Take It for Granite

When you live in a place, it’s hard not to take it for granted. But in California that’s almost impossible — the landscape is simply too striking to forget or ignore. Today’s show is about what happens when you attempt to really appreciate the place you call home. Two travelers spend five days retracing the historic and unmarked trail of the Buffalo Soldiers. Then a portrait of backcountry life in Yosemite. Finally, a poem about a wild tree with a universe inside it. And in this podcast, a supplemental interview between poet Peter Kline and Storytelling Poetry Editor, Elizabeth Bradfield.

Host: Bonnie Swift
Producers: Justine Lai, Killeen Hanson, Liz Bradfield, Bonnie Swift
Featuring: Shelton Johnson, Ward Eldridge, Peter Kline
Music: Noah Burbank, Mt. Eerie, The Microphones, Kate Wolf

Release Date: 27 November 2008

Listen to the Full Show:

Story 1: Defenders of a New Idea

Before the National Parks Service existed, the U.S. Army protected our first national parks. We trace the road that the Buffalo Soldiers once took from the Presidio of San Francisco to Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. We don’t exactly find what we’re looking for, but the landscape reveals some unexpected clues.

Producers: Justine Lai and Bonnie Swift
Featuring: Shelton Johnson and Ward Eldridge

Story 2: The Yosemights

A student spends the summer in Yosemite National Park, far from her life at Stanford, and in that short time, discovers a new existence.

Producer: Killeen Hanson

Story 3: Manzanita

Peter Kline reads a poem about a Californian tree with a universe inside it. This tree has few practical uses.

Bonus Story: Interview with Peter Kline

Storytelling Poetry Editor, Liz Bradfield, interviews Peter Kline, Stegner Fellow at Stanford. He reads “The Almond Orchard,” and they discuss, among other things, the idea of West.