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We're joined by the amazing poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert to discuss some of the books that we think about all the time. We each share three books that are always on our minds and discuss the many reasons some works become such and important part of who we are.Which ones would you pick?ShownotesBooks* Any Person Is the Only Self, by Elisa Gabbert* The Unreality of Memory, by Elisa Gabbert* The Word Pretty, by Elisa Gabbert* The Hurting Kind, by Ada Limón* 77 Dream Songs, by John Berryman* The Price of Salt, by Patricia Highsmith* A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster* Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks* Strangers on a Train, by Patricia Highsmith* Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young* Lies and Sorcery, by Elsa Morante, translated by Jenny McPhee* Middlemarch, by George Eliot* Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout, by Cal Newport* An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, by George Perec, translated by Marc Lowenthal* A Month in Sienna, by Hisham Matar* How to Cook a Wolf, by M.F.K. Fisher* A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein* Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson* Ducks, Newburyport, by Lucy Ellmann* The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky* Notes from Underground, by Fyodor Dostoevsky* Too Serious Ladies, by Jane Bowles* Sabrina, by Nick Drnaso* Emma, by Jane Austen* The Wild Iris, by Louise Glück* Survey Says, by Nathan Austin* The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman* So Long, See You Tomorrow, by William Maxwell* Atonement, by Ian McEwan* The Invention of Morel, by Adolfo Bioy Casares, translated by Ruth L.C. SimmsOther* Elisa Gabbert's Poetry Column in The New York Times* Every book I read in 2024, with commentary, by Elisa Gabbert* Lost Highway, d. David Lynch* Mulholland Dr., d. David Lynch* Episode 36: Epic Books* Backlisted Podcast on Notes from Underground* Episode 25: Jane AustenThe Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you'll continue to join us!Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you'd like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe
Elisa Gabbert is the author of the essay collection Any Person is the Only Self, available from FSG Originals. Gabbert is the author of Normal Distance, The Unreality of Memory, and several other collections of poetry, essays, and criticism. She writes the On Poetry column for The New York Times, and her work has appeared in Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic, The Believer, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, and other publications. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Subscribe to Brad Listi's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch Twitter Instagram TikTok Bluesky Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
For this week's episode of Working Overtime, hosts Ronald Young Jr and Isaac Butler are joined by writer Elisa Gabbert for a discussion of reading and rediscovering a love of books. Gabbert is the author of Any Person is the Only Self, a new collection of essays on art, culture, and reading habits. Gabbert delves into some of her reading practices such as always being surrounded by exciting-looking books, exploring the ‘Recently Returned' section of her library, and not being afraid to revisit and critique classic novels. Do you have questions or advice of your own about the creative process? Reach out at (304) 933-9675 or email us at working@slate.com. Podcast production by Kevin Bendis and Cameron Drews. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
For this week's episode of Working Overtime, hosts Ronald Young Jr and Isaac Butler are joined by writer Elisa Gabbert for a discussion of reading and rediscovering a love of books. Gabbert is the author of Any Person is the Only Self, a new collection of essays on art, culture, and reading habits. Gabbert delves into some of her reading practices such as always being surrounded by exciting-looking books, exploring the ‘Recently Returned' section of her library, and not being afraid to revisit and critique classic novels. Do you have questions or advice of your own about the creative process? Reach out at (304) 933-9675 or email us at working@slate.com. Podcast production by Kevin Bendis and Cameron Drews. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
For this week's episode of Working Overtime, hosts Ronald Young Jr and Isaac Butler are joined by writer Elisa Gabbert for a discussion of reading and rediscovering a love of books. Gabbert is the author of Any Person is the Only Self, a new collection of essays on art, culture, and reading habits. Gabbert delves into some of her reading practices such as always being surrounded by exciting-looking books, exploring the ‘Recently Returned' section of her library, and not being afraid to revisit and critique classic novels. Do you have questions or advice of your own about the creative process? Reach out at (304) 933-9675 or email us at working@slate.com. Podcast production by Kevin Bendis and Cameron Drews. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
On this week's show, Isaac Butler (co-host of Slate's Working podcast and the author of The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act) sits in for Julia Turner. The panel first turns their attention to Ren Faire, HBO's three-part documentary chronicling the surreal power struggle at the heart of America's largest renaissance festival. Director Lance Oppenheim (Spermworld, Some Kind of Heaven) presents an extraordinary window into the fantastical world, capturing a very specific moment in late-stage capitalism in which society returns to feudalism. Then, the three inspect Janet Planet, Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright Annie Baker's film debut. Like Baker's theater work, Janet Planet–a loosely autobiographical tale revolving around an 11-year-old girl named Lacy (played by Zoe Ziegler) and her mother, Janet (played by Julianne Nicholson)–pushes naturalism to the extreme, an approach that some critics love and others, some even on this very panel, abhor. Finally, the great Canadian actor Donald Sutherland died this past week at the age of 88. His career spanned over six decades, but his immense talents weren't always immediately obvious. To honor Sutherland and his body of work, each host re-watched a favorite film of theirs: Don't Look Now, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Six Degrees of Separation. In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, the panel reflects on their relationship to giving and receiving criticism, inspired by Arthur C. Brooks's article for The Atlantic, “How to Take–And Give–Criticism Well.” Email us at culturefest@slate.com. It's the last week to submit songs for Summer Strut! The final deadline is July 1st. Send your struttiest songs to culturefest@slate.com. Endorsements: Stephen: I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves. Isaac: Any Person Is the Only Self: Essays by Elisa Gabbert. Dana: Inspired by Janet Planet: The Roche's 1979 self-titled album and specifically, “Hammond Song.” Podcast production by Jared Downing. Production assistance by Kat Hong. Hosts Dana Stephens, Isaac Butler, Stephen Metcalf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
On this week's show, Isaac Butler (co-host of Slate's Working podcast and the author of The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act) sits in for Julia Turner. The panel first turns their attention to Ren Faire, HBO's three-part documentary chronicling the surreal power struggle at the heart of America's largest renaissance festival. Director Lance Oppenheim (Spermworld, Some Kind of Heaven) presents an extraordinary window into the fantastical world, capturing a very specific moment in late-stage capitalism in which society returns to feudalism. Then, the three inspect Janet Planet, Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright Annie Baker's film debut. Like Baker's theater work, Janet Planet–a loosely autobiographical tale revolving around an 11-year-old girl named Lacy (played by Zoe Ziegler) and her mother, Janet (played by Julianne Nicholson)–pushes naturalism to the extreme, an approach that some critics love and others, some even on this very panel, abhor. Finally, the great Canadian actor Donald Sutherland died this past week at the age of 88. His career spanned over six decades, but his immense talents weren't always immediately obvious. To honor Sutherland and his body of work, each host re-watched a favorite film of theirs: Don't Look Now, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Six Degrees of Separation. In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, the panel reflects on their relationship to giving and receiving criticism, inspired by Arthur C. Brooks's article for The Atlantic, “How to Take–And Give–Criticism Well.” Email us at culturefest@slate.com. It's the last week to submit songs for Summer Strut! The final deadline is July 1st. Send your struttiest songs to culturefest@slate.com. Endorsements: Stephen: I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves. Isaac: Any Person Is the Only Self: Essays by Elisa Gabbert. Dana: Inspired by Janet Planet: The Roche's 1979 self-titled album and specifically, “Hammond Song.” Podcast production by Jared Downing. Production assistance by Kat Hong. Hosts Dana Stephens, Isaac Butler, Stephen Metcalf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What a searching, stimulating conversation this was. Elisa Gabbert joins the podcast to talk about a poem she and I have both long loved, Sylvia Plath's "Lady Lazarus."Elisa is a poet, critic, and essayist—and the author of several books. Her recent titles include Normal Distance (Soft Skull, 2022), The Unreality of Memory (FSG Originals, 2020), and The Word Pretty (Black Ocean, 2018). She has a new book of essays coming out next year: Any Person Is the Only Self (FSG, 2024). Elisa writes the "On Poetry" column for The New York Times, and she regularly reviews new books of poetry there and elsewhere. You can follow Elisa on Twitter.Please follow, rate, review, and share the podcast if you like what you hear. And subscribe to my Substack, where you'll get occasional updates about the podcast and other news about my work.
Elisa Gabbert and Michael Joseph Walsh join Catherine Nichols to discuss Rainer Maria Rilke's 1910 novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. They talk about the ways the book echoes the life and mind of its author--and how it doesn't, as well as the details of the text: the eeriness of hands and masks, the differences between childhood and adult consciousness, and the appeal of encountering horrors on purpose. Since the book has been translated from the German many times, they compare several translations. Elisa Gabbert is the author of six collections of poetry, essays, and criticism. She writes the On Poetry column for the New York Times. Her next collection of nonfiction, Any Person Is the Only Self, will be out in 2023 from FSG. Michael Joseph Walsh is a Korean American poet and translator. He is the author of Innocence (CSU Poetry Center, 2022) and co-editor of APARTMENT Poetry. His poems, reviews, and translations have appeared in the Brooklyn Rail, Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, Guernica, FOLDER, Fence, jubilat, and elsewhere. He lives in Denver. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week, Cindy Juyoung Ok speaks with Elisa Gabbert, who joins us from Providence, Rhode Island. Gabbert is the author of six, soon to be seven, collections of essays and poems, including Normal Distance (Soft Skull Press, 2022) and the forthcoming Any Person Is the Only Self (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024). Ok writes, “For Elisa, seemingly no field, no form, no fondness, is exempt from her thought or, lucky for us, her writing. She is a lover of surprising etymology and misunderstood quotes. She works toward clarity in play and in study.” Today, the two discuss Gabbert's essay “On Self-Pity: Go Eat Worms,” which is part of a new series called “Hard Feelings” that makes its debut in the July/August 2023 issue of Poetry. Gabbert explains why she was excited to write a “spirited defense” of self-pity, and more.
John Cotter is the author of the memoir Losing Music, published by _Milkweeds Edition_s, portions of which have appeared in Raritan, Catapult, Indiana Review, and Guernica. His novel, Under the Small Lights, was published by Miami University Press in 2010, and his fiction, essays, criticism, and theater pieces have appeared–or will soon– in New England Review, Epoch, Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, Georgia Review, Adroit, The New York Times, and_ Commonweal_. John has worked as a theater director, ghostwriter, trash collector, copy editor, and teacher of environmental ethics, English literature, and history. From 2009 – 2017 he was Executive Editor at the arts and review site Open Letters Monthly. In 2018 he was Artist in Residence at SPACE Gallery in Portland, Maine; in 2022 he was a resident fellow at the James Merrill House in Stonington, Connecticut. He lives in New England with his wife, the poet Elisa Gabbert, and teaches at Denver's Lighthouse Writers Workshop. contact: john@johncotter.net Represented by Noah Ballard at Verve Talent & Literary: NBallard@vervetla.com twitter: @smalllights beats by God'Aryan Support Textual Healing with Mallory Smart by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/textual-healing
The brilliant author and playwright, John Cotter returns to the podcast mere weeks before his memoir, LOSING MUSIC hits the shelves. We discuss a myriad of subjects, and always, his deep introspection is a delight. Tune in, and if you haven't heard part one, make sure to check that out too.John Cotter is the author of the memoir Losing Music, from Milkweed Editions, portions of which have appeared in Raritan, Catapult, Indiana Review, and Guernica. His novel, Under the Small Lights, was published by Miami University Press in 2010, and his fiction, essays, criticism, and theater pieces have appeared in New England Review, Washington Square, Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, Georgia Review, and Commonweal.John has worked as a theater director, ghostwriter, trash collector, and copy editor, as well as a teacher of environmental ethics, English literature, and history. From 2009 – 2017 he served as Executive Editor of the arts and review site Open Letters Monthly. In 2018 he was Artist in Residence at SPACE Gallery in Portland, Maine, and in 2022 he'll be a resident fellow at the James Merrill House in Stonington, Connecticut. Born and raised in New England, John now lives in Denver with his wife, the poet Elisa Gabbert. He teaches at Lighthouse Writers Workshop.To learn more about John, check out the links below.Website: https://johncotter.net/Twitter: https://twitter.com/smalllights So grateful for all the listeners! Check the links below from charities, subscriptions, merch, reading list, and more. Love the show?You can now support the show with a subscription! Click here for all the details.**Want to write a review? Click here for details.** Donate Dachshund Rescue of Houston hereBlog https://tstakaishi.wixsite.com/musicInsta @creative_peacemeal_podcastFB @creativepeacemealpodBonfire Merch https://www.bonfire.com/store/creative-peacemeal/Redbubble Merch CPPodcast.redbubble.comCreative Peacemeal READING list hereInterested in Corrie Legge's content planner? Click here to order!
Today's poem is Don't Think by Elisa Gabbert. This episode was originally released on March 14, 2022.
On today's episode we have poet Elisa Gabbert. Elisa is the author of six collections of poetry and essays. Her two latest books are the essay collection The Unreality of Memory published by FSG Originals and the poetry collection, Normal Distance, published by Soft Skull Press. The Unreality of Memory is a collection that reckons with disasters large and small. It's written in a voice that obsessively chronicles the precarity of the world we live in, while also interrogating the way we experience and react to this world. It tells stories about disasters, while simultaneously questioning the way we tell stories about disasters. If that sounds too vague, perhaps the NYT review of the book, that I also mention during the conversation, does a better job, saying Elisa takes a scalpel to the notion of reality itself. Her poetry in Normal Distance tackles similar ideas in a very different form as she addresses feelings such as boredom and suffering with a sardonic wit that somehow never comes off as cynical or blasé. One of her greatest strengths as a writer is the ability to maintain profound depth and levity at the same time. We talk about both books, and her approach to writing about these subject matters; as well as ideas about memory, human behavior, and audience response to her writing. Elisa's also been a foundational presence in literary twitter for about a decade—so pretty much before literary twitter existed—and you can even find some of her old tweets in her poems. So towards the end of our conversation, and at a time when Twitter's chaotic corporate struggles seem to be taking over the news cycle, she manages to paint a much needed portrait of the website. www.elisagabbert.com Normal Distance The Unreality of Memory Recommendations The Girls of Slender Means - Muriel Spark My Struggle - Karl Ove Knausgaard
Today, Elisa Gabbert talks to us about conceptualizing her audience(s), the difference for her between writing prose and poetry, “borrowing greatness” from other authors as well as Reddit and Wikipedia, “pseudo-sequiturs,” titles, and more! Elisa Gabbert is the author of six collections of poetry, essays, and criticism: Normal Distance (Soft Skull); The Unreality of Memory & Other Essays, out now from FSG Originals and Atlantic UK; The Word Pretty (Black Ocean, 2018); L'Heure Bleue, or the Judy Poems (Black Ocean, 2016); The Self Unstable (Black Ocean, 2013); and The French Exit (Birds LLC, 2010). The Unreality of Memory and The Word Pretty were both named a New York Times Editors' Choice, and The Self Unstable was chosen by the New Yorker as one of the best books of 2013. She writes the On Poetry column for the New York Times, and her work has appeared in Harper's, The New Yorker, The Believer, The New York Times Magazine and Book Review, the New York Review of Books, the Guardian Long Read, the London Review of Books, A Public Space, The Nation, the Paris Review Daily, American Poetry Review, and many other venues. Her next collection of nonfiction, Any Person Is the Only Self, will be out in 2023 from FSG. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Talking the poet Elisa Gabbert about her amazing new book Normal Distance. A collection of funny and thought-provoking poems inspired by surprising facts that will appeal to poetry lovers and poetry haters alike, from the author of the essay collection The Unreality of Memory, “a work of sheer brilliance, beauty, and bravery” (Andrew Sean Greer) Known […]
Read by Dave LuukkonenProduction and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman
Michael talks with Elisa Gabbert about writing time, her poetry column for NYT, reading and writing about classics, an ongoing interest in language and thinking, life before her first book, tricking yourself into finding a voice or style or mode, her previous books, her new poetry collection NORMAL DISTANCE, mixing the abstract and the concrete, creating poems from previous notes and tweets, writing essay vs. writing poetry, lineating a poem (or not), making containers and forms, and more.Elisa Gabbert is the author of six books of poetry, essays, and criticism, including The Self Unstable, The Unreality of Memory, and most recently, the poetry collection Normal Distance, which is out today from Soft Skull Press. She writes the On Poetry column for the New York Times, and her work has appeared in Harper's, The New Yorker, The Believer, and many other venues.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.
Elisa Gabbert on commitment, boredom, and the poem as theater.
Elisa Gabbert, the Book Review's On Poetry columnist, visits the podcast this week to discuss writing about poetry and her own forthcoming collection of poems, her fourth, “Normal Distance.”“When I'm writing what I would call nonfiction or an essay or just pure prose, I'm really trying to be accurate,” Gabbert says. “I'm not lying, I'm really telling you what I think. There's very minimal distance between my persona on the page and who I really am. And then when I'm writing poetry, that persona really takes on more weight. I'm definitely creating more distance, and it really feels more like fiction or even more like theater, I might say. I'm really more creating a character that's going to be speaking this monologue I'm writing.”Ian Johnson visits the podcast to talk about his review of “Golden Age,” a novel by Wang Xiaobo recently translated by Yan Yan. The novel, set against Mao's Cultural Revolution, made waves in China when it was originally published there in the 1990s.“It was controversial primarily because of sex, there's a lot of sex in the novel,” Johnson says. “The sex is not really described in graphic detail; this isn't Henry Miller or something like that. It's more like they're having sex to make a point: that they're independent people and they're not going to be trampled by the state. And it's very humorous — he talks about sex using all kinds of euphemisms, like ‘commit great friendship,' stuff like that. It's meant to be a sort of parody, a somewhat absurd version of a romance.”Also on this week's episode, Elisabeth Egan and Dave Kim talk about what people are reading. John Williams is the host.Here are the books discussed in this week's “What We're Reading”:“Time Shelter” by Georgi Gospodinov, translated by Angela Rodel“The Displacements” by Bruce Holsinger“The Annotated Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum, edited by Michael Patrick HearnWe would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.
It's not just the contradictions in the Hebrew Bible that puzzle and provoke readers—there are, throughout, passages of intense emotional or moral provocation. See, for instance, Ecclesiastes, which in the King James translation begins: Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. Ecclesiastes challenges familiar notions of what life is about, notions of meaning or usefulness. You have to respond to something like that. You have to think of your own answer to the book that declares: "There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after." Poetry often poses such challenges that can't be easily explained or resolved, but in return, these challenges might activate the mind. The poet and critic Elisa Gabbert says, "When I'm reading or when I'm writing, I'm just thinking better than I am at any other time." The Hebrew Bible prompts you to figure things out on your own, with particular attention to language. As Peter Cole says: "At the very heart of this text, what do you have? You've got this ultimate transparency and ultimate opacity, which is the name of God, the four-letter name of God, which is unpronounceable, and no one really knows what it means." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
From the book of Genesis on, the Hebrew Bible presents a struggle with language: a struggle to establish meaning, to figure out the right uses of words, to understand one's place in the world. The famous early scene of struggle in the Hebrew Bible, Jacob's wrestling match with the divine, goes as follows in the King James translation: Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, What is thy name? As Peter Cole says, "The release from that one struggle, and the blessing, only comes with a knowledge of names." Even this physical wrestling match becomes a matter of language, then. Struggles with outright disaster generate language quests, too. Elisa Gabbert elaborates on disaster poetry in this episode, especially on the subject of W.H. Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts." She says: "It reminds you how much text there is in a poem. It's wild." And she describes a proliferating kind of irony that radiates possibilities in so many directions, to which poetry might grant access. Find more from Elisa Gabbert on Auden's poem here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/03/06/books/auden-musee-des-beaux-arts.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“We regulate each other's nervous systems,” says the neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett in this chapter of “Mosaic Mosaic.” “We are the caretakers of each other's nervous systems.” So feeling—and thinking—and the regulations of law join together; the idea that laws exist apart from our nervous systems, our feelings, doesn't quite work, in this sense. The poet Peter Cole here describes an emotional state associated with the language of rules and ritual in the Hebrew Bible, and in Leviticus particularly. He says, “I was just totally spellbound by the choreography of sacrifice.” And the novelist Joshua Cohen speaks of living law, a kind of vital legal system that emanates beyond the Torah, through commentary and debates ever after. Laws, rules, rituals: these, you'll hear, are all alive with feeling. “Regulation doesn't mean damping down,” Lisa Feldman Barrett says. “It just means coordinating and making something happen.” Poet and critic Elisa Gabbert describes poetry as “a vibration,” which in a way might match the nervous-system correspondence described by Lisa Feldman Barrett. In literature as in legal regulation, we learn in this chapter, language coordinates responses, and it participates in the merging of thought with emotion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This season, we're rambling through and beyond a book sacred in multiple traditions, a book that keeps generating debate and commentary and tangents. It's the Hebrew Bible, home to Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and his Ark, David and Goliath, and prophets like Isaiah and Ezekiel. Here, in a season we're calling "Mosaic Mosaic," it especially prompts conversations about the mysteries of thought and language. The novelist Joshua Cohen explains in this episode that the Hebrew Bible poses fundamental questions about language. As he puts it: "Why are there letters, actually? Why do the letters form words? This is the most basic question of the Bible." There, language makes things happen on a grand scale. God creates the world by language, by declarations: "let there be light"—Cohen mentions the idea that "one could create life through the combination of letters." And in the Bible, after Adam comes to life, he gives names to things and thereby begins exploration of the world by language. Here's Robert Alter's translation of that scene in Genesis: And the LORD God fashioned from the soil each beast of the field and each fowl of the heavens and brought each to the human to see what he would call it, and whatever the human called a living creature, that was its name. The poet, translator, and MacArthur genius Peter Cole speaks of "the burden of the Bible," which he calls a "pain in the desk chair"; yet he adds that "everything is somehow in it, but only if you use it as a tool for reflection, or a prism, so that both you and the world end up in its pages somehow, refracted by the text." The written word can align past and present, or antiquity with you, the contemporary reader, and some sort of harmony might occasionally result. (Elisa Gabbert, speaking of poetry generally, describes in this show the experience of encountering a text that "feels like how you're feeling.") At the end of our last season, on 1,001 Nights, radio host Hearty White recounted this realization: "When you're talking about Bible stories, you're not talking about Bible stories at all. It's an excuse to talk about other things. It's just a jumping off point." Along those lines: this season, we're starting with the Bible and jumping into explorations of language, the mind, emotions, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Cosmic Library explores massive books in order to explore everything else. Here, books that can seem overwhelming—books of dreams, infinity, mysteries—turn out to be intensely accessible, offering so many different ways to read them and think with them. Season one considered Finnegans Wake; in season two, it was 1,001 Nights. Season three, titled Mosaic Mosaic and premiering on April 11, journeys through and beyond the Hebrew Bible. Guests for season three include: Peter Cole, the poet and MacArthur genius whose new book Draw Me After will be out this fall; Elisa Gabbert, poet and poetry columnist with the New York Times–her latest book is Normal Distance; Lisa Feldman Barrett, psychologist, neuroscientist, and author of books including How Emotions Are Made; Tom DeRose, curator at the Freud Museum in London; and Joshua Cohen, the novelist whose books include Book of Numbers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today's poem is Don't Think by Elisa Gabbert.
Today's poem is Don't Think by Elisa Gabbert.
In this episode, Erin, Alex, and Eric are joined by critic Merve Emre and poet Elisa Gabbert to discuss Jonathan Franzen's sixth novel, Crossroads.
From the archives comes one of my favorite episodes. I love hosting every guest as they bring such interesting perspectives, and wonderful insight into their creative worlds, but as a musician and writer this one was one of the most moving I had the pleasure of conducting.John Cotter is the author of the memoir Losing Music, forthcoming from Milkweed Editions, portions of which have appeared in Raritan, Catapult, Indiana Review, and Guernica. His novel, Under the Small Lights, was published by Miami University Press in 2010, and his fiction, essays, criticism, and theater pieces have appeared in New England Review, Washington Square, Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, Georgia Review, and Commonweal.John has worked as a theater director, ghostwriter, trash collector, and copy editor, as well as a teacher of environmental ethics, English literature, and history. From 2009 – 2017 he served as Executive Editor of the arts and review site Open Letters Monthly. In 2018 he was Artist in Residence at SPACE Gallery in Portland, Maine, and in 2022 he'll be a resident fellow at the James Merrill House in Stonington, Connecticut. Born and raised in New England, John now lives in Denver with his wife, the poet Elisa Gabbert. He teaches at Lighthouse Writers Workshop.To learn more about John, check out the links below.Website: https://johncotter.net/Twitter: https://twitter.com/smalllightsVisit Creative Peacemeal Podcast on social media, browse podcast swag, and continue the creative conversations via the blog!Website https://tstakaishi.wixsite.com/musicInstagram @creative_peacemeal_podcastFacebook https://www.facebook.com/creativepeacemealpod/***To make a donation to Dachshund Rescue of Houston click here! Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/creativepeacemeal)
In this episode, guest K. Austin Collins joins hosts Elisa Gabbert and Catherine Nichols to talk about Louise Gluck's 1985 poem "Mock Orange" and through it, her work in general. Some topics are the unfashionable somberness and simplicity of Gluck's work, Gluck's extraordinary personal letter to her friend Brenda Hillman, and Gluck's near-fatal anorexia. Also discussed is Gabbert's recent review of Gluck's most recent collection in the New York Times. K. Austin Collins is a film critic for Rolling Stone, and formerly film critic for Vanity Fair and The Ringer. He was also the host of the film podcast Flashback for Slate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We're joined by Elisa Gabbert (The Unreality of Memory) to discuss Benjamin Labatut's When We Cease to Understand the World, a book that is mostly nonfiction--about scientists whose discoveries pushed them in the direction of madness--with some fictional flourishes. We talk about genre distinctions, reading works in translation, and why fall is the best season. We also rope Elisa into helping us answer a couple questions from the NaNoWriMo forums about naming cars and what life is like under the sea. You can find Elisa on Twitter @egabbert. Or check out her website, which features links to her work: http://www.elisagabbert.com/ You can also read the poems she referenced in her answer to "what reading experience has mostly recently made you cry." The Mark Leidner poem is here: https://sixthfinch.com/leidner4.html. And the Ezra Pound poem is here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47692/the-river-merchants-wife-a-letter-56d22853677f9. Finally: if you like the show, please consider subscribing to our Patreon, where $5 a month gets you access to two monthly bonus episodes, plus our entire back catalog: https://www.patreon.com/BookFight Thanks for listening!
This summer marks a jolting return to socializing with friends, family, and seas of strangers. On the street, in museums, in restaurants, and in theaters, many people are faced with a painful contradiction: we want to be around one another more than ever, but months of isolation have made us hostile, exhausted, and even pained—probably more than most of us are willing to admit. Isolation affects the body in a similar way to stress, and in the wake of the pandemic, it's difficult to distinguish between the two. Yet even before COVID-19, loneliness and stress were epidemic in societies that organized themselves out of interdependence in the name of efficiency and individuality. In the July issue of Harper's Magazine, the poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert writes about her own experiences during the pandemic (a “slow-motion crisis of the self”) and the scientific evidence that supports our need for all forms of human interaction. In this week's episode of the podcast, Gabbert candidly speaks with Harper's web editor Violet Lucca about her essay and our collective struggle to recover from the lockdown.
In this episode of "Keen On", Andrew is joined by Elisa Gabbert, the author of "The Unreality of Memory - and other Essays", to discuss what it means to exist in a time of eternal apocalypse. Elisa Gabbert is the author of five collections of poetry, essays, and criticism: The Unreality of Memory & Other Essays, out now from FSG Originals and Atlantic UK; The Word Pretty (Black Ocean, 2018); L'Heure Bleue, or the Judy Poems (Black Ocean, 2016); The Self Unstable (Black Ocean, 2013); and The French Exit (Birds LLC, 2010). The Unreality of Memory and The Word Pretty were both named a New York Times Editors' Choice, and The Self Unstable was chosen by the New Yorker as one of the best books of 2013. She writes a regular poetry column for the New York Times, and her work has appeared in Harper's, The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine and Book Review, the New York Review of Books, the Guardian Long Read, the London Review of Books, A Public Space, the Paris Review Daily, American Poetry Review, and many other venues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Author John Cotter is the latest guest on the podcast, which marks the 25th episode. John gives one of the most moving interviews to date as he goes deep sharing stories of personal health struggles with Meniere's Disease which sparked his upcoming memoir, LOSING MUSIC. We also discuss the creative process, music that touches our souls, and more.John Cotter is the author of the memoir Losing Music, forthcoming from Milkweed Editions, portions of which have appeared in Raritan, Catapult, Indiana Review, and Guernica. His novel, Under the Small Lights, was published by Miami University Press in 2010, and his fiction, essays, criticism, and theater pieces have appeared in New England Review, Washington Square, Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, Georgia Review, and Commonweal.John has worked as a theater director, ghostwriter, trash collector, and copy editor, as well as a teacher of environmental ethics, English literature, and history. From 2009 – 2017 he served as Executive Editor of the arts and review site Open Letters Monthly. In 2018 he was Artist in Residence at SPACE Gallery in Portland, Maine, and in 2022 he'll be a resident fellow at the James Merrill House in Stonington, Connecticut. Born and raised in New England, John now lives in Denver with his wife, the poet Elisa Gabbert. He teaches at Lighthouse Writers Workshop.To learn more about John, check out the links below.Website: https://johncotter.net/Twitter: https://twitter.com/smalllightsContinue the conversation on creative and fine arts via Tammy's corresponding blog, or check out other guests on the podcast. Interested in podcast merch? You can find that on the website too! https://tstakaishi.wixsite.com/music
In this episode, novelist and poet Kathleen Rooney joins hosts Catherine Nichols and Elisa Gabbert to discuss Robert Aickman's 1988 collection of stories The Wine-Dark Sea, with particular focus on the title story and the uncanny dollhouse story "The Inner Room." Aickman's work is often characterized as horror fiction, but he preferred the term "strange stories." His stories take the reader imperceptibly across the gauzy line between mundane reality and surreal terror. As one of his characters says: "Dreams are misleading because they make life seem real." Kathleen Rooney is the author of nine books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Her most recent novel is Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey. She is also the author of the national bestseller Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk and The Listening Room: A Novel of Georgette and Loulou Magritte. She is also a founding editor of Rose Metal Press, a nonprofit publisher of literary work in hybrid genres, and a founding member of Poems While You Wait. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this episode, writer and critic Elisa Gabbert joins host Catherine Nichols to discuss T.S. Eliot's 1915 poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," a poem about aging, limitations and disillusionment written by a young poet on the threshold of a brilliant career. How do the poet's youth and the narrator's age affect the tone of the poem? What makes it such a potently memorable (but also elusive) work? Included in the episode is discussion of Eliot's essay about Marvell. Lit Century also wants to thank the T. S. Eliot Society for use of the audio recording of Eliot. Elisa Gabbert is the author of five collections of poetry, essays, and criticism: The Unreality of Memory & Other Essays, out now from FSG Originals and Atlantic UK; The Word Pretty (Black Ocean, 2018); L’Heure Bleue, or the Judy Poems (Black Ocean, 2016); The Self Unstable (Black Ocean, 2013); and The French Exit (Birds LLC, 2010). The Unreality of Memory and The Word Pretty were both named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and The Self Unstable was chosen by the New Yorker as one of the best books of 2013. She writes a regular poetry column for the New York Times, and her work has appeared in Harper’s, The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine and Book Review, the New York Review of Books, the Guardian Long Read, the London Review of Books, A Public Space, the Paris Review Daily, American Poetry Review, and many other venues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today our guest is Michael Zapata (THE LOST BOOK OF ADANA MOREAU). Topics include: socialist librarians; New Orleans; storytelling vs. writing; teaching: not for Alex; how serving your community feeds your writing and vice versa; Chicago's jewelers' row; guess how many times Lindsay says "Peloton"?; Alex watches the 1996 Stanley Cup and takes notes oh my God Alex is in crisis NONETHELESS he reads a poem from Elisa Gabbert (heart eyes); and more! Michael Zapata is a founding editor of MAKE Literary Magazine and the author of the novel The Lost Book of Adana Moreau, winner of the 2020 Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, finalist for the 2020 Heartland Booksellers Award in Fiction, and a Best Book of the Year for NPR, the A.V. Club, Los Angeles Public Library, and BookPage, among others. He is the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Award for Fiction and the City of Chicago DCASE Individual Artist Program Award. He is on the core faculty of StoryStudio Chicago and the MFA faculty of Northwestern University. As a public-school educator, he taught literature and writing in high schools servicing drop out students. He currently lives in Chicago with his family.
We're delighted to welcome Elisa Gabbert back to the pod, and grateful that she was willing to come on and talk with us about this odd, hilarious and unforgettable book. Around the one hour mark, we discuss the current state of the NBA MVP race. Join us next time, when we take a look at L.P. Hartley's THE GO-BETWEEN.
In this episode, writer, actor and director John Cotter joins hosts Catherine Nichols and Sandra Newman to discuss Wallace Shawn's 1996 play "The Designated Mourner," about the fate of intellectuals during an authoritarian coup in an unnamed country. John Cotter directed The Designated Mourner in Denver in 2013 & 2014. There's a chapter about one of the performances in his forthcoming memoir,Losing Music, which is due out from Milkweed Editions in 2021. Elisa Gabbert, who played the role of Judy in that production, wrote a book of poems inspired by the experience, L'Heure Bleue, or The Judy Poems, which was published by Black Ocean Books in 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We regret to inform you that, in the course of our discussion of TRAIN DREAMS, we got waylaid in a STONER-shaped ditch. We spend a good deal of time fruitlessly comparing the two books, while trying to pin down what exactly Johnson is up to in this novella. At the 40 minute mark, we praise the Hawks and Suns for choosing a direction for their respective franchises and sailing toward it, regardless of draft whiffs and failed playoffs run they may have left in their wake. Next time, we hope to have Elisa Gabbert back on to discuss Jane Bowles' TWO SERIOUS LADIES with us. And while you're at it, why not join our Patreon, where you'll get instant access to additional episodes.
You’ve got plans! So many different ideas and ambitious plans. How do you get your brain to move from poetry to prose, fiction to nonfiction, drama to social media posts? How do you have, you know—a life—in between? Listen to writers Elisa Gabbert, Peter Parnell, Khadijah Queen, and Erika T. Wurth discuss time management and planning, writing, and living a creative life of the mind.
In this episode about Sylvia Plath's 1965 poetry collection Ariel, writer and critic Elisa Gabbert joins the hosts to talk about the evolution of Plath's poetry and how her work turned into a cultural signal for "angry women" (see: Kat Stratford, 10 Things I Hate About You). Content note: Suicide and self-harm are discussed in this episode. Elisa Gabbert is the author of the poetry collections, L'Heure Bleue, The Self Unstable, and The French Exit. Her debut collection of essays, The Word Pretty, was published in 2018. The Self Unstable was chosen by the New Yorker as one of the best books of 2013. Gabbert's work has appeared in the New Yorker, Boston Review, The Paris Review Daily, Pacific Standard, Guernica, The Awl, Electric Literature, The Harvard Review, and many other venues. She lives in Denver.
Poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert is the guest. She is the author of The Unreality of Memory: And Other Essays. We get into: soul ravaging poetry, Sassy Magazine, the atmospheric charge of 2016, the unreality of our moment, morbid glee, and more! The Unreality of Memory collects provocative, searching essays on disaster culture, climate anxiety, and our mounting collective sense of doom. In this new collection, acclaimed poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert explores our obsessions with disasters past and future, from the sinking of the Titanic to Chernobyl, from witch hunts to the plague. These deeply researched, prophetic meditations question how the world will end―if indeed it will―and why we can’t stop fantasizing about it. Elisa Gabbert is the author of five collections of poetry, essays, and criticism: The Unreality of Memory & Other Essays, out now from FSG Originals and Atlantic UK; The Word Pretty (Black Ocean, 2018); L’Heure Bleue, or the Judy Poems (Black Ocean, 2016); The Self Unstable (Black Ocean, 2013); and The French Exit (Birds LLC, 2010). The Unreality of Memory and The Word Pretty were both named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and The Self Unstable was chosen by the New Yorker as one of the best books of 2013. She writes a regular poetry column for the New York Times, and her work has appeared in Harper’s, The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine and Book Review, the New York Review of Books, the Guardian Long Read, the London Review of Books, A Public Space, the Paris Review Daily, American Poetry Review, and many other venues. Theme music by Joseph E. Martinez of Junius Follow us on social at: Twitter: @WakeIslandPod Instagram: @wakeislandpod --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wake-island/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/wake-island/support
节目摘要 灾难下的同情疲劳症和随笔作为一种看待世界的方式。 节目备注 订阅听友通讯请点击这里。 欢迎通过微博关注我们的节目@不丧Podcast和女主播@constancy好小气。 关于线上读书微信群:由于目前群人数超过100人,无法继续通过扫码入群。想要入群的朋友可以先加我的微信号(ID: hongming_qiao),然后再拉你入群。 我们的电报(Telegram)听友群:不丧电报群 我们播客的邮箱地址:busangpodcast@gmail.com 这集播客中提到的相关作品的介绍和链接: Elisa Gabbert, The Unreality of Memory Cazzie David, No One Asked For This Barack Obama, A Promised Land John Williams, ‘The Glorious American Essay,’ From Benjamin Franklin to David Foster Wallace Book Review, Talking About the 10 Best Books of 2020 No One Asked For This 节选,Too Full to F - - - A Promised Land 节选,A President Looks Back On His Toughest Fight 如何收听「不丧」 任何设备都可以通过访问「不丧」的网站在线收听 我们推荐使用泛用型播客客户端收听「不丧」 泛用型播客客户端直接通过播客上传者提供的RSS向用户提供播客内容和信息,不会有第三方的干涉;并且只要上传者更新了Feed,就能在客户端上收听到节目。 iOS平台上我们推荐使用Podcast(苹果预装播客客户端),Castro,Overcast和Pocket Casts。 Android平台上收听方式可以参照这里。 macOS和Windows平台可以通过iTunes收听。 现在你也已经可以在小宇宙、Spotify和Google Podcast平台上收听我们的节目。
节目摘要 灾难下的同情疲劳症和随笔作为一种看待世界的方式。 节目备注 订阅听友通讯请点击这里。 欢迎通过微博关注我们的节目@不丧Podcast和女主播@constancy好小气。 关于线上读书微信群:由于目前群人数超过100人,无法继续通过扫码入群。想要入群的朋友可以先加我的微信号(ID: hongming_qiao),然后再拉你入群。 我们的电报(Telegram)听友群:不丧电报群 我们播客的邮箱地址:busangpodcast@gmail.com 这集播客中提到的相关作品的介绍和链接: Elisa Gabbert, The Unreality of Memory Cazzie David, No One Asked For This Barack Obama, A Promised Land John Williams, ‘The Glorious American Essay,’ From Benjamin Franklin to David Foster Wallace Book Review, Talking About the 10 Best Books of 2020 No One Asked For This 节选,Too Full to F - - - A Promised Land 节选,A President Looks Back On His Toughest Fight 如何收听「不丧」 任何设备都可以通过访问「不丧」的网站在线收听 我们推荐使用泛用型播客客户端收听「不丧」 泛用型播客客户端直接通过播客上传者提供的RSS向用户提供播客内容和信息,不会有第三方的干涉;并且只要上传者更新了Feed,就能在客户端上收听到节目。 iOS平台上我们推荐使用Podcast(苹果预装播客客户端),Castro,Overcast和Pocket Casts。 Android平台上收听方式可以参照这里。 macOS和Windows平台可以通过iTunes收听。 现在你也已经可以在小宇宙、Spotify和Google Podcast平台上收听我们的节目。
节目摘要 灾难下的同情疲劳症和随笔作为一种看待世界的方式。 节目备注 订阅听友通讯请点击这里。 欢迎通过微博关注我们的节目@不丧Podcast和女主播@constancy好小气。 关于线上读书微信群:由于目前群人数超过100人,无法继续通过扫码入群。想要入群的朋友可以先加我的微信号(ID: hongming_qiao),然后再拉你入群。 我们的电报(Telegram)听友群:不丧电报群 我们播客的邮箱地址:busangpodcast@gmail.com 这集播客中提到的相关作品的介绍和链接: Elisa Gabbert, The Unreality of Memory Cazzie David, No One Asked For This Barack Obama, A Promised Land John Williams, ‘The Glorious American Essay,' From Benjamin Franklin to David Foster Wallace Book Review, Talking About the 10 Best Books of 2020 No One Asked For This 节选,Too Full to F - - - A Promised Land 节选,A President Looks Back On His Toughest Fight 如何收听「不丧」 任何设备都可以通过访问「不丧」的网站在线收听 我们推荐使用泛用型播客客户端收听「不丧」 泛用型播客客户端直接通过播客上传者提供的RSS向用户提供播客内容和信息,不会有第三方的干涉;并且只要上传者更新了Feed,就能在客户端上收听到节目。 iOS平台上我们推荐使用Podcast(苹果预装播客客户端),Castro,Overcast和Pocket Casts。 Android平台上收听方式可以参照这里。 macOS和Windows平台可以通过iTunes收听。 现在你也已经可以在小宇宙、Spotify和Google Podcast平台上收听我们的节目。
Elisa Gabbert talks about her new collection of essays, THE UNREALITY OF MEMORY. The post Elisa Gabbert, THE UNREALITY OF MEMORY appeared first on Writer's Voice.
Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry
“Amid impending disasters too vast even to be perceived, what can we do―cognitively, morally, and practically? Gabbert, a tenacious researcher and a ruthless self-examiner, probes this ultimate abstraction in her essays, goes past wordless dread and comes up with enough reasoned consideration to lead us through. Do you feel―and how can you not―as if your […] The post Elisa Gabbert : The Unreality of Memory appeared first on Tin House.
Elisa Gabbert is obsessed with disasters and how we perceive them. In The Unreality of Memory, which was released last year in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Gabbert tackles pandemics, environmental disasters, the nature of pain and its perception, nostalgia and more. We talk about Gabbert's interest in these topics, the relationship between her poetry and her essays, and getting burned out on empathy. -- Elisa Gabbert is the author of five collections of poetry, essays, and criticism: The Unreality of Memory & Other Essays, out now from FSG Originals and Atlantic UK; The Word Pretty (Black Ocean, 2018); L’Heure Bleue, or the Judy Poems (Black Ocean, 2016); The Self Unstable (Black Ocean, 2013); and The French Exit (Birds LLC, 2010). The Unreality of Memory and The Word Pretty were both named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and The Self Unstable was chosen by New Yorker magazine as one of the best books of 2013. Gabbert writes a regular poetry column for the New York Times, and her work has appeared in Harper’s, The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine and Book Review, the New York Review of Books, the Guardian Long Read, the London Review of Books, A Public Space, the Paris Review Daily, American Poetry Review, and many other venues.
Poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert, author of the new book “The Unreality of Memory: And Other Essays,” talks with us about why the 24-hour news cycle fuels a demand for disasters, how false memories are created, and the emotional difficulty of responding to big, invisible threats like the climate crisis.
We stare at our phones. We keep multiple tabs open. Our chats and conversations are full of the phrase “Did you see?” The feeling that we’re living in the worst of times seems to be intensifying, alongside a desire to know precisely how bad things have gotten—and each new catastrophe distracts us from the last.The Unreality of Memory collects provocative, searching essays on disaster culture, climate anxiety, and our mounting collective sense of doom. In this new collection, acclaimed poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert explores our obsessions with disasters past and future, from the sinking of the Titanic to Chernobyl, from witch hunts to the plague. These deeply researched, prophetic meditations question how the world will end—if indeed it will—and why we can’t stop fantasizing about it.Can we avoid repeating history? Can we understand our moment from inside the moment? With The Unreality of Memory, Gabbert offers a hauntingly perceptive analysis of our new ways of being and a means of reconciling ourselves to this unreal new world. ________________________________________________ Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang. Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Elisa Gabbert (@egabbert) returns to talk about her new book The Unreality of Memory (FSG, 2020), as well has her poetry and how it ties into her prose. You'll also hear the five books for her Bookshelf for the Apocalypse and much, much more. This episode is supported by Scrivener, made by writers, for writers. Enter the promo code NONFICTION at checkout to receive 20% off your purchase. Keep the conversation going on social media @CNFPod across the big three. Consider rating the show. I just might read it on air!
We're delighted to welcome Elisa Gabbert onto the pod to talk about her brilliant essay collection The Unreality of Memory, which was published in August. (Buy it! It is certain to be one of the best books you read this year.) Elisa also joined us for a discussion of Heinrich von Kleist's the supremely odd and wonderful nineteenth century novella Michael Kohlhaas. A hearty thank you goes out to Sebastian Castillo for requesting it. At the hour mark, we turn our attention to the NBA playoffs, with a look back at the first two rounds and a look ahead at what could be in store for the conference finals and finals. Lastly, we have decided to dip our toes into the placid waters of Patreon. If you wish to hear more book and basketball blather from us with even less preparation, do consider signing up. Subscribers will receive an additional episode each month. (Sorry, early adopters, but we haven't recorded our first one yet!) Pester Adam on Twitter for more details. Next time, on the pod proper, we'll read and discuss Jan Morris' Hav. Grab a copy and join us!
We're extremely grateful to Sandra Newman for taking the time to talk about her 2019 novel THE HEAVENS with us. It's a moving and wondrous book, and one that we highly recommend people read. After our conversation with Sandra, at about the fifty minute mark, we turn our attention to the NBA restart. We marvel at the remarkable success of the bubble to date and the high quality of play, and we preview most of the playoff matchups. (Sorry, fans of Miami and Indiana, we somehow forgot about that series.) Next time, we'll get into Heinrich von Kleist's early nineteenth century oddity MICHAEL KOHLHAAS with the brilliant Elisa Gabbert, whose stunning collection of essays THE MEMORY OF UNREALITY is out now! Literally stop whatever it is you're doing at this moment and buy it and read it!
Here’s another episode nipping at the heels of the last, because why not? Ed prefers homeschooling to regular schooling, and John prefers fun tasks to following the rules. They reminisce about teachers good and bad, then discuss the superfluity of certain pre-pandemic rituals, Covid truthers, country-influenced easy rock, and the car crash that took out Ed’s New-Yorker-funded cultivars. Follow links to Tomie dePaola, Fountains of Wayne Hotline, Fulks on Lightfoot, Rootsy Ramble, Eddie Rabbitt, Midland, Jessica Anthony, Amanda Eyre Ward, Elisa Gabbert, Samanta Schweblin, Thousand Dollar Car, and the Yamaha PS-20 home keyboard.
"Time is doing so much work," says Elisa Gabbert, the essayist and poet. This episode's patron is Bay Path University's MFA in Creative Nonfiction writing. Follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @CNFPod.
Poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert (The Word Pretty, The Unreliability of Memory) talks about balancing her writing career with a full-time job in SEO content management, how she chooses which projects to work on, her decision not to have children, and why she misses poetry blogs.
Music from the Elisa Gabbert episode of The Steer, as heard on www.Dublab.com and KZUT 99.1 FM Los Angeles. Artists include Interpol, Peter Gabriel, Ratatat and Miley Cyrus, among others.
Jeff talks to Elisa Gabbert about her new book The Word Pretty, cancel culture, karaoke, growing up in Texas and nostalgia-as-musical-memory, among other topics.
Elisa Gabbertis the guest. Her new essay collection, The Word Pretty, is available from Black Ocean Press. This is Elisa's second time on the podcast. She first appeared in Episode 241 on January 8, 2014. Gabbert is a poet and essayist whose other books include L’Heure Bleue, or the Judy Poems (Black Ocean, 2016), The Self Unstable (Black Ocean, 2013), and The French Exit (Birds LLC, 2010). The Word Pretty was a New York Times Editors’ Pick, and The Self Unstable was chosen by the New Yorker as one of the best books of 2013. Elisa’s work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, the New York Review of Books, the Guardian Long Read, Boston Review, the Paris Review Daily, Pacific Standard, Guernica, The Awl, Electric Literature, the Harvard Review, Threepenny Review, Real Life, Catapult, Jubilat, Diagram, and many other venues. Elisa is currently writing a book about disaster culture and human failure, The Unreality of Memory, forthcoming from FSG Originals. She lives in Denver. Other adventures: Elisa writes an advice column for writers, The Blunt Instrument, at Electric Literature. Send her a question at blunt@electricliterature.com. She occasionally writes about perfume for Bois de Jasmin. She occasionally teaches at Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She has co-written several collaborative collections with Kathleen Rooney, including That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness. She holds degrees from Rice University and Emerson College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Drunken Odyssey with John King: A Podcast About the Writing Life
In this week's episode, I talk with poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert about the excitement of short-form essays, the glories of book design, not reading Moby Dick, and other literary confessions. TEXTS DISCUSSED NOTES If you are into literary adventure stories, please pick up a copy of my debut novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.
Elisa Gabbert meditates on the nature of suffering and the language we use to describe it. Produced by Katie Klocksin.
“Stories, But Shorter” shakes things up a bit and showcases poetry from writer, Elisa Gabbert! Cassi visits Elisa in Denver, Colorado. Elisa welcomes her into her home and reads from “L’Heure Bleue, of the Judy Poems”, a book of poems that study a woman’s reflection in solitude while engaging deep questions of memory, identity, desire, surveillance, and fear.
Ed’s gotta run—it’s time to take the Cinnamon Bear Cruise. John impersonates a man twice his age by complaining about bureaucracy, and cannot believe what the Elf on the Shelf is actually about. Both of them have written songs about women in clerical roles, and they welcome a guest to the show, Oscar, co-host, with Ed, of the new podcast Water Adventures. They also recommend some new books. Follow links to Cinnamon Bear, Sweet Pea Baking, Punk Rawk Labs, Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson, Sabrina by Nick Drnaso, Mother Winter by Sophia Shalmiyev, and The Word Pretty by Elisa Gabbert.
Rae Solomon and I made the piece Heidi and Pearl and Heidi produced for KCRW‘s 24 Hour Radio Race. Rae’s upcoming workshop is here. Bevin Luna lent us the song Volatile or Stable. Instagram is here. CPR’s OpenAir Performance Studio is here, here, here and here. Hodi’s Half Note show is here. Elisa Gabbert reads Time, … Continue reading "Episode Thirty-One: All Grown Up"
Rae Solomon and I made the piece Heidi and Pearl and Heidi produced for KCRW‘s 24 Hour Radio Race. Rae’s upcoming workshop is here. Bevin Luna lent us the song Volatile or Stable. Instagram is here. CPR’s OpenAir Performance Studio is here, here, here and here. Hodi’s Half Note show is here. Elisa Gabbert reads Time, … Continue reading "Episode Thirty-One: All Grown Up"
Rae Solomon and I made the piece Heidi and Pearl and Heidi produced for KCRW‘s 24 Hour Radio Race. Rae’s upcoming workshop is here. Bevin Luna lent us the song Volatile or Stable. Instagram is here. CPR’s OpenAir Performance Studio is here, here, here and here. Hodi’s Half Note show is here. Elisa Gabbert reads Time, … Continue reading "Episode Thirty-One: All Grown Up"
It's that time of the month when we discuss someone else's work on the show! On today's podcast we have a look at Elisa Gabbert's piece; 'Bedroom in Alcatraz', which discusses the uncanny parallels between Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles and a diagram of a prison cell in Alcatraz. You can read the article here: http://themapisnot.com/issue-vi-elisa-gabbert/ And explore some of Gabbert's work (which we recommend!), here: http://www.elisagabbert.com/essays/ If you want more info & links on this story, go to thebeanspodcast.com and look it up on our blog! You can also find us on Twitter: @thebeanspod and email us stories you'd like to see covered at thebeanspod@gmail.com Our show is hosted by Valerie Mullen (@v_glenmullen), Sam Gonçalves (@SidlingBears) and Erin Farley (@aliasmacalias). Music for this episode was created by Alex Auldsmith, whose work you can find on alexauldsmith.bandcamp.com/ and themicroband.bandcamp.com/
In this free bonus episode, we meet up with poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert on the floor of the AWP conference in Los Angeles. We talk with her about what kind of poetry goes over well at bars, navigating the overwhelming AWP bookfair, her advice column for Electric Literature and whether being an SEO expert and content marketer is a good gig for a poet.
An essay about perfume by Alice Hattrick. Alice speaks to writer Alyssa Harad about self-narrative and perfume as an archive of the world's matter, artist Calvin Sangster shares his collection of aroma chemicals, poet Elisa Gabbert talks obsession and perfume criticism, and we hear a new audio work by artist Erica Scourti, titled Perfume Selfie.
Elisa Gabbert is the guest. Her new book, The Self Unstable, is now available from Black Ocean. Teju Cole, writing for The New Yorker, says "I found Elisa Gabbert’s The Self Unstable a wonderful surprise. It was the most intelligent and most intriguing thing I’ve read in a while, moving between lyric poetry, aphorism, and memoir, and with thoughts worth stealing on just about every page.” And Make Magazine says "Gabbert strikes a perfect balance between heart and head, between cleverness and earnestness, between language that demonstrates its own fallibility and language that is surprisingly, perfectly precise." Monologue topics: the insufferably stupid anti-sunglasses stance of my early twenties, squinting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices