We are going to get started. My name is Andrew Liptak. I am the events coordinator for bear pond books and would like to welcome you to tonight's event Before we get started. I just want to make a couple announcements of some upcoming events that we have for the rest of the month for the good of the order So we have obviously have tonight's tonight's event with Neil Shepherd Stephen Kramer and Karen got a gotchelle Okay I just a couple of the other because it's National Poetry Month. We have a couple of other poetry events coming up on April 26th. We have the 19th annual open poetry night on April 30th, it is independent bookstore day where we will also be Celebrating a Veruca's birthday.  So come on by it'll come celebrate your local store and On the 5th, sorry the 3rd of May We have after the haiku of yasa boosan with David Budbill all of our events during the week are at 7 p.m the independent bookstore days all day long and Yeah, that's what so that's we have coming up in the next couple of weeks. We hope to see you soon So tonight's event is the night of poetry with even Neil Shepherd Stephen Kramer and Karen got so Neil Shepherd is an American poet essayist professor of creative writing and literary magazine editor He has his BA from the University of Vermont MFA from Colorado State University and a PhD from Ohio State University Sorry, Ohio University his latest book is Vermont exit ramps there is Actually, I don't have Quick so I can get the titles right They'll be reading from their their their books are here. So his latest book is Vermont exit ramps, too Which presupposes a one? Yes, we we also have the first we also have the first one as well, which she is modeling right now Next up we have Stephen Kramer who is first book of his first book of poems Shiva's drum was selected for the National Poetry series and was published by the University of Illinois Press From the hip which follows the history of hip-hop in a series of 53 sought I'm sorry 56 sonnets came out in 2004 Sorry 2014 from Windridge Press and his latest book is Bone Magic, which we have several copies of which you grishly brought in Oh I misread that sorry bone music. Sorry not bone magic. Yeah, but magic's kind of cool though And Karen Gutshell is a poet and fiction writer who teaches poetry writing at Middlebury College He also directs the New England Young Writers Conference at Breadlove She received her BA with an emphasis in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA in writing from Vermont College And her latest book is the River Won't Hold You which won the Ohio State University Press and Journal Wheeler Prize and is now available So take it away. Okay, he's back to you And Hi everybody, thanks for coming out and It's a really great lineup. These two other poets are fabulous I'll try to keep up And I'm gonna read just from The new book the newest of the new books. There were two books published in 2015 The others for sale called hominid up and that one is by an Irish press called salmon poetry press And this one is by a Vermont press called Green Writers Press out of Brattleboro And it's fitting that that press published Vermont exit ramps, too Which is a big book with a lot of Photographs by this wonderful photographer friend of mine who has photos in the Vermont life and Vermont magazine We've known each other since college and he drove up and down the highways with me and took the photographs and I wrote the poems and Only occasionally had to outrun the police who were after us as we were at these ramps so I'm going to read five poems and I'll start with the Title poem this one is more of the overview. It's called Vermont exits Who will claim the kingdom of exit ramps and Cloverleafs on the hillsides of I-89 these realms of birch and pine Rippling and mountain wind on a spring day Domains of quiet forgetfulness Places ravaged and recovered these little domains of bed straw and clover Harboring deer and bear who stare at cars grinding past a Driver's hands crossed around the curve a Driver's mind attuned to the bend and merge of traffic motoring down hillsides to the towns Perhaps a deer lifts its head from grazing its jaw grinding sideways Its ears alive to the downshift of gears or simple wind along the ridge line Beach leaves scratching over moss and duff You might slow or stop here for a quick piss or a picnic of wood sorrel and rib grass young dandelion and fiddlehead or You might imagine a small cabin of clay and wattles made Claiming this place. No one claims the heavy machinery having rattled past and gouged a pasture elsewhere And so that one is an overview but a lot of these are specific to a particular exit ramp and they sort of combine personal memory of a place with history and as well as adding all kinds of other things snippets of literary texts Historical pamphlets Chinese fortune cookie fortunes that I picked up at various restaurants along the way anagrams that have been scrambled like you feed Montpelier into an anagram scrambler and you ask for two and three word permutations and you get something like Triple omen which is or polite or man or something like that. Okay, so I'm gonna read actually since we're in Montpelier I'll read the Montpelier exit And you will hear a little bit of it and it mixes fact historical fact with a lot of fiction. Here we go I-89 exit 8 Montpelier route to 302 May 18th 145 p.m. Hazy Sun and clouds. That's the title Capital exit ahead Gold dome Every capital mind is a mind in progress for progress until it's not Pet project for the interstate Mile rent ops for new billboards the band be damned We need to fatten our calves and our coffers Many a false step is made by standing still Well, let's hope polite or men prevail Today the Winooski swells with spring runoff Glinting below as you slow Bridgework, please merge early Merge toward Montpelier where in the red is ugly in the black beautiful Merge toward a name. That's contraction and contradiction Montpelier Montpelier Shorn hill is what it means Really, it's a glacial bowl half empty half full Depending on the plumbing of the waterworks on dog River Road to keep the affluent from the affluent That's where farm runoff meets town runoff.  Montpelier lost its last clothespin store in 2007 the last in America before it burned Today's primary business is fire and life insurance and government Senators serve best who bring home the bacon the dairy subsidy the maple syrup tariff To reach them follow the guardrails off the ramp like centurions off some processional formal columns and great walls of granite guiding you down No place to stop and consult the map before the force of the long curve turns the steering wheel in your hands the build-up Bank pressure triple omen and Suddenly you're straighting out gliding into the capital with a swelled river a Glistering dome a library with a copy of the freeze from the Parthenon and signs Painted all over town keep the billboard ban vote the progressive party They really do have a copy of the The Parthenon from the freeze of the Parthenon don't they here at the library Exit 6 Southbury There's a sign as you come in granite quarries next right Ravens loop the high air above this exit one of the wild settlements in Vermont Don't kill it with a poem Never mind. No one reads except the words in chisel stone for a burst hero a Pile of birch length stacked at the end of the Glen as if someone's home Where can I pull off legally? nowhere Six miles the descent to the valley and up the other side the pyramid mountain in the eastern distance Out there brown dust and the famous depths the berry quarries granite drilled Dynamited dragged away Clank belch and roar of steam shovel bucket loader dump truck He who throws dirt is losing ground Here a hilltop swamp Balsam fur and cattail Wetlands with red wings wheeze swamp sparrows sowing needle call Under the overpass three massive cement pillars culverts with white PVC pipes to divert runoff beside it sumac yellow birch yellow sign saying merge a Flatbed goes by hauling an old stagecoach. What's my time zone in? In 1810 the basic work was sawmill Gristmill everyone poor everything moved with a wooden wagon 1812 the first granite carved from quarry hauled off with a wooden wagon stone soup starvation a full century past before richness came with the railroad and With it a means of moving granite on a grand scale Words chiseled in cemetery stones from berry to wherever death required it He who throws dirt is losing ground to berry and they increased It's death or us Did I say that and they increase its breath or us? It's how it should be breath or us spelled in an anagram is Barry South Barry I'm going to read two more and there are sort of longish pieces and one the first one is called romaine teni and Romain teni was a real character a farmer who lived earlier in the in the 20th century and I read about him in Yankee magazine and then I did more research and I extruded it through the poetic Imagination came out with this poem Yes, this is the one where the exit goes through his farm This is the one where the exit actually goes right through Romain teni the poor man It must mean it's a good poem Romain teni Hello black fly Thanks for the welcome Now I know what romain teni cursed and loved here on teni hill road This sting inside blossoming the black bother at the center of the eye bent on spring beauty Teni knew what was coming and it came The interstate that brought the commerce in and with it the quick buck with its quick made in quick fading values It didn't value teni's enterprise on a hill hill farm that was collapsing around him He lived in the mudroom L of his old family home with gingerbread eaves and wraparound porches sagging lawns and meadows stretching in all directions in The mudroom he was closer to his animals 30 milking cows 20 laying hens two teams of war courses some sows some goats and for herding dogs He lived for them and for himself as days folded into days And he daily tilled the soil or tinkered with machines that made the farm hum He ate simple oatmeal Biscuits beans he drank switchell or spring water He watched over his fields He watched the workers up valley gouged the land to make the interstate He studied a document eminent domain He said no to the ten thousand they offered No to the 13,000 simoleons. They said were his last chance He said no value you can place on this place that birthed me and gave me my daily bread My milk and eggs my purpose on earth. I ain't leaving. You'll have to throw me off And that's how the sheriff found him when he came with his men on a Friday in September to empty the house in the barns Tenny was gentle as always Sadly smiling eyes pulled blue as he watched the dismantling of whatever it was to have an estate seized by the state Yes, Tenny knew what was coming and it came the highway That is whizzing by beyond the park and ride where I stand today Shaded by a Tenny maple says the plaque Rooted roughly in the middle of his farm rooted 200 years ago when his grand kin settled in Tenny might have winced at Wally's road extending from the park and ride with a sign Private property no entrance Tenny tried that once Private property little good. It did with government bent on progress It was progress and plain misfortune When a surveyor with a gouging road crew at the end of a long day laying road and right before sunset Saw Sun glint off the weather vane on Tenny's barn as he squinted down valley for the way forward and said We'll sight the road there straight through the middle of that man's farm Yes, this must have been a sweet piece of land back then Now it's a four lane with a median cars going south would have driven straight through his cow barn Northbound traffic would have run him over in his iron bed Now the place is nothing or the saddest spot in Vermont where a man lived 60 years Before he burned it up burned it down He loved it all the animals the husbandry Never married. He wedded the fields and the woodlots The land was his and he was the lands and time had nothing and everything to do with it Time in which generations could pass with the without the least change to road or rail bed Time to talk across a roadway or lawn to kith and kin or Taurus from the cities to the south who sought a real vermoner Lanky bearded rye with a gentle light in his eyes a light content with his self-made life and only himself to praise or blame for a problem or a cure in 1964 the highway came straight through his home The sheriff came to move him off the farm in some time after midnight in his 64th year Tenny set loose his animals Set the farm on fire Trudge back to his bed and closed the door on autumn Bolted it spiked it shut Loaded a shotgun and triggered it as the house smoked and blazed Self-immolation was his only protest the hillside burned for a night in a day Afterwards the road crew worked in a stupor the surveyor drank and the state The state never tendered a note of condolence to his next of kin nevermind an apology They just progressed And there's a a post script by his sister rosemary tenny who says he was born there He loved the land. He loved farming. He loved. I'm talking truly loved He worked hard every day seven days a week and it was all out of love not out of duty or commitment or need It was the love of the land. That's all it was Says rosemary tenny who herself apparently was a poet Okay, and then the last poem I'll read is I-91 exit 14th Fetford and it's near sunset and here's what happens when a sunlit vistas on Vermont Highways Interact with a poetic imagination and there are two women who make an appearance a former lover and grace Paley and grace Paley as you know is one of it was at one point the Vermont State Poet and She's one of the great short story writers in America in the world in fact and she had a second home in Thetford Lit vistas on the highway between Norwich and Thetford Plenty of room for cumulus glow and mind-lit memory to play this life against another Nature's first gold in the trees Chartreuse pastures dandelions zoned liminal against Marshmere gold our car climbs toward hillsides flooded with sun Her hair was gold her gold wire rims her gold fillings glinting in a laughing mouth Delapidated cabin of a fourth-class road a leaf covered path a piano out of tune in one room a sagging double bed in the other But what gold tones it hummed in the Thetford heat North of White River exits expand and leisurely cloverleafs More land more leisure For instance Thetford Academy's handsome holdings on nearby Thetford Hill a small village of stately Colonials edge by equestrian zones Gentlemen farms and two boys teams on the playing field kicking soccer balls tossing soft balls. I Never played with her kids Funny the things a marriage sheds the boys stayed with their father and We wandered the midnight trails to find glowworms phosphorescence hood owls call a sudden rush of wings and a moonless night right before us Nearby grace Paley made a second home a long way from Brooklyn. I Can hear her accent in the woods. I can hear the cadence of her prose I can see her laughing eyes her mess of white hair her jaw always chewing something Sometimes just an idea or an injustice which the forest knew nothing of But she knew it and brought it here and the forest had to listen Just as she had to listen to the forest I'm confused by vistas that led in too much light My mind can't make sense of more than a few perspectives. I wish I could multitask Like my daughter who comes out of the shower Singing a new pop song and announces. She loves existentialism Finds baseball boring has a yeast infection and she's writing a paper on code switching among the urban Wolof Can I even get this all into a poem? The clouds are moving fast and grace is gone from Thetford from Brooklyn from anywhere I can name but her name is on the cover of city lights publication number six just one beat book away from Ginsburg's howl and I imagine her lighting up the sky just now as she crosses toward her next destination and That woman I mentioned in lines five through nine is long gone from my life I don't know if she's walking with grace or with her own grown kids or with a new man I hope she never returned to her husband That story was over before I arrived at I 89 exit one or I 91 exit 14 or any of the other exits that were my entrance to a sunlit column of time Through the blasted granite where we laughed together and parted Finally because of time our mismatch ages and another flash of gold that turned my head to other opportunities What a convenient evasion other opportunities. Sorry about that East Thetford is ruined by route five trucks rumble by outside the trembling houses But further afield on hillsides and along the lakes the land's dearer the habitations trimmed and ornamented I Never traveled to Thetford Center five winding miles off highway But I bet the light glows there in a town with a real town center a village green fenced with split birch and lilacs purpling late daylight. I just bet it and Grace and that woman I found before the time of fireflies when the ground was still pregnant with glow worms are there too That's how vistas work That's what we imagine Thank you Does Steven get an introduction? No, I think we did the introductions, right? It's gonna do what I just Do I see it to like So actually so my friend Mike I think was telling me about a time. He went to a concert in college And there was a woman who was like Right see this here. This is my boogie space Ain't nobody better getting my boogie space And I think I just needed another like six inches of boogie space back here before I could you know do this anyway No, come back come back Thank you to bear pond Obviously, thank you to Neil and Karen. I'm so happy to be reading with you guys I love both of these poets work and it's just a pleasure to be Be doing this with you guys so Hey, you saw we can do our thing real quick.  Come here. So this is my daughter. He says she's five years old and Issa, how do you fix a broken jack-o'-lantern with a pumpkin patch? She she's ready she's ready for this so There's a new book It's still like two weeks old and I'm still like feeling how silky it is on my cheek And so I'm still in this kind of enamored space with with the new with a new work here I do have to tell you before I start reading from this about the cover image This is a skull or an x-ray of a skull And the story is that in the 1950s in Russia Russian hipsters had a difficult time getting their hands on Some new music, right? Right from from the United States So you couldn't get your hands on any of the budding rock and roll couldn't get your hands on any of like miles Davis or or bebop And so what they found was if they could get a copy of one record bootleg record They could make a copy of it on X-rays X-rays were just the right width and texture that they could make records on it So this what you see on here is actually a record That could play eat like I said either bebop or rock and roll or something like that And so yeah People would dumpster dive behind hospitals And just get hundreds thousands as many x-rays they possibly could get So that they could make music and I just love the idea of music being spun out of our bones, you know And so I will Read that poem a little bit later, but that was the that was the gist of this This title here. So I'm going to start with a poem called cold was the ground Um And it's named after the blind Willie Johnson song that is uh somewhere up in space on the spacecraft voyager Which has that gold disc with all sorts of sounds from planet earth just in case there are Um aliens out there who would like to hear what we're like and uh get a sense of what earth is like So cold was the ground Amon dragged across gravel the guitars metallic complaint and shimmy These sounds rattle the zodiac they wail to the mute eruption and flare of a collapsing star Dark was the night cold was the ground by blind Willie Johnson Three minutes and 15 seconds of bruised spiritual is touring the cosmos alongside the brandon bird concerto And john would be good on the spacecraft voyager The music flanked by a slew of natural sounds Surf and thunder Crickets a kiss a heartbeat an oral primer to planet earth The world is phonic What is matter blueberry back hoe the back of your hand But the shards of that primeval sound when the universe detonated from the ghost of a pebble On this journey any one man's history is dwarfed by boundless gulf and pulsar Voyager long past pluto is a hundred thousand years from the next system But here you are on earth And so it matters that when johnson was seven his stepmother aiming for his father Cast lie into his face the price for his father's infidelity Blinded he was resigned to a street corner The dull rattle of tips pooling in a cup A woman passing to another running catalog of bouquets Husk of sweat at first then salt then almonds her bodies continuous assertions grown hyperbolic He could smell moods their delicate swerves evident as each nuance of skins pit and swell He could smell the fur before it brushed his arm Before the woman backed away in a clatter of heels And years later he could smell the stench of soaked char In the ruined pit of his house Turned away from the hospital after the fire that gutted his roof He returned to a rain soaked bed of newspaper and soot And pneumonia killed him in the ashes beneath the ceiling not of wood or plaster But of stars What are blues with no human to hear What is a kiss or a heartbeat to that grand sweep of interplanetary ash but molecules bumping molecules Stranger unimaginable intergalactic pilgrim who's never even heard of a tongue If you've found this note curled in our million dollar can Here the absurdity of our glory and our pain Transmute it into we know not what Space dust star kindling Restore us back to sound So it's hot Still trying to figure out what to read and orders and things like that I don't know I think I think I'll do this um This is called giving blood And just one thing you need to know due to complications. I had multiple transfusions at birth That ultimately saved me. I was not in good shape And I actually had a clergy do last rites over me when I was days old Which I'm pretty sure means that I can do whatever the heck I want to and I'm good to go So I don't know but that's up for debate. We can talk about that afterwards if you want to So this is called getting blood The quick pin prick opens the smallest window in my skin The needle tapped into my arm to begin the long glide into the surrogate vein Liquid poppy coiling the cute the tube Occurrent in a way a man is absolutely delirious at least that's how it sounds from his protest that he don't want the blood of You fill in the blank a spic a rag head a fag to pollute his straight white heart He works up a storm of curses He's all scold and back talk and the head start to turn when he threatens to jet for the dorm But instead he's lost his breath. He collapses and I hear the cot take his weight Even from here the my cool arm. I'm sorry my arm cool with alcohol The artery swollen the pint siphoned off from its pouch I can tell he's in bad shape I'm thinking a car accident more than a brawl And before I know it part of my life has been wheeled away to be bar-coated refrigerated then drawn into another body where it will flood muscles and remember how to cruise in its favorite commute View to view turn at fingertip the tug back to the heart repeat repeat Hands off the man yells. I wasn't dragged into this hole to be infected I walked in here to give away the most valuable thing I hold To spread myself out so I'd walk the street and wonder if part of me was with the girl on the bench with angel Inked across her shoulders or maybe the man straddling the avenue swinging his cane like he's gonna hit the next cab out of the park But for all I know my blood will pulse through this man's sour tongue And for a moment I want that bag of my life back Then I recall how my blood isn't my own How transfusion after transfusion at birth I was delivered into embrasure A mix of race and creed colliding in my cells So now I want that crowd sleuthing inside this man I want transfer and mixture unending until at least in ourselves We won't be able to tell who's who until we're all gliding each other's veins So there are a bunch of poems in this book um Uh, I think eight poems that are in form That are about jazz musicians. So haikus sonnets villanelles mouse davis Chet baker, uh, and and some other guys. So I will think I'll read one of those Uh This is a sonnet ending with a line by miles. I don't really do a very good miles interpretation I'm not gonna try right? Okay, thanks So train coltrain, right? Train of course could start with a phrase and keep shattering it until he'd been through every shuffled combination Until fracture upon fracture. He blew the phrase from every different angle the run collapsing back into itself The quick transit of his fingertips blurred by the sweep of those furious calisthenics The man had truth to play and the truth's culmination is hard. So he tended to carry on When he asked his colleague miles train was still a sideman How to end a solo miles only laughed took a swig and rasped You take the damn horn out your mouth True no no lie You take the damn horn out your mouth So this next one is about saffo um I think that many people who are into poetry at least know that a lot of her Fragments were found wrapping mummies in egypt um And so you unwrap the mummy you get portions of a saffo poem, but of course a lot of the Wrappings just disintegrated right so you get all these um Gaps and leaps which make these poems that are 1300 years old Um oddly modern, you know you read these and they are they have these modern leaps which are just so incredible um So this is called saffo in egypt Mummified crocodiles Her shredded songs curved with the dry sticks of their tongues Strip by torn strip unknowing servants applied them to the mummy's solemn ribs And what ancient paste could have saved them from sifting to trays of shriveled olives and pomegranate Her songs restored thus Unraveled to vacancies whole sections traded for an arid hush Slender omissions erupting into strains of a nervous lover My tongue breaks up and a delicate fire runs through my flesh Her body ravaged by a need so deep only this forged rhythm could keep her from breaking down From seeing that the fires which raid inside which rage inside us are a kind rehearsal for death And how to edge closer to that mystery than such silence Her town market preserved its teeming inventory Oyster wine flask figs and golden bracelets The punctured intervals erasing half her city.  I always forget but one will be the alien that's right So, uh, who was it? Do you remember who was? Who was it? remember Saw a poet read one time it was so great. He was like I'm gonna read one last poem The Iliad I'm gonna read two and it won't be the Iliad in the Odyssey and these are a little bit shorter. This is um, this is uh Called chicken when I first moved to vermont, um I had lived in new york city for 10 years My first couple books were all about new york city and I that was my subject matter and when I came here I was like What am I what am I doing? What am I gonna do here? Um Anyway, so this is called chicken now. We do have chickens now joanne and I have five awesome chickens But uh, that was not how we started off 10 years ago Chicken at the harvest festival When we were celebrating with pumpkin tarts and cider an older farmer who asked what I was into Oh, i'm sorry an older farmer asked what I was into And maybe my answer was muffled a bit from the ciders tang Because he started talking passionately not about his favorite poet or the use of weather in haiku But about his chickens White leghorns silky bantams road island reds buff orpingtons How in corporate agriculture the birds are bred so big that their legs cripple beneath them and isn't that a shame I tried to break in to tell him he had misheard But he shook his head and held up his finger. That's not the case with his birds When his hens are laying he puts oyster shells in their grit to give them extra calcium for their own shells His birds are free range not de-beaked and stuffed two dozen to a pen Freedom makes all the difference in the world. You can taste their happiness. He said even see it There are yolks of rich almost tangerine color not pale like those you get from the grocery And he was starting to get out of breath From excitement and by this time to tell you the truth. I was just hoping he didn't ask about my birds Because I don't know if I could have broken it to him Poetry I said Not poultry And so this last one is the the title poem bone music, um Again, there's this Which I have to say real quick. I was lucky enough to get this cover image from a museum in Hungary And uh, I emailed them, you know, I finally got a Curator's name and I emailed them got no response a week later. I emailed them no response. Then I was like steve kramer.  So I google translated it into hungarian and the next day. I had a response and Got this pretty cover. So i'm pretty happy with that All right Inky aquariums ghost windows With vinyl scarce We couldn't even bootleg songs until some back alley genius first scavenged dumpsters behind hospitals for this unlikely savior The eddy and churn of snow gravel under boot And then among syringes and bandages beneath battalions of rubber gloves and masks this stashed blessing of discarded x-rays Ah to bring them home these slides where bodies are reduced to city maps A cobalt fog inscribed with knots of calcium collagen streaks We've scissored each sheet into a circle and used the blooming end of a cigarette to burn a center hole Then repressed the contraband of ellington armstrong and bacy Onto each until a trumpets ragged helix shimmied on a broken femur The cloud of a skull with its zipper of teeth the stacked totem of a spine When the state caught wind slides through scarce as Siberian mangoes And we scrounged for our own cap scans ultrasounds And so fias mri is a colman hawkins Notes escaping like smoke from the cage of her ribs Bring on winter bring on disease and rot and fracture Because the more broken we become the more music we can spin out of our bones Thank you You can you can move the podium wherever you want. Oh, yeah, I can create my own my own boogie space here Um, I'm happy with the boogie space that you created here. Um, well, thanks everyone for for being here and I'm really Uh pleased to be in your town and in this beautiful bookstore that I have loved for a very long time It's an honor um to read here and um, so thanks bear pond for having us and um really Honored to be reading with um, Stephen and neo poets that I um admire greatly. I know that I Mentioned this the last time I read here with Stephen But um, he he's actually when he was editor of the green mountains review He's the first person ever to publish a poem of mine. So and that was 20 years ago this spring actually and uh, it was a while after that before Um, I had another publication. So that sustained me through those through that lean time and Oh, yeah, no, that's sorry neil. It was neil. Yeah, not Yeah, we go back a long way too, but so anyway, I want to thank you for um for that The first publication in a magazine that I loved and um And who knows where I'd be today if I hadn't um So I'm going to read um some poems from um from this book that came out last year Um, and it's national poetry month. So I've been repeating myself a lot with these Poems, which is fine except that Karen McCann is here and I read with her recently and um, she heard all these same poems So I might try to mix it up a little bit Clifton here. Yeah, that's true. Um Well, if I'm brave, I'll maybe I'll mix it up a little bit if I can I might chicken out Trying to read something that I haven't practiced, but we'll see. Um So, um, I'm going to start with a poem called earthquake When I tell you my childhood was wasted at sea you should bear in mind. I may be an unreliable narrator When I say I spent a year in military school disguised as a boy be skeptical though. In fact, I did Each morning we polished our boots to an oily sheen and ran through the spruce woods with empty guns When I tell you I love white wine It's the plain truth as is the fact that my mother was a painter and my father a cellist Or a physicist. I get the two confused I get confused about the relative weight of my loneliness. It seems so heavy, but where is it? Did you know I survived shipwreck that I was marooned and lived a long time on the island? Surely that explains this hook-shaped scar my love of salt I ask for no help with these burdens the earthquake rocked rocked the building's foundation and the bed posts swayed like masks We set off from port All my lies are like that they travel so far over the horizon Then finally come back my sea weary long lost kin um, okay Going off script here a little bit.  He will undress you Or you will row a frail boat to a harbor near ruin temples where honey is gathered The sting on your heel is soothed by sav of the flower the bee sucked Loosen your hair It doesn't matter which you begin with either way your words are sealed with burnt sugar In the end you will have to forgive yourself This one's called luxury A letter arrived from wales and I never opened it. That's wales the country not wales I mean, I would love to give a letter from a whale, but wales A letter a letter arrived from wales and I never opened it That was my one luxury before the cherry blossoms opened in the park It was the spring I had a broken heart and a neighbor who played green sleeves every night on her violin I died my hair blue Then bluer I think of wales as a country of sailors and shepherds My ancestors came from there long ago and once I visited a castle on the edge of the irish sea Very delicate cups of tea The sheep were so shy on the hillside. I think I am generalizing I don't even know for sure that it was a letter I thought of the bells and the pints of beer the sailors The envelope was thin and white as a petal A blossom from a distant tree My one luxury it was enough. It was addressed to me So I'll tell you a secret about this poem, which is um, I like it. I like this poem, but actually I wrote it um At a point where I was so sick of my poems that I That I um, I was like, I'm just gonna write a caron gotchle poem like I'm just gonna like write like Like the most caron gotchle poem in the world and it's gonna have me dying my hair blue and a letter from wales So I wrote it and then I showed it to some people and they were like, this is great Yeah, and I so I've come to kind of like, I don't know. Um This one's called more lies Sometimes I say I'm going to meet my sister at the cafe even though I have no sister Just because it's such a beautiful thing to say I've always thought so ever since I read a novel in which two sisters were constantly meeting in cafes Today for example, I walked alone on the wet sidewalk wearing my rain boots expecting someone might ask where I was headed I bought a steno pad and a watch battery the store windows fogged up Rain in april is a kind of promise and it costs nothing I carried a bag of books to the cafe and ordered tea. I like a place that's lit by lamps I like a place where you can hear people talk about small things Like the difference between azure and cerulean and the price of tulips. It's going down I watched someone who could be my sister walk in shaking the rain from her hair I thought even now florists are feeling their coolers with tulips $5 a bundle all over the city. There are sisters. Any one of them could be mine Okay, um, this one's called even even 40 And I wrote it in response to a big a big birthday Um, just a few years ago now, but even 40 I'm still just a girl just a donkey of sorts. I have this soft mouth In the morning for two full hours.  I stand in the lamp light wearing a slip It's winter and the raccoons are hibernating rose hips drum against the aluminum shed They were sent into space the satellites and they died Wink wink. There's a blue light blinking above the clouds. I haven't got a string of pearls No lovers no magazines. I gave them away to the saints This one's called arrows and the reader which um It's a it's a bookstore kind of poem. Um, it's about books The sad truth is I have wanted to live inside a novel more than I have wanted to live inside my own life This has been the case since the very first novel I read which involved a love affair between a girl and a pig That old story Since then a lifetime of stirring coffee with diner spoons thinking this is so like something in a novel A lifetime of moments too nothing like those in books eating sweet potatoes for dinner every night letting the cat stand on the table There was one summer. I worked in a kitchen sweating through my tank top. I was reading the brontes and I grew very thin Another summer I was so in love. I could think of nothing except my nails on his skin But he didn't want me and I went back to reading Proust I studied French because it's a language so frequently spoken in books I bought myself a scarf that wound 12 times around my neck because a girl in a book. I read had one Then I let it hang loose dragging at my feet waiting for my waiting for the hands that would carefully loop it under my chin How many times have I practiced running on flagstones and sealing letters? I'm forever sealing letters slowly stirring sugar into coffee Falling in love and buying apples There are not enough swans around here though. There are not enough heaths or swales I lack for trains and painters whiskey and sunday mornings horseshoes Hurricane lamps cast iron pots revolvers and gentle deft hands winding my scarf This is kind of fun Reading poems that I wasn't expecting to read See what else Could go south really quickly, but um This one's called um Maybe I'll read a couple of sort of ghost Story poems. This one's called yellow house poem Leave unexcavated from the narrow strip of garden the matchbox cars the lego astronauts the fingers of dolls Unlisten to the zing of unplugged telephone static and no red windbreakers snag in the trees Unpride the floorboards between whose Sloping joints are collected nickels stuck as though through a jukebox slot to needle the house's hits Or release cool sugar There's a memory in the basement Unpretty seven ish. She burns her clothes each evening in the furnace and is unreachable through weegee There's another in the master bedroom pregnant wisp holding her belly Leave undug the backyard the base of the utility pole standing like a priest with a direct connection to the forces Of electricity tirades and greenish skies Leave unglast the windows where rain leaks in and streaks the wall with exhaust There is no crack in the stairs The teeth of vacant winters have gnawed the burrows of historic mice and slivers in the kitchen collect unswept Meter readers do not visit this street. No fat letters are dropped in the mail slot No owl nests in the garages dry rafters. No wisdom. No midnight who there are no children here to soothe Just a couple more from this book and then I'll I'll end with With a couple of new poems This one's called ghost story At 2 a.m. The lamp came on by itself And I sat in my t-shirt in the circle of yellow light asking the spirit what it wanted Leaves shifted in the gutter. How long have I lived in this house long enough to have worn out my boots Long enough to have used up the vinegar I don't remember very much from our first autumn here Just the sound the wind made in the wall before we had it fixed We all have to moan sometimes We all need some attention I made the spirit a promise. I said I would leave the lamp on I said I would stay At 3 a.m. The light clicked off again just as I'd begun to drowse and dream about the characters from a book I thought I'd forgotten I walked back to bed in the dark the pads of my feet flat against the wooden floorboards Two white hands floated before me in the blackness and they scared me even though I knew they were my own hands Okay, um The reason I say it could go south is I mean there are a lot of like sad poems in this book And like I realized that when I start to like put her reading together like I'm trying not to just like depress the hell out of everybody so Okay, this one's called um Um, well, it's got a running title. So the title goes into the first line Tell your phone to stop calling me from the bottom of the river Tell midnight to stop coming in strange cities where the bells sound emptier and heavy Tell mary her hands are too open already. She may not have noticed. There's no one to fill them Your phone has debased itself It's pad of numbers a set of little soft fingertips sealed in plastic its contact list kicked downstream I wished something once I almost forget it had to do with you It had to do with the vowels of my name blue water warm to sink into It didn't work out that way Tell the moon I admire it for conserving its energy Tell the river if it wants to talk there are certain courtesies It should empty its mouth of stones. It should fall on its knees So I'm giving away all my secrets tonight that this poem is actually about butt dialing Um, you know like somebody calls you and like you just hear this like So that's what that's about Okay, so now I'm gonna end with um two two new poems. This is a two poem warning These are recent poems still kind of in progress But It's fun to finish with newer work. So this is called um tame The feral cat I've tethered since september to a supply of fancy feast still has all her distrust intact Who can blame her with nights this cold? As for me, I learned the alphabet like it was edible and I've been hungry ever since I am still not quite familiar with myself either. I guess I get lost in the cemetery looking for my ancestors tripping on roots What I've always liked about my family is the way no one ever says how they really feel So it is possible to imagine anything I make sure to tell the cat I love you so she will not have to become a poet like me She moves like a girl who has never been burdened with her own reflection I remember that I used to like my shoulders and growing up it seemed like boys liked them too But it has been a long time since I gave them much thought It's a shame when the particulars of yourself start to disappear into the routine of days You didn't make and seem to have little stake in These days I tell my students the point of discomfort is interesting to investigate But I know that I am usually not that brave I'm a house cat really I swore off heart heartbreak after the last one carved me up in the standard way I told myself I'd die if I'm not tamed I said kitty. This is your bowl your very own Behind the house the weeds are full of greek mythology and the last full moon kept me up for two nights straight But the frost is coming I I creep closer and closer to the wood stove Soon I will be all the way inside Dossel to the point that anyone might put a match to me and be warmed by my burning for a long long time Finally this is called origin story Lake michigan dreamed me I think in the winter of 1969 its long currents combing shipwrecks and where was my mama then She was wearing a red moomoo And where was my father then he was fishing for steelhead No one dreamed you stupid girl the seagull said you came straight from the belly of your granddad's school mascot You wore plaid skirts and bruised your knees and lived across the street from the motorcycle shop I remember dropping dimes in the jukebox. I remember embers in the sand Once I saw god himself A small boy running across the rv park with a toy sword in his hand I dreamed we all lay down on the beach and the dunes moved over our bodies It took 10 000 years of whispering, but we finally slept And before that the seagull asked Before that I found comfort in the fur of animals and the movement of a boat on the water I was warm in my mother's arms Before that I was a sonic boom over wisconsin and before that fire Thank you Thanks to bear pond for having us and uh Maybe you want to help them out by purchasing a few books We have books Steve and Karen Yeah We have books we'll have to sell you. Um, that's all we have for tonight. Um, they have we'll be happy to sign any copies that you might have Um, that's all. Have a good rest of the evening. Thanks


Niger saw a coup last week and it seems like a critical moment as anti-France and anti-imperialist movements in the country and the region have welcomed this development. But will France and its allies try to intervene? The land of the free and the home of the brave recently welcomed a descendant of Italy's fascists. What is the emerging political dynamic between the government of Joe Biden and Georgia Malone? We will be taking a look at these stories in today's episode of DDD Brief. But before we start, do hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. Niger's military junta which took power in a coup last week has warned that France is seeking to militarily intervene in the country. France has apparently got authorization from the foreign minister of the deposed government. The junta claimed on Monday. Now the situation in the West African country remains in a flux as the junta, which is called the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland has consolidated its hold. Its takeover also seems quite popular. Thousands gathered in the capital on Sunday, many of whom raised slogans against France. A section even attacked the French embassy. For those following the region, this anti-French sentiment is nothing surprising. We go to Kambale Musawili for the details. Kambale, thank you so much for joining us. Quite dramatic developments over the past few days. On Sunday, we saw there are huge thousands mobilizing in the capital of Niger, raising anti-French slogans. In fact, I believe there was also an attack on the French embassy. And I think the developments in Niger seem to kind of mirror what has been happening in many other parts of the region as well. So could you take us through, first of all, what's, from the reports you have been getting, what's happening in the country right now, specifically the positions the military junta is taking and what has been the kind of response? All of us were surprised to hear. I wouldn't say all fully surprised for the region, but surprised for Niger that there was a coup on July 26. The presidential guards detained the president of Niger-Bazou. He was declared the winner of the election in 2021 and has been leading the country since. There have been tensions that we could get into it as we discussed. The coup leader who rose from that coup is General Abdul Rahman Chani. And he decided to close the border. So right after the coup was done to the country on the first day, there were a few people, support of the president, Bazoum, they came out to ask for him to be released. They were dispersed. There were really small number of people. Usually they were mostly party members of the East Party, which is a party Nigerian for democracy and the socialism. But after that, people in vast majority have vacated today daily tasks, daily routine. But on July 30th, thousands came out in the streets in support of the coup. A few things that were noticeable in this rally. People were clearly saying, France must leave. No France, they gush. There were also a few people who were carrying the Russian flag, which was quite interesting. And we've seen that across Africa in a few countries when they had Israelis. What does that actually mean? People are speaking, expressing the need of a multipolar world by seeing Russia as another pole that Africans can work with. So that's at least the expression of the sentiment of the Nigerian people. But last, there was a protest in front of the French embassy. They destroyed, I guess, glasses and the facade of the building. The second in command of the army came out, Salif Moudi. He came out to speak to the population, to tell them that they could go back. There is no need to destroy that. But clearly the sentiment of the people as they look at the coup, beyond what the leaders have said, is that it's an expression of a position where Niger is breaking ties with France. But no, they are joining this new non-alignment movement on the African continent, especially in West Africa, where countries colonized by France are breaking the ties. In the case of Mali, where now French is no longer the official language in the country and French army was kicked out. In something in Burkina Faso, the French were asked to leave the country. And as they left, surprisingly, the French soldiers ended up in Niger. And now we have over 8,500 according to the French military personnel in Niger. It's not to see what is going to happen to them, but it's predictable that they will be asked to leave and that Niger will try to take a posture that is not aligned to France. Right. Interestingly, the responses have been quite predictable. We have the Ecovas, the body of West African countries being very strong in its condemnation. The European Union has sided with the Ecovas. France and the US also have pretty much endorsed their stance. There has been even some talk of military intervention if necessary. So how do you see these responses and how credible are these, for lack of better words, threats? I think on the part of France, follow very closely the statement that came out from Emmanuel Macron. He's clearly stating that France will do everything in their power to protect the citizen and French interests. And we know what is French interest in Niger. French interest in Niger is directly a river. The French mining company that's extracting uranium. France needs the uranium of the Sahel, needs the uranium of Niger to light up the bulb, the light bulb in the country. The electricity of France is run by uranium from the region. So I'm really worried about the position of France based on the internal issues inside of Niger. The other one that's quite interesting, right, and leaving us a bit perplexed is the position of Ecovas, the regional body in West Africa. Ecoas has given the cool platter, the cool leaders, seven days to bring back Bazoum, bring back constitutional order, so-called democracy. And they say that they will not tolerate another coup. I think Ecoas leaders are not in tune with what is happening in the region. We had Mali, we had Burkina Faso, we had Guinea, and there will be more coups in the region happening. And this is an expression, particularly in the Francophone Africa, of African people saying that they refuse to be under the tutelage of Western power. They refuse to be under the tutelage of France. They do not want France to control their currency. They do not want France to control their mineral resources. And this has been ongoing for over a decade, where progressive organizations and people have mobilized the people of Africa, particularly in West Africa, around French imperialism in the region. And people today, from the young child, four or five-year-old, to the adults in the 80s, they are clear and they are all saying the same word. You go to Senegal, you hear France de Gage. You go to Mali, you hear France de Gage. You go to Burkina Faso, same thing. And then you end up in Niger. People are also saying France de Gage. That simply means France must leave the region. But more importantly, France must leave the African continent because they are exploiting our resources. They are controlling currencies of some of the Francophone African countries and Africans are not benefiting. So when ECOS leaders are saying that they're giving the cool leaders seven days, they're not in tune with the aspirations of African people. They're not in tune with the aspirations of Nigerian people. The Nigerian people in the street demonstrated what they want. They carried the Russian flag. They say France de Gage. Is ECOS saying France de Gage? Is ECOS saying France must leave the region? If they are not saying that, they are not in tune with that. The second one that they are not in tune is the level of corruption that has been unfolding in the region. People may say that there was a peaceful, the first peaceful transfer of power in 2021. That's what the Western media is saying that happened in 2021. When you speak to everyone in Niger who was following the situation in the country, they will let you know that the election was real. That opposition leaders were sidelined. That the new president, which is Mohammed Bazoum, was the former minister of foreign affairs, handpicked by the former president of Niger. So people already have seen him a lack of leadership first, but also it does not have the aspiration of the people. There have been other issues such as his Bazoum's criticism to the military where he said to the military they are not adequate to bring down the jihadists in the region. So if the president of the country does not have confidence in the military, what would you expect the military to do? So this school is an expression of that. But my worry with ECOWAS is that each ECOWAS countries should look into what is happening in their own countries. We have challenges in Togo. We have challenges in Ghana. We have challenges in Nigeria. A military intervention for ECOWAS is going to be a disaster because the people of Niger are in support of the decisions of the coup l'ordres. And some of the decisions they have made was to tackle corruption, to actually start going after the ministers and anyone who was in the government who embezzled money. So these populist actions directly from the population is something that the population is in support. ECOWAS should not follow the position of the United States of France. ECOWAS should listen to the people of Niger for a resolution to the crisis. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Kambale, for explaining that. And I think pointing out a very central fact that this is not a process in one country. This is a process across the region. And I think a lot of our analysis and coverage that we read often completely misses that point and just puts it in very simplistic terms. So thank you so much for explaining that. Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Miloni has been in the thick of controversy ever since taking power and even before. She has taken a harsh line on immigration, slashed welfare policies and her government has initiated a crackdown on journalists in civil society. And of course, she and her party have mainstreamed far-right wing and fascist ideas. But there has been one element of continuity from the previous government, her support of the war in Ukraine. Maybe that's why she was so warmly greeted during her recent trip to the U.S. President Joe Biden, who never tires of attacking Donald Trump and his right wing policies, had very warm words for the Italian Prime Minister. If you're confused, it's not surprising. And for some clarity, we go to Morigio Coppola of the Italian Left Party, Porto del Popolo. Morigio, thank you so much for joining us. Now, the U.S. establishment always, you know, very eager to talk about, you know, condemn far-right movements when it comes to their own country. But a very warm meeting between Biden and Giorgio Miloni on a few days ago when she visited the United States. So considering all the, all these discussions, why has Italy become such a valuable ally for the United States at this point? Well, thank you very much for inviting me. I think Italy is trying to, like, take the leadership inside of the European Union. The situation in Germany where the far-right is increasing, is putting under pressure the social democrats and the Green Alliance and governments. The situation in France, for example, where Macron is under pressure and there is a huge polarization in the society with very strong far-right and also a left progressive left increasing. There is like a space opening. And so Italy becomes like, wants to occupy this space that is opened by the crisis internally in Europe. And of course, there is also a geopolitical question because Italy, inside of the Mediterranean area, is a key player. And the United States know it exactly. And they know it since a long time because Italy is still the ground of over 120 military bases from NATO and the US. Right. So in context, of course, I think two or three things are important. One is that Italy has, you know, despite all this talk about the far-right being less supportive of the war, the current government has been very much in the center, you know, very much pro the Ukraine war, pro the Western position on that. So could you also maybe tell us a bit about what positions the Giorgio Malone government has taken on that issue? Well, since the very first moment of the war of the invasion of Russia, already Mario Draghi, the former Prime Minister, took a very strong position in supporting NATO and supporting the US in this war. When Giorgio Malone was elected, she made a continuation of that position. And it is clear that Italy is having a key role in delivering arms. Italy is like one of the main countries delivering arms and weapons to Ukraine. But also, as I said before, the position in the Mediterranean area where Italy has like the military bases that are used since the first days of the war for like having like some monitoring of the area, both all from Sicily of Sigonella. And third, Italy is having also a key role in the reconstruction of Ukraine. As you know, there was in the last weeks a meeting in London, the second reconstruction meeting with the Ukrainian government, corporations and European governments. And Italy wants to capture new investment possibilities inside of Ukraine. So Italy is having like this role of trying to, I mean, they find alliances of course, also with Germany and other countries, but it is like the vanguard of like this kind of trying to perpetuating the war because they know exactly war is producing a social situation for which they can also like politically then win and stabilize their rule. Right. Of course, important to note and I think we talked about this before also happening at a time when Italy is also in some senses taking leadership of Europe when it comes to the Mediterranean refugee crisis as well. And you know, very much in the forefront of this right wing agenda there. Yeah, exactly. And it is not a case that at the same time when Giorgio Malone was in the US discussing and making agreements with Joe Biden, that there was also like what happened in Niger. So already a couple of weeks before there was the agreement between the European Union and Syed, the president of Tunisia, the agreement that is foreseeing that 250 million of euros are given to the Tunisian state in a deep crisis. We know also that there is like an agreement between the Tunisian state government and the IMF. They are working on that, but they are Tunisia is in a deep crisis and Europe and the both Italy as also like the geographical situation of Italy in the Mediterranean area. They are pushing pressure to block, to have like to externalize the borders of Europe. So Tunisia is a key moment, but also Niger, why Niger? Because there was like this, what happened in the last days. It's very important, Italy rapidly expressed itself, condemning like this what happened in the military, protecting like the current president that is like a president in favor of Europe, because Italy has a key role they developed in March, April, 2033, the so-called Piano Mattei. It's a plan to how position itself again in Africa, in the African continent for Italy. And so it foresees like that Italy will be a key country for all the energy supply coming from the African continent above all from Algeria, but not only Algeria, but also Libya and so on. Italy wants to play a key role in externalizing the borders of Europe, inside of Niger of course, but also Libya, Turkey and so on. They are like the key countries from where the refugees are coming. And then there is also all the question of the fight against jihadism and the Niger situation now. It's like provoking a lot of headache inside of the European governments. When Mauritius is interested, because I believe at various points, Georgia Maloney has made speeches where she seems to be criticizing the role of France, for instance, in many of these countries, but then turns it around to say that we should make it in such a way that people from Africa don't come to Europe. So actually the criticism of French imperialism is just a way of saying that we should not have more refugees in this context. So how does Italy see itself as kind of being central to the politics of energies and also trying to sort of push out France in this process? Yeah, of course. I think there is never like we sometimes we think that the bourgeoisie has a logic if everything it's like linear, but we see this is a very concrete case which like the different bourgeois interests are also like colliding with each other. And I think Italy, already in Libya, there was this huge topic about like how France plays the game to stabilize the interest of total in Libya against the interest of any Italian oil producer. And today we have the same question with Algeria, but also with Niger. So there is like a key role that the Italian government is playing to protect the interests of the energy companies of the Italian energy companies. And for that, of course, this is also like colliding this interest. They are attacking France for what they did and what they are doing in Niger. But I think that at the end, what Italy really wants is just to stabilize the profits of the energy companies. There is no alternative point of view from Italy. There is not giving back sovereignty to these countries and so on and so on. It's really, I think in that there is a common point with France also. They want just to block migrants to keep poor the people there and to extract all the profits they came from the territories of the African continent. And I think it's because of that that we need also to in a way try to bring together the movements protesting against this. And I just want to underline that last week when the agreement between the European Union and the Tunisian government was done, a common agreement between Poteirat Popolo Power to the People and the Tunisian Workers' Party was produced and was distributed into the media because it is important that we show that there is a common struggle and the common interests of the working classes in the different continents. We have to strengthen this common unitary process against imperialism. Mariju, thank you so much for that analysis. I think a lot of this is often missed when we cover diplomatic visits, some of the internal dynamics. Thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you. And that's all we have time for in today's episode. So we've taken a look at the coup and the political situation in Niger and also thought about why the United States has no issues associating with the far-right government of Georgia-Malone. We'll be delving into many more such topics in future episodes of Daily Debrief. Keep watching and don't forget to hit that subscribe button.


One of the shifts I've had to make, to really grow a sustainably successful business, is the shift from mainstream marketing, which is all about persuasion psychology, conversion copywriting, and basically how to more cleverly manipulate people. Let's be honest, isn't that what mainstream marketing is? How to be more skillful and clever at manipulating other people to give you money and sign up for your thing? Well, I've had to make that shift. As I've made that shift from the mainstream marketing over to authentic marketing, I've noticed that my marketing has gotten easier over the years. This is compared to many of my peers whose marketing remains difficult and fraught with, oh, I better tweak this and change these words so that it'll get a higher conversion. It's fraught with that kind of manipulation year after year after year, and they just have to keep on working so hard on their launches. I had that same feeling in the first couple of years of my business, 2009 to 2014. I was doing the mainstream kind of business, and it was so hard for me.  There are also other people out there using words like heart and spirituality and holistic and authentic and selling you marketing, which is not really spiritual, heart-based, authentic. They're just repackaging persuasion psychology into what they're calling authentic, in my opinion. So, this shift into authentic marketing means to prioritize the trust-building with your audience over transactions that happen, meaning I care more about creating a better relationship with you than I do whether or not you ever buy from me. That's more important for me. And when I prioritize that, it naturally comes out as a heartfelt service. If I'm seeing you and everybody else in my audience as, oh, these are just people that I can convert into sales, which, by the way, did you know that that's how a lot of marketers see you? They don't tell you that. But I talk with them because I'm peers with a lot of the people I talk with my peers, and I can understand because I used to think this way. But it's hard now for me to stomach the idea that they're just looking at their audience as, I'm going to grow my audience because they're kind of like potential money for me. And it's just, but that's how they do it. And then they can think of how to manipulate you, right? And it's really that core shift of mindset and the heart set to say, no, no, no, authentic marketing for me is making friends at scale, making friends at scale. Authentic marketing to me. So I'm making friends at scale. I'm not going to manipulate my friends. I'm not going to try to persuade them. I'm going to work with them, and I'm going to try to meet their wants and needs. And if they're not wanting to buy, then just like a friend who says, yeah, I'm not interested in going to see that movie with you. Oh, that's fine. I'll have other movies I'll invite you to, right? So essentially, again, prioritizing the trust building with the audience over the transaction makes, this is the, this is the punchline here. Ironically, it makes our marketing easier over the years. And I can say that with my grounded experience of 13 years, full time as a marketer. I've been doing this in 2009. And over the years, first five years, I was doing traditional mainstream marketing, the stuff you're going to learn from most of the people teaching you marketing that you feel a little bit off about. That's, that your heart's telling you, okay? The first couple of years, sure, I made some money because the problem with the mainstream marketing, it does make money in the short term. That's the problem. The problem is, well, George, what's the problem about that? It makes money in the short term. Yeah, but it doesn't make money in the long term. That's the problem. First five years I did that, I burned out because it's also bad on the conscience. It's bad on the heart. And I also noticed, wow, my gosh, I don't really have a loyal audience. I always have to keep launching and persuading them. If you ever have to persuade someone to buy, it's either not really good fit for them or they're not really trusting you. If the trust is high and the alignment between the product and the audience is high, you just have to whisper and they buy. You just have to let them know once, not 13 times, once. And they say, oh, of course, this is the right fit for me and I trust you. I'm going to buy. So I worked so hard in the first five years and I burned out and I didn't have a loyal audience after that. And then I started practicing or exploring and I didn't know what it was. I had to teach myself authentic marketing. And ever since 2014, year by year, my marketing has gotten easier. I've had to just whisper more. And my loyal audience has grown and grown. And I've gotten more sales since then, year by year by just whispering. So it's really, I hope that all of you will make the commitment to yourself, to your own heart, to say, no, I don't have to do any marketing that doesn't feel joyful and authentic to me. Yes, it takes a bit of patience. That's the problem. You won't make money in the short term with this method. Sorry, you know, I know you have to make money now. I get it. But that just means doing more personal outreach and caring in that way to make money in the short term. But in terms of your audience growing, sending emails to your list, posting on social media, be in this for the long term and do it authentically and joyfully, knowing that it gets easier over the years and really does. And I'm more joyful and I'm around versus most of my peers who started with me in 2009. They're no longer doing their business because they burned out and they couldn't stomach the continuing to do that kind of persuasion. So I hope this is helpful as one example of how authentic marketing can work. And I look forward to having you along for this journey if you decide to go in this direction. Thanks.


Welcome back to our lecture series, Math 1050, College Outfit for Students at Southern Utah University. As usual, I'll be your professor today, Dr. Andrew Misledine. In this lecture number 34, I wanna talk about, well, without a better way of saying it, story problems, right? This sometimes scares people all the time. Oh no, story problems are so hard. Which of course, if we never do story problems, then you sometimes beg the question, why would we bother learning math if we never use it for real life problems? It's sort of like this give and take when it comes to story problems. Yes, they can be challenging, but they really are necessary and motivate a lot of what we do in this series here. So for this lecture, I wanna go through four different story problems involving rational functions of some kind. Now be aware that a lot of these examples actually will be polynomial functions, because every polynomial function actually is a rational function. It's just a special subset. And oftentimes it happens that as we set up some things, they do lead to these polynomial expressions, some rational expressions as well. The one we see at hand, well, it's probably a polynomial equation we have to solve. We'll see some proper rational expressions showing up in a future story problem in this lecture, lecture 34 here. So let me just read the prompt for us and see how we can approach this. So imagine a new bakery offers decorated sheets of cakes for children's birthday parties and other special occasions, maybe weddings or whatever, people. People like to get together and eat cake. The bakery wants the volume of a small cake to be 351 cubic inches. That's gonna be sort of a relevant thing. So if anything, as I'm reading through this, because sometimes when you read a story problem, you have to read through it more than once. Sometimes just read it once, just kind of get all of the information at once. And then you go again through it the second time to kind of look for this pertm information. I have someone at the disadvantage, I should say the advantage, maybe disadvantage for the viewer here, that I've already worked through this problem prior to the video, so I kind of know what the pertm information is. And so that might be a little bit misleading if you're trying to do a story problem on your own. Again, if I have a story problem I've never seen before, I probably read through it once, get all the information, and then go through it again and pick out what information actually is relevant. So our baker wants the volume of a small cake to be 351 cubic inches. Okay, that's a statement about volume right there. The next sentence, the cake is in the shape of a rectangular solid. Okay, that seems useful because that connects somehow volume with shape there. Maybe I can employ some type of volume formula I know from geometry, but is the volume even relevant? What's the question at hand? They want the length of the cake to be four inches longer than the width of the cake and the height of the cake should be one third of the width. So there's some specific dimensions that kind of make the cake more, maybe it's easier to bake or maybe there's an aesthetic artistic appeal to it. This cake looks great. I don't know, but essentially the question comes down to what should the dimensions of the cake pan be, right? So how should we make, how should we shape the cake? All right, let's go back to some of this information we discovered here. The cake itself is supposed to be a rectangular solid, some type of rectangular prism. So if I were to just draw it, we anticipate something like the following, just a rectangular prism of some kind. And so we wanted the dimensions of the cake, all right? So we're gonna have to have some type of length and width and height, which honestly, I never know which one is which, which one's length, which one's width. I just know that width is the other one from length, whatever. Height usually means go up and down. So we have some rectangular prism. We're trying to find the dimensions that we have to find this L, W and H. So we knew some information on volume, right? We knew the volume, well, the volume of a rectangular prism is gonna be length times width times height, but it should also equal 351 cubic inches. Now, when it comes to story problems, I think it's very important to keep track of the units in play. We're measuring volume with a cubic inch. Each of our dimensions length, width and height should also be measured in inches in some kind. And so at the moment, we don't have enough information to determine what the individual length should be, but we know the total volume should be 351. Okay, we're gonna find out that that 351 was a generous choice by the question writer right here, we'll see how to approach that in just a second. So what can we find out about these? We need some more information here. So we want that the length, okay, so the length, that's my L value, right? The length of the cake should be four inches longer than the width. Okay, so if we try to digest that a little bit. So they want the length of the cake to be. So when you see things like this to be, like forms of the word is, when I say the length is four inches longer than the width, that typically means an equal sign of some kind. So L is, L is what? L is four inches longer. That suggests to me I'm gonna take four plus something. Four inches longer, I go four plus the width. Okay, the width is W. So I put that together and I get the expression that the length is supposed to be W plus four. Okay, so I want the length to be a little bit longer than the width, which if I wanna satisfy my picture right here, maybe I switch locations here and call this the width and call this the length. Clearly don't need to draw your picture to scale anything like that, but you can do that. Let's see, what else do we need to know? So then continuing that sentence, and the height of the cake is to be, well again, that's an is type word there. So H is equal to, equal to what? One third of the width, one third of the width right there. And so when you put that together, the height is equal to one third of the width. What I notice here is that I can express the length with respect to the width and I can express the height with respect to the width. So if I revisit my volume formula, volume is equal to the length, well that's W plus four, the width, well that's just W, and then the height is one third W. This is supposed to equal 351. So then if I focus on this part of the problem right here, right here, then it's like, hey, this is a polynomial equation. If I solve this polynomial equation for W, then I can use that to determine what is the, what should be the dimensions of my cake. So I've now set up my equation right here, I wanna solve it. Now, honestly in practice, I would use some type of computer software calculator to solve these polynomial equations for us, because oftentimes, I mean, to solve this equation, we have to find essentially the x-intercepts of a polynomial function, which that often turned out to be something irrational. And so like I said, a calculator can be very helpful here, but to practice skills, we've learned previous in this class, let's use the algebra that we've learned and I've necessarily given us numbers that we can solve without any numerical analysis whatsoever here. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna multiply out the left-hand side because when we have a polynomial function, we want it to look like P of x equals zero, right? That's our goal, so we can start factoring the left-hand side, we have to get there. I first wanted to, let's see, let's times the W's here together. This is going to give us x, well, I'm gonna stick the one third out in front. We're gonna get x plus four times W squared equals 351. So one thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna distribute the W squared here. So we get one third times, where did that x come from? That should be a W. W cubed plus four W squared is equal to 351. Now personally, I mean fractions are great numbers and all, but if you had a choice between a fraction and not a fraction, I think we all agree that we don't want a fraction here. Now we can clear the denominators that I multiply the left-hand side by three, that'll cancel out the one third, but what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I have to do it on both sides of the equation equally so that equality is preserved. So we get now W cubed plus four W squared.  And so then if I move the negative, well, I should subtract 1,053 from both sides and we end up with the equation W cubed plus four W squared minus 1,053 equals zero. Like so, great. And so now I have this polynomial equation. I'm gonna highlight this. We have to solve this polynomial equation. Now find the, notice we have a polynomial equal to zero. This basically means we're looking for the roots of this polynomial. We need to find the roots of this thing, which is something we did in the past. So one of the first things I'd asked myself is, you know, certainly there's gonna be some domain concerns like what answers are actually considered acceptable. I can't have a negative width of a cake. So I really don't care about negative answers here and I can't have an imaginary length of a cake. The answers have to be real. You could have a square root.  So irrational numbers are acceptable but I need to have something positive. And so when you look at this right here, we're gonna take the factors of 1,053 and that's, we're gonna use like a rational roots test to kind of work through that. So we look at these possible P's and Q's. Well, you always get one as a possibility. I know three is a factor, right? If you try to start factoring the 351 a little bit more, we could do that and feel free to use a calculator, you know, to help you out here. Which case 351, let's see that factors. Well, you know, honestly, it's like, we, again, you could actually write all the factors that we wanted to. And so just so you're just clear from the rational roots test, you would end up with like 9, 13, 27, 39, 81, 117, 351 and then 1,053. So the idea there is like 350, 351, it's 13 times nine, I believe. That seems possible. Anywho, you get all, whatever those turn out to be. One thing I want to point out to you is that we knew three was a divisor immediately because remember, we took 351 in times of I3, that's where we got 1,053. So instead of searching every divisor of 1,053, we might just start with the divisor that's kind of obvious. What if we tried three in this situation? Okay, so then that's when we're gonna start running synthetic division. So using our coefficients, we have one, four, there's no linear term, so we need to put a zero there and then a negative 1,053 in that situation. So if we tried running it with three, bring down the one, one times three is three plus four is seven times three is going to be 21 there plus zero is 21. Times that by three, you get 63 and notice that's not gonna equal zero. So this kind of shows us here that really our number, the number three was gonna be, it's just too small, right? That I mean, this specific number here, I mean, if we need to, we got what, negative 990. That seems about right there. So the point is you got something way, way too small because that negative is so big there. So three isn't gonna work but we basically need to try something bigger in order for these coefficients to balance out with negative 1,053. And that's when we start investigating then divisors of 351. And so that's when I'm like, okay, okay. So I need something bigger than three. How do I factor 351? Well, 351, if you start checking it, notice the digits, three plus five plus one adds up to be nine. That means it's divisible by about three and nine. If you divide 353 by three, you end up with 117, which was also on our list. If you then divide, if you try to factor 117, notice one plus one plus seven is also nine. That's still divisible by three. You can take out another three, you get 39 and 39 factors as 13 and three. So there's actually a lot of factors of three in there. So I think I misspoke when I said earlier, did I say nine times 13? It should be 27 times 13, whatever. The point is this number, the 1053, not that one, this one right here, it does factor as three to four times 13. So we can start to try to find other ones. We can try bigger factors if you want to. If you try like 27, right? If you have this list, 27, how does 27 work with this? I'm gonna erase these numbers right here. So in that situation, if we try 27, we end up with, we'll bring down the one. One times 27 is 27 plus four is equal to 31 times 27. That's gonna be 837. Add that to zero, you get 837. Times that by 27. You end up with 22,599. That's gonna be way too big now, right? You end up with still like 21 and a half thousand. So we tried three, it was too small. We tried 27, it's way too big. Notice everything at the bottom is a positive number. That says that everything bigger than 27 is gonna be way too big. They're just gonna exacerbate the problem. So now we're done to something like nine or 13, right? So if we tried 13, we'd see that one also turns out to be too big. If we try nine, that's actually gonna be the magic one right here. If you try nine, bring down the one. One times nine is nine plus four is 13 times nine is 117 plus zero is 117. Times nine is 1053, which that then gives us the root we were looking for. And so that gives us a factorization that's helpful. We get that our polynomial factors as w, w minus nine times, then looking at the quadratic and play right here. We're gonna get w squared plus 13 w plus 117, for which then if we could try to factor that, we would do so. Now it is a quadratic, I mean factors of 117. We saw those a little bit above, right? So three and 39, it has to add up to be 13. That seems a little bit challenging trying to add things together. My temptation to think is there's not gonna be a magic pair of factors of 113 that have to be 13. Sorry, factors of 117 that have to be 113. I don't know if we can do it. So we might run to the quadratic formula, look at the discriminant for example. So we're supposed to take b squared minus four ac, right? And so in that situation, you would get 13 squared, which is 169 minus four times 117. That turns out to be 468. And you can see it's like that's gonna be a negative number. So the quadratic formula tells you there's no real roots to this number. So the only thing we get here is the width has to be nine inches. So if we come up here and summarize what we found, then we see the following. The width should be nine inches. That's what solving the equation told us. If we plug that into the other equations, then the length, the length should be nine plus, nine plus four, which would be 13 inches. And then the height should be one third of that, should be three inches. And then you can check that out there. If we take nine times three times 13, that does give us the 351 that we had before. So those should be the dimensions of the cake. Now again, this question, we ended up finding a root using these techniques we learned from the previous unit, number four there. But like I said, in practice, if we learn what's trying to solve this quadratic equation, it's very likely that, well, the answer might not be a pretty little integer like it was. This is sort of like the Mickey Mouse version of this problem I confess. Oftentimes you get some irrational number as the solution. And so we have to get an approximation without delving into how one solves these problems numerically, that takes us beyond the scope of college algebra. Just want to be aware that the real kicker for this one, the real thing I care about the most is understand the viewer understanding where this equation came from. The technique of solving it by all means, people could critique me in the comments all day long. I'm perfectly happy with that. But the point of story problems is not necessarily about how you solve it, but how you set it up. If a student can understand how to set up a story problem, then they're probably good at solving it. And so I don't have much of a worry. That's the real thing about story problems. How do you set these things up?


And also the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Albi, has maintained that Nigeria cannot get anything right unless work as welfare is well taken care of. Obi spoke at the commemoration of this year's May Day celebrations at the Eagle Square, Abuja, where he noted that it was important that a country is moved from consumption to a producing nation. The topic of today is social economic justice. When we talk about that, we talk about justice for all. All we want is a country where we will build a country where Nigerians will be proud to say that they are Nigerians. A country where people will not be struggling to go out. A country where all of us workers who say they are working and they are happy. We can't get the economy right. We can't get anything right until the workers are working and are being looked after, their welfare and everything, and they are productive. Let's find out about fresh news updates.


For this month's makeup and mythology, I thought that we could discuss Mistletoe. Mistletoe has a fascinating history with traditions from Celtic, Norse, Roman, and many other cultures. Mistletoe has played a part, and what I find so interesting is how each tradition developed separately, but over time the story is united as one, and it became a symbol of love and peace, which, if you think about it, is truly beautiful. Now before we begin, if you don't mind this little interruption, if you're new here to the makeup chair channel and you enjoy makeup videos, then I might suggest clicking the subscribe button below and pressing the bell to get notifications. And if you're already subscribed, then thank you and welcome back. And this video is created as a way to relax. So once I have completed the story, I will repeat the story for those who like to fall asleep to my videos, or if you like to use videos as background sounds, this one's for you. Let's begin with the story of Mistletoe from the Norse culture. There are so many tellings of Mistletoe in Norse mythology, however my favorite story is turning hate into love. The story goes that Mistletoe was once used to create an arrow. When the goddess Frigg discovered her son had been hit with a Mistletoe arrow in the depths of her heartbreak and mourning, she cast a powerful magical spell across the earth. This spell ensured that no plant could be used as a weapon. It is also said that as she cried for her child, her tears turned to white berries, the white berries that are formed on Mistletoe. These berries healed her son, and the goddess was so overjoyed, she took her spell a step further, declaring that Mistletoe would be a symbol of love and vowed to plant a kiss on all those who passed beneath it. The goddess's sadness could have turned to hate. She could have cursed the plant, but she did not wish for more harm to be done. Sometimes it's easier to get angry than let ourselves feel sadness, to attack the things that we believe have caused us pain. But it was the goddess's tears that brought her peace, and she used that to spread even more love, turning a weapon into a symbol of peace, removing its power, turning sadness into love. It is believed that the Celtic Druids were among the first to use Mistletoe as a decoration. They didn't kiss under it. It was used as a symbol. The berries ripened in December and the plant remained green for much of the winter. And it was the fact that it remained green is the reason why it was so appealing in the wintertime. The greenery from branches and trees and Mistletoe represented life even in the darkest of winter days. It symbolized the hope for the sun to return and for new life to grow after the winter. The Druids also believed that Mistletoe had sacred powers, protecting against nightmares, healing illnesses, and even predicting the future. For the pagans, Mistletoe was considered a charm against evil. It actually held so much power in pagan ceremonies that Mistletoe was banned from Christian places of worship for a long time, until eventually being adopted by the Christians in a way to celebrate Christmas. It's evergreen leaves symbolizing life that does not end. Kissing underneath Mistletoe from all accounts originated from Norse mythology, but then it took on its own tradition. For instance, it's bad luck to refuse a kiss under Mistletoe. Similar to the Spanish tradition of toasting with an empty glass or a non-alcoholic drink, and that can result in any number of misfortunes, or in France and Germany where eye contact must be held while cheersing, or you will suffer the consequences. The idea of good and bad luck is a very human tradition. We love creating superstitions, like how a bird booping on you is a sign of good luck. Though personally I think it's just there to make you feel a little bit better about it. Funnily enough, bird pooping is actually how Mistletoe is believed to be spread. They consume the berries and then drop the seeds onto trees. It's actually where the word Mistletoe comes from. It derives from the Anglo-Saxon dialect, pretty much meaning poop-tree. The word for dung, mistle, and twig, tan, were mashed together to create mistletan or mistletoe. Eventually it became Mistletoe. So maybe there is something with this good and bad look and birds after all. Though from personal experience I did not feel very lucky when a bird pooped at me. In olden days, kissing under Mistletoe was even considered as a promise to marry. And if you wish to dream of your future love, you would sleep with a sprig of Mistletoe under your pillow, as Mistletoe was believed of magical properties. Which is likely the merging of the druid's belief that Mistletoe could predict the future, and the Norse connection of Mistletoe and love. Some women would even burn Mistletoe as a form of fortune telling. They'd watch the flames as they burned, and if the flames were steady, then it depicted a happy marriage in your future. And if it was spluttery, then it would indicate a bad turbulent marriage. During the Roman era, Mistletoe was actually a symbol of peace. Enemies would set aside their differences meet under Mistletoe, and if you've ever heard of the expression extending the olive branch, well Mistletoe played a fairly similar role. The Romans also decorated their houses and temples with Mistletoe in mid-summer to please their gods, which is very similar to how the Celtic druids used Mistletoe. Throughout all of these stories, the one thing that they all have in common is that Mistletoe symbolizes good. Either it's love, peace, healing, protection, it doesn't matter what gods you do or not worship, what country you're from, what culture you have. Across centuries, all of these stories of this one little plant have come together, mixing to create a symbol, taking all of the best parts and merging together so that everybody has a piece of their culture, of their story. There's no competing on who's right or wrong. Mistletoe is an example of what can be achieved when we all share our cultures and our beliefs and we all take the time to listen and to understand. It's amazing what a tiny little plant can do, and I believe that we can all learn a little from that. There are many tellings of Mistletoe in Norse mythology, however my favorite is the story of turning hate into love. The story goes that Mistletoe was once used to create an arrow. The goddess Frig discovered that her son had been hit with a Mistletoe arrow, and in the depths of her heartbreak, she cast a powerful spell across the earth. This spell ensured that no plant would be used as a weapon again. It is also said that as she cried for her child, her tears turned to whiteberries, the whiteberries that form on Mistletoe. These berries healed her son, and the goddess was so overjoyed, she took her spell a step further, declaring that all Mistletoe would now be a symbol of love, and vowed to plant a kiss on all those who passed beneath it. The goddess's sadness could have turned to hate, she could have cursed the plant, but she did not wish for more harm to be done. Sometimes it's easier to get angry than to let yourself feel sadness, to attack the things that cause us pain, but it was the goddess's tears that brought her peace, and she used that to spread even more love, turning a weapon into a symbol of peace, removing its power, turning sadness into love. It is believed that the Celtic Druids were among the first to use Mistletoe as a decoration. They didn't kiss under it. It was used as a symbol. The berries ripened in December, and the plant remained green for much of the winter, and it is the fact that it remained green that makes it so appealing in the wintertime. The greenery from branches and trees and Mistletoe represented that even in the darkest of winter days, the sun will return, and sometimes we all need a symbol of hope. The Druids also believed that Mistletoe had sacred powers, protecting against nightmares, healing illnesses, and even predicting the future. For the pagans, Mistletoe was considered a charm against evil. It held such power for paging ceremonies that Mistletoe was banned in Christian places of worship for a long time, until eventually being adopted by the Christians in order to celebrate Christmas. Its evergreen leaves symbolizing life that does not end. Kissing under Mistletoe, though, from all accounts originated from the Norse mythology, but then it took on its own tradition. In olden days, kissing under Mistletoe was even considered a promise of marriage. Or if you wish to dream of your future love, you would sleep with a sprake of Mistletoe under your pillow, as Mistletoe was believed to have magical properties, which is likely the merging of the Druids' belief that Mistletoe could predict the future and the Norse connection of Mistletoe and love. Some women would even burn Mistletoe as a form of fortune telling. They'd watch the flames as it burned, and if the flames were steady, it depicted a happy marriage in your future. But if it was to splutter, it would indicate a bad and turbulent marriage. If we then look at the Roman era, Mistletoe symbolized peace. Enemies would set aside their differences and meet under Mistletoe. If you've ever heard the expression extending an olive wrench, well Mistletoe played a very similar role to this. Romans also decorated their houses and temples with Mistletoe in mid-summer. This was to please their gods, but it's quite similar to how the Celtic Druids used Mistletoe. Throughout all of these stories, the one thing that they all have in common is that Mistletoe symbolizes good. It's either love, peace, healing, or protection.  Across centuries, all the stories of this one little plant have come together, mixing to create a symbol, taking all the best parts, and merging together so that everybody has a piece of their culture, of their story. There's no competing on who is right or wrong. Mistletoe is an example of what can be achieved when we all share our cultures, our beliefs, when we all take the time to listen, to understand. It's amazing what one tiny little plant can do, and I believe that we can all learn from that.