Podcasts about Best New Poets

Day 12: Jaz Sufi reads her poem, “Ode to My Lover's Sequined Dress.” Queer Poem-a-Day is honored to be the first publication of this poem.  Jaz Sufi (she/hers) is a queer Iranian-American poet and arts educator. Her work has been published or is upcoming in Best New Poets, Best of the Net, AGNI, Black Warrior Review, Muzzle, and elsewhere. She is a National Poetry Slam finalist and has received fellowships from Kundiman, the Watering Hole, and New York University, where she received her MFA. She is the current Poet Laureate of San Ramon, CA, where she lives with her dog, Apollo. Text of today's poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/ Find books from participating poets in our library's catalog.  Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission.  

Day 6: Gaia Rajan reads his poem “Essay on Class,” which originally appeared in Frontier Poetry (2023).  Gaia Rajan is the author of the chapbooks Moth Funerals (Glass Poetry Press 2020) and Killing It (Black Lawrence Press 2022). His work is published in the Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day, Best New Poets, the Best of the Net anthology, The Kenyon Review, THRUSH, Split Lip Magazine, diode, Palette Poetry, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn and online at @gaiarajan on Twitter or Instagram. Text of today's poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/ Find books from participating poets in our library's catalog.  Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission.

Slushies, we invoke the retelling of a ghostly experience shared by Kathy and Marion at the Hotel Figueroa in California earlier this year partway into this episode. Two poems by Jen Siraganian are at the heart of our discussion, and it's the first of these that puts ghosts into our heads. This poem also causes us to consider at some length the physical form chosen by or for a poem, and how this can utterly enhance the experience of the poem when it's just right. It's also an opportunity for Jason to raise the spectre of the virgule (or slash) once again, and we even pause briefly to recall when WYSIWYG was a useful acronym. We end the episode with an ekphrastic that prompts an on-the-spot tie breaker (thanks to our sound engineer Lillie for saving the day!).   https://whitney.org/collection/works/2171 https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/gorky-the-artist-and-his-mother.html  At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Lisa Zerkle, Jason Schneiderman, Dagne Forrest, Jodi Gahn, Lillie Volpe (sound engineer)   Jen Siraganian is an Armenian-American writer, educator, and former Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, California. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI, Barrow Street, Best New Poets, Cortland Review, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, Smartish Pace, and other journals. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and won the 2024 New Ohio Review Poetry Prize. A former managing director of Litquake: San Francisco's Literary Festival, she is a current Lucas Artist Fellow. jensiraganian.com      Social media handles:   Facebook @jen.siraganian, Instagram @jsiraganian, Bluesky @jsiraganian.bsky.social, Website

Please join Julie Murphy as she chats with Santa Cruz County's new Poet Laureate, Nancy Miller Gomez, about poetry in the jails and her plans to bring poetry to our community. Nancy reads Ruth Stone's poem, Another Feeling, and talks about the importance of paying attention and how daily observations, memories and current events can ease the challenge of facing a blank page. Listen to Nancy read poems from her stunning debut collection Inconsolable Objects.Nancy Miller Gomez is the author of Inconsolable Objects (YesYes Books) and Punishment (Rattle Chapbook Series). Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, Prairie Schooner, TriQuarterly, The Adroit Journal, LitHub, Rattle, New Ohio Review, Massachusetts Review, River Styx, Verse Daily, The Hopkins Review, and elsewhere. She received a special mention in the 2023 Pushcart Prize Anthology and is the recipient of a fellowship from the Jentel Foundation. Gomez co-founded Poetry in the Jails, an organization that provides writing workshops to incarcerated women and men and has taught poetry in Salinas Valley State Prison, the Santa Cruz County Jails, the Juvenile Hall and as part of Cornell University's Prison Education Program. She earned a B.A. from The University of California, San Diego, a J.D. from the University of San Diego and a Master in Fine Arts in Writing from Pacific University. Originally from Kansas she now lives with her family in Northern California and is thrilled to have recently been appointed Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County. She is currently working on a second collection of poems and a collection of personal essays.Don't miss the Poet Laureate Celebration at Bookshop Santa Cruz featuring Nancy Miller Gomez and Farnaz Fatemi. April 14, 7-9 PM.

In this episode of The Poetry Vlog (TPV), author, musician, and activist Willy Palomo reads from his book Wake the Others (Editorial Kalina/Glass Spider Publishing, 2023) to lead a discussion on how their relationship with leftism evolved over time, as well as how queer erotica can be used to tell powerful, extremely important stories.Willy Palomo (he/they/she) is the author of Wake the Others (Editorial Kalina/Glass Spider Publishing, 2023), a winner of a Foreword Prize in Poetry and an International Latino Book Award honorable mention in Bilingual Poetry. In November 2024, his Spanish-to-English translation of Tres Tercas Trincheras by Marielos Oliva was published in Europe by FormArti. A veteran of the Salt Lake City poetry slam scene, his fiction, essays, poetry, translations, and songs can be found across print and web pages, including the Best New Poets 2018, Latino Rebels, The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States, and more. He has performed at or keynoted in 160+ public engagements since 2011, including the SUU Pride Film Festival, el Festival Internacional de Poesia Amada Libertad, and many more. He has taught classes on literature, rap, and creative writing in universities, juvenile detention centers, high schools, and community centers. He is the son of two refugees from El Salvador.Learn more about Willy at:✔︎ https://www.palomopoemas.com/.About The Poetry Vlog (TPV):✔︎ https://thepoetryvlog.com/thepoetryvlog

Inner Moonlight is the monthly poetry reading series for the Wild Detectives in Dallas. The in-person show is the second Wednesday of every month in the Wild Detectives backyard. We love our podcast fans, so we release recordings of the live performances every month for y'all! On 1/8/25, we featured poet Hannah Smith! Hannah Smith is a writer from Dallas, Texas. Her poetry appears in Best New Poets, Gulf Coast, Ninth Letter, Southeast Review, and elsewhere. Hannah's full-length manuscript Common Prairie was a National Poetry Series Finalist, and she is the co-author of two collaborative chapbooks, Metal House of Cards (Finishing Line Press, 2024) and Astral Gaze (dancing girl press, 2025). Hannah works as the Production Manager for Southwest Review & New Pony. ⁠www.innermoonlightpoetry.com

In the hills of Sparta, Tennessee, during the early nineties, Helen decides to break free from the life that stifles her: marriage, motherhood, the monotonous duties of a Southern housewife. But leaving isn't the same thing as staying gone... Rooted in a lush natural landscape, this stunning poetry collection explores Helen's isolation and rebellion as her expansive personality clashes with the social rigidity of her small town. In richly layered poems with settings that range from football games to Chuck E. Cheese to the bathroom of a Motel 6, Helen enters adulthood as a disaffected homemaker grasping for agency. She marries the wrong man, gives birth to a child she is not ready to parent, and embarks on an affair that throws her life into chaos. But she never surrenders ownership of her story or her choices, insisting to the reader: "if you never owned a bone-sharp biography... / i don't want to hear it. i want you silent. / i want you listening to me." Blurring the line between mythology and modernity, Helen of Troy, 1993 is an unforgettable collection that shows the Homeric Helen like she's never been seen before. Maria Zoccola is a queer Southern writer and educator from Memphis, Tennessee. Maria has worked and written for nonprofits both big and small, and from 2017-2021 managed Deep Center's Young Author Project in Savannah, Georgia, a program embedding creative writing workshops within the Savannah–Chatham County Public School System and serving 400 young people annually. Maria's fiction and poetry can be found in such venues as Ploughshares, Fantasy Magazine, the Kenyon Review, ZYZZYVA, Electric Literature's The Commuter, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated Best Small Fictions and Best New Poets, has been a finalist for Best of the Net, and has received a special mention for the Pushcart Prize. Recommended Books: Alice Oswald, Memorial Rita Dove, Motherlove Ellen Bryant Voigt, Kyrie  Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the hills of Sparta, Tennessee, during the early nineties, Helen decides to break free from the life that stifles her: marriage, motherhood, the monotonous duties of a Southern housewife. But leaving isn't the same thing as staying gone... Rooted in a lush natural landscape, this stunning poetry collection explores Helen's isolation and rebellion as her expansive personality clashes with the social rigidity of her small town. In richly layered poems with settings that range from football games to Chuck E. Cheese to the bathroom of a Motel 6, Helen enters adulthood as a disaffected homemaker grasping for agency. She marries the wrong man, gives birth to a child she is not ready to parent, and embarks on an affair that throws her life into chaos. But she never surrenders ownership of her story or her choices, insisting to the reader: "if you never owned a bone-sharp biography... / i don't want to hear it. i want you silent. / i want you listening to me." Blurring the line between mythology and modernity, Helen of Troy, 1993 is an unforgettable collection that shows the Homeric Helen like she's never been seen before. Maria Zoccola is a queer Southern writer and educator from Memphis, Tennessee. Maria has worked and written for nonprofits both big and small, and from 2017-2021 managed Deep Center's Young Author Project in Savannah, Georgia, a program embedding creative writing workshops within the Savannah–Chatham County Public School System and serving 400 young people annually. Maria's fiction and poetry can be found in such venues as Ploughshares, Fantasy Magazine, the Kenyon Review, ZYZZYVA, Electric Literature's The Commuter, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated Best Small Fictions and Best New Poets, has been a finalist for Best of the Net, and has received a special mention for the Pushcart Prize. Recommended Books: Alice Oswald, Memorial Rita Dove, Motherlove Ellen Bryant Voigt, Kyrie  Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

From Dr. Chisaraokwu's website: "My art is a practice of retrieval, reanimation, and re-presentation of the parts of ourselves lost in the wake of trauma. Poetry is the sound, the feel, of those missing | mis-seen parts— raw, unapologetic, found, free. .CHISARAOKWU. is an Igbo American transdisciplinary poet artist, scholar, writer, performer, health futurist, and a 2023 California Arts Council Fellow. Inspired by her love of history, dreamscapes, the environment, quantum physics, and all things Africa(n)|(in)diaspora, she weaves images, textures, and text to create poems. Her work has been honored with awards and fellowships from MacDowell, Cave Canem, Vermont Studio Center, Anaphora Arts, Ucross and Headlands Center for the Arts, among other honors. She is an alum of the Brooklyn Poets Mentorship Program and the 2022 Tin House Winter Workshop. Nominated for Best of Net (Poetry; 2019, 2020, 2021), Best New Poets (2022), and Best New Small Fiction (2022), her words have appeared in academic and literary journals including Transition, Obsidian, midnight&indigo, The Lancet, and The New England Journal of Medicine. Her debut visual art work is featured in Michigan Quarterly Review's Spring 2024 issue, African Cartographies edited by Chris Abani. She earned her BA in History from Stanford University, MD from Duke University School of Medicine, MSPH from UNC Gilling School of Global Public Health, and certification in Global Mental Health & Trauma from Harvard School of Public Health's Refugee Trauma Program. She is a retired pediatrician and an alum of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program at Yale University where her research focused on adverse childhood experiences, mental health and spirituality, and community-based participatory research projects. She is currently working on two poetry collections and a novel. She is the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship for 2025!! https://www.arts.gov/.../creative.../chisaraokwu-asomugha

In the hills of Sparta, Tennessee, during the early nineties, Helen decides to break free from the life that stifles her: marriage, motherhood, the monotonous duties of a Southern housewife. But leaving isn't the same thing as staying gone... Rooted in a lush natural landscape, this stunning poetry collection explores Helen's isolation and rebellion as her expansive personality clashes with the social rigidity of her small town. In richly layered poems with settings that range from football games to Chuck E. Cheese to the bathroom of a Motel 6, Helen enters adulthood as a disaffected homemaker grasping for agency. She marries the wrong man, gives birth to a child she is not ready to parent, and embarks on an affair that throws her life into chaos. But she never surrenders ownership of her story or her choices, insisting to the reader: "if you never owned a bone-sharp biography... / i don't want to hear it. i want you silent. / i want you listening to me." Blurring the line between mythology and modernity, Helen of Troy, 1993 is an unforgettable collection that shows the Homeric Helen like she's never been seen before. Maria Zoccola is a queer Southern writer and educator from Memphis, Tennessee. Maria has worked and written for nonprofits both big and small, and from 2017-2021 managed Deep Center's Young Author Project in Savannah, Georgia, a program embedding creative writing workshops within the Savannah–Chatham County Public School System and serving 400 young people annually. Maria's fiction and poetry can be found in such venues as Ploughshares, Fantasy Magazine, the Kenyon Review, ZYZZYVA, Electric Literature's The Commuter, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated Best Small Fictions and Best New Poets, has been a finalist for Best of the Net, and has received a special mention for the Pushcart Prize. Recommended Books: Alice Oswald, Memorial Rita Dove, Motherlove Ellen Bryant Voigt, Kyrie  Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In the hills of Sparta, Tennessee, during the early nineties, Helen decides to break free from the life that stifles her: marriage, motherhood, the monotonous duties of a Southern housewife. But leaving isn't the same thing as staying gone... Rooted in a lush natural landscape, this stunning poetry collection explores Helen's isolation and rebellion as her expansive personality clashes with the social rigidity of her small town. In richly layered poems with settings that range from football games to Chuck E. Cheese to the bathroom of a Motel 6, Helen enters adulthood as a disaffected homemaker grasping for agency. She marries the wrong man, gives birth to a child she is not ready to parent, and embarks on an affair that throws her life into chaos. But she never surrenders ownership of her story or her choices, insisting to the reader: "if you never owned a bone-sharp biography... / i don't want to hear it. i want you silent. / i want you listening to me." Blurring the line between mythology and modernity, Helen of Troy, 1993 is an unforgettable collection that shows the Homeric Helen like she's never been seen before. Maria Zoccola is a queer Southern writer and educator from Memphis, Tennessee. Maria has worked and written for nonprofits both big and small, and from 2017-2021 managed Deep Center's Young Author Project in Savannah, Georgia, a program embedding creative writing workshops within the Savannah–Chatham County Public School System and serving 400 young people annually. Maria's fiction and poetry can be found in such venues as Ploughshares, Fantasy Magazine, the Kenyon Review, ZYZZYVA, Electric Literature's The Commuter, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated Best Small Fictions and Best New Poets, has been a finalist for Best of the Net, and has received a special mention for the Pushcart Prize. Recommended Books: Alice Oswald, Memorial Rita Dove, Motherlove Ellen Bryant Voigt, Kyrie  Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Nancy Miller Gomez grew up in Kansas, but currently lives in Santa Cruz, California. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, Prairie Schooner, TriQuarterly, The Adroit Journal, Shenandoah, New Ohio Review, Rattle, Massachusetts Review, River Styx, American Life in Poetry, Verse Daily, The Hopkins Review, and elsewhere. She received a special mention in the 2023 Pushcart Prize Anthology and her chapbook, Punishment, was published as part of the Rattle chapbook series. She has worked as a waitress, a stable hand, an attorney, and a television producer. She co-founded an organization that provides writing workshops to incarcerated women and men and has taught poetry in Salinas Valley State Prison, the Santa Cruz County Jails and the Juvenile Hall. She has a B.A. from The University of California, San Diego, a J.D. from the University of San Diego and a Master in Fine Arts in Writing from Pacific University. She is currently working on a collection of personal essays. Her first full-length poetry manuscript is now available from YesYes Books.

In Kinsale Drake's poem “Put on that KTNN,” she writes about driving to a hometown as a familiar station crackles to life on the car radio. From this corner of America, she creates her own country music — of Navajo voices alongside Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn, of drumbeats and guitar licks, of things wrought by nature and things made by humans, all of them rooted in the desert sand.Kinsale Drake (Diné) is a poet, playwright, and performer based out of the Southwest U.S. She is a winner of the 2023 National Poetry Series Competition. Her poetry collection, The Sky Was Once a Dark Blanket, was published by The University of Georgia Press in 2024. Drake's work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, Poets.org, Best New Poets, Black Warrior Review, Nylon, MTV, Teen Vogue, Time, and elsewhere. She recently graduated from Yale University, where she received the J. Edgar Meeker Prize, Academy of American Poets College Prize, Young Native Playwrights Award, and the 2022 Joy Harjo Poetry Prize. She is the founder of NDN Girls Book Club.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.We're pleased to offer Kinsale Drake's poem and invite you to read Pádraig's weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.

Jalen Eutsey is a 2022-2024 Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. His poems have appeared in Best New Poets 2022, Nashville Review, Poetry Northwest, Harper Pallet, and The Hopkins Review.

Iliana Rocha earned her PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from Western Michigan University. She is the 2019 winner of the Berkshire Prize for her book The Many Deaths of Inocencio Rodriguez (Tupelo Press). Her first book, Karankawa, won the 2014 AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Best New Poets anthology, Poetry, Poem-a-Day, The Nation, Virginia Quarterly Review, Latin American Literature Today, and many others. She has won fellowships from CantoMundo and MacDowell. She serves as Poetry Co-Editor for Waxwing Literary Journal, and she is an Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee.Delmira Agustini is considered one of the most important South American poets of the 20th century. She was born to upper-middle-class parents in Montevideo, Uruguay in October of 1886. She began writing poetry at the age of 10, and her first major work, El Libro Blanco, was published in 1907, when she was just 20 years old. She went on to publish several other books that were well-received by writers and critics. Links:Read "Still Life," "Houston," and "Landscape with Graceland Crumbling in My Hands"Read "Explosión" in Spanish and EnglishIliana RochaIliana Rocha's websiteBio and poems at the Poetry Foundation's website"The Many Deaths of Inocencio Rodriguez" in New York Times Magazine"Mexican American Sonnet" at Poets.org"Three Poems" in Latin American Literature Today“like the building that reflects his death in every window: A Conversation with Iliana Rocha about The Many Deaths of Inocencio Rodriguez” — curated by Tiffany Troy in Tupelo QuarterlyDelmira AgustiniBio and "The Vampire" at Poets.orgSix Poems by Delmira Agustini (translated by Valerie Martinez) at Drunken Boat

Iliana Rocha earned her PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from Western Michigan University. She is the 2019 winner of the Berkshire Prize for her book The Many Deaths of Inocencio Rodriguez (Tupelo Press). Her first book, Karankawa, won the 2014 AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Best New Poets anthology, Poetry, Poem-a-Day, The Nation, Virginia Quarterly Review, Latin American Literature Today, and many others. She has won fellowships from CantoMundo and MacDowell. She serves as Poetry Co-Editor for Waxwing Literary Journal, and she is an Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee.Delmira Agustini is considered one of the most important South American poets of the 20th century. She was born to upper-middle-class parents in Montevideo, Uruguay in October of 1886. She began writing poetry at the age of 10, and her first major work, El Libro Blanco, was published in 1907, when she was just 20 years old. She went on to publish several other books that were well-received by writers and critics. Links:Read "Still Life," "Houston," and "Landscape with Graceland Crumbling in My Hands"Read "Explosión" in Spanish and EnglishIliana RochaIliana Rocha's websiteBio and poems at the Poetry Foundation's website"The Many Deaths of Inocencio Rodriguez" in New York Times Magazine"Mexican American Sonnet" at Poets.org"Three Poems" in Latin American Literature Today“like the building that reflects his death in every window: A Conversation with Iliana Rocha about The Many Deaths of Inocencio Rodriguez” — curated by Tiffany Troy in Tupelo QuarterlyDelmira AgustiniBio and "The Vampire" at Poets.orgSix Poems by Delmira Agustini (translated by Valerie Martinez) at Drunken Boat

Not everyone's querying journey is a handful of years! Many authors have experiences like Rita's: a 14-year span of trial, error, and a whole lot of persistence. Join host Sheridan Sharp as guest Rita Feinstein talks publishing, poetry, connecting in a post-truth world. ResourcesRita's Debut: Meet Me in the Fourth DimensionSylvia Path Anne SextonThe Quiet Damage by Jesselyn CookWebsite: https://ritafeinstein.com/Twitter/X: @RitaFeinsteinInstagram: @longlostdragonprincessSupport your local indie bookstoreThe Poet X by Elizabeth AcevedoClap When You Land by Elizabeth AcevedoWe Are All So Good At Smiling by Amber McBrideJeannine Hall Gailey About RitaRita Feinstein is the author of the poetry collections Life on Dodge and Everything is Real, both from Brain Mill Press, and the young adult novel-in-verse Meet Me in the Fourth Dimension (Page Street 2024). Her stories and poems have appeared in Permafrost, The Normal School, and Willow Springs, among other publications, and have been nominated for Best of the Net and Best New Poets. She is also the Regional Manager of Writopia Lab DC, a nonprofit that runs creative writing workshops for children and teens. She lives with her husband, who is a lawyer, and her dog, who is not.

Episode 123: The Catholic Episode   Dear Slushies, we have a confession. We love being close readers as much as we love being close listeners. And if you are a fan of this podcast, we know the same is true for you. We're delighted to consider Charlie Peck's poems “Cowboy Dreams” and “Bully in the Trees” in this episode. We're talking about unreliable narrators, homeric epithets, dramatic enjambments, and the difference between small “c” catholicism and capital “C” Catholicism. Confession and exultation, Slushies! Floating signifiers and The Sopranos. It's a doozy! We hope you love listening in as much as we loved considering Charlie Peck's poems for PBQ.    (Oh, and we excitedly celebrate Jason's fifth collection launching in April, Portrait of Icarus as a Country on Fire!)   At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Jason Schneiderman, Samanatha Neugebauer   Charlie Peck is from Omaha, Nebraska and received his MFA from Purdue University. His poetry has appeared previously in Cincinnati Review, Ninth Letter, Massachusetts Review, and Best New Poets 2019, among others. His first collection, World's Largest Ball of Paint, is the winner of the 2022 St. Lawrence Book Award from Black Lawrence Press and is forthcoming April 2024.   Twitter: @chip_nutter   Cowboy Dreams   Winedrunk along the river on a Tuesday, boy howdy, my life. I ignore another call from my mother because today  is about the matted grass and the skipping trout. When my brother jumps companies after the Christmas bonus, it's Ruthless. When I pillage the family silver to slick forty bucks at a pawn shop,  It's time you start thinking about recovery. Instinct makes me wreck anyone who comes  too close. You ever snapped a dog's stick just to watch his ears drop? I'm Catholic with how quick I loose my tongue to confess,  my guilt just a frequency my ears quit hearing.  One snowy May in the Colorado mountains, I stripped  to my underwear and raised my pack to wade the glacial river. Dried by a fire with a pot of beans. All night I dreamt of my lasso and revolver, riding the hot-blooded horse alone across the plains, no one in sight to hurt. Bully in the Trees   Indiana cornfields leave so much     to be desired, and lately I've desired nothing   but clean sheets and pretzel bread. For a decade    I was ruthless, took whatever I wanted:   last donut in the office breakroom, merged    lanes out of turn. I stole my roommate's    change jar, sat on the floor of a Wells Fargo    rolling quarters to buy an eighth. In this new year,   I promise I'll stop being the loudest in the room    like a bear ravaging a campsite just to be the bully   in the trees. For so long I thought my cruelty    was the world's fault, my stubbed toe blamed   on the coffee table's leg, not my stumbling in the dark.    Throwing every fish back to the river    doesn't forgive the hooked hole I caused.    Once, I undressed a woman in the giraffe enclosure,   but maybe that was a Soprano's episode. Once,    my life was so ordinary I replaced it   with the things I saw on television. I ate fifty    hard-boiled eggs. I robbed the bank and screamed   Attica! I stood in the trees cuffing the Nebraska    suburb and watched my mother set the table   through the window. A porcelain plate at each chair.    My ordinary life stranged by the window frame.   If I fall asleep before the credits, let me dream the rest.    My pockets are empty, but the metal detector still shrieks.

Gerald Maa has been The Georgia Review's director and editor since 2019. During his tenure there, the magazine has won the National Magazine Award for Best Fiction as well as Best New Poets, and the Robert Dau/PEN Prize. Prior to this role, Maa was the editor-in-chief of The Asian American Literary Review with Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis. Maggie Su is the associate prose editor for The Georgia Review and the author of the forthcoming novel Blob (Harper 2025). She holds a PhD in fiction from the University of Cincinnati and her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The New England Review, TriQuarterly Review, and elsewhere. The Georgia Review has a long, distinguished tradition of publishing writings vetted by a fully salaried staff. In this case, first up in the discussion is the essay “Campus Maximum” by Christopher Kempf. It explores the social justice versus academic freedom tussle that Cornell University found itself dealing with after an African-American student group took over one of the campus's main buildings in 1969. To say the essay explores town/gown tensions would be to slight the exploration of multiple, conflicted views taken by everybody involved in the unfolding drama. In “Chopping Up the Gun” by Mary Margaret Alvarado witnesses a weapons turn-in program held in Aurora, Colorado where “cars wait, as though for French fries, or absolution.” Having former weapons transformed into sculpture pieces or other objects invites a variety of responses. In L. J. Sysko's “Inside Lane,” an ominous foreboding exists among a girl's swim team where the coach kisses a team member without consent, and may be on the hook for worse before losing his job. Finally, in Brian Truong's “Fake Handbags,” an Asian-American family's shopping trips to New York City for knock-off luxury goods doesn't provide a brand halo that can protect the family members from the dad's angry outbursts. Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of ten books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Gerald Maa has been The Georgia Review's director and editor since 2019. During his tenure there, the magazine has won the National Magazine Award for Best Fiction as well as Best New Poets, and the Robert Dau/PEN Prize. Prior to this role, Maa was the editor-in-chief of The Asian American Literary Review with Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis. Maggie Su is the associate prose editor for The Georgia Review and the author of the forthcoming novel Blob (Harper 2025). She holds a PhD in fiction from the University of Cincinnati and her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The New England Review, TriQuarterly Review, and elsewhere. The Georgia Review has a long, distinguished tradition of publishing writings vetted by a fully salaried staff. In this case, first up in the discussion is the essay “Campus Maximum” by Christopher Kempf. It explores the social justice versus academic freedom tussle that Cornell University found itself dealing with after an African-American student group took over one of the campus's main buildings in 1969. To say the essay explores town/gown tensions would be to slight the exploration of multiple, conflicted views taken by everybody involved in the unfolding drama. In “Chopping Up the Gun” by Mary Margaret Alvarado witnesses a weapons turn-in program held in Aurora, Colorado where “cars wait, as though for French fries, or absolution.” Having former weapons transformed into sculpture pieces or other objects invites a variety of responses. In L. J. Sysko's “Inside Lane,” an ominous foreboding exists among a girl's swim team where the coach kisses a team member without consent, and may be on the hook for worse before losing his job. Finally, in Brian Truong's “Fake Handbags,” an Asian-American family's shopping trips to New York City for knock-off luxury goods doesn't provide a brand halo that can protect the family members from the dad's angry outbursts. Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of ten books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Inner Moonlight is the monthly poetry reading series for the Wild Detectives in Dallas. The in-person show is the second Wednesday of every month in the Wild Detectives backyard. We love our podcast fans, so we release recordings of the live performances every month for y'all! On 2/14/24, we featured poet Emma Ramsey for a very special Valentine's Day show! Emma Pearl Ramsey grew up on a small farm in the Piney Woods of East Texas. She earned her BFA from Stephen F. Austin State University, and her MFA from North Carolina State University, and currently teaches in the English Department at TCU. Emma left her country life behind, but its influence continues to surface in her work and life. Through images of gardens, flowers, and the natural world, Emma's poems explore themes of family, loss, and coming-of age. Emma's work has appeared in Blue Route, she was a finalist in the NCSU Annual Poetry Contest, and she was nominated for a Best New Poets award. She is at work on her first full length collection. ⁠⁠⁠www.logencure.com/innermoonlight⁠

George David Clark is The author of Reveille (winner of the Miller Williams Poetry Prize) and Newly Not Eternal (just released from LSU Press). After earning an MFA at the University of Virginia and a PhD at Texas Tech University, David held the Olive B. O'Connor Fellowship in Poetry at Colgate University and, later, the Lilly Postdoctoral Fellowship at Valparaiso University. The editor-in-chief of 32 Poems, he previously served in various capacities on the staffs of Meridian, Iron Horse Literary Magazine, and the Best New Poets anthology. Since 2015 David has taught creative writing and literature at Washington & Jefferson College, where he is now an associate professor. He lives in McMurray, PA with his wife, Elisabeth, and their four children. Find more information and George's books here: http://www.georgedavidclark.com/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Write a poem entitled, “A Brief History of [X],” where X is a word that needs to be translated, and the poem is less than a page. Next Week's Prompt: Write a song of someone or something, as a persona poem 32 lines long. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Katherine Gaffney completed her MFA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is currently working on her PhD at the University of Southern Mississippi. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, jubilat, Harpur Palate, Mississippi Review, Meridian, Harpur Palate, and elsewhere. She has attended Tin House's Summer Writing Workshop (2014), Sundress Publications' SAFTA Residency in (2021), and was a scholar at the Sewanee Writers' Conference (2022). Her first chapbook, Once Read as Ruin, was published by Finishing Line Press. Her first full-length collection, Fool in a Blue House, won the 2022 Tampa Review Prize for Poetry. She lives and teaches in Champaign, Illinois. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/viewlesswings/support

Peter Kline is the author of two poetry collections, Mirrorforms (Parlor Press) and Deviants (SFASU Press).  A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, he has also received residency fellowships from the Amy Clampitt House and James Merrill House, and has won the Morton Marr Prize from Southwest Review, the River Styx International Poetry Prize, and The Columbia Review Poetry Prize.  His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Poetry, Tin House, and many other journals, as well as the Best New Poets series, the Verse Daily website, the Random House anthology of metrical poetry, Measure for Measure, and the Persea anthology of self-portrait poems, More Truly and More Strange.  Since 2012 he has directed the San Francisco literary reading series Bazaar Writers Salon.  He teaches writing at the University of San Francisco and Stanford University. We read Charles Wright's "Future Tense."

Katherine Gaffney completed her MFA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is currently working on her PhD at the University of Southern Mississippi. Her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, jubilat, Harpur Palate, Mississippi Review, Meridian, Harpur Palate, and elsewhere. She has attended Tin House's Summer Writing Workshop (2014), Sundress Publications' SAFTA Residency in (2021), and was a scholar at the Sewanee Writers' Conference (2022). Her first chapbook, Once Read as Ruin, was published by Finishing Line Press. Her first full-length collection, Fool in a Blue House, won the 2022 Tampa Review Prize for Poetry. She lives and teaches in Champaign, Illinois. Fool in a Blue House (U Tampa Press, 2023) crafts carefully appointed rooms, both interior and exterior, alongside familial and romantic love, loss and near loss of beloveds, selves, and even neighborhood rabbits. Dwelling in contradictions-strength and fragility, humor and heartbreak, safety and threat-this book ponders impossibilities as solutions to its own predicaments, "Perhaps it would be easier to write in a chorus." But these poems know that this is not the cure. These impossibilities are simply "a whole herring" dropped down a throat, a momentary pause before we dare "to defy what the sky tells us" and instead begin to tell "ourselves that we can will the sky to give." You can find out more about Katherine here. You can find her chapbook Once Read as Ruin here. You can follow Katherine on Instagram and on Twitter. You can learn more about Megan Wildhood at meganwildhood.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

NO SPARE PEOPLE documents the joys and perils of a tiny mother-daughter family navigating life on the margins. From poems about finding autonomy as a queer, unpartnered parent by choice in the South to those chronicling a generation's economic instability, Hoover rejects so-called "acceptable losses" stemming from inequalities of gender, race, and class. The book asks, what happens to the woman no longer willing to live a lie? How does language invent not only identity, but possibility? Order "No Spare People" from Amazon right here https://a.co/d/87HOvSB About the author: Erin Hoover is the author of two poetry collections, Barnburner (2018) and No Spare People (forthcoming in 2023, Black Lawrence Press). Her poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry and Best New Poets, and in journals such as Cincinnati Review, Florida Review, Poetry Northwest, and Shenandoah. She lives in rural Tennessee and teaches creative writing at Tennessee Tech.

When to break a line, Slushies. And why? What's the shape your poem takes, and how does the poem's form serve its complexities, subtleties, and heart? Three poems by Karl Meade are up for consideration in this episode of The Slush Pile, and they call the editors into conversation about trauma in literature, narrative (in)coherence as craft, and the pleasurable risks of stair-stepped stanzas. Poet L.J. Sysko joins the conversation on this  episode  of The Slush Pile as we discuss “Beach Fall,” “Christmas Break,” and “Doom Eager.” (If a tree falls in the woods, Slushies. Ammiright?)   At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, L. J. Sysko, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, Alex J. Tunney   Karl Meade's work been published in many literary magazines, a few of which he didn't even donate heavily to, or previously serve as editor—including Literary Review of Canada, Tusculum Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Grain Magazine, Chronogram, Umbrella Factory Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, Event Magazine, The Fiddlehead, Open Letter, Under the Sun, and Dandelion. His work has also been mistakenly longlisted for four CBC Literary Prizes, shortlisted for The Malahat Review's Open Season Creative Nonfiction Award, and Arc Poetry Magazine's Poem of the Year. His novel, Odd Jobs, written as a solemn literary manifesto, was a finalist for the Foreword Reviews Book of the Year for Humor, and an iTunes Top 20 Arts and Literature podcast—“Laugh Out Loud,” one listener said of this grave work.   Karl's chapbook “Doom Eager” has just been released in September 2023 by Raven Chapbooks, just in time for us to publish this podcast, which has waited longer than it should for release!    Author website: www.karlmeade.com Guest Editor: L.J. Sysko   L.J. Sysko's work has been published in Voicemail Poems, The Pinch, Ploughshares, Rattle, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. She is the author of a poetry chapbook, BATTLEDORE (Finishing Line Press, New Women's Voices series). Poetry honors include several Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg awards, two fellowships from Delaware's Division of the Arts, and poetry finalist recognition from The Fourth River, The Pinch, and Soundings East. Sysko holds an MFA in poetry from New England College.   X: @lj_sysko Instagram: @lesliesysko Facebook: @lesliesysko Author website: http://www.ljsysko.com   beach fall for Holli and Terry   Mountain to stone, prairie to sand, redwood to ash, from here I can see the heart of the sea, but not the beach   he fell on. I can see the picture window you sit in—waiting, watching the shore, iPad in lap, short-haired   Flossy at your side, the one who dug your dad's water bottle from under him. I don't know why   you brought his suitcase to his wake empty—what it was between you. Only he knew the words   you could not say. The doctors' words for you—non-verbal, spectral—sent him back to rage. He said they weren't worth the hair   on a dead chicken, that aut-ism was just too much self for them to take from you. He knew what his raging   love could do: four hours a night on the couch, talking through your iPad. He called himself Manitoban, the prairie farm-boy   who watched his dog run away for three days, the rain-man to lead you out, teach you how to mouth the O, the awe   in Holli. Yes, from here I can see the redwoods fall, the mountains decay, his sea-bed—   they say all the big hearts of the earth love where they fall, that his heart stopped   before he hit the beach. But we both know why his mouth was full of sand.     Christmas break for Doug and Arlene   The earth heaves, the ice cleaves. Erosion cuts the heart from every stone, while every night   I watch you drive your family past a starving glacier, turn from a truck laden with salt. You head off   the head on, take the bumper to the heart, leave your family straining your lungs' last   words from the floor of the minivan. I'm on the floor beneath my desk, straining   to plug in the phone that I will blame for years: why did I plug it in? Every night   I watch the driver's stoned eyes, petrified as your broken daughters in the back. Every night   I piece you all back together: brake, I say, turn over and over while the glacier leaves   its terminal moraine. I gather the stones, offer them to the moon, last witness   to your last turn. I turn to your wife, try to face her head on   with what the earth knows: core to crust, mouth to lung   the rupture comes, the rupture stays. Every Christmas   she wakes to the words brake, turn.     doom eager*       because one of us took a spike to the lung               a minivan to the chest                            hit the beach with his heart                                          to say nothing of the one                                                       whose only breath was broken water   because I believe               the hand, the wound, the moon                             is how I show you where I fell                                          through the hole I thought I was                                                       diving for pearls through the green                                                                     fuse of ice in my dream of you                             because I run naked                                         through the forest on a moonless night                                                        with a penlight in the hand that broke                                                        my mother's heart waning at the seed                                                                     of light the moon won't show me                                                                                    because its dark side calls all of us                             because I believe                                         I'll find your heart in the east                                                      your marrow in the moon                                                                     fever just before the sun rises                                                                                   I'll swim for it all day forgetting                                                                                                how the earth turns east south west                                                                                                                        circling all night forgetting                                                                                                                                                                                 there is no moon                                                                                                                                                                                 in the new moon                                                       because the only way out                                                                   is my hand on your chest                                                                                  I walk the shore all night                                                                                               dream back the back of the moon                                                                                                                                                               because the only cure                                                                                                                                                                                   for the wound                                                                                                                                                                                      is the wound     *after Ibsen, Graham, Moore: an Icelandic term for the isolation, restlessness, caughtness an artist experiences when sick with an idea

L.J. Sysko is the author of “The Daughter of Man” (April '23, University of Arkansas Press), the 2023 Miller Williams Poetry Series first finalist selected by Patricia Smith, and Battledore (Finishing Line Press), a chapbook about early motherhood. Sysko's poems have been anthologized in “Best New Poets” and “Let me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology” (Madville Publishing) and have appeared in publications such as Ploughshares, The Missouri Review's "Poem of the Week," and Mississippi Review, among others. An MFA in poetry from New England College, a Virginia Center for Creative Arts Fellow, and a 2022 Palm Beach Poetry Festival Thomas Lux Scholar, Sysko is Director of Executive Communications at Delaware State University. Adult content warning: A trigger warning for listeners: this interview includes adult themes and may not be appropriate for children. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/viewlesswings/support

Jackson Holbert reads poems from his debut book, Winter Stranger (2023, Milkweed Editions), which won the 2022 Max Ritvo Prize. Jackson was born and raised in eastern Washington. His work has appeared in Poetry, FIELD, The Nation, Narrative, Colorado Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Copper Nickel, The Iowa Review, and multiple editions of Best New Poets. He received his MFA in poetry from the Michener Center for Writers and is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. He has received fellowships from the Michener Center for Writers, The Stadler Center for Poetry, and The Sewanee Writer's Conference and has been a finalist for the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship.

Kyle Dacuyan is a poet, performer, and translator. His poem have appeared in DIAGRAM, Lambda Literary, Foundry, and Best New Poets, among other places. He is the recipient of scholarships from Poets House, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Sewanee Writers' Conference, and the Academy of American Poets. Prior to joining The Poetry Project, he served as co-director of National Outreach and Membership at PEN America, where he led the launch of a nationwide community engagement fund for writers. Previously, he served as associate director at the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America.The Poetry ProjectAmerican Academy of PoetsSt. Mark's in the Bowery ChurchPoetry FoundationThe Paris Review O, MiamiAlex Waters is the technical producer, audio editor and engineer for the Short Fuse Podcast. He is a music producer and a student at Berklee College of Music. He has written and produced music and edited for podcasts including The Faith and Chai Podcast and Con Confianza. He writes, produces and records music for independent artists, including The Living.  He lives in Brooklyn can can be reached at alexwatersmusic12@gmail.com with inquiries. 

**CELEBRATE NATIONAL POETRY MONTH** EP 47 NERDACITY: DuEwa interviews poet Maya Marshall about her debut collection of poetry, All the Blood Involved in Love ( Haymarket Books, 2022) and her writing life. Visit Maya's website at MayaMarshallPoetry.com and follow her on Twitter and Instagram. DUEWA'S WEB + SOCIALS Twitter ⁠@duewafrazier1 ⁠Facebook DuEwa (page) Instagram @drduewawrites Author Site ⁠www.duewafrazier.com⁠ FOLLOW/FAN/FRIEND NERDACITY on IG @nerdacitypodcast and on TWITTER @nerdacitypod1. FACEBOOK PAGE Nerdacity Podcast WATCH VIDEO of NERDACITY @Youtube.com/DUEWAWORLD LISTEN + SUBSCRIBE @SpotifyPodcasts @ApplePodcasts @Anchor @Stitcher @iHeartRadio @RadioFM @AppleMUSIC SUPPORT future episodes by donating @ Support Nerdacity with DuEwa Frazier or PayPal.me/DUEWAWORLD GUEST BIO Maya Marshall is the author of the debut full-length poetry collection All the Blood Involved in Love (Haymarket Books, 2022) and the chapbook Secondhand (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). In 2018, she cofounded underbelly, the journal on the practical magic of poetic revision. Marshall taught at Emory University and Northwestern University. She holds fellowships from MacDowell, Cave Canem, Vermont Studio Center and elsewhere. Her writing has been published in Boston Review, Crazyhorse, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. She works as an editor for Haymarket Books, and she is an assistant professor of English and creative writing at Adelphi University. Marshall was raised in Texas and Georiga, earned her MFA from the University of South Carolina, and made a home in Chicgao for nearly twenty years. Visit her website at mayamarshallpoetry.com) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/duewafrazier/support

For our eighteenth episode, we talk to poet Danni Quintos, who shares a writing prompt from cartoonist and graphic novelist Lynda Barry. Danni describes how both drawing and knitting have influenced her writing practice.Danni also talks about finding people who can provide feedback for your work. "Find your readers and cling to them for dear life," she says. "If you find somebody who's a good reader, never let them go, because it is not super common to find somebody who understands not only the the good things that you're doing, but that their criticism or critique is really helpful and kind of understands how to make it better."About Danni QuintosDanni Quintos is the author of the poetry collection, Two Brown Dots (BOA Editions, 2022), chosen by Aimee Nezhukumatathil as winner of the Poulin Prize, and PYTHON (Argus House, 2017), an ekphrastic chapbook featuring photography by her sister, Shelli Quintos. She is a Kentuckian, a mom, a knitter, and an Affrilachian Poet. Her work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, Cincinnati Review, Cream City Review, The Margins, Best New Poets 2015, Salon, and elsewhere. 

Poetic constraints may feel limiting to some, but for others, they spark creativity. In this episode, Erica Reid discusses the freedom and discovery of poetic forms. Plus, she talks with Jared about returning to school 15 years after her undergraduate degree, attending a low-res program with a strong sense of community and a dedication to centering the writer in workshop, and how her experience working at a literary magazine shaped her understanding of rejection. Erica Reid lives in Fort Collins, Colorado. She earned her MFA at Western Colorado University (‘22) and serves as assistant editor at THINK Journal. In 2022 she was nominated for Best New Poets; in 2021 her poetry won the Yellowwood Poetry Prize and the Helen Schaible Sonnet Contest (Modern Sonnets category), was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and was commissioned by the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. Find her at ericareidpoet.com. MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com. BE PART OF THE SHOW — Donate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee. — Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. — Submit an episode request. If there's a program you'd like to learn more about, contact us and we'll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience. — Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application. STAY CONNECTED Twitter: @MFAwriterspod Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast Facebook: MFA Writers Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

The Poet's Cove welcomes Aldo Amparán, author of the poetry collection Brothers Sleep (Alice James Books, 2022), winner of the Alice James Award. Host Daniel Chacón and Aldo's discuss everything from the writing process to imposter syndrome. Aldo also reads a poem from Brothers Sleep, “Thanatophobia, or Sleep Addresses His Brother.” Aldo Amparán is a poet, writer, & translator born and raised in the border cities of El Paso, TX, USA, & Ciudad Juárez, CH, MX. They are the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts & CantoMundo. Their work has been widely published in anthologies and literary journals including AGNI, Best New Poets, Gulf Coast, Kenyon Review Online, Ploughshares, Poetry Magazine, & elsewhere. They hold an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso.

Melody S. Gee is the author of three books of poetry, The Convert's Heart is Good to Eat (Driftwood Press, 2022) runner-up for the Adrift Chapbook Prize; The Dead in Daylight (2016, Cooper Dillon Books), long listed for the Julie Suk Award; and Each Crumbling House (2010, Perugia Press), winner of the Perugia Press Poetry Prize. Her poems, essays, and reviews appear recently in Commonweal Magazine, Essay Daily, Lantern Review, Rappahannock Review, Ruminate, The Academy of American Poets. Born in Taiwan and raised in California, she is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and the University of New Mexico. She has taught writing at Purdue University, Southwestern Illinois College, and St. Louis Community College, and currently works as a freelance content and communications strategist. Melody is the recipient of Kundiman fellowships in poetry and fiction, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award, an Artist Support Grant from the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, two Pushcart Prize nominations, a Best New Poets nomination, and the Robert Watson Literary Prize. She lives in St. Louis, MO with her husband and daughters.

Episode 158 Notes and Links to Javier Zamora's Work       On Episode 158 of The Chills at Will Podcast, Pete welcomes Javier Zamora, and the two discuss, among other things, his early love of learning and influences in his native Él Salvador, the effects of his family members on his world view, the accolades that have come with his writing and his original and continuing goals for his work, his memoir and his light and masterful touch with a young kid's POV, the ways in which traumas and bonding and love were intertwined in his journey to the US, and how writing the book brought him to a greater understanding of the vagaries of human behavior and his own behaviors.      Javier Zamora was born in La Herradura, El Salvador, in 1990. At the age of nine he migrated to the United States to be reunited with his parents. Zamora holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied and taught in June Jordan's Poetry for the People; and an MFA from New York University. He is the recipient of scholarships to Bread Loaf, Frost Place, Napa Valley, Squaw Valley, and VONA Writer's Conferences; and fellowships from CantoMundo and Colgate University where he is the Olive B. O'Connor fellow. His poems also appear in Best New Poets 2013, Indiana Review, Narrative, Ploughshares, Poet Lore, Theatre Under My Skin (Kalina Press: El Salvador), and elsewhere. Zamora has had his work recognized with a Meridian Editor's Prize, CONSEQUENCE Poetry Prize, and the Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook Contest.e enjoys hiking, camping, and is just getting into backpacking.   Buy Solito   Javier Zamora's Website   The New York Times Book Review of Solito   September 2022 from The Los Angeles Times: “At 9, Javier Zamora walked 4,000 miles to the U.S. At 29, he was ready to tell the story” At about 7:30, Pete asks the important question: Does Salvadoran Spanish have the best groseria?    At about 8:10, Javier responds to Pete's questions about his use of Spanish/Spanglish, and Salvadoran-specific words and his rationale/process in using the words    At about 11:50, Pete asks Javier about the awards and acclaim he has received and how it registers compared to the experience of sharing this personal story with the world   At about 14:45, Javier talks about pressures-external and internal-that have weighed him down and how therapy and healing through writing have lifted much of these pressures    At about 19:20, Javier speaks to Pete's question about the writers who have inspired and thrilled and challenged him; Javier mentions the outsized encouragement provided by Roberto Lovato   At about 21:00, Javier cites the huge influences of June Jordan and Roque Dalton    At about 22:25, Pete asks Javier about his early relationship with the written word, and he mentions his grandfather's and parents' educational and political backgrounds and how they shaped his reading     At about 27:05, Javier traces his fairly-circuitous route to becoming a writer, including the impact of Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries   At about 28:55, Javier responds to Pete's question about how the Bay Area's ethic has shaped him   At about 30: 10, Javier discusses the teaching of Salvadoran history in Él Salvador and how he was guided by this    At about 31:00, Javier and Pete highlight Immortal Technique and Rage Against the Machine as educational and radical musicians and inspirations   At about 32:10, Pete asks Javier about the meanings of the book's title, and Javier focuses on the three main parts/time periods of him being ”solito”   At about 34:20, Pete wonders about Javier's individual story and how it compares to, and was inspired by, more recent migrations of Salvadorans and Central Americans, particularly minors, and how journalism has erred in covering the    At about 39:30, Pete reads the epigraphs and Javier expands upon their importance and connections to the book   At about 41:00, Javier puts forth interesting ideas about the use of the word “immigrant” and suggests a possible substitute   At about 43:00, Javier expands upon ideas of the natural affinity that people (Americans, for one) have for children, and connections to the American immigration system     At about 44:30, Pete, stunned at the masterful ways in which Javier uses the POV of 9 yr old him, asks Javier how he managed to pull it off, and Javier talks about how his traumas have affected his growth   At about 47:10, Pete outlines the book's beginnings before Javier goes to the US   At about 48:00, Javier discusses the importance of his bonding time with his grandfather right before he headed North; he highlights The Body Keeps the Score and how he saw his ACES Index.   At about 51:00, Javier explains the Cadejo and its significance for him   At about 52:40, Javier recounts the tortuous boat trip that is depicted in the book and describes the overwhelming fear   At about 54:55, Javier talks about the “Big Four” (formerly the “Big Six” the people who become bonded for life with Javier and ideas of “surviving” as manifested by different people on Javier's journey   At about 58:30, Pete cites examples of charity depicted in the memoir and Pete compliments Javier's humanizing his characters; Javier responds with his views of the coyotes and the ways in which the border “world of 1999 that [he] described is different than now”   At about 1:01:20, Pete asks Javier if his stated goal for the writing of the book has been accomplished    At about 1:03:00, Javier talks about his involvement with Undocupoets, and how the writing world deals with issues of citizenship   At about 1:05:55, Javier describes his upcoming project    At about 1:06:45, Loca the Cat makes an appearance!      You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow me on IG, where I'm @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where I'm @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both my YouTube Channel and my podcast while you're checking out this episode.     Sign up now for The Chills at Will Podcast Patreon: it can be found at patreon.com/chillsatwillpodcastpeterriehl     Check out the page that describes the benefits of a Patreon membership, including cool swag and bonus episodes. Thanks in advance for supporting my one-man show, my DIY podcast and my extensive reading, research, editing, and promoting to keep this independent podcast pumping out high-quality content! This is a passion project of mine, a DIY operation, and I'd love for your help in promoting what I'm convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form. The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com.    Please tune in for Episode 159 with Amanda Korz, whose poetry witnesses previous versions of herself and intimately digs into mental illness, disability, and witchcraft. Her poetry collection, It's Just a Little Blood.    The episode will air on December 27.  

Nicole Caruso Garcia's full-length debut poetry collection is Oxblood (Able Muse Press 2022). Her writing appears in journals and anthologies such as Best New Poets 2021, Crab Orchard Review, DIAGRAM, Light, Measure, Mezzo Cammin, ONE ART, PANK, Plume, the Raintown Review, Rattle, RHINO, Sonora Review, Spillway, and Tupelo Quarterly. Find her new book and much more here: http://www.nicolecarusogarcia.com/index.html As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Start with a first line from a James Tate poem and write a poem (or prose poem) that incorporates dialogue within the narrative. See where your imagination takes you! Suggestions: Next Week's Prompt: Write a poem inspired by your favorite poet. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

At the hingepoint of change, a poet walks through the garden his late father planted. Aaron Caycedo-Kimura is a writer and visual artist. He is the author of two poetry collections: Ubasute (Slapering Hol Press 2021), which won the 2020 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Competition, and the full-length collection Common Grace (Beacon Press 2022). His honors include a Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship in Poetry, a St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Award in Literature, and nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets anthologies.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.We're pleased to offer Aaron Caycedo-Kimura's poem, and invite you to connect with Poetry Unbound throughout this season.Pre-order the forthcoming book Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World and join us in our new conversational space on Substack.

Jennifer Givhan knows the power of cultural storytelling. In her latest novel, River Woman, River Demon, she draws heavily from her and her husband's own Latina, Indigenous, and Black heritage to create a thrilling mystery infused with organic, emotional experiences. Jennifer is the award-winning author of novels like Trinity Sight and Jubilee and an accomplished poet. To purchase River Woman, River Demon, follow the link below. From Amazon.com: Jennifer Givhan, a National Endowment for the Arts and PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices Fellow, is a Mexican-American writer and activist from the Southwestern desert and the author of four full-length poetry collections: Landscape with Headless Mama (2015 Pleiades Editors' Prize), Protection Spell (2016 Miller Williams Poetry Prize Series chosen by Billy Collins), Girl with Death Mask (2017 Blue Light Books Prize chosen by Ross Gay), and Rosa's Einstein (Camino del Sol Poetry Series, University of Arizona Press 2019). Her novels include Trinity Sight (2019) and Jubilee (forthcoming) from Blackstone Publishing. Her other honors include the Frost Place Latinx scholarship, a National Latinx Writers' Conference scholarship, the Lascaux Review Poetry Prize, Phoebe Journal's Greg Grummer Poetry Prize, the Pinch Poetry Prize, and the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize 2nd place. Her work has appeared in Best of the Net, Best New Poets, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, The New Republic, Ploughshares, POETRY, The Rumpus, TriQuarterly, Boston Review, AGNI, Crazyhorse, Witness, Southern Humanities Review, Missouri Review, The Kenyon Review, and many others. She lives in New Mexico with her family near the Sleeping Sister Volcanoes. In this episode, you'll discover: Why writing about magic is so important How being a mother enriches your writing How to use unreliable narration Jennifer's writing process --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/writersink/support

Join Chris in conversation with Kemi Alabi, author of Against Heaven (Graywolf Press), about passions, process, pitfalls, and Poetry! Kemi Alabi is the author of Against Heaven (Graywolf Press, 2022), selected by Claudia Rankine as winner of the 2021 Academy of American Poets First Book Award. Their poems and essays appear in the Atlantic, Poetry, the Nation, Boston Review, the BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2, Best New Poets 2019, and elsewhere. Selected by Chen Chen as winner of the 2020 Beacon Street Poetry Prize, Kemi has received Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and Brittle Paper Award nominations along with fellowships from MacDowell, Civitella Ranieri, Tin House and Pink Door. Kemi believes in the world-shifting power of words and the radical imaginations of Black queer and trans people. As cultural strategy director of Forward Together, they built political power with cultural workers of color through programs like Echoing Ida, a home for Black women and nonbinary writers, and annual art campaigns like Trans Day of Resilience. The Echoing Ida Collection, coedited with Cynthia R. Greenlee and Janna Zinzi, is available now from Feminist Press. Born in Wisconsin on a Sunday in July, Kemi now lives in Chicago, IL. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tpq20/support

Inner Moonlight is the monthly poetry reading series for the Wild Detectives in Dallas. We make poetry magic on the second Wednesday of every month. We have returned to the Wild Detectives in person, but fret not, podcast fans! We will be releasing recordings of the live show every month for y'all. On 10/12/22, we featured poet James Davis. James Davis is the author of Club Q, which was selected by Edward Hirsch for the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize and published by The Waywiser Press in Fall 2020. He is the recipient of an MFA from the University of Florida, as well as support from the Lighthouse Writer's Workshop in Denver, Colorado, and The Mastheads in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His poems have appeared in two editions of Best New Poets (2011 & 2019), as well as in journals such as Bennington Review, Copper Nickel, 32 Poems, The Gay & Lesbian Review, and American Literary Review. He lives in Denton, Texas, where he acts as Poetry Editor of American Literary Review while pursuing his PhD in creative writing at the University of North Texas. Presented by The Writer's Garret https://writersgarret.org/ www.logencure.com/innermoonlight

Join Chris of The Poetry Question in conversation with Courtney Faye Taylor, author of Concentrate (Graywolf Press) and winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, about passions, process, pitfalls, and Poetry! COURTNEY FAYE TAYLOR is a writer and visual artist. She is the author of Concentrate, forthcoming from Graywolf Press in November 2022. It is the winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize selected by Rachel Eliza Griffiths and was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. Courtney earned her BA from Agnes Scott College and her MFA from the University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers' Program where she received the Hopwood Prize in Poetry. She is also the winner of the 92Y Discovery Prize and an Academy of American Poets Prize. The recipient of residencies and fellowships from Cave Canem and the Charlotte Street Foundation, Courtney's work can be found in Poetry Magazine, The Nation, Ploughshares, Best New Poets, The New Republic and elsewhere. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tpq20/support

Join Maya Marshall and special guests for a celebration of her new book All the Blood Involved in Love. All the Blood Involved in Love is an urgent and evocative collection—featuring complex and compelling poems about the choices we make surrounding home, freedom, healing, partnership, and family. In a moment of critical struggle for reproductive justice, Maya Marshall's haunting debut meditates on womanhood—with and without motherhood. Traversing familial mythography with an unflinching seriousness, Marshall moves deftly between contemporary politics, the stakes of race and interracial partnership, and the monetary, mental, and physical costs of adopting or birthing a Black child. Get All the Blood Involved in Love from Haymarket: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1884-all-the-blood-involved-in-love --------------------------------------------------------------------- Speakers: Maya Marshall, a writer and editor, is cofounder of underbellymag.com, the journal on the practical magic of poetic revision. As an educator, Marshall has taught at Northwestern University and Loyola University Chicago. She holds fellowships from MacDowell, Vermont Studio Center, Callaloo, The Watering Hole, Community of Writers, and Cave Canem. She is the author of Secondhand (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). Her writing appears in Best New Poets 2019, Muzzle, RHINO, Potomac Review, Blackbird, and elsewhere. All the Blood Involved in Love is Marshall's debut poetry collection with Haymarket Books. Destiny O. Birdsong is a poet, novelist, and essayist whose work has appeared in the Paris Review Daily, African American Review, and Catapult, among other publications. Her debut poetry collection, Negotiations, was published in 2020 by Tin House and was longlisted for the 2021 PEN/Voelcker Award. Her debut novel, Nobody's Magic, was published in February 2022 from Grand Central Publishing. Tarfia Faizullah was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Texas. She is the author of Registers of Illuminated Villages (Graywolf Press, 2018) and Seam (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014). She lives in Dallas, Texas. Aricka Foreman is an American poet and interdisciplinary writer from Detroit, MI. She is the author of the chapbook Dream with a Glass Chamber, and Salt Body Shimmer (YesYes Books) winner of the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry. She has earned fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo, and the Millay Colony. Aricka lives in Chicago and works as a publicist at Haymarket Books. Nicole Homer is an Associate Professor of English at a community college in Central New Jersey. They are a poet, writer, and performer whose work can be found in the American Academy of Poets Poem-a-Day, Muzzle, The Offing, Rattle, The Collagist and elsewhere. A fellow of The Watering Hole, Callaloo and VONA, Nicole serves as a Contributing Editor at BlackNerdProblems writing pop culture critique through a POC lens. Their award-winning collection, Pecking Order (Write Bloody) is an unflinching look at how race and gender politics play out in the domestic sphere. Natasha Oladokun (she/her) is a poet and essayist. She holds fellowships from Cave Canem, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Jackson Center for Creative Writing, Twelve Literary Arts, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was the inaugural First Wave Poetry fellow. Her work has appeared in the American Poetry Review, The Academy of American Poets, Harvard Review Online, and Kenyon Review Online. You can read her column The PettyCoat Chronicles—on pop culture and period dramas—at Catapult. She is Associate Poetry Editor at storySouth, and currently lives in Madison, WI. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/qFVhGJYqI98 Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Enter the poetic dreamscape of Piscean poets Sara Lupita Olivares and Alyssa Jewell. People born under the star sign of Pisces (Feb 19-March 20) are known for being old souls with a great affinity for both mystical and artistic realms. Pisces is a water sign ruled by Neptune, a planet of mystery and psychic energy. Pisceans are gifted with natural intuition and house creative gifts that truly captivate us. Dreams and poetry are a very natural intersection to find a creative Pisces.  In this episode of The Fairy Ring, we discuss dreams and how they connect to poetry in seen and unseen ways. Grab a cup of tea and join us for our watery, dreamy, and poetic conversation. Sara Lupita Olivares is the author of Migratory Sound (The University of Arkansas Press), which was selected as winner of the 2020 CantoMundo Poetry Prize, and the chapbook Field Things (dancing girl press). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The New York Times, Hayden's Ferry Review, Black Warrior Review, Salt Hill Journal, Quarterly West, and elsewhere. She currently lives and teaches in the midwest. website: www.saralupitaolivares.com instagram: saralupitao Alyssa Jewell edits poetry for Waxwing as well as Third Coast and coordinates the Poets in Print reading series at the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, Witness, Virginia Quarterly Review, Colorado Review, Hayden's Ferry Review,  Washington Square Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Grand Rapids where she teaches college ESL classes. She is a graduate student at Western Michigan University. website: alyssajewell.orgThe Poets in Print Event page is: https://kalbookarts.org/events/ Thank you for listening. Taking a moment to rate and share is a great source of support. Your energy is appreciated

Ellis Purdie reads his poem, "Praise as Acrostic," and Remi Recchia reads his two poems, "From Isaiah" and "From Psalms." Ellis Purdie is a graduate of The Center for Writers at The University of Southern Mississippi. Along with writing and teaching, he spends a good deal of time looking for herpetofauna in east Texas, where he lives with his wife, son, and daughter. Remi Recchia, author of Quicksand/Stargazing (Cooper Dillon Books, 2021) and Sober (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2022), is a trans poet and essayist from Kalamazoo, Michigan. A four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Remi's work has appeared or will soon appear in Best New Poets 2021, World Literature Today, Columbia Online Journal, Harpur Palate, and Juked, among others. He holds an MFA in poetry from Bowling Green State University and currently serves as an associate editor for the Cimarron Review. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/vita-poetica/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/vita-poetica/support

Jim Whiteside is the author of a chapbook, Writing Your Name on the Glass (Bull City Press, 2019) and is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. His poems have appeared in The New York Times, POETRY, Ploughshares, Boston Review, and Best New Poets 2020. The recipient of scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and Sewanee Writers' Conference, he earned his MFA from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He works as a copywriter and lives in Brooklyn, New York.  Copyright © Jim Whiteside 2021. Originally published in Black Warrior Review, Fall/Winter 2021, No. 48.1 Text of today's poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/ Find books from participating poets in our library's catalog.  Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and teacher Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this second year of our series is the first movement, Schéhérazade, from Masques, Op. 34, by Karol Szymanowski, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission. Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language. 

Mark Kyungsoo Bias speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his poem “Adoption Day,” which appears in The Common's new spring issue. Mark talks about the inspiration and process behind the poem, which looks at issues like memory, immigration, and racism in post-9/11 America, all through the lens of a family experience. Mark also discusses his approach to language, sound, line breaks, and more, and the methods and techniques he's found helpful in revising poetry. He reads two additional poems published in The Common: “Meeting My Mother” and “Visitor.” Mark Kyungsoo Bias is the recipient of the 2022 Joseph Langland Prize from the Academy of American Poets and the 2020 William Matthews Poetry Prize. A semi-finalist for the 92Y Discovery Prize, he has been offered support from Bread Loaf, Kundiman, and Tin House. He is a recent graduate of the MFA program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and has work published or forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, Best New Poets, The Common, PANK, Poets.org, and Washington Square Review, among other journals. ­­Read Mark's poems in The Common at thecommononline.org/tag/mark-kyungsoo-bias/ Read more from Mark at markkyungsoobias.com, or follow him on Twitter at @mk_bias. The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her debut novel is forthcoming from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She is a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow. Say hello on Twitter @Public_Emily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Nancy Miller Gomez's chapbook, Punishment, was published as part of the Rattle chapbook series. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best American Poetry 2021, Best New Poets 2021, The New Ohio Review, American Life in Poetry, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. A failed waitress, she has worked as a stable hand, an attorney, and a television producer. She co-founded an organization that provides writing workshops to incarcerated women and men and has taught poetry in Salinas Valley State Prison and the Santa Cruz County jails. She grew up in Kansas, but currently lives in Santa Cruz, California. Find more information at: https://www.nancymillergomez.com/ As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Write a waltmarie (https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/waltmarie-poetic-forms). Next Week's Prompt: May is National Photography Month. Write a poem inspired by a photograph of your own, and share the photo along with the poem. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Episode 121 Notes and Links to Michael Torres' Work          On Episode 121 of The Chills at Will Podcast, Pete welcomes Michael Torres, and the two discuss, among other topics, his growing up in Pomona, CA, and his childhood and adolescence influences on his work, the speaker as poet and vice versa, his early reading prompted by a generous older sister, works and writers that have thrilled him and impelled him to write, his poetry collection's themes of identity and masculinity, and the real-life background of his dynamite lines and strong images.       Michael Torres is a VONA distinguished alum and CantoMundo fellow. In 2016 he received his MFA in creative writing from Minnesota State University, Mankato, was a winner of the Loft Mentor Series, received an Individual Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, and was awarded a Jerome Foundation Research and Travel Grant to visit the pueblo in Jalisco, Mexico where his father grew up. In 2019 he received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and The Loft Literary Center for the Mirrors & Windows Program. A former Artist-in-Residence at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France as well as a McKnight Writing Fellow, he is currently a 2021-22 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow.     His first collection of poems, AN INCOMPLETE LIST OF NAMES, (Beacon Press, 2020) was selected by Raquel Salas Rivera for the National Poetry Series, named one of NPR's Best Books of 2020, and was featured on the podcast Code Switch.     His writing has been featured or is forthcoming in Best New Poets 2020, The New Yorker, POETRY, Ploughshares, Smartish Pace, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Georgia Review, The Sun, Water~Stone Review, Southern Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, Poetry Northwest, Copper Nickel, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The McNeese Review, MIRAMAR, Green Mountains Review, Forklift, Ohio, Hot Metal Bridge, The Boiler Journal, Paper Darts, River Teeth, The Acentos Review, Okey-Panky, Sycamore Review, SALT, Huizache, online as The Missouri Review's Poem of the Week, on The Slowdown with Tracy K. Smith.     Michael was born and brought up in Pomona, CA, where he spent his adolescence as a graffiti artist. Currently, he teaches in the MFA program at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.     Michael Torres' Website   Buy An Incomplete List of Names   Michael's Appearance on NPR's Code Switch   "In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors–Michael Torres" At about 3:20, Michael talks about growing up in Pomona, CA, and his relationship with language and literature   At about 6:00, Michael highlights his older sister's contributions in introducing him to great literature, and Michael details being immediately intrigued by Luis Rodriguez's Always Running   At about 10:00, Pete connects Luis Rodriguez and getting attention through his nickname and Michael's views of tagging and identity    At about 13:50, Michael responds to Pete's questions about connections between peer pressure and growing up, including how Michael's “Down” was inspired by Kendrick Lamar's “The Art of Peer Pressure”   At about 18:00, Pete flits from A Bronx Tale to a phenomenon with students' writing their full names in past years as the two “discuss the “desire to leave something behind”   At about 20:10, Pete cites profound and interesting lines from An Incomplete List of Names that deal with identity, and Pete asks about “Michael” and the delineation between his name and “Remek”   At about 22:00, Michael discusses what reading and writers inspired and thrilled him as he got into late high school and college, including 2Pac and The Rose that Grew From Concrete, Charles Bukowski, Gary Soto's The Elements of San Joaquin, and Albert Camus' The Stranger   At about 26:40, Michael further explains hip-hop's influence on him, including from groups like Dilated Peoples, A Tribe Called Quest, Pharcyde, Jurassic 5   At about 30:00, Michael lays out events and people who helped him find his writing voice and skill and community    At about 32:00, Michael highlights moments that convinced him of his love for poetry    At about 34:00, Michael highlights John Bramingham and others who helped him learn about the publication process   At about 35:30, A Mic and Dim Lights is highlighted as a open mic spot that fostered Michael's skills and confidence   At about 37:00, Pete asks about the transition from student to teacher/mentor for Michael, as Michael shouts out UC Riverside and Freddy Lopez   At about 40:10, Pete asks Michael about “Stop Looking My Name Like That” and ideas of the speaker as the poet   At about 42:40, Michael describes “writing in resistance” to conversations had at a conference he attended   At about 44:30, Pete talks about his favorite scene in moviedom, and its connections to innocence and nostalgia and Michael's writing   At about 45:30, Pete quotes some dynamite lines and asks Michael about ideas of identity   At about 49:30, Michael analyzes a profound line and connects it to memory and nostalgia    At about 51:00, Michael discusses community and connections to a “transaction” and the moving (no pun intended) poem “Push”   At about 52:10, Michael gives background on his father and perspectives on his dad's background and its connection to their relationship   At about 54:15, ideas of masculinity are explored through standout lines, including “Down” and its three iterations    At about 56:45, Michael talks about “masks” and tough exteriors and acting tough as ways of getting by and not getting “clowned”   At about 58:45, Michael gives background on an interesting and fitting phrase he uses in his poetry   At about 1:00:25, Pete and Michael discuss a tender line from “Down/II” as Michael gives background on the line as a mix of moments in his life   At about 1:03:30, Michael discusses ideas of youth valuing themselves as touched upon in his work   At about 1:05:20, Pete highlights a line from the collection that is representative of the whole   At about 1:07:00, Pete asks about Michael's community of writers and who moves him in 2022; Michael cites Willie Perdomo, Mary Szybist and “Incarnadine,” Patricia Smith, Paul Tran, Dustin Pearson, Emily Yoon, Chris McCormick, Eduardo Corral, and Chen Chen   At about 1:09:10, Michael reads from “Down/I”   At about 1:15:00, Michael reads Part VI and X of “Elegy Roll Call”   At about 1:17:00, Michael details upcoming projects   At about 1:21:00, Michael gives out social media/contact info     You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow me on IG, where I'm @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where I'm @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both my YouTube Channel and my podcast while you're checking out this episode.      This is a passion project of mine, a DIY operation, and I'd love for your help in promoting what I'm convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form. The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com.     Please tune in for Episode 122 with Sonora Reyes, the author of the forthcoming contemporary young adult novel, THE LESBIANA'S GUIDE TO CATHOLIC SCHOOL. They write fiction full of queer and Latinx characters in a variety of genres, with current projects in both kidlit and adult categories. Sonora is also the creator and host of the Twitter chat #QPOCChat, a monthly community-building chat for queer writers of color.     The episode will air on May 10.

In this episode we welcome Sara Moore Wagner to discuss her chapbook Tumbling After (Red Bird Chapbooks). Sara Moore Wagner is the author of two full length books of poetry, Swan Wife (winner of the 2021 Cider Press Review Editors Prize) and Hillbilly Madonna (2020 Driftwood Press Manuscript prize winner), a recipient of a 2022 Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, a 2021 National Poetry Series Finalist, and the recipient of a 2019 Sustainable Arts Foundation award. She is the author of the chapbooks Tumbling After (Redbird, 2022) and Hooked Through (Five Oaks Press, 2017). Her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies including Sixth Finch, Waxwing, Nimrod, Western Humanities Review, Tar River Poetry, and The Cincinnati Review, among others, and she has been nominated for multiple times for a Pushcart prize, for Best of the Net, and for Best New Poets. Her poetry has also been supported by a SAFTA residency, a merit scholarship from the Juniper Institute, and a scholarship to the Palm Beach Poetry Festival as a finalist for the Thomas Lux prize. She holds a BFA from BGSU, and an MA in literature from NKU, where she currently teaches Intro to Creative Writing. She lives in West Chester, OH with her filmmaker husband Jon and their children, Daisy, Vivienne, and Cohen.Sara Moore Wagner (website)Sara Moore Wagner (twitter) Tumbling After (Redbird Chapbooks)"Her Kind" by Anne Sexton Angela Carter William Butler Yeats Thank you for listening to The Chapbook!Noah Stetzer is on Twitter @dcNoahRoss White is on Twitter @rosswhite You can find all our episodes and contact us with your chapbook questions and suggestions here. Follow Bull City Press on Twitter https://twitter.com/bullcitypress Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bullcitypress/ and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/bullcitypress