Ken rewinds the clocks

05/01/23 • 22 min

The image of an adult on a tricycle — precarious and uncertain — became the driving force behind the poem Ken needed for his wife Sue's memorial service.
Chapters in this episode:

Introduction at the cabin
A couple of loons on tricycles
Ken and Sue take on the world together
Swiss miss, cuckoo clocks, and finding a home in one another
Sue’s diagnosis, surgery, complications, and passing
Lost time and post-life letters
The poem: “It Was a Lark”

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The image of an adult on a tricycle — precarious and uncertain — became the driving force behind the poem Ken needed for his wife Sue's memorial service.
Chapters in this episode:

Introduction at the cabin
A couple of loons on tricycles
Ken and Sue take on the world together
Swiss miss, cuckoo clocks, and finding a home in one another
Sue’s diagnosis, surgery, complications, and passing
Lost time and post-life letters
The poem: “It Was a Lark”

Support the show

Previous Episode

Jon sunsets a cancer scare

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Jon's wife Christy got pancreatic cancer ten years ago, but Jon still carries the fear of losing her. It's a long hallway from diagnostics to recovery, but Jon's found the right doctor: Todd helps him stop over-intellectualizing, cutting through the voices in his head, until only sweet remission (from the Latin "to relax,") colors the horizon. Revealed to Jon on the eve of Thanksgiving, 2022, Todd's tongue-in-cheek poem is written in the talky après-dinner-party style of Tony Hoagland, and features candid, ad-libbed cameos by Thomas Merton, Flannery O'Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Czesław Miłosz, and Raymond Carver, who, like all of us, just wants to be loved. From sorrow to joy and back again, this story lets Christy have the final word, and has Jon breathing a sigh of relief.
Todd's poem for Jon, "Thanksgiving," quotes a stanza of Tony Hoagland's "Among the Intellectuals," from his posthumous collection, Turn Up The Ocean (Graywolf Press). Used with permission.
Chapters in this episode:

I contain multitudes
Cancer for Christmas
Trying to figure things out
Deconstructing prayer
Recovery: "She really is okay."
Humility is an honest self-assessment
The poem: "Thanksgiving."

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Next Episode

Bonnie cycles on (feat. Sasha LaPointe)

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Host Todd Boss enlists the help of Indigenous poet Sasha LaPointe to motivate Bonnie on her journey of healing and exploration, through the inspiring Skagit Valley landscape.
Chapters in this episode:

One more great feat
Pain, glory, and a conservative church
Two worlds: Transformation is real
Skagit Valley and its heritage
However: Two worlds
Bonnie meets Sasha
Sasha LaPointe reads "Cycles"
A circle of fir trees in prayer

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There's a Poem in That - Ken rewinds the clocks

Transcript

01 TAPIT_EP03_Ken_MIXweb_230414

Fri, Apr 21, 2023 12:26PM • 22:45

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

poem, ken, sue, loons, clocks, todd, writing, wife, live, cabin, trips, quilts, big, leaved, lake, trikes, world, hear, sons, chicago

SPEAKERS

Ken, Todd

Ken 00:00

Hey Todd. My name is Ken Keller. I live in northern Minnesota, and my wife passed away unexpectedly after having open heart surgery on November 1st of last y