Rachel Zucker speaks with poet, essayist and educator Gerald Stern about his new poems, his old poems, Tourette Syndrome, keeping in touch with students, the Iowa Writers Workshop, teaching, place, memory, writing (not nice things about) living or identifiable people, Jewish identity and much more.

Rachel Zucker speaks with poet Tommy Pico about his first three books: IRL, Nature Poem, and Junk. Pico talks about epic cycles, the birdsong, growing up on a Kumeyaay reservation, becoming a poet, the culture shock and class shock of going to college in the Northeast, deciding not to go to medical school, training himself to become a performer, his influences and the teachers who helped him stop taking the easy way out and write longer work, learning to write no matter what, letting his voice open up, going from being unknown except in the world of local readings and zines to a headliner reading to a packed house, the craft, form and function of his books, the importance of being alone, the reason he loves long poems, experiments in screenwriting, genre, traveling for work, his podcast Food 4 Thot and so much more.

Host Rachel Zucker speaks with poet Richard Siken, author of Crush and War of the Foxes and publisher and poetry editor at Spork Press. They talk about his current five-book project, the restrictions he uses in each book during its composition, how these restrictions can help him avoid repetition, strategies inherent in poetry, rhetoric and discourse, Siken's rules for editing, not naming names, the idea and (f)utility of art therapy, teaching, the job market, the logistics and economics of for-profit-publishing, and family.

Host Rachel Zucker talks with poet and educator TC Tolbert (author of Gephyromania and co-editor of Troubling the Line) about a car accident that changed the course of TC's writing life, the process of healing, learning to love the smallest things, having to ask someone to carry your weight, speaking to a younger self, *seeing one aspect of life as a metaphor for other patterns of living*, and coming out as trans. They talk about teaching, wanting to go back to school, and about the Bagley Wright Lecture Series conference at University of Arizona.

For this special “Inside Commonplace” episode, Rachel Zucker speaks with her son Judah, her mentee Yanyi, and her husband Joshua Goren. These conversations help Rachel examine the history of Commonplace and reveal more about her work, her personal life, and the pleasures and challenges of making this podcast. Rachel and her guests (or is it the other way around?) discuss teaching, gender, listening, marriage, mental health, privilege, and much more