Episode 133: Church Gum

Episode 133: Church Gum is about precisely that, and nothing more. Church. Gum. Ah . . . just kidding. It’s about getting through church and the gum at the bottom of your grandma’s purse and prose poems and Chuck Norris and yeah . . . the whole universe of things that matter. How can you resist? Listen.

Episode 131: Anatomy of a Human Book

Episode 131: Anatomy of a Human Book takes you on a journey into the human as book, anatomy as metaphor, the spine as paper or . . . something else. What is it like to be a book? What kind of innards do you have? What happens when someone steals them? These questions and more are not answered in this podcast. Listen anyway.

Episode 130: Cats Don’t Have Our Tongue

  • Sassy
  • Meap & Fussy
  • Kevin

Episode 130: Cats Don’t Have Our Tongue is obvious when you listen as . . . we have a lot to say about cats and deliver a CATastrophic amount of poems about the cats you posted on the WPL Facebook page. Cat-lovers and poetry-lovers everywhere, unite! And . . . please listen.

Episode 129: Poetry in the Wild

Episode 129: Poetry in the Wild begins in a gas station where we ponder the Little Debbie Red Velvet Creme Filled Cakes that we aren’t supposed to eat though the alliteration of “Little Debbie can destroy your diet” is very appealing to us, and it ends with a note about tomatoes to Billy that is poetry of the best wild kind. Bunch of other stuff in between, too. LISTEN!

Episode 127: Prediction Machines, Bigfoot & a Hip Campus

Flow-Chart from Queensland Brain Institute

Episode 127: Prediction Machines, Bigfoot & a Hip Campus discusses the brain, the mind, memory and perception and a bunch of things that have to do with our noggins. Oh, and some Emily Dickinson in there, of course. Bill and Shaun are joined by Bill’s great-nephew Evan, who is very good at cutting through the nonsense. Brain jokes and sketchy knowledge of a variety of things ensue. NOTE: JW Ocker is the author of The United States of Cryptids, mentioned in the podcast.

Episode 126: Down the Dirt Roads

Episode 126: Down the Dirt Roads is a different kind of WPL episode, as Bill is out of town, and Shaun welcomes Faith Phillips, author of a book that will be the first one in the poetry museum’s fall CRIME, SHE SAID book club. We discuss growing up and walking down the dirt roads in Oklahoma and a true crime case here that she wrote the book Now I Lay Me Down about. The book will soon be a multi-episode true crime documentary. 

Book Club Info: CRIME, SHE SAID

Episode 124: The Cryptids are Coming!

Episode 124: The Cryptids are Coming! Rot-ro! It’s true, Scooby Doo, the 2025 exhibit at the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry will be about cryptids, the hidden creatures of our imagination, folklore . . . and occasionally, real life! Shaun and Bill discuss Bigfoot, Chuck Norris (not a cryptid . . . or . . . hmm) and more in this episode.