Welcome to the fourth episode of Season Eight of the Bagley Wright Lecture Series on Poetry podcast.

Season Eight is comprised of lectures written and delivered by Rachel Zucker during her tenure as a Bagley Wright Lecturer.

Rachel Zucker’s lectures ask questions about obedience, wrongness, and decorum. Like her poetry, the lectures are borne from a long lineage of female writers and artists who ask What now? What next? and Am I allowed to do this? To break that? Rachel considers the history of Confessional poetry, the ethical consequences of representing real people in art, and the other great medium that has influenced her work—photography—exploring how it taught her to look for, but also question, truth and permission in art.

Today we'll hear “The Poetics of Motherhood,” given November 15, 2016, in partnership with UC Berkeley.

Visit us at our website, www.bagleywrightlectures.org, for more information about Bagley Wright lecturers, as well as links to supplementary materials on each lecturer’s archive page, including selected writings.

Rachel Zucker's book based on her BWLS lectures, The Poetics of Wrongness (Wave Books, 2023), is available here.

Music: "I Recall" by Blue Dot Sessions

from the Free Music Archive

CC BY NC