Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

The queens get all Brenda on that Brenda, you Brenda?


Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.


SHOW NOTES:

Read more about Brenda Coultas here. Watch Coultas read with Alice Notley here (1 hour). And read this conversation between Coultas and Stacy Szymaszek.

Watch the best of Brenda Walsh’s outfits from Season 3 of Beverly Hills, 90210

You can find Brenda Hillman's website here. Hear her read “Species Prepare to Exist After Money." Read Jesse Nathan’s conversation with Hillman (in his “Short Conversations with Poets” series) here in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

 
Follow Brenda K. Starr on Instagram @officialbrendakstarr. Watch Mariah Carey recall singing backup with Starr here. And here is Mariah’s official video for “I Still Believe” (covering BKS).

Visit Brenda Shaughnessy’s website. Hear her read from her newest book, Tanya. And read Hilton Als’s essay, “Brenda Shaughnessy’s Ferocious Mother Poems” in the New Yorker here.

Watch Brenda Blethyn get humped by her dog during a This Morning television interview.

For the craziest trip, visit Brenda Walsh Ministries online at https://brendawalsh.com

Join the Salami Sisters for this episode of The Real Housef*gs of Breaking Form.

Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.


SHOW NOTES:

Soufiane Ababri is the artist we talk about whose series of artworks is Bedwork / Yes I AM

Here are are versions (one & two & three) of Dickinson's "One need not be a Chamber—to be Haunted—”

Learn more about the etymology of the word “faggot."

Read John Donne's “The Flea”

Watch Cher on Graham Norton. 

The queens get out their big smooth (crystal) balls to predict the National Book Award shortlist in poetry. Play along! The shortlist is announced Oct. 1.

Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.


SHOW NOTES:

You can find the National Book Awards longlists for fiction, translation, young people's literature, and poetry here. 

Watch Lena Khalaf Tuffaha read her poem "Mountain, Stone" here. You can find the text of the poem here. 

Check out this NY Times article, "The Inscrutable Brilliance of Anne Carson." Or check out this Lannan conversation with Carson.

Here is an hour-long conversation, "Aesthetics of Return: Palestinian Poetry," with Fady Joudah and Prof. Fida Adely, moderated by Bassam Haddad.

Watch Elizabeth Willis give a reading at the Univ. of Georgia in Feb. 2024.

Watch this fabulous reading and interview with Diane Seuss, conducted by Ron Charles.

Watch Rowan Ricardo Phillips read his poem "Boys" at the Griffin Prize ceremony.

Watch Octavio Quintanilla read his poem "Exiliados"

Dorianne Laux appeared on Grace Cavalieri's fabulous The Poet and the Poem series July 2024. Watch here.

Watch m.s. RedCherries give a reading as part of the Fellows Reading of the Indigenous Nations Poets here. 

Your favorite bridesmaids are (drunk and dis)orderly in this episode about writing for special occasions.

Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.


SHOW NOTES

Here's a cinematic example of an epithalamion--an e.e. Cummings poem (from In Her Shoes).

James’s poem “A Monument for This Morning” appears on p. 4 here. It’s not supposed to be centered on the page. But oh well.

 Signed copies of Cher’s book The First Time is a collectible, being sold here for $600. We did find copies in the more affordable $300-range too.

Mike and the Mechanics’s song “The Living Years” was their biggest hit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGDA0Hecw1kHere's the video for the song.

 The name “Shayla” was Charlotte’s secret baby name, and her friend Laney stole it for her baby. The episode appeared in Season 1, E. 10. Watch the scene, including a great bit from Samantha, here. 

You can pre-order Invisible Strings: 113 Poets Respond to the Songs of Taylor Swift, which includes work by both of us, as well as Carl Phillips, Diane Seuss, Joy Harjo, and others.

The queens are all lubed up and waiting for you in the badlands that is Breaking Form.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

SHOW NOTES

See Beckian Fritz Goldberg read poems here (at 1:04 mark)

Our friend Maureen Seaton died on August 26, 2023. Watch her read poems for Alaska Quarterly here. You can listen to our tribute episode to Maureen here, and our Breaking Form episodes with her here and here.

Anne and Nancy Wilson of Heart have actually reunited and will tour all over the US in 2024. Watch them sing with Kelly Clarkson here.

Here's a short interview with Ellen Bryant Voigt.

Here's a short interview and reading with Frank O'Hara.

Crisco is 113 years old. Watch this 1981 ad for it, featuring Loretta Lynn.

Throb Magazine can be found online at: https://www.throbmag.com/about

Listen to Ander Monson in this short poetic video "PREDATOR vs. Alien vs. Predator"

Here are three clips from Julianne Moore that we reference in the show:
Julianne Moore and Robert Pattinson (Maps to the Stars) talking about gloves and sex.
Maps to the Stars: bleeding on the $12,000 couch
Heather Graham and Julianne Moore doing coke together in Boogie Nights.

Go tell it on the mountain, darlings! Join the queens for a special Breaking Form report on the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

SHOW NOTES

If you don't know about Absolutely Fabulous, which first ran from 1992-95, you're missing out. Catch Edina and Patsy's best moments here.

Mona van Duyn taught at Bread Loaf at least once--according to this poster.

Check out audio recordings of Bread Loaf readings and lectures here. I can also recommend the reading by Adrian Matejka & Paul Lisicky, both of whom read from work about celebrity icons (it was like a class on how to do that well).

The t-slur has been recognized as an offensive slur for at least 10 years, if not more, as this Advocate article about the slur indicates.

Daniel Mendelsohn's review ("A Striptease Among Pals") of Hana Yanagihara's A Little Life can be read here (sorry about the paywall!) and the whole dustup gets further press in this Guardian article.

For more information about and to apply to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conferences (there are other conferences in environmental writing and in translation), visit their website here.

Join the queens for this last poetry salon, where we highlight fabulous poets we haven't discussed much on the show.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

Settle in for this fourth poetry salon, a show as jam-packed with radiant pleasure as a dark room in Rehoboth.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

This Summer Salon has zero tan-lines and a ton of fabulous poetry!

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

Who wears short shorts? Celebrate summer with the queens as we read poets we haven't focused on before.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.