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Michael Catalano: Doesn't matter what you call them, spirit bears or ghost bears, they were white black bears, not albino or the polar bear variety. The kid is [unidentified] when Raven created the world, it was a solid white mass. And after the

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black bears crept forth like snails from my mother's garden, Raven tied the land with ghost bears as a reminder of the first day. Morton Marcus: And that was Michael Catalano who will be our

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guest tonight on the Poetry Show. Michael, welcome to the Poetry Show. Michael Catalano: Thanks, Mort. Morton Marcus: I wanted to have you on for quite some time, and

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tonight really is Michael Catalano night. You are not known to the poetry community of Santa Cruz, though you should be. Much of your poetry action has happened outside of Santa Cruz, and tonight is really going to be the adventures and

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travels of Michael Catalano. First of all, where are you from? Where were you born? Michael Catalano: I was born in Omaha, and when I was six my family moved out to California, and I've been in Santa Cruz

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since the early 60s. Morton Marcus: Right, and you graduated from? Michael Catalano: I went to Soquel High, class of '71, then went to Cabrillo College.

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Morton Marcus: Okay. Michael Catalano: And then I got drafted. I was- during the Vietnam War, I was a conscientious objector and I spent two years with the Ecology Corps.

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Morton Marcus: How did you start to write? How did you get interested in writing? Michael Catalano: Well, even when I was younger, I think when I was nine years old I wrote a little book on notebook paper

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called "The Explorers," and I was an inveterate reader. Some of the children books I always just gorged at. I spent time in used bookstores so they had to throw me out at nine o'clock when they were closing. And even in high school, I had some

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pretty awful teachers. When it came to poetry, I think they were more concentrated on the rhyme than really what was really the power of poetry, and even the power of writing, and it wasn't until college that I came across an instructor, you

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may have heard of him, his name was Morton Marcus. Morton Marcus: Oh, that guy. Michael Catalano: Yeah. Morton Marcus: He keeps coming up again.

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Michael Catalano: Yeah, that guy. And I remember he did a reading one time, it wasn't really his class, and he, when I listened to the poetry I thought this has power, this has music, and this is something that we were never taught. And then

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after I got drafted, I spent time just as a voracious reader because being out in the Northern California woods doing alternate service, I had time on my hands. And I remember reading one of the poems I enjoyed was from William Everson, who later

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was the Poet Emeritus or the poet-in-residence at UCSC, known as Brother Antoninus. Morton Marcus: And spent his last years down here, and I'm hoping many people out there remember that. So what I've

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asked Michael to do is also read some poems that influenced him and that really changed his life, so, Michael, tell us about that. Michael Catalano: First, the poem I want to read was from his

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book, "The Residual Years," when William Everson was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. And when he came to the- Michael Catalano: World War II, sorry, and he wrote a piece

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Morton Marcus: World War II. about when he came in- in thi one forestry camp with othe COs, and it was kind of simila to what I experienced up in th Ecology Corps. And he said

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[III.] This, then, is our world having entered the gate. Who is there to measure the length we will stay? The factors that manage that endurance have yet to be formed. This much we know: Blood will be poured, the world in constriction must loosen,

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unlock, the tides withdraw, in all the white chaos that dwarfs our meager participation must have its great way. Yet the impassive calendar governs our minds. And the gate remains, broad for departure to pass if we choose. Some of us do, openly

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asking the consequent hurt, or by stealth and deceit in the moon's blindness, only rumor returns, we others remain, holding within us the vast temptation and the obscure threat and nurse the wide cleavage of will.

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[V.] The pacifist speaks face to face with his own kind and seeks to fashion a common course that all may mark. But whatever he offers finds already framed in another's thought a divergent approach. The binding belief that each allows is cruxed on

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rejection. "Thou shalt not kill." But for all the rest, what voice shall speak from the burning bush, in the worksite noons, when the loaf is broken, and brief and rebuttal countercross, and no one wins?

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And when the speech runs out, when the rebel lays down his irksome acts at last, he takes his stand, the crude pencil moist with spit and tobacco juice, has only to scrawl the offending name, and the man and his reasons converge towards

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those walls at the world's end where all questions die. Morton Marcus: Michael, obviously that was an influence on you. Who are some of the other influences on you early on?

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Michael Catalano: One of them was the- one of the poets I really enjoyed reading was Carl Sandburg. And and I've always loved the- his probably- his most famous poem was, "Chicago," because I love the music in it. It just brought a dark

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foreboding of just the grimy underbelly of the- of the city and I'd like to read this to you. Morton Marcus: Oh, absolutely, go on. Michael Catalano: This was:

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CHICAGO Hog Butcher for the World, Tool maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders:

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They tell you you are wicked and I believe them for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys. And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again. And they tell me

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you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger. And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them: Come and show

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me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning. Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities; fierce as a dog with

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tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness, Bareheaded, Shoveling, Wrecking, Planning, Building, reaking, rebuilding, Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth, under

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the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs, laughing even as the ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost the battle, bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,

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Laughing! Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

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One thing I want to comment on Carl Sandburg, the year before he died, he was on the David Frost show. And I remember Frost asked what word did he hate from the American dictionary. He said, "Excluded. No one has a right to exclude anybody from

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anything," and always made me strike(?) that he was a world class poet and yet he's kept a kind of a simple humility, even up to the day of his death. Morton Marcus: Great, you know, we don't hear much of Sandburg

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anymore, so it's good to hear some of his poetry. Other influences? Michael Catalano: Well, back then when I was writing, it was a matter of trying to, you know, survive and keep living. In the

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80s there was a writer named Amy Clampitt and one thing I liked about her in the 80s and up to the 90s, she was something like sixty-three when she became a name, she was always excluded. She used that word from the regular literary intelligentsia

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when she was writing, but whenever I would read her work, I just loved the vivid imagery of what she would have to say, and I'm just thinking, "This is powerful. And she needs a wider audience." And she wrote one piece here called:

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THE EDGE OF THE HURRICANE, and it was: Wheeling, the careening winds arrive with lariets and tambourines of rain. Torn-to-pieces, mud-dark flounces of Caribbean cumulus keep passing, keep passing. By

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afternoon rinsed transparencies begin to open overhead, Mediterranean window panes of clearness crossed by young gusts' vaporous fripperies, liquid footprints flying, lacewing leaf-shade brightening and fading. Sibling gales stand

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up on point in twirling fouettes of debris. The day ends bright, cloud-wardrobe packed away. Nightfall hangs up a single moon bleached white as laundry, serving notice yet again how levities can also trample, drench, wring and mangle.

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And other writers I used to and I- even when I was a long way away I remember ordering "Where the Oceans Covers" by Mort Marcus. And I would- really, a lot of times I even loved your "Santa Cruz Mountain Poems," it used to make me very homesick

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and I always felt that that needed even a wider, even a national audience but I don't know if it ever did or no. Morton Marcus: It did get one. You know, Michael, what I'm hearing, and of course I've known you, and so I will ask you

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the next question without preamble: did you ever take a class in creative writing? Michael Catalano: No. Morton Marcus: Yeah, and to people out there, everyone

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thinks that you have to go to a creative writing class, but the way Michael has developed is that he is someone in love with language and in love with poetry, and he goes to bookstores and he reads and he picks up things, and they become

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his guides, and he learns from them as well as enjoys them. That is the way writing used to be before all these creative writing workshops and MFA sprung up after World War II, in fact, a good deal of years after World War II. So we are hearing an

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original tonight really talking about his life. Okay, we've got to you as far as Cabrillo, what happens to you after that? Michael Catalano: Well, after Cabrillo, in the middle of my session, I got drafted.

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Morton Marcus: Right, but I mean, after the draft. Michael Catalano: After the draft, I had to make a living. I Okay, so you went to Alabama, how long did you stay there? moved to- I was in Santa Cruz, eventually moved to Salinas for

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several years, raised a family, and had to put, you know, the writing aspect on the shelf. I would write different novellas but never really got them published. I would write every day. And then it'd get to the point in the mid 80s where, you

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know, I went through a kind of a painful divorce and my ex took my daughters and my son to Alabama. And for me to watch them grow up, I'd have to move there or they'd have to see me maybe once or twice a year. So I decided to leave the paradise of

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Twelve years until my daughters turned eighteen. California and go to the land of the rednecks, and found it was very- culture shock the ve y moment I got ther Morton Marcus: Okay, how did you make a living when you were

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there? Michael Catalano: Well, in the beginning it was tough because in Alabama, they have a kind of a code where it's who you know. And you know, as time went on, my daughters would get accepted,

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but I never did because I was never a son of the South. And I worked at Walmart for twelve years, and during that time I was beginning to look at the world at large. I'm in a really a red state, and here I'm more of a moderate. And it seems like

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our cultures would clash with everything I wanted to do. I was in a town that was so ultra conservative they never allowed a rock concert or a blues concert. It was either tractor pulls or country, and you'd have to go to Atlanta or Mobile to be

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able to enjoy the arts. Morton Marcus: And you weren't- it wasn't a town actually you were in, it was a city, and what was the name of it? Michael Catalano: Well, it's Montgomery, Alabama. The

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capital's never called a city, tt's always called a big town. Morton Marcus: Oh, it is? Michael Catalano: But Birmingham is considered the big city. Montgomery is more like a big town, it's just sprawled out for

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like ten, twelve miles every which way. And I want to say this: there were some good things that happened when I was down there. I was able to befriend a poet whose writing and mine, even though it was different in the beginning, over

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the course of about seven years we would constantly read our work to each other. And he had more of the music, I had probably more of the disturbing images, till eventually we found a kind of a medium between ourselves. We kind of clashed,

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we'd come together but after a while, I loved his language and I was able to- the books that I had read and just the things that I had seen, I was slowly becoming to find my own voice, and his name was Willie James King. And I think he's probably

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the most obscure poet in Alabama. I just have one little story here. I was meeting one time with the, "best and the brightest of Montgomery." And they're trying to decide who should be the next poet laureate and they said, well, maybe Helen

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Norris. Well, she was an elderly white woman who never wrote a poem in her life. And I suggested "What about Willie King?" And it got real quiet. "Well, he's aloof." Well, the truth is, well, he was black. And even though their attitudes

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in the South, you know, supposedly have changed through Civil Rights, in the twelve years I lived there I'll say this: that they've changed with their heads and not with their hearts. Basically just banished Willie and just said we want

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nothing to do with him, and yet, in terms of all the poets that I've read from Alabama, he's by far I think, a runaway, the best one they've ever had. And they had one poor white fella named Rodney, I think was Rodney Jones, who eventually taught in

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Illinois. He basically left the South, and even Youssef who was in Louisiana, found his residency in Princeton, where the South, you know, they want to embrace their writers, but they don't know how. They don't seem to have a clue of the fact

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that these are their native sons just clamoring for their voice to be heard there. And then their voice gets heard nationally and not locally. Morton Marcus: Let's hear you, you've got some poems and you've

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got a book by Willie James King. Michael Catalano: It's Willie James King, it is called, "Wooden Windows," long out of print. And whenever I get into a kind of a dry mode and I want to get into something, shall we

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say, spiritual, I want to read something of the country because he's really one who grew up in the nature of Alabama but he was also a son of- he was also black and he wrote a poem called, "Retracing My Family Tree," which is very disturbing.

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Some say that the sycamore tree still stands today since then in nineteen hundred and nine when the noose clung close about his throat, which broke his breathing and his last will to live before the crowd dispersed saying he had gotten all he

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deserved because he was a colored man, turned worrisome, brazen. And the record notes that all he ever wanted that bad winter was for- little wheat for flour to feed his hungry family who had planted and who had plucked it from the field.

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And there's one other one I would like to read here too. It's called- it's probably my favorite poem from Willie. I GOT A GLIMPSE OF GOD It was when I was alone in the woods, that I wasn't lonely. I

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knew where I was. Sepia and black blotches interchangeably dressed the ground, and squirrels scampered away as my clumsy shoes sent dry grasses singing in intermittently snap sticks. I have seen sleeping owls with their heads- while

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their heads were hunched, deep in the snugness of their shoulders, heard bluejays' startled squalls. I have held snakes free from slither by the help of forked limbs to rub upon their rough skin to gain a closer look at them. I have sat

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where thumb-sized snails slow-crawled in the damp thickness of their cherished chapels. I swung on poisonous vines and took wild grapes to make wine. I tested soil where hardly another human had ever trod. I saw deer drink from the

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creek's crumpled stream, and it tasted the same knowing full well my human heart might be many things but, it will never be tamed. And I even talked to Willie before tonight, he's trying to

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record this from way back in Alabama. Morton Marcus: Oh, great. Michael Catalano: And he really wants to hear the show. He said that they're just still dying for some kind of poetry outreach

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even there in Montgomery. Morton Marcus: Well, okay, so they're dying for a poetry outreach. It's now the twelve years you're living there, and then you make some very big decisions while you're there.

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And what was that? Michael Catalano: Well, back in the days of -- I know I'm not allowed any four letter words -- but in the reign of King George the First, known as George Bush, it was the time of the invasion

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of Kuwait and, you know, the Gulf War and I read when 91% of the people were in favor of it. And they never asked about the other 9% and knowing my- rekindling my anti-war roots, you know, I made a decision I want to start my own poetry

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journal as a sign of protest because there were no protesters left. So, in '94, I started Melting Trees Review. And my two daughters, who were fifteen and thirteen, were my associate editors. And I let them do the rejection slips because when I

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first started, people thought I was too harsh on them. So I let my older daughter do it because it was like having the dogs have their ears scratched whenev r she'd do it, they'd always co e back for mor

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Morton Marcus: Why the name Melting Trees? Michael Catalano: There was a- in Northern California, there was a Hoopa Indian legend about the land of the melting trees. And I had a chance to visit them in the Trinity and Humboldt

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areas. And it was like a small rain forest on the side of a mountain that almost had never been touched by human foot. And it was the land- it was supposed to be the kind of a magical land and it was one of the first poems I wrote back in about '94.

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It was called, "The Land of the Melting Trees." Morton Marcus: Could you read it to us? Michael Catalano: Highway 36 has been reduced to a goat's path. Inside roads are greased pig slush monsters, awaiting the

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growls of logging trucks and the howls of chainsaws. Snow broiled metropolitan redwoods embrace markers and footsteps. There is rainfall inside the trees, why are they crying? The legacy is gone, bulldozed by greed, uprooted like cavaties. Hoopa

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fathers wept alongside them before being herded onto reservations, where their footsteps melted into civilization. When I visited that area, you know, years later, that whole

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rainforest had been leveled by the loggers, so I had a chance to see it when it was there and then when it was gone. So I figured that well, I'm going to start a journal, let's just call it Melting Trees Review and try to preserve something, whether

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it be poetry or nature or something, and that we can have a voice, you know, because back then, during the days of the Gulf War, there was no voice. Morton Marcus: Great. So tell us about those years, or read us

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what you're gonna read us. Michael Catalano: Well, when I was- when I was doing Melting Trees, again, I considered myself politically to be more of a moderate, but in Alabama with the ultra conservatives I was

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known as a left wing radical. And you know, and I noticed that when I had Melting Trees come out, it became a cultural phenomenon with the kids there. There was one lady named Lisa who- she was the representative for the Grateful Dead, she had

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her own shop, and and she was one of the few that would let me keep my journal there for, you know, our magazine for all thirteen issues in the four years that we had, and I found out that the city fathers were against it because it really

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would sometimes be critical of the local politics. And I felt this is great, and the more that I figured that the more feathers I ruffled, the more left I became, although I still wanted to kind of stay in the middle but necessity did not allow

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that. And I noticed that when I was an editor, I always wanted to- you know, I had one rule: when someone sent me their work, it didn't matter if I agreed with their stance politically or whatnot, I just wanted to know, is there music in their poetry?

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Is there a message? Or is it just trying to get published, and usually the poems- the people loved the outlook, so I kept it going. I was just trying- we were just trying to survive issue to issue. Because when you have your own poetry

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magazine, it's all about one word: you're just trying to survive. But if you can get the word out, then people will buy it, and we sold out just about every issue we had. And I was- Morton Marcus: How many copies of each issue did you do?

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Michael Catalano: I started the first one, I believe, it was only fifty. And by the time the thirteenth came out, we had close to a thousand. Morton Marcus: That's great.

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Michael Catalano: And it grew, and we let the magazine evolve. I didn't try to pigeonhole and say well, it's got to do this and this, I decided whether I agree with certain people's stances or not, we would publish people far right, far left,

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communist, everyone, but as long as they had a voice and something to say, and with the imagery and the life of the poet, and the poem that just resonated, then we would give them their voice. And I believed in the third issue, we published

00:23:08.790 - 00:23:24.690

Mort Marcus in there too, which, and I'd like to bring out something on that. At the time, I was part of All Things Spoken, it was kind of a semi-poetry slam, semi-poetry reading venue. And well, I have- you know, poetry slams have its place, I

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still like just the essence, sometimes, of poetry. And I told Mort I was going to publish one of his poems, and you told me at the time that it had been in the bottom of your notebook for a long time.

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Morton Marcus: Well, what happened, which you may not remember, as you came into town, and I want to talk about your traveling around and how, you know, you go and meet people and interview them. But you would come into town and you said, you

00:23:48.190 - 00:24:02.470

know, do you have any poems, and almost all my stuff was out at that time. And so I came with a sheaf of poems, we had lunch together, and I said, you know, we can look through this. Well, one of them, in fact, a number of them I was going to throw

00:24:02.470 - 00:24:19.420

away, and this was one of them. And you saw this poem and the only reason this poem, I think, exists now is because of Mike Catalano. And it is certainly one of the favorite poems of mine and the most anthologized, one of the most anthologized.

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Michael Catalano: Well, the thing about this poem, and I did a reading at a place called, "All Things Spoken," it got really quiet afterwards. And I said, what's wrong? He says, "He really collected sneezes?" The poem was called, "My Father's

00:24:30.400 - 00:24:41.380

Hobby," and I said, "Well, what do you think?" He says, "Well, I want a copy of that so I can prepare and see how he did it." So this was a poem called: MY FATHER'S HOBBY by Mort Marcus

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My father's hobby, don't laugh, was collecting sneezes. No stamps or coins for him, just stuff of life, he said, of life. My mother and brothers shook their heads, his friends smirked, but he hurt no one, was an honest electrician, and

00:24:56.300 - 00:25:12.470

everyone eventually shrugged it off as a harmless quirk. As his closest friend, Manny Boric told my mom, "It could be worse." Dad would mount the sneezes on glass slides he carried in his pockets everywhere he went. Some sneezes resembled flower petals, others

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seafoam, amoebas, insect wings, still others fan-shaped, fingerless, [unidentified] hands, splatters of raindrops or empty cocoons. Next, he stained the specimens magenta, turquoise, egg-yolk-yellow, and placed them in the glass cases

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that stood in all the rooms. Late at night when the family slept, he arranged handfuls on the slides on the light table in his study, and switching off the lamp, he would peer down at them and smile. One night, a small boy with bad dreams, I crept

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terrified through the darkened house to the study. He was bent over his collection, his face surrounded by darkness, glowing in the table's light as his lips murmured something again and again. I slid my small hand into his and listened, he was rocking

00:26:01.250 - 00:26:13.080

back and forth bowing to the slides, "God bless you," he was saying, "God bless you." And I remember this one lady, a week or two later said, you know, "I got the slides, I stained them and everything

00:26:13.080 - 00:26:22.890

else. It came out, but maybe not the way that it should. You might ask him if there's another technique." And I remember telling you that you said that the poem worked because they bought it.

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They bought it. They bought it as though it were a reflection of the real world, yeah. When after I heard that, I thought, this is the ultimate zaniness to be able to create something that people would

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believe was real. And I thought about that. I thought, well, what's the craziest thing, and I said, well, there's a poem I've had buried for years as well that'll never get published. And I don't even know if it's a poem, but it- and then I sent it

00:26:45.810 - 00:27:01.710

out kind of as a joke to Porcupine Literary Arts Magazine, and they published it, and I think, you've got to be kidding, it was, "Bank Poet," and I'd like to read that. First Alabama's Bank- First Alabama Bank- let me get my Bs here a

00:27:01.710 - 00:27:14.680

little bit. FIRST ALABAMA'S BANK Jobs fair brought them in, around and under the sun hundreds of wannabes wait, and wait, and wait, and I, with

00:27:14.680 - 00:27:30.280

quixotic lunacy and poker face serenity, I apply for that bank poet position. Bank poet? We don't need a bank poet. You do now. Who needs a program analyst anyway? Who keeps your CEO capitalist in check? Who brings sesquipedalian subterfuge with

00:27:30.280 - 00:27:45.430

sophomoric persiflage? Workshops, I'll bring cultured chaos with mismatched metaphors. Seminars? I'll shot electrifying imagery with terrifying tyranny for ninety-nine grand a year. Got a scrape escape, Clinton Rodham"s tax bracket. I would

00:27:45.430 - 00:28:01.930

buy, reluctantly of course, a maroon Mercedes, keeping up with a banker's profile, tour every facility with all expenses paid, and with the [unidentified], aurate and gyrate to the applause of the air-headed multitude, that's what I do.

00:28:01.930 - 00:28:14.500

Yes, sir, yes and... hmmm. The proverbial frowns from the soulless Medusas needed no interpretation. I was shown the door and none too gently. Guess I wait for the next job fair at another bank.

00:28:15.760 - 00:28:31.930

Morton Marcus: We are talking with Mike Catalano who's just read a poem of his, we're talking about his peregrinations around America, his discovery of poets and poetry, and of course his own poetry. We will be back after a short musical break and

00:28:33.040 - 00:29:47.660

we will talk to you then. And this is the Poetry Show as Mort Marcus and we are talking with Mike Catalano. But before we do that, we've got several announcements. First of all stay tuned after the Poetry Show at

00:29:47.660 - 00:30:03.710

nine o'clock for Gary Shapiro and "From the Bookshelf," and we will surprise you with what the programmer will have for you when he comes in. Also the board of directors of KUSP and the Pataphysical Broadcasting Foundation meets monthly, and

00:30:03.710 - 00:30:22.220

the public is invited to attend. This month, the board meets Monday evening, May 22nd, that's tomorrow night, beginning at 6pm at the KUSP Studios at 203 Eighth Avenue in Santa Cruz. Let me repeat that. The next meeting of the board to which everyone

00:30:22.220 - 00:30:48.080

is invited is tomorrow night at 6pm at the KUSP Studios, which is at 203 Eighth Avenue in Santa Cruz. Call the station during business hours for more information. Our numbers are: 476-2800, that's 476-2800 or 800-655-5877. That is

00:30:48.110 - 00:31:05.420

800-655-5877. We're talking to Mike Catalano, as I said, and we are off, sort of, on his adventures. We've talked about his discovery of poetry and we left him in Montgomery, Alabama, which is a

00:31:05.420 - 00:31:19.940

place I don't think he likes to be left. But we've been hearing about poets he has discovered down there. And finally we are into his founding and editing the Melting Trees Review. Michael?

00:31:20.770 - 00:31:35.320

Michael Catalano: Well, we had- Melting Trees ran from 1995 to 1998. And like most poetry journals, it was on a shoestring. I had subscribers, but I didn't really push for it. I felt if the journal was good enough, the people would

00:31:35.320 - 00:31:49.210

subscribe to it. And I was just shocked at how Montgomery, which I really felt was a lost cause for anything really literary, especially for the young people, just picked it up and it's how they supported my daughter and I. While I was down there in

00:31:49.210 - 00:32:03.430

Montgomery, we had a situation where Yevgeny Yevtushenko, the Russian poet, came visiting and I remember it took a battle just to get him there because the city fathers were so, so conservative and since it wasn't a tractor pull or country music.

00:32:04.690 - 00:32:15.430

They finally relented and let us do it, it was outside in the Shakespeare Festival. Morton Marcus: Now, Michael, let me ask you something: did they not want Yevtushenko there also because he had once been a

00:32:15.430 - 00:32:22.900

Soviet poet? Michael Catalano: Yes. Morton Marcus: Which now this is very interesting because you're talking about, what, around 1995-97?

00:32:22.000 - 00:32:29.050

Michael Catalano: I think it was about- I think it was about '97. Morton Marcus: Yeah, which is six years after the Soviet Union is collapsed. Michael Catalano: Correct.

00:32:29.740 - 00:32:36.780

Morton Marcus: Okay, go ahead. Michael Catalano: One thing about the South, you got to remember they have long memories, and it's not just the Confederate Flag which they still fly in certain parts of

00:32:36.780 - 00:32:51.270

the estate and also in the South, but anything new was usually regarded with suspicion. But when Yevtushenko came, I was told by some, "Well, he only knows Russian, maybe his English isn't so good." And boy, was I wrong. There were two hundred

00:32:51.270 - 00:33:07.050

fifty people there and his English was great. He was- had a charisma I'd never seen and he did a reading of a poem, one of my favorite musicians, Louis Armstrong. Louis Armstrong, the great Satchmo. And here I'm thinking, here's a fellow from

00:33:07.080 - 00:33:19.260

Soviet Union and he seems to know more about this- he got into the heart and spirit of this great jazz musician more than even some of our writers could, and I'd like to share that. This is called:

00:33:19.290 - 00:33:33.900

SATCHMO by Yevgeny Yevtushenko Great Satchmo plays, all bathed in sweat, a salty Niagara pours from his brow, but when the trumpet rises to the clouds, it growls, it roars. He played to the whole world the way he

00:33:33.900 - 00:33:49.350

loved. He is stolen from us now by the grave but even before his birth, he was stolen from his sweet Africa. In secret revenge for the chains of his ancestors, he enslaves us all like helpless babes. The whites of his great eyes flicker in sorrow as he

00:33:49.350 - 00:34:04.140

howls and horns about the globe. This kid from an orphanage in the town of New Orleans, great Satchmo plays all bathed in sweat, his nostrils smoke like two black muzzles and teeth dazzle in his mouth like thirty white projectors. And the

00:34:04.140 - 00:34:18.510

sparkling sweat pours off as if a beautiful mighty hippo has risen, snorting from an African river, stamping on fan notes with his heel and wiping the downpour from his brow. He throws handkerchief after handkerchief into the piano's

00:34:18.540 - 00:34:35.520

open womb. Again back to the microphone he goes, pressing the stage till it cracks. Each wet handkerchief is as heavy as the crown of art. Art is very far from the lady whose name is pose and when it labors, it's not ashamed to sweat. Art is not the

00:34:35.520 - 00:34:50.760

charm of prattlers but full of movement of heavy things, the tragic labor of a trumpet player whose music is tatters of lung. Though art is bartered and sold, that's not what it's all about. The poet and the great jazz men are like brothers in the rasping

00:34:50.760 - 00:35:07.830

delivery. Great Satchmo, will you make it to heaven? Who knows! But if you do, play! Let the good times roll once more, shake up that boring state of little angels, but so there'll be no remorse in hell, so death will cheer sinners up. Archangel

00:35:07.830 - 00:35:27.320

Gabriel, pass your horn to the better player, to Louis. Morton Marcus: Great, and that is a perfect segue for me to announce that in three weeks here on KUSP on June the 11th, my guests will be the Russian poet, Yevgeni Slivkin and his

00:35:27.320 - 00:35:47.240

wife Kirsten Rutsala, who will talk about Yevgeni's poetry and the current Russian poetry scene in general. So, put that on your list, it's a very, very rare show and I look forward to it. Okay, so Yevtushenko visited and it seems you know as though you

00:35:47.240 - 00:36:02.580

are on almost, not a quest, but certainly a journey of bringing some kind of culture to Montgomery, for as much your sanity it seems as everyone else's. Michael Catalano: Well, again, growing up in California, and

00:36:02.580 - 00:36:17.790

then in Atlanta, everything was fried, you know. And I tried to make the best of it where, you know, the beaches were far away and it's not just the cultures and everything else. Although, when I first came to Alabama, I expected lynchings on the street

00:36:17.790 - 00:36:30.480

corner and whites-only restaurants and restrooms, and I didn't see that. But in the twelve years I was there, I can honestly say that the people have changed with their heads, not with their hearts. And to get changed, a lot of times they

00:36:30.480 - 00:36:43.500

say it's ten or twenty years behind the times, I think was more like thirty, they're still in the 50s. And even like, when- I remember when Rosa Parks came visiting at a Shoney's, which is like the Denny's out here, and I remember the route, they

00:36:43.500 - 00:36:57.090

blacktopped the parking lot and they put flowers in a nice setting inside, and this is the same town that wouldn't even let her get in the back of the bus in '54, and now it's like it was their attempt to try and to show the world, "See we've changed."

00:36:57.870 - 00:37:12.360

But you know, maybe they have, but, you know, I don't know. I just didn't see it in all the years I was there. Morton Marcus: More about the poetry and some poets that you discovered and published.

00:37:13.650 - 00:37:28.320

Michael Catalano: Well, I remember publishing in- Melting Trees was unique for that. Granted, there were some big name poets like John Gray, and then Lyn Lifshin, who I think you know quite well and I had a chance to meet. And I really

00:37:28.320 - 00:37:41.070

misconstrued Lyn; I thought she just sent her work to any place and get anything published and she sent me this sweet poem. I don't have it here so I can't read it, but it was one of the best poems that I remember nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

00:37:41.100 - 00:37:50.820

And I thought, I wrote back to Lyn, I said, "Lyn, if you write less, you'd probably write better because your stuff is there when you take the time." This grabbed my heart like nothing I've ever seen.

00:37:50.880 - 00:38:00.000

Morton Marcus: Did she ever write to you again? Michael Catalano: She thanked me for it. I told her how I knew you and she, you know, she got that issue and if you're interviewing, she said she really enjoyed it. But she can

00:38:00.000 - 00:38:11.790

write and there's a lot of others too. And I was always worried about getting the second tier material from some of these big name writers. And sometimes I would just reject them just to show them, look, I know you can write better. I've seen better,

00:38:11.790 - 00:38:22.650

just because I'm a small journal compared to the some of the university presses, give me your better stuff. Morton Marcus: Well, certainly more editor should do that because sometimes just, you know, big name writers just do

00:38:22.650 - 00:38:34.690

send in bad stuff and they get accepted so that the name can be on the masthead as far as the editor is concerned. Michael Catalano: I remember one thing that Annie Leonard- Annie Dillard once wrote, she said, "I slaved away for years sending my

00:38:34.690 - 00:38:47.350

stuff to all the big magazines. And now, the same magazines are writing to me begging for poetry, and I swallow my pride and send them what I have, which is new inferior stuff,\ and they take it because then because of my name, but my name was the

00:38:47.350 - 00:39:03.010

same two years ago, and the poems were better." Morton Marcus: Yeah, it's true. Anyway, you started to do some interviews in Melting Trees, what number was that, around three or four that you started doing interviews?

00:39:03.000 - 00:39:12.150

Michael Catalano: I did that in the very- I did that in the second issue, I did one of the people- the person who did the "All Things Spoken" in Montgomery. Because he was originally from Spokane and I felt I can get a good

00:39:10.980 - 00:39:24.420

And let's talk about that, go on. perception. And then I did Tom Meschery, who- Tom Meschery was one of my favorite ballplayers when he was with the Warriors. He was not known as being a nice player

00:39:24.420 - 00:39:35.790

when he played, he played roughhouse, which I liked. And then I read in Sports Illustrated that he was teaching creative writing in Reno High School. And I thought, wow, I'm going to be going visiting my sister that winter and then I

00:39:35.790 - 00:39:51.720

called, managed to find out from Reno High how to get a hold of him and he granted an interview. So I drove, I flew up to Santa Cruz, drove to Truckee, just outside of Lake Tahoe, and he gave a really good interview. And he was really the first name

00:39:51.720 - 00:40:05.790

I had, but I wanted to know what he was doing now after, you know, playing ball. Learning how to write he had- Mark Strand was one of his poetry teachers; and the fact that I thought, you know, I can incorporate this into the journal and get not

00:40:05.790 - 00:40:16.800

just, you know, getting this normal stuff and try to get them to open up to them -- what they liked about certain poets, what they didn't like, and what they didn't like about the industry -- so that I can get a little bit assessment of just something

00:40:16.800 - 00:40:29.260

more than the common, you know, genre. And then I did, like you said, [unidentified] next. I've had some- Morton Marcus: But, you know, there's a connection in this story. Tom -- and say more about that -- Tom Meschery, out there,

00:40:29.260 - 00:40:45.040

for you people who don't know him, he is one of the great athletes from San Francisco and you will find wherever there is a group of plaques celebrating the great San Francisco athletes, one of them is Tom Meschery. He played ten years

00:40:45.040 - 00:41:00.040

for a string for the Golden State Warriors. And he even published a book of poems while he was in the NBA, but he disowns that, and anytime he gets his hands on them, he destroys them. And after that, he became a very, very serious

00:41:00.370 - 00:41:20.290

writer of poetry. And he also coached for various NBA teams and also went to Africa and developed some African national teams. An amazing guy, but if Michael Catalano discovered my father's hobby, he reunited me with Tom Meschery, because Tom

00:41:20.290 - 00:41:37.480

and I had known each other in the 70s and really hit it off and then just lost contact with each other. And when this interview came out in Melting Trees, we got together again and the rest as they say is history. He was one of my best friends,

00:41:37.480 - 00:41:49.390

so thank you for that, Michael. Michael Catalano: No problem. Morton Marcus: And I love the way you just will travel around and just get into things, get into the Hoopa Melting Tree

00:41:49.390 - 00:42:08.230

situation, go there and see them, go to Tom Meschery, go and see me, and nothing can stop you and your way is not- it's not crass in any way, it's very soft spoken, it's full of interest, and it's always welcomed and I'm sure you found that.

00:42:08.260 - 00:42:21.010

Michael Catalano: Well, thanks. When I, you know- I always believed, and I read somewhere when I was growing up that travel is the best education. What you see with your eyes you remember far better than even the written word. And to see, to

00:42:21.010 - 00:42:35.090

be a little bit metaphoric, to see the poet in their natural habitat, to me, is kind of rewarding too. Morton Marcus: Let us go on. Other things that happened down there, other poets who you got turned on to while you were down

00:42:35.090 - 00:42:47.720

in the South. And I want to- really lets-, we really have got to get into your poems also, time's going. Michael Catalano: Okay, and one of the poets I liked in his early work, before he won the Pulitzer Prize, was Yusef

00:42:47.720 - 00:42:54.910

Komunyakaa. Morton Marcus: Terrific poet. Michael Catalano: And, you know, before he fell in love with the quadrant(?), which I think destroyed his voice. He wrote

00:42:54.910 - 00:43:08.920

one from his Vietnam poems called, "Dien Cai Dau." And he wrote a piece that I thought was just, I thought why can't you write like this today? And not try to be harsh to Yusef, it's more like a prayer: Yusef, please go back to the power of

00:43:08.920 - 00:43:21.060

the written word. Tunnels, crawling down headfirst into the hole he kicks the air and disappears. I feel like I'm down there with him, moving ahead, pushed by a river of darkness, feeling blessed for

00:43:21.060 - 00:43:35.010

each inch of the unknown. Our tunnel rat is the smallest man in the platoon in an echo chamber that makes his ears bleed when he pulls the trigger. He moves as if trying to outdo blind fish easing toward the imagined blue pulled by

00:43:35.010 - 00:43:48.480

something greater than life's ambitions. He can't think about spiders and scorpions mending the air, or care about bats upside down like gods in the mole's blackness. The damp smell goes deeper than the stench of honey buckets. A web of booby

00:43:48.480 - 00:44:04.110

trap waits, ready to spring into broken stars. Forced onward by some need, some urge, he knows the pulse of mysteries and diversions like thoughts trapped in the ground. He questions each root. Every cornered shadow has a life to bargain with Like an

00:44:04.110 - 00:44:18.480

angel pushed up against what hurts, his globe-shaped helmet follows the gold ring his flashlight cast into the void. Through silver lice, maggots and vapor of pestilence he goes, the good soldier, on hands and knees, tunneling past death

00:44:18.630 - 00:44:34.260

stacked into a blind corner, loving the weight of the shotgun that will someday dig his grave. Morton Marcus: So, what happens is then Melted Trees- well, how does it end?

00:44:34.540 - 00:44:47.650

Michael Catalano: Well, I felt that ran its course. After the thirteenth issue, I interviewed four black ladies that I had published, and I thought it was the best interview I could have had and got their comments on some really controversial

00:44:47.650 - 00:44:58.180

subjects. And afterwards, I said, I can't top this. And after the twelfth, my daughters were moving in a different direction called, "Boys and Makeup," and makeup and boys being in high school. I basically did the thirteenth

00:44:58.180 - 00:45:07.630

issue all by myself and it was totally draining, I just couldn't keep up anymore. And I felt like it had run its course for four years. Morton Marcus: How many submissions were you getting by

00:45:07.630 - 00:45:17.410

the, you know, next to the last year or so? Michael Catalano: I averaged about twenty-five hundred submissions a year. Morton Marcus: Yeah, it really is a draining thing. So, your

00:45:17.410 - 00:45:27.090

daughters grow, they graduate from high school, and then what do you do? Michael Catalano: Well, I decided, do I want to stay in Alabama the rest of my life now that they're grown and fixing --

00:45:27.120 - 00:45:40.470

excuse the Southern word -- and fixing to be gone, and I said, uh uh. I went home, went back to Santa Cruz, but I wanted to get- I worked at Walmart for twelve years and they gave me a settlement of $34,000 which I said: You know what, one of the

00:45:40.470 - 00:45:55.560

things I've always wanted to do is I wanted to go to as many Native American tribes and reservations and talk to the wise men and women, the brujos, the brujas, the shamans and try to learn something, get some lore from them, to sit at their

00:45:55.560 - 00:46:09.540

feet and that was one of the goals I had. And now, I didn't have a job but I had money and I had time and I had opportunity, so I decided to take advantage of it. Morton Marcus: Okay, great. And this would wind up being a book,

00:46:09.540 - 00:46:17.610

actually? Michael Catalano: It would be the one poetry book I had published, it's called, "Silent Thunder." And I was able to go to about fifty-five different tribes in a two year period, all

00:46:17.610 - 00:46:31.020

through North America. And, you know, at first in a lot of these communities, a lot of times the Native Americans and the wise people didn't want to share with me because they wanted to give it to the young people. I understand that. But a lot of

00:46:31.020 - 00:46:44.700

the young people were only interested in getting drunk and they were unemployed and they were really in a lot of despair. And sometimes, being old like they were, they were kind of pushed out of the normal society realm. And sometimes they were

00:46:44.700 - 00:46:59.670

just more than happy to share some of their thoughts and ideas with me. And I had my work published in a lot of journals and I'd love to share a few with you. Morton Marcus: Yeah, absolutely. In fact, for the rest of the

00:46:59.670 - 00:47:09.540

program, why don't you read some of these poems? I think we started way too late getting into your stuff. Michael Catalano: That's okay. This was: LANI LITTLE RIVER, it was from the Athabaskan tribe in Alaska.

00:47:10.350 - 00:47:25.440

He could fish before he walked. He was more tuned to the speech of sockeye salmon than any man, it surprisedd no Athabaskan that his fish were hooked before bait spanked the white waters. When he became one with the water without ripple or bubble, he

00:47:25.440 - 00:47:41.310

petrified himself like a totem, his spirit the most unruly coho. But the legend of Lani Little River long after his death came when he snagged fish with one hand. Some say he trained his hand hours a day playing a game akin to Jack's. Some say he

00:47:41.310 - 00:47:55.350

plucked a bee from a grizzly's paw, becoming a bear with all its instincts. I say he kissed the land, the water and all therein, never wasting his spirit, long-drained by settlers, so the river rewarded him as one of their own with

00:47:55.350 - 00:48:12.140

more than Houdini's hands, with a love none dare equal. Morton Marcus: So each of these is actually- it's not to specific people, but it is- it's actually from different tribes? Michael Catalano: Correct. Yeah and I spent a lot of time in

00:48:12.140 - 00:48:27.110

Arizona, which has probably the most tribes, and in 90- no, 2001, I got published by Left Curve Magazine in Oakland, and they wanted to publish six of my Native American poems. And the last poetry reading I ever did was there at City Light Books,

00:48:27.140 - 00:48:39.770

five years almost to the day. And it was kind of an unnerving feeling because I've been, most of the time, been wrapped in shadows and I love being behind the scenes, but all of a sudden, there's two hundred and fifty people, the best and brightest.

00:48:40.220 - 00:48:55.160

And it was, you know, after being in areas in the desert where there's nobody there for miles, square miles at a time, to have two hundred and fifty people listen to your words, well, it's different. Now, one of the poems I enjoyed was in

00:48:55.160 - 00:49:07.200

the Kaibab tribe near Wolf Hole Mountain in Arizona. It was called: THE SENTENCE, and this was in Left Curve Magazine. I'm not sure if it was embezzlement or insider trading

00:49:07.200 - 00:49:23.340

that forced the Kaibab man to flee Wall Street. He had the SEC and a dozen other government agencies tearing the Big Apple apart email by email. Later on in Arizona it surprised him that his wealth and three-piece suits had no sway with the tribal

00:49:23.370 - 00:49:39.540

elders for positions of power. And in the end, they induced an unusual sentence on him, six months meditation in the desert. At first, he could not sit still long enough to count to ten, his mind was aflame with write-offs and laundering schemes. He could

00:49:39.540 - 00:49:55.110

not abide among rocks or see the sagebrush as anything but weeds. He screamed loud and long in the land not conducive to lucre, but he recalled the songs his mother had nurtured him in the papoose, long before the love of money and split-level homes seduced

00:49:55.110 - 00:50:08.820

him. He counted the birds of carrion every morning till he knew their goings-on and comings-in. He scaled those treacherous rocks till he savored the swirling sunsets much like his father's fathers before him, and when he was

00:50:08.820 - 00:50:22.440

evaluated after six months, he refused his freedom, embracing his exile, and with it all lifelines from the white man's world. And then there's more of a local one here of the Ohlone tribe,

00:50:22.440 - 00:50:33.740

this girl here, this is called: EVICTED, it was in the Capitola area. She was evicted with her dignity intact. There wasn't the slightest scent of oils or pastels in her beachfront

00:50:33.740 - 00:50:47.480

apartment, nor were there colonnades of easels that could irk the most conservative landlord. It must have been those sand sculptures she built on the edge of shore with force(?) of flies swarming on seaweed strands, and though she

00:50:47.480 - 00:51:01.820

preferred sandy solitude to tourists, she embraced them around her roped off reservation. Perhaps her landlord resented plastic pails akin to Jack and Jill, or maybe her black, braided Ohlone hair hanging around her ankles

00:51:01.820 - 00:51:17.420

rankled them once too often. I think her works were a tribute to her tribe, washed away by unwanted warriors to a symphony of sifted silence. And like I said, you know, when I was on the road, I mean, most

00:51:17.420 - 00:51:30.470

times I would just sit, and then maybe at a time later, it wouldn't even be that day that I would just write thoughts down what happened, and then I didn't really start writing these until the journey was over. And I just wanted to get kind of a feel

00:51:30.500 - 00:51:42.170

while I was there, rather than try to spoil it by trying to capture it right then and there, but just let, you know, time, you know, add on to it. And- Morton Marcus: Well, let's hea some more certainly

00:51:42.150 - 00:51:56.070

Michael Catalano: Okay. This one here never got published and I've always liked it. Maybe it needs more work, but I've always liked this in the northern Minnesota area. This was: A CHIEF UNCROWNED FROM THE CHIPPEWA

00:51:56.750 - 00:52:10.820

He had trawled those weary waters so long that he knew the name of every cricket, beetle, and bug that greeted him. Like Moses, there was nothing feeble about his physique, the way he rode that dilapidated dory downstream. His wife had died

00:52:10.820 - 00:52:25.640

some six or seven years before, his only child was an attorney in Minneapolis, St. Paul. I half expected the mighty Mississippi to rival the one in Vicksburg, with a broad bridgespan breath. But in northern Minnesota it was barely a stream, yet it was

00:52:25.640 - 00:52:41.240

river enough for a Chippewa like Allen whose fingers were pockmarked by punctures from those worm web barbs. He sniffed at sagas of ghosts and goblins, preferring the gnashing of a muskellunge to some bogus bigfoot. He culled contentment

00:52:41.450 - 00:52:59.870

from tropics tundra, even with a [unidentified] of mosquitoes crowning his silver unbalding head. And then I was up this one area in West Virginia, and this fellow was kind of a recluse, and he was half Shenandoah. And

00:52:59.870 - 00:53:14.210

one thing I want to comment, on the road there weren't- a lot of people weren't full-blooded Native American, even those on the reservation, because they still have situations where they decide who's full-blooded and who isn't. This fella was more

00:53:14.480 - 00:53:27.690

half-blooded than Shenandoah. He attributed his longevity to a partially herculean frame, not to the abstinence of spirits, what were those flasks of corn liquor cozied up at arm's length, nor tobacco, nor any

00:53:27.690 - 00:53:42.030

semblance of nutrition as prescribed by white-collar dietitians, but rather he savored those [unidentified] showers at day's break at some overhanging waterfall on his West Virginia grotto. The showers he argued invigorated

00:53:42.030 - 00:53:56.280

the arteries more than an armory of medication well into a second hundred years. It didn't take a census taker to explain that the whole white world was inching up like unsquashed snails with their winter chalets and subdivisions. If his carefully

00:53:56.280 - 00:54:09.720

concealed spring was indeed the fountain of youth, he was helpless as any swaddled child, safe for that spotless shotgun of his to ward off geriatrics in general, desperate for a few morsels of wasted breath.

00:54:10.740 - 00:54:20.090

Morton Marcus: Great. Michael Catalano: And since time is kind of running short here, there's a couple of poems I also wrote that weren't Native American, if I'd like to do one.This has always been one of

00:54:20.090 - 00:54:32.960

my all time favorite poems, and I'm hoping this gentleman contacted Shoa because he was in one of the camps during World War II, one of the concentration camps. Every morning, so the legend goes, George Rabinowitz

00:54:32.960 - 00:54:48.620

serenaded the sunrise. He was not particularly prepossessing, squat stolid, the kind kids taunted. He was more like a snow white dwarf than some wort-free wunderkind. At first, the cops cautioned curfew, than the darkness and its stalking

00:54:48.650 - 00:55:03.680

[unidentified]. His parents had perished in the camps, but he was extricated by the allies. Perhaps that made him immortal to threats, to fear, to mists manmade. No one claimed- chained his song from those fading stars. His face melted with

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crimson becoming the dawn and the heart of [unidentified]. I wanted to ask him why police and muggers shunned him, maybe it was at Auschwitz or Belson or some other sardine factory they closed the canopy of the stars to him, that he vowed to redeem

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borrowed time, bringing with him the souls less destined. Morton Marcus: Great- Michael Catalano: And then- how about time here? Morton Marcus: You've got time for maybe, according to how long

00:55:29.100 - 00:55:38.850

or short the poem is, maybe two more. Michael Catalano: Okay. The first issue of "Rooms," the journal up in Northern California, Susan Tears' journal, they published a poem that I thought would never get

00:55:38.850 - 00:55:45.570

published. It was one of those that had been buried in the bottom. I've always liked it, but I always thought it had kind of a darker voice. It was called: THE CATERPILLAR

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She said she could hear the caterpillars whisper fifty feet away, high up in the magnolia trees outside of Tupelo. She was once a sound sleeper till her daddy, a cross country trucker, grew fonder of Jack Daniels than his wife and six daughters. He

00:56:00.870 - 00:56:14.400

regarded them no more than his personal vineyard, tending and testing the grapes for their ripeness or whether or not he could slip his hands between the brambles without breaking them. She likened those midnight rage to some nearby cavern with bats

00:56:14.400 - 00:56:28.650

diving, groping and biting the edges of her petals, till in the end daybreak was the only balm to the darkness. I'm lucky she didn't lump me with her other lovers, but I reminded her that caterpillars in times, wriggle free from their vaginas, finding

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wings on the freeway without a second look back, lest they too return to crawling, one toe at a time, but a bootmark away from extinction. Morton Marcus: Great. How about one more to-

00:56:41.190 - 00:57:04.680

Michael Catalano: Okay, one more, here. Okay. There was a point where- when I was on the road I was trying to fight, you know, I had a prescription to- prescription pain medicine, you know, and I wanted to break it, you know. And I was in this one

00:57:04.680 - 00:57:13.440

place and caught in the Ute [unintelligible] I was trying to kick it and I wrote down here called: ADDICTIONS Just prescription painkillers. It doesn't matter what addiction

00:57:13.440 - 00:57:27.030

I'm trying to kick, an addict cannot embrace time and it's stranglehold of demons. I'm told Jesus is a crutch by well-meaning acquaintances, yet he has sustained me twelve days and twelve nights in a hundred degree heat miles from a living

00:57:27.030 - 00:57:39.240

soul. Anyone with closet cravings know it feels good to overcome, but beware. The night begins with the morning in the same pit bull cycle of inbred tears that feed the reservation addict's clock.

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Morton Marcus: And that was Michael Catalano, our guest tonight. Michael, thank you so much for coming in. It was great to hear your poetry, great to hear your talk, and we will do it again. This is Mort Marcus, this is the Poetry Show. I will

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be back on June the 11th with a Russian poet, Yevgeni Slivkin and his wife Kirsten Rutsala, who will talk about Yevgeny's poetry. He will read it in Russian and they will also both talk about current Russian poetry in general. Yevgeni

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Slivkin is the author of three books of poetry in Russia, in Russian, obviously. It'll be a very, very interesting evening, please put it on your calendar. Because we hear about Yevtushenko, we hear about Vyshinsky, Akhmatova, and

00:58:31.380 - 00:58:55.470

Mandelstam, we're now going to be talking about what has been going on in Russia in the last ten years or so. So until then, this is Mort Marcus and this has been the Poetry Show. [Recorded music playing]: