Ode & Psyche Podcast

An incredible and in-depth conversation with Classical scholar, Stephanie McCarter about Ovid, Horace, greco Roman poetry, the tradition of translation, retelling of myth, and the movements of poetry across the ages. Ovid’s Metamorphoses continues to speak to our fundamental issues, but how, and why? What can this new translation tell us about not only Ovid’s […]

Talking today about the work of creating a book from our private work on the self, reckoning with the most unbearable past; as it overlaps and interacts with the art in our lives, which in turn connects to the history of our relationship with art and others: Ed Steck, who spent much of his childhood […]

What is the private space of a diary, what is the public space of a poem, and what does the psyche do in each? What is confession and what is memory in the poem, if it plays with the mechanism, or tone of Diary? How to explore and play the the personal expectations of those […]

Dorothea Lasky and I discuss her newest collection of poetry The Shining, the deceptive nature of the “I” in poetry; the undiscovered language that haunts our very psyche–and of course a lot about Kubrick’s film adaptation of The Shining. Mactaggart Jewelry: use the code Psyche20 for 20% off! Louise Glück’s The Wild Iris Jung’s The […]

Talking with the incredible poet and artist, Mathias Svalina, about language and space of dreams, as it mirrors and informs the poem. Working consistently within the epistolary form, and the “telling” of dream form, Svalina continues the work of looking and seeing the world through the lens of the surreal, pushing against the boundaries of […]

In Paul Hlava Ceballos’s Banana [] is a stunning debut full length collection that explored the crushing reality of the violence of “the extractive relationship the United States has with the Americas and its people through poetic portraits of migrants, family, and memory.” The title poem is part poetry and part reportage that traces the […]

Today we’re starting a new randomly occurring series on the podcast where we talk about–on top of whatever else–dreams. We start today with the poet and translator Ana Božičević, whose new book New Life came out this year from Wave Books. Ana Božičević is a poet, translator, teacher, and occasional singer. Ana grew up in […]

SOPHIE KLAHR IS THE AUTHOR OF TWO OPEN DOORS IN A FIELD (BACKWATERS PRESS), MEET ME HERE AT DAWN (YESYES BOOKS) AND THERE IS ONLY ONE GHOST IN THE WORLD (FICTION COLLECTIVE 2), WINNER OF THE RONALD SUKENICK INNOVATIVE FICTION CONTEST, WHICH WAS CO-AUTHORED WITH COREY ZELLER. HER POEMS APPEAR IN THE NEW YORKER, AMERICAN […]

Today I’m talking with my friend and collaborator, Candace Jensen about the embodied and disembodies; poetry and inspiration; the soma and psyche; dyadic knowing and hidden; and the multifarious states of consciousness– this is what inspired us to host a week long in-person retreat this summer called The Unconscious Speaks and we wanted to include […]

Charif Shanahan is the author of Into Each Room We Enter without Knowing, a Lambda Literary Award and Publishing Triangle’s Thom Gunn Award Finalist. His work has appeared in American Poetry Review, The Nation, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, PBS NewsHour, and Poetry. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment of the Ar...

Today I’m talking about the various forms of nonfiction that poet, essayist and novelist Hilary Plum has found herself interacting with in her newest book Hole Studies. From listening to music, to obsessively reading journalism, podcasts, or editing and examining the conventional forms of academic publishing–Plum’s inquisitive mind investigates the structures and mechanisms of fo...

What does it mean to make a narrative out of our thoughts and feelings. And really too, how do the people in our lives our relationships factor into our reality. When we write an ode to a lover, are we watching them in love with another person? Are we Keats watching the lovers in the […]

We’re talking today about some of the origins of the themes of this podcast, my personal interest in combining poetry and the psychoanalytical, which are of course two instances of  exploring psyche through language and the relational, searching the self through lyrical uncertainty and narrative. It’s almost frustrating to listen back to the conversation because […]

Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi (They/Them) is a queer, Iranian born, Toronto-based Poet, Writer and Translator. They were shortlisted for the 2021 Austin Clarke poetry prize and 2022’s Arc Poem of the year award and they are the winner of the 2021 Vallum Poetry Prize. They are the author of four poetry chapbooks and three translated poetry […]

Talking the poet Elisa Gabbert about her amazing new book Normal Distance. A collection of funny and thought-provoking poems inspired by surprising facts that will appeal to poetry lovers and poetry haters alike, from the author of the essay collection The Unreality of Memory, “a work of sheer brilliance, beauty, and bravery” (Andrew Sean Greer) Known […]

Dara Barrois/Dixon (formerly Dara Wier) is the author of Tolstoy Killed Anna Karenina (Wave Books, 2022). Other titles include In the Still of the Night (Wave Books, 2017), You Good Thing (Wave Books, 2014), Reverse Rapture (Verse Press, 2005), Hat on a Pond (Verse Press, 2002) and Voyages in English (Carnegie Mellon, 2001).  She has received awards from the Lannan Foundation, American Poetry Revi...

Talking with the poet and artist, Sommer Browning about her new book GOOD ACTORS, from Birds LLC. Sommer Browning is an author, curator, and artist living in Denver. Her books include two collections of poetry Backup Singers and Either Way I’m Celebrating (both with Birds, LLC), as well as the artist book, The Circle Book (Cuneiform Press), the joke book&#1...

Talking in this episode with the poet and writer, Ben Purkert, about the manuscript editing process, teaching, self-imposed identities as a poet, and reading a lot of poems from his debut poetry collection For the Love of Endings! Ben Purkert is the author of the forthcoming novel The Men Can’t Be Saved (Overlook, 2023). His […]

Talking with the poet and therapist Emily Kendal Frey, about her most recent book, Loveability, and how In poems we’re not only making space to explore risky ideas of self, but space for a reader to do the same. It’s a relationship with narrative that leaves space for the reader to see and being seen. But also […]

Ben Pease and I talk with the poet and psychotherapist, Matt L. Rohrer (now publishing under “Roar”), (who also used to play on an all-poets basketball team in NYC with Ben) about his evolution from being a poet and working with kids to being an independent clinical social worker. Fascinatingly, Matt’s work with young men […]

Ben Pease and I talked with the amazing Vermont poet, writer and artist Shanta Lee Gander who gives lectures on the life of Lucy Terry Prince as a member of the Vermont Humanities Council Speakers Bureau. As we are the end of Black History Month, we wanted to take a moment to really honor the […]

This episode is part-un-planned-conversation, part-mutual-interview–poets Bianca Stone and Mark Leidner discuss how the self functions in and outside of the poem, what it might say about the anxiety of the poet, how the speaker functions in the poem, the ecosystem of poetry and desire desire desire. What happens when poets sit down without much of […]

Bianca Stone talking with the acclaimed Serbian American poet and former co-poetry editor of the Paris Review, about what life and in Covid, marital squabbles of crows, the dullness of growing up between his grandfather’s farm in rural Serbia, and the excitement of Belgrade; how nature and city works in his poems, and the wandering […]

Talking today with acclaimed poet, Natalie Shapero about her most recent collection of poetry about the poetry that deal with the human being against an array of neoliberal and capitalistic systems; against the dynamics of people in proximity to one another; what it might look like to write towards oblivion; the wry truth of sadness; […]