It has been two years since Connor and Jack launched Close Talking! After 50 episodes, they decided to commemorate the occasion by looking back on an episode they particularly enjoyed on Monica Youn's "Ersatz Ignatz" To read the poem, go here or below: www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53591/ersatz-ignatz For more on Youn: www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/monica-youn To check out the collection Ignatz: www.powells.com/book/ignatz-9781935536017/61-0 Find us on facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking Find us on twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking You can always send us an e-mail with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at [email protected]. POEM: Ersatz Ignatz The clockwork saguaros sprout extra faces like planaria stroked by a razor. Chug say the sparrows, emitting fluffs of steam. Chug chug say the piston-powered ground squirrels. The tumbleweeds circle on retrofitted tracks, but the blue pasteboard welkin is much dented by little winds. The yuccas pulse softly under the grow-light sconces. Here is the door he will paint on the rock. Here is the glass floor of the cliff. He’ll enter from the west, backlit in orange isinglass, pyrite pendants glinting from the fringes of his voice.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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