Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

The queens talk break-up poetry in a special post-Valentine's Day extravaganza!You can see Poem 225 (“I’m ‘wife’ – I’ve finished that”) in Dickinson’s handwriting here Di mentions her essay, “Divine is Mine: Poetry’s Reckless Declarations,” which appears in The Practicing Poet: Writing Beyond the Basics, edited by Diane Lockward and published in 2018 by Terrapin Books. Take a gander here. You can read Poem 620 (“Much Madness is divinest Sense —”) here, and see her manuscript version (in her handwriting) here.  You can read Poem 372 (“After great pain, a formal feeling comes—”) here, and see her manuscript version (in her handwriting) here. Read Jack Gilbert’s “Failing and Flying” here. And watch Gilbert give a reading (though not from this poem) here.Read Diane Seuss’s “Love Letter,” originally published in River Mouth Review, here

The queens talk love and sex and worm shit--with extra special guest, Diane Seuss!Buy Aaron's new book, STOP LYING.Buy James's new book, ROMANTIC COMEDY.Follow Diane Seuss on Twitter at @dlseuss and on Instagram at @dseussIf you want to sing along with us to Foreigner's “I Want to Know What Love Is” but you don't know the song, you can watch the video here. Read Camille Dungy’s poem “From the First, the Body Was Dirt” here. Dungy is a Capricorn. You can see her read a few other poems from Tropic Cascade at Split This Rock here. Read Richard Siken’s poem “Scheherezade” here. Siken in an Aquarius. Walt Whitman is a Gemini. You can read "We Two Boys Together Clinging" here and "Sometimes With One I Love" here.

The queens play The Poetry Pyramid!Pyramid is the collective name of a series of American television game shows that has aired several versions domestically and internationally. The original series was The $10,000 Pyramid, and it debuted on March 26, 1973. You can read  Jorie Graham’s poem “San Sepolcro” (the first poem in her second book, Erosion) here.  Read more about Flesh-plastique by Denis Hinrichsen and published by Green Linden Press.For more about Sally Mann's Body Farm  project here.  The Body Farm refers to the Forensic Anthropology Center at the University of Tennessee--Knoxville. Read more about the Center here. Read Dorianne Laux's poem “Trying to Raise the Dead” here, first published in the Spring 1998 edition of Ploughshares.

STOP LYING is Aaron's new book of poetry! We discuss its themes, then James gives Aaron the STOP pop quiz.  Stop Lying is just out from the Pitt Poetry Series. Buy it here! You can watch Aaron read from previous work hereRead Aaron’s “My 1990s” online in Allium.Watch Phil Levine read the fabulous title poem from What Work Is here (~2 min)Here’s a video of Britney Spears as a child on Star Search.

The queens show why it matters how you wrap it up.Support Breaking Form! Buy Aaron's new book, Stop Lying. And pre-order James's new book, Romantic Comedy, available from Four Way Books in March 2023. Read Robert Hayden's iconic “Those Winter Sundays” here.Read Sharon Olds’s “I Go Back to May 1937” hereYou can read Louise Glück’s poem “Vita Nova” here. TERF Adrienne Rich’s poem “Diving into the Wreck” can be read here. Read Lucille Clifton’s “why some people be mad at me sometimes” here. Martha Zweig's poem “Burying the Cat” from Vinegar Bone can be read here. Threa Almontaser’s website is https://www.threawrites.com. Read her poem “Hidden Bombs in My Coochie” here.Read Toi Derricotte's poem “On the Turning Up of Unidentified Black Female Corpses” here. If you’d like to read more about “Missing White Woman Syndrome,” here’s a great article in the New Yorker where true-crime scholar Jean Murley discusses the history of it.Read Derrick Austin's poem “Taking My Father and Brother to The Frick."  You can see Derrick Austin read (with Ashley M. Jones) here.Matt Donovan’s poem “Shooting Justin Bieber and bin Laden in the Woods” in the Massachussets Review here.  Visit Matt Donovan online at his website at: https://mattdonovanwriting.comRead James Harms’s poem “Mexican Christmas” here. Eugenia Leigh’s poem “Monsters” from her first book, Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows, can be read  here.  Her 2nd book, Bianca, is getting rave reviews!  Order it now here.  And visit Eugenia Leigh online at https://www.eugenialeigh.com

The queens learn it takes courage to know what you know in this engrossing interview with the writer Lynn Melnick.Dolly Parton's version of “I Will Always Love You” attained commercial success, twice reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart — first in June 1974, and again in October 1982, with her re-recording. Whitney Houston’s 1992 version also went to # 1. Parton recorded it again in 1995 as a duet with Vince Gill, and that version peaked at # 15. Read Dolly Parton's 1978 interview with Playboy here.  Watch the 1977 Parton interview with Barbara Walters (RIP) here.  Dolly sang “I Will Always Love You” for the very first time live on the Porter Wagoner Show. Watch that performance here.  Dolly had an impromptu duet, singing IWALY with Kelly Clarkson on Kelly's show. Watch the duet here. The Southern Gospel Hall of Fame is located in Pigeon Forge, TN.Watch Dolly Parton perform a rousing rendition of “The Seeker” live here. Watch here as Brandi Carlile tells us about writing to Dolly to ask her about covering her song “The Story,” and suggesting Dolly could “drop the key” on the song.Listen to Dolly’s cover of “The Story” here Read Dorianne Laux’s poem “Sunday” from Awake here. 

We talk defiance, joy, and Dolly Parton's closet in Part 1 of our interview with poet and memoirist Lynn Melnick.  Buy Lynn's books here! Lynn Melnick is the author of the memoir, I've Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton, from the University of Texas Press's American Music Series/Spiegel & Grau Audio (October 2022).  She is also the author of three poetry collections, Refusenik(2022), Landscape with Sex and Violence (2017), and If I Should Say I Have Hope (2012), all with YesYes Books. She co-edited the volume Please Excuse This Poem: 100 Poets for the Next Generation (Viking, 2015). Check out her website here. Dolly Parton starred alongside Sylvester Stallone in the movie Rhinestone (1984), a musical based on the 1975 hit song "Rhinestone Cowboy" written by Larry Weiss. Although a critical and financial failure, the film spawned two top 10 country hits for Parton.Read more about Lucie Brock-Broido on her website here, at the Poetry Foundation here, or read her poem "Domestic Mysticism" here. Watch  the clip of Reese Witherspoon / Dolly Parton’s tea-and-closet moment referenced in the show (and in Lynn’s book).Learn more (and donate to) the Sex Workers Project, a national organization advocating for the human rights of sex workers and others, at https://swp.urbanjustice.org 

Pour your New Year mimosas, cuz we're playing Roethke or Rothko before "Things You can Say in Workshop, and in Bed."Aaron's new book, STOP LYING, is available for pre-order (and arrives January 2023). Order STOP LYING from the Pitt Poetry Series here.James's new book, ROMANTIC COMEDY, is available for preorder (releasing March 2023). Order Romantic Comedy from Four Way Books here.You can read a really terrific profile of Mark Rothko (b. 9/25/03) here. Theodore Roethke was born on May 25, 1908 in Saginaw, Michigan. Read more about him here or watch this 30-min documentary about his poetry and life.Another short film made about Roethke (with clips of him reading from poems including : "The Adamant," "My Pappa's Waltz," "Dolor," "Cuttings, later," "The Walking," "The Sloth," "Elegy for Jane," "To An Amorous Woman," "In a Dark Time," "The Abyss," "Light Listened," "A Rouse for Wallace Stevens," "Gob Music," and "Once More for the Road") can be found here. Text of some of the Roethke poems we mention can be found in the following links:The WakingIn a Dark TimeThe SignalsRothko's Seagram Murals, commissioned in 1958 and finished around 1960, never hung in the Seagram Building, where the Four Seasons restaurant was located. To read more about Rothko’s Seagram Murals, click here. You can visit the Rothko Chapel in Houston, or online here.Rothko's Yellow # 10 (1957) which hangs in the Menil Collection in Houston is seen in a photograph here or here (scroll down to the 2nd yellow painting)If you need a primer on sex slang, we've got you covered with this educational guide.

Get your nightcap ready for this recap as the queens relive their favorite clips from a year of Breaking Form.Aaron's new book, STOP LYING, is available for pre-order (and arrives January 2023). Order STOP LYING from the Pitt Poetry Series here.James's new book, ROMANTIC COMEDY, is available for preorder (releasing March 2023). Order Romantic Comedy from Four Way Books here. 

The Anniversary Episode has the queens recapping interviews and impact from a year of Breaking Form!Aaron's new book, STOP LYING, is available for pre-order (and arrives January 2023). Order STOP LYING from the Pitt Poetry Series here.James's new book, ROMANTIC COMEDY, is available for preorder (releasing March 2023). Order Romantic Comedy from Four Way Books here. Miguel Murphy's most recent book, Shoreditch, can be purchased through Barrow Street.Buy Denise Duhamel's books, including her most recent book, Second Story, here. Get David Trinidad's new book, Digging to Wonderland: Memory Pieces, here.Diane Seuss's Pulitzer-prize-winning book frank: sonnets can be purchased here. Carl Phillips published two new books this year: Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020 is available here; a book of essays called My Trade is Mystery: Seven Meditations from a Life in Writing can be ordered here. Maureen Seaton can be found online here. And you can buy Maureen's books from Loyalty Bookstore, a DC-area Black-owned indie bookstore.Visit Jacques J. Rancourt online at his website: https://www.jacquesrancourt.com, and buy Brocken Spectre from Alice James here. C. Russell Price's book, Oh, You Thought This Was a Date?!: Apocalypse Poems, is available here from Northwestern University Press.