Visions of Half Sleep
A dreamscape of Bill Gillard's poetry and fiction that rides musical waves from a community of musicians in northeastern Wisconsin.
All poems and stories written and performed by Bill Gillard.
billgillard.com
Broadcast on Wednesdays at 10pm on WOCT 101.9 FM Oshkosh.
Art by Judith Waller.
Music by:
- Nani Agbeli, drums, Lawrence University
- Greg Cebulski, piano, Appleton
- Joanna Dane, flute, Appleton
- Loren Dempster, cello, Lawrence University
- Paul Dietrich, trumpet, Ripon College
- Bill Gillard, Appleton
- Tony Knuppel, piano, Appleton
- Ed Martin, piano, UW Oshkosh
- Tad Neuhaus, guitar and percussion, Appleton
- Nadje Noordhuis, trumpet, Lawrence University
- Offsite, music producer, Appleton
- Wilson Poffenberger, saxophone, UW Stevens Point
- Tom Washatka, many instruments, UW Oshkosh
- Drew Whiting, saxophone, UW Oshkosh
Episodes
12 episodes
Can't Find a Better Man
What causes us to seek the company of others? I write this alone but with the din of voices outside somewhere—a neighbor or a passerby. I am not lonely, but I know that I will seek out others soon enough and if they provide nutrition or p...
The USS Scorpion, Lost with All Hands
The sun shines and plants grow. From this, all else: French cuisine, Gregorian chants, a rusty Corolla by the side of the highway, a tennis call rolling down a paved road. A green leafy thing figured out how to turn sunshine into energy, and me...
Our Lady of 1983
We witness miracles daily; any sufficiently distant event is indistinguishable from a miracle. What we do not understand elicits emotion—at times intense. The nature of that involuntary response determines character. If the unknown makes us afr...
Something Again
That old Arthur C. Clarke quote about technology so advanced it might as well be magic—that applies to sounds in the city, as well. The concrete beneath your feet as firm and as unyielding as physics allows is shaken by… what? There’s something...
No New York
When we really think about it, when we trace the genealogy back back back, then we must come to terms with the fact that old great grandma Persimmon from the old country had a grand who was a fish with legs. That had to be an awkward family reu...
Incident at the Vulcan Mill
The Great Peshtigo Fire swept through Northeast Wisconsin on October 8, 1871 — the same night as the far more famous Great Chicago Fire. Chicago lost something like 300 souls. Peshtigo lost 2,500. A managed burn for clearing brush and timber wa...
The Flotilla
Once upon a time there was a scientist whose fondest wish was to see the world clearly and to then help others to do the same. His favorite shoes are hip waders, and his friends are worms and tadpoles and the moss that grows above the water lin...
Dig, He Said
Some memories are best left buried. When a child apprehends the world as they find it, truth and invention filter the same light through different lenses. A missing parent. A mother who holds too much back. A man whose pursuit of his own truth ...
Turn Back or Die
The landscape here is flooded — lush wetlands rising with memories of the life that came before and the life still to come. From wooded hillsides where new houses are going up come the calls of languages from across this wet globe. From boardwa...
A Name He Knew But Did Not Remember Learning
Bell wonders: “Whence a model for worthy life / measure? Where from a manual / for husbandly virtue? How to return / when thoughts negotiate escape / to spring worlds far and new?” This episode wonders how one figures out what kind of life is w...
A Million Years 'til Morning
It is hard enough to close one’s eyes at the end of a day thinking about the missed opportunities, the moments when our weakness was demonstrated beyond doubt, without bringing other people into the frame. Once we allow others in, we risk them ...
All The Redemption I Can Offer
Death is the theme, close observers are we all, and the longer one lives, the closer we get to our final dance. In a dream, one man meets an old friend who has made that journey years before. That’s “Candy’s House,” and the bear chases us all t...
