November 06, 2009
A century ago, Troy, New York, was a thriving industrial capital. Today many of its residents live in poverty. Studio 360's Lu Olkowski went to Troy with poet Susan B.A. Somers-Willet and photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally to document some of Troy's stories. They spent a lot of time with a single mother, Billie Jean Hill.
Susan B.A. Somers-Willet wrote a poem about DJ Guerrin, another one of Troy's single mothers struggling to get by.
"In Verse" is Studio 360's series documenting the lives of the working poor through poetry and photography. It was created by Lu Olkowski and Ted Genoways, editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review.
A child of the '80s, Scott Edward Nall never really grew out of "The Transformers" – the cartoon where robots changed into guns and planes. Transformers influenced Nall so much, that as a man, he decided to literally become one of his Transformer heroes and legally renamed himself Optimus Prime. Produced by Dan Kramer.
(Originally aired: June 29, 2007)
Has a cartoon, a toy, or another piece of pop culture changed your life? Tell us.
When Klara Hobza came upon a 40-year-old book of construction designs for paper airplanes, she had an epiphany, and the New Millennium Paper Airplane Contest was born. Now Hobza has her own paper airplane book. Jonathan Mitchell discovers how her designs took flight.
After decades in sunny California, Hockney returns to the English countryside where he grew up. Instead of swimming pools, now he's painting the thick woods and green fields of East Yorkshire. And at 72, he's taken up painting on his iPhone. Kurt meets up with Hockney at New York's Pace Wildenstein gallery, where his new work is on view through December 24.
Billy Pappas spent eight years working on an intricate pencil drawing of a famous Marilyn Monroe photograph. The one person he hoped would appreciate his work was David Hockney. Kurt talks with Julie Checkoway, director of "Waiting for Hockney", which follows Pappas's pursuit. The documentary airs on the Sundance Channel November 23.
"In Verse" is supported by Public Radio Makers Quest 2.0, an initiative of AIR, the Association of Independents in Radio. This project is made possible with funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by a creative partnership with Virginia Quarterly Review.
Go behind the scenes of "In Verse" at Transom.org.
Studio 360 is a co-production of
Public
Radio International and
WNYC New York Public Radio, and is funded in part by
Ken and Lucy Lehman, the
National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lily Auchincloss Foundation. Studio 360's American Icons series is supported in part by the
National Endowment for the Humanities. Our series on creativity and science is supported in part by the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Our series on Underground Heroes is supported in part by the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. 
