasing them in curated episodes. 

You can find more audio collaborations between WFMT’s Studs Terkel Archive and The Poetry Foundation here.

Poetry Combine,” produced by Larry Massett forNPR's Hearing Voices, originally aired in 2004.

As National Poetry Month winds down, we thought it would be fitting to pair that last piece with a short documentary that follows a group of poets as they get to know strangers who haunt their neighborhood in New Orleans. Produced back in 2004 by Larry Massett, an award-winning radio producer who has been working in public radio since its beginnings. In this short doc, we meet a hot-dog vendor, a barkeep, and a burlesque dancer who are all pulled, unbeknownst to them, into a poetry class led by Author and Poet Andrei Codresu.

Massett was the senior producer of NPR’s Hearing Voices when this piece was created. Though Hearing Voices is on a hiatus, they have over 140 hours of stories that we recommend you get lost in at hearingvoices.com.

This week's episode featured music from: Black Moth Super Rainbow, DjangoReinhardt, Original New Orleans Rhythm Kings, and the Rebirth Brass Band.

If you have a suggestion for a podcast or an audio project we should feature, please drop us a line at thespot@kalw.org

Tune in next week for another episode of The Spot, only on KALW San Francisco.

This episode originally aired on March 31, 2016.