Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

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

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

Show Notes:

We read poems by Jonterri Gadson & Patrica Traxler

Check out Jonterri Gadson's website: https://www.jonterrigadson.com/

You can read more about Patricia Traxler on this Wikipedia page.

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

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

Show Notes:

We read poems by Mary Helen Callier & Virginia Chase Sutton

Check out Mary Helen Callier's website: https://maryhelencallier.com/

Check out Virginia Chase Sutton's website: https://www.virginiachasesutton.com/

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

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

Show Notes:

We read poems by David Hernandez and Dorian Elizabeth Knapp. 

Check out Dorian Elizabeth Knapp's website: https://dorianelizabethknapp.com/

Check out David Hernandez's website: http://www.davidahernandez.com/

Nerd tops, dom tops, soft tops: the queens go gaga over a discussion of their top poems by favorite poets. 

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

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

SHOW NOTES:

Poems and poets discussed in this episode include:

Sharon Olds: "The Race"; "Topography"; "First" 

Louise Glück: "Widows"; "Celestial Music"; "The Mirror" (text); "The Mirror" (audio only); "Parable of the Dove"

Jorie Graham: "Masaccio's Expulsion"; "At Luca Signorelli's Resurrection of the Dead"; "Salmon" 

Mark Doty: "Visitation"; "Lament-Heaven" 

Vijay Seshadri: "The Disappearances" & an essay about the poem here. 

Linda Gregg: "Summer in a Small Town"; "Sigismundo"; "Let Birds"; "We Manage Most When We Manage Small"

Etheridge Knight: "Feeling Fucked Up"

 C. Dale Young: "Torn"; check out this review of the book by Dilruba Ahmed in Kenyon Review here.

Let's get trioleted, girls! The queens delve into some fun poetic forms.

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

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

Watch TLC's music video for "No Scrubs" 

Discover more about Jehanne Dubrow's The Arranged Marriage, about which Claudia Rankine writes,"The poet here is positioned to observe, to picture, and to record in order to communicate coherence in the face of incoherence."

Aaron reads: Sonia Sanchez "Haiku and Tanka for Harriet Tubman." Learn more about Tubman here.  

Read  Agha Shahid Ali's ghazal, "Tonight". Shahid died in 2001. 

Here's more about the triolet.  For a few examples of the form, here's Gabriel Fried's "Parenting Triolet" and Rachel Hadas's "Fortress" 

Read more about the Golden Shovel here, and read Terrance Hayes's "Golden Shovel." 

Read more about the Duplex, or watch Jericho Brown explain it here. Read Jericho Brown's "Duplex" or watch him read the poem here.

Tracy K. Smith joins for the Breaking Form Interview to discuss her new book of prose about poetry, Fear Less.

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

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

Show Notes:

See Tracy K. Smith read from Life on Mars at the Kelly Writers' House .

Here's a reminiscence of Lucie Brock-Broido by her student, Stephanie Burt. Read more Brock-Broido-isms on writing & wonderment here.

Read Diane Seuss's "My Education," first published in Massachusetts Review and which appeared later in her 2024 book Modern Poetry.

Joy Harjo's poem "She Had Some Horses" was published in the book of the same name by Thunder's Mouth Press in 1983 and reissued in 1997. The link is to the original poem Tracy reads on the show.

Read reviews of Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times here, here, and here.

Visit Tracy's website here. 

Two more poets who appear in Fear Less are Victoria Adukwei Bulley (Read her "The Ultra-Black Fish" & follow her on Instagram) and Francisco Marquez (read his "Provincetown")

Sometimes poetry is a shield.

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

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

Show Notes:

Poems and poets mentioned in this episode include:

Galway Kinnell, "Prayer" 

 A. Van Jordan, "Details Torn from MacNolia’s Diary." Read a consideration of the book on Poetry Daily here.

Jaime Gil de Biedma, "Contra Jaime Gil de Biedma" and the translation here. Read this LitHub article considering the life and poetry of de Biedma by Spencer Reece.

Gregory Orr writes about the accident in which his brother died here. Aaron posted a photo of "Poem for My Dead Mother" on his FaceBook here. The poem was first published in the Antioch Review in Vol. 31, No. 1, Spring, 1971

Ethna McKiernan, "Washing My Mother's Hair." Read an obit for the poet in The Irish Times here . 

Kathy Fagan's "A Vocabulary of Icons" was first published in Southwest Review Vol. 83, No. 3, 1998

Julia Kasdorf's "Eve Curse" is from her book Eve's Striptease. Visit her website.

Jane Kenyon, "Let Evening Come"

Toi Dericotte's poem "Clitoris" was first published in Kenyon Review, Spring 1994, Vol. XVI No. 2

The ladies break out the poetry crystal ball and predict the winner of the 2025 National Book Award for Poetry.

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

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

Show Notes:

The 76th National Book Awards Ceremony will be streamed live on Wednesday, November 19, 2025, at 8:00 PM EST. You can watch the free livestream by registering on the National Book Foundation's website at nationalbook.org/awards. It will also be available on Facebook and YouTube. 

The poem we read of Calvocoressi's is "Praise House: The New Economy"; check out their website: https://www.gabriellecalvocoressi.com/ Read the poem by Ross Gay that Calvocoressi references: "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude"

 We talked about Cathy Linh Che on our show "(Taylor's Version)"; read the title poem  "Becoming Ghost." Visit Che's website: https://www.cathylinhche.com/

Tiana Clark maintains an online presence at https://www.tianaclark.com. Read "After the Reading" here. 

We interviewed Richard Siken in episode 12 of this season (season 3). "Flevato" is from I Do Know Some Things, though it was first published in Four Way Review. Visit Siken online at https://richard-siken.com. 

Read Patricia Smith's poem "70." And feel free to read more work on her website: https://www.wordwoman.ws/

The queens revisit and sing the praises of Brigit Pegeen Kelly's poem "Song." 

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

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 read the text of "Song" here. And read more about BPK here. 

James was wrong: "Song" was published in the Autumn 1993 issue of The Southern Review. Thanks to C.Dale Young for the correction!

In ancient Greece, a tragoidia was a poem or play that was written and performed in formal language and that had an unhappy ending. The word combines tragos ("goat") and oide ("song").  A tragedy is literally a “goat song.”

The journal West Branch published "This Long Winding Line: A Poetry Retrospective" about Kelly's book Song. The collection includes essays by Amit Majmudar, David Baker, C. Dale Young, Gabrielle Bates, and Shara Lessley, who also edited the portfolio. 

Watch Hiba Tahir on "Song" (including a prompt)

Read this remembrance of BPK by two friends in Plume. And read this remembrance by Ryo Yamaguchi (who was BPK's student) in Michigan Quarterly Review. 

Gabrielle Bates talks about "Song" on Keep the Channel Open Podcast

Nickole Brown reads and discusses "Song" here.

Read GC Waldrep's essay on another poem from the book Song ("All Wild Animals Were Once Called Deer") here. 

Emilia Phillips reads and discusses "Song" here. 

You can hear Brigit Pegeen Kelly read (unfortunately, not "Song") here, at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in 2004. 

The queens put the SIS in ekphrasis!

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

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

Show Notes:

The Greek word ekphrasis (ἔκφρασις) is derived from the Greek prefix ek- ("out") and the verb phrazein ("to speak," "to explain," or "to show"). The combination translates to "to speak out," "to speak clearly and completely," or "to show clearly." 

In the movie Showgirls, Kyle MacLachlan's character, Zack Carey, corrects Nomi Malone (played by Elizabeth Berkley) when she mispronounces "Versace" as "Ver-sayce." Watch the iconic scene here.

"Faithfully" is a song by American rock band Journey, released in 1983 as the second single from their album Frontiers. Go behind the music with some more info about the song's origin story.

The receipts about Karl Lagerfeld's hateful (racist, fat phobic) ass are here.

Some of the poems and poets we mention include:

Jorie Graham, San Sepolcro

Paul Tran, Like Judith Slaying Holofernes -- and listen to Tran talk about their inspiration for this poem.

Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo"

Tommye Blount, "Karl Lagerfeld’s line of beauty"

Amy Gerstler, "Dear Boy George"

Anne Sexton, "Starry Night"

 David Trinidad's "Peyton Place: A Haiku Soap Opera" (excerpt)

Walta Borawski, "Watching Sting on Saturday Night Live." Check out this review of Borawski's Collected Poems.