The Poetry Magazine Podcast

This week, Srikanth Reddy talks shit, quite literally, with the poet and translator James Shea. Shea recently co-translated, with Ikuho Amano, a little-known essay by the Japanese poet Masaoka Shiki titled “Haiku on Shit.” It’s a surprisingly serious, if not a little deadpan, essay about art and reality, beauty and ugliness, and poop and poetry. One favorite that’s shared in the episode is this one by Issa: “When you show it some sympathy, the baby sparrow takes a crap on you.” Here’s another favorite, this time by Buson: “Fallen red plum blossoms appear to be ablaze on clumps of horse shit.” To begin, Shea and Reddy take us through the history of haiku, starting with the four great poets of the form: Issa, Buson, Basho, and—200 years later—Shiki, who published the essay “Haiku on Shit” over a century ago. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Srikanth Reddy first encountered the complex poetic world of Don Mee Choi as a translator of avant-garde Korean poetry before reading Choi’s own poetry. As a poet, Choi invites readers into her personal history—which is also the history of her father and of war. Even if you haven’t read Choi’s poetry, you’ve probably seen the work of her father—a photojournalist who filmed much of the news footage that Americans saw of the Vietnam War and the Cold War era. Choi is at work on a new book, Wings of Utopia, which is the final book in what unintentionally became a trilogy. In Hardly War, Choi set out to explore the dictatorship era of South Korea, but to understand Park Chung-hee’s dictatorship, she felt she also needed to delve into the 1945 national division of Korea, so she wrote a second book, DMZ Colony. Today you’ll hear three poems from the final book, where Choi orbits around her father’s memories as a way to explore the Gwangju Massacre, and what Walter Benjamin called “temporal magic.” Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When Srikanth Reddy was reading about Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis’s work as a curator at the Smithsonian, he was surprised to learn about Davis’s interest in ghosts. This week on the podcast, Reddy speaks with Davis about ghosts and “ghost practice,” and about the unusual way Davis’s novel is being haunted by other writers. They also talk about the Center for Refugee Poetics, founded by Davis with the poet Ocean Vuong, which Davis describes as “a mobile literary arts and education project, a Center without a physical home, a roving sanctuary.” To learn more about the Center for Refugee Poetics, check out Davis’s essay in the April 2022 issue of Poetry, “On Refugee Poetics and Exophony.” Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, guest editor Srikanth Reddy and poet CM Burroughs dive into the world of Margaret Danner. Danner was a contemporary of Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes, whom she knew personally, but she never achieved the recognition she deserved in her lifetime. If you look for Danner’s poetry in your local bookstore, you won’t find anything in print. Recently, Burroughs connected with Danner, a poet from her lineage as a Black woman writing in America, but not through Danner’s poems—through her archival “hair-down letters.” Reddy and Burroughs talk about Danner, race in America, and also faith. Danner converted to Baha’i, a relatively new world religion devoted to the unity of all faiths, in the early sixties. Burroughs reads one of her poems titled “God Letter,” from her newest book Master Suffering, and we’ll hear two poems by Danner. We’re grateful to also share a bit from the choir at the Bahá'í House of Worship and their director of music, Van Gilmer. You can read more work by and on Margaret Danner, including CM Burroughs’s “Dear Margaret: An Epistolary Collaboration,” in the March 2022 issue. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When Jay Hopler received a terminal cancer diagnosis in 2017, he was told he had two years to live. He thought, “I have to write a book in twenty-four months.” We’ll hear two poems from that book today. Still Life, out in June from McSweeney’s, is a “violently funny but playfully serious fulfillment of what Arseny Tarkovsky called the fundamental purpose of art: a way to prepare for death, be it far in the future or very near at hand.” Poetry guest editor Srikanth Reddy takes over the helm of the podcast this week, and interviews both Hopler and renaissance scholar and poet Kimberly Johnson. As a literary couple, Hopler and Johnson have shared a life in art for many years, and Johnson’s new book, Fatal, traces her experiences since Hopler’s 2017 diagnosis. Out in May from Persea Books, Paisley Rekdal writes, “Fatal examines how we live poised between terror and delight, stasis and transformation, ever bewildered by how even the simplest objects and events can change everything in instant.” Despite the heavy subject matter, the conversation between Hopler, Johnson, and Reddy contains plenty of laughter. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, Suzi F. Garcia sits down with Jennifer Shyue, a translator focusing on contemporary Cuban and Asian-Peruvian writers. We hear two poems by Julia Wong Kcomt, whose work Shyue has been translating for the past three years. Kcomt was born into a Chinese Peruvian family in 1965, and although Shyue was born in the US decades later, they share many obsessions. Kcomt traveled from an early age, traversing borders, languages, and cultures, and these multiplicities motivated her to write poetry. Shyue’s interest in hybrid identities and linguistic border crossings also motivated her to translate. Garcia and Shyue talk about what it means to write and translate from hyphenated or adjectival identities, as well the connections between language and identity. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, Suzi F. Garcia speaks with one of her literary sheroes, Ada Limón. They talk about the importance of seeing but also being seen, the complexity of avoiding a trauma-porn poetics, and naps as part of the creative process. We hear two poems from Limón’s newest book, The Hurting Kind, including “Foaling Season” from the February 2022 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, Suzi F. Garcia had the honor of speaking with Kay Ulanday Barrett, a self-described queer brown Filipinx disabled transgender boi. Barrett is one of the most generous people we have ever encountered, no doubt due to their commitment to care work—which is another way of saying his commitment to collective survival. Their essay “To Hold the Grief & the Growth: On Crip Ecologies” in the January 2022 issue of Poetry is an absolute must read. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today on the podcast: Joy Harjo. Harjo is the nation's first Native American poet laureate and a playwright, musician, author, and editor. Not everyone knows that Harjo also started playing saxophone at the age of forty. Today, we have the pleasure of hearing from her new album, I Pray for My Enemies, which features musicians from some of the biggest bands of the nineties grunge scene—including R.E.M., Pearl Jam, and Nirvana. We also spoke with Harjo about her early activism, how she came to befriend Audre Lorde, her obsession with maps, and her new memoir, Poet Warrior. The memoir celebrates the influences that shaped Harjo’s poetry and reckons with the theft of her ancestral homeland. She writes about her sixth-generation grandfather, who survived the Trail of Tears, and sheds light on the rituals that nourish her as an artist, mother, wife, and community member. Harjo has been creating her own maps for decades—with her poetry, the way she lives in the world, and recently, with the project Living Nations, Living Words, a collaboration with the Library of Congress and her signature project as United States Poet Laureate. It’s an online map where poems by Native Nations poets can be heard. The conversation starts with how Harjo found poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In today’s episode, Suzi F. Garcia sits down with poet Paul Hlava Ceballos to discuss writing against monoculture. They also dig into the history of banana workers in Ecuador, propaganda, and the art of citation. Ceballos reads from his forthcoming book, banana [ ], which includes images and a mix of handwritten and typed text. If you’d like to read along while you listen, excerpts of the book-length poem appear in the December issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For guest editor Suzi F. Garcia, getting to know Taylor Johnson’s poetry was a highlight of 2021. Garcia says Johnson’s debut book, Inheritance, absolutely blew her away. The book is described as a “black sensorium, a chapel of color and sound that speaks to spaciousness, surveillance, identity, desire, and transcendence.” Fred Moten said about the book: “I’m singing. I’m singing with them, about them, because of them.” That’s also how Garcia felt reading Johnson’s new poem, “Hymn,” which you’ll hear Johnson read from today. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, Gabrielle Bates and Jennifer Cheng read from their epistolary exchange, “So We Must Meet Apart,” published in the November 2021 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Su Cho, this conversation unabashedly feels through infertility, what no one tells you about giving birth, our fraught relationships to perfection, the experience of being in a body, and how distance can create even more possibilities for love. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, a celebration of collaboration. Su Cho had the honor of speaking with poets and scholars Kimberly Blaeser, Molly McGlennen, and Margaret Noodin. They talk about how language is a kind of time travel; it helps us preserve our memories, but also puts us in conversation with our ancestors and larger histories. You’ll hear from their collaborative poem in the November issue of Poetry, written in both English and Anishinaabemowin, and how, for each poet, language acquisition is an ongoing, creative, and radical act of resistance. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, Holly Amos speaks with poet Su Cho. Cho guest edited the magazine and hosted the podcast for the last few months. They talk about loneliness, anger as a secret weapon, and food! It’s all about food really. Cho reveals her love of Cool Whip on white bread, and she makes Amos cry—though those two things are totally unrelated. We hear several poems from The Symmetry of Fish, Cho’s first book, forthcoming from Penguin in 2022. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, poet, memoirist, and translator E.J. Koh on the untranslatability of Han. “Han is very difficult for me to define,” Su Cho agrees. “The dictionary definition is ‘an internalized feeling of deep grief, regret, anger, and sorrow, which is felt by all Koreans,’ but this is complicated because what does it mean to define an entire country by its trauma? And how can those of us who feel the lingering effects, but didn’t live through its history, write about it?” Koh’s work runs into the fog of what we don’t know—yet. This conversation features excerpts from her memoir, The Magical Language of Others, which includes translated letters written by Koh’s mother, and her poem “American Han” from the October issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, Gabrielle Calvocoressi talks about their series of “Miss you” poems. The poems exist as a kind of spell or enchantment, a way to create an actual space for the dead to inhabit. We also hear the incredible poem, “My Perimenopausal Body Cistern Disappointing How Surprising.” Gabrielle was nervous to share the poem but read it anyway, and how lucky we are. This conversation holds a lot of pain and a lot of joy, including their shared love of feasting with friends. It was an historic event as Su never expected to meet a poet who loves food as much as she does. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, Su Cho had the honor of speaking with Eugenia Leigh. Cho says reading Leigh’s work changed her: “I was a shy poet, and reading her work emboldened me to say what I needed to say.” They talk about Leigh’s research into attachment theory, the authentic self, healing, hindsight, and how we can accept our past selves. Note: This episode mentions child abuse. Eugenia Leigh reads “My Whole Life I Was Trained to Deny Myself” from the September issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, a conversation on worldbuilding. Su Cho hosts a roundtable of sorts on what it’s like growing up Asian American in white suburbia with poets Marianne Chan and Lisa Low. They also get into armpit hair, sad mom poems, and how motherhood means having a constant audience–whether we want one or not. Marianne Chan and Lisa Low read poems from the September 2021 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, Fred Sasaki had the very special honor of interviewing his friend and colleague, Ashley M. Jones. Jones guest edited the late spring and summer issues of Poetry magazine during a remarkable time in the publication’s history. In this conversation, we hear Jones read from her new book, Reparations Now! Sasaki asks, what are reparations and what do they mean? When did that idea materialize in each of their minds? They also talk about being Gods, being too cool for school, and playing with Barbies. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When Ashley M. Jones first heard the poetry of Jacqueline Allen Trimble, Jones says she heard something “Southern, unapologetically Black, fierce, sweet, and strong.” This week, Jones and Trimble talk about Alabama, activism, and the under-recognized power of historically Black colleges and universities in America. You’ll hear Trimble’s poems “This Is Why People Burning Down Fast Food Joints and Whatnot” and “The Language of Joy” from the July/August issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, Ashley M. Jones and JoAnn Balingit talk about where poetry lives in the face of loss and grief, and how that intimate place can be shared. Balingit’s intimate approach to poetry has had to consider a wider audience during her tenure as poet laureate of Delaware. For example, when Balingit received a request from the Philippine embassy to write a poem, she said yes—but not without pause. The poem was to mark the 75th anniversary of Philippine-American relations. As Balingit put it, “This was a fraught request about a troubled relationship.” Her response was to write a Tanaga—a Filipino poetic form—alongside three other poets who also wrote Tanagas for the embassy marking the occasion. All four poems are in the July/August 2021 issue of Poetry. Today you’ll hear “Tanaga: Song Where Every Filipinx Person Is Standing by the Ocean.” Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, Ashley M. Jones speaks with one of the most important mentors in her life: poet and scholar Dr. Donna Aza Weir-Soley. They speak about protest and power, Weir-Soley’s mentor Audre Lorde, and the legacies they inhabit and continue as Black poets writing toward liberation. Weir-Soley met Audre Lorde as a student at Hunter College, and came to run the Audre Lorde Women’s Poetry Center. Today, they invite Lorde into the room with the poem, “Power.” You’ll also hear “8 Minutes and 46 seconds,” by Weir-Soley, which appears in the July/August issue of Poetry magazine. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ashley M. Jones is interested in the way that poetry can bring loved ones back to life. In this week’s episode, Jones sits down with Cathy Linh Che to talk about resurrections on the page. After fleeing Vietnam as refugees, Che’s parents worked as extras on the film Apocalypse Now. Jones and Che talk about the revisionist cinematic history of the film, and the uncanny family story which serves as the backdrop for a series of poems and a memoir. You’ll hear “Zombie Apocalypse Now: The Making Of” and “Zombie Apocalypse Now: Documentary,” two poems from the June 2021 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

One thing Ashley M. Jones knows to be absolutely true is that her work is made possible by the poetry and spirit of Lucille Clifton. This week, Jones speaks with Sidney Clifton, one of Lucille Clifton’s daughters. Sidney Clifton is the President of the Clifton House, a new endeavour to transform her childhood home in Baltimore into a gathering place for writers and artists. They speak about mothers, their impenetrable connection to family, and how important it is to honor our journeys, no matter how winding they might be. Jones says, “It was unreal for me to get to spend time with Sidney, and what a joy to also get to invite Ms. Clifton’s poems into the room to join the conversation. What a celebration, indeed.” Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ashley M. Jones says she has never met an Ashley she hasn’t liked. This week, the feeling was mutual. Jones caught up with Ashlee Haze, a force of a poet in every sense of the word. Haze’s poem, “temple,” is featured in this month’s issue of Poetry, along with a video of the poem, which you can check out on our website. Jones and Haze talk about the South, its memory, and the ways in which the world of poetry has opened to new ways of writing, working, and experiencing the form. In this episode, they rebuke the Ivory Tower. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week we visit the opera. Writer and musician Kevin Simmonds and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis discuss Black sound, Black church, and the future of opera. Davis has been making operas rooted in Black history for over thirty years. X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X, premiered in 1986. Today you’ll hear from X, and his opera Amistad, which revisits the story of the Middle Passage. Simmonds’s new book, The Monster I Am Today: Leontyne Price and a Life in Verse, skillfully travels through the life of one of classical music’s greatest virtuosos. Leontyne Price remains one of the twentieth century’s most revered opera singers, and the first Black opera singer to achieve such international acclaim. The book is structured operatically into overture, acts, and postlude, uncovering complex layers of music history, biography, and the body itself. How do our bodies sound? Why do they sound that way? Simmonds reads from The Monster I Am Today, featured in the April 2021 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, we hear from one of the co-editors of the first historically comprehensive Native poetry anthology – yes the very first. It’s called When The Light of The World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry. It was edited by Poet Laureate Joy Harjo with Jennifer Elise Foerster and LeAnne Howe. Organized by geographical region, each section begins with a poem from traditional oral literatures and closes with an emerging poet. Contributors range from Eleazar, a seventeenth-century Native student at Harvard, to Jake Skeets, a Diné poet born in 1991. The poet, translator, and critic André Naffis-Sahely reviewed the anthology in the April 2021 issue of Poetry. Today he speaks with co-editor LeAnne Howe about how the anthology came to be, and why it took so long to get here. Howe, a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, opens the conversation with a Choctaw chant. You’ll hear two poems from the anthology. Ishki, Mother, Upon Leaving the Choctaw Homelands, 1831 by LeAnne Howe and The Old Man’s Lazy by Peter Blue Cloud. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Poetry can be a great connector. It can connect us to our bodies and our histories. For Ashley M. Jones, poetry is also a way to connect with faith. In today’s episode, Jones sits down with the poet Faisal Mohyuddin, whose poem “Allah Castles” appears in the May issue of Poetry, the first under Jones’s guest editorship. Mohyuddin and Jones explore faith, the things that move them into action, and their shared pride as high school writing teachers. Jones says she doesn’t believe in coincidences, only an otherworldly alignment. Today’s conversation is a testament to that. Ashley M. Jones reads from her book dark//thing and Faisal Mohyuddin reads from the May issue of Poetry and from his book The Displaced Children of Displaced Children. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, The Cyborg Jillian Weise speaks with Ishmael Reed. Reed is a writer whose decades of work have been immensely influential to Weise. They’ve shared stages and pages as poets, performers, editors, and activists. They both wield humor and satire to seriously consider the violence of our governments, our literature, and the many other forms of erasure that are enacted on the lives and works of disabled people. Born 43 years apart, Reed in Tennessee in 1938, and Weise in Texas in 1981, they share a sort of poetic kinship. Today, they talk about smashing tokenism and the joy of making up new words and new paths. The Cyborg Jillian Weise reads from the April 2021 issue of Poetry, and Ishmael Reed reads from his newest poetry collection, Why the Black Hole Sings the Blues, Poems 2007-2020. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week: thoughts on form. Both Marilyn Nelson and Nikki Grimes agree, playing with poetic constraints can create an expansive world to write within. Listen as two of the most celebrated authors writing for young readers today share their thoughts on poetic forms. You’ll hear about two of their favorite forms to experiment with, as well as excerpts from both of their memoirs in verse. The impact Nelson and Grimes have had on the field of writing for younger audiences is profound. Both are featured in this month’s special issue of Poetry dedicated to poems for young people. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Spring is almost officially here. This week, poets Naomi Shihab Nye and Danusha Laméris reflect on the year that has passed—a year that has been so different and difficult to comprehend. Nye and Laméris remind us that poetry makes sense when things stop making sense—that poetry can take us over, under, or through difficulty. Nye is the Poetry Foundation's Young People’s Poet Laureate, and one of the guest editors of the magazine's special issue dedicated to poems for young people. When we asked her who she wanted to speak with on the podcast, she said Danusha Laméris, the last person she really spent time with before the lockdown began. The two were essentially meeting for the first time, but they sound like “new-old friends.” They’ve spent a year getting to know each other from afar by exchanging letters, poems, and packages between San Antonio, Texas, and Santa Cruz, California. You’ll hear poems from Nye and Laméris, including Nye’s poem in the current issue of Poetry, “Every day as a wide field, every page.” Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this week’s episode, Bennett and Monson get into literary ancestors, Monson’s top 5 rappers of all time, and what the future of poetry in this country might look like (if we are brave enough to invest in our young people). Monson spoke to us from the Michigan Department of Corrections in Freeland, Michigan. His poems are featured in “The Practice of Freedom” issue, which focuses on poetry and visual art produced by artists who have been directly affected by the criminal legal system. Joshua Bennett guest edited the issue alongside Tara Betts and Sarah Ross. In Bennett's words, “Justin Monson is one of the most courageous, original, daring poets working today. I first encountered his work three years ago, as a judge for PEN America’s Writing for Justice Fellowship, and was absolutely taken aback from the very first lines. The work shimmered. Monson has a fantastic ear, and a citational breadth that is truly a wonder to behold; it’s clear that he reads, and listens, to everything. Postcolonial theory, 90s hip-hop, erasure poetry. It’s all there. All of these traditions are part of the world Monson paints on the page, and is generous enough to share with us.” Need a transcript of this episode? Request a transcript here. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this week’s episode, Cathy Park Hong and Lynn Xu talk about the startling directness of Korean poet Choi Seungja and the humbling experience of translation. The conversation ranges from Nietzsche to South Korea in the 1980s, and from Paul Celan to capitalism. As Xu says, Choi’s poems contemplate “living with death as one’s companion,” but instead of indulging in nihilism, her poems are often surprisingly hopeful. Choi Seungja is one of the most influential feminist poets in South Korea, and her book Phone Bells Keep Ringing For Me (Action Books) has recently been published in English, thanks to Cathy Park Hong and her cotranslator Won-Chung Kim. Need a transcript of this episode? Request a transcript here. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When we learned that poet Jackson Holbert asked to speak with John Darnielle for this episode, it made so much sense to us. Holbert’s poems in the magazine are simple in construction, but the voice is incredibly distinct. The poems deal with heavy subjects in a way that feels normal, everyday. For those listeners who spent the 90s listening to cassettes of Darnielle’s musical moniker, The Mountain Goats, you know that Darnielle has one of the most deceptively simple and distinct vocal styles you’ll ever encounter. Holbert and Darnielle discuss everything from Iowa, a shared love of Slipknot, metal, and the physicality of writing. You’ll hear Darnielle read an unreleased lyric for a future song, and read from his latest novel, Universal Harvester. Holbert reads “The Uncle Poem” from the January 2021 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today’s show, Tongo Eisen-Martin talks with activist, icon, legend, Sonia Sanchez. Listen to these brilliant poets pass fire, life, and love between them. Eisen-Martin is a poet, movement worker, and educator. His poem “Pennies for the Opera” is featured in the December 2020 issue of Poetry as part of a portfolio of work from the book Carving Out Rights from Inside the Prison Industrial Complex. Both Eisen-Martin and Sanchez appear in the book, alongside artists incarcerated at Stateville Prison in Crest Hill, Illinois. Sonia Sanchez is a poet, playwright, professor, and activist. You can read “Haiku and Tanka for Harriet Tubman”—which you’ll hear in this episode—in the April 2018 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When we asked Leila Chatti who she wished to speak with most, she chose one of the poets who gave her permission to be a poet herself: Sharon Olds. And not just to be a poet, but to write from a voice she thought wasn’t possible. You’ll hear why. This episode features more poems than we’ve ever had on the Poetry Magazine Podcast. Chatti asked Sharon to read a selection of poems that span 40 years – ranging from her first book, Satan Says, to her most recent book, Arias. Leila also reads from the December issue of Poetry, and her latest collection, Deluge, a chronicle of illness, womanhood, and faith. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Poet Alison C. Rollins recently finished her first outdoor survival training program. Part of her preparation was to read Latria Graham’s essays about the experience of being a Black woman in the outdoors. Graham is a journalist and fifth-generation farmer living in South Carolina. In “Out There, Nobody Can Hear You Scream,” published in Outside Magazine, Graham describes a moment when—right before leaving for the Great Smoky Mountains—her mother handed her the gun of her late father for protection. Rollins had a very similar experience. Her mother’s first question, when hearing of her daughter's desire to journey into the outdoors, was, “How are you going to protect yourself?” This moment of recognition led Rollins and Graham together, to talk about writing, survival, and, as Rollins calls it, “Black nature joy.” Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

young and Diggs both work with words, sound, image—and bodies—as Diggs puts it. On today’s show, they talk about funk, Dolly Parton, taking notes, polyglots, and how these different cadences resonate in young’s series peestain. In these collages and poems, featured in the November issue of Poetry, young weaves his own history with the lives of his students and characters like Willis Jackson from the sitcom Diff'rent Strokes. The familiarity and openness of the references are as heartening as they are devastating. Nothing is neat. Nothing is predictable in young’s work—or Digg’s—as you’ll hear today. In the course of the conversation, Diggs reads one of her own poems and a poem by Carl Hancock Rux. Need a transcript of this episode? Request a transcript here. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When we asked Ed Roberson who he’d like to speak with on the show he said: Lyn Hejinian. Longtime friends despite living vastly far apart—Lyn in Berkeley and Ed in Chicago—they’ve been in close dialogue for almost 20 years. Now, for the first time, we have the pleasure of listening in. Topics discussed include the survival of the human species, the safety in friendship, and a pesky octopus at a Pittsburgh aquarium. Ed also reads from a new series of poems in the October 2020 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Oli Rodriguez and Xandria Phillips on queer familia, ephemeral cruising spots, McDonald’s, Polaroid film, and much more. Rodriguez’s “Papi, Papi, Papi” appears in the October 2020 issue of Poetry. Need a transcript of this episode? Request a transcript here. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Kit Fan talks with Alice Oswald about her latest book, Nobody. Fan’s review of the book appears in the July/August 2020 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Justice Leah Wards Sears talks about how Margaret Walker’s poem “For My People” has been a resource for her throughout her life. Justice Sears’s essay, “Love for My People,” appears in the June 2020 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The editors discuss Karen An-hwei Lee’s poem “On June Blossoming in June” from the June 2020 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The editors discuss Bradley Trumpfheller’s poem “Speculative Realism” from the June 2020 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Don Share speaks with Vidyan Ravinthiran and Vahni Capildeo about Ravinthiran’s essay on Capildeo’s work in the May 2020 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The editors discuss A.E. Stallings’s poem “Daedal” from the May 2020 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The editors discuss Janice N. Harrington’s poem “Wind Shear” from the May 2020 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The editors discuss Mary Ruefle’s poem “Vapor Wake” from the May 2020 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The editors discuss Ocean Vuong’s poem “Not Even This” from the April 2020 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The editors discuss Michael Hofmann’s poem “Famous Poets” from the April 2020 issue of Poetry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.