Episode 41: The Bathrobisode
b'This week, the editors review three poems by Nick Lantz:\\xa0\\u201cAn Urn for Ashes,\\u201d\\xa0\\u201cStarvation Ranch,\\u201d\\xa0and\\xa0\\u201cGhost as Naked Man.\\u201d\\xa0\\xa0As a child, Nick Lantz was obsessed with paranormal phenomenon and the unexplained, from cryptids to aliens to ghosts\\u2026\\nFor the first and possibly only time, we were in a recording studio within Drexel University\\u2019s LeBow College of Business, which made us feel like we were on an episode of\\xa0The View. This week, the editors review three poems by Nick Lantz:\\xa0\\u201cAn Urn for Ashes,\\u201d\\xa0\\u201cStarvation Ranch,\\u201d\\xa0and\\xa0\\u201cGhost as Naked Man.\\u201d\\n\\nNick Lantz\\n\\nAs a child, Nick Lantz was obsessed with paranormal phenomenon and the unexplained, from cryptids to aliens to ghosts. These days, he tells people he\\u2019s writing a book of poems about ghosts, though that\\u2019s only sort of true. His fourth book,\\xa0You, Beast,\\xa0won the Brittingham Prize and was published by University of Wisconsin Press in 2017. He was also the recipient of a 2017 NEA fellowship for his poetry. He lives in Huntsville, Texas, where he teaches at Sam Houston State University and edits the\\xa0Texas Review.\\n\\u201cAn Urn for Ashes\\u201d gets us started off on our a conversation on past lives and reincarnation. Lantz\\u2019s impressive use of language and imagery draws up ideas of present beings possessing remnants of those far in the past. Moving on to \\u201cStarvation Ranch,\\u201d the editors reflect on what memory and recollection look like in the modern era. The poem layers alluring images that are beautifully constructed and give us a front seat in recounting many summers past. The final poem, \\u201cGhost as Naked Man\\u201d offers a reimagined commentary on gender as a social construct. Seemingly in conversation with other works on the topic, the poem conveys frustration and destruction, then pride, as expressions of manhood. It also brings to mind Ada\\xa0Lim\\xf3n\\u2019s\\xa0\\u201cAfter the Storm,\\u201d\\xa0published in Issue 66 of\\xa0Painted Bride Quarterly. Listen in for our takes on these poems and the verdicts!\\nLet us know what what you think about this episode, ghosts, red paint, and more on Facebook and Twitter using #WeAreStardust!\\n\\xa0\\n\\xa0\\nPresent at the Editorial Table:\\nKathleen Volk Miller\\nTim Fitts\\nSharee DeVose\\nJason Schneiderman\\nMarion Wrenn\\nSamantha Neugebauer\\n\\xa0\\nProduction Engineer:\\nJoe Zang\\n-----------------------------\\xa0\\n\\xa0\\nAn Urn for Ashes\\nThe atoms that made upJulius Caesar\\u2019s body,burned on a pyre,spread by wind and time,have since dispersedfar and wide,and statistically speakingyou have in yousome infinitesimal bitof carbon or hydrogenfrom his hand or tongue,or maybe some pieceof the foot that, crossinga river, turned a republicinto an empire.But that means youcarry with you alsothe unnamed dead,the serfs and farmers,foot soldiers and clerks,and their sandalsand the axles of chariotsand incense burnedat an altar and garbagesmoking in a pit outsidea great city at the centerof an empire, that youare a vessel carryingthe ashes of many empiresand the ashes of peopleburned away by empires,their sweet, unheard melodies.And look how finely wroughtyou are, how preciseyour features, your very forma kind of ceremonyfor transporting the deadthrough the living world.\\nStarvation Ranch\\nFrank Hite, my \\tmother\\u2019s \\n father\\u2019s \\n mother\\u2019s \\n father, \\nnamed his farm \\tStarvation Ranch,\\n \\t\\t\\t\\t\\t and one July, \\n I balanced \\n high on a ladder \\nto repaint those white letters \\n on the same \\tred barn\\nwhere they\\u2019ve been for a hundred years.\\n\\nBut that summer \\t is a sketch, a note\\nwritten in the margin \\tof a book I gave \\naway. I shot rabbits \\t and learned\\nto drive and listened \\nto the same \\t\\t Lou Reed tape on loop\\nin the upper bedroom \\tof my family\\u2019s farmhouse. \\n\\nIn a closet I found \\n my grandmother\\u2019s high school yearbook\\nin which she had crossed out \\t the name \\nof each classmate\\nwho had died. \\n\\nI learned there are three kinds\\nof garbage\\u2014 \\n the kind that goes in'