Mary Mackey and Jeremy DeWayne Greene

Welcome to K-D-V-S, 90.3 FM in Davis.

My name is Dr. Andy and this is Dr. Andy's poetry and technology hour.

It's a public affairs radio show that's been airing on K-D-V-S this radio station for the last quarter century.

One quarter of a hundred years, two and a half decades.

The age of a typical graduate student.

That's me and that's us this radio show.

Features interviews with creative professionals of various stripes.

Poets, pundits, prognosticators, people who care about creativity.

People who are seeking to strive.

People who step outside of their comfort zones and say,

look what I've done, I'm a synthesis.

I create something out of nothing.

On today's radio show, we'll feature a conversation with Mary Mackie,

perhaps the most accomplished of my regular guests.

She is a descendant of Mark Twain, who has published books,

dozens of them in multiple genres.

She's a novelist, she's a poet, she's an essayist,

she's written nonfiction books about creativity,

and she's a good friend of mine who I'm always overjoyed to have back on this radio show.

She has a number of books coming out, some of them reissues this year.

Why are people reissuing her books because she's really a big deal?

Mary Mackie will be my first guest.

In the second half of the program, we will hear from Jeremy Green.

Jeremy Green is a nationally certified school psychologist,

professor of school psychology, and a poet and hip-hop artist.

Originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana,

he's been telling stories, helping students,

and inspiring people with his words.

He'll do the same for us, and he'll share a poem in the second half of the program.

So, we have Mary Mackie and Jeremy Green,

two friends of this radio show, two friends of creativity,

and two people who will delight you with their wit and eloquence.

On this week's edition of Dr. Andy's Poetry and Technology Hour,

on KDVS 90.3 FM, Davis.

Welcome back everyone to Dr. Andy's Poetry and Technology Hour on KDVS 90.3 FM in Davis.

Mary Mackie is my guest, I'm so excited to welcome her back.

She's an American novelist, poet, and now retired academic,

who's the author of somewhere in the neighborhood of ten collections of poetry,

that number will grow this year, and more than 14 novels,

including a grand passion in the village of the bones,

the year the horses came, the horses at the gate, and the fires of spring.

Forced sweeping historical novels that take as their subject,

goddess worshipping cultures of Neolithic Europe, in 2012,

her sixth collection of poetry, Sugarzone,

won the Penn Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award,

and then another favorite, the Jaguars, the Proudlar Dreams,

new and selected poems, won a 2018 Women's Spirituality Book Award.

Her book on creativity is one that I've taught in a freshman seminar here at UC Davis,

and we've had Mary Mackie come to Davis many times to read

as part of the Poetry Night Reading Series.

It's always a pleasure to catch up with her.

Mary Mackie, welcome back to Dr. Andy's Poetry and Technology Hour.

Thank you, Andy, it's always a pleasure to be with you in the Poetry and Technology Hour, I love it.

Same here. Well, Mary, let's start with that.

One of the great joys I think of your life is that you don't have to think about

artificial intelligence in the context of the classes that you teach

because you had the good fortune of retiring before students started using

AI both for good and for concerning reasons, let's say.

I'm wondering to what extent AI enters the perhaps

at times less rushed and deadline-filled life that you're leading these days.

Well, AI doesn't really enter my life very much

unless you can't spell check. I use AI.

I've written some science fiction stories, not yet published about AI,

kind of projecting about what I think it's going to do.

Some day I'll get around to sending them out.

So I think about it, I've been thinking about it for a long time

and what it can do to our culture and to the arts, particularly.

Also, I remember the author's guild, and as you said,

I have a new book of poetry coming out in about a month,

and that book has certified human authored.

So the author's guild has now certified things,

totally authored by human beings.

There was no use of any kind of artificial intelligence to write the poems in that book.

And also, of course, I had the good fortune to appear as a human being

long before there was any doubt that I was a flesh and blood person.

But let me tell you right now, if you cut me,

I bleed as Shakespeare said in one of his plays.

Absolutely.

I think that was merchant of Venice, if I remember.

And I came up with that so quickly, you could tell I did not have time

to use AI to confirm that.

Well, good, good for you.

So you had just mentioned your book of poetry that's coming out later this year,

but you're in a situation in your career now

where some of your previously published works are being rediscovered

and even reissued.

And I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about that

and your feelings about reintroducing these old favorites to new audiences?

Well, yeah, I think that in some ways, you know,

fiction in some ways often is slightly prophetic

because authors think of scenarios.

We think of fictional, say, not scenarios.

And everyone's know how we are right on the wave of it.

These are four books about the goddess worshiping Earth-centered cultures

of Old Europe, and about the introduction of the horse,

which is a major weapon of war by patriarchal nomads who sweep in

and destroy, in many respects, those cultures,

and, you know, change European culture forever.

The first ports in Europe are built on top of the ashes of the cities

of these mother peoples.

It's a very interesting moment, a kind of great turning in history

at 6,000 years ago, which is also surprising, you know,

that there are, so they're largely,

it's one city of 20,000 people existence at that period.

So these books were real joy to write.

I wrote them using very precise archaeological research.

A rather famous woman, a professor,

a UCLA named Maria Gambudas,

helps me with the research on the first couple of them before she

unfortunately died before the rest could be completed.

And, but, you know, they're novels.

So they kind of take you there.

You should take them back into the past,

and you see, you know, what the implications are of these things.

You know, there's all sorts of things in there.

There's, you know, excitement.

There's characters.

There's plot.

There's even sex.

So you go back there as if somebody.

And then I also had the pleasure of writing the poems and rituals,

because you can look at the statues and the temples of these people

in the ruins, but you can't miss.

There's no writing at this period.

And I had a funny experience writing these books when they came out.

People would say to me,

I really like that nihilistic poetry.

Where can I find more of it?

You know, even though the book said there was no writing.

Right.

I succeeded in the building a fictional world that was quite, you know, comprehensible.

So I believe that open road media,

which is reissuing these four books of the Earth Song series,

the Year of the Horses came, the Horses at the Gate,

the Fires of Spring, and the Village of Bones.

I believe they think that there's an audience now

that was not aware of these books.

And we'll now find them very, very relevant to what's going on,

particularly with climate, with political unrest,

with all sorts of things that are happening at the moment.

It's almost, you know, it's almost frightening

when you write books and they become that relevant.

They're also putting out a fifth novel of mine.

And they chose these.

It's called Season of Shadows,

which is about the Civil Rights Movement,

the anti-war movement of the 60s and the weather underground.

So I think that's also interesting that they've decided

that that's a piece of history that people might be interested in.

And I'd always actually love to get my history from novels

if they're well researched.

So I try to be very accurate.

So when people get the history, they will get it in a very, you know,

completely accurate away as you can.

I mean, when I look at the forests of Europe and that era,

I went to the fossil parlance to see what kind of trees were actually growing there.

So I think that the fact that they're set that way,

and they're exciting books, they're interesting books, you know,

and I think that's probably where they were chosen.

I'm very happy to have them back in print.

They've never been out, they've been on Kindle and they've been there,

but this is going to be a much new covers, new ebook editions,

and new publicity so they're outreach to new readers.

And yeah, and new opportunities for you to speak before audiences

to read from these old favorites and to contextualize as you've been doing for us.

The stories, the history, the anthropology,

the archaeological digs that were necessary for someone to uncover some of these truths

that you write about Europe 6,000 years ago.

You know, a lot of us stop paying close attention maybe around 4,000 years ago.

How true, how true.

And you know, people are, you know, you can have all sorts of really fascinating

anthropological, archaeological data, climate data, all sorts of things,

and people aren't going to read it because most people do not read scientific papers.

I don't blame them, you know, but I have to love research.

And so if you have people moving through this,

you know, people you can understand and see and think about their lives and look at them,

it's a way of learning history that I think relatively painless,

interesting, exciting, and at the same time gives you a sense of the past

and how it might even be replicating in certain ways in the presence

that you wouldn't get otherwise.

Absolutely, and there's an interesting analog too.

Tell me the extent to which you think this applies,

that you are writing in part about the effects of research that people have done

to discover female centric goddess worshipping societies that antedate

much of what we think of as Western civilization.

And then similarly, people are rediscovering your novels that themselves

offer a kind of feminist foundation for different ways of thinking.

So this idea of recovery, rediscovering, finding matrilineal roots that we didn't know we had,

it seems that this is happening both with what you write about

and then also the fact that your books themselves are being exhumed, if you will,

and repainted in paperback for many people to discover.

Yeah, paperback and e-additions.

But I think it's also really interesting to realize that as all the indications are

that these were partnerships societies.

You know, they're not just upside down women on top men on the bottom instead of men on top women

on the bottom in terms of social status.

These were studies where, you know, if you find grave goods,

you find very equally interesting grave goods men and women,

you find women were both trading with men.

They aren't, they aren't, they aren't archicle.

You know, they had higher arcs in the same way.

They were smaller villages, they didn't have the kind of, they had trade,

they had weaving, they had all sorts of beautiful pottery,

but they were not huge commercial enterprises.

And also war was different because if you live in a small village

and you go and loot your neighbors, they will walk over and loot you.

Right.

That's not a good thing.

But if you have a horse, which had not been in Europe for 10,000 years,

you can ride in there with 50 men on horseback and they were male.

That's the evidence of this too.

You can destroy things and be 50 miles away before anybody can get to you.

So I think it's that introduction of a new kind of weapon,

which is totally fascinating to me and how that can change cultural balance.

Absolutely.

A new kind of technology, if you will.

If not the horse's fault, let me say that right now.

Absolutely.

Mary Mackie is my guest today and she is a novelist poet and academic

who is coming out with new books and old books in 2026.

I think that we've gone too long on this poetry radio show, Mary,

without hearing a poem.

And I understand that you've got a title poem there from one of your upcoming books.

Yes, I do.

In April of this year, I'm going to have a book published by a new press called

Women's Spirituality Studies Press.

And they asked me to put together all the goddess poems I'd ever written.

Well, you know, since I've had written about goddess cultures and put their poetry in this,

I had written poems in the voice of those cultures through their rituals.

And at the same time, I had to let the earth speak in the voices of spirits.

I'm not saying I'm channeling them.

But this is a way the earth speaks back to us.

And the new book is called The Goddess of Burning Hair.

And love is very important.

It's not necessarily her hair is on fire.

It's the rainforest.

It's the hair of the earth.

It's the trees that are burning.

And I'm going to read you the title poem of The Goddess of Burning Hair.

And it's an exhortation.

It's a plea.

And it's also a desire to not forget about climate change.

I mean, I think given the present political confusion chaos and uncertainness,

climate change is kind of going on the back burner right now.

It's still going on.

And I actually spent time in the Amazon and saw the burning rain forest.

So that gives me a firsthand account too.

The goddess of burning hair.

I am your fire dancer, your goddess of burning hair,

your monkey, gatherer, bird, rescuer, rider of the Great River,

weaver of Lianas, drinker of Vyper Venom,

keeper of the rainforest, and of the margins of the rainforest,

and of the great drowned forest that sleeps beneath the flaming trees.

I can call down the stars that slither across your skies,

move the five panthers that hold up the earth,

summon the six jaguars that eat the moon.

I can show you visions of your own destruction as easily as I can draw breath.

Come closer.

Hear my prophecy.

She who you trample will trample you.

She who you burn will burn you.

She who you poison will rise resurrected and not last you.

The ice will return.

The pure air will return.

But you will not return.

I warn you, stop it.

Stop it now.

Full stop.

That's marvelous.

It seems to me that because of the context,

the kind of literary and archaeological context that you've created for these poems,

that you can take on a scope that is grander than say the scope that what Whitman takes on

with all of his catalogs of items that he lists.

Many of them focused in New York or Philadelphia, et cetera, et cetera.

But you can really take on the cosmos, the earth,

a kind of almost biblically toned prophetic voice,

and it really leads to an expansion of the imagination.

I'm sure yours, but also that of your listeners,

who delight in your prose and your poetry.

Poetry that's not limited in scope to the typical sort of describing of one's kitchen

or individual complaints and a relationship or whatever we might hear at an open mic.

Instead, we've got the grand swath of the universe is available to you for poems like this one.

I mean, I want Whitman as a wonderful poet.

He didn't have the chance to go to the Amazon, although he was a nurse in the Civil War.

So you don't have to send him that.

But also what happens is with my poetry, I've written about this in creativity.

I have a kind of way of just sort of loosening the bounds and looking at it.

And there's a tradition of mystical poetry that's very much like my poetry.

Most of it's run through some kind of religion, whether it be Islam,

whether it be the Sufi poets, whether it be Catholic poetry.

A lot of mystical poetry has a religious base on it that people see.

That's the way they teach it.

You know, they reach the creative spirit.

I don't run this through a particular religion.

I report what I kind of, you know, what I feel, what I sort of envision.

And I know you know from reading creativity that some of this comes in the fact that I've run very high fever

about six to eight times in my life, hitting about 107.1 was the highest.

And so these have sort of shown me a different way of looking at the world, you know.

I don't know what it is.

I'm not sure how it works.

But I can see it kind of peaceful, very benevolent, unified, and separate at the same time.

And that kind of gives me a platform from which my poetry comes to me.

I don't see creativity these ideas.

You know, they come to me and then craft.

You mean you have to practice a long time, but the craft has helped me express them.

Because they're not, they do not come in words.

There's something that happens before words.

I remember we talked about this in my class where your book on creativity was our weekly discussed textbook.

And we talked about how most people who have temperatures of 107.1 don't come back to tell the story of what it's like to have,

have ventured into that overheated world.

And so what it did to kind of disconnect you as a poet and thinker and writer,

and just a young person to disconnect you from the bounds of like logic,

or maybe even like syntax, or even like sensory data,

and that you're in this kind of world of the imagination that's not tempered by everything that we associate with, let's say, identity.

And it's not done in a logical way.

I mean, it's not logically after you get the ideas, when you get me wrong.

Fast and all that, it's very logical and very much that way.

But I don't enter it by rules.

You know, I entered in another way.

It kind of a door sort of has opened to me in that.

And I'm very grateful for it. It's a disability, obviously.

But one of my abilities seems to be that I don't go into convulsions at that high.

Most people go into convulsions.

And you know, I don't.

And if I've had any brain damage, I haven't noticed it.

I haven't gotten in the way too much.

And so, you know, it's just, it's a way of seeing beyond words.

You know, like once you learn the word chair, you never really see a chair again.

And I tell you, if you get two identical looking chairs, like two chairs and a, you know, fold that fold out chairs.

And you look at them and you look really closely at them.

They will become very different objects.

And you know, you can even imagine that they're different things.

I think metaphor is innate in all objects because we learn to solidify and see the thing as a single object.

But it has also some other little things going on with it that I've learned to have this hyper focus and look at.

And that does pervade my poetry a lot.

Wonderful.

Mary Mackie is my guest.

And we're talking about her past present and soon to be future poems and books of poetry as well as her novels.

You mentioned brain damage.

I'd say quite the opposite that you've been doing something in life.

I don't know if it's a clean living or an excellent diet.

But one of the reasons I so enjoy talking to you is that when you and I met some, I think almost 20 years ago at the San Francisco writers conference,

I was just amazed and impressed by how well you fielded questions from people in the audience or talked about poetry, creativity, novel writing, and women's publishing, feminist publishing, etc.

But here it is all these years later.

And I feel like mentally, you can just keep going without taking a breath.

So I'm sure there are some listeners who are wondering, what's your secret, Mary Mackie?

What is my secret?

Well, you know, I talk about disabilities being advantages.

I think part of the secret is that I have a tendency toward hypoglycemia, which is low blood sugar.

And once I got that diagnosed, it's very unpleasant when it happens.

It's a bit like insulin shock for diabetic.

I have to eat very carefully.

You know, I haven't had any sugar.

I haven't had a drink since I was 28 because of this.

You know, I can't smoke.

I can't use drugs because it crashes my blood sugar.

So I've actually had a fairly healthy life.

I don't think it hurts to do that.

But, you know, I also think that I just have such a strong interest.

I'm always interested in finding things out, little details of things.

I love knowing things, fun facts.

You know, I kind of put them together in my mind.

They often form things that are quite interesting to me.

And to the rest of us as well.

Mary Mackie, let's hear another poem, if you would.

Okay. Well, this is going to be from in this burning world.

And one thing this book does, and in this burning world,

this is the book that came out this, you know, in last May.

In this burning world, poems of love and apocalypse.

And what I tried to do in this book is imagine what climate,

what it was going to be like, almost like science fiction.

I like the scenarios.

Imagine kind of impotry what it was going to be like.

What it will be like for us, possibly, when climate change becomes more intrusive in our lives.

Although it's all intruding now.

Sacramento, I know right now, is up for some of the hottest weather.

It's never had in March.

But also, I wanted to look at what we're losing, you know,

the beauty of the old planet.

I'm going to read your poem about that.

And then I also, you know, talk about in the book, how are you going to get through this?

I think it's by, you know, generous love, mutual aid, compassion, charity,

taking care of people that are being, you know, hurt, lost, have problems in this.

And that is the reason, by the way, that I donated all the royalties from this book to the homeless.

Oh, that's delightful.

Yeah.

So this is a poem of it, just, you know, how beautiful it is right now in our planet.

Did you look at nature? It's so beautiful.

The beauty of the old planet.

Let's cherish the beauty of the old planet.

It's tall, glass towers and underground cities, long white beaches and soft forest floors.

The way it sky arches over us, free of smoke, so clear and deep,

it looks like the sides of a bottomless blue cup.

Let's walk together one last time through its unburned forests,

toward wild rivers that run to the sea, remembering the cold spring days,

cool summer mornings, snow that melts in our hands,

ice that catches crystal leaves on windowpains.

Sidewalks, we can walk on without burning our feet.

And, you know, I'd like to read you one more very short poem.

Sure.

It's right for this one.

And it's about being in the moment, you know, if you can be completely,

and I know people say that, but you know, we really are, we can't help it.

We are always in the moment.

So if you look when you're there, I think you might, I think this poem explains it better.

And this is after a poem by Blake called Jerusalem.

And the poem by Blake says, bring me my bow of burning gold,

bring me my arrows of desire, bring me my spiritual clouds and soul,

bring me a chariot of fire.

You know, it's about, it's a very mystical poem.

It's his out.

I shall not sleep, or shall my sword sleep in my hand till we have built Jerusalem

in England's green and present land.

That's Blake, mystical poet.

And so this is called Jerusalem Revisited.

And it does have some of those biblical overtones, as you said.

Today, just for a moment, I forgot what wars we were fighting.

We've been shot, we've been slaughtered, who was the president,

and how much of the Arctic ice-capped melted.

On a branch above me, I saw a sparrow who knew no history but her own.

And for the space of two breaths, maybe less.

I laid down my bow of burning gold and broke my arrows of desire.

So pretty.

It's delightful for people to listen to as they tune into KVS on a Wednesday afternoon.

I want to remind folks of some of the books that we've been talking about,

including in this burning world, poems of love and apocalypse.

And then a book that I enjoyed so much that I assigned it to my students,

Creativity Where Poems Begin.

And that's a 2022 book, a nonfiction work, that explores the origins of inspiration

and the creative process.

Mary Mackie, before I let you go, I have a great number of students

who are rediscovering feminist forebears and ancestors.

And I was just thinking about something.

I remember assembling for a bio when I was having you at our poetry reading series.

And that is some of what you founded when you were at California State University,

including in the 1970s.

And from which a great number of students have benefited since.

And so I'm just wondering if you could talk about some of what you got started

at CSUS back in the day.

Sure. Of course, I never did it all by myself.

It was all a collective effort.

For sure.

But one thing I did was with Dick Benkowski and several other people.

I founded the Creative Writing Program in the English Department at Sex State.

We didn't have a Creative Writing Program before that.

So you were able to, at that point, have a concentration in Creative Writing.

And so for many years, I taught Creative Writing.

I taught writing short stories, writing creative and nonfiction.

I'm also a screenplay writer.

I'm in the writer's guild in Hollywood.

I have screen credits. I taught screenplay writing.

And you know, Dennis Schmitz, who was one of the other people who founded it.

You know, he taught poetry.

And it was a really good collection.

We had wonderful students, and they were able to get MAs in Creative Writing

and also concentrate in it.

So that was one thing that I really loved.

It also was one of the founders of one of the first women's studies programs in the country.

And California State University Sacramento has that as it's, you know, the jewel in its crown, so to speak.

And that was very interesting.

We were, you know, completely trying new territory.

And now I find people educated women's studies.

And I wonder, do I know what I'm supposed to know about it?

We made it up as we went along in many ways.

And working to bring women writers to the attention of other people to understand the value of it.

A lot of the attitude at that time was that women writers, you know, poets were just fit for greeting cards.

And then novels had to be very hemming way asking, you know, very, very, very kind of aggressively masculine.

And I have known, by the way, many men who are not aggressively masculine who are, you know, we're all people.

There's my feeling about it.

I did that.

So those are probably the two major things that I did at Sex State.

And wonderful course that I got to teach in women's studies, which I made up, called Grandmother Mother and Me.

Because I didn't think many women's stories were out there at the time.

So the students wrote their grandmothers' biography, their own biography, excuse me, their grandmothers' biography, their mothers' biography, and their autobiography.

And we had such ethnic diversity at Sex State, you know, I was getting stories of people's grandmothers, actually, literally coming to California in a covered wagon.

You know, other people, you know, coming out of the Kamer Rouge education, re-education camps in Cambodia, people coming from all over the world, you know, in all sorts of different religions.

It was a wonderful, it was a wonderful, wonderful course.

And I just encourage any of you that you have time to do that, because it's a great gift to your family to interview people, particularly while they're alive, and have that record for your children and grandchildren and your relatives, if you have no children.

I mean, anybody, you know, everybody really wants to know where they came from.

And I think it was a great course.

That's great.

I read that Ryan Kugler, who's up for a few Oscars this coming Sunday, was also a graduate of Sex State.

And although he graduated with a degree in business administration, also known as Finance, for all of his elective credits, he took creative writing and film classes at CSUS.

Ryan Kugler came to me, I mean, I didn't make Ryan Kugler, he made himself, he was utterly brilliant.

But he came to me as a sophomore, he'd been playing football, and I think, if I recall, he didn't want to get his brain smashed in football.

And he was very, very intelligent.

And he wanted to take my advanced film script writing course.

And I said, well, you know, you don't have any to prerequisites.

And he said, well, you know, let me talk to you.

And I talked him for 20 minutes, and I thought, you know, he's going to, this person has amazing talent.

And he's going to do, okay, so I said, okay, Ryan, you know, here's what you can do.

You can take the course, which will be with graduate students, and you have to, you know, no mercy.

You have to do exactly what you have to do there.

You have to, you know, qualify.

I think he got it any minus as I recall.

He was just, or maybe an age, he was just, a talent just shown from that man.

He was just amazingly, as a sophomore in college, you could tell.

And I think it's the best call I ever made for letting somebody in an advanced course.

Oh, absolutely.

And now, if we fast forward to 2026, he's been nominated for a number of Oscars.

The Oscars are this coming Sunday, including for best director, for best picture, and highly relevant for you in the class you taught him best original screenplay.

Right.

And so it'll be terrific if he wins in one or more of those categories for his horror drama film centers.

I'll certainly be rooting for him when we watch the Oscars this weekend.

And, you know, I'd encourage people also to go look at Fruitvale Station, which he made, you know,

on the other early films.

And that was a script I did see.

And he was just, it was just, that's a brilliant show.

Fruitvale Station, you know, before he became famous.

I didn't, of course, teach him everything.

He knows about script writing.

He went to UCLA after that.

You know, maybe you see sort of California.

I can't remember.

But he had a lot of instruction post facts, but, you know, he was just, you know, good from the beginning.

And I have some DVDs of his very first movies, which he gave me, which was really nice.

Oh, that's sweet.

Well, I'm glad he got a foundation at Sac State before moving on to UCLA and international fame.

With, with filmmaking.

Well, Mary Mackie, it's always a pleasure to catch up with you.

If people wanted to find out more about you and your work, what website should they visit?

Well, I suggest two things.

First of all, they could visit my website, which is, you know, Mary Mackie.com, which isn't too hard to, very, very, very, Mackie.com.

And it also has all of my books, all the covers of the books walk across the, you know, the website with descriptions of all of them.

I mean, all of them, all the poetry, all the novels, everything.

A lot more bio-information and, you know, just more information.

And then you can always Google me on, you know, somebody put up a Wikipedia page for me.

So that was, so I'm also reachable that way.

In fact, if you just, now, if you Google Mary Mackie writer, you'll get me.

There's another Mary Mackie who's about, you know, she's about, I'd say 40 years younger than I am, maybe 50.

Right.

You know, I'm not that one.

Well, let's just say it, closing in on 30 or more published books that, by the time that happens,

I think someone's obligated to create a Wikipedia page for you.

And so they can go there as well as to Mary Mackie.com.

Mary, congratulations on all of your successes.

It's always a pleasure to speak with you.

Thank you so much for joining me today on Dr. Andy's poetry and technology hour.

Thank you for inviting me.

Take care.

You're listening to KDVS, 90.3 FM in Davis.

After this important message about drunk driving, TLTR don't drink and drive.

Then we will get Jeremy Green on the radio show.

He is another dynamic character.

We'll be two for two on this week's show.

And I think you'll enjoy that conversation as well.

My name is Dr. Andy, and this is Dr. Andy's poetry and technology hour.

We'll be right back after this important message.

Welcome back everyone to Dr. Andy's poetry and technology hour on KDVS, 90.3 FM Davis.

Jeremy Green is my next guest on the radio show.

Dr. Jeremy DeWane Green is a nationally certified school psychologist, professor of school psychology,

and poet and hip-hop artist.

Although he's residing these days in the Sacramento region, his familial roots remain firmly planted in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

In his free time, Dr. Green enjoys gathering and sharing the stories that he has heard along those winding roads.

Stories that also include his time living and working as a school psychologist in Shanghai, China.

Definitely people want to hear those sorts of stories.

Well, here's our chance.

Plus some poetry from Dr. Jeremy Green.

Jeremy, welcome to Dr. Andy's poetry and technology hour.

Hey, it's such an honor and a privilege to be a part of this show.

And as a UC Davis alum, who has listened to KDVS since, you know, at least 2006 and then some,

an honor and a privilege to be a part of it, my brother, good to hear your voice.

Well, great to have you back.

I was here doing the show in 2006 and I bet I know some of my radio disc jockey colleagues that you listen to back in the day.

Well, let's start with that.

Tell me, what was it that attracted you to UC Davis and was the English department part of those computations and fond memories?

Yeah, so what attracted me to UC Davis.

So I am the son of an alum.

So my father, Calvin D. Wayne Green, actually went there in the early 90s.

Got two masters degrees and engineering and mathematics.

So UC Davis has always been a part of our law as a family.

And, you know, something, you know, that my father and his mother would always preach his education being a gateway.

Being, you know, the opportunity to climb the ladder and escape whatever, you know, certain standards that may be negative happening in your day-to-day life.

So, you know, from that story and then going to UC Davis, bachelor's and psychology minor and black studies and so forth too.

You know, Davis has always been a part of my, you know, lineage has always been home for me.

Didn't take any real English classes there.

A lot of my lower division, you know, was done at the community college level at Folsom Lake College, shout out there as well on that transfer agreement, that tag agreement, if you will.

But I did take a lot of psych, a lot of black studies classes, a lot of communication classes during my time from 2006 to 2008.

That's great. Do you remember any professors who were particularly instrumental or influential during your times here at UC Davis?

Oh, I'm going to shout out, you know, Dr. Clarence Major, I'm going to shout out Dr. Alufa, I probably mispronounced her first name, Al Samari, as well as Dr. Robert Emmons.

So, we're talking about two black studies professors, one who was in the English department, Dr. Clarence Major, so I should reiterate that too.

Dr. Bruce Haynes, who was also sociology, I think he's built there right now.

Yes. Dr. Robert Emmons, who, you know, positive psychology 101, you know, health psychology, the psychology of religion, you know, one of the big names.

In terms of positive psychology, you know, across the world and so forth too.

So, if they hear this voice, maybe they'll remember me some might, some might not, but I just want to show them love one time and let them know that one of their students ended up getting a doctorate and a world traveler and presenting all over the world too.

So, appreciate them and every other teacher I had along the way.

Again, we're talking like, you know, 20-something years almost.

Right, right.

We've got a lot of time, but still far memories of UC Davis.

Also still go back, you know, sometimes perform a picnic day because, you know, like you said, the bio, the poetry, do the hip-hop, rap music and stuff like that too.

Just try to be creative in these days and times as I can.

Well, we certainly need that.

We had Clarence Major as one of our featured poets, feels like a year, year and a half ago at the Poetry Night Reading Series.

And he's also still very active on Facebook, chiming in on topics of the day, celebrating and promoting other poets.

So, still a force for poetry and creativity here in the late 2020s.

Well, Jeremy, I think that people are probably saying to themselves, this conversation has gone too long without us hearing any poetry on this poetry radio show.

What would you like to share with listeners and do you want to say anything about it first?

Yeah, so a little bit about myself.

I've been a school psychologist by practice for 13 years.

Currently teaching at the University of the Pacific as a professor of practice and counseling in the school psych department at Bender College.

So shout out to the O.P University, the Pacific and Stockton as well as teaching a class and a clinic at Sacramento State University.

So shout out there as well.

But as a, you know, practice in school psych colleges for, you know, over 12 years, this is the 13th year, who's practiced from Sacramento all the way to Shanghai China and so forth too.

You know, I've seen a lot of how these systems can hold back student voice, youth voice that can, you know, really hold back the ability for colleagues such as teachers, school sites, social worker school counselors, these pathologists, the list goes on and on, especially our special education teachers who have such a heavy burden.

To stay to California in terms of compliance in terms of individualized educational program plans in terms of meeting timelines and deadlines and compliance, this compliance that you see a lot of the bureaucracy hold back the ability to really maximize and promote the self actualization of the student from youth to adulthood and so forth too.

So if somebody who made the switch recently to go into academia as a professor, after, you know, 12 plus years of being a school psychologist in the Thomas Unified School district and being overseas for two years of Shanghai American school.

You see how the bureaucracy and the business like energy that these, you know, institutions that run like organizations even have dot org as part of their website name.

You see how, you know, the impact of running schools of businesses really have on our children, the retaliatory energy that comes from trying to speak up and try to advocate for our students as well.

And so I might saw, you know, and I still see day to day, of course, you know, just a, you know, disclaimer, five, ten years of my opinion is not reflection of my current employer, but at the same time, letting it be known that these are the things that when we see these strike happening in the Sacramento region at Twin Rivers Unified and then some of this unified school district, the first time it's ever happened on strike.

A lot of that is rooted in the toxicity, the policing, the inability to allow your educators to truly educate your students.

And of course, wages, benefits, those capitalistic markers that are so important for people to reach also are at the forefront of every conversation, but it's that toxicity, that inability to be authentically yourself that impacts not only my colleagues, not only myself, but our ability to raise up the student voice.

So this poem is about, you know, we leave in the tone.

Called those to those who left me behind and really just dedicated to some of that toxicity that policing of your language, the policing of your location, the inability to let you fly and try to hold you down and hold you back because of their own fragility and your own fear of your superior divine mind.

But this is called to those who left me behind your fragility tried to cage me attempted to name myself a scene due to your fear my intellect try to label my composer as nothing more than obedience and see you had evidence to knock me down, but standing my ground and name of those on far more shakeier foundations rules or rules as long as they don't apply to you question my fit here, even if it's clear many connect with my ability to remind them of the glory of their untold story.

Back in as if my style is too saucy for your male textures and aren't miracles like the parties and punishments that you like to whip up where I am now is where I had to be back then representing for the people who you see as more than just ivory soap drama and political theater.

You told me the code switch because you feared my power to the people skills unaware of what you called code switching quote unquote was indeed true people skills that I revealed is ain't never been just a job to me.

They never been about monotony or restricted ones autonomy ain't never been about denying people that their potential due to fake policies is ain't never been just a job to me.

Some claim that I'm all quote unquote so learners deserve support and this is the direct quote true story in terms of the admin back there quote unquote so learners deserve support while making six figures without living anywhere near the essence of the here and now.

The harder the matter is that within the district of fallen arenas I choose the rise above the outer rim as if a king with that elusive ring as if a man who clowns you with his blame as if my students families and colleagues finally getting all the blessings that they deserve.

This ain't never been just a job to me you see this is my divine driven dream you see the name and enclaim it is part of the representation that you couldn't see is benefiting all who witness such i'm just back here again to tell you that the child ain't done even if the winds of change is seemingly turned to dust.

To ignite the positive rise patience in believing in that power cosmic dust for myself it is time to begin again once again this is a story you'll never silence thank you so much i appreciate your time brother that was great i just love the the different bridging impulses in your poetry they include auto biographical narrative.

Traditions in rhetoric and public speaking the the undercurrent of hip hop that I mentioned before but also bringing together the the humanities with psychology and positive psychology looking out for underdogs offering encouragement which all of us need i just love all the things that you're you're doing with your poetry while still keeping it as you say saucy.

Yeah you know and that's something you know when I do these you know palms in live and live in color you know I was in a lot more energy a lot more you know passion and so forth to.

So you know for those who are interested you know maybe me and you connect and we can you know bring them to you know some sort of gathering and we can share this in you know in real time but uh yeah I just you know one of the things I do for my research and as you know anybody that leads me and has met me since I was a child.

I'm a storyteller because I'm a story gather and I tell people all the time from you know doing you know conversations and Edmonton Alberta Canada doing Ted talks and some high China just working here in Sacramento up and down North cow so calis so forth to I try to bring the emphasis on the voice and the reality that in terms of students voice research you voice research you know I hate terminology business language but I'll just use business language because that's part of the research that is out there you know we talk about stakeholders.

What about stakeholders in public education in terms of our parents or stakeholders are admin who see themselves managers and not educators right right the problem right there they see themselves admin managers and not educators.

One of the things we see all the time is that in terms of policy decisions our greatest stakeholder is the student is the child but they have little to no say on the policies that we implement that impacts them day to day.

We see some of that even right now in some of the discussions that I was alluding to in terms of the Thomas unified twin rivers unified up and down state that yes it is about the student but where is the student voice within this mix in terms of the negotiations that are occurring between the ivory tower in terms of district office as well as our own union as a pro union person and proud union member back in the day with the Thomas unified as well.

So needless to say I tried to you know live my authentic truth so students can see that there's a different way of seeing being and knowing regardless of those students are K-12 in terms of kindergarten 12th grade or college age professionals which I am working with currently in my day to day.

Amazing alright do you have any events talks presentations poetry readings coming up in 2026 that anyone should know about.

Yeah I'm trying to collaborate with my buddy I'm going to give him a shout out he has an excellent podcast shield that we'll peak real we're trying to you know set up a poetry event hopefully in the next couple of months.

He's called you know voices across California we have one year in North cow we have one year in so cow we still kind of in the mix trying to figure that out but that's something that even our boy Jesse really you know putting a lot of work and a lot of time and effort to create and so forth to so shout out to them.

Right now it's just really you know as you know that you know a educator in terms of academia is March madness so there's a lot of grading a lot of papers a lot of you know working with my students right now but the hope is you know to do more poetry readings I do have a webinar that I'm hosting with Dr. Megan O'Malley and Dr.

Tracy swammy with the CDE California Department of Education next month in April that should be a webinar that I believe everybody can have access to you know in terms of just enrolling on the CDC or CDE our website and so forth to.

That's great well clearly every student needs an ally and I think you're the best candidates it's Jeremy D green Jeremy if people were curious about you and your work is there a website that they should visit to find out more.

Yeah they can actually find me is just I have a personal with a professional website Jeremy D green dot com if I'm remembering the handle right but you know i'm pretty easy to find so I would just say if you're trying to find anything in terms of you know contacting me just try to find a TEDx talk.

It's called a transformative power of rejection so it's on the TEDx website is on YouTube and stuff like that but other than that you know you can find me on you know email.

J green like my last name with the ESPN at Pacific dot EDU and then just reach out if you want to you know collaborate and you know discuss and just keep up you know with everything that we're doing and trying to change this you know change you know into a better tomorrow starting today.

Absolutely it's just what we need well Dr. Jeremy green thank you so much for joining me today sharing with listeners of myself some of your poetry.

I know that you're a busy man with classes to teach and meetings to attend I think like all of us by look forward to my next opportunity to seeing you read and perform either in Sacramento or Davis or elsewhere later in 2026.

Yes i'm looking forward to it as well my brother so until the next hello all as well and I'll be well much love my brother thank you for allowing me time and space to talk with you.

Thank you Jeremy D green and as we were just talking about the the website if you're curious is Jeremy D green with an E at the end dot com thank you Jeremy great job today.

And let's love my brother and hope all as well and talk to you so talk to you soon.

You're listening to K D V S 90.3 FM in Davis my name is Dr. Andy and this is Dr. Andy's poetry and technology hour it's time for a few closing remarks before I head out to my next gig.

I'd like to remind you that K D V S is a free form radio station that offers music and public affairs programming occasionally sports 24 hours a day seven days a week so I hope that you'll always join us right here at K D V S when you are looking for original programming.

I'd also like to let you know that our next poetry night which is a week from tomorrow the 19th of March will be a wide open mic and we'd be happy to have you be a part of that particular event poetry night happens every first and third Thursday.

At the John Nezel is gallery 521 first street here in the city of Davis if you'd like to find out more you could visit poetry and Davis dot com.

And now in my closing minutes I'd like to recognize that today is the birthday of Ezra Jack Keats the call to cut metal award winning U.S. children's book writer best known for the snowy day.

As well as the novelist Douglas Adams known for the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy another important author whose work you're probably already familiar with.

Thanks very much to Mary Mackie for joining me on the radio show I look forward to welcoming her back to the poetry night reading series I think in 2027 as well as Dr Jeremy Green.

Make sure you keep your radio right here on KVS for great music.

My name is Dr. Andy I'll see you next Wednesday and every Wednesday for another edition of Dr. Andy's poetry and technology hour on KDVS 90.3 FM Davis.

Thank you.