Many years ago, when I first traveled through Yellow Springs, Ohio, the home of Antioch College, I felt a strange Twilight-Zone presence in that Sunday-morning vacant town. The inn’s proprietor was not surprised because upstairs Rod Serling taught class. I felt the vibe. Now, I’m catching that vibe again with Rikki Santer’s Stopover, her poetic riffs on Sterling’s Twilight Zone, which takes the series to another dimension, where the allegories are soft reminders of our humanity, our vulnerability, and our innocence. Our enjoyment is seeing episodes with no moral, no message, no prophetic tract/just a suit of armor held together by one bolt/call it faith. She soars, for instance, when she shares the bird’s-eye view of Mickey Rooney as a washed-up jockey, condensing the aging loser in a prison-like room with walls closing in as your consonants rattled, your character out of his mind with shortness, neon gel of your ranting, nighty night. Rikki and Rod parse the lonely life of a has-been: Rod’s washed-up jockey and Rooney’s seedy actor with frayed pockets: king high, ace low. In her cento poem, she uses Serling’s voice in a fantastic world full of question marks and leavened by the possibility but never the reality of bromides. Rikki Santer’s poetic appreciation of The Twilight Zone series embraces for our consideration cynicism about our intentions and unconditional love for our imperfection. Enter her lyrical zone to enjoy Serling’s simple tales as the stuff of poetry. If you think humankind to be masterfully in charge, then Rikki and Rod will remind you that we are doomed to be served on a platter by those who know we deserve it.

-John DeSando, producer and host of It'sMovie Time and

Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double

Take for NPR’s WCBE 90.5 FM, Columbus, Ohio.