In this, the final episode of The Personhood Project, host Aaron Tyler Hand sits down with poet Kathy Fagan. Fagan is the author of six poetry collections, including Bad Hobby, Sycamore, and The Raft. In the episode, the two discuss how poetry is often felt before it’s understood, and how its music and mystery allow both readers and writers to access emotions and truths that ordinary language can’t reach. They also talk about the difficulty—and necessity—of confronting the past, why that work is “so worth the time and effort,” and how poetry creates space for claiming one’s place in the world.

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In this penultimate episode of The Personhood Project, poet Diannely Antigua sits down with host Aaron Tyler Hand for a conversation about the intersection of healing and craft. In the episode, the two discuss Antigua’s poetry collections Ugly Music and Good Monster, and how diary-entry poems can serve as a bridge between the therapeutic and the artistic. They also discuss the importance of noticing the poetic in the mundane, the role of community in healing, and how reclaiming one's story by sharing it can be a powerful act of care and resistance.

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In this episode of The Personhood Project, guest host Brooke Pillifant reflects on the work of Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Jericho Brown. Brooke explores how Brown’s poetry, known for its formal innovation, such as the duplex, and its emotional vulnerability, invites readers into urgent conversations about identity, race, love, and the body in America. Brown’s work blends musicality with deep introspection, using language to confront both personal and cultural experiences that shape our lives. The episode explores how Brown’s poetic vision creates space for empathy, complexity, and connection, encouraging listeners to consider the ways poetry can expand their understanding of self and society.

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In this episode of The Personhood Project, guest host Brooke Pillifant explores haiku poetry through the work of Masaya Saito and his collection Snow Bones. Brooke reflects on how haiku invites attention to brevity, stillness, and the present moment, and how meaning emerges through what is observed as much as what is left unsaid. The episode explores how Saito’s poems employ restraint, imagery, and silence to convey emotion and insight, inviting listeners to slow down and experience language with greater care. Through this lens, Brooke encourages writers to think about how small moments can carry expansive feeling, and how precision can open unexpected imaginative space.

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In this episode of The Personhood Project, guest host Brooke Pillifant reflects on the work of spoken-word poet Taylor Mali and his dedication to poetry as a vibrant, public art form. Brooke explores how Mali’s poems use performance, humor, and direct address to make poetry accessible, urgent, and deeply human. The episode explores spoken-word poetry as a space for connection, one that invites listeners to reflect on language, education, and the ways words shape our perceptions of ourselves and others. Brooke also discusses how Mali’s work embodies clarity and emotional honesty, demonstrating how poetry can convey its message plainly while still conveying depth, conviction, and care.

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In this mini episode of The Personhood Project, guest host Brooke Pillifant reflects on the poetry of Major Jackson and his attention to inner speech and quiet utterance. Brooke explores how Jackson uses poetry as a space to turn inward, listening closely to the music of language and the emotional rhythms of daily life. The episode views poetry as a sanctuary—one that allows Jackson to step away from the world's noise and focus on love, memory, witness, and meditation. Brooke also discusses how poetry has become a tool for reckoning and healing in the aftermath of personal loss, offering a path toward clarity, forgiveness, and illumination.

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In this episode of The Personhood Project, guest host Brooke Pillifant discusses the poetry of Sarah Ghazal Ali, a poet drawn to the immediacy and accessibility of the form. Brooke examines how Ali utilizes poetry as a contemplative and immersive space—one that invites readers into moments of reflection while engaging with questions of identity, spirituality, and self-awareness. The episode explores poetry as a therapeutic practice for Ali, a means to process complex emotions, envision alternative worlds, and navigate isolation and loss. Brooke also reflects on how Ali’s poems create a space to reconnect with family history and lineage, allowing imagination and ancestral memory to become sources of healing and connection.

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In this episode of The Personhood Project, guest host Brooke Pillifant explores the poetry of Oliver de la Paz, a poet drawn to the freedom, brevity, and depth the form allows. Brooke discusses how de la Paz uses poetry as a way to hold complex emotional truths in small, portable spaces—writing toward questions of parenthood, anxiety, and the world his children will inherit. The episode explores poetry as a tool for introspection and emotional growth, examining how de la Paz’s work, including The Boy in the Labyrinth, confronts trauma, mental health, and acceptance while inviting readers into a shared space of reflection and care.

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In this episode of The Personhood Project, guest host Brooke Pillifant turns her attention to the poetry of Luisa Muradyan, a Ukrainian-American poet and author of American Radiance. Brooke explores Muradyan’s understanding of poetry as a space of distance and quiet—a place to hide when vulnerability feels overwhelming. They discuss Muradyan’s metaphor of writing as navigating a dense forest, full of cover and shelter, and how that privacy enables her to write deeply personal poems rooted in family history and intergenerational trauma. The episode also considers Muradyan’s belief in poetry as a place to say the impossible, where tenderness and brutality can coexist, and where the act of naming pain becomes a powerful way to connect with others.

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In the season three debut episode of The Personhood Project, guest host Brooke Pillifant takes a closer look at ekphrastic poetry through the work of Diane Seuss and her collection Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl. Brooke explores how ekphrastic poems respond to visual art, how attention and observation shape the poem on the page, and the ways Seuss uses stillness, description, and voice to move beyond the image itself. The episode invites listeners to think about how looking closely can open new emotional and imaginative spaces in poetry—and in our own writing.

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