Smoke Plus Mother: Defiance and Identity

How should we raise children in a world that is burning? This is the question that Berkeley poet Rachel Richardson contemplates in her new collection, “Smother.” As wildfires beset California, Richardson worried about the impact it would have on the land, communities and her own family. “The smoke is not cruel, only truthful,” she writes. And throughout the collection, fire, smoke and air flecked with ash become metaphors and characters as Richardson searches for resilience, defiance, and ultimately, hope.

Guests:

Rachel Richardson, poet, "Copperhead, Hundred-Year Wave," and, most recently, "Smother"; co-founder, Left Margin LIT in Berkeley; recipient of the Stegner and NEA Fellowships.

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