Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

STOP LYING is Aaron's new book of poetry! We discuss its themes, then James gives Aaron the STOP pop quiz.  Stop Lying is just out from the Pitt Poetry Series. Buy it here! You can watch Aaron read from previous work here Read Aaron’s “My 1990s” online in Allium. Watch Phil Levine read the fabulous title poem from What Work Is here (~2 min) Here’s a video of Britney Spears as a child on Star...

The queens show why it matters how you wrap it up. Support Breaking Form! Buy Aaron's new book, Stop Lying . And pre-order James's new book, Romantic Comedy , available from Four Way Books in March 2023. Read Robert Hayden's iconic “Those Winter Sundays” here . Read Sharon Olds’s “I Go Back to May 1937” here You can read Louise Glück’s poem “Vita Nova” here .  TERF Adrienne Rich’s p...

The queens learn it takes courage to know what you know in this engrossing interview with the writer Lynn Melnick. Dolly Parton's version of “I Will Always Love You” attained commercial success, twice reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart — first in June 1974, and again in October 1982, with her re-recording. Whitney Houston’s 1992 version also went to # 1. Parton recorded it a...

We talk defiance, joy, and Dolly Parton's closet in Part 1 of our interview with poet and memoirist Lynn Melnick.  Buy Lynn's books here! Lynn Melnick is the author of the memoir, I've Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton, from the University of Texas Press's American Music Series/Spiegel & Grau Audio (October 2022).  She is also the au...

Pour your New Year mimosas, cuz we're playing Roethke or Rothko before "Things You can Say in Workshop, and in Bed." Aaron's new book, STOP LYING , is available for pre-order (and arrives January 2023). Order STOP LYING from the Pitt Poetry Series here. James's new book, ROMANTIC COMEDY , is available for preorder (releasing March 2023). Order Romantic Comedy from Four Way...

Get your nightcap ready for this recap as the queens relive their favorite clips from a year of Breaking Form. Aaron's new book, STOP LYING , is available for pre-order (and arrives January 2023). Order STOP LYING from the Pitt Poetry Series here. James's new book, ROMANTIC COMEDY , is available for preorder (releasing March 2023). Order  Romantic Comedy  from Four Way Books here. 

The Anniversary Episode has the queens recapping interviews and impact from a year of Breaking Form! Aaron's new book, STOP LYING , is available for pre-order (and arrives January 2023). Order STOP LYING from the Pitt Poetry Series here. James's new book, ROMANTIC COMEDY , is available for preorder (releasing March 2023). Order Romantic Comedy from Four Way Books here. Miguel Murphy&apos...

Aaron and James talk about becoming storytellers -- and survivors. Marie Howe’s poem “Gretel, From a Sudden Clearing” was first published in Agni 1987, then in her first book, The Good Thief , selected by Margaret Atwood as a winner in the 1987 Open Competition of the National Poetry Series (Persea, 1988). The other poem that Aaron mentions from the book is  "Isaac." Watch a reading and...

The queens get stately in this episode devoted to poetic queries and statements. Please consider supporting the poets we mention by buying their books at an indie bookstore. We can recommend Loyalty Books , a black-owned DC-area bookseller. The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry is edited by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux. It's essential reading. You can read t...

Aaron and James read work by writers we've lost to AIDS in this bonus episode. According to the website for World AIDS Day, more than 38 million people are currently living with HIV. And, since 1984, more than 35 million people have died of HIV or AIDS-related illnesses, making it one of the most destructive pandemics in history. Donate here . Please consider buying the books of the poets we...

C. Russell Price joins us for the Breaking Form Interview and talks doom, Designing Women, and why you should never read the comments on the internet. Price is the author of Oh, You Thought This was a Date?!: Apocalypse Poems , which can be purchased from Northwestern University Press here . Their chapbook, Tonight, We Fuck the Trailer Park Out of Each Other , is available from Sibling Rivalry Pre...

The queens discuss the ICONIC poems that are near and queer to their hearts. Please consider supporting the poets we mention in today's show! If you need a good indie bookstore, we recommend Loyalty Bookstores , a DC-area Black-owned bookshop. You can read Carl Phillips's poem, "X," from In the Blood, here. Listen to Louise Glück read "The Mirror" here and read the te...

Hot goss about Victorian poet(s) Michael Field precedes a conversation about the deep loss of animals, and the intimacy, friendship, and love we share with them. Please consider supporting the poets we mention in today's show! If you need a good indie bookstore, we recommend Loyalty Bookstores , a DC-area Black-owned bookshop. We reference a scene from the show Yellowstone where Beth tells he...

Frankly, our dears, all we want is boundless love for Frank O'Hara. We also discuss radical poetic embodiment, and ponder whether or not Dickinson's "Wild Nights" (269) is a fisting poem. Please consider supporting the poets we mention in today's show! If you need a good indie bookstore, we recommend Loyalty Bookstores , a DC-area Black-owned bookshop. Frank O’Hara was bor...

Just the tip-off! You’ll laugh, you’ll gasp, you’ll win $50 in breakcoin (more crypto than currency). Polish up your high-heel cleats and get out your pompoms!  Please consider supporting the poets we mention in today's show! If you need a good indie bookstore, we recommend Loyalty Bookstores , a DC-area Black-owned bookshop. Writing for the Ploughshares blog, Robert Anthony Siegel calls Sei...

Uh-oh! The queens dish poetry playboys and punk rock goddesses! It's like an episode of Gossip Girl, but make it poetry.... Please consider supporting the poets we mention in today's show! If you need a good indie bookstore, we recommend Loyalty Bookstores, a DC-area Black-owned bookshop. George Gordon Byron, the 6th Baron Byron, known simply as Lord Byron, was immensely popular during h...

The queens discuss breaking open the closet doors through the work of Paul Monette. Please consider supporting the poets we mention in today's show! If you need a good indie bookstore, we recommend Loyalty Bookstores, a DC-area Black-owned bookshop. Paul Monette (October 16, 1945--February 10, 1995)  was the author of at least 4 novels: Taking Care of Mrs. Carroll (1978), The Gold Diggers (19...

Karaoke may be where the party goes to die, but Poetry Karaoke will give you life! Please consider supporting the poets we mention in today's show! If you need a good indie bookstore, we recommend Loyalty Bookstores, a DC-area Black-owned bookshop. Constant Craving is a great song by kd lang. Read Marianne Moore's iconic poem "Poetry" here . Show You the Shape of My Heart , Bac...

The shady ladies tackle a  misogynistic poem about Emily Dickinson, then consult her tarot  for responses. It's Tea, Shade, & Amherst Lemonade, so lace up your gloves and let's get into it! The offending poem can be read here . For CA Conrad’s takedown of this poem (and some comments by Metres), see this blog post of Phil Metres’s here . If you haven't read TERFy Adrienne Rich&a...

We all have to check in some time to the Grief Motel. The queens talk about grief and how poetry helps us cope. Please support indie bookshops, like Loyalty Bookstores. Aaron Smith’s new book, Stop Lying, is out on January 31, 2023 and is available for pre-order here . You can buy James’s book of personal essays, I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well, here . Watch Thom L. Higgins throw a pi...

The queens discuss the craft of coping with grief. James misattributes to Coleridge the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads,  which defines poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." The real author is, of course, Wordsworth, who also writes:  "I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranqui...

Polish your crystal balls and buckle up, ladies! We get downright divinatory with Maureen Seaton leading the charge. As always, please consider supporting the poets and writers we mention in the episode and buying indie! Breaking Form recommends Loyalty Booksellers, a Black-owned DC-area indie bookshop. Peruse them here. Taurus poets mentioned in the Fact Check include Phillis Wheatley, Yannis Rit...

The queens are joined by Empress Maureen Seaton to discuss pushing the envelope.... Buy Maureen's books from Loyalty Bookstore, a DC-area Black-owned indie bookstore. Maureen Seaton earned an MFA from Vermont College in 1996. She is the author of the more than 25 poetry collections, some of them authored in collaboration with writers like Samuel Ace, Denise Duhamel, and Neil de la Flor. Seato...

Dig if you will a picture: Rita Dove, Prince, and an infidel poet. Prince released over 39 of his own albums and won seven Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe, and an Academy Award. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame the first year he was eligible (2004). In 1993, Prince announced his desire to go by "an unpronounceable symbol whose meaning has not been identified. It's all...

Our fearless queens select and dissect favorite poems--to say why and how poems endure. I Remember is a 1970 memoir written by author and artist Joe Brainard, depicting his childhood in the 1940s and '50s in Oklahoma as well as his life in the '60s and '70s in New York City. Brainard followed I Remember with I Remember More (1972) and More I Remember More (1973), both published by A...