Commonplace Podcast

By Rachel Zucker

Intimate and compelling interviews by Rachel Zucker with poets and other artists. Become a Patron & support our growing podcast! www.patreon.com/commonplacepodcast

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FAQs about Commonplace Podcast:

How many episodes does Commonplace Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 227 episodes available.

Commonplace Podcast episodes:

May 14, 2020 Episode 86: Global Roll Call, Part 1
David Trinidad is the author of numerous poetry collections, most recently Swinging on a Star. He teaches poetry and creative writing at Columbia College and lives in Chicago.
Alice Notley is the author of over 40 books of poetry. She lives in Paris.
Cathy Park Hong’s latest book is Minor Feelings. She is poetry editor of the New Republic and is a professor at Rutgers-Newark University.
John Murillo is the author of Up Jump the Boogie and Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry. He is an assistant professor of English at Wesleyan University and also teaches in the low residency MFA program at Sierra Nevada College.
Tina Chang is a poet, teacher, and editor. In 2010, she was named Poet Laureate of Brooklyn (the first woman to hold this title).
Ada Limón is the author of five books of poetry. She serves on the faculty of Queens University of Charlotte Low Residency M.F.A program, and the online and summer programs for the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center.
M. NourbeSe Philip is a poet and writer and lawyer who lives in the City of Toronto. She was born in Tobago and now lives in Canada.
New Books Written by and Author/Texts Recommended by David Trinidad
Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World: Poems of Ed Smith [Editor] (Turtle Point Press, 2019)
Eula Biss
Robyn Schiff
Emily Dickinson
Alice Notley
William Carlos Williams
Walt Whitman
Sylvia Plath
New Books Written by and Recommended by Tina Chang
Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings (One World, 2020)
Monica Sok's A Nail the Evening Hangs On (Copper Canyon, 2020)
Kimiko Hahn’s Foreign Bodies (W.W. Norton, 2020)
“The Slur I Never Expected to Hear in 2020,” by Cathy Park Hong for the New York Times
New Books Written by and Recommended by John Murillo
Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry (Four Way Books, 2020)
New Books Written by and Recommended by Alice Notley
For the Ride (Penguin, 2020)
The New York Times review of For the Ride
The New Yorker review of For the Ride
New Books Written by and Recommended by Ada Limón
The Carrying (Milkweed, 2018)
Loving Kindness by Sharon Salzberg (Shambhala, 2002)
Sharon Salzberg
New Books Written by and Recommended by M. NourbeSe Philip
Zong! (Wesleyan 2011)
New Books Written by and Author/Texts Recommended by Cathy Park Hong
Minor Feelings (One World, 2020)
https://www.patreon.com/commonplacepodcast
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1h 1min
April 10, 2020 Episode 85: The Craft of the Literary Interview
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2h 4min
March 26, 2020 Episode 84: M. NourbeSe Philip
Books by M. NourbeSe Philip
Blank: Essays and Interviews (Book*hug, 2017)
She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks (Wesleyan University Press, 2015)
Zong! (Wesleyan University Press, 2011)
A Genealogy of Resistance and Other Essays (Mercury Press, 1998)
Frontiers: Selected Essays and Writings on Racism and Culture 1984-1992 (Mercury Press, 1992)
Looking for Livingstone: An Odyssey of Silence (Mercury Press, 1991)
Other Texts and Writers Featured in the Episode
Kamau Brathwaite
Nathaniel (Nate) Mackey and his lecture, “Breath and Precarity”
Phillis Wheatley
George Lamming’s In The Castle of My Skin (University of Michigan Press, 1992)
George Lamming’s The Pleasures of Exile (University of Michigan Press, 1991)
Claire Harris
Dionne Brand
Harold Sonny Ladoo’s No Pain Like this Body (House of Anansi, 2013)
Austin Clarke (fiction writer)
George Elliot Clarke’s argument about Nova Scotia preachers’ sermons
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born
Derek Walcott’s Ti-Jean and His Brothers
Other Relevant Links
Sawubona
Shona
Heinemann African Series
Tabebuia or Poui Trees of Trinidad and Tobago
Lionheart (movie)
Kikuyu people of Kenya
Malinke people (colonized by the French)
Afro-futurism
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1h 36min
March 25, 2020 Episode 84: M. NourbeSe Philip
Host Rachel Zucker speaks with poet, playwright, novelist and anti-racist activist M. NourbeSe Philip the day after Philip received the 2020 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature in New York. Rachel begins by asking M. NourbeSe about a line in her acceptance speech: “Being must be sufficient and not contingent.” They talk about “Sawubona,” a greeting used by Zulu and other African cultures, meaning “I see you,” and discuss why M. NourbeSe calls motherhood a form of radical hospitality with organizing principles that stand in critical opposition to those of white supremacy and colonization. M. NourbeSe talks about a healthy distrust of the English language and the impact of a colonial education—for instance, being tested on Wordsworth’s daffodils on her exams when she had never seen one—and the poem she wants to write about Trinidad and Tobago’s golden Poui trees instead. M. NourbeSe also describes the feeling of working at the margins or brink of visible Caribbean literature, writing/living/speaking in a language that is yours but not your ancestors, and how to break open the language in order to express that which cannot be expressed in English. M. NourbeSe explains why she feels like she could only have written She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks and Looking for Livingstone in Canada, while also, at times, feeling like a disappeared writer in Canada. Rachel and M. NourbeSe reflect on the role of “difficulty” in M. NourbeSe’s writing, what is the “right” part/direction of the page, and our capacities to imagine beyond the binary of capitalism and socialism and to imagine freedom and ways of being beyond the constraints of our existing language.
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1h 36min
March 04, 2020 Episode 83: Darcey Steinke
Books by Darcey Steinke
Flash Point Diary: Menopause and the Vindication of Natural Life (Sarah Crichton Books, 2019)
Jesus Saves (Grove Press, 2019)
Easter Everywhere (Bloomsbury, 2007)
Milk (Bloomsbury, 2005)
Up Through the Water (Grove Press, 2000)
Suicide Blond (Grove Press, 2000)
John-KJV (Grove Press, 1999)
Other Writers and Texts Mentioned in the Episode
Maud Casey
The Testosterone Files by Max Wolf Valerio (Seal Press, 2006)
Trans: A Memoir by Juliet Jacques (Verso, 2016)
Speedboat by Renata Adler (NYRB Books, 2013)
Branwell by Douglas A. Martin
Sarah Manguso (ep. 37)
Maggie Nelson (ep. 82)
Fanny Howe
Nick Cave
Women’s Writing Festival in Sydney, Australia
Other Relevant Links
Mike W. Hudson
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/opinion/reading-writing-stuttering.html
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1h 23min
February 13, 2020 Episode 82: Maggie Nelson
Books by Maggie Nelson
Something Bright, Then Holes (Soft Skull, 2018)
The Argonauts (Graywolf, 2015)
The Latest Winter (Zed Books, 2018)
Shiner (Zed Books, 2018)
The Art of Cruelty (W.W. Norton, 2012)
Women, The New York School and Other True Abstractions (University of Iowa Press, 2011)
Bluets (Wave Books, 2009)
The Red Parts (Graywolf, 2007)
Jane (Soft Skull, 2005)
Other Authors and Texts Mentioned in the Episode
Avital Ronell’s Crack Wars (University of Illinois Press, 2004)
Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era
by Paul B. Preciado and Bruce Benderson (Feminist Press, 2013)
The Road of Excess: A History of Writer’s on Drugs by Marcus Boon (Harvard University Press, 2005)
Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty by Jacqueline Rose (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2019)
Black and Blur by Fred Moten (Duke University Press, 2017)
Eileen Myles
Lauren Sanders
Frank O’Hara
Claudia Rankine (Ep 4)
Wayne Kostenbaum (Ep 9)
Christina Crosby
Eve Sedgwick
Anne Carson
Sherrilyn Ifill
Benjamin Moser
Susan Sontag
Sylvia Plath
Franco “Bifo” Berardi
Hannah Arendt
Donald Winnicott
Maggie Nelson and Sarah Lucas at the Hammer Museum
Elaine Retholtz
John Cage
Ethan Nosowsky
Other Relevant Links
Critical Resistance
Maggie Nelson and Wayne Koestenbaum on Clarity and Cruelty (NY Public Library podcast)
Hilton Als on Maggie Nelson in the New Yorker
Maggie Nelson in The Guardian
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1h 45min
January 28, 2020 Episode 81: Commonplace goes to Taiwan, Part 2
People, Places, and Events Featured in this Episode:
Brilliant Time Bookstore
(Feature on Mr. CHANG Cheng and his partner, Ms. LIAO Yun-chan)
Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own
FemBooks est. 1994
Witch House (located in the same building as FemBooks)
Peng Wan-Ru Foundation (located in the same building as FemBooks)
KANG Min Jay
National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of Building and Planning
WenRooTin Cultural Area
Eslite Bookstore
(More on Eslite’s cultural significance and future)
Treasure Hill
KANG Min Jay’s speech “Altered Space: Squatting and Legitimizing Treasure Hill, Taipei” presented at Cultural Development Network’s 2006 Forum, “Artivism: The Role of Arts in Regeneration”
Public art project at Taipower Spider Tree
Tonsan Bookstore est. 1982 (the leftist bookstore referred to by KANG Min Jay)
GinGin Books est. 1999 (the gay bookstore referred to by KANG Min Jay)
(More on GinGin’s founder, LAI Jeng-jer 賴正哲)
Taiwanese poet CHEN Kehua’s poem, “Anal Subjectivity”
(Note: This webpage from Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture has a different translation of the poem’s title. Google also translates differently as “The Need for Anal Sex.”)
Taiwan’s 2018 Referendum
Music
“Monday Spirit”
長笛Flute/作曲Composition：張瑛蘭 Ing Lan CHANG
人聲Vocal/ 作詞 Lyrics：喜辰晨 XI Chenchen
吉他Guitar：林華勁 Gin LIN
Other Relevant Links:
Selected patrons will receive copies of Salsa by Taiwanese poet Hsia Yu translated by Steven Bradbury, courtesy of Zephyr Press.
(More translations by Steven Bradbury)
書店裡的影像詩 Video Poems Inside a Bookstore: 2016 Web Documentary Series Profiling 40 Different Independent Bookstores in Taiwan
友善書業合作社 Taiwan's Independent Bookstore Culture Association
During their trip, Rachel and Doreen also visited the Beitou Museum exhibit: “Stories Told Through Mother’s Hands: Children’s Textile & Embroidery Arts” guided by its curator Brenda Lin, who also serves as Director of Corporate Social Responsibility at Les Enphants Co and is the author of Wealth Ribbon.
The exhibit showcased items from Brenda’s mother, Christi Lan Lin’s, collection of traditional Asian textiles made by mothers for their children.
Brenda’s forthcoming essay, “Things,” will be published Feminist Press’ WSQ in May 2020.
Liner Notes:
01:08 Doreen provides a brief overview of Taiwan’s history.
09:55 Rachel and Doreen speak with CHANG Cheng, one of the co-founders of Brilliant Time Bookstore.
19:28 Rachel and Doreen speak with YAO Yuting (Analeigh), a staff member of Brilliant Time Bookstore.
25:50 Rachel and Doreen speak with LI Xiumei (Sophie), manager of FemBooks.
28:35 Rachel and Doreen speak with KANG Min Jay, a professor at National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, one of the activists behind the creation of the WenRooTin Cultural Area where FemBooks is located.
1:00:29 Our gratitude to the many people who were involved with the making of this episode!
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1h 5min
January 27, 2020 Episode 81: Commonplace goes to Taiwan, Part 2
Episode 81 is part two in the story of Commonplace’s March 2019 journey to Taiwan. For the first time in Commonplace herstory, the episode is not hosted by Rachel Zucker and is, instead, guided by Commonplace producer and social media director, Doreen Wang. The episode opens with a brief history of Taiwan and is followed by conversations that Rachel and Doreen had with two highly-regarded independent bookstores in the Taipei area.
At Brilliant Time Bookstore, they speak with Mr. CHANG Cheng about viewing Taiwan in relationship to its neighboring Southeast Asian countries and in relationship to the many Southeast Asians living inside of Taiwan. They also speak about Mr. CHANG’s lifelong dedication toward building a fair and just society in Taiwan, no matter the island’s future.
At FemBooks, Rachel and Doreen speak with its manager LI Xiumei (Sophie) and KANG Min Jay, a professor at National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of Building and Planning. Both talk about how they got involved with FemBooks—Sophie, because of her prior history working on gender issues, and Professor Kang, because of his scholarship and activism on public spaces and realizing the unique position of independent bookstores as “semi-public spaces.” They also talk about the influence of Virginia Woolf and the importance of naming (instead of being named).
Note: Capitalized text indicates family names (which precede given names in the Chinese language).
Doreen Wang has been the voice, mind and heart behind Commonplace’s social media since September 2018. Doreen is a writer—poetry and creative nonfiction, among other genres—and longtime NGO worker who now manages a youth leadership program for the International Network of Engaged Buddhists, and leads food tours in Chengdu. Doreen received a poetry fellowship from Kundiman as well as a Pushcart Prize nomination for her work. You can find her work in On She Goes, Angel’s Flight: Literary West, and Racist Sandwich podcast. An inaugural participant of Spotify’s Sound Up Bootcamp for Women of Color Podcasters, Doreen is working on a writing and audio documentary where she and her grandmother talk story about how the borders of China-Taiwan and U.S.-Mexico have shaped their lives.
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1h 5min
January 22, 2020 Episode 80: Commonplace goes to Taiwan, Part 1
Relevant Links from Rachel’s Story
“Diane Wolkstein, Children’s Author Who Spurred a Storytelling Revival, Dies at 70” via the New York Times
Rachel on The Longest Shortest Time
Audio of Diane Wolkstein performing “The Monkey King”
Relevant Links from Doreen’s Story
Sarah Doyle Center for Women and Gender
Haunani Kay Trask (University of Hawaii)
Daniel Kim (professor at Brown)
Lois Ann Yamanaka
R. Zamora Linmark
Saigon Grill picket of 2008
Audre Lorde Project
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Naomi Jackson (friend)
Sound Up Bootcamp
Betty Dodson’s female sexuality class
Kundiman
Museum of Chinese in America
BOOK CLUB
Hsia Yu’s SALSA (Zephyr Press)
Rachel Zucker’s MOTHERs (Counterpath)
Brenda Lin’s THE WEALTH RIBBON (courtesy of the author)
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1h 35min
January 21, 2020 Episode 80: Commonplace goes to Taiwan, Part 1
In 2019, Rachel traveled to Taiwan with her son Moses and met up with Commonplace team member Doreen Wang. In a conversation with Moses, Rachel discusses why they traveled to Taiwan in the first place and her late mother Diane Wolkstein’s special connection to the country. In a separate conversation, Doreen talks about why she chose to return to Taiwan after living in New York City for many years.
This is the first of a two-part series that takes place in Taiwan. The second part, featuring conversations with booksellers in Taipei, will post soon.
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1h 35min

FAQs about Commonplace Podcast:

How many episodes does Commonplace Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 227 episodes available.

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