In Brief

The queens get quick (and dirty), summarizing a poet's oeuvre in one sentence.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form, please consider buying Aaron's and James's  books (both 2023):
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

When James says that Aaron makes a "Stuck the Landing" flourish, he means the kind of gesture made over and over in this montage of gymnasts sticking the landing!

Watch an Elizabeth Bishop documentary here (including interviews with  Bidart,  Strand, Howard Moss, Mary McCarthy, and James Merrill). ~56 min.

Watch John Ashbery accept, in delightfully odd fashion, a lifetime achievement award at the 2011 National Book Award here. (~10 min).

Here's a 40-min documentary on Robert Frost that's worth watching.

Watch this interview with Gwendolyn Brooks (~30 min), courtesy of Maryland's Howard County Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo).

Listen to this ~2min recording of Jorie Graham reading her poem "Why" from To 2040 (Copper Canyon Press) here.

Watch James Merrill read Bishop's "One Art" and his own "Developers at Crystal River" at the San Francisco Poetry Center in 1980. (~5 min)

Watch this interview with Stanley Kunitz, on the occasion of his becoming  Poet Laureate (~20 min).

Read Anthony Hecht's poem "More Light! More Light!" which deals centrally with Nazi executions in the Holocaust, or listen to him read the poem (3.5 min) here.

We mention two articles about Cummings's anti-Semitism. The review of Susan Cheever's biography is here. The article Aaron mentions is available through J-Stor here. The article (and lost poem) that The Awl published about Cummings can be read here.

Eloise Klein Healy's most recent book is A Brilliant Loss, published in 2022 by Red Hen Press and available here. She is the author of 10 books of poetry. Check out her website: https://www.eloisekleinhealy.com. You can read the poem that Celeste Gainey recites on the show, "Asking About You," here.

Celese Gainey is the author of The Gaffer, published by Arktoi Books, an imprint of Red Hen Press. You can read more about her and her poetry on her website here.
In 1974, Gainey was the first woman to be admitted as a gaffer to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (I.A.T.S.E.). In addition to lighting dozens of documentaries, she worked for such programs as 60 Minutes, ABC Close-Up, and 20/20, as well as on feature films like Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver, and The Wiz.