David Wojahn is an acclaimed American poet, essayist, and educator whose work weaves personal memory with the larger currents of history and culture. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1953, he earned degrees from the University of Minnesota and the University of Arizona. His debut collection, Icehouse Lights, won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award and the William Carlos Williams Award, launching a career marked by critical acclaim and emotional depth. His later works—Interrogation Palace, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and World Tree, winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize—cemented his reputation as one of America’s most powerful poetic voices. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA, Wojahn is Professor Emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University and teaches in the MFA program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

This week on Authors Unbound, we talk with acclaimed poet and essayist David Wojahn about his new collection, Secret Addressee: Essays on How Poetry Matters, out this fall from Unbound Edition Press. In this powerful conversation, Wojahn reflects on poetry’s role in times of political upheaval and cultural uncertainty—how it both sustains us and resists easy consolation. He discusses the writers who shaped his thinking, from Yannis Ritsos to Elizabeth Bishop, and shares the intimate connection between his prose, his teaching, and his poetry. Wojahn also reads two striking new sonnets that mirror America’s shifting ideals across generations. 

Don’t miss this thoughtful and deeply felt discussion about art, conscience, and the enduring necessity of poetry.

This is David Wojahn Unbound.

Purchase your copy of Secret Addressee: Essays on How Poetry Matters on our website: https://www.unboundedition.com/product/addressee-david-wojahn-literary-nonfiction/

Aimee Parkison is an acclaimed American author, educator, and innovator in experimental fiction. Her work, shaped by a deep commitment to exploring gender, violence, and the unspoken dimensions of trauma, blurs the boundaries between story and confession. Her fiction has appeared in North American Review, Bellingham Review, and Feminist Studies. A recipient of the Catherine Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize, the Kurt Vonnegut Prize, the Starcherone Prize for Innovative Fiction, and a Christopher Isherwood Fellowship, Parkison currently teaches in the MFA/Ph.D. program at Oklahoma State University.

This week on Authors Unbound, we talk with Aimee Parkison to discuss her forthcoming collection Body of Evidence, arriving October 2025 in honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Rooted in personal witness and crafted with precision, the book confronts the realities of domestic violence while also creating space for healing and remembrance. Parkison shares insights into her writing process, the discoveries she makes in revision, and the responsibility of giving voice to experiences too often left unspoken.

Don’t miss this moving conversation on resilience, storytelling, and the power of breaking silence.

This is Aimee Parkison Unbound.

Purchase your copy of Body of Evidence on Amazon or directly from Unbound Edition.

For more from Unbound Edition Press, visit us at Unbound Edition.

Alice Jones is a poet, physician, and psychoanalyst whose work blends art, medicine, and psychology. She is the author of seven poetry collections and, the topic of this week's episode, the forthcoming memoir Cadence of Vanishing. Her writing has appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, and Best American Poetry, earning her NEA and Bread Loaf fellowships as well as multiple prizes from the Poetry Society of America.

This week on Authors Unbound, we talk with poet and psychoanalyst Alice Jones about her upcoming memoir Cadence of Vanishing, which is coming out Fall 2025. Blending poetry, journal entries, and session notes, Jones explores aging, loss, and the many stories that intersect in a single life. She reads moving passages from the book, reflects on how her work as an analyst shapes her writing, and shares why slowing down, listening deeply, and finding the right words matter more than ever in today’s noisy culture.

Don’t miss this thoughtful conversation that brings poetry, history, and personal insight together in one powerful episode.

This is Alice Jones Unbound.

Purchase your copy of Cadence of Vanishing on amazon or directly from https://www.unboundedition.com/product/cadence-of-vanishing-alice-jones-literary-nonfiction/ 

For more from Unbound Edition Press, visit us at https://www.unboundedition.com/ 

J. Allyn Rosser is an American poet, educator, and editor whose work blends wit, lyricism, and sharp observation of human experience. She has published four acclaimed poetry collections, with a fifth, Chronic Transience, forthcoming in 2025, and her poems have appeared in leading journals including The Atlantic Monthly and The Paris Review. Rosser’s career is marked by numerous honors, among them fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Academy of American Poets, as well as prizes for each of her first three books. She is Professor Emerita of English at Ohio University, where she also served as editor of New Ohio Review.

This week, we welcomed J. Allyn Rosser to discuss her forthcoming collection Chronic Transience from Unbound Edition Press. With her trademark blend of wit, formal mastery, and emotional depth, Rosser reflects on mortality, memory, and the absurdities of daily life. In this intimate conversation, she reads and discusses poems such as “Evening Primrose,” “Respite,” “Well-Attended Event,” “Notes on the Latin,” and “Pre-Latter-day Love Poem,” sharing the personal stories and artistic impulses behind them. We talk about her father’s late-life paintings, the place of humor in poems about grief, the pull of formal verse, and how influences as varied as old Hollywood films, mistranslations, and even poker find their way into her work.

Join us as we dive into J. Allyn Rosser’s poetry and explore how her wit, formal craft, and reflections on loss, humor, and art shape and enrich her creative voice.

This is J. Allyn Rosser Unbound.

Purchase your copy of Chronic Transience on Amazon, or directly from us at:  

https://www.unboundedition.com/product/chronic-transience-j-allyn-rosser-poetry/ 

For more from Unbound Edition Press, visit us at https://www.unboundedition.com/

W. S. Di Piero is an acclaimed American poet, essayist, translator, and educator whose work is shaped by his upbringing in a working-class Italian-American neighborhood in South Philadelphia. He has published over ten poetry collections, five books of essays, and numerous translations, often drawing from both everyday speech and classical art to craft vivid, emotionally resonant work. Di Piero’s poetry reflects a raw, observational style, praised for its rhythm, intensity, and connection to place. Over his career, he's become the recipient of major honors including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a NEA grant, and the 2012 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement.

This week, we explored two of his newest works Burning Money and Inside the Box from Unbound Edition Press. Blending poetry, memory, and visual art, Di Piero reflects on family, faith, politics, and American culture through a deeply personal and formal lens. In this intimate conversation, he reads vivid and moving poems like "To a Friend Sick Again", "Edward Hopper (Yellow and Red)", and "Aubade" sharing stories behind their creation and his process of writing with “his whole body.” We discuss the influence of painters like Morandi and Hopper, the tension between politics and poetry, and how a poet’s eye learns to truly see—on the canvas and in the world.

Join us as we dive into Di Piero’s poetry and reflect on how his encounters with art, history, and belief influence and enrich his creative voice.

This is W. S. Di Piero Unbound.

Purchase your copy of Burning Money and Inside the Box on amazon or directly from https://www.unboundedition.com/product/burning-money-w-s-di-piero-poetry/ 

https://www.unboundedition.com/product/inside-the-box-w-s-di-piero-essays/

For more from Unbound Edition Press, visit us at https://www.unboundedition.com/ 

Christian Gullette is a poet and editor whose work bridges the personal with the visual, blending themes of love, loss, and natural beauty through a lens shaped by both memory and place. His latest collection, Coachella Elegy, emerges from a period of deep introspection, shaped in part by the isolation and reflection of the pandemic years. What began as Beehive State eventually evolved into a more expansive meditation on grief, desire, and the stark beauty of California’s desert landscapes.

In this episode, Christian shares poems from the collection and speaks candidly about the evolution of the manuscript, the quiet rituals of his writing process, and the creative energy he draws from Palm Springs and the broader California landscape. Christian explores the crucial role of literary friendships in sustaining a writing practice, and the influence of visual artists like David Hockney on his approach to image and mood.

Join us for a thoughtful conversation on poetry, place, and the quiet forces that shape a body of work.

This is Christian Gullette Unbound.

Purchase your copy of Coachella Elegy directly from https://www.christiangullette.com/coachella-elegy

For more from Unbound Edition Press, visit us at https://www.unboundedition.com/

Taylor Portela is a queer, nonbinary poet and performer based in Portland, Oregon. A graduate of the University of Michigan (B.A.) and Virginia Tech (M.F.A. in Creative Writing), Taylor has performed under the name Lavender Scare and has had work featured in The Adroit Journal, Fence, WUSSY Mag, and more.

This week, we discuss their newest work, Tranny Muse, a hybrid poetry and prose collection forthcoming from Unbound Edition Press in June 2025. Blending drag, Mormonism, queer identity, and performance, Taylor explores themes of gender, sacredness, rebellion, and personal transformation. Through intimate conversation and live readings of poems like Prodigal and Mother, Taylor shares the inspiration behind the book’s bold title, the aesthetics of queer failure, and the deep emotional terrain of reclaiming identity.

Join us as we explore their collection of poetry and explore how their experiences with drag, queerness, and faith shape and deepen their creative work.

This is Taylor Portela Unbound.

Purchase your copy of Tranny Muse on amazon or directly from https://www.unboundedition.com/product/tranny-muse-taylor-portela-cross-genre/ 

For more from Unbound Edition Press, visit us at https://www.unboundedition.com/ 

Armen Davoudian is an Iranian-born poet who grew up in Isfahan and currently resides in California. He is the translator of Hopscotch by Fatemeh Shams, a collection of poems by the contemporary Persian dissident poet, published in English and German. Davoudian holds an MFA from Johns Hopkins University and is a PhD candidate in English at Stanford University, where his research focuses on metanoia in Renaissance poetry. His poems and translations appear in Poetry, The Yale Review, The Hopkins Review, and other literary journals. His chapbook, Swan Song, won the Frost Place Competition.

This week we discuss the debut of his newest poetry collection, The Palace of Forty Pillars, that was long-listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award and named a “Best Book of Spring” by the San Francisco Chronicle. Davoudian reads and reflects on several of his poems, including “27 Marjan Street,” “Travel Ban,” and the first sonnet from the book’s titular sequence. The conversation also explores how personal and cultural distances can enrich poetic insight, how form can be both a constraint and a generative force, and what Davoudian is currently working on. 

Join us as we have a heartfelt conversation that revolves around his collection of poetry and explore how his experiences of migration, queerness, and cultural duality shape and deepen his creative work.

This is Armen Davoudian Unbound.

Purchase your copy of The Palace of Forty Pillars on amazon or directly from https://tinhouse.com/book/palace-of-forty-pillars/ 

For more from Unbound Edition Press, visit us at https://www.unboundedition.com/ 

Charles is a poet, retired litigator, and visual artist. During a long mid-life illness, he started writing poems and painting — a creative turn that stuck. His poetry has since appeared in a wide range of magazines and journals, including Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, and his artwork has been exhibited in many shows. His first poetry collection, Blue for Oceans, won the 2011 PEN New England Award for best book of poetry by a New England author.

This week however, we are going to be discussing his newest collection of poetry, Again. In his work he charts a profound journey through love, loss and the complicated grace of survival. These stories traverse his life, from his childhood’s glorious moments, to the raw territories of grief, that spread into how family shapes and also haunt us.These poems range from California beach towns to the New England woodlands, but despite the distance, remind us that even our deepest wounds can reveal moments of startling beauty. 

Join us as we have a heartfelt conversation that revolves around his collection of poetry Again and explore what his experiences and the connections between his past and present play in his creative work.

This is Charles Douthat Unbound.

Purchase your copy of Again on amazon or directly from Unbound Edition Press at https://www.unboundedition.com/product/again-charles-douthat-poetry/ 

For more from Unbound Edition Press, visit us at https://www.unboundedition.com/

Angie Estes is an American based poet, and professor at Ashland University. Her previous work consists of six poetry collections, most of which were nominated and or won prestigious awards; Awards such as a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and the Cecil Hemley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America just to name a few.

Angie captivates us with her unique perspective on poetry and the inspiration behind her latest collection, Last Day on Earth in the Eternal City. In this collection, she explores themes such as memory, intimacy, and the timelessness of her work. This week our hosts probe into her creative journey as she challenges us to question the boundaries between past, present, and future, and how they shape our experiences.

Join us as our hosts examine her new collection of poetry, Last Day on Earth in the Eternal City, and explore the role that memory plays in not only her perspective on poetry, but also how it impacts our understanding of the world around us. 

This is Angie Estes Unbound.

Purchase your copy of Last Day on Earth in the Eternal City on amazon or directly from Unbound Edition Press at https://www.unboundedition.com/product/last-day-on-earth-in-the-eternal-city-angie-estes-poetry/ 

For more from Unbound Edition Press, visit us at https://www.unboundedition.com/