In this Season 10 finale of The Poet Speaks Podcast, host Amanda Eke sits with Muttertongue — Lillian Allen, Gary Barwin, and Gregory Betts — to explore poetry as sound, collaboration, and living archive.

Their latest project, What Is a Word in Utter Space, is a sonic poetry LP that bends language beyond the page, inviting listeners into a layered soundscape where voice, rhythm, and experimentation converge. Together, we discuss the making of the album, the power of collective creation, and how poetry can exist as frequency, memory, and resistance.

This conversation moves through questions of utterance and listening, art as collaboration, and what it means to create poetry that refuses stillness. More than an interview, this episode is an experience — a closing reflection on a season rooted in culture, testimony, and imagination.
Season 10 has been a journey of voices, histories, and futures. We close with resonance.

📀 What Is a Word in Utter Space — available via Siren Recordings: https://sirenrecordings.com/shop

CHECK OUT AMANDA'S NEW TV SHOW: The Poet Speaks with Amanda Eke! Now airing on the Archaeology Channel, PBS and Roku!

SUBSCRIBE AND STREAM HERE:
https://heritagetac.org/programs/the-poet-speaks-with-amanda-eke-i28z2vn9bsc?category_id=65263

PBS: https://www.pbs.org/show/the-poet-speaks-with-amanda-eke/?source=social

Be sure to check out The Poet Speaks Podcast on Instagram:
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And listen to,The Poet Speaks Podcast, on the go on ALL STREAMING PLATFORMS WORLDWIDE!
Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1cM1rdF...

Did you know The Poet Speaks is also Amanda's touring global workshop?
 
She teaches people all about how to make, create and the history of Spoken Word and Indigenous oral traditions! To make a booking for The Poet Speaks Workshop with your organization, apply for mentorships with Amanda, book interviews, as well as writing consultations, please use this link: https://www.amandaeke.com/services

Music by: Buzu Buzu
https://www.instagram.com/bbuzu/

Check out Amanda's conversation with Uche Nduka!

Uche Nduka is a Nigerian American poet-pilgrim, collagist, and essayist presently living in New York City. He is the author of 15 volumes of poems of which the latest are BAINBRIDGE ISLAND NOTEBOOK(Roof Books, 2023) and TO UMBER(The Bodily Press,2025). A NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Poetry, his writing has been translated into Italian, Finnish, Turkish, Arabic, Dutch, German, Serbo-Croat, Romanian. His essays on music, poetry, mortality, politics, and travel have appeared in various online and print outlets. He teaches at the New School's Eugene Lang College and Queens College-CUNY.

Uche's Links: https://uchenduka.com/

CHECK OUT AMANDA'S NEW TV SHOW: The Poet Speaks with Amanda Eke! Now airing on the Archaeology Channel, PBS and Roku!
SUBSCRIBE AND STREAM HERE:

https://heritagetac.org/programs/the-poet-speaks-with-amanda-eke-i28z2vn9bsc?category_id=65263
PBS: https://www.pbs.org/show/the-poet-speaks-with-amanda-eke/?source=social

Be sure to check out The Poet Speaks Podcast on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/thepoetspeakspodcast/

And listen to,The Poet Speaks Podcast, on the go on ALL STREAMING PLATFORMS WORLDWIDE!
Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1cM1rdF...
Did you know The Poet Speaks is also Amanda's touring global workshop?
 
She teaches people all about how to make, create and the history of Spoken Word and Indigenous oral traditions! To make a booking for The Poet Speaks Workshop with your organization, apply for mentorships with Amanda, book interviews, as well as writing consultations, please use this link: https://www.amandaeke.com/services

Music by: Buzu Buzu
https://www.instagram.com/bbuzu/

Check out Amanda's conversation with Tiriq Rashad!

A proud native of Atlantic City and Pleasantville, or “Atlantic-Ville” as he affectionately calls it, Tiriq Rashad draws deeply from his roots to craft a narrative style steeped in resilience, authenticity, and empathy. With a master’s degree in social work and a calling to heal through words, he has built a body of work that speaks to the soul while confronting life’s most difficult truths. His previous literary works, including his memoir A Diamond In God’s Dirt and his debut poetry collection, shine through our shade: an evolution of self-love, have garnered praise from readers and critics alike, including legendary poet Nikki Giovanni, who lauded his ability to capture both the universal human experience and the nuanced struggles of African American life.

His forthcoming album, Kiss My Art, is a soul-baring exploration of grief, healing, identity, and creative liberation. Rashad’s mastery of spoken word is complemented by lush arrangements of jazz and hip-hop, creating an immersive soundscape for his storytelling. From the album’s opening moments—anchored by the tender voicemail from his late mother—to the closing affirmation of strength in “Still Here,” every track is crafted to reveal resilience in the face of life’s storms. It is not just an album; it is a living memoir set to music, a testament to the courage it takes to feel, reflect, and grow.

Tiriq's Links: https://tiriqrashad.com/

CHECK OUT AMANDA'S NEW TV SHOW: The Poet Speaks with Amanda Eke! Now airing on the Archaeology Channel, PBS and Roku!

SUBSCRIBE AND STREAM HERE:
https://heritagetac.org/programs/the-poet-speaks-with-amanda-eke-i28z2vn9bsc?category_id=65263
PBS: https://www.pbs.org/show/the-poet-speaks-with-amanda-eke/?source=social

Be sure to check out The Poet Speaks Podcast on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/thepoetspeakspodcast/

And listen to,The Poet Speaks Podcast, on the go on ALL STREAMING PLATFORMS WORLDWIDE!
Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1cM1rdF...
Did you know The Poet Speaks is also Amanda's touring global workshop?
 
She teaches people all about how to make, create and the history of Spoken Word and Indigenous oral traditions! To make a booking for The Poet Speaks Workshop with your organization, apply for mentorships with Amanda, book interviews, as well as writing consultations, please use this link: https://www.amandaeke.com/services

Music by: Buzu Buzu
https://www.instagram.com/bbuzu/

Check out Amanda's conversation with Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi!

Fatima's work strives to instigate action in service to world-building, social change, and collaboration. Her poems live in Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, MAYDAY, Torch, Rise Up Review, and other portals. She is a fellow of the Pink Door Writing Retreat, the Anaphora Arts Writing Residency, In Surreal Life, and the Abode Virtual Summer Retreat. She is the author of the chapbooks EVERYTHING GOOD IS DYING and Moon Woman. Her first full-length poetry collection, DREAMS FOR EARTH, is forthcoming from Deep Vellum in 2025.

Fatima's Links: https://fatimaayanmalikahirsi.com/

CHECK OUT AMANDA'S NEW TV SHOW: The Poet Speaks with Amanda Eke! Now airing on the Archaeology Channel, PBS and Roku!

SUBSCRIBE AND STREAM HERE:
https://heritagetac.org/programs/the-poet-speaks-with-amanda-eke-i28z2vn9bsc?category_id=65263

PBS: https://www.pbs.org/show/the-poet-speaks-with-amanda-eke/?source=social

Be sure to check out The Poet Speaks Podcast on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/thepoetspeakspodcast/

And listen to,The Poet Speaks Podcast, on the go on ALL STREAMING PLATFORMS WORLDWIDE!

Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1cM1rdF...

Did you know The Poet Speaks is also Amanda's touring global workshop?
 
She teaches people all about how to make, create and the history of Spoken Word and Indigenous oral traditions! To make a booking for The Poet Speaks Workshop with your organization, apply for mentorships with Amanda, book interviews, as well as writing consultations, please use this link: https://www.amandaeke.com/services

Music by: Buzu Buzu
https://www.instagram.com/bbuzu/

Check out Amanda's conversation with Erica Miriam Fabri!

Erica Miriam Fabri is a Brooklyn-based poet. Her first book, Dialect of a Skirt, published by Hanging Loose Press (2010), was a finalist for the 2011 Paterson Poetry Prize and included on the list for: The Best Books of 2010 at About.com; and the bestseller lists for Small Press Distribution and the Poetry Foundation. Her second book, Morphology, (2025) was the winner of the Write Bloody Publishing Jack McCarthy book award.
Her work has been published in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies and she has worked on projects as a writer, editor, and performance director for The New York Knicks, Urban Word NYC, HBO, and Nickelodeon Television. Her poetry has been featured in multi-media formats for short films and television commercial programming.  
She has been awarded a writer’s residency at the Omega Institute and has been a featured and/or visiting poet and performer for numerous art festivals and outreach programs including drug rehabilitation centers, prisons and hospitals.
She teaches Performance Poetry and Fiction at Pace University, as well as Essay Writing at College of Staten Island for the City University of New York (CUNY). 

Erica's Links: ericafabri.com

CHECK OUT AMANDA'S NEW TV SHOW: The Poet Speaks with Amanda Eke! Now airing on the Archaeology Channel, PBS and Roku!

SUBSCRIBE AND STREAM HERE:
https://heritagetac.org/programs/the-poet-speaks-with-amanda-eke-i28z2vn9bsc?category_id=65263

PBS: https://www.pbs.org/show/the-poet-speaks-with-amanda-eke/?source=social

Be sure to check out The Poet Speaks Podcast on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/thepoetspeakspodcast/

And listen to,The Poet Speaks Podcast, on the go on ALL STREAMING PLATFORMS WORLDWIDE!
Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1cM1rdF...

Did you know The Poet Speaks is also Amanda's touring global workshop?
 
She teaches people all about how to make, create and the history of Spoken Word and Indigenous oral traditions! To make a booking for The Poet Speaks Workshop with your organization, apply for mentorships with Amanda, book interviews, as well as writing consultations, please use this link: https://www.amandaeke.com/services

Music by: Buzu Buzu
https://www.instagram.com/bbuzu/

Check out Amanda's conversation with Keys Will!

Keys Will is a poet, author, and educator whose pen-seasoned lines rise from lived experience and the work of becoming. Under her moniker Keys Will, she crafts poetry and prose with quiet power: inviting readers and listeners into spaces of healing, introspection, and reclamation. Her chapbook Chrysalis (and upcoming works) mark her as a vital contemporary voice reshaping what it means to season language with truth. Whether in classrooms, reading rooms, or virtual spaces, Keys Will bridges the personal and the universal. Making every stanza a place to belong.

Key's Links:  ⁨@Onlykeyswill⁩  

CHECK OUT AMANDA'S NEW TV SHOW: The Poet Speaks with Amanda Eke! Now airing on the Archaeology Channel, PBS and Roku!

SUBSCRIBE AND STREAM HERE:
https://heritagetac.org/programs/the-poet-speaks-with-amanda-eke-i28z2vn9bsc?category_id=65263

PBS: https://www.pbs.org/show/the-poet-speaks-with-amanda-eke/?source=social

Be sure to check out The Poet Speaks Podcast on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/thepoetspeakspodcast/

And listen to,The Poet Speaks Podcast, on the go on ALL STREAMING PLATFORMS WORLDWIDE!
Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1cM1rdF...

Did you know The Poet Speaks is also Amanda's touring global workshop?
 
She teaches people all about how to make, create and the history of Spoken Word and Indigenous oral traditions! To make a booking for The Poet Speaks Workshop with your organization, apply for mentorships with Amanda, book interviews, as well as writing consultations, please use this link: https://www.amandaeke.com/services

Music by: Buzu Buzu
https://www.instagram.com/bbuzu/

Season 10 of The Poet Speaks opens with a historic conversation with Richard Blanco, Presidential Inaugural Poet, award-winning author, educator, and cultural voice! 

Born in Spain to Cuban exile parents and raised in Miami, Richard has long explored the universal themes of home, identity, and belonging through his poetry, memoirs, and public work. In this episode, he and Amanda reflect on his journey as the youngest, first Latinx, immigrant, and openly gay Inaugural Poet, the meaning of home within ourselves, and the power of poetry to illuminate personal and collective stories. Tune in for an intimate, thought-provoking, and inspiring dialogue on art, life, and the spaces we carry with us.

Richard's Links: https://richard-blanco.com/

CHECK OUT AMANDA'S NEW TV SHOW: The Poet Speaks with Amanda Eke! Now airing on the Archaeology Channel, PBS and Roku!

SUBSCRIBE AND STREAM HERE:
https://heritagetac.org/programs/the-poet-speaks-with-amanda-eke-i28z2vn9bsc?category_id=65263

PBS: https://www.pbs.org/show/the-poet-speaks-with-amanda-eke/?source=social

Be sure to check out The Poet Speaks Podcast on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/thepoetspeakspodcast/

And listen to,The Poet Speaks Podcast, on the go on ALL STREAMING PLATFORMS WORLDWIDE!
Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1cM1rdF...

Did you know The Poet Speaks is also Amanda's touring global workshop?
 
She teaches people all about how to make, create and the history of Spoken Word and Indigenous oral traditions! To make a booking for The Poet Speaks Workshop with your organization, apply for mentorships with Amanda, book interviews, as well as writing consultations, please use this link: https://www.amandaeke.com/services

Music by: Buzu Buzu
https://www.instagram.com/bbuzu/

It's the SEASON 9 Finale!

Check out Amanda's conversation with Mason Granger !

Mason Granger (he/him) is a spoken word artist with over a decade of experience on stages & in educational settings across all 50 states and nine countries. His work centers around matters of class, nature, and sustainability-- both of ourselves as human beings and the world we share-- all from an imaginative and forward-thinking perspective.

As the inaugural Poet in Residence of the Schwarzenegger Institute at USC and an LA-Paris 2024 Poetic Games Olympic Showcase Awardee, Mason is one of Southern California's most engaging poetic voices. Whether inhabiting a stage himself or making space for others' voices to shine, Mason's approach to the craft of spoken word poetry emphasizes engagement, connection, and creativity. His philosophy is simple: Teachers make sure you walk out knowing what you need to know; poets make sure you walk out feeling what you need to feel. Mason's work, intentionally, makes sure you walk out with both cups full.

As a poet, Mason has been featured on ESPN (2011) , PBS (2018), the Golden Globes (2021), multiple national magazines, and founded a spoken word YouTube channel (2014), SlamFind, with 100,000 subscribers. As an educator and nonprofit director at Get Lit - Words Ignite in LA (2024) and Bowery Poetry Club in NYC (2019), his students have performed for The Last Poets (2018), Prince Harry & Meaghan Markle (2021), been named National Youth Poet Laureate (2023), and achieved countless other accolades. He created poetry exchange programs in Romania (2019) and The Netherlands (2024), performed at the Austrian World Summit (2024), and did a backflip once (2003).

At the end of the day, however, it's not about an individual's past accomplishments, but how we can all build a better future based on the moments we create together in the present. Spoken word poetry, at its very best, is a living art form, and filling a room with that Life--no matter where, when, or with who-- is what inspires Mason every time he steps on stage.


Mason's Links: @masongranger 

CHECK OUT AMANDA'S NEW TV SHOW: The Poet Speaks with Amanda Eke! Now airing on the Archaeology Channel and Roku!

STREAM HERE:
https://heritagetac.org/programs/the-poet-speaks-with-amanda-eke-i28z2vn9bsc?category_id=65263

Be sure to check out The Poet Speaks Podcast on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/thepoetspeakspodcast/

And listen to,The Poet Speaks Podcast, on the go on ALL STREAMING PLATFORMS WORLDWIDE!

Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1cM1rdF...

Did you know The Poet Speaks is also Amanda's touring global workshop? She teaches people all about how to make, create and the history of Spoken Word and Indigenous oral traditions! To make a booking for The Poet Speaks Workshop with your organization, apply for mentorships with Amanda, book interviews, as well as writing consultations, please use this link: https://www.amandaeke.com/services

Music by: Buzu Buzu
https://www.instagram.com/bbuzu/

Check out Amanda's conversation with Adela Najarro!

Adela Najarro is the author of four poetry collections, including Volcanic Interruptions, which earned an Honorable Mention at the 2024 International Latino Book Awards. Her forthcoming collection, Variations in Blue, will be published in March 2025 by Letras Latinas/Red Hen Press.
A California Arts Council Fellow, Najarro is a passionate advocate for Latine/x arts and social justice, serving on the board of Círculo de Poetas and Writers. She holds a doctorate in literature and creative writing from Western Michigan University and an M.F.A. from Vermont College. 

Adela's Links: @adelanajarro

CHECK OUT AMANDA'S NEW TV SHOW: The Poet Speaks with Amanda Eke! Now airing on the Archaeology Channel and Roku!

STREAM HERE:
https://heritagetac.org/programs/the-poet-speaks-with-amanda-eke-i28z2vn9bsc?category_id=65263

Be sure to check out The Poet Speaks Podcast on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/thepoetspeakspodcast/

And listen to,The Poet Speaks Podcast, on the go on ALL STREAMING PLATFORMS WORLDWIDE!

Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1cM1rdF...

Did you know The Poet Speaks is also Amanda's touring global workshop? She teaches people all about how to make, create and the history of Spoken Word and Indigenous oral traditions! To make a booking for The Poet Speaks Workshop with your organization, apply for mentorships with Amanda, book interviews, as well as writing consultations, please use this link: https://www.amandaeke.com/services

Music by: Buzu Buzu
https://www.instagram.com/bbuzu/

Check out Amanda's conversation with Yetvart S. Majian!

Yetvart S. Majian, a first-generation Armenian-American native of Hudson County and Saint Peter’s University alum, is a local poetry facilitator, active performer and literary organizer in the tristate area.

Yetvart's Links:
@emajian


CHECK OUT AMANDA'S NEW TV SHOW: The Poet Speaks with Amanda Eke! Now airing on the Archaeology Channel and Roku!

STREAM HERE:
https://heritagetac.org/programs/the-poet-speaks-with-amanda-eke-i28z2vn9bsc?category_id=65263

Be sure to check out The Poet Speaks Podcast on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/thepoetspeakspodcast/

And listen to,The Poet Speaks Podcast, on the go on ALL STREAMING PLATFORMS WORLDWIDE!

Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1cM1rdF...

Did you know The Poet Speaks is also Amanda's touring global workshop? She teaches people all about how to make, create and the history of Spoken Word and Indigenous oral traditions! To make a booking for The Poet Speaks Workshop with your organization, apply for mentorships with Amanda, book interviews, as well as writing consultations, please use this link: https://www.amandaeke.com/services

Music by: Buzu Buzu
https://www.instagram.com/bbuzu/