The One You Feed - Roger Housden on Poetry for Difficult Times

Episode Date: January 2, 2019

Roger Housden is a second time guest on the show – you might remember him from episode 152. He founded The Open Gate which is a conference and workshop center in England that introduced the work of Ram Dass and Thich Nhat Hanh and many others into Europe. You also might have seen his work featured in places like O Magazine, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. In this episode, Roger and Eric discuss his beautiful book, 10 Poems for Difficult Times.Need help with completing your goals in 2019? The One You Feed Transformation Program can help you accomplish your goals this year.But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!In This Interview, Roger Housden and I Discuss…His book, 10 Poems for Difficult TimesSaying “there is happiness happening” or “there is anger happening” rather than “I am angry” or “I am happy”How poetry helps us in difficult timesThat poetry gives voice to that which is unsayableThe poet Ellen BassHow suffering can soften us if we bow down to itThat you can’t fake surrenderThe opportunity in suffering is growthHow poetry points us in the direction of possibility in sufferingThe poet Maggie SmithThe poet Marie HoweAnnunciation by Marie HoweThe specific pointing to the universal in poetryRoger Housden LinksHomepageTwitterFacebookPhlur makes stunning, non-toxic perfumes, listing every ingredient and why it’s there www.phlur.compromo code WOLF 20 off first custom sampler setQuip has guiding features that are a built-in support system for better brushing www.getquip.com/wolfand get your first refill pack for freeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I am angry. I am happy. No, there is anger happening. There is kindness happening. Is that who I am? Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right

direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor? What's in the museum of failure? And does your dog truly love you? We have the answer.

Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really Podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. On today's episode, we have Roger Housden, who has been on the show before, back on episode 152. Roger founded and ran the Open Gate, a conference and workshop center in England

that introduced the work of Ram Dass, Thich Nhat Hanh, and many others into Europe. His work has been featured many times in the Oprah Magazine, the New York Times, and Los Angeles Times. On this episode, Eric and Roger discuss his book, Ten Poems for Difficult Times. Happy New Year, everyone. The changing of the years is a time where a lot of people reflect on the year past and think about things they'd like to do differently in the new year. If you're in this place and you're looking at what you'd like to do differently in the new year. If you're in this place and you're looking at what you'd like to do differently in the new year

and you need a little help getting it done, if you'd like to see real change and real transformation in 2019, then I encourage you to check out the One You Feed transformation program. It's one-on-one coaching with me. Go to oneyoufeed.net slash transform. And here's the interview with Roger Houston. Hi, Roger. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you.

I am happy to have you on. You're a second-time guest, so you're in elite company now. There's not been very many of those, so welcome back. We're going to talk about your latest book called Ten Poems for Difficult Times. But before we get into the book, let's start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, In life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.

And the grandson stops and thinks about it for a second and looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. What that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Well, it's the eternal and ongoing parable that you see all over the world, which essentially is the struggle between the light and the willingness, when I am able to remember, to be aware of my own thoughts and feelings and not to climb on the back of them,

not to climb on the back of them, but rather to simply give them space and allow them to be there without identifying with them. And so if a wave of sadness or anger or whatever it may be comes into my mind, the intent anyway is to be able to have perspective, not conceptually but actually viscerally, to give that feeling space and not identify with it. And actually it's the same with positive feelings, joy, kindness, whatever it may be, as long as I think I'm the one being kind, then I'm not really reaping the full fruits of that action of kindness, because I'm identifying with it. And because I'm thinking I'm the good one. Ah, so tell me about how poetry helps us with difficult times.

I don't think, I'm not sure you followed what I was saying there. So you skipped to the poetry. I think this is true, isn't it, Eric? No, I followed you. I follow you about not taking full credit for our actions because then the motivation is coming from a place that's less useful to us. either the good or the bad wolf. Well, you jump on the back of it, of the feeling, and you go wherever it takes you. Okay? In other words, you believe it's you. I am angry. I am happy. No. There is anger happening. There is kindness happening. Is that who I am am that's another question well i think we may get back to that topic at some point as we work through a couple of the poems because that that idea shows back up it does uh what did you ask me yes how does poetry help us in difficult times in the aftermath of 9 11 you know in New York, when people all over the city were

wandering, wandering around in a daze, the main form of communication you see, you saw on every street, and I was there, you saw on every street corner were poems pinned up on the wall. were poems pinned up on the wall. So it was as if this event, 9-11, was so unspeakable, you don't know how to, what do you say? What do you do? Poetry somehow speaks to the impossible. It actually gives voice to that which is unsayable.

So poetry really reaches down into the essence of human feeling. And ideally, if it's a great poem, it will speak to that essence in as few words as possible, even if it's a fairly long poem. each word will matter and have its place. And it will articulate the readings, the feelings of the reader in a way that not even the reader herself was able to do. And so you recognize yourself in the poem. You go, oh, my God, that's me. I totally understand what this guy's talking about. So poetry is invaluable in difficult times because it casts and shows a light

on our own challenges from a perspective we may not have articulated before. Exactly. And one of the things that you mention, also, the power of poetry is with attention. And you say, when I pay attention, something in me awakens. And that something is much closer to who I am than the driven or drifting self I usually take myself to be. When I pay attention, I am straightened, somehow brought into a deeper life. And I love that line that you wrote there. And again, back to your, where we began this, you know, back to that, what we take ourselves to be. Yes. You and I must have similar tastes in poems, because several of the poems you had, one is Ellen Bass, who has been on the show,

and I'm a fan of. Another is Maggie Smith, who will be a future guest on the show. And another is William Stafford, who is someone I surely wish could be a guest on the show. Obviously, his time has passed. But I was really struck as I looked through it. You know, you've picked some of my favorite poets. Great. And so let's start with Maggie Smith, who actually lives in Columbus, Ohio, where I live. She's in a small suburb of Columbus called Bexley. So let's start off with her poem, Good Bones.

is called Bexley. So let's start off with her poem, Good Bones. Yes. So she wrote this, I think, about three years ago, 2015, I think. Yes, good bones. Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I've shortened mine in a thousand delicious ill-advised ways a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I'll keep from my children the world is at least 50% terrible that's a conservative estimate though I keep this from my children. For every bird, there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible. And for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you. Though I keep this from my children.

I'm trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor walking you through a real shithole chirps on about good bones. This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful. That is such a stunning poem in so many different ways. Tell me about why you chose it for a book about difficult times. How does it help you with difficult times? Well, as you say, there's so many layers in this poem, actually. And so there's so much to it. I

mean, she wrote the poem actually for her school shooting tragedies that she wrote this. Like, how can I protect my children from this world that we're living in? And, you know, in this poem, she clearly exaggerates i mean she's making a point i mean this is you know i mean for every kind stranger there's one who break you you know the world is at least 50 terrible well you know we can argue that but that's not the point that as terrible as it seems, to make it personal, as difficult as my life may seem, me the reader, as difficult as my life may seem, actually, this very life that I'm living, this very world that I'm living in, could be beautiful. world that I'm living in could be beautiful. And to have that sense of the possible, Eric, I think, she's deliberately painted a really black picture

but then this shaft of light comes at the end. Not that it's all going to be beautiful, but that it could be beautiful. It's could be beautiful it's like you know you just bought a house and it's a fixer-upper so she's seeing the world but not just the world, my life

your life as a fixer-upper where my life certainly feels like a fixer-upper there's always stuff to repair and so she's opening a door there like a fixer-upper. There's always stuff to repair. And so she's opening a door there to the possible, and I find that deeply heartening, warming, and consoling. So that's why this poem's in the book. It's also the first poem in the book. And the reason for that is, you know, it's just so direct, straightforward, and it's speaking for the next generation, her children. Like, what kind of world are they going to be living in? And what are they going to be living in? And are they going to, what are they going to do with it?

I love it for so many different reasons. Also, I love it because it tells the truth, you know, and again, we could argue about whether the world is 50% terrible or what percent, but some, some percent is, you know, there's big percent. Yeah. Yeah. And so I love that, you know, I love that it, it tells the truth. I mean, I think that's, you know, one of the things about, you know, when I first looked at Buddhism that just hit me right over the head, I was like, aha, the truth, like right here, someone is telling the truth, like, okay, sometimes this sucks. And then I love the way she just, like you said, at the end, flips it around on you and, you know, you could make this place beautiful. And it's such a great poem. Actually, I love that you say that, Eric, because really it's a bit like a 21st century rendering of the Four Noble Truths. Yeah. You know, the First Noble Truth is life sucks. Yep.

You know, the first noble truth is life sucks. I don't think he quite used those terms, but everything is suffering. Life is suffering. But then by the end of those four noble truths, there is a way through. Now, okay, so he's looking at a whole other level, but essentially that's what she's saying. There's a way through. Yes, and that idea of a way through shines through a lot of these poems that you have in this book. Hey y'all. I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. And I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart Series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow. I always tell people that when you buy a handbag, it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. the hair you were told not to love.

So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional because it starts to go back into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves, and who we know ourselves to be and who we can be. So a little bit of past, present, and future, all in one idea, soothing something from the past. And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity. It can be something that you love. All to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready.

Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really Know Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer.

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Let's go on to the next one that I'd like you to talk about. And I cannot remember, as I mentioned, we had Ellen Bass on the show, and I had her read a couple poems. And I cannot remember which ones I had her read off the top of my head. She very well may have read this one, because I love this poem. But why don't you read it for us now? And we'll talk a little bit more about it. All the better if she did read it, because, you know, it's the kind of poem you can read or hear over and over again. Yes. All these are. All of these are. They are. They really are. Yeah.

This poem is called The Thing Is. The Thing Is. The Thing Is. The Thing Is. To love life. The thing is to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it. And everything you've held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands, your throat filled with the silt of it. When grief sits with you, it's tropical heat thickening the air, heavy as water, more fit for gills than lungs. When grief weights you like your own flesh, only more of it, an obesity of grief, you think, how can a body withstand this?

Then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say, yes. Yes, I will take you. I will love you again. The thing is to love life, to love it even when you've no stomach for it, and everything you've held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands, your throat filled with the silt of it. When grief sits with you, it's tropical heat thickening the air. Heavy as water, more fit for gills than lungs. When grief waits you like your own flesh, only more of it, an obesity of grief. You think, how can a body withstand this, then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes. And you say, yes, yes, I will take you. I will love you again.

Beautiful. Yeah. You say that you think of her as a Zen poet. What do you mean by that? in the ordinary and somehow illumines what seems to be of no value, nothing, a passing moment, whatever it may be, she somehow manages to give her attention to it where most of us would not even have noticed. She notices the hidden light in the ordinary, everyday objects of our lives and also feelings of our lives. So remembering another poem of hers where everything seems designed

to be causing her trouble. The dog on the floor is snoring. She's on somebody's couch, which is too short for her. She's in New York. There's a noise of the street outside, and it's so hot that she can hardly wear anything. And all of this. that she could hardly wear anything.

And all of this. And suddenly in that, she goes, I'm alive. I'm alive. And everything, suddenly, the snoring dog, the taxi outside, everything has its proper and proportionate place in that moment of her life which is completely irreplaceable. So Ellen Bass shows us that any

and every moment of our life is completely irreplaceable. And she does this by paying attention. So that's why I liken her to a Zen poet. Yeah, back to that topic of attention. Somewhere in the book, you quote Mary Oliver, who in one of her poems says, I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention. Yeah, yeah, beautiful line. Yeah. So she's equating, isn't she, in those lines, is, I do know how to pay attention. Yeah, yeah, beautiful line. Yeah. So she's equating, isn't she, in those lines, you know, a prayer with the giving of attention. It's really a kind of act of devotion, isn't it? You know, when we're actually really attending to someone or something, by devotion, I don't mean, you know, there's a felt quality that is being conveyed, which is deeply intimate. So yeah, these are poems, Alan Bass's poems, are poems of intimacy. And we can only really be intimate when our attention is awake.

Yeah, you also, when you're writing about this poem, you say, if we love, we suffer. Bass's poem reminds us that the only way out of that suffering is through it. We will be brought low by it, softened by it, opened by it, and ushered finally into a love still greater, a love for our own exquisite and painful life as we experience it day by day. And I love that. And I want to ask you a question about that, because I was having this conversation with somebody the other night. And we were talking about how, with age, there has been

some increase in wisdom and kindness, and all of that. But the observation also is that not everybody ages well. Not everybody comes out of suffering opened by it or softened by it or ushered into a love still greater. So in your mind, what are the components that help us take these difficulties and have them work on us in a way that we would ultimately consider positive? Actually, I don't like the way I phrase that, but you get where I'm going. I do. Yeah, it's not that they're positive or negative, is it? I would say that, I would say that certainly my own experience, personal experience, what can allow suffering to be a part of life that does soften us, that in some way serves as a kind of alchemical process and opens the heart,

that that can occur when we fully bow down to whatever it is, the suffering. So in this poem by Ellen Bass, she is bowing down to, now I don't know what she went through to be able to write that poem. I suspect she went through a quality or a kind of grief probably much deeper than I've ever known. But she fully gave herself to, in this case, to the grief of her experience. And she also was able through that to open up to a larger life, where at the end of the poem she says, yes, I hold life's face in my hands and I say, I will love you again. I will love you again. I will love you again. So this is a very dangerous word,

but the word surrender comes to mind. And surrender is not the same as giving up. So, you know, I think to say that the only way to the other side of suffering is through it means that it never works to deny it. It never works to try and be strong and push it away or to soldier on. you may have to soldier on in your life, but internally, I think there has to come a moment when you just let go into the truth of your experience of the moment and let it move through you like a wave. And the point is, you can't do that as a strategy.

You can't say, oh, no, this is, I know, I read that somewhere. You know, all you do is, it doesn't work. You cannot fake surrender. You can't make it a kind of strategy or a technique. But there can come a moment in our lives, and, you know, most of us in one way or another probably had a sense of this where we just we give up but give up not in a sense of uh being a victim we know that we cannot make this good on our by our own efforts you know our own efforts somehow are not enough and in that moment when there is that surrender, what are we surrendering?

We're surrendering our attempt to control. In that moment, something else can happen. But there's absolutely no guarantee. So you're absolutely right. I think for most people, suffering, especially really difficult suffering, actually is backbreaking. It's not a transformational thing necessarily at all. You said it well. I do think some version of surrender, I think back to what we've talked about, some degree of attention, being willing to pay attention to what's happening with us in the middle of that.

And some of that is, as you said, not always running away from it. My experience of like deep suffering at points in my life is like, okay, some of the time I was like, I'll do anything I can to find a way to run away from this. But then there were other moments whether either I simply couldn't run away, there was no, there was no path to allow me to do it, or some other wisdom said, okay, stop, you know, stop and be here for a minute. Those are the things I think that helped me as some quality of being willing to be with it. I think of what Tara Brock, I've heard her ask before, which is, you know, just the simple question, can I be with this? So I think that's great. And I think what you're pointing to there is two different kinds of experience that we have and can have.

The one which is much more common happens primarily in our mind up here and up here you know we're trying to create strategies we're trying to find a way out we're trying to manipulate we're trying to sort things out we're getting angry you know with the situation whatever it is um when you say stop be still for a moment, that does not come from here. It comes from the heart, the different layer or level of experience. And I think what you just pointed to was, for a moment even, a dropping down into our bodily experience of whatever it is we are experiencing. As I mentioned in the intro, a lot of us spend this time where one year changes to the next really reflecting on the year prior and looking at what we would like to do differently in the upcoming year. If you'd like to make 2019 the year that you finally take a lot of the things

you hear about on this show and put them into practice. If you'd like to get to the point where you're exercising regularly, meditating, eating well, if there's a creative project you want to start, a business you want to launch, any of those things, the One You Feed transformation program can help you. It's one-on-one coaching with me weekly, and we do daily email check-ins to keep you on track. If you'd like to learn more, I invite you to go to oneufeed.net slash transform. Again, that's oneufeed.net slash transform. Yeah, I think that it's obnoxious to say to somebody who's in great pain, well, one of the benefits is, or here's a growth experience, right? But what those have done for me is, as somebody who it's very easy to spend my time in my head, is that they force me into my heart. I don't really have a choice about it anymore. I'm suddenly there.

anymore. I'm suddenly there. Yeah, I think when you said that, I sort of realized that that's one of the, again, I don't like this word, but I'll use it for brevity, one of the benefits of suffering for me is that it takes me to that place. Yeah, it's one of the opportunities, really. Yeah, yeah, that's a better word than benefit, yes. Yeah. And there really is no guarantee. So every moment, new moment. Because if I bow down to some great difficulty in my life yesterday and was able, therefore, to to absorb it it's really about absorbing and doesn't mean to say that i'll do the same tomorrow right ever you know no you know yep well and i think that's the thing about a great suffering is we don't have to always

handle it gracefully as you said or or bow down to it. You know, my experience, again, was that great suffering gives me plenty of opportunities, some of which I actually take for benefit, and the others I don't, but there's enough in it, you know, there's enough in it. But I just am very interested in this question of how does suffering and difficulty make some people better, kinder, wiser, stronger, and not do that for others. I just think that's such a fundamentally important question for people who are trying to live a better life because inevitably, as Maggie Smith said early on, a large percentage of the world is going to be very difficult. And so knowing how to work with that in a skillful way is so important.

Yeah. And this, again, I think this is what these poems do. They point us in that direction. They point us in the direction of possibility. Point us in the direction of possibility. Yep. So I think we have time for one more, if you would be willing to read one more. I'm going to give you a couple choices and allow you to pick the one that you would like to do. Either Cutting Loose by William Stafford, Now You Know the Worst by Wendell Berry, or Annunciation by Marie Howe. I think any of those three would be a great thing

for us to do with our last poem. Okay, I'm leaning into Annunciation. All right. Let's do it. I often don't, usually don't read this poem, because it's very mysterious. And it's the very last poem in the book. And I put it in there because it points to a whole other dimension of experience quite out of the ordinary. So this is not, unlike Ellen Bass or Maggie Smith, this poem is not dealing with the everyday. This is an extraordinary epiphany that happened to Marie Howe that, of course, potentially in a different way can happen to you or me. So the poem Annunciation by Marie Howe. Even if I don't see it again, nor ever feel it, I know it is.

And that if once it hailed me, it ever does. And so it is myself I want to turn in that direction, not as toward a place, but it was a tilting within myself. a place but it was a tilting within myself as one turns a mirror to flash the light to where it isn't. I was blinded like that and swam in what shone at me only able to endure it by being no one, and so specifically myself, I thought I'd die from being loved like that. Can I read it again? Yes. These poems, especially this poem, but these poems need to be ideally read two or three times aloud to yourself. times aloud to yourself. Even if I don't see it again, nor ever feel it, I know it is.

And that if once it hailed me, it ever does. And so it is myself I want to turn in that direction, not as toward a place, but it was a tilting within myself. As one turns a mirror to flash the light to where it by being no one, and so specifically myself, I thought I'd die from being loved like that. Such a wonderful poem. One of the things that you say as you're writing about that poem afterwards is we can be blessed at any moment by the startling realization that who we are is so much vaster than our familiar identity. Thank you. That's what this poem points to. Yes. Yes. And I love that. It made me think of something.

It made me think of, I was on a silent retreat with a spiritual teacher, I don't know, maybe four or five months ago. He's been a guest on the show, listeners have heard, Adyashanti. And that phrase about turning in a direction not as towards a place, but as a tilting within myself. And I just remember him pointing at that, in other words, this sense of that there isn't anywhere really that we can go to be closer to ourselves. We are, there's no move you can make to take you closer to yourself. I love it, and it made me think of, I'm not explaining what he said very well, but it was that idea she talks about is not towards a place. We're always trying to move towards something.

If I just reorient myself in this way or that way, then I will have this experience. And she points towards, it's not a motion towards anywhere, but the tilting towards myself is a beautiful way of saying it. far larger reality than the reality that most of us are consumed in day to day, which is the passage of our own challenges and difficulties and hopes and fears. I'm going to read a little bit more about what you wrote after that poem, because also I think that the way you say this is really great. You say, How feels a tilting within herself, a reorientation, as it were, a recalibration that turns her inner gaze, her awareness back on itself and blinds her with its light. Her familiar self has to be blinded. She has to become no one in order to experience her true personhood,

her unique core in which she knows absolutely that she is always and forever loved. And I love that paradox in the poem and the way that you pointed out that is this concept of being so much more than we are, this idea of that we're not just this limited self the poem talks towards. We're so much more than that and we are absolutely and utterly that.

Yeah. At the same time. She says it beautifully, and you follow it very well. Yeah. No, she really does say it beautifully. Just that last line, you know, able to endure it by being no one, and so specifically myself. I mean, wonderful.

Whatever was happening to her then, you know, there was very clear insight into the true nature of things. Right, right. And I think that true nature that we've, you know, you sort of started us off in that direction. But also what's so interesting to me about that is that it is often by being so utterly focused with true attention on the specificity of exactly what's here and giving our attention to the very specific that can open us up to this much greater reality.

It makes me think of Leonard Cohen, who, I won't get this quite right, but in talking about writing about a song once, he said, it's by being very specific that somehow you are able to hit a much more general, broader tone. Universal tone. Yeah. So you don't talk about a tree. You describe the very tree. But that very specificity and that attention to that level of detail

also opens it up to something way bigger than itself. Absolutely. And so a poet, as in that example of Marie Howe's poem, when a writer in general, when a writer or a poet is able so specifically to articulate their own concrete experience, it can be felt and experienced by thousands of other people. In other words, it's through the deeply personal that we can move into the universal, certainly through art.

Yep, yep. And it sounds paradoxical, but it's absolutely the way it works. Yep. Well, Roger, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show. You and I are going to continue with a post-show conversation where we are going to do another poem by William Stafford, who is one of my favorite poets. And we're going to talk about William Stafford, and we're going to talk about the power of silence. So listeners, if you are interested in that, people who subscribe at the $10 level get access to post-show conversations that you can listen to right in your podcast player. You also get access to ad-free episodes as well as an extra mini episode every month. So oneufeed.net slash support for that. Well, Roger, thank you so much

for another wonderful collection of poetry. And also thank you so much again for taking the time to come on the show with us. Great pleasure. Great pleasure. Thank you very much, Eric. if what you just heard was helpful to you please consider making a donation to the one you feed podcast head over to one you feed.net slash support. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show.