“Beneath the Bamboo Sky”
In today’s episode, we meet award-winning poet and teacher, Irene Blair Honeycutt, who reads from her collections, “Beneath the Bamboo Sky,” “Before the Light Changes,” “Waiting For the Trout to Speak,” and “It Comes as a Dark Surprise.”.
Charlotte Readers Podcast is sponsored by Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.
In today’s episode, we meet award-winning poet and teacher, Irene Blair Honeycutt, who reads from her collections, “Beneath the Bamboo Sky,” “Before the Light Changes,” “Waiting For the Trout to Speak,” and “It Comes as a Dark Surprise.”
Edward Hirsch says of “Beneath the Bamboo Sky,” that following the staggering loss of her last two siblings and several dear friends in a short period of time, Irene “bravely enters the domain of the dying and comes back with a touching testimony of loss, grief, sustenance and consolation.” These themes and Irene’s thoughts on the craft of poetry from her years of writing and teaching are the focus on this episode.
Irene starts by reading the preface from “Beneath the Bamboo Sky,” where she lets us know how she wrote to cope, and as Robert Frost suggests, to bring order to the chaos.