Texas Standard is 10 years old! It’s a huge milestone for a program that started as an experiment. And we’re celebrating big time. Along with birthday parties and birthday messages, we’re looking back at our favorite content from the past ten years.
April is National Poetry Month. So, we thought it appropriate to celebrate a few of our favorite poets: the folks with the Typewriter Rodeo!
» RELATED: Share your original poetry with Texas Standard
Out in the world, you can find the Typewriter Rodeo team at special events. But they do something unique for Texas Standard – taking poems from our listeners anytime. Sometimes these are news-related. Sometimes they’re about the Texas experience. Sometimes they’re personal. Sometimes they’re silly.
From left, Jodi Egerton, LaCole Foots, Bianca Alyssa Pérez, Rebecca Bendheim, Sarah Beach, and Sean Petrie type up poems on Feb. 20, 2023, at KUT Public Media Studios. Michael Minasi / Texas Standard
We’ve been airing these newsy, Texas-y, personal, silly poems every Friday since before Texas Standard was even a statewide show. We have close to 530 of them – and counting! Trying to narrow those down to a top 10 list celebrating 10 years of Texas Standard was a challenge. We took a stab!
10. Summer training
This is a poem request that some of us thought was going to be quite the opposite of what Shanna Gerlach so beautifully delivered. It was also among the favorites of Texas Standard Managing Editor Gabrielle Muñoz – who is a runner herself.
9. Squirrels lying flat on the concrete
This is another hot-weather poem – which feels appropriate for Texas. It’s by the Typewriter Rodeo poet who arguably does silly better than almost anyone: Jodi Egerton.
David Fruchter (left) and Sean Petrie type poems at the Texas Standard 10th Birthday Party at Scholz Garden on Sunday, March 2, 2025. Renee Dominguez / Texas Standard
8. A quarantine love poem
This love poem by David Fruchter is on the more serious side. There was a period when almost all of our poems, as well as everything else in our lives, was delivered through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic.
7. Farewell 2020
There are some guarantees with the Typewriter Rodeo, including, almost every year, we’ll have a back-to-school poem, a Halloween poem, a Christmas poem, and a New Year’s poem. This New Year’s poem from Naomi Shihab Nye was necessarily a little different.
6. Texas town names
We dug back into the archives to find this poem about one of the ways Texas is unique. Sean Petrie has such a great delivery on this one. Longtime listeners to the Texas Standard podcast might remember it used to be part of a regular ad that aired on our feed.
5. Perez women have always been beautiful
Halfway through the list of our favorite Typewriter Rodeo poems from the past decade, we’ve checked off Texas-y and silly. This one from Bianca Alyssa Pérez gets personal.
Rebecca Bendheim during KUT/X Open House on June 29, 2023. Patricia Lim / KUT News
4. Last time, at the gay bar
The most challenging category of poem is probably the newsy variety – how to react to something in the world that people undoubtedly have a range of opinions on. We consider these poems tiny commentaries and are not heavy-handed in their editorial oversight. It’s art. This poem by Rebecca Bendheim was recorded not long after a deadly attack on a Colorado Springs night club. It was Texas Standard Producer Sarah Asch‘s nomination.
3. Turning 18 as a boy in this culture
This poem came in as a listener request, but our poets weren’t quite sure what the listener had in mind. LaCole Foots deftly balances a couple of interpretations.
LaCole Foots (far right) types poem at the Texas Standard 10th Birthday Party at Scholz Garden on Sunday, March 2, 2025. Renee Dominguez / Texas Standard
2. Off to college
We go way back to 2015 for this personal poem by David Fruchter that many can no doubt relate to. Have the tissues handy!
1. The four horsemen
This is another Typewriter Rodeo poem that balances news and art. It tackles the highly divisive issue of the Supreme Court’s ruling guaranteeing the right to gay marriage. It’s by Kari Anne Holt.
Honorable Mentions
Michael Minasi / KUT News
There were more than a few favorites left out here. Technical Director Casey Cheek’s favorite was, of course, about the birth of his beautiful daughter. And there were more than a few staff votes about the poem that was purportedly about baseball – but actually about butts. Digital Producer Raul Alonzo also nominated one about our former colleague, John Aielli.
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Don’t forget, you can always request a Typewriter Rodeo poem of your own.
And since it’s National Poetry Month, we’re bringing back our tradition of asking you to share your original poetry with us.
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