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0000017a-15d9-d736-a57f-17ff8ca00001NHPR began broadcasting in 1981, and in the intervening years has documented the the stories of New Hampshire. From policy makers in Concord, to residents around the state affected by those policies; from notable Granite Staters, to our ordinary neighbors with a good story, NHPR has produced compelling radio for New Hampshire, by New Hampshire. These stories are the components of the NHPR archives, and on this blog we'll dust off some old stories that are newly relevant, and even find some that were never broadcast. We hope to demonstrate how we've changed as a state by charting our narrative on a longer scale.

From The Archives: Echo Asks Shadow To Dance

Carl Sandberg once defined a poem as an "echo asking a shadow to dance." NHPR’s Best of Public Radio celebrated National Poetry Month with some dancing in the form of three interviews from the NHPR vaults. All three interviews came from our former arts and culture program The Front Porch; it aired from 2001 to 2007 and welcomed many of New Hampshire’s finest artists as well as artists from beyond our borders.

The first interview is one with poet Naomi Shihab Nye, the daughter of a Palestinian father and an American mother. She spoke to NHPR’s Liz Bulkley. 

The master of “light verse,” Ogden Nash was an honorary yankee, spending more than 30 of his summers on NH’s seacoast. His time their inspired the Pontine Movement Theatre of Portsmouth to compose a play using only his poetry. NHPR’s John Walters spoke to Margurite Mathews and Greg Gathers, who composed and performed the piece in 2007. (4/23/03) 

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The Front Porch - originally broadcast 4/23/2003.

In 2006, the Writers Project of NH was hosting the Mt Kearsarge Poetry Festival, to celebrate the works of Kearsarge poets Maxine Kumin, Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon, but also to examine the importance of the Kearsarge area in their works. Ahead of the festival, NHPR’s Liz Bulkley spoke with Kumin and a fellow poet JoycePeseroffto find out what it is about that part of the state that seems to create an unlikely number of excellent poets per capita.

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The Front Porch - originally broadcast 10/5/2006.

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