Close Talking: A Poetry Podcast

Connor pops in to announce incredibly belatedly what has already been apparent for months: Close Talking is on a hiatus! We've had some big life and career changes that have unexpectedly cut into our capacity for the podcast, but it's not a permanent hiatus! Okay, a poem: Tune By: Kay Ryan Imagine a sea of ultramarine suspending a million jellyfish as soft as moons. Imagine the interlocking uninsi...

A slight departure from our regular format. On today's show, Connor and Jack remember the recently departed poet Charles Simic. They read some of his poems, reflect on them, discuss his life and legacy, and even give a shoutout to the Oak Park Public Library. Poems Connor and Jack read in this episode include: "Summer Morning" "Hotel Insomnia" "Watermelons" and "Back at the Chicken Shack." At the...

Connor and Jack bid farewell to the year they've taken to calling "Twenty Twenty Poo" and contemplate the complexities of language in a wide-ranging conversation about a spectacular untitled poem by Diné poet Sherwin Bitsui, from his 2009 collection Flood Song. They discuss movement, the natural world, an extremely informative dissertation and more. Learn more about Bitsui, here: https://www.poetr...

Connor and Jack discuss the sonically and thematically dense poem "Topsoil, in Repentance" by Sherry Shenoda. Shenoda's book MUMMY EATERS was longlisted for the National Book Award in 2022. The conversation moves from an exploration of internal rhymes and alliteration, to the climate crisis, to the religious implications of the word "repentance," to soil strata, and to the relative weight of human...

After a busy couple weeks at Close Talking headquarters, a slightly different show. This episode is from our sister-podcast, Poetry Spoken Here. The episode first aired in the summer of 2020 and was simply called "Black Lives Matter." The poems and voices featured are all from the Poetry Spoken Here archives and address race, policing, and more. Readers include Pulitzer Prize-winner Jericho Brown,...

In this special episode, Connor and Jack discuss the 2022 National Book Awards — the long list, the finalists, and the winner "Punks: New and Selected Poems" by John Keene. They read and explore a marvelous poem from the collection, "Folks Are Right, My Nose Was Wide Open," which also appeared in BOMB Magazine. Listen to the National Book Awards Award Ceremony, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Connor and Jack discuss a classic poem from a classic poet: The Dancing by the recently departed Gerald Stern. They marvel at how the poem is constructed, get deep into a discussion of encroaching fascism, and even have time to rage at the "evil Mellons," bring in Bruce Springsteen and Michael Bay, and pause to reflect on how lyric poetry can address structural inequalities. You can read the poem,...

Connor and Jack have a time talking about the poem "A Time" by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke. She is a multi-award winning poet whose latest book-length poem "Look at This Blue" is on the short list for the 2022 National Book Award. Come for the poetry analysis, stay for the discussion of red wolves, climate crisis, Tolkein, impermanence, and diectic words. You can read the poem, here: https://www.poe...

Connor and Jack dig into the list/poem/prose piece/literary mystery Not Writing by Anne Boyer. Along the way they discuss what they are and are not writing themselves, Jack asks about why the poem never becomes monotonous, and Connor offers his thoughts about how writing, time, and capitalism intersect both in the poem and in life. Read the poem, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58316/...

Connor and Jack discuss Sasha Banks' poem, america, MINE from her collection of the same name. They start by examining some of the poem's formal elements like its lack of traditional punctuation, and quickly jump to big themes like how the idea of vengeance is transformed in the poem and the contested symbol of the American flag is used. Read the full poem below, or here: http://thecollagist.com/t...

Posted at long last after overcoming major technical difficulties!! Connor and Jack dive into the poem "I Hear a Dog Who is Always in My Death" by Samuel Ace. They discuss the poem's evocative imagery, ruminate on it's call to action against encroaching fascism, and find resonances with English and Egyptian mythology. They also make some time to dunk on transphobes. I Hear a Dog Who is Always in M...

Connor and Jack discuss the poem "First Snow" by Arthur Sze. They discuss life, death, being, nothingness, and all the hidden meaning waiting to leap out of the every day. They also talk about how some poems can urge us towards presence and mindfulness and the necessity of taking the occasional pause in life. First Snow By: Arthur Sze A rabbit has stopped on the gravel driveway: imbibing the silen...

A dive into the Close Talking archives - one of the first episodes we ever recorded in which we discuss the poem "The Lynching Postcard, Duluth, Minnesota" by Ray Gonzalez. Poetry can seem a little insignificant in the face of an onslaught of historically awful news, like the one we've all been experience the last few weeks. But poems like this one have a special kind of power - cutting to deep tr...

Connor and Jack are joined by special guest Tara Betts to discuss the poem "Small Illuminations" from her forthcoming collection REFUSE TO DISAPPEAR. They discuss the legacy of Margaret Taylor-Burroughs, the realities of incarceration, and how the collection REFUSE TO DISAPPEAR grew over time. Get a copy of REFUSE TO DISAPPEAR, here: https://wordworksbooks.org/product/refuse-to-disappear/#:~:text=...

Connor and Jack are joined by poet, essayist, and journalist Noor Hindi. They dig into the poem "Self Interrogation" the first poem in Hindi's new collection DEAR GOD. DEAR BONES. DEAR YELLOW. coming out on 5/31 from Haymarket Books. She discusses the inspiration behind some of the poems in the book, the significance of the color yellow, and the importance of having a variety of experiences and pe...

Connor and Jack explore Aracelis Girmay's poem "Elegy" from her 2011 collection Kingdom Animalia. They talk through the opening line's call to community and the ways it resonates with Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese," they get scientific while discussing the nature imagery in the poem, and they delve into the poem's pandemic-era relevance. Elegy By: Aracelis Girmay What to do with this knowledge that ou...

Connor and Jack conclude their exploration of poetic line breaks with a bit of a catch all episode looking at how line breaks can reveal information, play with time, and enhance surprise. They pull examples from Audre Lorde, Chris Tse, Rae Armantrout, and Emily Dickinson. There's even time for mentions of laminated dough and Indiana Jones. Episode 1 of Line Break Week - Why break lines?: https://s...

As line break week hurdles towards its conclusion, Connor and Jack pause to consider ambiguity in line breaks. When the meaning of a word or phrase is altered by the positioning of a line break. They discuss the classic WB Yeats poem "Leda and the Swan" and Franz Wright's "Empty Cathedral." Along the way they talk about twists and turns in other literary work like Spiderman: Homecoming, Midnight M...

Connor and Jack delve ever deeper into the world of poetic line breaks. This time they're looking at how line breaks build rhythm in poems. They discuss rhythm within lines running through various literary terms and talking through some of the most popular meters. Then they move on to how line breaks facilitate rhythm through rhyme and anaphora. using examples from Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Forrest G...

Connor and Jack continue their exploration of all the ways lines can be broken and all the reasons a poet might have for breaking a line. Today they discuss using line breaks for emphasis focusing on the poem "The Pope's Penis" by Sharon Olds. They also discuss the sacred and profane resonances the poem has with Bob Dylan's masterpiece, "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)." Episode 1 of Line Brea...

Connor and Jack continue their dive into the intricacies of the poetic line break this time discussing miming in line breaks. They draw examples from Pierre Joris, James Wright, and Frank O'Hara to close out National Poetry Month 2022 in style! Episode 1 of Line Break Week: https://soundcloud.com/close-talking/episode-157-why-break-a-line-line-break-week-ep-1 Episode 2 of Line Break Week: https://...

Connor and Jack continue their week-long exploration of line breaks in poetry closing out National Poetry Month 2022. Today they focus on how line breaks can build drama in a poem. Do they take a detour into discussing Entourage along the way? Maybe. But that's all part of the drama. The focus on a poem by Tacey M. Atsitty that uses line breaks to create drama throughout. Check out Episode 1 of Li...

Starting a little later than planned, but it's time for the fourth annual last-week-of-poetry-month Close Talking extravaganza! In past years Connor and Jack have talked about haiku, shared comforting poems, and investigated the sonnet. Now, they take on their grandest subject yet - the line break. They dig into why poets break lines, what makes line breaks so special, and even give examples rangi...

Connor and Jack discuss "Beckoned" by living legend Forrest Gander. The poem, from Gander's Pulitzer Prize winning collection "Be With" grapples with grief and loss. In the discussion, Connor and Jack touch on the poem's use of anaphora and use of sound, investigate the ways nature imagery shows up throughout, and even find some stylistic connections between the poem and the current Marvel Disney+...

Connor and Jack are joined by special guest Caitlin Scarano to discuss the poem "Buttercream" from her new collection THE NECESSITY OF WILDFIRE. The collection won the Wren Poetry Prize, selected by final judge Ada Limón. Scarano discusses the poem, the collection, and the ways her work has taken what she describes as an "environmental turn" since completing THE NECESSITY OF WILDFIRE. She also tal...