Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

This episode's got Aaron sweating, then Miguel Murphy joins the queens for some flaming hot poetry takes.Review Breaking Form on Apple Podcasts here. Please support Breaking Form and buy Aaron's and James's  books:Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.Or, if you'd like to shop indie, we recommend Loyalty Bookstores, a DC-area Black-owned bookshop.Read a recent Beckian Fritz Goldberg poem. Or listen to her read at the University of Arizona Poetry Center (from In the Badlands of Desire and Never Be the Horse).Rilke recalled: "I had to wear beautiful long dresses, and until I started school I went about like a little girl. I think my mother played with me as though I were a big doll." Speaking of dolls, read Eva-Maria Simms's article "Uncanny Dolls: Images of Death in Rilke and Freud" in New Literary History here.The Bernadette Mayer book Aaron references is Midwinter Day (New Directions, reissued the original 1982 book in 1999). Read more about the book's composition (in one day, as Aaron says) in this interview with Mayer conducted by Fanny Howe. Read more about Eric McHenry's discovery of Langston Hughes's real birthdayHeather McHugh's poem that Aaron references is "I Knew I'd Sing" from her first book, Dangers. Visit McHugh's website: https://www.heathermchugh.comFor more about gay sincerity, here's a Gawker article by Paul McAdory called "Gay Sincerity is Scary" and has a tagline that is too shady to not quote: "When it comes to popular gay fiction, on earth we're briefly cringe." Visit the online Whitman archive (which documents the many, many photographs of Whitman, many of them nudes), thus validating what Miguel says when he calls Walt our first Instagram poet.Richard Hugo talks about public and private poets in his essay "The Triggering Town"Read Plath's "Letter in November" and her poem "Berck-Plage" or listen to her read that poem here. Miguel references Lucille Clifton's poem "Leaving Fox," which begins "so many fuckless days and nights."

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.

The queens discuss how poetry uses us as they highlight the work of Ruth Stone and Hayden Carruth. Support Breaking Form and buy James's and Aaron's new books:Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.Please consider supporting the poets we mention in today's show! If you need a good indie bookstore, we recommend Loyalty Bookstores, a DC-area Black-owned bookshop.Read Ruth Stone's obit in the NY Times. Phoebe Stone gave a recorded talk about her mother Ruth Stone. It's an audio recording but has a ton of photographs and drafts of Stone's work. It's a personal glimpse into Ruth Stone's life and work. Catch it here (15 min).Watch the trailer for Ruth Stone's Vast Library of the Female Mind, Nora Jacobson's documentary on the poet, here. (~3 min).And you can stream the entire documentary now here (76 min). It includes interviews with family members and friends as well as poets Sharon Olds and Toi Derricotte.Hayden Carruth's last public poetry reading was at Marlboro College in Vermont in 2009 (~60 min). (Marlboro College is the alma mater of poet Cate Marvin; it closed in 2020.)Read a reminiscence of Carruth here (where he's late for lunch with Adrienne Rich).You can read Carruth's poem "Graves" (from Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey) here. 

Aaron and James stop all the clocks with this episode exploring elegy.Support Breaking Form and buy James's and Aaron's new books:Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.Watch the iconic scene from Four Weddings and a Funeral in which Auden's "Funeral Blues" is read. Listen to Dylan Thomas read "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" here. A stirring and unforgettable performance of the poem by Michael Sheen is worth your time here. Listen to Lorca's "Despedida" read here by Eduardo Montes-Bradley. Translated as "Farewell," you can read the poem in an English version here. Another is here. Check out Kathy Fagan's website and online poems here. Buy Bad Hobby here. Read Robert Cording's poem "Elegy for John, My Student Dead of AIDS" (which Aaron highlights in the show)  here.  You can read James L. White's fabulous "Making Love to Myself" here. The National Institute of Mental Health has a good FAQ about suicide, ideation, and helping those you love to cope with these things. Text or call 988 for a 24-hour suicide hotline.Read here for a discussion of what happens if/when you disclose suicidal ideation to a therapist, including the therapist's legal obligations to report or not. The site is supported by Mental Health America, a leading nonprofit community-based organization promoting mental health awareness .Translifeline is a text / call-based hotline which has a policy against non-consensual active rescue, which means they will not call emergency services or law enforcement without your explicit request – even if you tell them you or someone else is in danger. They are required to alert authorities if they think a minor is being emotionally or physically abused or neglected, or they believe that the caller intends to harm someone else.American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) The Trevor Project (for queer youth)Trevor Lifeline: 866-4-U-TREVOR (866-488-7386)

Get ready to spin the bottle! The queens cause some jeopardy in this trivia-filled episode.Support Breaking Form and buy James's and Aaron's new books:Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.And please consider supporting the poets we mention on today's show at your favorite independent bookseller. If you need a suggestion, we can recommend Loyalty Bookstores, a Black-owned indie in DC. Visit Brenda Hillman's website at http://www.brendahillman.net/index.htmlWatch this interview with Hillman conducted by Paul Nelson at the Cascadia Poetics Lab in December 2022. Tracy K. Smith's birthday is April 16, 1972. Life on Mars was published by Graywolf in 2011, and it was the 2012 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. See this great compact interview with Smith on PBS NewsHour here. (~6 min) In June 2017, Smith was named U.S. poet laureate. She teaches  at Harvard University, where she is a professor of English and of African and African American Studies and the Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.Watch Carl Dennis read at Georgia Tech (introduced by Tom Lux; ~25 min). The book of Dennis's craft essays which I mention in the episode is called Poetry as Persuasion. Watch this short film on Frank O'Hara, where he reads the following poems (~16 min):Mozart ChemisterFantasy Dedicated to the Health of Allen GinsbergThe Day Lady DiedSong (Is it dirty....)Having a Coke with You Listen to William Carlos Williams read "The Red Wheelbarrow" here (~16 seconds)Read W.B. Yeats's "The Fish" here. Visit Brian Teare at his website: https://www.brianteare.net.Simeon Berry lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. He has been an Associate Editor for Ploughshares and received a Massachusetts Cultural Council Individual Artist Grant. His first book, Ampersand Revisited (Fence Books), won the 2013 National Poetry Series, and his second book, Monograph (University of Georgia Press), won the 2014 National Poetry Series. Visit Simeon's website here. 

The queens return to the Poetry Gay Bar and talk mixers & pretty dicks.f you want to support Breaking Form, please consider buying James and Aaron's new books.Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.See Spencer Reese read "The Upper Room" from The Road to Emmaus here (~3.5 min)Watch the poet Ai read "The Good Shepherd" here (~3.5 min).A terrific ee cummings documentary can be seen here (~40 min). Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962), often written in all lowercase as e e cummings, was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays, and several essays. Watch dame Judy Grahn read "I Have Come to Claim" (aka the Marilyn Monroe poem) here (~3:45 min). Hear Randall Jarrell read from his work at the 92nd Y (no video; ~40 min).Watch Ruth Stone give a full-length reading (~70 min) here. Watch Anne Hathaway read Dorothy Parker (~6.5 min) here.  (And remember to spell Anne's name right.)The Gallery of Beautiful Dicks:Pablo Neruda: watch a documentary on Neruda here (~46 min)Alexander Pope: watch a BBC episode on the genius of Pope here (~50 min). Rita Dove (listen to her on The Achiever podcast here)Claudia Rankine: watch her talk about Just Us at the International Literature Festival in Berlin here (~1 hour).Maggie Nelson: watch Nelson in conversation with Judith Butler here (~90 min).Mary Ruefle: watch Ruefle give a lecture about poetry here (~90 min).WS Merwin:  watch Merwin read here (~29 min). John Ashbery: listen to him read "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" (30 min) here. Gertrude Stein: Listen to Stein read "If I had Told Him" here.  Read Robinson Jeffers's poem "Birds and Fishes" here. The Trevi Fountain in Rome is an 18th century fountain designed by Nicola Salvi. You can watch a bit about it here. 

The queens get fictional with Manuel Muñoz, who joins us to talk about boundaries: between poetry and fiction, between land and desire. If you want to support Breaking Form, please consider buying James and Aaron's new books.Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.Manuel Muñoz is the author most recently of The Consequences, a short story collection published in 2022 by Graywolf. Buy the book here!And watch to Manuel give a short (~3 min) talk about The Consequences here.  Manuel reads from his story "Compromisos," which you can read in its entirety on Electric Lit here.See Manuel interviewed on 1 Week Critique about The Consequences here (~45 min).  

The queens get fictional, discussing the poetry equivalents of best supporting actresses with guest Manuel Muñoz.Kay Ryan won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for her book The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (2010).Randall Mann's Deal: New and Selected Poems is currently out from Copper Canyon Press.Watch Olympia Dukakis's famous "Why do men cheat?" scene in Moonstruck.When Anne Hathaway accepted the Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2013, she said, “This is a bittersweet moment for me because I have this award, but you spelled my name wrong." She kind of forgot to thank the Broadcast Film Critics Association for the honor. “It is with an ‘e,’” she clarified, adding, “It’s probably in bad taste for me to point that out here.”Watch Anne Hathaway's cupcake tutorial here. The movie Jacqueline Susann's Once Is Not Enough is a 1975 American romance film, directed by Guy Green, starring Kirk Douglas, Alexis Smith, David Janssen, George Hamilton, Brenda Vaccaro, Melina Mercouri, and Deborah Raffin. When Louise Gluck accepted her National Book Award for Faithful and Virtuous Night, she said, in part, "I'm astonished. My thanks to the judges for their mercy. Four times," she said, "This is a difficult evening. It's very difficult to lose. I've lost many times. And it is also, it turns out, is very difficult to win. It is not in my script," she said, to a general scattering of laughter in the audience. Watch it here.   Gary Soto was born April 12, 1952. He published The Elements of San Joaquin in 1977 through the Pitt Poetry Series, which released the book on February 1 that year—so he was actually 24! Read more about Soto here.  He lists his address on his website, in case you want to write to him: https://garysoto.com Heather McHugh read and gave a lecture in April 2009 at the University of Arizona's Poetry Center, which keeps a terrific audio/video recording archive. You can watch the reading here. The poems she reads are:"The Gift""Not to Be Dwelled On""Granny's Song""No Sex for Priests""I Knew I'd Sing""Coming""Etymological Dirge""Glass House""From the Tower""Webcam the World""Hackers Can Sidejack Cookies""Philosopher Orders Crispy Pork""DOMESTIQUE"watch McHugh give a lecture about the design and impact of the ends of poems, including close readings of powerful last lines including examples from the work of Emo Philips, Abd-ar-Rahman III, Su Tung-po, Anthony Hecht, D.H. Lawrence, Paul Valéry, Alan Dugan, Julio Cortázar, Louis Simpson, Samuel Beckett, and John Frederick Nims.Watch Bette Davis chain-smoke on the Dick Cabot Show while praising Gladys Cooper.Watch Mare Winningham in Girl from the North Country and even her recorded performance of "Like a Rolling Stone" is a little flat.

The ladies talk about James's new book, ROMANTIC COMEDY, and James reads the title poem and talks about sex, survival, and Chicago brides.Find us at AWP:Thursday: 10:35-11:50 Panel: Building Virtual Community. Rms 440-442, Level 4, Summit Building. 12-12:30 pm Aaron signs STOP LYING at the U of Pittsburgh Press booth # 301 in the book-fair7pm James reading at Seattle Beer Company1427 Western Avewith authors from Four Way Books, Autumn House, and Barrow StreetSaturday:10:30-11:30 James signs ROMANTIC COMEDY at the Four Way Books booth # 803 in the bookfair.Buy Aaron's new book, STOP LYING.Buy James's new book, ROMANTIC COMEDY.You can read Lucille Clifton's poem "come celebrate with me" here. The Bridesmaids blooper reel Aaron references is here (hit the 9-minute mark). The poem "Pittsburgh" can be found online here. The poem "Romantic Comedy" can be found online in Bloom's archives here. 

Pop off, queen! If poets could be covered by musicians (instead of musicians covering poems), you'd get...POP POETSBuy STOP LYING, Aaron Smith's new book of poems, just out from the Pitt Poetry Series. Aaron will be signing copies of the book at AWP on Thursday, March 9 from 12:00-12:30 at the University of Pittsburgh Press (Booths 303, 301).Buy ROMANTIC COMEDY, James's new book of poems, which will be released on March 15. James will be signing copies of the book at AWP on Saturday, March 11 from 10:30-11:30 at the Four Way Books Booth # 803.Watch Alan's Morrissette read from Rilke's The Book of Hours here. Alanis is definitely a Gemini (June 1). Rilke is her mirror sign (Sagittarius).Gordon Lightfoot wrote and sang “If You Could Read My Mind." Check out the Ultra Nate version recorded for the 1998 film 54 here. Watch Rita Dove sing some jazz here. Watch Lisa Loeb's music video for “Pulling Taffy” here. You can see kd lang slay “Hallelujah” here. Watch Dorianne Laux read her poem, "Cher" here. Bob Hicok's serial killer poem is “Methodical” and you can read it here. The Haim video referenced is for "Want You Back" (which is a great song). The video of them walking down a street is here.