RedPubPod #037 “Writing Forces Me to Continue to Pay Attention… I Wouldn’t Want to Live If I Didn’t Feel I Was Paying Attention!” with Scott Owens

[00:00:01] This is RedPubPod, a podcast from RedHawk Publications.

[00:00:09] RedPubPod, RedPubPod.

[00:00:12] Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening out there in podcast land, and welcome to another slam-packed issue of RedPubPod.

[00:00:24] I'm here today with Patty Thompson, who is our, what is it that you do again? Remind me.

[00:00:32] Acquire manuscripts.

[00:00:33] Oh.

[00:00:34] Acquisitions.

[00:00:35] Acquisitions.

[00:00:36] Also, running the boards today is our grand poobah of the program, Richard Eller.

[00:00:42] So say hello to everyone.

[00:00:44] Here on a technical mission.

[00:00:47] We need you. We need you so much.

[00:00:48] This is my main cause.

[00:00:49] We're going to make sure that everything makes it to tape where we can actually take it to air,

[00:00:54] because sometimes we record things and they don't record.

[00:00:56] They wind up in the ether somewhere.

[00:00:58] But it's a very special episode of RedPubPod today, because we have with us here our local bistro owner

[00:01:04] and one of the sponsors of our podcast, Scott Owens, the owner of Tasteful Beans Coffee House,

[00:01:14] located in downtown Hickory.

[00:01:15] What are your hours down there, Scott?

[00:01:17] Roughly 7 to 6, a little bit shorter on Saturdays and Sundays.

[00:01:21] 7 to 6, Monday through Friday, a little bit shorter on Saturdays and Sundays.

[00:01:25] Got wonderful coffee, got wonderful good-for-you food.

[00:01:29] I especially love his chicken salad.

[00:01:31] And on those little croissants that you do, good stuff.

[00:01:35] You don't have to count all your calories and you don't have to count all your carbs.

[00:01:39] You can let Scott do it for you before it makes it to the plate.

[00:01:42] So we're also here today to celebrate a couple of new releases from local poet Scott Owens.

[00:01:49] We've got Augury of Birds that he did with local photographer Joe Young.

[00:01:55] And we also have a book of haiku called Eventually.

[00:01:59] So all of these books are available at RedHawkPublications.com.

[00:02:04] One of the things to remember is Eventually is a special edition.

[00:02:08] It is not receiving the national distribution that the other books do

[00:02:13] because we made it right here on the campus of Catawba Valley Community College in our print shop.

[00:02:19] It is a limited edition and it can be ordered from our website,

[00:02:22] but you can't find it on Amazon or on BarnesandNoble.com.

[00:02:27] And we deliberately did that because of the design and shape of it, correct, Robert?

[00:02:32] Yes.

[00:02:32] It's a nice little book that you can, like, fit in a jacket pocket

[00:02:36] and you could take it with you and basically have you a haiku a day.

[00:02:42] How many haiku are in there?

[00:02:45] I think 113 or so.

[00:02:47] Well, you've got about, you know, half a year or so of haiku here

[00:02:50] along with some wonderful illustrations by a local illustrator

[00:02:55] and also another restaurant owner, or is it, what is it, Missy Cleveland?

[00:02:59] Her family owns Three Little Birds, which is a wine shop, wine cafe in Newton.

[00:03:07] Yep.

[00:03:07] Down yonder in Newton, North Carolina.

[00:03:10] And so you can also see a lot of Missy's work.

[00:03:13] So you can go to Tasteful Beans and buy Scott's Poetry

[00:03:16] and you can go to Three Little Burns, drink some wine

[00:03:19] and check out a lot of Missy's work, which is nice.

[00:03:22] You can see Missy's work in the coffee shop as well.

[00:03:26] That's right.

[00:03:26] It's all over the floor, all over the walls.

[00:03:29] We call her our resident artist because she's done a lot of decorating for us,

[00:03:33] and we try to keep as much of her work on our walls for sale as well.

[00:03:37] They also have a previous book called Worlds Apart.

[00:03:41] Worlds Enough.

[00:03:41] Oh, excuse me, Worlds Enough.

[00:03:43] Let's see.

[00:03:44] I've got to get used to what the titles are.

[00:03:47] But that's available on our website as well, too, if you'd like to buy one of those.

[00:03:50] You said we weren't going to talk politics,

[00:03:52] but Worlds Apart would definitely imply theoretical content.

[00:03:56] Well, you know, I do have a lot of politics on the mind nowadays,

[00:03:58] and we're going to talk about that later in the broadcast

[00:04:02] for those of you who like a good pithy conversation.

[00:04:06] But first, let's talk about it.

[00:04:08] Let's kind of do this in publication order here.

[00:04:11] Let's talk about an augury of birds.

[00:04:14] Scott, this is a beautiful book.

[00:04:16] You guys always do beautiful books.

[00:04:18] That's one of the reasons I love working with you.

[00:04:20] Yeah, but we have wonderful art direction from our authors, too.

[00:04:24] Scott, you're really terrific to work with because you know what you want,

[00:04:27] and you're able to put that into words,

[00:04:29] and that helps our crew here of both of us to be able to deliver to you what you want.

[00:04:36] And I think it's also important to note with an augury of birds,

[00:04:40] it is a company, once again, you're collaborating with Joe Young.

[00:04:44] So you've got some phenomenal photography in addition to the poems.

[00:04:49] Of course, I'm at Tasteful Beans quite a bit,

[00:04:51] and I was just admiring Joe's photos up on the walls.

[00:04:55] They're gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous.

[00:04:56] My wife and I just ordered, not even an hour ago,

[00:05:01] two prints on metal that are from this book,

[00:05:03] including the cover image of that brown thrasher.

[00:05:06] And then also in the book is a fantastic photo of a dunlin,

[00:05:11] which is not a bird that tons of people know.

[00:05:14] It's a shorebird, but it's one of my favorites,

[00:05:18] and the photo is just fantastic.

[00:05:20] I've had a lot of people, speaking of the photos,

[00:05:22] I always want to bring attention to the one of the buzzard.

[00:05:26] I've had a lot of people comment on the personality of the buzzard on page 26.

[00:05:32] I guess technically a black vulture, but where I grew up,

[00:05:36] all vultures were buzzards.

[00:05:39] Yeah, it's a crazy-looking photo.

[00:05:41] Joe got in so, so clear and so...

[00:05:45] I think that's an important point to make on this book is,

[00:05:48] I think, what is it, all but one of these pictures

[00:05:51] is of a live bird that he found in their habitat,

[00:05:54] and we're going to keep secret the one that's not a live bird,

[00:05:57] but it's kind of like a contest to see if you can tell.

[00:06:00] And there was something else about another one of these photographs, Scott.

[00:06:03] What was it?

[00:06:04] Well, one actually has no bird in it,

[00:06:06] but we'll keep that one a secret, too,

[00:06:08] so that everyone enjoys looking for the bird in that photo.

[00:06:10] See, everybody loves a good scavenger hunt,

[00:06:13] and that's what we've got going on here at Red Hawk Publications,

[00:06:16] is which one of the birds is alive or not alive.

[00:06:20] But I will say, regarding the one that was a taxidermy bird,

[00:06:25] Joe told me that one of them was not an actual bird,

[00:06:30] and I guessed five wrong guesses before he finally told me which one it was.

[00:06:36] So I never would have guessed that that was not an actual live bird.

[00:06:40] Seems to me like it was a bird that was borrowed

[00:06:42] from one of our local science establishments.

[00:06:48] I believe that's right.

[00:06:49] Scott, are you a birder?

[00:06:51] Yes.

[00:06:51] I started bird watching when I was 19 at Ohio University.

[00:06:55] I was fortunate enough to test out of all my basic classes except for science.

[00:07:01] So I had to have a science class,

[00:07:03] and they taught ornithology at 6 a.m. on Saturday mornings.

[00:07:08] And so I took ornithology and fell in love with bird watching

[00:07:11] and have been doing it ever since.

[00:07:14] Birds are fascinating.

[00:07:15] I mean, they say that birds are like the evolutionary output of like dinosaurs.

[00:07:21] That's right.

[00:07:22] That the birds are little dinosaurs.

[00:07:24] So whenever I look at little parakeets, I think,

[00:07:26] holy crap, that could have eaten us one day back in the past.

[00:07:29] Have you ever heard, and I don't mean to segue, but hey, we're here.

[00:07:33] Have you ever heard of the Carolina parakeet?

[00:07:36] Yes.

[00:07:37] Yeah, we used to have a parakeet here in North Carolina.

[00:07:40] That's the title or that's the topic of Ron Rash's new short story

[00:07:47] that's in Salvation South.

[00:07:49] Oh, okay.

[00:07:50] And I was explaining to the guys that Ron Rash is going to maybe move away from novels

[00:07:56] and start going back to short stories.

[00:07:58] And so I got an opportunity to read his newest short story,

[00:08:03] and it's on the Carolina parakeet.

[00:08:05] And so I have to assume there was one.

[00:08:07] There was.

[00:08:08] I believe they went extinct in the 19th century.

[00:08:10] Well, you're going to have to read his short story to learn a little bit more about that.

[00:08:14] I think the last one got eaten by a Venus flytrap,

[00:08:18] which is another thing that can only be found in North Carolina.

[00:08:22] That has to be a myth.

[00:08:23] No, it is a myth.

[00:08:24] I just made it up.

[00:08:25] But we do have, North Carolina is known for the Venus flytrap.

[00:08:28] Yeah.

[00:08:29] They grow on the East Coast, and they're a protected plant.

[00:08:33] So having been, you are a birder.

[00:08:39] How many birds have you documented yourself?

[00:08:42] How many birds have you seen?

[00:08:45] I am not as intense a bird watcher as some people.

[00:08:49] I am at, I think, 346 currently.

[00:08:54] But you have people who travel all over the world.

[00:08:56] We have a regular customer at the coffee shop.

[00:08:58] I was chatting with them about the book, and he told me he was over 1,000.

[00:09:04] And I said, how is that even possible?

[00:09:06] And he said, well, you know, I take an annual trip to Costa Rica, to Puerto Rico,

[00:09:10] to various places all over the world in order to see birds that he hasn't seen before.

[00:09:15] He has more money than I do, for one thing.

[00:09:18] And more time.

[00:09:19] And more time.

[00:09:22] I think that must be marvelous to do nothing, but let's go look at some birds.

[00:09:28] That would be so cool.

[00:09:29] It's funny, as I just opened up this book, I actually ran into one of your haikus in this book.

[00:09:34] So despite the fact that eventually it is a book that features all haiku,

[00:09:39] Scott, you have had haiku in numerous books.

[00:09:42] I have.

[00:09:43] I mean, I think like most people who write haiku,

[00:09:45] it's not something that you do just for a book.

[00:09:49] You do it throughout your life.

[00:09:51] Haiku is, well, the title eventually actually is related to how I think of haiku.

[00:09:57] Every haiku is an event.

[00:09:59] It's a moment.

[00:10:01] You see something that causes you to be impressed or have some realization.

[00:10:08] And so you want to jot down just the essentials.

[00:10:12] And so, yeah, that's where haiku comes from.

[00:10:16] I've been using them periodically in each of my books along the way

[00:10:20] and finally felt like I had enough to put an entire book together.

[00:10:26] And I remember growing up in school, it was always 5-7-5, if I'm not mistaken.

[00:10:31] 5-7-5.

[00:10:32] And you're not really strict on that.

[00:10:35] No, and there's plenty of people who would argue about the exact definition of a haiku.

[00:10:42] Going back to its origins some 800 years ago, it was supposed to be 5-7-5.

[00:10:48] Typically, actually, it was part of a tonka, which was 5-7-7-5.

[00:10:57] And, you know, you're talking not really about syllables but about Japanese on,

[00:11:03] which our closest translation to that is sounds.

[00:11:08] So in the English language, a syllable is the closest thing that we have to a sound.

[00:11:14] But there is a difference.

[00:11:15] And so quite often with Japanese haiku, they will be very much shorter than typical English haiku.

[00:11:22] Sometimes it works the other way.

[00:11:23] And the Japanese haiku will actually be longer.

[00:11:26] But for the most part, they tend to be shorter than English haiku.

[00:11:29] So that whole idea of 5-7-5, the haiku was the opening stanza, opening poem, if you will,

[00:11:38] of a series of stanzas called a renga.

[00:11:41] And they were usually done, going back to the title again, as part of an event

[00:11:45] where a number of poets were brought together.

[00:11:47] And they were tasked with creating this 100-line poem

[00:11:52] with a set number of syllables per line that would commemorate the event.

[00:11:57] So, you know, the title eventually has a lot of different levels of meaning related to haiku.

[00:12:04] But sometime around the 18th or 19th century,

[00:12:07] the precise definition of haiku changed quite a bit.

[00:12:11] And people started experimenting more and more with the form.

[00:12:16] Certainly there are plenty of haiku in the book that are 5-7-5.

[00:12:21] And there's one that's only five syllables long.

[00:12:24] And so there's a lot of variation.

[00:12:27] Okay.

[00:12:30] Is there any particular poem you'd like to read for us today from an array of words?

[00:12:38] You know, we kind of crossed over there, didn't we?

[00:12:40] We were talking about haiku.

[00:12:42] I know we're going back and forth.

[00:12:43] And my apologies.

[00:12:44] It's only because, folks out there, we've got both books in our hands

[00:12:47] and we're so excited to turn the page down.

[00:12:49] I've even got two more in front of me.

[00:12:51] I've got his previous picture book with Clayton Joe Young before called Round Here,

[00:12:57] Images from and Near Catawba County,

[00:12:59] which kind of came and hasn't had the attention that it deserves.

[00:13:06] An 8 1⁄2 by 11 book of full color,

[00:13:08] photographs from around the area taken by Joe Young.

[00:13:13] And also you worked with Lenora Ryan's students to do a new issue of Cantos,

[00:13:18] their literary journal this past year, too.

[00:13:21] And I'm very proud of how this turned out.

[00:13:23] So I brought a copy of that into the plush-wilded studios of Red Pub Pod

[00:13:27] to kind of take a couple of minutes and talk about.

[00:13:30] But Patty's right.

[00:13:32] If you've got something you'd like to share from,

[00:13:35] how about the one about the good old vulture?

[00:13:37] Sure.

[00:13:38] Because you really haven't lived until you've seen this photograph of this vulture, folks.

[00:13:42] That's one reason why you need to buy this book.

[00:13:44] It does look like the studio photo.

[00:13:46] Yeah.

[00:13:47] It looks like this thing's looking at you like,

[00:13:49] what are you looking at?

[00:13:50] You know, looking over its shoulder at you like it's ticked off.

[00:13:54] Anytime you catch the eye of a vulture,

[00:13:58] I'm not sure if you should be frightened

[00:13:59] or just pay closer attention to where you are in your life, I guess.

[00:14:04] They do kind of stand on the side of the road and watch you.

[00:14:07] You know, they're trying to dine on whatever, you know, nature has made.

[00:14:12] Because they're like the cleaning crew of nature

[00:14:14] where they're going around taking care of the roadkill.

[00:14:16] And they're like sitting there looking at you like,

[00:14:18] don't you dare stop because I'll eat you too.

[00:14:21] Bird behavior in general, I think, is very interesting.

[00:14:23] I was talking with a neighbor just yesterday.

[00:14:27] He was sharing some hostas with me.

[00:14:29] So we were digging them up.

[00:14:30] And there was a wren, one of my favorite birds of all.

[00:14:34] Because of their habits as well as their songs,

[00:14:38] they're tiny little birds.

[00:14:39] They love to live in Boston ferns

[00:14:41] or anything else that is hanging under a porch.

[00:14:44] The word wren actually means cave.

[00:14:48] I'm sorry, the Latin word for a wren, which is troglodite,

[00:14:52] actually means cave dweller or dweller in holes.

[00:14:55] And that's where they like to live,

[00:14:57] our very small cave-like openings.

[00:14:59] Our front porch has four little corners.

[00:15:04] And every night when it starts to get dusk,

[00:15:07] if you open the door and look out,

[00:15:10] each corner has got a little wren in it

[00:15:13] with its little head in its little wing.

[00:15:16] And they sleep there.

[00:15:17] Yeah.

[00:15:18] And then they do.

[00:15:19] They build nests in every hanging plant

[00:15:22] that Ann ever hangs on the front porch.

[00:15:24] She'll sit there on the sofa and go,

[00:15:27] darn you, don't you build,

[00:15:28] oh, look at you building a nest in my plant.

[00:15:30] We had one that built a nest in our mailbox

[00:15:33] at the house we lived in previously every year.

[00:15:36] So come spring, we would prop the lid up

[00:15:39] and leave a little note for the postman to,

[00:15:42] hey, don't put mail in there, just put it on the floor.

[00:15:44] Or because we wanted the wrens to have their nest back.

[00:15:47] And they came back every year.

[00:15:50] It's like you adopt them.

[00:15:51] Or they adopt you, one of the two.

[00:15:53] And I love the way,

[00:15:55] the wrens have a variety of sounds that they make.

[00:15:57] And when you see how small they are

[00:15:59] and how loud they are,

[00:16:01] it's just unbelievable that something that small

[00:16:03] can produce a sound that loud.

[00:16:06] But they're awesome.

[00:16:08] We were talking about buzzards, though.

[00:16:11] So I grew up on a chicken farm.

[00:16:14] And buzzards, of course, love chicken farms

[00:16:16] because something, well, on any farm,

[00:16:18] something's always dying.

[00:16:20] And buzzards are always there to help out.

[00:16:23] So this is Buzzard.

[00:16:25] Always when we look up at white clouds, blue sky,

[00:16:29] we see that chevron of a bird not flying but floating,

[00:16:35] heavenly V teetering between here and there,

[00:16:38] silently keeping two worlds we imagine apart together,

[00:16:43] connecting earth to sky, life to death,

[00:16:47] checkmark that says everything is as it should be,

[00:16:51] none will make it to eternity.

[00:16:54] Fear of your inevitability, our greatest motivation.

[00:17:01] Good work.

[00:17:02] Nice and crunchy.

[00:17:03] I love that alliteration in there.

[00:17:06] And it makes me not want to see a buzzer anytime soon.

[00:17:10] But they're so useful.

[00:17:13] Imagine what the world would look like without scavengers, if you will.

[00:17:17] We definitely need them.

[00:17:20] And the implication at the end of the poem is that, yes,

[00:17:24] or throughout the poem is that, yes, we need scavengers.

[00:17:27] We also need the inevitability of our own passing.

[00:17:30] That's what motivates us.

[00:17:32] None of us would do half the things we do if we were going to live forever.

[00:17:37] I certainly wouldn't.

[00:17:41] Richard and I were just talking about that this morning.

[00:17:43] Sometimes it takes a little bit of a kick in the pants

[00:17:45] to get you to get started in the morning.

[00:17:47] I got an interesting question about your selection of photos and your poetry.

[00:17:53] Like, what came first?

[00:17:54] Chicken egg?

[00:17:55] Like, did Joe have all the photos?

[00:17:57] And then you came up with the poetry?

[00:17:59] Or was it a little bit of you had the poetry, he took the photos?

[00:18:02] You know, some 10, 12 years ago,

[00:18:05] Joe sent me an email with an attached file that had 30 or 40 photos in it.

[00:18:13] And he said, hey, have you ever considered writing poems based on photos?

[00:18:17] And I've written many poems over the years based on photos.

[00:18:20] We did an ekphrastic poetry series at the Hickory Museum of Art for a while.

[00:18:25] And a lot of poems came from photos.

[00:18:27] So I told him I would be happy to.

[00:18:29] And so that one clearly started with the photos.

[00:18:32] Now, I didn't know that Joe was expecting me to write all those poems in two weeks.

[00:18:37] But he wrote me back two weeks later.

[00:18:40] That sounds like Joe.

[00:18:43] The inevitability of death has come again.

[00:18:47] It was definitely motivating to get on it and get those written.

[00:18:51] And then when we did Around Here, I think that really started as my idea.

[00:18:55] But it was based on some of the photos that I had already seen that Joe had taken.

[00:19:00] And some other places that I had seen around town that I thought, yeah, those are just photo worthy.

[00:19:05] I'm going to write poems and then get Joe to go out and take the photos.

[00:19:09] So I kind of would email him where I saw this image and see if he would go and take a photo.

[00:19:16] So it was a little bit more back and forth.

[00:19:19] And then with an augury of birds, I already had so many bird poems.

[00:19:24] But I had seen that he had some wonderful bird photos as well.

[00:19:28] So I sent him a bunch of bird photos and said, hey, I know you already have photos for some of these.

[00:19:34] Can you look and see if you have other photos that would go with them?

[00:19:38] And if you're open to the idea of a third book, I'll send you some.

[00:19:44] I'll keep trying to write new bird poems.

[00:19:47] And if you'll send me any other photos that you have, I'll try to write poems to go with them.

[00:19:52] So it kind of initiated with me and with the poems.

[00:19:56] But then there was, again, some back and forth.

[00:19:58] And that is one thing to say about Joe is Joe is a good collaborator with our poets because he's also collaborated with you in the past.

[00:20:05] On previous things, he's collaborated with Tim Peeler on our Henry River Mill Village series.

[00:20:13] Those were photographs that were taken and then poems written based on those photographs.

[00:20:18] And so Joe Young is a good collaborator when it comes to this kind of stuff because his style of photography lends itself to that artistic interpretation.

[00:20:29] And I just noticed over the weekend that a sequel to West of Mercy has been released by Joe and by Tim.

[00:20:36] Yeah.

[00:20:37] They gave us a break and found someone else to publish it.

[00:20:41] Awesome.

[00:20:42] So West of Mercy, which was a limited edition that we did very early in this program's life, now has a sequel.

[00:20:50] So look for that.

[00:20:51] What's the sequel called?

[00:20:53] West of Mercy 2.

[00:20:55] West of West of Mercy.

[00:20:57] West of West of Mercy.

[00:20:58] I really don't remember.

[00:21:00] I just saw it and I was like, I didn't know this was coming out.

[00:21:04] Now we're going to have to buy it.

[00:21:06] Yeah, well, they probably won't have any left because we only did 100 copies of West of Mercy and I think that's the way they're doing this one.

[00:21:13] Because they sign and number them.

[00:21:15] Because they sign and number them and then they split them up.

[00:21:18] And one takes one, like the odd numbers and the other one takes the even numbers and then they distribute it.

[00:21:26] Well, if anybody's looking for a copy, I have a couple of at the coffee shop.

[00:21:29] West of Mercy?

[00:21:30] Yeah.

[00:21:31] See, that's one that we don't have in stock because it's a limited edition held by the artist.

[00:21:35] Raise the price on that one.

[00:21:36] Limited edition.

[00:21:39] I got another question about the collaboration.

[00:21:42] Were there any poems that you wrote about birds that Joe hadn't quite taken photos of and required him to take over?

[00:21:51] Quite a few.

[00:21:52] And that's one of the, you were talking about how good it is to collaborate with Joe.

[00:21:55] So he's a hard worker.

[00:21:57] So when I would send him poems, he would beat the bushes, if you will, trying to find that bird.

[00:22:04] Oh my gosh.

[00:22:05] And one that he couldn't find resulted in the photo of a not live bird.

[00:22:11] Aha.

[00:22:11] Another that he couldn't find resulted in the second photo that doesn't have a bird.

[00:22:15] And he must have given me at least a half an hour diatribe of how hard it is to photograph hummingbirds.

[00:22:21] Oh, wow.

[00:22:22] When we were working on this because his hummingbird shot that's in here, he said he had to be patient beyond his almost ability to be patient.

[00:22:31] Well, as a birder.

[00:22:32] Because they don't stop that much.

[00:22:35] As a birder, I've probably taken a thousand photos of birds in my lifetime and not a single one of them is as good as the worst of his photos.

[00:22:43] See, that's what's incredible about this is these look like staged photographs, but they are actually out in the field.

[00:22:50] I mean, there's a beautiful photograph of an American bald eagle kind of sunning its wings, and it had just taken a dip into a lake and then wound up in a tree.

[00:23:01] And it puts its wings forward, and it's sitting there drying itself off, and it's kind of just like Joe said that it was posing for him.

[00:23:09] So he got some shots of it, and it's a gorgeous photograph in this book if you love birds.

[00:23:15] And you are selling these Joe's prints at Tasteful Beans.

[00:23:19] Yeah, we still have quite a few of them up there.

[00:23:21] And you also, of course, are selling the books at Tasteful Beans, so we do encourage folks to go down there and get those books.

[00:23:27] And we have them on RedHawkPublications.com, just in case you don't have an easy way to get to downtown Hickory.

[00:23:34] Because this podcast is brought to you by Tasteful Beans Coffeehouse in downtown Hickory.

[00:23:41] Indeed it is.

[00:23:42] Now, eventually, this actually is not the first haiku collection we've done.

[00:23:47] We actually did another one with Beth Copeland, which features all tanka.

[00:23:54] So, and I think it's called Shiburi Blue.

[00:23:56] Shiburi Blue.

[00:23:57] Yeah.

[00:23:58] Yeah, because in the backyard of her home is a mountain peak that she takes pictures of all the time, and it reminds her of Mount Fuji.

[00:24:08] So, every one of her tankas is accompanied by one of her photographs of the mountains in her backyard, which I forget the name of.

[00:24:16] That's cool.

[00:24:16] But yeah, it is kind of neat, so it's kind of fun.

[00:24:19] We're getting two haiku books now.

[00:24:20] So, one of the traditions in writing haiku is that you have to write about Mount Fuji.

[00:24:27] And, of course, I don't live in Japan.

[00:24:30] I've never been to Japan.

[00:24:32] So, writing about Mount Fuji for me would be a bit of a challenge.

[00:24:37] But I did kind of sneak it in.

[00:24:39] Let's see if I can find that one.

[00:24:41] Has anybody ever written a haiku about Godzilla?

[00:24:44] It would be a haiku about a kaiju.

[00:24:46] You know, there are so many haiku.

[00:24:49] I guarantee you that more than one person has written a haiku about Godzilla.

[00:24:53] Okay, good.

[00:24:54] That makes me feel good for Godzilla.

[00:24:56] My favorite haiku writer is Kobayashi Issa, 18th, 19th century.

[00:25:03] He's considered one of the big four of haiku.

[00:25:06] And it's estimated that he wrote over 20,000 haiku in his lifetime.

[00:25:13] Wow.

[00:25:13] And it's a staggering number.

[00:25:15] How could anyone ever write over 20,000 of anything?

[00:25:19] Even recipes.

[00:25:20] I can't write 20,000 recipes.

[00:25:22] 20,000, yeah.

[00:25:22] How long does it take to finish a haiku?

[00:25:26] From the initial thought you have and the first time you might jot the words down on a page.

[00:25:34] How?

[00:25:35] Anywhere from spontaneous to never.

[00:25:38] Okay.

[00:25:39] So some of them never make it to gestation, to fruition.

[00:25:43] Never finished.

[00:25:45] Okay.

[00:25:45] You know, I may decide, okay, that's as good as I can do with that.

[00:25:49] And I'm going to send it out.

[00:25:51] I'm going to publish it.

[00:25:52] But years later, I might realize, oh, no, no, that would be better if I make this little change.

[00:25:57] I'm going to go back and change it.

[00:25:59] And the only reason any of them are ever completely finished is, you know, the poet dies.

[00:26:06] And that's pretty much the end of it.

[00:26:08] But up until then, I think everything's eligible to be rewritten, revised.

[00:26:13] So in your copies that you carry around to read from and stuff like that, do you ever find yourself jotting changes?

[00:26:20] Most of my books are full of revisions.

[00:26:23] And it's one of the reasons why, you know, if I published a book or a poem in a book 10 years ago,

[00:26:30] and I'm working on a new book where I think that poem is relevant,

[00:26:34] I'll probably use that poem again because it'll be different than it was 10 years ago.

[00:26:40] So his poetry, it's a living, breathing thing.

[00:26:43] It definitely still has a sign of it.

[00:26:45] Well, you know, Walt Whitman published the same book like how many times?

[00:26:49] Nineteen times.

[00:26:49] Nineteen times, Leaves of Grass.

[00:26:51] He would put poems back.

[00:26:52] He would take poems out.

[00:26:53] He would rewrite them.

[00:26:55] I mean, one member, one edition of The Sleepers might be completely different than, you know, an earlier incarnation of it.

[00:27:03] So he basically was working on the same thing.

[00:27:05] He would have been perfect for print-on-demand.

[00:27:10] Because one of the good things about what we do here is print-on-demand.

[00:27:14] We could literally change your things in between printings.

[00:27:17] So it's one of the great things about poetry.

[00:27:20] It's short enough that it can continue to live.

[00:27:25] You know, you don't have to revise a poem.

[00:27:27] You're not revising a novel.

[00:27:29] You're not rewriting the whole thing, if you will.

[00:27:32] So there's just no reason not to continue to work on poetry.

[00:27:36] And, you know, hopefully it just gets better every time.

[00:27:41] That's certainly a good thing, because you've got this artwork that never changes.

[00:27:45] You know, Moby Dick was written, you know, by Herman Melville.

[00:27:49] And it's clear that you read that as a young man.

[00:27:52] You're identifying with Ishmael.

[00:27:54] You go back and read it in the Middle Ages, you're identifying with Starbuck.

[00:27:58] And now at my age, I'm reading it again.

[00:28:00] And I'm Ahab all the way.

[00:28:01] I mean, I'm yelling at clouds and fussing about this big, giant white whale that I've never been able to defeat.

[00:28:09] So, you know, all art is interpretive that way, experiential.

[00:28:14] I agree.

[00:28:16] Here's my cheat on Mount Fuji.

[00:28:20] Baker's, not Fuji, 10,000 feet smaller, all I ever needed.

[00:28:26] I like that.

[00:28:29] I get it, too.

[00:28:30] Baker's Mountain.

[00:28:31] Yeah.

[00:28:31] It's quite a bit shorter.

[00:28:33] It's all we need in Catawba County.

[00:28:35] For anybody who's ever hiked Baker's Mountain.

[00:28:38] That's all we need.

[00:28:39] Can take that little haiku with them.

[00:28:41] And, you know, I will say the cover art for your book, Eventuality, it does have, you know, a mountain in the background.

[00:28:50] That's Fuji-esque.

[00:28:51] And the back cover, it's a gorgeous, stark picture of winter trees with no leaves and snow in the foreground.

[00:29:02] And I'm thinking to myself, this actually has, it lends itself to looking kind of like Japanese style, too.

[00:29:08] I don't know if this was intentional or not, but between the cover and the back, I kind of get a Japanese vibe from it.

[00:29:15] So, well done.

[00:29:16] Oh, thank you.

[00:29:17] And ironically, I guess, this is, the artwork is by Caspar David Friedrich, a German romantic.

[00:29:24] So, while the images may hearken to Japanese concepts, it's on the opposite side of the world, a very different culture as well.

[00:29:36] Didn't Friedrich also do that picture you see all the time with some of the romantic poems by, oh my God, you're going to have to cut this because I can't think of the guy's name.

[00:29:51] You got Byron Shelley Keats Wordsworth.

[00:29:53] Wordsworth.

[00:29:54] Wordsworth.

[00:29:55] Wordsworth.

[00:29:55] Where Wordsworth is supposedly standing with his back to the artist.

[00:30:00] And supposedly it's supposed to be Wordsworth because it's always put with the one about the yellow.

[00:30:05] On the beach or in the mountains?

[00:30:07] In the mountains.

[00:30:08] The one about the yellow flowers.

[00:30:10] Yeah.

[00:30:10] Oh, the daffodil.

[00:30:11] The daffodil poem.

[00:30:12] You always see that.

[00:30:13] Because when you directed me to get another, you know, to use this art, because we also used art by this same artist on your first book that you did with us.

[00:30:22] Not World's Enough.

[00:30:23] Stars.

[00:30:24] Stars.

[00:30:25] Sky Full of Stars and Dreaming.

[00:30:26] Sky Full of Stars and Dreaming.

[00:30:27] Yeah, also has a Friedrich cover.

[00:30:30] Yeah, that one, Monk at Sea, is probably my favorite work of art ever.

[00:30:34] And I just think it expresses a sort of romantic existentialist concept of human being.

[00:30:43] That seemed perfect for that book.

[00:30:45] And probably, you know, if I could put a work of art on my headstone at the end, that would be the one I'd want to put on there.

[00:30:52] But Friedrich in general has that same kind of lonely resistance, if you will.

[00:30:59] Well, as you commented on the cover of Eventually, that lone tree with fields spreading out behind it, leading up to these mountains.

[00:31:09] And that tree, to me, is very human-like.

[00:31:15] And I like how on the back cover, he's taken the pains to show where a human being has literally cut the limbs from the trees.

[00:31:27] Which usually, you know, an artist is making a tree full and it's as complete as it can be.

[00:31:33] But here we have, you know, trees that have been trimmed back either for, you know, branches to start a fire or for some other reason.

[00:31:43] Which I think makes them kind of plump.

[00:31:46] Well, choosing that painting was very intentional.

[00:31:50] On the one hand, you have the three trees, which could represent the three lines of a haiku.

[00:31:54] And as you're pointing out, you've got that interaction of the natural world and the human world.

[00:31:59] And, of course, that plays a big role in haiku, where you're really trying to capture an experience of nature that is intuitively linked to the human condition.

[00:32:10] An event, a moment.

[00:32:12] And so, I felt like that image.

[00:32:14] And we have definitely had quite a few moments here lately that have had us all questioning our existentialist.

[00:32:22] Because how do you do it, Scott?

[00:32:24] How do you keep your art alive when the world is pounding you with all kinds of stuff that just, you know, puts you off your game and distracts you?

[00:32:34] But I would like to put out there that that would make you even more creative, right?

[00:32:40] It's a possibility.

[00:32:41] I mean, right now, there are so many creatives out there that we need to encourage to continue to create.

[00:32:48] When you get frustrated or, you know, feeling like you've got to lick some wounds, does that make you more prolific?

[00:32:54] Or do you take a little break from your writing?

[00:32:56] I don't think I ever intentionally take a break from writing.

[00:33:00] I may get overwhelmed with the daily necessities of life.

[00:33:05] I don't get overwhelmed with the conflicts, if you will, of life, the things that bother us.

[00:33:13] Those do send me to the notebook and cause me to write more.

[00:33:18] And I think it's very important that artists, not just writers, but artists in general, respond that way.

[00:33:25] It's too easy for voices to get lost otherwise, for perspectives to get lost out of fear, dread, whatever emotion might be dominant at that time.

[00:33:41] And I think right now, our artists feel, our creatives feel.

[00:33:46] And so they really do need to use this time to, you know, kind of stiff upper lip time, get back to the drawing board, literally, figuratively, doesn't matter what kind of art.

[00:33:58] But I think it's really important for them to document and archive their feelings and what we're going through.

[00:34:05] And I will put in the description of this podcast, a really good article that's kind of a call to action for artists to do just that, creatives in general.

[00:34:17] This kind of is our time to kind of step up.

[00:34:20] So just be mindful to look at the podcast description and you'll see a lovely article that tells us how to deal with our emotions.

[00:34:28] Yeah, we were talking the other day and somebody had mentioned that the victors write the history.

[00:34:33] But Scott, you said something very interesting.

[00:34:36] I remember that.

[00:34:38] So would you tell the listeners out there who you think writes the history?

[00:34:42] I think the victors control the present, but the present is always disappearing into the past.

[00:34:47] And it's the writers who write the history.

[00:34:50] So whatever perspective or the artist, you might say, whatever perspective we're going to have on history is not defined by those who won,

[00:34:58] but defined by those who wrote about what happened during that time.

[00:35:02] I mean, I have a new poem.

[00:35:03] This is not in either of the books, so it's outside of the purview, if you will, of the podcast.

[00:35:09] But if you don't mind, I'll read it.

[00:35:11] Please do.

[00:35:12] And this is called Orienteering.

[00:35:15] And it has two epigraphs.

[00:35:18] The first is from Albert Camus from his early novel, The Rebel.

[00:35:21] Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.

[00:35:27] And then my favorite novelist ever, Tony Morrison.

[00:35:31] This is from an interview in The Nation back in 2019, I think.

[00:35:36] Somewhere around there.

[00:35:38] This is precisely the time when artists go to work.

[00:35:41] Not when everything is fine, but in times of dread.

[00:35:44] That's our job.

[00:35:45] And then the poem, Orienteering.

[00:35:49] Three days after the election, and my mind has moved from confusion to anger to anxiety to resignation to resolution.

[00:35:58] Knowing we will survive this.

[00:36:01] Knowing there is still, there will always be much that I can do, and that I will do it.

[00:36:08] Knowing hopelessness is helplessness, and I have never been helpless.

[00:36:13] Knowing the present is temporary, constantly passing into the past.

[00:36:18] Knowing those who make history are the ones who write it down.

[00:36:23] There you go.

[00:36:24] There's one.

[00:36:25] That was so fresh on your mind when we were talking about that the other day.

[00:36:29] Nice one.

[00:36:30] That's good stuff.

[00:36:31] Yeah, if you don't mind, I might make a copy of that myself.

[00:36:34] And just make sure that we let folks know.

[00:36:37] Again, for those that need that extra bolster of energy and creative inspiration, these are good words.

[00:36:44] Thank you, Scott.

[00:36:45] Sure.

[00:36:46] You talk a little bit about going to your notebook when you write.

[00:36:50] Is it because you have the need to write, or is it because you're inspired by something that sends you to the notebook?

[00:36:56] I'm trying to get to your motivation.

[00:36:59] Do you feel the need to write every day, or when something happens?

[00:37:03] I pretty much write every day.

[00:37:05] Not that what I'm writing ever turns into a poem or a piece that I want to publish.

[00:37:11] I've written over 500 essays.

[00:37:13] Published, I should say, over 500 essays in my life as well.

[00:37:16] But not everything I write winds up being published.

[00:37:20] And it is definitely a combination.

[00:37:23] There are times when I took up poetry at a fairly young age because I had so many thoughts and feelings about what was going on in my life

[00:37:35] that I needed to get them down on paper and kind of objectify them so that I could look at it and figure out what things meant,

[00:37:44] what could come of any of this, if you will.

[00:37:47] And I think now I write primarily, my primary motivation right now is that writing forces me to continue to pay attention.

[00:37:55] And I think that's very important.

[00:37:57] You know, I don't leave the house without my eyes just kind of scanning my surroundings all the time, looking for interesting things.

[00:38:05] I don't think I would want to live if I didn't feel like I was paying attention.

[00:38:11] I'm not sure what the point would be.

[00:38:13] You know, it's like all of this stuff exists for us to notice.

[00:38:19] So I just want to make sure that I'm paying attention.

[00:38:21] And the fact that anything can be turned into a poem just keeps me constantly paying attention.

[00:38:26] But yes, even today when I need to figure out things, how to respond to things, why do I feel this way?

[00:38:34] That can also drive me to write.

[00:38:36] And oddly, the most Googled search on Election Day was, did Biden drop out?

[00:38:43] So lots of people had not noticed what had been going on in the country since June.

[00:38:50] So, you know, you've got folks who want to notice and record and pay attention.

[00:38:55] And then you have folks who are able to not do that.

[00:39:01] I don't know why we would want to not do that.

[00:39:05] I don't either.

[00:39:06] I guess that's one of the big things about artistry is the unexamined life is not, as you said, worth living.

[00:39:13] You've got to be plugged in, in one way or another, right?

[00:39:17] Plugged in.

[00:39:18] Yeah, I mean, you say in one way or another.

[00:39:21] I certainly think you don't have to, you don't even have to have access to the Internet to pay attention to valuable things going on around you every day.

[00:39:29] Anyway, two days ago, I was planting bulbs in the front yard along the road.

[00:39:38] And my head's down and I hear this sound that even though I know it's the sound of leaves across the asphalt,

[00:39:48] in my head it sounds like bicycle tires on the asphalt.

[00:39:51] And I immediately go back to my childhood, Matthews Mill Village in Greenwood, South Carolina, and we all rode bikes.

[00:40:00] And so I couldn't help but look up, half expecting to see Chuck Davis running away from someone.

[00:40:07] Chuck Davis was kind of the little guy who always let his mouth get him into trouble.

[00:40:14] So I expected to see Chuck Davis running away from someone or Tracy Harbison, who was kind of the local baseball hero,

[00:40:21] on his way to another baseball game, riding his bike.

[00:40:25] And it's almost like I was a little surprised when I looked up and it wasn't either of them.

[00:40:29] Now maybe that's just because I'm getting old and living in the past or something,

[00:40:32] but the connection of those two sounds, and I think that's what writing poetry in particular does,

[00:40:37] is brings to the surface the connections between things that so many people don't notice.

[00:40:47] And brings them back to us as readers go, oh, I can see that.

[00:40:52] That's right.

[00:40:52] You know, there's been several famous writers in our lifetimes that have utilized writing as a way to figure things out.

[00:41:00] It's Ali Wiesel, who wrote Night, who said,

[00:41:04] I write more to understand than I do to be understood.

[00:41:09] And Virginia Woolf, who said she had never really come to terms with her relationship with her mother

[00:41:14] until she wrote To the Lighthouse,

[00:41:16] because she couldn't understand why her mother would have remarried after her father left

[00:41:23] and created a situation to where Virginia was treated badly by her stepbrothers.

[00:41:28] But then when she wrote the book To the Lighthouse and studied what, you know,

[00:41:34] 19th century women had to go through and how you're basically, if you're, you know,

[00:41:39] single moms were frowned upon back during those days.

[00:41:43] And so we write to learn as much as we do to teach other people.

[00:41:49] No, I think absolutely.

[00:41:51] I'm not sure we ever really write to teach anyone except ourselves.

[00:41:55] So, yes, to understand.

[00:41:56] So is that like a byproduct sometimes when somebody else touches, is touched by your work?

[00:42:02] Is that extra added value?

[00:42:04] Absolutely.

[00:42:05] I mean, I think it goes back to Carl Jung and the whole collective unconscious.

[00:42:09] We were all similar enough that if we write about our experience and how things feel and what we notice,

[00:42:15] it's going to connect with others inevitably.

[00:42:17] So that's really all you have to do is pay attention and write about it.

[00:42:21] That's the thing I enjoy most about art and literary art falls into the same category.

[00:42:26] If you see whether it's 3D art, performing art, dance, music, poetry,

[00:42:33] and you have a reaction to it, that validates the artist to me.

[00:42:38] And it doesn't matter if it's bad art because I've seen some bad art.

[00:42:43] I've read some bad literature, but you know what?

[00:42:46] If it still evokes an emotion, I feel the artist has done its job.

[00:42:50] And I always point to a friend and I went over to Chicago Institute of Art.

[00:42:56] There was a special exhibition and somebody had a bar of soap, literally something you'd find in your shower.

[00:43:02] And it was mounted and placed on the wall.

[00:43:05] And within that piece of soap was, well, it was a pubic hair.

[00:43:11] And it was spiral.

[00:43:12] It spiraled.

[00:43:14] And my girlfriend and I are like, that's art?

[00:43:16] And we must have stayed there for 20 minutes making fun of this piece of art.

[00:43:22] But guess what?

[00:43:23] It got our attention.

[00:43:24] And I'm sure if the artist had been there listening to what we were saying and we were making fun and having fun with it, I still remember that.

[00:43:34] It's not the banana duct tape to the wall.

[00:43:37] It's reactionary in its way.

[00:43:40] That artist did its job.

[00:43:42] And again, when you read some poems and they really resonate with you, what might resonate with me with one of your haikus?

[00:43:48] And Robert might have a different reaction to it.

[00:43:52] But that's also the beauty part, too.

[00:43:54] I tell my students the only rule of writing is that it has to be effective, which by definition means that it has an effect on the reader.

[00:44:02] That effect can be anything from shock to an emotional response to feeling like you've got to jump up and go take care of business.

[00:44:13] So we're not all after the same effect with the things that we write.

[00:44:17] We just want it to have an effect.

[00:44:20] And quite often the writer can't even predict what effect it's going to have.

[00:44:25] It may not have the effect that they wanted it to have.

[00:44:28] But still, you know, you look at something, you read something, you said you stood there for 20 minutes looking at this bar of soap.

[00:44:34] Yes, we did.

[00:44:35] That's definitely an effect.

[00:44:37] So it was an effective work of art.

[00:44:39] And we still talk about it 40 years later.

[00:44:42] And isn't the first effect to have on the writer themselves?

[00:44:46] Because you're the one creating the art, but also you're the one that's putting it forth.

[00:44:51] Sure.

[00:44:52] And if it has an effect on other folks, then, you know, it's met its place in the market.

[00:44:58] But it's got to have a first effect on you.

[00:45:00] Absolutely.

[00:45:01] Absolutely.

[00:45:01] It's got to strike you as worth spending time on.

[00:45:06] There's got to be some significance to it.

[00:45:08] Whether you fully understand that significance or not, you know that it is moving your brain to think, moving your emotions to feel.

[00:45:16] It is moving some part of you.

[00:45:18] And another thing I tell my students, perhaps, you know, I emphasize paying attention.

[00:45:27] And I say there's nothing more important than paying attention to your attention.

[00:45:31] If something grabs your attention, then that means there's something there.

[00:45:35] So write about it.

[00:45:36] Get down some details.

[00:45:37] Try to figure out what's going on.

[00:45:39] And even if you never figure out exactly what's going on, maybe you'll have enough details that your reader can figure out what's going on.

[00:45:46] So give them a chance.

[00:45:47] What I would not give for a society where we all practice metacognition, where we thought about our thinking and traced where our perspectives come from.

[00:45:57] You know, not only do we weigh how we've reacted to that art, but we ask ourselves, where did that reaction come from?

[00:46:05] How has it been informed?

[00:46:07] How has my parents helped me form this perspective, et cetera, et cetera?

[00:46:11] Because then we would come to terms with, sometimes we would bend and change those perspectives in the way we see things.

[00:46:18] And if nothing else, we would at least be able to appreciate the value of more things, things that we take for granted.

[00:46:24] Like birds, for example.

[00:46:26] Right.

[00:46:26] How many of us actually pay any attention to birds?

[00:46:30] But, you know, if you go back through the history of literature and philosophy, birds have been, you know, the title of this book is an augury of birds.

[00:46:38] The foretelling, if you will, of birds.

[00:46:40] Birds have been seen as signs of various things throughout history.

[00:46:44] And, of course, in the world of science and nature, there are still signs.

[00:46:49] Just last week, the first white-throated sparrows showed up in my backyard.

[00:46:54] What does that mean?

[00:46:55] Cold's coming.

[00:46:56] They don't show up until it's just about ready to get cold.

[00:46:59] And they utilize the canary in a coal mine for a reason.

[00:47:06] Birds are so cool.

[00:47:07] We've got, like, a really nice little setup in our front yard.

[00:47:11] You can see it from where both Ann and I sit in the living room.

[00:47:14] Got a four-legged thing set up, and it's got all kind of suet cakes in it and all kind of walnuts.

[00:47:19] And things like that with a little skirt to keep the squirrels.

[00:47:22] And the squirrels will come and get on that pole, and they'll try to go back and forth to try to wrench it out of the ground.

[00:47:28] And at the same time, the blue jays are attacking the squirrels, going, like,

[00:47:32] you're not going to mess up this good thing we've got going here.

[00:47:34] Don't play with blue jays.

[00:47:36] That's what I learned early on.

[00:47:38] They will mess with you.

[00:47:39] If you guys don't mind, I'm going to do a little advertising for something that Red Hawk Publications is doing.

[00:47:46] Scott, you probably heard this past semester.

[00:47:48] We had our very first creative writing class that was offered, and Rhonda Browning-White was the instructor,

[00:47:54] and they ended last Thursday.

[00:47:56] And we're going to do it again.

[00:47:58] So in the spring term, anyone out there who might be interested will be offering two classes,

[00:48:04] Monday evening with Charles Fox, and it will be film writing and screen adaptation.

[00:48:10] And then on Thursdays, we'll also continue with a writing workshop with Naria Deckard being our instructor for that one.

[00:48:19] So we'll have two classes, and they're filling up already, and I haven't even gotten anything down on paper or press.

[00:48:25] We haven't even put the sales up on our website yet.

[00:48:29] You'll be able to find the openings for these classes at redhawkpublications.com.

[00:48:34] It's just like ordering a book.

[00:48:36] It'll have the cost of the class, and you can sign up, put your credit card in there, PayPal, whatever.

[00:48:42] That's the way we did it last time, and it worked out real well.

[00:48:46] So be looking for those on our website.

[00:48:48] I'll get those up as soon as Miss Patty gives me permission and all of the numbers to put up there.

[00:48:54] And also, okay, because Tasteful Beans is our sponsor, I just noticed you guys are serving tea.

[00:49:02] Oh, yeah.

[00:49:03] Have you been doing that for a while, by the way?

[00:49:04] We have, yeah.

[00:49:06] Ever since we acquired the shop, we've had, I think, Hickory's largest selection of tea, and it's only grown.

[00:49:12] We have about somewhere between 80 and 100 different varieties of tea, black tea, green tea, white tea, Pu-erh, which is an aged smoked tea.

[00:49:23] But you actually are doing formal teas?

[00:49:26] Oh, formal teas, yeah.

[00:49:27] Because that's something Claudia and I will do.

[00:49:30] Yeah, we finally got the little three-tiered plate where you can have some goodies as well as to go with your pot of tea.

[00:49:38] Oh, that sounds too fancy for me.

[00:49:40] For an afternoon formal tea.

[00:49:42] I was about to say.

[00:49:43] Because that's part and parcel of that.

[00:49:45] I'm a truck driver's son.

[00:49:47] I don't know.

[00:49:48] My tea has to be cold and sweet.

[00:49:52] Oh, we have that tea.

[00:49:54] Not if you go to a tea room.

[00:49:55] I can attest to that.

[00:49:57] Well, if anybody hasn't said so before, and I'm sure they have.

[00:49:59] We're going to have opium then.

[00:50:01] We thank you for sponsoring Red Pub Pod because it really makes all the difference.

[00:50:05] Plus, the fact that you're one of our best outlets for Red Hawk Publications books.

[00:50:10] We very much appreciate that.

[00:50:11] Oh, no problem.

[00:50:12] I'm happy to do it.

[00:50:14] I enjoy these podcasts.

[00:50:16] I wish I had more time to listen to them so that I never missed any.

[00:50:19] But I enjoy all the ones I've listened to and I love coming on here.

[00:50:23] Thank you, Scott.

[00:50:24] We'll fix it up so you can broadcast them in your shop during tea time.

[00:50:29] Yeah, that's a good idea.

[00:50:30] We've always been threatening to do a live pod at Tasteful Tea.

[00:50:33] I think of a better way to run the customers off right there.

[00:50:36] I mean, you know, you might as well say that there's a mouse in the kitchen because people will get up and leave.

[00:50:45] We should do a live broadcast from the coffee shop sometime.

[00:50:49] Oh, yeah.

[00:50:49] We would love to do that.

[00:50:50] As a matter of fact, we've got Poetry Hickory that's celebrating something very important next year, right?

[00:50:56] Next year.

[00:50:57] 2025 is your year?

[00:51:00] 19th year.

[00:51:01] 19th, yeah.

[00:51:02] 19th year.

[00:51:02] Okay.

[00:51:03] So two years away from, I don't know, one of those landmark dates or landmark times.

[00:51:10] Are you guys going to do anything special for anniversaries?

[00:51:13] I don't know yet.

[00:51:15] I've been playing around with the idea of doing sort of a best-of anthology, reaching out to all of the featured writers we've had for 18,

[00:51:23] well, it would be 20 years then and seeing if they'll share a poem with us to put in one collection.

[00:51:28] Oh, my God.

[00:51:28] We would publish that.

[00:51:30] Wouldn't that be something?

[00:51:31] Because you could start that kind of now because you'd have 18 months to publish that.

[00:51:35] We could pull it together.

[00:51:37] Because it's a major thing to say that you've had a program going on 18 years straight.

[00:51:42] I've been very pleased with Poetry Hickory.

[00:51:45] I mean, that's amazing.

[00:51:45] And didn't you have a lot of people at the last one?

[00:51:48] We did.

[00:51:49] We kind of top out around 40.

[00:51:52] We might be able to push it up to 50 people.

[00:51:54] And we had over 40 at the last one.

[00:51:57] That was a reading for the Poetry in Plain Sight program where they put the poems on posters and put them in shop windows.

[00:52:06] I think it's up to 15 cities now in North Carolina.

[00:52:10] Yeah, I ran into Bud K. Wood the other day down in Bethlehem.

[00:52:14] And he said that you've abandoned going up on the stage now.

[00:52:17] That you now use toward the windows as the stage.

[00:52:22] And everybody, the way you've redone it, it's actually more comfortable and you can get more people.

[00:52:28] It's still standing room only.

[00:52:31] But it's still good.

[00:52:33] Because when you run into Bud, you've got to talk to Bud K. Wood.

[00:52:37] He's a good guy.

[00:52:38] Well, Bud had a reading series here in Hickory before we started Poetry Hickory.

[00:52:43] I think it lasted about three years at, what was the name of that little coffee shop?

[00:52:49] It was one of the original coffee shops.

[00:52:50] That was where Crescent Moon is.

[00:52:52] Yeah.

[00:52:53] Is where that coffee shop was.

[00:52:54] Yeah.

[00:52:55] Drips.

[00:52:55] It was called Drips.

[00:52:56] He had it there for about three years.

[00:52:58] Yeah.

[00:52:58] I actually read from a short story that I had published way back then.

[00:53:03] Yeah.

[00:53:04] Yeah.

[00:53:04] And then you were one of the first readers at Poetry Hickory too.

[00:53:07] Yeah.

[00:53:07] Yeah.

[00:53:08] Yeah.

[00:53:08] The Drips thing was kind of fun because after we read and broke up at Drips, we went across

[00:53:13] the street to Meguiar's and had too much beer.

[00:53:19] We'll be doing that no more.

[00:53:20] I do miss Meguiar's pub.

[00:53:22] Well, you can come to Poetry Hickory.

[00:53:24] We serve beer and wine.

[00:53:25] Oh, wow.

[00:53:26] You can hang out a little bit longer.

[00:53:28] Yeah, but your place is so nice and, you know, you gotta...

[00:53:32] We gotta dirty it up, son.

[00:53:34] Well, it just needs to be a little scuzzier for me because I'm used to bars, you know, where

[00:53:40] you stick to the tables.

[00:53:42] You want that greasy pub vibe.

[00:53:43] They kind of smell like it, you know, and you're asking them to double fry the fries because,

[00:53:49] you know, they've sat around for, you know, 72 hours.

[00:53:52] So throw them back in the deep fat fryer and do it again.

[00:53:55] We might be a little healthier than you're looking for.

[00:53:57] You are.

[00:53:58] That's the great thing about it is the food is delicious at your place, man.

[00:54:02] You got these keto stuff and you've got gluten-free stuff and you've got vegetarian stuff.

[00:54:09] All through COVID, I was getting my almond milk and stuff from you guys because I had discovered,

[00:54:15] you know, that that's so much better in coffee and stuff like that than cow's milk.

[00:54:20] So...

[00:54:20] Well, thank you.

[00:54:21] So we also, again, encourage everybody to go to Tasteful Beans and also just so that,

[00:54:28] you know, we're going to have an author's workshop, not author's workshop, a book fair.

[00:54:34] A book fair.

[00:54:35] Yeah.

[00:54:35] At the Catawba County Library on Saturday, December 14th in Newton.

[00:54:40] We've got about 13 or 14 authors signed up and it's not just for Red Hawk Publications.

[00:54:45] So if you're listening to this and you are a published author, please feel free to get in touch with me.

[00:54:50] It'll be in the podcast description and we can get you to participate in that book fair

[00:54:56] as well as some holiday events that are going on the same day at the library.

[00:54:59] This is for anybody who is local and has published a book.

[00:55:02] It does not have to be through Red Hawk Publications.

[00:55:04] So you can bring your books and ply your wares that day.

[00:55:09] You want to talk about Jingle Bell Bash?

[00:55:12] Well, you know what?

[00:55:12] I will say this.

[00:55:14] The Jingle Bell Bash has a wonderful silent auction.

[00:55:17] And this year, Tasteful Beans is not only giving some wonderful items, but Red Hawk Publications

[00:55:23] is collaborating with author Rhonda Browning-White and myself as an acquisitions editor.

[00:55:29] Our silent auction item is going to be 90 minutes of our time to discuss writing, the art of writing

[00:55:37] from Rhonda and how you get yourself published by me, Patty.

[00:55:43] So that's actually a really valuable service.

[00:55:46] In fact, we even are encouraging people to give us their manuscript in advance.

[00:55:52] We'll even do some review notes for them.

[00:55:53] So that's something worth folks looking into.

[00:55:56] And I think you can bid on silent auction items without having to actually go to the Jingle

[00:56:03] Bell Bash.

[00:56:03] You can.

[00:56:04] We prefer that you do, but you don't have to.

[00:56:06] And there's also...

[00:56:07] That's valuable.

[00:56:08] There's also a very valuable silent auction of you can pay me to stay away from you.

[00:56:14] So I will not bother you for at least...

[00:56:18] Worth its waiting goal.

[00:56:20] 90 calendar days if you win the auction at the Jingle Bell Bash.

[00:56:26] Can you get the extended warranty with that?

[00:56:29] Absolutely.

[00:56:30] Absolutely.

[00:56:31] One year, three years.

[00:56:32] Yeah, five years.

[00:56:34] I guarantee not to bother you for, let's see, well, at least the next administration.

[00:56:43] Well, is there anything else that anybody needs to say?

[00:56:46] Scott, you got anything else you want to read or anything else you want to remind anybody of?

[00:56:49] No, I think I'm good.

[00:56:51] Just, you know, if anybody has any questions about the books, they can find me at the coffee

[00:56:56] shop and I'll be happy to talk to you about them.

[00:56:59] And the second Tuesday of every month at Tasteful Beans.

[00:57:03] At 615 at Tasteful Beans is Poetry Hickory.

[00:57:05] And they have plenty of time for you to come in there and get you something to drink, get

[00:57:09] you something to eat before it starts.

[00:57:10] And he even gives you a nice little break in between the featured readers before the

[00:57:16] start of the people who signed up to read.

[00:57:19] Do you want to fill your cup again?

[00:57:20] I should mention our next reader will actually be Les Brown.

[00:57:25] Okay.

[00:57:26] Oh, wow.

[00:57:27] Yeah.

[00:57:27] He's got a new book out from Red Hawk.

[00:57:30] Yeah.

[00:57:30] He's got short stories as well as his two or three poetry collections.

[00:57:34] His last poetry collection was with Main Street Rag.

[00:57:38] Yeah.

[00:57:38] But we always promote the art.

[00:57:39] It was Scott out of Charlotte.

[00:57:41] So we're thrilled.

[00:57:42] Yeah.

[00:57:43] Look, we just want the art out there.

[00:57:44] We don't care who publishes it.

[00:57:48] But Iron Bridge Sunday is his latest book with us, which is a collection of short stories

[00:57:53] that has received a lot of acclaim across the state.

[00:57:57] And it's kind of nostalgia for the old days.

[00:58:01] So, all right.

[00:58:02] I guess if everybody said what they need to say, there's only one more thing to say.

[00:58:06] It's thank you folks out there for joining us today.

[00:58:08] For Richard Eller and Patty Thompson and Scott Owens, I'm Robert Kniepe.

[00:58:12] And I say Red Pub Pod.

[00:58:14] Red Pub Pod.

[00:58:15] Red Pub Pod.

[00:58:17] Red Pub Pod.

[00:58:18] Y'all come back and listen to us now you hear.

[00:58:22] This is Red Pub Pod.

[00:58:24] Red Pub Pod.

[00:58:25] Red Pub Pod.

[00:58:27] Red Pub Pod.

[00:58:28] A podcast from Red Hawk Publications.

[00:58:32] Red Pub Pod.