Episode Details

Live from Home Bar with Genesis, on a Friday evening in August.

I brought a poem this time. The last time we sat down together I got self-conscious about which one to read and never read any of them, and then a night or two later I had a dream: a baby left with me in an upstairs room, a baby I ignored for a while before I finally drew close and started building trust with her. Robert A. Johnson says don’t just tell a dream, walk with it. So I walked with it, and this episode is some of what came of that.

Genesis talks about why creative people need frequent times of silly, and why that’s the thing that keeps you limber enough to lift something heavy later. He tells the story behind the Brothers painting hanging on the wall behind us, which is a better story than I knew. And he hands me a line I haven’t been able to put down since: every day is a birthday.

The poem is “On Your Birthday,” from Mirage and Tar, my first collection in twelve years, on its way back from the printer now. Order a copy here.

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Recorded live at Home Bar, Fourth and Market, Chattanooga. Art and conversation by Genesis.