Socially conscious poetry, essays and songs
In today’s episode, we meet poet and prose writers Alice Osborn and David Poston, who share their socially conscious poetry, essays and songs (Alice sings, not David, who only hums a bit).
We explore a variety of thought-provoking and haunting topics, including David’s essay on how reading made him a better person in the face of the me-against-you movement and Alice’s obsession to write prose and sing songs about the Donner party, a family that traveled west for a new life over 170 years ago and got stranded in the snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Charlotte Readers Podcast is sponsored by Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.
In today’s episode, we meet poet and prose writers Alice Osborn and David Poston, who share their socially conscious poetry, essays and songs (Alice sings, not David, who only hums a bit).
We explore a variety of thought-provoking and haunting topics, including David’s essay on how reading made him a better person in the face of the me-against-you movement and Alice’s obsession to write prose and sing songs about the Donner party, a family that traveled west for a new life over 170 years ago and got stranded in the snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
We talk about Frankenstein, hear a poem about Chuck Norris and Jesus and one called Bottom Drawer, where a library book about civil rights was hidden by a young girl from her father.
We start first with Alice reading the poem, Hunger and David reading the poem, When Hot People Die.
Gastonia poet and writer David E. Poston taught for thirty years in public schools, at UNC-Charlotte, and at Charlotte’s Young Writers’ Workshop. His work has appeared in numerous publications and he’s the author of My Father Reading Greek and Postmodern Bourgeois Poetaster Blues, which won the N.C. Writers’ Network’s Randall Jarrell/Harperprints Chapbook Award. His full-length collection, Slow of Study, was a finalist for the Texas Review Press Breakthrough Prize: North Carolina.
David serves on the workshop committee for the NC Poetry Society and on the boards of the Friends of the Gaston County Public Library, Gaston Literacy Council, and Charlotte Writers’ Club. He’s also active with the Charlotte Center for Literary Arts, where he has presented lectures on Frankenstein and served as a facilitator for the Beautiful Truth initiative, a series of community writing workshops.
Alice Osborn is a multi-genre author, singer-songwriter, and editor-for-hire from Raleigh, North Carolina whose most recent CD is Old Derelicts; her poetry collections include Heroes without Capes,After the Steaming Stops, and Unfinished Projects. Alice loves writing songs about American history that frequently return to the themes of home, identity, and yearning. Her family has deep roots going back before the Revolution.
A former editor for Wake Living magazine, Alice is also the editor of the anthologies Tattoos and Creatures of Habitat, both from Main Street Rag. A NC Writers’ Network, NC Poetry Society, and NC Songwriters Co-op board member and a Pushcart Prize nominee, she’s currently working on a novel and CD about the ill-fated Donner Party. She plays acoustic guitar, Celtic fiddle and bluegrass banjo.