Jessica is actually the very first poet, nonetheless female poet, that I ever spoke with about being on the show. Her episode is finally here. Her poetry arcs across the span of her life and loves. It is intimate, it is 1st person, it is inherently close to the chest, but available to be seen. Jessica has led an already storied life and she recounts it, in both her poetry and our conversation, earnestly and with humor, even in the face of tragedy.

The poems on today's show appeared in Jessica's first book, The Last Exotic Petting Zoo, and her just released second collection, What Makes An Always. 

Find out more about these books, as well as how to get your own at Tayen Lane Publishing. 

Find out more about Jessica's scholarship fund here, and contact her for her writing expertise and services here. 

Conversation Topics: poetry, writing, art, literature, Toni Morrison, reading, beginnings, novels, Oregon, race, racism, Cherokee, Native Americans, Indians, home, process, marriage, family, tradition, India, Charleston, South Carolina. 

 

The Poems

(7:07) - Kitchen Volcanoes

(12:44) - Men

(17:57) - What The Body Remembers

(22:06) - The Lecture

(30:18) - Red Delicious

(34:24) - Two Days Prior to The Burial

(39:12) - Love You More

(46:40) - An Anorexia Thing & The Butchery Date

(54:41) - Let Me Go Quietly

 

Music by

Zhalih (aka. Hannah Mickunas)

MUSH

 

Donate to the victim's families and to the congregation of the AME Church in Charleston here: www.bidr.co/prayforcharleston

 

If you have fiction, non-fiction, or poetry you'd like to submit to the show, between 1,000 and 4,000 words, send it to:

[email protected]

 

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