Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

The queens get stuffed as they rehash Thanksgivings past. No poetry, but this episode does make hilarity rhyme with vulgarity. After all, a Breaking Form Thanksgiving special wouldn't be complete without talk of clitoris, lesbian octogenarians, and Listerine cocktails. Unbuckle your seatbelts and your pants, cuz this is a messy wild ride -- definitely not for the feint of heart!

Snap out of it! The queens use Cher to revise some poems and the result is ICONIC!Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Buy our books:     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.      James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. You can hear Louise Glück read "The Mirror" here and read it for yourself here. (The show was taped before LG's untimely death.)Read "Old Ironsides" by Oliver Wendell HolmesRead "Homage to my hips" by Lucille CliftonYou can read Alexandra Teague's excellent poem "Language Lessons" here. Tess Gallagher's "I Stop Writing the Poem" can be found here. Go here to read Dorothea Lasky's poem "If you can't trust the monitors"Here's Robert Lowell's poem "The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket"Finally, we mention Hart Crane's poem "Chaplinesque"Here are two clips from Moonstruck"Meeting outside the opera"I want you to come upstairs with me and get in my bed!" 

The queens play "Just Jane!" featuring a jackpot of J. Kenyon and J. Mead poems. James just can't jank a jackdaw but refuses to be jaded.Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Buy our books:     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.      James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.Kenyon published four volumes of poetry during her life: From Room to Room (1978), The Boat of Quiet Hours (1986), Let Evening Come (1990), and Constance (1993), and, as translator, Twenty Poems of Anna Akmatova (1985). A fifth book, Otherwise: New and Selected Poems, appeared in 1996.Jane Mead was the author of five collections of poetry: The Lord and the General Din of the World (1996), The House of Poured-Out Waters (2001), The Usable Field (2008), Money Money Money Water Water Water (2014), World of Made and Unmade (2016), and To the Wren: Collected and New Poems (2019).Here are the Kenyon poems we discuss:Having It Out with MelancholyPrivate BeachClimbThe ShirtOtherwiseYou can listen to Jane Kenyon read "Otherwise" here.Here are the Kenyon poems we discuss:The Argument Against UsThe MemoryIn the Parking Lot at the Junior College on the Eve of a Presidential ElectionPassing a Truck Full of Chickens at Night on Highway EightyIf you need a refresher on Brenda Hillman's "Male Nipples"Read Amy Thatcher's poem "Road Kill" in SWWIM. 

The gorls chop up some gorgeous lines before playing Mean, Queen, or Blue Jean.Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Buy our books:     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.      James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books."It was a time when they were afraid of him" is from Jimmy Santiago Baca's poem "Ancestor""An opening to a story should be / unremarkable" is from Catherine Chen's " My Poem Asks to Be Read Right to Left""Things happen when you drink too much mescal" is from Moira Egan's "Bar Sonnet # 11"Rabindranath Tagore's poem "Gitanjali 11" begins: "Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship.""Crickets are stitching the afternoon" is how Rosanna Warren begins her poem "Boletus" "Arlene learned to dance backwards in heels that were too high" is the start of Patricia Smith's poem "Siblings""I will die in Paris, on a rainy day," writes Cesar Vallejo at the beginning of his "Black Stone Lying on a White Stone" "Monterosa, your body is dead on Avenue A." is from Jack Agueros's "Sonnet for Angelo Monterosa""We kept war in the kitchen" is the beginning of Reetika Vazirani's  "Dream of the Evil Servant""This did not happen" begins Thylias Moss's poem "Did Not Happen"Watch "10 Things Joseph Sikora Cannot Live Without" from GQ here.Check out Forbes's list of The Most Comfortable Heels That Consistently Earn Top ReviewsPattiann Rogers is the author of at least 17 books, including most recently Flickering, just published in April of 2023. Read this interview with her in Lit HubThe Frank O'Hara line I reference in the game "Queen, Mean, or Blue Jean" is "Poem [Lana Turner Has Collapsed" which you can read here.For more tea about Virginia Woolf and her paid domestic workers, read this review.

The queens put the ass in astonishment & tease out favorite  moments in poems.Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Buy our books:     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.Please consider buying your books from Bluestockings Cooperative, a feminist and queer indie bookselling cooperative.Read Alicia Ostriker's "Locker-Room Conversation"Check out Rita Dove's poem "Afer Reading Mickey in the Night Kitchen for the Third Time Before Bed."Anne Carson's "X. Sex Question" from Autobiography of Red can be read here. Read "The Glass Essay" from Glass, Irony and God here.Read Mark Doty's poem "With Animals" from My Alexandria. Check out "Days of 1981" here. And go (re)read "Atlantis" here.You can read Olena Kalytiak Davis's poem “Resolutions In A Parked Car” here. The line "Explain Jesus" is actually a whole stanza unto itself, and it appears in the poem, "I Am Only Now Beginning to Answer Your Letter" from And Her Soul Out of Nothing.Read "Facing it" by Yusef Komunyakaa, the final poem in his book Dien CanDau (Wesleyan, 1988). 

Aaron and James are joined by special guests to pay tribute to Maureen Seaton.Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Buy our books:     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.      James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.Please consider buying your books from Bluestockings Cooperative, a feminist and queer indie bookselling cooperative.Read Maureen Seaton's obituary to learn more about her life.You can read poems & conversations with Maureen in the South Florida Poetry Journal here. Watch Maureen read poetry for the Alaska Quarterly Live Reading Series (~12 min).

The queens leave you breathless in antici....pation with this crafty episode focused on enjambed lines.Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Buy our books:     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.      James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.Please consider buying your books from Bluestockings Cooperative, a feminist and queer indie bookselling cooperative.Read Susan Mitchell's poem "The Dead" which is indeed in her first book, The Water Inside the Water (Wesleyan, 1983 and reprinted by Harper Perennial, 1994).Here's the text of "Wake" by Tess Gallagher. You can watch her read the poem and a few others here (she reads "Wake" around the 11:10 mark)Carl Phillips's poem "The Gods Leaving" is in his book Pastoral (Graywolf, 2002)For the receipts regarding Miley Cyrus and Vickie Lawrence, or to read more from that interview, go here. Read the start of Jorie Graham's essay "Some Notes on Silence" which James quotes in the episode.You can read Andrea Cohen's poem "Ghosting" in the Atlantic if the spirit moves you.Here's a link to read Jane Mead's "In Need of a World" (from The Lord and the General Din of the World)Jean Valentine's poem "This Side" appears in her book Little Boat. 

Get on your spurs & chaps and join our country queens down at the poetry gay bar!Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Buy our books:     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.      James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.Please consider buying your books from Bluestockings Cooperative, a feminist and queer indie bookselling cooperative.Watch Miranda Lambert calling out some selfie-takers and the ladies of The View talking about it. And watch her sing "Tin Man" here.Watch Jennifer L. Knox read "Crushing It" here.Maybe the most memorable Tammy Wynette reference is this one from Sordid Lives. "He looked just like Tammy....in the early years," one character says about her brother."Billy Collins is to good poetry what Kenny G is to Charlie Parker" reads this scathing pan of the poet. You can watch Richard Howard read from his poems here (~60 min).Anne Carson is in conversation with Lannan Foundation's Michael Silverblatt here (30 min).Terrance HayesRead B.H. Fairchild's "A Starlit Night" from 32 Poems here.Read "Chopin in Palma," the Susan Mitchell poem in Best American Poetry 2023 (first published in Harvard Review) here. Listen to Mark Doty talk all things Whitman (~50 min)You can watch Frank Bidart read his serial-killer poem "Herbert White" here (~8 min)Here's an amazing tribute to Lucille Clifton organized by SAG-AFTRA, with readings by Geena Davis, Tantoo Cardinal, Isabella Gomez, Mark St. Cyr, Candace Nicholas Lippman, Max Gail, Nicco Annan; Lynne Thompson;  Sidney Clifton; Madeline di Nonno; and  Rochelle Rose. (~70 min)Read Matthew Dickman's poem "Grief."Here's Susan Mitchell's CV.

The queens hypothesize that erotic/love poems must always have one "f*ckstick." Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Buy our books:     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.      James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.Please consider buying your books from Bluestockings Cooperative, a feminist and queer indie bookselling cooperative.We talk about the difficulty of language and words that “shouldn’t” be in poems in Crimes Against Diction, episode 95. Read “Dick Pics” by Sarah Tsiang.Read Jack Gilbert’s “Michiko Dead."Linda Gregg, “Kept Burning and Distant” from The Sacraments of Desire.Read H.D.'s “Sea Poppies."Read Sharon Olds's, “The Pope’s Penis”Read Adrienne Rich's "The Floating Poem" in Twenty-One Love Poems. Kim Addonizio's poem “Penis Blues” can be read here.  Louise Glück's “The Encounter” can be found here and is from The Triumph of AchillesRead Emma Lazarus's “Assurance”We reference Russell Edson's poem “Conjugal” and Mark Strand's “Courtship”Read Jill Alexander Esbaum's awesomely funny “On Reading Poorly Transcribed Erotica” Wallace Stevens’s first book of poems is Harmonium, published by Knopf in 1923. A Palm at the End of the Mind is a Selected Poems and a play.Lynn Melnick's third book of poetry is Refusenik. You can watch Lynn read from it and talk about it with David Ulin of the New York Public Library. Watch James Hoch talk about Miscreants and the backstory behind "Bobby" here (~17 min mark).  You can read the Publisher's Weekly review of Miscreants here. Donika Kelly’s first book is called Bestiary. Her second book is called The Renunciations pub’d by Graywolf. Watch Lucas Mann read "Conversion" from Matthew Olzmann's book Constellations.Read Charles Olsen's essay “Projective Verse."

Get vasodilated with the queens in this episode filled with heady poetry games.Support Breaking Form!Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Buy our books:     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. Publisher's Weekly calls the book "visceral, tender, and compassionate."     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Writing in Lit Hub, Rebecca Morgan Frank says the poems have "a gift for telling stories . . .  in acts of queer survival." Please consider buying your books from Bluestockings Cooperative, a feminist and queer indie bookselling cooperative.Watch fabulously messy Willam Belli, from RuPaul's Drag Race and host of the popular game "Poppers Slap," review poppers here.Read this appreciation of Gwendolyn Brooks by Christian Wiman.Watch Sharon Olds at the National Book Awards 2022 finalist reading (~5 min). Louise Glück’s most recent book is Marigold and Rose: A Fiction, a 64-page fablesque novella publishedin 2022 by FSG. Read a review of it here.Carl Phillips reads Linda Gregg’s poem “It Is the Rising I Love” from The Paris Review (~2 min). Listen to Jorie Graham read “Why” from To 2040.If you want to read Jack Kerouac’s haiku, check them out here.Angelo Nikolopoulos’s website is https://www.angelonikolopoulos.com. Catch a reading with Angelo, Jameson Fitzpatrick, and Monica McClure here.