Beloveds, lovers, and loves—new episodes are coming to you, right here in this feed, starting January 25, 2021. Wash your hands. Get ready. It's gonna be good. 

Congrats! You, us, we have made it through two whole seasons of this wacky little experiment to get poets to talk to us about poems. Can't think of more lovely way to close us out than with this conversation with the one and only Justin Phillip Reed on Reginald Shepherd's "Occurrences across the Chromatic Scale". Listen to us astonish, awe, swell, delight, and learn from, over, below this poem. Then be sure to go back and re-listen the very first episode. It's a treat!

JUSTIN PHILLIP REED is an American poet, essayist, and amateur bass guitarist. His preoccupations include horror cinema, poetic form, morphological transgressions, and uses of the grotesque. He is the author of two poetry collections: The Malevolent Volume (2020) and Indecency (2018), both published by Coffee House Press. He participates in vague spirituality and alternative rock music cultures. He was born and raised in South Carolina and enjoys smelling like outside

REGINALD SHEPHERD was born on April 10, 1963, in New York City and raised in tenements and housing projects in the Bronx. He received his BA from Bennington College in 1988 and MFA degrees from Brown University and the University of Iowa. His first collection, Some Are Drowning (1994), was chosen by Carolyn Forché for the Associated Writing Programs' Award in Poetry. His other collections are Fata Morgana (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007), winner of the Silver Medal of the 2007 Florida Book Awards; Otherhood (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003), a finalist for the 2004 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; Wrong (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999); and Angel, Interrupted (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996). He is also the author of Orpheus in the Bronx: Essays on Identity, Politics, and the Freedom of Poetry (Poets on Poetry Series, University of Michigan Press, 2007) and the editor of The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries (University of Iowa Press, 2004) and of Lyric Postmodernisms (Counterpath Press, 2008). His work has been widely anthologized, and has appeared in four editions of The Best American Poetry and two Pushcart Prize anthologies. His honors and awards include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, the Florida Arts Council, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He lived in Pensacola, Florida. Shepherd died on September 10, 2008.

Hello beautifuls—we're nearing the end of our second season (one more episode to go!) and we're grateful you're here with us. This week we answer TWO audience questions about capital-P Poetry and reading rituals. Then, we get the chance to (virtually) chop it up with the one and only delight Justin Phillip Reed.

JUSTIN PHILLIP REED is an American poet, essayist, and amateur bass guitarist. His preoccupations include horror cinema, poetic form, morphological transgressions, and uses of the grotesque. He is the author of two poetry collections: The Malevolent Volume (2020) and Indecency (2018), both published by Coffee House Press. He participates in vague spirituality and alternative rock music cultures. He was born and raised in South Carolina and enjoys smelling like outside.

WHISKEY FROM THE BOTTLE: Whiskey from the bottle to your mouth.

Donate to bailout fund, pass it on.

Following up on last week's conversation with one of our favs Keetje Kuipers, today, we dig into one of her mentor's poems "Quarantine" by Eavan Boland.

Writer and editor KEETJE KUIPERS (pronounced Kay-tcha Ky-pers) is the author of three books of poems, all from BOA Editions. Her first book, Beautiful in the Mouth, was selected by Thomas Lux as the winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. Named one of the top ten debut poetry books of 2010 by Poets & Writers, her first book also appeared in the top ten on the contemporary poetry bestseller list. Her second collection, The Keys to the Jail (2014), was a book club selection for The Rumpus, and her third book, All Its Charms (2019), includes poems honored by publication in both The Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies.

EAVAN BOLAND was born in Dublin, Ireland, on September 24, 1944. Her father was a diplomat and her mother was an expressionist painter. At the age of six, Boland moved with her family to London, where she first encountered anti-Irish sentiment. She later returned to Dublin for school, and she received her B.A. from Trinity College in 1966. She was also educated in London and New York. Boland's poetry collections include A Poet's Dublin (Carcanet Press, 2014), A Woman Without a Country (W. W. Norton, 2014), New Collected Poems (W. W. Norton, 2008), An Origin Like Water: Collected Poems 1967-1987 (W. W. Norton, 1996), and In Her Own Image (Arien House, 1980).

Another week, another hundred hand-washes. This week we get dig into ways to unstick writer's block before the blessing that was the virtual company of Keetje Kuipers. Together, we talk about symmetry, sadness, and sticking cold cheese in unexpected places. Buckle up!

Writer and editor KEETJE KUIPERS (pronounced Kay-tcha Ky-pers) is the author of three books of poems, all from BOA Editions. Her first book, Beautiful in the Mouth, was selected by Thomas Lux as the winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. Named one of the top ten debut poetry books of 2010 by Poets & Writers, her first book also appeared in the top ten on the contemporary poetry bestseller list. Her second collection, The Keys to the Jail (2014), was a book club selection for The Rumpus, and her third book, All Its Charms (2019), includes poems honored by publication in both The Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies.

THE SMALL TOWN DRAG SHOW: fresh grapefruit juice, rose water, campari, served in a bedazzled mason jar

Yooo we did it! Another week, another episode. In this one, the one-and-only Aria Aber brings in Solmaz Sharif's "The Master's House" to binge and revel and geek and play and laugh and pray. And oh did we—

ARIA ABER was raised in Germany. Her debut book Hard Damage won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry and was published in September 2019. Her poems are forthcoming or have appeared in The New Yorker, New Republic, Kenyon Review, The Yale Review, Poem-A-Day, Narrative, Muzzle Magazine, Wasafiri and elsewhere. A graduate from the NYU MFA in Creative Writing, where she was the Writers in Public Schools Fellow, she holds awards and fellowships from Kundiman, Dickinson House, and the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing. For Spring 2020, Aber will be the Li Shen Visiting Writer at Mills College. She is at work on a second book of poems and a novel.

Born in Istanbul to Iranian parents, SOLMAZ SHARIF holds degrees from U.C. Berkeley, where she studied and taught with June Jordan’s Poetry for the People, and New York University. Her work has appeared in Harper’s, The Paris Review, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, the New York Times, and others. The former managing director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, her work has been recognized with a “Discovery”/Boston Review Poetry Prize, Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, and an NEA fellowship. She was most recently selected to receive a 2016 Lannan Literary Fellowship and the 2017 Holmes National Poetry Prize from Princeton University. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, she is currently an Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at Arizona State University. Her first poetry collection, LOOK, published by Graywolf Press in 2016, was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Friends! Lovers! Nemeses! Hope you're washing your hands! This episode is our first recording entirely remotely—including our interview with special guest Aria Aber, who was gracious enough to deal with a combination of technical difficulties and our muddled quarantine brains. No amount of ambient noise could get in the way of her sheer brilliance though. 

ARIA ABER was raised in Germany. Her debut book Hard Damage won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry and was published in September 2019. Her poems are forthcoming or have appeared in The New Yorker, New Republic, Kenyon Review, The Yale Review, Poem-A-Day, Narrative, Muzzle Magazine, Wasafiri and elsewhere. A graduate from the NYU MFA in Creative Writing, where she was the Writers in Public Schools Fellow, she holds awards and fellowships from Kundiman, Dickinson House, and the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing. For Spring 2020, Aber will be the Li Shen Visiting Writer at Mills College. She is at work on a second book of poems and a novel.

DUINO MOJITO: muddled mint and a scoop of limone sorbet in a coup glass, topped with rum, fresh lime, and a splash of soda

Hi loves, we're back with part deux of our conversation with the vibrant Michelle Peñaloza. Coming off of last week's lovely conversation about her own work, for this episode, she brought in Douglas Kerney's "Tallahatchie Lullabye, Baby". We excited to share the poem and this chat with you. Hope you're staying safe!

MICHELLE PEÑALOZA is the author of Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire, winner of the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk National Poetry Prize (Inlandia Books, 2019). She is also the author of two chapbooks, landscape/heartbreak (Two Sylvias, 2015), and Last Night I Dreamt of Volcanoes (Organic Weapon Arts, 2015). The recipient of fellowships and awards from the University of Oregon, Kundiman, Hugo House and The Key West Literary Seminar, Michelle has also received support from Lemon Tree House, Caldera, 4Culture, Literary Arts, VONA/Voices, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, among others. The proud daughter of Filipino immigrants, Michelle was born in the suburbs of Detroit, MI and raised in Nashville, TN. She now lives in rural Northern California.

DOUGLAS KERNEY has published six books, most recently, Buck Studies (Fence Books, 2016), winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Award, the CLMP Firecracker Award for Poetry and silver medalist for the California Book Award (Poetry). BOMB says: “[Buck Studies] remaps the 20th century in a project that is both lyrical and epic, personal and historical.” M. NourbeSe Philip calls Kearney’s collection of libretti, Someone Took They Tongues. (Subito, 2016), “a seismic, polyphonic mash-up that disturbs the tongue.” Kearney’s collection of writing on poetics and performativity, Mess and Mess and (Noemi Press, 2015), was a Small Press Distribution Handpicked Selection that Publisher’s Weekly called “an extraordinary book.” His work is widely anthologized, including Best American Poetry (2014, 2015), Best American Experimental Writing (2014), The Creative Critic: Writing As/About Practice, What I Say: Innovative Poetry by Black Writers in America, and The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop. He is also widely published in magazines and journals, including Poetry, Callaloo, Boston Review, Hyperallergic, Jacket2, and Lana Turner. His work has been exhibited at the American Jazz Museum, Temple Contemporary, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, and The Visitor’s Welcome Center (Los Angeles). A librettist, Kearney has had four operas staged, most recently Sweet Land, which received rave reviews fro The LA Times, The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The LA Weekly. He has received a Whiting Writer’s Award, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, residencies/fellowships from Cave Canem, The Rauschenberg Foundation, and others. A Howard University and CalArts alum, Kearney teaches Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities. Born in Brooklyn, raised in Altadena, CA, he lives with his family in St. Paul. 

This week, friends, we're sitting with the question "So what do you write about?" ahead of a lovely conversation with Michelle Peñaloza. We chop it up about confession, contrast, and kasamas while sipping on Fire and Chrysanthemums. Enjoy!

MICHELLE PEÑALOZA is the author of Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire, winner of the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk National Poetry Prize (Inlandia Books, 2019). She is also the author of two chapbooks, landscape/heartbreak (Two Sylvias, 2015), and Last Night I Dreamt of Volcanoes (Organic Weapon Arts, 2015). The recipient of fellowships and awards from the University of Oregon, Kundiman, Hugo House and The Key West Literary Seminar, Michelle has also received support from Lemon Tree House, Caldera, 4Culture, Literary Arts, VONA/Voices, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, among others. The proud daughter of Filipino immigrants, Michelle was born in the suburbs of Detroit, MI and raised in Nashville, TN. She now lives in rural Northern California.

FIRE AND CHRYSANTHEMUMS: Chrysanthemum tea, Scotch and lemon juice, garnished with burnt lemon.

Hope you're staying safe, loves! This week we've got a special bonus episode for you:  The Craft of the Literary Podcast Interview, which was initially slated to be an AWP panel. Due to pandemic, it was cancelled, but you still get to hear the conversation between Mike Sakesegawa of Keep the Channel Open, Rachel Zucker of Commonplace, David Naimon of Between the Covers, and our very own Dujie Tahat. They discuss topics like how do we come up with questions, is the podcast inherently selfish, and other juicy tidbits. We'll be back next week with some regularly scheduled programming. Be well in the meantime!