Today’s show is a sort of experiment. Two veteran KPFA broadcasters, Nina Serrano and Jack Foley will spend an hour in intense conversation. Since they are both prominent, active Bay Area poets, they will present their own work along with the work of others. Guests will appear. Old programs will be excerpted. New ideas will be exchanged. The show has no name at the moment but some suggestions have been made: “The Straight Dope” (but that perhaps places an overemphasis on heterosexuality); “Virulent Vaudeville”; “Associations with Nina and Jack”; “Dada and Mama”; “Alter Cockers in Extremis”; etc. Come join these locuranderos whose young minds and old experience will shiver your timbers and tickle your whooseit. This is the script for the first program: “We’ll show up at the station. We’ll bring stuff. We’ll talk.”
FRIENDS
Annie Banannie and I agreed
that the first one to get there
would save a spot for the other
so we could pick up our conversations stories and songs
as we always have
and we always feel better afterwards
and we’d expect that to be much the same
because it’s been going on for more than fifty years
But of course we have to die first.
—Nina Serrano
MEMORIAL DAY
There are actions
There are actions
That cannot
That cannot
Be forgiven
Be forgiven
Cannot be apologized for
Cannot be apologized for
Cannot be atoned
Cannot be atoned
Actions like
Actions like
The murder
The murder
Of a carpenter
Of a carpenter
2000 years ago
2000 years ago
Or like
Or like
The dropping of an
The dropping of an
Atomic bomb
Atomic bomb
On two Japanese
On two Japanese
Cities
Cities
Forgiveness here
Forgiveness here
Is not possible—
Is not possible—
Only the weight
Only the weight
Of history
Of history
Only the knowledge
Only the knowledge
That we did something
That we did something
Irredeemable
Irredeemable
—Jack Foley