April is National Poetry Month? Some kind of rant is sure to follow on that rhetorical question, no? No, because it's not truly a question, it's up-talk, that elocution pollution that's percolating up to public radio? Not hip, it's hip-flop?

And the questions? continue throughout? Finally, the outcue on up-talk leaves the listener not weightless but waiting?

Mr Beatty presents some good lines and a premise with merit, but fails to pursue it beyond the obvious. "National Poetry Month Commentary" sounds like a first draft. Turn the page -- but don't close the book. His other work is stronger, and I think we'll hear more from Beatty in future as he finds his voice in that odd space between book and bar called public radio.

I do however hope he'll eschew the music beds of "Barry, Bob & Me" and "A June Commentary", which are the audio equivalent of graphics in magazines – perhaps pretty at first glance, but which can never change the words themselves. Brian Beatty has good words and honesty, and that will out in the end.