Chalk Radio

Living Poetry with Poet Joshua Bennett

Jun 26, 2024

Joshua Bennett, a renowned poet and poetry professor, explores the profound ties between childhood, family, and the craft of writing. He shares how unexpected influences, from Marvin Gaye to Star Trek, shaped his poetic voice. The conversation also delves into social poetics, the significance of resilience in Black poetry, and the ethical dilemmas of generative AI in creative fields. With heartfelt reflections on identity and human experience, Bennett illustrates how poetry mirrors the magic of being alive.

51:56

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Episode guests

Joshua Bennett

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Quick takeaways

Joshua Bennett highlights the communal aspect of poetry as a vital tool for building connections and fostering belonging in families and communities.

His exploration of family dynamics, especially his relationship with his father, emphasizes how personal narratives inform broader societal themes in poetry.

Bennett advocates for the transformative power of education and the importance of nurturing environments that encourage creative expression in students.

Deep dives

The Role of Community in Poetry

Joshua Bennett emphasizes that poetry serves as a powerful tool for community building, shaped by collective experiences and shared voices. He fondly recalls performing poetry during family gatherings, where the supportive environment fostered a sense of belonging and the belief that one’s voice matters. This communal aspect not only highlights the importance of connection in creative expression but also the role of storytelling in nurturing relationships within families and communities. Bennett’s journey into poetry showcases how the love and encouragement from those around him helped establish his identity as a poet.

Intro

2min

The Poet's Journey: From Family to Form

16min

Exploring Social Poetics in Everyday Lives and Beyond

2min

The Poetic Journey of Resilience

17min

Reflections on Humanity Through Storytelling and Cosmos

6min

Exploring Humanity in the Age of AI

5min

The Transformative Power of Dedicated Educators

4min

This episode features a wide-ranging conversation about poetry: what it is, where it comes from, and why it matters. Our guest, poet (and poetry professor) Joshua Bennett, talks about the early experiences that pushed him toward poetry and about the people who shaped and inspired his creative approach as a writer. Many of these people are fellow poets, others are his own grandparents, parents, and teachers, but Prof. Bennett has also found inspiration in less expected figures; over the course of the interview, he name-checks the singers Yolanda Adams and Marvin Gaye, the biologists Charles Henry Turner and Ernest Everett Just, the astronaut Mae Jemison, and various characters from the TV series Star Trek: the Next Generation. Other topics Prof. Bennett addresses include the relation between poetry and generative AI (his own work is among the vast body of text that has been fed as training data into large language models), education as liberation, and the concept of social poetics. Eventually, the interview blossoms into a heartfelt meditation on human experience: childhood, aging, parenthood, identity, and the ways poetry enhances our humanity by capturing the magic of being alive.

Relevant Resources:

MIT OpenCourseWare

The OCW Educator Portal

Joshua Bennett’s faculty page

Joshua Bennett (Poetry Foundation)

Aracelis Girmay, from The Black Maria

June Jordan, “The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America”

Charles Henry Turner (Wikipedia)

Ernest Everett Just (Wikipedia)

Mae Jemison (Wikipedia)

Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

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