Cartwheels on the Sky

Host Blake More interviews the second Mendocino County Youth Poet Laureate and Mendocino High School Junior Frej Barty. You will hear Frej’s reflections on poetry, writing, the state of youth expression as well as some of his original poetry.

Host Blake More interviews outgoing Mendocino County Youth Poet Laureate and Point Arena High School Senior Sidney Michele Regelbrugge. You will hear Sidney’s reflections on poetry, writing, the state of expression as well as some of her original poetry.

Host Blake More presents a celebration of Mendocino coast poet, longtime host of the Hill House Poetry Reading, and former KZYX classical music programmer Gordon Black. This living tribute show features the poetry of Gordon Black read by Dan Roberts, Joe Smith, Mike Edwards, Janferie Stone, Tom Roberdeau and Gordon himself.

Listen to Cartwheels on the Sky when host Blake More speaks with members of the Mendocino County Poet Laureate Selection committee Michael Riedell, Kirk Lumpkin and Larry Felson. They’ll be talking about the important role poetry plays in Mendocino County, the budding Poet Laureate program, as well as offering insights about their own work and a few poems. Originally aired on KGUA Gualala, FM.

Host Blake More interviews Object Heavy front man, singer Richard Love. They discuss his music, the band Object Heavy and their upcoming tour. The show will also feature Object Heavy’s upcoming LP “Love & Gravity”.

Object Heavy is Northern California’s hardest hitting Soul sensation. While based in Arcata, this cast of musical characters has made waves up and down the North Coast of California, the Pacific Northwest, and various parts of the United States. Object Heavy has also been voted best band in Humboldt by The North Coast Journal the last 3 years in a row.

Now Object Heavy has hit the studio and cooked up a new album produced by Kelly Finnigan (Monophonics), showing off their progressive yet soulful sound. The band is proud to partner with Color Red Music to release this record in early 2023.

With powerhouse vocalist Richard Love at the helm, and backed by Brian Swislow (Keys), Leo Plummer (Gtr), and Ian Taylor (Bass), Object Heavy is heading into the future in celebration of their new album, “Love & Gravity”.

Object Heavy’s magnetic blend of classic Cadillac soul, effortlessly contagious dance grooves, vocal harmonies and blazing musicianship is a live experience you don’t want to miss.

Host Blake More celebrates the successful end of the 2022-23 school year with a show featuring the literary voices of K-12 students in Mendocino County. Voices you will hear include 3-8 students Manchester Elementary School, 3-8 students from Pacific Community Charter School, as well as some poems from the Mendocino County Youth Poet Laureate, Point Arena High School senior to be, Sidney Regelbrugge. Tune in and hear the kids read their poems in their own voices!

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Originally aired live from 7-7:30pm, Saturday, June 3 at 88.3, KGUA FM Gualala / https://kgua.org

Host Blake More interviews Sonoma County poet Steve Trenam. They discuss Trenam’s life as professor, his literary leadership and his latest book, as this fine poet weaves his quirky, intelligent poetry into the conversation.

Trenam is able to transform empty and blank spaces into places of awe that entice the reader to leave “the dark corners of our rooms” to experience not only the world he creates through these poems, but also the ways in which art, music, dance, and poetry are rooted “at the heart of things.”

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Originally airs 7-7:30pm, Saturday, August 5 at 88.3, KGUA FM Gualala. Also streams live at https://kgua.org

Cartwheels on the Sky Featuring Part 4 of Conference of the Poets & Nymphya on KGUA FM Gualala

On Saturday, May 6, from 7-7:30, Cartwheels on the Sky with Blake More airs part four of trip down poetry lane, featuring Silent Motif, Conference of the Poets, a compilation poetry CD put together by poet Kirk Lumpkin with Berkeley Musicians Robert Keller and Paul Mills.
Poets you will hear tonight include myself, Kirk Lumpkin, Chris Olander, Sara Mithra, Steve Arnston and David Shaddock. I will also feature a few wonderful original compositions  written and performed by my dear friend Nymphya — from her album Dream Dance. This is part 4 of four episodes. Enjoy the last one!

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Originally airs 7-7:30pm, Saturday, May 6 at 88.3, KGUA FM Gualala. Also streams live at https://kgua.org

Cartwheels on the Sky with Blake More airs part three of trip down poetry lane, featuring Silent Motif, Conference of the Poets, a compilation poetry CD put together by poet Kirk Lumpkin with Berkeley Musicians Robert Keller and Paul Mills. Poets you will hear tonight include myself, Kirk Lumpkin, Chris Olander, Sara Mithra, Steve Arnston and David Shaddock.I will also feature a few wonderful original compositions  written and performed by my dear friend Nymphya — from her album Dream Dance.

Enjoy!

Originally aired 7-7:30pm, Saturday, April 1 at 88.3, KGUA FM Gualala. Also streams live at https://kgua.org

Cartwheels on the Sky with Blake More airs part two of trip down poetry lane, featuring Silent Motif, Conference of the Poets, a compilation poetry CD put together by poet Kirk Lumpkin with Berkeley Musicians Robert Keller and Paul Mills. Poets you will hear tonight include myself, Kirk Lumpkin, Chris Olander, Sara Mithra, Steve Arnston and David Shaddock. I will also feature a few wonderful original compositions  written and performed by my dear friend Nymphya — from her album Dream Dance.

Enjoy!

Originally aired 7-7:30pm, Saturday, March 4 at 88.3, KGUA FM Gualala. Also streams live at https://kgua.org

Cartwheels on the Sky with Blake More features yet another trip down poetry lane, this time featuring Silent Motif, Conference of the Poets, a compilation poetry CD put together by poet Kirk Lumpkin with Berkeley Musicians Robert Keller and Paul Mills. Poets you will hear tonight include myself, Kirk Lumpkin, Chris Olander, Sara Mithra, Steve Arnston and David Shaddock. I will also feature a few wonderful original compositions  written and performed by my dear friend Nymphya — from her album Dream Dance. This show is an invitation to tune your brain to what these poets and musicians have to say to each other. And to you!  

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Originally airs 7-7:30pm, Saturday, February 4 at 88.3, KGUA FM Gualala. Also streams live at https://kgua.org

Cartwheels on the Sky with Blake More features Anchor Bay Poet John Allen Cann. They will be discussing Cann’s poetry and how it expresses itself in his life and community. Topics include being in the moment, finding one’s voice, inspiration and lots of lots of poetry.

Born in Santa Monica, John Allen Cann eagerly acknowledges his first grand enthusiasm began with the arrival of the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles.  Along with playing shortstop came a fascination with the stats & brief bios on the back  of baseball cards; he considers this the inception of all following passions of study—at times he just wants to turn the world over & see what’s on the other side. The radio by his blue bed entranced him with songs, their lyrics knocked about his head as the figure of the poet gathered a strange, numinous nobility.

Sports in high school was joined by an involvement with the theater; soon he arrived at Cornell University during its years of student unrest, & where he received his B.A. in Theater Arts.  His time in the east proved California the best place for him.  As wordsmithing overtook acting, he earned an M.A. in Creative Writing at San Francisco State, landing in Santa Barbara afterwards, where Mudborn Press published his first book, Lemurian Rhapsodies.  Here he hosted a poetry show, The Unseen Rose, at KCSB, began Aetheric Press, as well as working with kids & poetry, his livelihood for the next three decades.  His Dinosaurism – An Illuminated Manifesto, & Lunch – An Omnimodal Experience, were both performed before his departure to Sacramento in Orwell’s fateful year, 1984.

In the state’s capitol, he married artist-teacher, Robyn Cota, a true blessing, followed by another, the birth of their son, Dylan. Family camping on the north coast evolved into the good fortune of securing a parcel in Anchor Bay in 2002; building ensued at a modest pace. John Allen began teaching English at Cosumnes River College; surprisingly, he became an assistant scoutmaster while his son earned his Eagle. A central figure in the Sacramento Library’s 2013 award-winning Poe Project, John Allen ordered, introduced & added commentary to The Slender Poe, an anthology of the great American writer’s work.  A volume of his own poetry, The Moon Over Madrid, followed from i street press.  On-campus classes were suspended at CRC in March of 2020—you know why—& he finished his last semester on-line living full-time in Enchanted Meadows.

His study & writing of poetry has been steady for decades, & always he endeavors to be equal to the adage of Wallace Stevens, “Poetry is the scholar’s art.”  His phantom mentors include Heraclitus, Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats, Rilke, & Jeffers. Like many who hold dear the mystery of poetry, he already knows there’s not enough time left to read deeply all the great poems that the world treasures.  But he will keep at that joyful task as he composes his own work at the edge of history.

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Originally aired 7-7:30pm, Saturday, October 1 at 88.3, KGUA FM Gualala.

Recorded in October 2022, this Cartwheels on the Sky with Blake More features Anchor Bay Poet John Allen Cann discussing Cann’s poetry and how it expresses itself in his life and community. Topics include being in the moment, finding one’s voice, inspiration and lots of lots of poetry.

Born in Santa Monica, John Allen Cann eagerly acknowledges his first grand enthusiasm began with the arrival of the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles.  Along with playing shortstop came a fascination with the stats & brief bios on the back  of baseball cards; he considers this the inception of all following passions of study—at times he just wants to turn the world over & see what’s on the other side. The radio by his blue bed entranced him with songs, their lyrics knocked about his head as the figure of the poet gathered a strange, numinous nobility.

Sports in high school was joined by an involvement with the theater; soon he arrived at Cornell University during its years of student unrest, & where he received his B.A. in Theater Arts.  His time in the east proved California the best place for him.  As wordsmithing overtook acting, he earned an M.A. in Creative Writing at San Francisco State, landing in Santa Barbara afterwards, where Mudborn Press published his first book, Lemurian Rhapsodies.  Here he hosted a poetry show, The Unseen Rose, at KCSB, began Aetheric Press, as well as working with kids & poetry, his livelihood for the next three decades.  His Dinosaurism – An Illuminated Manifesto, & Lunch – An Omnimodal Experience, were both performed before his departure to Sacramento in Orwell’s fateful year, 1984.

In the state’s capitol, he married artist-teacher, Robyn Cota, a true blessing, followed by another, the birth of their son, Dylan. Family camping on the north coast evolved into the good fortune of securing a parcel in Anchor Bay in 2002; building ensued at a modest pace. John Allen began teaching English at Cosumnes River College; surprisingly, he became an assistant scoutmaster while his son earned his Eagle. A central figure in the Sacramento Library’s 2013 award-winning Poe Project, John Allen ordered, introduced & added commentary to The Slender Poe, an anthology of the great American writer’s work.  A volume of his own poetry, The Moon Over Madrid, followed from i street press.  On-campus classes were suspended at CRC in March of 2020—you know why—& he finished his last semester on-line living full-time in Enchanted Meadows.

His study & writing of poetry has been steady for decades, & always he endeavors to be equal to the adage of Wallace Stevens, “Poetry is the scholar’s art.”  His phantom mentors include Heraclitus, Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats, Rilke, & Jeffers. Like many who hold dear the mystery of poetry, he already knows there’s not enough time left to read deeply all the great poems that the world treasures.  But he will keep at that joyful task as he composes his own work at the edge of history.

Originally airing on February 5, 2022 from 7-7:30 on KGUA FM Gualala, this episode Cartwheels on the Sky features the poems and process of Marin County Poet Kathy Evans.

Kathy is the author of four collections of poetry: Imagination Comes to Breakfast, Hunger and Sorrow (which won the Small Press Poetry Prize), As The Heart is Held, and now her latest book, nominated for a Pen award, Trespassers Welcome.

A  BA from Northwestern University and an MA from San Francisco State  University, Kathy has taught creative writing with The California Poets  in the Schools, Marin County Juvenile Hall, and the College of Marin.  She also taught composition and essay at the University of San  Francisco, and was poet-in-residence at The Headlands Center of the Arts  and at Bennioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland and San Francisco. In  addition, she is a graphic recorder for various corporate and non-profit  organizations.

She  loves teaching poetry as much as she loves reading and writing it,  believing that is a privilege to see revealed the imagination and  feelings of a child. She has an essay forthcoming from University of  Iowa Press, entitled “Read Between the Lines. In her spare time she  loves to swim laps. She lives in San Rafael, California, by the library.

This episode of Cartwheels on the Sky features the poems and process of Vallejo poet Jeffrey Kingman.

His  poetry collection, BEYOND THAT HILL I GATHER, was published by  Finishing Line Press in June of 2021. His poetry chapbook, ON A ROAD,  was published by Finishing Line Press in December of 2019. He is the  winner of the Red Berry Editions 2015 Broadside Contest, the winner of  the 2018 Eyelands Book Award (Greece) for an unpublished poetry book,  and a finalist in the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk Prize poetry book  competition. He has poems published in PANK, Clackamas Literary Review, Crack the Spine, Visitant, and others. Jeff has a Master’s degree in Music Composition and has been playing drums in rock bands most of his life.

Jeffrey Kingman lives by the Napa River in Vallejo, California.

Janet  DeBar began reading and writing poetry during her childhood in Beech  Bottom, West Virginia. She studied English Lit at the college of Wooster  in Ohio and at Stanford University but she often said that she hoped  that these experiences did not make a lasting impact on her poetry. She  began reading her poems to audiences when she moved to the North Coast  over two decades ago. Her work appears in Wood, Water, Air and Fire, the  Anthology of Mendocino Women Poets, and she was delighted to have been  included with ruth weiss and the Checkered Demon in the Café Review.  Also a musician, Janet played didjeridu with Cloudfire many times along  the Mendonoma coast.

This show originally aired from 7-7:30pm, Saturday, October 2 at 88.3, KGUA FM Gualala. 

Dan Langton was a longtime Creative Writing Professor at San Francisco State  University. He arrived in SF during the burgeoning beat movement, and he  held a poetry gathering (he hates the word “salon”) in San Francisco in  the Haight-Ashbury that was legendary, and to this day, he is loved by  so many poets and renowned as an important mentor for a new generation  of poets.

Daniel Langton has  won national and international prizes in England, Ireland, and the  United States, including the coveted Devins Award for Poetry in 1967. He  has a PhD from UC Berkeley and he taught in the Creative Writing and  English Departments at SF State University for 50 years.

He  will be 94 in September, and by all accounts, he is, right now, turning  out some of the best work of his life. “I’m an old man in a hurry!” he  shouts as he types away at his battered old Royal. Puzzling out rhyme  schemes is what keeps him alive, well into his dotage. Or, as he calls  it, “my anec-dotage.”

Here is an excerpt from an open letter he wrote to the SF State faculty the day he retired at 90:

I have often felt I was living near history rather than in it.

My  father was in the Irish Republican Army and had to run for his life, my  wife is a German Jew and had to run for her life, I was in the squadron  (but not the planes) that dropped Fat Man and Little Boy, our niece was  murdered on 9/11.

I  have lived in four neighborhoods in my life, mostly by happenstance. I  grew up in Harlem, moved to the Village, from there to Rive Gauche,  wound up in the Haight-Ashbury. I am not the reason all four are  world-famous.

As  I said, I was middle-aged before I stood in front of a class. I also  said I had had a variety of jobs, I didn’t say I was good at them, or  happy with them.

But  with teaching I came alive. There is no other way to say it. The  kindness, the sweetness, I dare to say love, were there from the  beginning. The writers I knew and know, but especially the ones for whom  we can now put together a Complete Works. And the students who listened  to me and went into teaching. With (always) my last words to them:  After all, there are few ways to live an honorable life.

And more in Dan’s words: My  father’s father and my father both published poetry in Ireland, at a  time when there were few readers, let alone writers. My father gave up a  rural heaven for the frightening hell of New York City, so his sons and  daughters would have a chance. They took that chance. What  followed for me was fifty years of teaching, seven books, friendships  with poets, San Francisco — the town poets live for — and a wife I would  not have met otherwise.

This week features the poems and process of Albion poet Peter Lit.  

This week’s Cartwheels on the Sky features a mix of poetry, words and music. A blend of past and present, the next 30 minutes is my way of ushering in the long-anticipated 2021. We made it, and I hope you find this selection inspiring and fills you with the kind of hope we need to gather our courage, strength, and heart so we can ride off into the new new now.

This week’s Cartwheels on the Sky features a recording of the Mendocino Coast High School Poetry Slam from April 2011. I figured it would be nice to hear how different and the same life was in 2011, and to remind youth that they have strong voices, voices that must be exercised and heard — you are our freedom and you deserve a platform of expression. Listen, and learn, be inspired and remember to inspire the youth in your lives!

Originally aired from 7-7:30pm, Saturday, November 7 at 88.3, KGUA FM Gualala.

This week’s Cartwheels on the Sky feature the poems and process of Ukiah poet Michael Riedell. Michael Riedell was born and raised in San Diego.  For more than two decades he has lived in inland Mendocino with his wife, Kate, and worked at Ukiah High School as a teacher of English and Creative Writing.  He also “coaches” the school’s Poetry Club and Slam Team. Michael’s first experience reading poetry in public was as a first place winner in the inaugural ukiaHaiku Festival.  Since then he has read widely in Mendocino County and often has poems broadcast on KZYX’s excellent Rhythm Running River. He was proud to serve as the Poet Laureate of Ukiah from 2016 to 2018, and–in normal times–he hosts Ukiah’s long-standing monthly literary reading series, Writers Read. He is the author of two books of poetry, The Way of Water and Small Talk & Long Silences, and in 2018 he edited Deep Valley, an anthology of the first seven poets laureate of Ukiah. His one-act plays have been produced by the Willits Shakespeare Theater and at Mendocino College.

Get a preview of what to expect when you listen to Cartwheels on the Sky with Blake More.