This week, Ashley M. Jones speaks with Marcus Wicker about a project he began early in the pandemic while looking for sources of calm in books and music. Many of these were space-influenced—OutKast’s album ATLiens, Robert Hayden’s poem “American Journal”—and Wicker began exploring what an extraterrestrial who lands in Atlanta in 2020 would think of America and the way humans treat one another. We’ll hear two poems from this project, “Dear Mothership,” and “How did you learn to speak English?” which appear in Poetry’s December 2022 issue. Like much of Wicker’s poetry, these pieces incorporate popular culture and music references alongside unflinching observations and exciting wordplay.

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