Now Playing: May 2024

Our May 2024 edition of Now Playing features weather phenomena and lessons in collaboration, all from our contributors!

 Arah Ko

As someone historically uninterested in reality television, I am shocked to say I have been binging every season of Survivor in order. I am continually surprised at how a disparate group of sixteen strangers become people I feel so strongly about - love or hate, disdain or admire. And above all, how players of such different backgrounds can overcome differences of experience, from race, gender, class, sexuality, body type, skill level, social style, to create meaningful relationships and prove themselves to each other and the audience. For me, it's the anti-Lord of the Flies, watching folks come together against all odds. It gives hope to a (sometimes cynical) poet like me.

Jeff Wood

I live on the outskirts of Colorado Springs. Cheyenne Mountain and NORAD loom from the West, only a handful of miles away, overlooking the front door of our house.  My writing desk does not look toward the stern face of the mountain, but rather the dun fields of eastern Colorado. As I write, I watch storms build and dissipate. Cumulus clouds tumble across the sky like circus clowns. Blue-grey sheets of rain spill from anvils of cloud, drenching the parched land below. I call this Cloud TV, and on these bright wet Spring days it is my chief entertainment.