From the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader:
WUKY cancels radio program over offensive content
By Jamie Gumbrecht
HERALD-LEADER CULTURE WRITERA few weeks after The Boston Globe called The Writers Almanac radio program “a confection of poetry and history wrapped in the down comforter voice of producer and host Garrison Keillor,” WUKY-91.3 FM canceled the daily featurette for offensive content.
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Reaction to the cancellation has been minimal so far, Godell said. WUKY managers decided to stop carrying the Almanac after a recent spate of language advisories, although they were tracking the content for about a year, Godell said.
The warnings, issued by the programs production company, came about Curse of the Cat Woman by Edward Field, which contained violent themes and the word “breast”; Thinking About the Past by Donald Justice, which also used the word “breast”; and Reunion by Amber Coverdale, which contained the phrase “get high.” The poems were scheduled for broadcast between July 23 and Aug. 12.
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Keillor, who will perform Feb. 21 at Centre Colleges Norton Center for the Arts, said in an e-mail that stations are within their rights to cancel the Almanac but hes proud of the poems he reads.
“There isnt one of them I would hesitate to offer to any high school English class,” Keillor wrote. “The fact that someone is troubled by hearing the word ‘breast’ is interesting, but what are we supposed to do with A Visit From St. Nicholas and the ‘breast of the new fallen snow’? Should it become a shoulder or an elbow? I dont think so.”
I always knew there was something suspicious about poetry.