Monthly Archives: January 2021

The Voices of Others in Your Own Writing

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Poem: “To ____” by Edgar Allen Poe 

Statement of the Whole:  How does what you read affect how you write?  Is it good or bad writing to see something of other writers show up in your writing?  How does this question affect the teaching of the writing art?  The Backporch boys take on a listener’s question and wind up meandering all through a number of sub-questions regarding the reading life, the writing life, and how the two are intertwined.  Learn, laugh, and listen in as they consider this question.

Finding Space for Learning

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Poem: “How to Be a Poet” by Wendell Berry 

Statement of the Whole: How do you find the right environment that promotes good learning?  Is there just one type of such place?  Does the place learning occurs matter any more or less than what is learned?  The Backporch boys pursue these questions and others in an extended meditation on the poem they begin the episode with.  As Berry put it, “Accept what comes from silence. Make the best you can of it.   Of the little words that come out of the silence, like prayers prayed back to the one who prays, make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came.”