Farnaz Fatemi and Samyak Shertok discuss Shertok's book, No Rhododendron, selected by Kimiko Hahn as winner of the 2024 AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry. Shertok offers profound and poignant insights in an exploration of the rich invented forms he uses in his debut collection. They discuss the horse-ghosts and other ghosts on the cover, in the book, and in the poet's life. The poet takes a closer look at what he calls "syntactical dismemberment and rememberment" found in his poems about loss and about multiple tongues. Join in for a rich conversation with this stunning poet.

Samyak’s book was shortlisted for the 2026 PEN Open Book Award. His poems appear in The Cincinnati Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review, POETRY, Shenandoah, Waxwing, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. A finalist for the National Poetry Series, the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, and the Jake Adam York Prize, he has received fellowships from Aspen Words, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Originally from Nepal, he is an Assistant Professor of English at Mississippi State University.