Postcards from Gravelly Beach – Global literature pod dispatches

Reading poems from Muriel’s Journey and beyond—small box of cereal, alchemist confer with hypnotists, Osaka Afternoon—free-verse reflections from the caboose on poetry, community, and finding home in Japan.

Riffing about earthquake scars, zen temples, sea swims, scrapbooks, aliens, dinosaurs & 7″ records while rain falls in an engawa […]

Poems on hotel letterhead resplendent with stamps crafted in mountains, on tracks and seas, finding ways to be lost, avoiding […]

Analog loops, guitars, feedback and poetry about impossible alleys, 8 seat bars, villages with book shops, woolen scarves, Fado, Kathmandu […]

A Hungarian habit of recollection from creative endeavors to life admin, communiques and campsites, flowing in freeform from Kura barn […]

Riffs about the glory of journals, diaries, notebooks full of musings and importance of turning off inner-critic and not overthinking while savoring the process of transcription, curation and further creative wonderment from Kura barn in provincial Japan. With evidence with my own process. Plus sorta re-cap how far I got about Circumnavigation poetry book project,...

Washing dishes and busted spectacles lead to rowing a lake in Nepal figuring out deity, enlightenment, peace and power with choruses fresh from diaries – plus Royal hospitals, poetic devices and question mark eyebrows. Your turn Buddha, your turn. Don’t climb the mountain: Nepal Stupa Choruses – Postcard #87(39MB, 21:02, 256kbps mp3, stereo)

Let’s not lose each other amidst the table cloth being pulled out from under glasses and dishes. Meaning: some technical jibber-jabber about claiming feeds sparks a history of these sporadic, occasional (yet somehow charming, right?) literary dispatches from hand-written XML to various blogs and feeds and meanderings. Plus, about me! My name is Dave Olson...

Thinking about “going home in October” or even more, going far away from home via freeverse poetry, read directly from scribbled travel scrapbooks and backed by trains from Moncton to Sri Lanka and tuk tuks from Kerala and Thailand, by a weary fella in an olden barn in provincial Japan. Fondly home. Be Lost at...

A heart-wrenching poem about an abducted boy called Simon – who lived nearby, was my age and sorta looked like me – in Surrey, BC 1982 – by the “Beast of BC” Clifford Robert Olson (NO relation). Recorded and contributed to Dark Poutine Canadian True Crime podcast – shared here for posterity etc. RIP Simon and the...

Along his namesake trail on banks of Lynn Creek comes story of Group of 7 bohemian painter Frederick Varley’s 10 wild years in Vancouver teaching and founding art schools, developing new aesthetics and shacking up in an $8 mountain home with mistress. Bring your own brushes: Upon the Varley Trail – Postcard #83 (30MB, 20:50, mp3,...

Love in (most) all forms – from self to romance to heartbreak – explored through poems including: mis-quote from (probably not) Jack Kerouac, Khalil Gibran advising his son, Mary Oliver reminding to trust, (Angela) Anaïs (Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira) Nin’s recklessness, Leonard Cohen recalling flowers to a shy lover, Katie Buemann picking up a sword – plus...

Full of mis-spoken words, forgotten names and other sloppiness comes annotated thoughts (squished through time and space) for shut-ins, drifters and sufferers amidst erstwhile festive melancholy times of disruption and tumult, including poems – read alongside mosquito and rooster sounds – by: Sohaib Ahmed Alan Halsey Charles Bukowski David Smalley Kat Code Dave Olson John...

Upon turning 70 years old, Dave’s dear sensei (since a teenage Utah community college stint), Larry Harper (among various monikers) curated 70 items of advice (at request of Annie Dandelion). As such, between licks by Grateful Dead and master potter Marty Kendall, he riffs the list – ranging from practical to mystical to almost comical,...

Float to Istanbul, Muscat and elsewhere, and check in with Cleopatra, Shakespeare, Francis Drake, Shah of Persia, Adam, Cain, Abel, Lawrence, Ataturk, Czars Nicholas and Alexander, Matt Harding, Russia oligarchs, well-fed stray cats, unidentified shortwave broadcasts, Abraham, Norman, Matt Harding, rowers, drummers, a blonde dog and you and me… finding the edges of the globe....

Disappearing, invisibility, loneliness, depression, anxiety, being lost, trying to not be found, trying to find white space to invigorate… Sometimes these weave together, other times (perhaps) each remain exclusive. Gord Downie, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski and me all try to figure out the nuance in different ways atop Turkish street music, trains from Kerala and...

In hospital with sedated Grandpa, Dave reads complete “Letters from Russia” epistolary literature project with frequent interruptions from visitors, nurses and medical apparatus. The letters address issues of class, revolutions, monarchy, war, trade, and love in the context of Napoleon’s foray into Russia in 1812 through letters from a cobbler to his fiancé in Paris....

Puffing along a trail recounting leaving cold, miserable London en route to post-hurricane Florida with flashbacks to working in Rheinplatz grade fields, gathering chestnuts to sell for beer and bread money, strange encampments at Oktoberfest, and hitchhiking to Amsterdam with gaggle of pals. To London by ferry and rapid exit via cheap flight Florida, quickly...

Amidst a thunderstorm at 4AM on a balcony in Chiang Mai, Dave discusses – with excessive frankness and emotion – various medical conundrums (Fibromyalgia and CFS-ME) and details the physical feelings of “crash mode” as well as the mental strain in dealing with self de-identification and inter-personal relationships, confusion in seeking help, and various...

Ship-to-shore transmissions with shortwave broadcasts from elusive listening posts, soundscapes from slow ships, and freeverse poetry about unanswered communiques, transitory conditions, arbitrary citizenships, invented geography, de-identification, and intentional disappearance. Features music: “Dream World” by Matt Harding from NYOSSS (New York, Orem, San Sebastian, & Shanghai), plus various shortwave broadcasts of dubious origin, and sound samples...