Trance•Cast

A native of San Francisco, Cole Swensen is the author of twenty collections of poetry, most recently Veer (Alice James Books, 2026), and And And And (Shearsman Books, 2023), which was long-listed for the Griffin Prize. She has also published a volume of hybrid poetic essays on innovative landscape artists, Art in Time (Nightboat Books, 2021) and a volume of critical essays, Noise That Stays Noise...

Ryler Dustin is the author of Trailer Park Psalms , winner of the University of Pittsburgh’s 2022-2023 Starrett Prize, and Heavy Lead Birdsong (Write Bloody, 2008), forthcoming in an expanded edition this fall. He represented Seattle on the final stage of the Individual World Poetry Slam, and his poems appear in places like in Verse Daily , The Slowdown , Gulf Coast , and elsewhere. After earning...

Ellen reads and disusses "While My Daughter Is in Surgery I Think About a Night in a Hotel in Florence," which first appeared in the New Yorker. Ellen Bass’s poetry collections include,  Indigo, Like a Beggar, The Human Line,  and  Mules of Love . Her poems appear  frequently in  The New Yorker, American Poetry Review,  and many other journals. Among her awards are Fellowships from the G...

En•Trance Journal 's contributing editor, Roxi Power, chats with Josh Brahinksy about the relationship between speaking in tongues and poetry. Josh Brahinsky  is a psychological anthropologist at McGill's Department of Transcultural Psychiatry and Stanford's Religious Studies department studying contemplative practices like prayer, meditation, psychedelics and breathwork using ethnography, brain i...

Danusha Laméris  is a poet and essayist raised in Northern California. Her work has appeared in  The New York Times, The Kenyon Review,  and  Ploughshares , among others. She is a Pushcart Prize recipient, a winner of the 2021 Northern California Book Award in Poetry, and a 2020 Lucille Clifton Legacy Award honoree. Her collections include  The   Moons of August  (2014), chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye...

Jane reads her poem "And if you like numbers, I will tell you that here on earth." The poem is a wonderful window into the presence that poetry can bring, even as it recounts and counts the many terrors of the world. They discuss the many portals of poetry and its service to us in difficult times. Neither Jane nor Dion could remember the words to Yeats's poem, "Easter, 1916,&quo...

Editor-at-large Paul Nelson and poet Cornelius Eady discuss " Proof," an occasional poem written for the inauguration of mayor Zohran Mamdani in New York City. Read the poem here . Poet and cofounder of Cave Canem Cornelius Eady’s published collections include  Victims of the Latest Dance Craze  (Omnation Press, 1986), winner of the Lamont Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets;  The Gath...

Sharon Thesen grew up in small towns across Western Canada, and for many years she taught English and Creative Writing at Capilano College in North Vancouver and was an active member of the poetry scene in the Lower Mainland.  Since 2003 she has lived in the Central Okanagan and is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at UBC’s Okanagan campus.  She is the editor of two editions of   The New Long...

We hear Kim read from her newest poetry collection, Exit Opera . She reads Kansas 4:00 am , which originally appeared in The New Yorker. In this version, a sound accompaniment is provided by Kim's partner, the musician Danny Caron . We then discuss the mythic, musical, and trancelike elements of the poem and the way, in the final analysis, poetry originates from a kind of wordless listening. K...

Jan Beatty and Dion read and discuss two poems that appear in the first issue of En•Trance Journal --"Mission" and "Chalk Outline." The conversation touches on the numinous moments in the poems as well as some practical elements of craft. Jan's rich and adventurous life feeds energy into these poems, bringing the whole range of human emotion and experience. Jan Beatty’s ⁠   eighth book,  ⁠ Dragstr...

This is a snippet of a longer conversation between Paul Nelson and Andrew Schelling . Andrew reads from his poem, "The Bristlecone"--a poem about a dream in which Michael McClure appears. Paul Nelson is En•trance Journal's poet at large and contributing editor.

Ellen Bass and Dion O'Reilly discuss Bass's poem, " You're the Top ." We discuss the unique characteristics of the prose poem--how humble and quirky it is. We take a look at the narrator's altered state in the poem, where she is destabilized, terrified, disoriented, and ultimately exhilarated in a moment of cosmic consciousness. It's a heady ride! We also discuss how...