The Poet Salon

Come on in, habibi. Last week, we talked to local and national treasure Paul Hlava Ceballos about bananas, beating hearts, and beginnings. And babe, this week, he brought in an incredible poem we hadn't encountered before—"The Bathers" by Lorenzo Thomas—and believe you we, you're 'bout to become a fan!

Paul Hlava Ceballos is the author of banana [ ], winner of the AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry, the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His collaborative chapbook, Banana [ ] / we pilot the blood, shares pages with Quenton Baker, Christina Sharpe, and Torkwase Dyson. He has fellowships from CantoMundo, Artist Trust, and the Poets House. He has been featured on the Poetry Magazine Podcast, Seattle’s the Stranger, and his work has been translated to Ukrainian. He currently lives in Seattle, where he practices echocardiography.

Lorenzo Thomas, a key figure in the Black Arts Movement, was born in Panama City, Panama, on August 31, 1944. Thomas moved to New York City with family in 1948. His father, Herbert Hamilton Thomas, a pharmacist, was originally from St. Vincent. Thomas’s mother, Luzmilda Thomas (née Gilling), was a Jamaican-born Costa Rican who worked as a community activist. Thomas was raised in a Spanish-speaking household. He became fluent in English while growing up in the Bronx and Queens. He sought to master the language to avoid bullies who teased him for his accent. Around this time, he developed an interest in creative writing. Thomas attended Queens College, where he earned a BA in 1967. Thomas published six poetry collections during his lifetime: Dancing on Main Street (Coffee House Press, 2004); Sound Science (Sunbe/am, 1992); The Bathers (I. Reed Books, 1981); Chances Are Few (Blue Wind Press, 1979); Dracula (Angel Hair Press, 1973); and A Visible Island (Adlib Press, 1967). In 2019, The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas (Wesleyan University Press), the first full collection of his works, was published posthumously. Thomas also authored works of nonfiction, including the critical studies, Extraordinary Measures: Afrocentric Modernism and Twentieth-Century American Poetry (University of Alabama Press, 2000) and Don’t Deny My Name: Words and Music and the Black Intellectual Tradition (The University of Michigan Press, 2008).

Lover, lover—parting was such sweet sorrow, but sweeter, still, to find you here again. This week, we got the vibrant and ingenious Seattle poet Paul Hlava Ceballos to sit down with us and talk about bananas, beginnings, and being dope. It's bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

Paul Hlava Ceballos is the author of banana [ ], winner of the AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry, the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His collaborative chapbook, Banana [ ] / we pilot the blood, shares pages with Quenton Baker, Christina Sharpe, and Torkwase Dyson. He has fellowships from CantoMundo, Artist Trust, and the Poets House. He has been featured on the Poetry Magazine Podcast, Seattle’s the Stranger, and his work has been translated to Ukrainian. He currently lives in Seattle, where he practices echocardiography.

Dark and Stormy made with sweet dark rum, spicy ginger beer, and fresh lime, served with lots of crushed ice in a highball glass. 

Ahh what sweetness to read and listen to poems. This week, our favorite New York poet expert Sandra Lim brought in "New York Address" by your favorite poet's favorite poet Linda Gregg. If you are interested in images, how they work, what they are or aren't, you're in for a treat!

Sandra Lim was born in Seoul, Korea, and grew up in California. A graduate of Stanford University, the University of California Berkeley, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she has published three poetry collections: Loveliest Grotesque, winner of the Kore Press First Book Award; The Wilderness, winner of a Barnard Women Poets Prize; and The Curious Thing, which came out from Norton in 2021. Her honors include the Jackson Poetry Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as fellowships from MacDowell, the Getty Foundation, and the Hawthornden Foundation. She was named the 2023 Distinguished University Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where she teaches creative writing and literature.

Linda Gregg (1942 – 2019) was born in Suffern, New York and grew up in Marin County, California. She received her BA and MA from San Francisco State University. Gregg’s first book of poems, Too Bright to See, was published by Graywolf Press in 1981. She went on to publish several collections of poetry, including All of It Singing: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 2008), the 2009 recipient of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and winner of the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Award; In the Middle Distance (Graywolf Press, 2006); Things and Flesh (Graywolf Press, 1999); and Alma (Random House, 1985). Gregg’s honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Foundation Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Whiting Writer’s Award, as well as multiple Pushcart Prizes. 

Hi hi hi, lovelies. So exciting to present to you, dearest, our first guest of season 4. We were blessed with the presence of the brilliant Sandra Lim who we talked to about cities, silence, and the specificity of time and space. Enjoy! xoxo

Sandra Lim was born in Seoul, Korea, and grew up in California. A graduate of Stanford University, the University of California Berkeley, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she has published three poetry collections: Loveliest Grotesque, winner of the Kore Press First Book Award; The Wilderness, winner of a Barnard Women Poets Prize; and The Curious Thing, which came out from Norton in 2021. Her honors include the Jackson Poetry Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as fellowships from MacDowell, the Getty Foundation, and the Hawthornden Foundation. She was named the 2023 Distinguished University Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where she teaches creative writing and literature.

Hotel Bar Martini: 4 parts gin, 1 part dry vermouth, Caper berry garnish (briny)

*dusts off the cobwebs*

It's so good to be back in your ear holes! 

Next week, we'll be back with our regular-degular set up—a phenomenal interview with a brilliant guest!—but this week, we thought we'd ease into it with a little update. 

Gabby, Lue, and Dujie sit down (with microphones, recording turned on) to talk about the books, writing, reading, and neighborly activities that have been filling our time since you last heard from us.

It has been literal years, so let's catch up. 

xoxo

Website: thepoetsalon.com

Instagram: @poetsalonpod

Email: [email protected]

Friends, lovers, bilches—this episode wraps up our pandemic season of The Poet Salon, and what an episode it is! After chopping it up with Amaud Jamaul Johnson on smoke, speakers, and silences, he brought us Linda Gregg's "The Poet Goes About Her Business." If this is your first encounter with the poem, we're excited for you but also very jealous.

Born and raised in Compton, California, educated at Howard University and Cornell University, AMAUD JAMAUL JOHNSON is the author of three poetry collections, Red Summer, Darktown Follies, and Imperial Liquor (Pitt Poetry Series, 2020). A former Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford, MacDowell Fellow, and Cave Canem Fellow, his honors include the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the Dorset Prize, and a Pushcart Prize. His work has appeared in Best American Poetry, American Poetry Review, The New York Times Magazine, Kenyon Review, Callaloo, Narrative Magazine, Crazyhorse, Indiana Review, The Southern Review, Harvard Review and elsewhere. His most recent collection was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2021 UNT Rilke Prize.

LINDA GREGG was born in New York and raised in Marin County, California. She earned both a BA and an MA from San Francisco State University. Gregg published many several collections of poetry, including All of It Singing: New and Selected Poems (2008), a Los Angeles Times Favorite Book of 2008 and winner of the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Award; In the Middle Distance (2006); Things and Flesh (1999), finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award for Poetry; Chosen by the Lion (1995); Sacraments of Desire (1992); Alma (1985); and Too Bright to See (1981). Gregg’s lyrical poetry is often admired for its ability to discuss grief, desire, and longing with electrifying craftsmanship and poise. 

Good day, bilches! We're winding down this stab at a third season with our last, luminous guest, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, with whom we discuss advisorship, allusion, and arrangement.

Born and raised in Compton, California, educated at Howard University and Cornell University, AMAUD JAMAUL JOHNSON is the author of three poetry collections, Red Summer, Darktown Follies, and Imperial Liquor (Pitt Poetry Series, 2020). A former Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford, MacDowell Fellow, and Cave Canem Fellow, his honors include the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the Dorset Prize, and a Pushcart Prize. His work has appeared in Best American Poetry, American Poetry Review, The New York Times Magazine, Kenyon Review, Callaloo, Narrative Magazine, Crazyhorse, Indiana Review, The Southern Review, Harvard Review and elsewhere. His most recent collection was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2021 UNT Rilke Prize.

NEAT GLASS OF THE MACALLAN FINE WHISKY: The Macallan Fine & Vintage Single Malt Scotch Whisky, nothing else.

Salami lovers, soup slurpers, and salad spinners—this week Jane Wong served up the one and only Gwendolyn Brooks. In this episode, you'll hear us eat up Brooks' "when you have forgotten sunday: the love story"

JANE WONG is the author of How to Not Be Afraid of Everything from Alice James Books and Overpour from Action Books. A Kunidman fellow, she is the recipient of a Pushcart prize and fellowships and residencies from the US Fulbright program, Artist Trust, 4Culture, The Fine Arts Work Center, Bread Loaf, Hedgebrook, and more.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS is one of the most highly regarded, influential, and widely read poets of 20th-century American poetry. She was a much-honored poet, even in her lifetime, with the distinction of being the first Black author to win the Pulitzer Prize. She also was poetry consultant to the Library of Congress—the first Black woman to hold that position—and poet laureate of the State of Illinois. Many of Brooks’s works display a political consciousness, especially those from the 1960s and later, with several of her poems reflecting the civil rights activism of that period. Her body of work gave her, according to critic George E. Kent, “a unique position in American letters. Not only has she combined a strong commitment to racial identity and equality with a mastery of poetic techniques, but she has also managed to bridge the gap between the academic poets of her generation in the 1940s and the young Black militant writers of the 1960s.” (read the rest here)

Dear lovers and frenemies—we're marching along through the end of this season. Our latest offering is a lovely conversation with Jane Wong with whom we discuss food, framings and frontiers. Phew.

JANE WONG is the author of How to Not Be Afraid of Everything from Alice James Books and Overpour from Action Books. A Kunidman fellow, she is the recipient of a Pushcart prize and fellowships and residencies from the US Fulbright program, Artist Trust, 4Culture, The Fine Arts Work Center, Bread Loaf, Hedgebrook, and more.

WILD FIRE SEASON: An old fashioned with palo santo bitters and a singed orange rind.

Frenz, as promised, here is Carl Phillips' reading our first-ever haiku on The Poet Salon, Kobayashi Issa's "[The world of dew]" or "On the Death of a Child." 

CARL PHILLIPS is the author of fourteen books of poetry, most recently Pale Colors in a Tall Field (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020). He has won the Kingsley Tufts Award and been a finalist for the National Book Award. He currently teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.

Japanese poet KOBAYASHI ISSA, also known as Kobayashi Yataro and Kobayashi Nobuyuki, was born in Kashiwabara, Shinanao province. He eventually took the pen name Issa, which means “cup of tea” or, according to poet Robert Hass, “a single bubble in steeping tea.” Issa’s haiku are as attentive to the small creatures of the world—mosquitoes, bats, cats—as they are tinged with sorrow and an awareness of the nuances of human behavior. In addition to haiku, Issa wrote pieces that intertwined prose and poetry, including Journal of My Father’s Last Days and The Year of My Life.