Episode 62 – Devreaux Baker

SnapSessions! presents Episode 62, featuring an interview with Poet Devreaux Baker, Poet Laureate of Mendocino County and the author of six poetry anthologies. In addition, we salute George Orwell’s Animal Farm, published 81 years ago this year and a longtime favorite of SnapSessions! own Doug Nunn.
 
Devreaux Baker was born in Houston, Texas and grew up in a large working class, storytelling family. She rode horses as a kid and then found herself protesting the Vietnam War as a college student. She ended up in Mendocino in the mid-1970s and joined a large group of local and very active poets with the publication of The Western Edge by Ten Mile Press in 1979.  She combined working as a school counselor with her writing and won a variety of fellowships, grants and awards leading to the publication of five books of poetry over the next years—Light at the Edge, Beyond the Circumstance of Sight, Red Willow People, Out of the Bones of Earth, and Hungry Ghosts.  For our podcast interview Devreaux reads three of her poems—Lorca’s Dawn, Spirit of New Orleans, and Bear.
 
SnapSessions! also salutes George Orwell’s classic political fable, Animal Farm, a book which has fascinated SnapSessions! own Doug Nunn since it was read to him by his sixth grade teacher back in the heights of the Cold War. We feature both biographical insights into Orwell’s life as well as readings from Animal Farm. When we’re done you may prefer four legs to two. 

Episode 62 is one hour and twenty eight minutes long and includes an intro, the salute to Animal Farm (starts at 1:17), as well as the interview with Mendocino County Poet Laureate Devreaux Baker (starts at 28:00).

SnapSessions! includes original music by Marshall Brown, production by Marshall Brown, voiceovers by Doug Nunn and Marshall Brown, and articles and interviews by Doug Nunn. Our SnapSessions! artist and logo maker is caricaturist, Daniel Stieglitz.

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