The Poet Salon

Hello there! After last week's episode with Jericho Brown in which we hashed it out over rhyme and why we write, Jericho brought us Lucille Clifton's "The Lost Baby Poem" to nerd out over. Hear us out. Jericho Brown is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Writer's Award. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection is The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019). His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is an associate professor and the director of the Creative Writing Program at Emory University. Lucille Clifton was born in Depew, New York, on June 27, 1936. Her first book of poems, Good Times (Random House, 1969), was rated one of the best books of the year by the New York Times. Clifton remained employed in state and federal government positions until 1971, when she became a writer in residence at Coppin State College in Baltimore, Maryland, where she completed two collections: Good News About the Earth (Random House, 1972) and An Ordinary Woman (Random House, 1974). She was the author of  several other collections of poetry, including Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988–2000 (BOA Editions, 2000), which won the National Book Award; Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 (BOA Editions, 1987), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; and Two-Headed Woman (University of Massachusetts Press, 1980), also a Pulitzer Prize nominee as well as the recipient of the University of Massachusetts Press Juniper Prize. Clifton was also the author of Generations: A Memoir (Random House, 1976) and more than sixteen books for children, written expressly for an African-American audience.

Hello beautiful beautiful people! We're back! Season two is here and what a season it is. We're thrilled to start of 2020 talking about the books that messed us all the way up in 2019 and to chat with the inimitable Jericho Brown about the South, rhyme, and why we write at all.   Jericho Brown is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Writer's Award. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection is The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019). His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is an associate professor and the director of the Creative Writing Program at Emory University.   The Bizzy Izzy: sherry, bourbon, pineapple, and lemon juice on ice in a high ball glass. A pre-prohibition cocktail created by Tom Bullock, the first African-American to author his own cocktail manual.

What's good fam—did our first a live episode with the inimitable Natalie Scenters-Zapico as part of Lit Crawl: Seattle. It was wonderful. Hear us chop it up about Concha Piquer, ending poems, and the ethics of repetition.  Natalie Scenters-Zapico is a fronteriza from the sister cities of El Paso, Texas, U.S.A., and Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua, México. She is the author of Lima :: Limón (Copper Canyon 2019), which has been reviewed widely in prominent periodicals including The New Yorker, and The Verging Cities (Center for Literary Publishing 2015), which won the PENAmerican/Joyce Osterweil Award, GLCA's New Writers Award, and more. She has won fellowships from the Lannan Foundation (2017), CantoMundo (2015), and a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation (2018). Her poems have appeared in a wide range of anthologies and literary magazines including Best American Poetry 2015, POETRY, Tin House, Kenyon Review, and more. She teaches poetry workshops in English and Spanish through the Department of English and the Latina/o Studies Program at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington.  

Season 1 came and went, and we learned so much, y'all. We're so grateful for the 10 wonderful guests who rolled through. It's been a blessing.  In this little bonus pod, you can hear us reflect on what we learned, what we've been up to between seasons, and what we have coming up. Season 2 will officially launch in January, but we'll be here with some additional special bonus drops until then. So keep us in your feed, share the pod with your friends, put us on speaker phone on your bus ride home. It's so good to be back in your beautiful ears.

It's our last episode of the season! After chopping it up with Hanif Abdurraqib last week on his work, he brought in Angela Veronica Wong's "Elsa Was Stabbed To Death She Had Her Key" to share and marvel over. HANIF ABDURRAQIB is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His first full-length poetry collection, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, was released in 2016 from Button Poetry, was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, and was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released in 2017 by Two Dollar Radio and was named a book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, and The Los Angeles Review, among others. Hanif’s book Go Ahead In The Rain published this year by University of Texas Press debuted as a New York Times Best Seller. His next books are A Fortune For Your Disaster from Tin House and They Don't Dance No' Mo'  2020 from Random House. ANGELA VERONICA WONG is a writer, artist, and educator living in New York City. She is a former Fulbright scholar and Humanities New York Public Humanities fellow. She has won the Poetry Society of America New York Chapbook Fellowship and been a finalist for the Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize, The Frost Place Chapbook Contest, Slash Pine Chapbook Contest, Fordham University Poets Out Loud Prize and a semi-finalist for Center For Book Arts Chapbook Competition and Akron Poetry Prize. Her work has been nominated for several Pushcart Prizes and the Best of the Net. She was a Hemispheric Institute EMERGENYC fellow. Her performance work has been featured in independent galleries in Buffalo, Toronto, and New York City.

It's goin up on a Tuesday, dearest listener, and for this week's episode we get into it with the inimitable Hanif Abdurraqib about sneakers, slashes, and suffering for one's art. Mmhmmm. But first your favs chat it up about how many rejections we can take before letting go of a dream journal...  HANIF ABDURRAQIB is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His first full-length poetry collection, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, was released in 2016 from Button Poetry, was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, and was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released in 2017 by Two Dollar Radio and was named a book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, and The Los Angeles Review, among others. Hanif’s book Go Ahead In The Rain published this year by University of Texas Press debuted as a New York Times Best Seller. His next books are A Fortune For Your Disaster from Tin House and They Don't Dance No' Mo'  2020 from Random House. SPRITE in a glass. No ice. Straw optional.

Ayyye—look at us here together again! I'm sure you know by now, love, but last week we talked it up with Erika Meitner on whiteness, witness, and weathering trauma. This week, she brought us the poem "Night Travelers" by Campbell McGrath for us to be mesmerized by. Check it out! ERIKA MEITNER is the author of five books of poems. Her first book, Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore, won the 2002 Robert Dana-Anhinga Prize for Poetry, and was published in 2003 by Anhinga Press. Her second book, Ideal Cities, was selected by Paul Guest as a winner of the 2009 National Poetry Series competition, and was published in 2010 by HarperCollins. Her third collection, Makeshift Instructions for Vigilant Girls, was published by Anhinga Press in 2011. Her fourth collection of poems, Copia, was published by BOA Editions in 2014 as part of their American Poets Continuum Series, and her newest collection, Holy Moly Carry Me, was also published by BOA Editions in September 2018. Holy Moly Carry Me is the winner of the 2018 National Jewish Book Award in poetry, and a finalist for the 2018 National Book Critics Circle award in poetry. CAMPBELL MCGRATH has published numerous collections of poetry, including Spring Comes to Chicago (1996), which won the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. McGrath’s many books of poetry include Capitalism (1990); American Noise (1994); Florida Poems (2002); Pax Atomica (2005); Seven Notebooks (2007); and In the Kingdom of the Sea Monkeys (2012). McGrath’s work typically works as a kind of catalog; its long lines attempt to look at the vast complexity of America and penetrate its paradoxes and attractions. McGrath is also the co-translator of Aristophanes’s The Wasps (1999). He has won a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress, the Academy of American Poets Prize, the Cohen Award from Ploughshares literary journal, and a Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been widely anthologized, including in The New Bread Loaf Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry (1999), The New American Poets (2000), and Great American Prose Poems (2003). McGrath has taught at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and Florida International University.    

Dear ones: we were blessed for this week's episode to have Erika Meitner come through. We chatted it up about documentary poetics, political rhetoric, pop culture detritus, saviors, and more. But before that conversation, your cute hosts waded into the *poetry plagarism* discussion.  ERIKA MEITNER is the author of five books of poems. Her first book, Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore, won the 2002 Robert Dana-Anhinga Prize for Poetry, and was published in 2003 by Anhinga Press. Her second book, Ideal Cities, was selected by Paul Guest as a winner of the 2009 National Poetry Series competition, and was published in 2010 by HarperCollins. Her third collection, Makeshift Instructions for Vigilant Girls, was published by Anhinga Press in 2011. Her fourth collection of poems, Copia, was published by BOA Editions in 2014 as part of their American Poets Continuum Series, and her newest collection, Holy Moly Carry Me, was also published by BOA Editions in September 2018. Holy Moly Carry Me is the winner of the 2018 National Jewish Book Award in poetry, and a finalist for the 2018 National Book Critics Circle award in poetry. HIBISCUS ON THE SLEEPING SHORES “Shut to the blather that the water made / Rose up besprent and sought the sleeping red… all the stupid afternoon” —Wallace Stevens, “Hibiscus on the Sleeping Shores” This drink glows a bright, hypnotic pink in the light, making it a perfect day-drinking cocktail. Pairs well with a view of water, naps in the sun, and our conversation with the equally bright, equally delightful Erika Meitner. INGREDIENTS: Ice, Gin, Tonic Water, Fresh lime, Hibiscus tea (strong, chilled), Hibiscus bloom (garnish, optional) *Your ratios are your own—Mix it to taste!

What's delighting you fam. Last week, we talked with Tito Sauce about discipline, death, and, of course, delight. For this week's convo, Uncle Ross brought in for us "The Dog" by Gerald Stern. Listen and weep. ROSS GAY is the author of three books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. His collection of essays,The Book of Delights, was released by Algonquin Books in 2019. Ross is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a non-profit, free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Ross teaches at Indiana University.  GERALD STERN has been called an “American original,” “a sometimes comic, sometimes tragic visionary,” and, by his friend Stanley Kunitz, “the wilderness in American poetry.” Over dozens of books, and decades of teaching and activism, Stern has emerged as one of America’s most celebrated and irascible poets. “His second poetry collection, Lucky Life (1977), was the Lamont Poetry Selection of the Academy of American Poets and nominated for a National Book Award. His next, The Red Coal (1981), received the Melville Caine Award from the Poetry Society of American. Subsequent collections include Leaving Another Kingdom: Selected Poems (1990); Bread Without Sugar (1992), winner of the Paterson Prize; This Time: New and Selected Poems (1998), which won the National Book Award; Last Blue (2002); American Sonnets (2002); Everything is Burning (2005); Save the Last Dance (2008);  Early Collected Poems: 1965–1992 (2010), a volume collecting six of Stern’s earliest books; Galaxy Love (2017); and Blessed As We Were: Late Selected & New (forthcoming). Stern has also written two collections of essays, including the autobiographical What I Can’t Bear Losing: Notes from a Life (2004; 2009).  

O dearest delights—welcome! After a quick chat about the virtues of book contests, the crew sat down for this week's episode with Ross Gay in a quirky, quaint Portland hotel. While sipping Spoiling Orchards, Uncle Ross chopped it up with on the performance of delight, the practice of tenderness, and gardening—among other things. ROSS GAY is the author of three books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. His collection of essays,The Book of Delights, was released by Algonquin Books in 2019. Ross is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a non-profit, free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Ross teaches at Indiana University.    SPOILING ORCHARD: Fruity, fizzy, and a little bit funky, this mocktail is kind on the eyes and the bod. Like a sangria minus the hangover, Spoiling Orchards are perfect for a sunny day when you want to be clear-headed and attentive to the delights around you. Pairs well with vegan fruit gummies, Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s book The Orchard, and our conversation with the effervescent Ross Gay. Serve in something clear and non-pretentious, like a jelly jar, and enjoy. INGREDIENTS: Kombucha Black cherry juice Fresh fruit (raspberries)