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This week the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival features Steve Straight, whose new book of poems, The Water Carrier, was just released by Curbstone Press. He's an English professor and director of the poetry program at Manchester Community College in Manchester, Conn. He reads his poem, "Lesson" for Weekend Edition Saturday. We also pays homage to independent producer Phyllis Joffe, who filed nearly 175 stories for NPR over 20 years, including producing the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival. Joffe died last weekend.

Now appearing on All Things Considered: The comedy troupe responsible for such classic spoofs as I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus. Today, Firesign Theatre tackles the issue of homeland security, and the government's program to get civilians to "tip" the government to suspicious activity.

Adam Goren and his electronic sequencer (his package) produce quirky, funny, self-referential songs wrapped in a retro '80s synth groove. NPR's Neda Ulaby looks at the improbable musical career of Atom and His Package on Weekend Edition Saturday.

In a series of reports for Morning Edition, NPR Beijing correspondent Rob Gifford profiles five people from across China who symbolize the massive changes the country is undergoing as it makes its transition away from communism. The latest segment features Wu Dongmei, a young woman who, in search of a better life, migrated 1,000 miles from her village to work at a clothing factory.

The Smithsonian National Museum of American History opened a new exhibit Monday featuring the Cambridge, Mass. kitchen where Julia Child filmed many of her television shows -- and where many Americans learned to be less afraid of French cooking. See photos and a video of the exhibit -- and learn about Child's life as a World War II spy. See http://americanhistory.si.edu/kitchen/index.htm.

This week the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival features high school contributors. Jennifer Steele and Laura Mandelberg are two of the writers featured in the 10th annual Young Poets Competition, co-sponsored by the festival. They read from their poems for Weekend Edition.

NPR's Richard Knox spent a year with Phil Simmons and his family to chronicle his long struggle with Lou Gehrig's disease -- and to report on how an extraordinarily dedicated group of friends banded together to help take care of Simmons. He died last weekend at his home in the New Hampshire woods. For All Things Considered, NPR's Richard Knox reflects on Simmons' life.

It usually takes a strong back to work for a moving company. "Estate movers" need strong stomachs as well. As part of Morning Edition's "Dirty Work" series, NPR's Scott Horsley reports on the workers who empty houses that sometimes haven't been cleaned in decades.

As we move into the dog days of summer, NPR's Susan Stamberg ferrets out at least one recipe for the perfect iced tea -- a drink some call the "house wine of the South." Stamberg talks with Iced Tea author Fred Thompson, who shares a recipe he grew up with, Friday on All Things Considered.

Ten years after the Earth Summit in Rio, delegates gather for another United Nations global conference. With Rio's failed global treaties as a backdrop, organizers are looking for small successes. And this time around, the emphasis is not on the planet, but on global poverty. NPR's Richard Harris reports for All Things Considered.