NPR and the Kulturkampf

NPR is the public radio station supported by “listeners like you,” that prides itself on its journalists, whose intellects are nonpareil; it’s the station that day after day, manages — unlike all those hideous commercial stations — to uphold the highest standards of….well, you know.

For those who may be skeptical of those claims, I thought I’d share with you a program on NPR from a few months ago, in which Leila Fadel interviews a poet who, I have no doubt, speaks for her generation.

Here is that interview:

NPR’s Leila Fadel talks to poet and author Omotara James about her collection which explores self-love in a Black, fat body. She is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a Lambda literary fellow.

LEILA FADEL, HOST: The body is an unmarked grave. With this bold, evocative declaration, poet Omotara James opens her debut book, “Song Of My Softening.” She’s the daughter of Nigerian and Trinidadian immigrants born in Britain and raised mainly in the United States. Tender, beautiful, stark, painful – these are just a few words that come to mind when reading this collection. James is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, a Lambda Literary fellow, and she joins me now to talk about her collection of poems. Omotara James, welcome to the program.

OMOTARA JAMES: Thanks for having me.

FADEL: I want to start with the title, “Song Of My Softening.” And the way the book is structured. It feels a bit like a journey through your life, from adolescence, as a Black queer woman. Is that what it is? It feels almost journal-like in moments.

JAMES: It is definitely a reflection of how I respond to the world through the lens of my understanding, through my life experiences. But what the work of the book is is to transform my experiences into art. And when I titled the book “Song Of My Softening,” that’s because it takes a lot more strength to be vulnerable than it does to be hard.

FADEL: Yeah.

JAMES: It takes courage, and the poem lends itself to softness because the poem begins in the body, “Song of My Softening” is a love song to interiority and to anyone who has faced the challenges of life and done their best….

FADEL: OK, great. I was wondering if you could read “Heaven Be A Sturdy Chair.”

JAMES: Yes. (Reading) “Heaven be a sturdy chair. When I show up to the reading, it’s not to talk to you. I’m cruising for stability. A pound of fat is three times larger than muscle. Fat demands space, describes it. Fat belts a show tune, plus an R&B, plus a ballad at karaoke. My fat never goes home alone. Think about your last moment of pleasure. Multiply it by three.”

FADEL: I mean, in this poem, fat is the hero, and I love it. Was this a declaration?

JAMES: An it’s a declaration of not allowing someone else’s definition of you be the gesture of your life. Before I can think about what it means to be fat, I need to explore how it feels. And that’s what I use language and breath in my poetry to do. And then I can proclaim it. Also, I wanted to say that the truth about living in a body that there’s all this pejorative chatter around…

I hear that NPR is about to let go several dozen members of its staff — apparently “people like you” didn’t donate enough this year. Make sure to include, among those to be discharged, Leila Fadel.