Friday, August 6, 2010

Marketplace Minute

Have I mentioned that poetry is everywhere? A case in point...

I am a regular listener of WAMU, my local NPR station. One of the shows I sometimes hear is Marketplace, a business news show. It has an almost-weekly feature called the Marketplace Minute, which is a light-hearted poem by Bill Radke that crams the week's news into one minute.

Marketplace Minute With Bill Radke 5/21 from Marketplace on Vimeo.

Bill Radke had an interview with poet Billy Collins in July. Here's a short poem by Billy Collins about his "workplace feedback."

Feedback
by Billy Collins

The women
who wrote from Phoenix
after my reading there
to tell me they were
all still talking about it,
just wrote again
to tell me
that they had stopped.

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Bonus music trivia from the Marketplace FAQ:

Q: When you "Do the Numbers" each day, what are the songs you play?

A: "Stormy Weather" when the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down; "We're in the Money" when it's up. When the market is mixed, the song is "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got that Swing.)"

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Laura Shovan is hosting Poetry Friday this week. Her state poet laureate tour has been engagingly educational.

3 comments:

jama said...

Billy Collins always makes me smile. Thanks for that -- and for the Marketplace Minute. What fun!

Mary Lee said...

SOOOooo fun! I never would have pictured him looking like that! And although I had noticed there was music when they run the numbers, I never fully processed how the tunes match the market. I'll listen more closely next time! Very fun! Thanks for lots of smiles this morning!!

Diane Mayr said...

I loved the poems about work, especially the one by Marge Piercy. Thanks for the link.