VS

What the Water Carries?

Show Description Can any label or identity explain our freedom, our community or history? How do you identify and what does it mean? In this special episode with Jasminne Mendez, Darrel Alejandro Holnes and Raina J. León explores the fluidity ...

Us vs. The Finale

Friends, we’ve reached the end–Franny, Danez, and producer Daniel say their goodbyes after five wonderful years as the crew of VS. The team reminisces on some of their favorite moments from the show, tells some behind the scenes gems, and ...

Sarah Kay vs. Sarah

We’re dancing in the reflection pool with the inimitable Sarah Kay. On this penultimate interview led by Franny and Danez, the magnificent poet and poetry community member talks about what happened when she turned internal in the pandemic, the relationship ...

Cyrée Jarelle Johnson vs. Satisfaction

Cyrée Jarelle Johnson knows how to find satisfaction on the page. The brilliant poet breaks down where satisfaction lives in his poems, where the confessional meets the surreal, how sexy poetic form can be, and much more. NOTE: Make sure ...

Evie Shockley vs Gathering

Evie Shockley is ready to bring us together. The poet, critic, and professor breaks down how she builds spaces to gather and exchange in her poems, the lineages she pulls from, balancing her critical and artistic lenses, and much more. ...

francine j. harris vs. Being a Hater

The illustrious francine j. harris is in the proverbial building, and we couldn’t be more thrilled. The award-winning poet breaks down the transformative potential of being a hater, mourning the loss of anonymity at the open mic, championing the poets ...

Destiny O. Birdsong vs. Mess

Destiny O. Birdsong is happy to up to her elbows in the mess of life. The poet, essayist, and fiction writer talks about the joy of creating complex characters, writing auto-fiction, building books from a joke, and much more! NOTE: ...

Carmen Giménez Smith vs. Amplification

Carmen Giménez Smith is ready to get down to the word. The poet and editor takes a deep dive with Franny and Danez into how she approaches editing, how she pushes writers to build off of the most effective parts ...

Taylor Johnson vs. Listening

Taylor Johnson is listening, and they’re inviting you to listen too. The poet, whose first collection Inheritance was released into the world last year on Alice James Books, talks with our fearless hosts about how they’re listening for the sounds, ...

Monica Sok vs. Survival

Monica Sok is on the pod! Franny and Danez talk with the author of A Nail the Evening Hangs On, which came out in 2020 on Copper Canyon, about working through a traumatic collective history and coming out the other ...

Eduardo Corral vs. Loneliness

Franny and Danez get to talk to a poet they’ve stanned for many a year–Eduardo Corral! A poet and Professor at NC State, Eduardo’s newest book Guillotine came out last year. He talks about writing into loneliness, sticking with the ...

Eduardo C. Corral vs Closeness

Franny and Danez get to talk to a poet they’ve stanned for many a year–Eduardo Corral! A poet and Professor at NC State, Eduardo’s newest book Guillotine came out last year. He talks about writing into loneliness, sticking with the ...

Naomi Shihab Nye vs. Hope

VS Season 4 wraps up with a whisper, a bang, a smile, and a hug from Naomi Shihab Nye! The legendary poet brings a fistful of sunshine to her conversation with Franny and Danez about learning from her four year-old ...

Marilyn Chin vs. Fierceness

On this episode, we get to talk on this episode with the legend, superstar, and self-proclaimed “baby yoda” Marilyn Chin. We talk about her long journey toward building Asian-American poetics, being the Nicki Minaj for so many young writers (in ...

Ladan Osman vs. the Journey

Ladan Osman steps into the stu with a knowledge of her journey and a commitment to share. The poet and filmmaker talks about how she has traversed the complex and scarring world of the poetry industry, the ways that she ...

Randall Horton vs. the i

Danez and Franny have the honor and pleasure of chopping it up with the brilliant Randall Horton on this episode of the show. Randall, whose newest collection {#289-128}: Poems just dropped this month, talks about coming to know his story ...

Ross Gay vs. Entanglement

Ross Gay joins VS with his boisterous laugh and brilliance on hand. The poet and professor breaks down the ways we’re all entangled, the elegant lessons mycelium can teach us for a post-capitalist world, getting undergrads to write sock puppet ...

Airea D. Matthews vs. What Haunts

Airea D. Matthews knows her ghosts. The poet and professor talks with Franny and Danez about the spectres and phantasms that live in her work, the ways she wants her poems to exist beyond paper and ink, the journey back ...

Aurielle Marie vs. Audacity

Aurielle Marie hops on the line, and the line will never be the same. The poet and organizer talks about the ways that her poetics and movement work are interwoven, her decision to walk away from a book deal, and ...

Michael Lee vs. Grief

After Franny’s episode talking with Cam Awkward-Rich, Danez goes one-on-one with their buddy Michael Lee, a Norwegian-American writer, youth worker, and organizer in Minneapolis. The dynamic duo talks about grief’s place in poems, Michael’s traumatic brain injury, obliterating whiteness, and ...

Statement from the VS Team

Franny and Danez vs. the Mailbag

On this #VSfromHome episode, Danez and Franny dip into a chock-full mailbag full of your wonderful questions! Plus, we hear seven poems that listeners wrote and submitted in response to the prompts that Danez and Franny shared two episodes ago. ...

Franny and Danez vs. the Mailbag

On this #VSfromHome episode, Danez and Franny dip into a chock-full mailbag full of your wonderful questions! Plus, we hear seven poems that listeners wrote and submitted in response to the prompts that Danez and Franny shared two episodes ago. ...

Franny and Danez vs. the Mailbag

On this #VSfromHome episode, Danez and Franny dip into a chock-full mailbag full of your wonderful questions! Plus, we hear seven poems that listeners wrote and submitted in response to the prompts that Danez and Franny shared two episodes ago. ...

Franny and Danez vs. the Couch

Well, turns out the world can turn upside down. In the midst of social isolation and self-isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Franny and Danez tapped in from their homes in Massachusetts and Minneapolis, respectively, to talk about how they’re ...