The Two Boots Word Vault

Today want to continuing our listen to the recordings from Poetry Speaks the 2001 collection from Soundbooks Inc. narrated by Charles Osgood. These are three of my favorite early 20th Century American poets: Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, and Robinson Jeffers. 

The first Australian Minnesota Men's Conference took place September 9 through 12 in Woodford, Australia.  Ben Dennis, Miguel Rivera, Walton Stanley and me were invited to facilitate.  After four successful and profound day with over 50 men, our guide and host, Phili Krynski, took us into the beautiful Bunya mountains where we met indigenous elders, hiked the beautiful, lush woodlands, played...

In 2001 Sourcebooks, Inc. of Naperville, Ill. released a collection of poems recorded in the celebrated poets' own voices. In this episode I include some of the earliest recordings of poetry from the 1880s by Tennyson, Browning, Whitman. and Yeats. 

On September 11, 2011, the 10th anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York, a group of men who met through the Minnesota Men's Conferences gathered in my mother-in-law's garden for a concert of acapella songs at various conferences. We have sung as the Sturgeon Lake Bottomfeeders. Many variations of the group have sung at various times and in various places, not professiona...

Josh Schmidt gave me, and the men attending the winter conference in 2024, tasty musical notes behind my poems.  This is a repeat of an earlier podcast.

Here' a clip from the conversation with poets Thomas R. Smith, dougie padilla, and storyteller and publisher, Walton Stanley, about my insistence for the physical aspect of poetry.

So many young don't practice the oral arts and cannot read poetry very well. Here is a 1958 recording of the great American poet, Carl Sandburg, reading one of his Rootabaga stories from his 1922 collection.  We can learn so much by listening to masters read or recited their work.

Since October 2020 Walton Stanley and I have met monthly on zoom with men from the Australian based Fifth Direction. We always begin and end our sessions with poetry.  Here's Walton reading some interesting poems from June 2026, April 2026, and October 2025.

In 1999 my wife Dalyce was playing her violin with a group of friends. They specialized in kirtan chants. I was working on new versions of Rumi poems at that time.  When I found this recording I knew it had to be revived.

So often we identify with a character in a story or a tale. But what if those characters are not people, but parts of our individual psyches? In the Haughty Princess tale what if we think of the princess as a representation of the ego, privileged and unwilling to commit to anyone or anything? One of the greatest tasks of a human being is to have the ego at the appropriate level of consciousness an...

On May 8, 2008 I was invited to speak to the United Christ Community in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.  With the musical accompaniment of Yata Peinovich and Dalyce Elliott, I addressed the community about a special love for the divine feminine.  The original recording, provided by the community had been overloaded with volume and inaudible. Thankfully, Greg Schuette of Bathtub Studios in Minneapolis was a...

On May 15, 2026 Dalyce Elliott Young and I performed music and poetry from our 2011 CD Perfect Harmony.  This episode is the recording of two of the evening's pieces, Ibn Hazm's Overhanging Boughs, and Ibn El-Arabi's Perfect Harmony. Brothers Jesse and Ryan Dermody provided percussion for these two pieces.

On May 15, 2026 The Brothers Burn Mountain, Jesse and Ryan Dermody, joined my wife Dalyce and I for a music and poetry presentation at the American School of Storytelling in Minneapolis.   Jesse played percussion and Ryan played guitar. Dalyce provide her uniquely beautiful violin improvisations. on Alone With Her.

On April 26, 2026 Dougie Padilla, Thomas R. Smith and I read poems for a Como Cottage Poetry Scrum.  This is the third round of this non-competitive scrum. We had a great time, and heard each other read great poems, too.

After five years working in Frogtown, and helping establish the Frogtown Community Association, I had to find other projects to work on. The United Way cut the FCA's share of funding for this impoverished neighborhood. Other funders followed the United Way's lead. Frogtown was the poorest and most heterogenous community in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. Hundreds of neighbors had volu...

On April 26, 2026 Dougie Padilla, Thomas R. Smith and myself were featured for a Como Cottage Poetry Scrum.  This is the second round of this non-competitive scrum. We had a great time, ribbing one another, too.

This essay was published in the first online issue of the magazine, Inroads, Creativity, Men, Soul on April 1, 2026.  The original Inroads Magazine existed in the late 80s and the early 90s and was published by Anthony Signorelli with contributing editors Jonathan Stensland, John Lang and Thomas R. Smith.  These magazines featured essays by James Hillman and poetry by Robert Bly and other men affi...

On April 26, 2026 Dougie Padilla, Thomas R. Smith and myself were featured for a Como Cottage Poetry Scrum.  This is the first round for this non-competitive scrum. We had a great time, a phun time, as Dougie says.

On April 11, 2026 I presented a version of my take on Robert Bly's "The Vocation of Poetry and its Ten Labors" to the Australian group, The Fifth Direction. I gave examples of how poets respond to the ten labors, and a few opinions on why poets are so important to our cultural communities.  Walton Stanley, storyteller and co-presenter, gave a lead-in passage from Shakespeare's...

On March 26, 2026 Jesse Dermody, Scott Vetsch, and Timothy Young read poetry n their scrum format.  It was Timothy's first time in 40 years reading in Duluth, Minnesota. This time at Wussow's Concert Cafe. It was a pleasure to be back in the port city.

A Como Cottage Poetry Scrum featuring Michael Moos, Donna Isaac, Maureen Skelly, Timothy Young.

Maureen Skelly joined poets Donna Isaac, MIchael Moos, and Timothy Young for a Como Cottage Salon Poetry Scrum on February 22, 2026.

Donna Isaac joined poets Michael Moos, Maureen Skelly and me for the February 22, 2026 Como Cottage Salon Poetry Scrum.