Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

The queens boil down the essence of some favorite poems and poets in this game that decides what poetry is *really* about.Please Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.NOTES:Read the NY Times review of Michael Schmidt's The Lives of the PoetsListen to James Merrill read his poem "For Proust" and while we're on the subject, here's a madeleine recipe. For an examination of Bishop's sensible sensibility, go here. Watch Anne Carson read from Nox (~24 min).Here is a Galway Kinnell tribute reading from May 2015 which included Marie Howe and Sharon Olds (among others).Watch Dorianne Laux read "Trying to Raise the Dead" published in her book SmokeIn a New Yorker profile interview, Natasha Trethewey discusses Native Guard, and says that we have to remember "the nearly two hundred thousand African American soldiers who fought in the Civil War, who fought for their own freedom, who fought to preserve the Union rather than destroy the Union, to whom there are very few monuments erected. Just think how different the landscape of the South would be, and how differently we would learn about our Southern history, our shared American history, if we had monuments to those soldiers who won the war—who didn’t lose the war but won the war to save the Union. Those are the monuments we need to have." Read the whole conversation and profile here.Here's a BBC4 adaptation of Browning's The Ring and the Book (~1 hour)Go here for more about George Meredith's sonnet sequence Modern Love.If you were looking for a free audio full-text version of Tennyson's In Memoriam read by Elizabeth Klatt, today's your lucky day. (~2.5 hours).

If you're looking to submit, the queens have some advice for you!Please Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.NOTES:Check out On the Seawall: a community gallery of new writing, art and commentary hosted by poet Ron Slate.Here's some great advice about submitting & publishing poetry.Here's another good article about submitting to literary magazines.And here's yet some more advice, this time by published writers and editors like Krista Marie Darling (Tupelo Press), Sandra Beasley (Blair Publishing), and others.

The ladies ask AI to write poems about Brad Pitt's butt. It’s not so bad Brad, sad Brad, is it?Please Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.NOTES:Aaron's "Brad Pitt" appeared in his first book, Blue on Blue Ground. Read the poem here. Here's the official video for the Miley Cyrus song "End of the World" and here's a remix that is rocking our worlds, too. I couldn't find Brad Pitt reciting poetry, but he does read from A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James in this clip.For more about Matsuo Bashō go here.Read this excellent and moving piece about AI and grief by Jason Fagone: "The Jessica Simulation: Love and loss in the age of A.I." details a grieving man's use of the AI called Project December in order to cope with the loss of his fiancé.

The queens discuss and revise a recent list of "best poetry," adding other tops (& bottoms & verses & sides, you get the point, miss thing).Please Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.NOTES:For a few lists of best 21st Century poetry:                                                                                  The Atlantic (which we read in the show).                                                                                The New York TimesRead Mark Strand's titular poem "Man and Camel"Read Craig Morgan Teicher's review of Glück's Faithful and Virtuous NightWatch Tracy K. Smith's answer to "Does poetry matter" in this conversation with Tracey E. Hucks at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. If you'd like to see Smith read from her Pulitzer-Prize-winning Life on Mars, here's a particularly good one.Read "Deception Story" by Solmaz Sharif from LookJames mediated a conversation and workshop with Diane Seuss on poetry and mental health, which can be viewed on YouTube hereRead a selection of poems from Patricia Smith's Blood DazzlerThe Brigit Pegeen Kelly poem James talked about in the show is "Closing Time; Iskandariya." Here it is, posted on Ilya Kaminsky's social media. Read a portfolio of writers on Kelly's book Song published recently in West Branch online (edited by Shara Lessley with short essays by David Baker, Amit Majmudar, Gabrielle Bates, and C. Dale Young).

The queens dish this year’s AWP Conference!Please Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Notes: The Association of Writers and Writing Programs can be found online at www.awpwriter.org Marcela Fuentes is the author of the award-winning novel Malas and you can find her online at https://www.marcelafuentes.comCheck out the exhibit Flesh World at Central Server Works, showcasing paintings by Monica Berger and Sofia Heftersmith.Julie Marie Wade's The Mary Yearsis a novella which won The 2023 Clay Reynolds Novella Prize, selected by Michael Martone.Purchase a copy of the Maureen Seaton tribute book When I Was StraightCheck out "From the Motel-By-the-Hour" (originally in The Iowa Review) from Nancy K. Pearson's book Two Minutes of Light from Perugia here.Claire J. Bateman's book is The Pillow Museum, available from the University of Alabama PressJen Jabaily-Blackburn's Girl in a Bear Suit won the Elixir Press Award. Buy it from her on her website: https://www.jenjabailyblackburn.comEmily Lee Luan won the Nightboat Poetry Prize for Return. Visit her website here.More information about the Civitella Ranieri Foundation can be found here.  James's Best American Poetry 2025 selection is called "Inheritance at Corresponding Periods of Life, at Corresponding Seasons of the Year, as Limited by Sex" originally published in Adroit Journal.

Get in, gurl, we're reading poetry at your unfriendly neighborhood leather bar.Please Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.NOTES:Learn more about Tom of Finland, the artist name of Finnish Touko Laaksonen who signed his erotic work "Tom." Follow messygayspod on Instagram, or @messygays.bsky.social on Blue Sky, or on FB at MessyGaysPodRead Heather McHugh's "The Amenities" (care warning: sexual assault)Read sam sax's "On PrEP or on Prayer [“when i say pre-exposure prophylaxis”]Read Elizabeth Bishop's "The Moose"Read Diane Wakoski's "Uneasy Rider"Here's an excerpt from Mark Bibbins's 13th BalloonRead this poem by Tyehimba JessCheck out Robin Coste Lewis's page on The Elders Project here. TEP captures and celebrates untold and underrepresented stories of activists, storytellers, and community builders who have witnessed and shaped great change in American public life. Read this consideration/critique of Cruising Read this interview of Mary Jo Bang.Stephen King addresses rumors about Musk insults here.Read this great review of Bianca Stone's fabulous The Mobius Strip Club of Grief.If you haven't seen the 20th anniversary edition of Richard Siken's Crush, check it out here. Check out Nighboat's Rob Halpern's Music for Porn Read Jenny Johnson's essay "Butch Blow Job" in Bomb.

The queens super-gay it up with Stephanie Burt, the editor of the new poetry anthology, SUPER GAY POEMS.Please Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.NOTES:Check out SUPER GAY POEMS: LGBTQIA+ Poetry after Stonewall, edited by Stephanie Burt, out on April 1, 2025. Read Hera Lindsay Bird's "Bisexuality"Check out Best New Zealand Poets and 20 Contemporary New Zealand Poets.Read JD McClatchy's "My Mammogram" The article we reference by the founders of AALR is "The World Doesn't Stop for Derek Walcott, or: An Exchange between Coeditors." Gerald Maa and Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis.Here's a link, if you haven't listened to our episode "We Can Shift the Canon"Vendler's final book is called Inhabit the Poem: Last Essays, out from Penguin on September 2, 2025.Read "Breakfast with Miss Bishop"--Helen Vendler on Elizabeth Bishop.Read here for more about Essex Hemphill.Stephanie wrote about teaching the Taylor Swift course at Harvard for Vanity Fair.Read Stephanie's "Taylor's Version: The Poetic and Musical Genius of Taylor Swift"The Tay Learning Podcast that Stephanie mentions can be found here.Read Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market"

We're talking resistance, joy, and queer communities with Brenda Shaughnessy!Please Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.NOTES:Click here for Brenda’s Queer Resistance Playlist 2025 (Spotify).Check out Brenda's poem "Panopticon" from Interior with Sudden Joy.Visit Brenda Shaughnessy’s website . And hear her read from her newest book, Tanya here. Read more about UC Santa Cruz closing the Feminist Studies Dept here. Read more about Maria RessaFor more about Roland Barthes’s contribution to literary criticism, read here.While dated, here’s a list of creative writing programs that are LGBTQ+ friendly. Read more about Bettina ApthekerRead more about Donna J. HarawayRead on for more about the clubs Brenda mentions: Meow Mix, Clit Club, Henrietta Hudson (still open!), Pandora's Box, and more.Read more about Angela Davis's work here.For more about Wendy Brown, read her Guggenheim citation here.You can learn more about Allan Bérubé here. Learn more about the incredible Urvashi Vaid here.Watch/listen to Cécile McLorin Salvant's "Until" here. Read more about Kate Clinton on her website here.For more about Teresa de Lauretis, click here. 

The queens get to the poetic essence with the help of erasure and re-envisioning.Please Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.NOTES:The Nicole Sealey poem we read at the end of the episode comes from the first four pages of her book The Ferguson Report: An ErasureWe revise poems by:Robert Bly, "The Beauty of Women"George Herbet, "Death"Dean Young, "Belief in Magic"William Stafford, "Accountability"Billy Collins, "Design"The video we mention posted by The New Yorker was posted in April 2023 to FaceBook: "How a New Yorker Poetry Editor Selects Poems"Watch John Travolta introduce Idina Menzel as "the wickedly talented Adele Dazeem" and then Menzel getting her good-natured revenge.For more about the feminist practice of erasure poetry, we can recommend Erase the Patriarchy: An Anthology of Erasure Poetry.