Connor and Jack dig into an excerpt from the epic, book-length poem "John Brown's Body" by Stephen Vincent Benet.  In the late 1920s the book was a mega-best seller and won the 1929 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. They discuss the implications of the poem's popularity, other literary and artistic works that re-tell history, and the durable cultural myths John Brown's story exemplifies.

Learn more a out Benét, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/stephen-vincent-benet

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Episode #139 Excerpt from John Brown's Body - Stephen Vincent Benét

Close Talking is a poetry podcast hosted by good friends Connor Stratton and Jack Rossiter-Munley. In each episode the two read a poem and discuss at length. The pop culture references fly as freely as the literary theories. Close Talking is a poetry podcast anyone can enjoy.

Arts

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Connor pops in to announce incredibly belatedly what has already been apparent for months: Close Talking is on a hiatus! We've had some big life and career changes that have unexpectedly cut into our capacity for the podcast, but it's not a permanent hiatus! Okay, a poem:

Tune
By: Kay Ryan

Imagine a sea
of ultramarine
suspending a
million jellyfish
as soft as moons.
Imagine the
interlocking uninsistent
tunes of drifting things.
This is the deep machine
that powers the lamps
of dreams and accounts
for their bluish tint.
How can something
so grand and serene
vanish again and again
without a hint?

Episode #179 [Hiatus!] Tune - Kay Ryan

A slight departure from our regular format. On today's show, Connor and Jack remember the recently departed poet Charles Simic. They read some of his poems, reflect on them, discuss his life and legacy, and even give a shoutout to the Oak Park Public Library.

Poems Connor and Jack read in this episode include: "Summer Morning" "Hotel Insomnia" "Watermelons" and "Back at the Chicken Shack."

At the end of the episode, hear Simic read his poem "December 21."

Check out episodes of Close Talking on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cardboardboxproductionsinc
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 Find us on Twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking 
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Find us on YouTube: www.youtube.com/@cardboardboxproductionsinc
You can always send us an email with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at closetalkingpoetry@gmail.com.

Episode #178 Remembering Charles Simic

Connor and Jack bid farewell to the year they've taken to calling "Twenty Twenty Poo" and contemplate the complexities of language in a wide-ranging conversation about a spectacular untitled poem by Diné poet Sherwin Bitsui, from his 2009 collection Flood Song. They discuss movement, the natural world, an extremely informative dissertation and more.

Learn more about Bitsui, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sherwin-bitsui

[Flicking off the light switch.]
By: Sherwin Bitsui

Flicking off the light switch.
Lichen buds the curved creases of a mind
pondering the mesquite tree’s dull ache
            as it gathers its leaves around clouds of spotted doves—
                        calling them in rows of twelve back from their winter sleep.

Doves’ eyes black as nightfall
shiver on the foam coast of an arctic dream
           where whale ribs
                      clasp and fasten you to a language of shifting ice.

Seeing into those eyes
you uncoil their telephone wires,
gather their inaudible lions with plastic forks,
tongue their salty ribbons,
            and untie their weedy stems from your prickly fingers.

You stop to wonder what like sounds like
when held under glacier water,
how Ná ho kos feels
under the weight of all that loss.



Check out episodes of Close Talking on YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCCCSpjZcN1hIsG4aDrT3ouw
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You can always send us an email with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at closetalkingpoetry@gmail.com.

Episode #177 [Flicking off the light switch.] - Sherwin Bitsui

Connor and Jack discuss the sonically and thematically dense poem "Topsoil, in Repentance" by Sherry Shenoda. Shenoda's book MUMMY EATERS was longlisted for the National Book Award in 2022. The conversation moves from an exploration of internal rhymes and alliteration, to the climate crisis, to the religious implications of the word "repentance," to soil strata, and to the relative weight of humanity.

You can find out more about Sherry Shenoda, here: https://www.sherryshenoda.com/

Read the poem, here: https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2022/march/topsoil-repentance-sherry-shenoda

Topsoil, in Repentance
By: Sherry Shenoda

On my mind daily with the insistence of a metronome
is that thin granular layer, rich humus, spare humility,
black earth daily lifted and blown into the Gulf of Mexico.

Thinnest of salvations with a margin of error
wide as the pink, gelatinous body of the earthworm
Which my spade barely misses, and every time

my tines enter the ground, my wrist twists the damp loam,
I breathe easier to see them wriggling, unburied
fleeing the light, burrowing back down, aerating

this earth we have packed down with our culpability
this immense density of earth, only the topmost of which
can support the unimaginable numbers of us, our great warm swarm

Squinting up in immense sunlight I hear the silent swish and tick
the back-and-forth rhythm, the last few seconds before midnight
the enormity of the loan, which has been called in full

The hazy buzzing of the furry bees, busy in the branches
above my exposed neck, on any given day a stay
for a little while longer, of execution

Check out episodes of Close Talking on YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCCCSpjZcN1hIsG4aDrT3ouw
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 Find us on Twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking 
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Find us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cardboardboxproductionsinc
You can always send us an email with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at closetalkingpoetry@gmail.com.

Episode #176 Topsoil, In Repentance - Sherry Shenoda

After a busy couple weeks at Close Talking headquarters, a slightly different show. This episode is from our sister-podcast, Poetry Spoken Here. The episode first aired in the summer of 2020 and was simply called "Black Lives Matter." The poems and voices featured are all from the Poetry Spoken Here archives and address race, policing, and more. Readers include Pulitzer Prize-winner Jericho Brown, the youngest ever Baltimore Youth Poet Laureate, Maren (Lovey) Wright Kerr, Chicago-area slam legend Maria "Mama" McCray, Sillerman First Book Prize winner Ladan Osman, and SlamFind creator and Bowery Arts and Science Executive Director Mason Granger.

You can listen to full readings, and interviews with the poets featured in this episode, here:
Jericho Brown, Episode #100: https://soundcloud.com/poetry-spoken-here/episode-100-jericho-brown-reading-at-the-unamuno-author-festival
Maren (Lovey) Wright Kerr, Episode #085: https://soundcloud.com/poetry-spoken-here/episode-085-maren-lovey-wright-kerr-and-lynne-sharon-schwartz-reviewed
Maria "Mama" McCray, Episode #058: https://soundcloud.com/poetry-spoken-here/episode-058-tribute-to-maria-mama-mccray
Ladan Osman, Episode #023: https://soundcloud.com/poetry-spoken-here/episode-023-ladan-osman-and-the-book-thing
Mason Granger, Episode #034: https://soundcloud.com/poetry-spoken-here/episode-034-mason-granger-and-billy-collins

Check out episodes of Close Talking on YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCCCSpjZcN1hIsG4aDrT3ouw
Find us on Facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking
 Find us on Twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking 
Find us on Instagram: @closetalkingpoetry
Find us on YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCCCSpjZcN1hIsG4aDrT3ouw
You can always send us an email with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at closetalkingpoetry@gmail.com.

Episode #139 Excerpt from John Brown's Body - Stephen Vincent Benét

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