May 4-8 Programs

My Pick of the Week: Martin Espada, Poet of Conscience. He says that he writes poetry “to make the invisible visible,” and told us early in the program that his grandmother was a spirit medium, so he comes by it honestly. But who can calculate the personal cost of putting one’s own psyche at the service of those Chileans who were interrogated, tortured, and executed during Pinochet’s reign of terror? Or to dare to speak for those 453 immigrant restaurant workers who lost their lives in the World Trade Center on 9/11? What a way to ring out National Poetry Month.

Monday: Rags and Bone: Okay, I admit it, you probably have to have a taste for the macabre, or at the very least have been raised Roman Catholic to appreciate the cult of relics; but Peter Manseau (Killing the Buddha) insists that he undertook his “journey among the world’s holy dead” to be reminded of how much he loves life.

Tuesday: Wings of Defeat: A new documentary reveals some startling insights into the make-up of Kamekaze pilots: many of them weren’t really all that keen about killing themselves in the name of their country, and some went out of their way to minimize the damage they caused.

Wednesday: Tune in to find out if our One Day Lalapalooza Pledge Drive will succeed. In between marathon pitches, I’ll be talking with John Nichols about international responses to President Obama’s 100 Days.

Thursday: Do American feminists tend to revert to old world values when they become mothers? We’ll ask Maria Laurino, author of the memoir, Old World Daughter, New World Mother.

Friday: Measuring it out by the teaspoonful, how many of us happen to know that vanilla actually comes from the bean pod of an orchid? Journalist Tim Ecott follows the history of vanilla from its cultivation by the Aztecs to the burgeoning of a multi-million dollar industry. It’s everything but vanilla.

Have a great weekend and here’s hoping it doesn’t rain.

Jean