Commonplace Podcast

Raised in Brooklyn, NY, Sabrina Orah Mark earned a BA from Barnard College, Columbia University. She also earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a PhD in English from the University of Georgia. She is the author of the poetry collections Tsim Tsum , and The Babies. Her collection of stories, Wild Milk , won the Georgia Author of the Year Award for Short Story and was a finalist for the...

The New York-based photographer Lois Conner has been traveling the world with a 7x17” banquet camera for nearly half a century. Through the elongated format of her work she has explored the landscape and the temper of our times; her art is both contemporary and, due to her vision, ‘a long view’ that captures the eternal in the moment, timeless. Conner’s work is that of the artist-artisan: every as...

Eugenia Leigh is a Korean American poet and the author of Bianca (Four Way Books, 2023) and Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014). Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous publications including TIME, The Nation , Poetry, Ploughshares,Waxwing, and the Best of the Net anthology. Eugenia serves as a Poetry Editor at The Adroit Journal and as Valentines Editor at Honey Literary ....

Mike Sakasegawa is a writer, photographer, book artist, and the host of the arts and literature podcast Keep the Channel Open , and the short fiction podcast LikeWise Fiction . His writing has appeared in Last Exit , Catapult , PetaPixel , and Don’t Take Pictures Magazine . His photographs have been featured on Lenscratch , A Photo Editor , and SD Voyager , and included in several group exhibition...

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American , and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times . Hanif’s newest release, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension (Random House, 2024) is a poignant,...

D. A. Powell teaches at University of San Francisco. His books include Repast , Chronic and Useless Landscape or a Guide for Boys , all published by Graywolf Press. He is also the author of chapbooks Atlas T and Low Hanging Fruit . He lives in San Francisco.

Books by Rachel Zucker The Poetics of Wrongness (Wave Poetry, 2023)  SoundMachine (Wave Poetry, 2019)  The Pedestrians (Wave Poetry, 2014)  MOTHERs (2014)  Museum of Accidents (Wave Poetry, 2009)  The Bad Wife Handbook (Wesleyan University Press, 2007) The Last Clear Narrative (2004)  Eating in the Underworld (2003)  Books by Rachel Zucker and Arielle Greenberg H...

Hafizah Augustus Geter is a Nigerian-American poet, writer, and literary agent born in Zaria, Nigeria, and raised in Akron, Ohio, and Columbia, South Carolina. Her debut memoir, The Black Period: On Personhood, Race & Origin, (Random House, 2022) is winner of the 2023 PEN Open Book Award, winner of a  2023 Lammy Award in LGBTQ+ Nonfiction from Lambda Literary, a New Yorker Magazine Best B...

Mary Ruefle is the author of many books, including The Book (Wave Books, 2023), Dunce (Wave Books, 2019), which was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize, longlisted for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, as well as a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize. She is also the author of My Private Property (Wave Books, 2016), Trances of the Blast (Wave Books, 2013), Ma...

Nicole Sealey was born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and raised in Apopka, Florida. She received an MFA from New York University and an MLA in Africana studies from the University of South Florida. Sealey is the author of Ordinary Beast (Ecco Press, 2017), which was a finalist for the PEN Open Book and Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards. Her chapbook, The Animal After Whom Other Animals are Named (Nort...

Books by Eugenia Leigh Eugenia Leigh Bianca (Four Way Books, 2023) Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014) Other Relevant Links Mike Sakasegawa LikeWise Fiction Keep the Channel Open on Twitter Keep the Channel Open on Insta  Keep the Channel Open on YouTube Bio: Eugenia Leigh (she/her) is a Korean-American poet and the author of two collections of poetry, Bianca and Blood, Sparro...

Extra Resources Books by Laurel Snyder The Witch of Woodland (Walden Pond Press, 2023) Endlessly Ever After (Chronicle Books, 2022)  Charlie & Mouse: Book 1 (Chronicle Books, 2019) Hungry Jim (Chronicle Books, 2019)  My Jasper June (Walden Pond Press, 2019) Orphan Island (Walden Pond Press, 2018)  Swan: The Life and Dance of Anna Pavlova (Chronicle Books, 2015) Camp Wonderful Wi...

Extra Resources Books and Selected Other Work by Charif Shanahan POETRY Trace Evidence (Tin House, 2023) Into Each Room We Enter Without Knowing (SIU Press, 2017) Books and Selected Other Work by Safia Elhillo POETRY Girls That Never Die (One World/Random House, 2022) The January Children (University of Nebraska Press, 2017) “Indeterminacy” (Poets.org, 2023) FICTION Home Is Not a Country (Make Me...

Links, Bios, & Support Info Bryant Park Reading Series University of Maryland Library of Congress William Meredith Kim Novak BMCC KGB reading series David Lehman Star Black Paul Romero Sonia Sanchez Allen Ginsberg’s “Sunflower Sutra ” Phllyis Levin  Matt Yeager David Lehman Will Harris’s Brother Poem José Oliverez’s Promises of Gold Martha Graham Cracker Justin Vivian Bond Patty LuPone Br...

Links, Bios & Support Info Books & Selected Projects by Moheb Soliman HOMES (Coffee House Press, 2021) We’re Back!  Also Referenced Lorine Niedecker Gabrielle Octavia Rucker Cecily Nicholson, Wayside Sang David Byrne Walt Whitman Etheridge Knight Moheb Soliman is an interdisciplinary poet from Egypt and the Midwest who's presented work at literary, art, and public spaces in the US, Ca...

Links, Bios & Support Info Hope Mohr Hope Mohr’s Horizon Stanzas Alyssa Harad Coming to My Senses: A Story of Perfume, Pleasure, and an Unlikely Bridge by Alyssa Harad The Descent of Alette by Alice Notley Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth by Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer MOTHERs by Rachel Zucker Alice Notley reading books 1 and 2 of Descent of Alette Alice Notley reads books 3 and 4 o...

Links and resources Episode 143 of Keep the Channel Open: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Mike Sakasegawa LikeWise Fiction Keep the Channel Open on Twitter Keep the Channel Open on Insta  Keep the Channel Open on YouTube Information and sign up for new class “Reading with Rachel”

BOOKS & SELECTED WORK BY GABRIELLE OCTAVIA RUCKER Dereliction (The Song Cave, 2022) “Practice for My Birthday” in The Recluse (2021) ALSO REFERENCED Roosevelt University Auditorium Theater Joffrey Ballet Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Christkindlmarket, Chicago Paper Source National Book Foundation International Center of Photography The Poetry Project School for Poetic Computation The War...

The second of five episodes featuring the lectures that became Rachel Zucker’s newest book, The Poetics of Wrongness . This episode contains audio of “What We Talk About When We Talk About the Confessional and What We Should Be Talking About,” presented at the University of Arizona Poetry Center (Tucson) on January 28, 2016. It also includes a new introduction by Rachel and a conversation recorded...

Books and Selected Other Work by Joy Harjo POETRY Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: 50 Poems for 50 Years (W.W. Norton, 2022) An American Sunrise (W. W. Norton, 2019) Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (W. W. Norton, 2015) How We Became Human New & Selected Poems: 1975-2001 (W. W. Norton, 2004) A Map to the Next World (W. W. Norton, 2000) The Woman Who Fell From the Sky (W. W. Norton, 1994)...

Books and Selected Other Work by Saeed Jones Alive at the End of the World (Coffee House Press, 2022) How We Fight For Our Lives (Simon & Schuster, 2019) Prelude to Bruise (Coffee House Press, 2014) Also Referenced Open Books: A Poem Emporium V Conaty Christine Larusso Commonplace Goes to Taiwan, Episodes 1 and 2 Pema Chödrön Jorge Luis Borges Roger Reeves Roxane Gay Claudia Rankine Morgan Par...