What’s a person to do when they love visual art, but don’t share the gift of creating it themselves? Poet Janée Baugher, whose work we discuss in this episode, displays her love of art through ekphrastic poetry. She’s even written a book on the form, The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influenced Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction (McFarland, 2020). Slushies, you’ll definitely want to take a look at these poems and their unique formatting before you listen to the podcast. The poems we discuss center around Andrew Wyeth’s paintings and come from Baugher’s forthcoming 2026 collection The Andrew Wyeth Chronicles, selected by Shane McCrae to win the 2023 Tupelo Press Dorset Prize.

Along the way, Jason shares his travel mishaps and coins a memorable new moniker for Greenville-Spartanburg. Our South Carolina diversion leads Lisa to Hub City Writers Project and Kathy to The Swamp Trail. We talk about poetry-as-footnote, which we also chatted about in Episode 110. Dagne, in thinking about artist’s models, recommends a Decoder Ring podcast episode about Andrew Wyeth’s muse, Helga. And Jason reveals his own secret past in front of the sketchpad!

At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Dagne Forrest, Lisa Zerkle, Jodi Gahn, Sebastian Rametta (sound engineer)

Author bio: Janée J. Baugher is the author of the only craft book of its kind, The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influenced Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction (McFarland, 2020) and an assistant editor at Boulevard magazine. She won Tupelo Press’s Dorset Prize for her third poetry collection, The Andrew Wyeth Chronicles (2026).

Website: www.JaneeBaugher.com

Instagram: @ekphrastic_writer

Like the movie of the same name, the poems we discuss here, Slushies, take on the cares of the world in an unrelenting torrent. In this episode, we discuss three poems by Harriet Levin which reference the Haitian writer and artist Frankétienne, Barcelona’s as-yet unfinished Sagrada Familia cathedral, and the constellation of Orion, (for starters). We think about how poems featuring babies can avoid the sentimental (as we ultimately decide these do). We end considering the picture book chaos found in Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are as a counterpoint to real-world displacement.

At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer,

Lisa Zerkle, Jodi Gahn, Lillie Volpe (sound engineer)

With thanks to one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Lorraine” opens our show. 

Harriet Levin is the author of three poetry books, The Christmas Show (Beacon Press, 1997), Girl in Cap and Gown (Mammoth Books, 2010), and My Oceanography (CavanKerry 2018). Her honors include the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, The Barnard New Women Poets Prize, Nimrod's Pablo Neruda/Hardiman Award, The Ellen LaForge Memorial Poetry Prize, and a PEW Fellowship in the Arts discipline award. Her debut novel, How Fast Can you Run, a novel based on the life of Lost Boy of Sudan Michael Majok Kuch, was excerpted in The Kenyon Review and chosen as a 2017 Charter for Compassion Global Read. A 2022-23 Stein Family Foundation Fellow, she holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and teaches writing at Drexel University.

Website: harrietlevinmillan.org

Slushies, we invoke the retelling of a ghostly experience shared by Kathy and Marion at the Hotel Figueroa in California earlier this year partway into this episode. Two poems by Jen Siraganian are at the heart of our discussion, and it’s the first of these that puts ghosts into our heads. This poem also causes us to consider at some length the physical form chosen by or for a poem, and how this can utterly enhance the experience of the poem when it’s just right. It’s also an opportunity for Jason to raise the spectre of the virgule (or slash) once again, and we even pause briefly to recall when WYSIWYG was a useful acronym. We end the episode with an ekphrastic that prompts an on-the-spot tie breaker (thanks to our sound engineer Lillie for saving the day!).

https://whitney.org/collection/works/2171

https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/gorky-the-artist-and-his-mother.html 

At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Lisa Zerkle, Jason Schneiderman, Dagne Forrest, Jodi Gahn, Lillie Volpe (sound engineer)

Jen Siraganian is an Armenian-American writer, educator, and former Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, California. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI, Barrow Street, Best New Poets, Cortland Review, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, Smartish Pace, and other journals. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and won the 2024 New Ohio Review Poetry Prize. A former managing director of Litquake: San Francisco’s Literary Festival, she is a current Lucas Artist Fellow. jensiraganian.com   

Social media handles:

Facebook @jen.siraganian, Instagram @jsiraganian, Bluesky @jsiraganian.bsky.social, Website

Slushies, this episode finds Kathy, Lisa and Jason gearing up for AWP, and it’s the last one with Divina at the table (we’ll miss her contributions!). Three poems by Luiza Flynn-Goodlet get close reading by the team. Lisa admits to feeling initially resistant to the Ars Poetica form with the first poem, but admits to being won over and others agree. Jason connects the meditation on death in this poem and its personification of death to Anthony Hecht’s Flight Among the Tombs: Poems. The delightful ways in which the first and third poems are in conversation with each other rounds out a layered discussion. (Not to be missed – Jason attempting some Gen Z slang with his farewell!)

At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Samantha Neugebauer, Lisa Zerkle, Jason Schneiderman, Divina Boko, Lillie Volpe (sound engineer)

Luiza Flynn-Goodlett is the author of Mud in Our Mouths (forthcoming from Northwestern University Press) and Look Alive (winner of the 2019 Cowles Poetry Book Prize from Southeast Missouri State University Press), along with numerous chapbooks, most recently Familiar (Madhouse Press, 2024) and The Undead (winner of Sixth Finch Books' 2020 Chapbook Contest). Her poetry can be found in Fugue, Poetry Northwest, Third Coast, and elsewhere. She serves as a Poetry Editor for the Whiting Award–winning LGBTQIA2S+ literary journal and press Foglifter. Her critical work has appeared in Cleaver, Pleiades, The Adroit Journal, and other venues.

Bluesky: luizagurley.bsky.social, Website

Episode 137: Collective Effervescence

Don’t be jelly, but we’re having a blast with three poems from the poet Han VanderHart in this episode! You can join in on the fizzing of our collective effervescence by just tuning in. We find the conversation naturally turning towards John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, taking in the pipe as a fairly recent newcomer as a punctuation mark in poetry, and the concept of absolute zero, alongside much, much more. Poetic themes of truth, love, and the power of “No” sit at the center of our conversation. Oh, and Marion deftly keeps Kathy in the conversation when technology unexpectedly steals her voice! (Be sure to check out the painting Truth Coming Out of Her Well, the inspiration for the first poem, an ekphrastic, that we discuss. It’s a painting that has inspired some cool tattoo art!)

At the table: Marion Wrenn, Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Divina Boko, Lisa Zerkle, Dagne Forrest, Lillie Volpe (sound engineer)

Han VanderHart grew up on a small-scale farm in Virginia, and now lives in North Carolina, under the pines with their long term partner, two children, four cats, two dogs, and a Diva koi Beta fish named Caroline (long I). Their favorite flower is all of them, with the exception of the gerber daisy, which looks fake. Han is the author of Larks (Ohio, 2025) and What Pecan Light (BCP, 2021), and hosts Of Poetry Podcast and co-edits River River Books with Amorak Huey.

Insta: @han.vanderhart

Bluesky: @hanvanderhart.bsky.social

Website: hanvanderhart.com

Episode 136: Mapping Experience Part II

Here’s a first for PBQ, the second of a two-part series on a single poet! We’re calling this two-parter the The Maggie Wolff Experience. We delight in spending more time with Maggie’s exceptional series of abcedarians, “Surveys, Maps, and Mothers”, which share an unspooling narrative of intergenerational trauma. Kathy notes the similarity to experiencing an anthology series, with each of the four poems we’ve discussed offering a complete experience, while added depth and richness emerges from reading multiple poems (this makes Episode 135 or Part I optional but still recommended listening!). Jason calls attention to the skillfully created sonic waves that appear in sections of some of the poems, notably “S” in this episode. We touch on the “lore” of the people in our lives (thanks to Divina for the Gen Z lingo) and Sam makes the connection with Philip Larkin’s This Be the Verse (“They fuck you up, your mum and dad.”). All of that and even a quick moment referencing Billy Joel’s Movin' Out (Anthony’s Song) from 1977 – if you listen, you’ll know why!

At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Samantha Neugebauer, Dagne Forrest, Lisa Zerkle, Jason Schneiderman, Divina Boko, Lillie Volpe (sound engineer)

Maggie Wolff is a poet, essayist, fiction writer, and Ph.D. student. She recently won an AWP Intro Journal Award for her poetry, and her work has appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Juked, New Delta Review, and other publications. Her chapbook Haunted Daughters has just been released by Press 254. When she isn't spending her time stressing about Phd-ing, she enjoys long walks, horror movies, and hibernating at home.

Instagram @m_wolffwriter

Episode 135: Mapping Experience

Dive into the first of a two-part series (a first for us!) of what we’re calling The Maggie Wolff Experience. In this episode we dig into the first two of four poems from her exceptional series of abcedarians called “Surveys, Maps, and Mothers”. These plainspoken, unvarnished poems, which structure painful experiences in multiple dictionary-style entries within each poem, are skillfully crafted. We notice the calm sense of order the form brings to the experience of deconstructing this narrative of intergenerational trauma. We also appreciate the careful attention to lineation, which intensifies meaning, alongside the subtle layering of sound. You’ve got give it a listen!

Links you might like:

Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

Mercator Projections

At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Samantha Neugebauer, Jason Schneiderman, Divina Boko, Lillie Volpe (sound engineer)

Maggie Wolff is a poet, essayist, fiction writer, and Ph.D. student. She recently won an AWP Intro Journal Award for her poetry, and her work has appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Juked, New Delta Review, and other publications. Her chapbook, Haunted Daughters, is forthcoming from Press 254. When she isn't spending her time stressing about Phd-ing, she enjoys long walks, horror movies, and hibernating at home.

Instagram @m_wolffwriter

Episode 134: Tidbits & Trolls 

Join us for a conversation about new poems by Kelly Egan and a discussion about line breaks, image systems, and the surprise turns poems make. Keep your eyes and ears open, Slushies, the landscape is full of lore. Egan has us pondering possibilities. Once upon a time folks believed in Selkies, shapeshifting seals who make folks fall in love with them in their human form. Who knew it's bad luck to open the door on Christmas Eve for fear trolls will maraud your house? You've been warned. Check out Danish artist Thomas Dambo's mammoth sculpted trolls hidden in plain sight. And if you want to deep dive into another legendary landscape – aka a brick-and-mortar bookstore – be sure to check out Parker Posey's documentary The Booksellers. 

At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Samantha Neugebauer, Dagne Forrest, Lisa Zerkle, Divina Boko, Jess Fielo (sound engineer) 

Kelly Egan writes from dream, reverie, and long drives. She is the author of two chapbooks—Millennial, from White Stag, and A Series of Septembers, from Dancing Girl Press. Her poems can also be found in Maiden Magazine, Interim, Colorado Review, Laurel Review, RHINO, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. Kelly has an MFA from Saint Mary’s College of CA and has participated in writing residencies in Iceland and the Peruvian Amazon. She lives in California’s Bay Area. Find her at kellyjeanegan.com.  

Episode 133: Delicious Disorientation 

Three poems by Christopher Brean Murray cleverly dropped us all into a wonderful sense of disorientation that we relished navigating. Our discussion touched on time travel, dreamscapes, masterful language and wordplay, and we explored the importance of trusting the speaker in poetry that leans into surrealism. Samantha pointed us to other texts that play with time, perception, and reality, and we spent a little time considering accessibility in poetry. Doom scrolling, misinformation, and disinformation all make appearances in conjured landscapes that brought pointillism to mind. Jason reminds us of the risk of expecting more of the same from a poet when as a reader you’ve fallen hard for an earlier work. It was hard to end our discussion as it was so rich and rewarding. After enthusiastically voting “yes” for the first two poems, we ended on a cliffhanger with the third. (Update: the third poem was ultimately a “no” for us, but the discussion will show how much we appreciated it.) 

Links you might like: 

Tobias Wolff "Bullet in the Brain" 

Tracy Chevalier, "The Glassmaker"  

At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, Dagne Forrest, Lisa Zerkle, Divina Boko, Jess Fielo (sound engineer) 

Christopher Brean Murray’s book, Black Observatory (Milkweed Editions), was chosen by Dana Levin as the winner of the 2022 Jake Adam York Prize and was listed by The New York Public Library as one of the Best Books of 2023. Murray served as online poetry editor of Gulf Coast, and his poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, New Ohio Review, and other journals. He lives in Houston, TX. 

Episode 132: Trust & Fear

Talking about fiction is our JAWN slushies. Join us as we discuss Terry Dubow's "The Q," a short story that sounds like it wants to be a crime novel: a murderer gets out of jail and asks to stay with his pen pal. The surprise is that the piece is also a gentle story of male friendship and compassion. We're drawn to the story's ability to showcase the odd-ball sincerity of letter writing, and the strange, retro experience of having to wait for a response. Can you imagine? Putting a letter in a mailbox? Waiting for a reply that has to make its way to you through actual space and time? Does anyone remember licking a stamp? We're here for it, Terry Dubow. Tell us a story. 

At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, Dagne Forrest, Lisa Zerkle, Divina Boko, Jess Fielo (sound engineer)

Born outside of Los Angeles, Terry spent most of his adult life in the great city of Cleveland, Ohio. He is now in the middle of a planned mid-life crisis and living with his wife of 30 years in Marin County, California. While he works at a school that sits directly across from San Quentin, the origin of “The Q" comes directly from his uncle-in-law, Gary Weske, who 20 years ago told a version of it that stuck in Terry’s head ever since. Thanks, Gary! Over the last years, Terry has published more than 25 stories, most recently in The Meadow (upcoming), Litro, Clockhouse, and The New Ohio Review, which nominated his story “Bandits” for the Best of the Net. His frustratingly unpublished novels are represented by Lisa Grubka at the United Talent Agency.