Soapbox Where I Can Shout It Podcast

Featuring some poems from the recent(ish) collection by José Olivarez Promises of Gold.

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I read Ben some Emily Dickinson last night and the jury is out on how much he enjoyed it, but it gave me a lot to think about this morning and maybe it will do the same for you!

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Sorry for the delay, here’s some e.e. cummings - a poet working on his own schedule by every possible interpretation of the word.

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Geese, not the band the waterfowl, is the subject of one last poem by Mary Oliver I’m sharing on the pod this month. Look for a longer piece of writing on this poem and a great day in creative writing class sooner, rather than later!

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How about some baseball poems to celebrate Ben’s first favorite baseball player (sorry buddy, he’s an OAKLAND A, get ready for a life of heartache). I found an old, pre-Ben pre-married to Rachel draft of a piece I wrote called “my boy, baseball” and thought it might make for a neat side-by-side with some updated information (namely: actually having a son). Stick around for some William Carlos Williams in between!

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Spend a moment or two or five with some poems by James Wright.

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Some Mary Oliver for your ears.

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It wasn’t enough to talk about Jack White yesterday, I had to do a whole episode featuring not just his face but also his poetry! Enjoy cuts from his recentish book Collected Lyrics & Selected Writing Vol. 1 as well as two recitations from a recent visit to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and a poem Jack shared with Meg White at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony earlier this year.

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… so why not share every poem about “The Queen’s City” I’ve ever written?

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Continuing a great conversation in my Intro to Creative Writing class, I share two poems (and a third I don’t recite but will link below) written in the ghazal form, which is a very cool Persian form of poetry that is quite old, but has some nice modern implementations. The form’s tradition is a series of linked couplets with a final couplet where the poet names themself. Old Ghazals were often amorous, flirtatious, and as I say a crazy number of times in this 4 minute podcast: cheeky. The example by Mirza Ghalib I recite really highlights how flirty these get. I also share a contemporary ghazal by Kaveh Akbar, which adds a “rule” to the form: repeating the final word of the second line of each couplet throughout the poem and, in a way, drops the direct name-drop (read that here). I’ll also include a link to Patricia Smith’s “Hip Hop Ghazal,” which I quite love to read but don’t think I could credibly recite.

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