Close Talking: A Poetry Podcast

Connor and Jack are joined by special guest Michael Kleber-Diggs for a conversation about the Gwendolyn Brooks poem "A Sunset of the City." Michael Kleber-Diggs won the 2020 Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, has been widely published, and teaches poetry through the Minnesota Prison Writers Workshop. In addition to digging into Gwendolyn Brooks' captivating poem, the trio also discuss Kleber-Diggs' new colle...

Connor and Jack discuss a classic poem by a classic poet - The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens. They talk about something. They talk about nothing. They talk about how the something of the poem perhaps resides in the nothing. Along the way they reference Taskmaster, King Lear, and much more. (Delayed after some technical difficulties!) The Snow Man By: Wallace Stevens One must have a mind of winter To...

Connor and Jack discuss the poem I.R.L. by New Zealand poet Chris Tse. They talk about how media representations and creations can cross into reality, the meaning of "gritty," and why S.O.S is so evocative. In the second part of the show they answer a listener question about how to know where to submit poetry. Connor recommends a study that examines race- and state-specific vaccination rates, and...

Connor and Jack discuss the generation melding poem "Hear the Dogs Crying" by Christy Passion. They discuss the power of car radios, the way the language of the poem leaps along with its subject matter, and even arrive at new readings of the last stanza in real time. In the second part of the show, Connor recommends the recent adaptation of "Station 11" and Jack recommends the music of Amyl and th...

Connor and Jack celebrate the 150th episode of Close Talking with a classic poem from a living legend - "Dreams" by Nikki Giovanni. They dig into poem's coming-of-age narrative discussing and along the way make musical references galore. Ray Charles and Marjorie Hendrix are just the tip of a harmonious iceberg in this wide-ranging conversation. Learn more about Giovanni, here: https://nikki-giovan...

Connor and Jack discuss Catherine Barnett's beautiful poem "Epistemology." Fittingly for the season of solstice logs, Hannukah bushes, and Christmas trees, this poem - which contemplates the nature of knowing - name checks "The Secret Life of Trees" and considers the aliveness of our arboreal friends. Learn more about Catherine Barnett, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/catherine-barnet...

Connor and Jack discuss a poem from Seema Yasmin's book "If God Is A Virus." They discuss Yasmin's status as a journalist, poet, and medical doctor; the way she weaves her many areas of expertise together in the poem; and what kind of art might one day represent this period of time. Read more about Yasmin, here: https://pulitzercenter.org/people/seema-yasmin Get a copy of "If God Is A Virus" here:...

In a slight departure from our regular format, Jack offers a brief remembrance of three recently departed poets - Kamilah Aisha Moon, Etel Adnan, and Robert Bly. Links to more information about the poets and to the poems read in the episode are below. Learn more about Kamilah Aisha Moon, here: http://www.kamilahaishamoon.org/ Read Disbelief here: https://poets.org/poem/disbelief Learn more about E...

In this special episode, Connor and Jack discuss the 2021 National Book Awards - the long list, the finalists, and the winner "Floaters: Poems" by Martín Espada. They dig into an excerpt from the title poem "Floaters" and discuss how it brings urgent attention to issues of immigration and uses narrative to fight against the dehumanizing language often used to describe those seeking a better life i...

Connor and Jack are joined by special guest Dr. Len Lawson, co-editor of the new collection "The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry." just released from Blair Publishing. Together they discuss Lawson's poem "Amanda Waller Suite Episode 3: Amanda Waller Has a Woman-to-Woman with Harley Quinn." They discuss finding the complex human side of characters like Waller, the...

Connor and Jack dive into an iconic poem by an iconic poet - Oodgeroo Noonuccal, also known as Kath Walker, a trailblazing indigenous Australian writer and activist. They discuss the history of racism towards indigenous Australian people, explore the ways the poem plays with perspective, and get a little lost on an environmental tangent about invasive species. Lear more about Oodgeroo Noonuccal, h...

A return to when Connor and Jack explored Fady Joudah's poem "Additional Notes on Tea." They discuss how the poem moves around the globe, how it interrogates history, and engages with the concept of God. Close Talking Ep. 132: Poetry and Palestine - https://soundcloud.com/close-talking/episode-132-poetry-and-palestine UNBOXED Vol 15: Poetry and Palestine - https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?u=fd945...

Connor and Jack discuss a poem by Andrés Cerpa whose book "The Vault" was recently long-listed for the 2021 National Book Award in Poetry. They dive into the short poem "The Nightmare Touched Its Forehead to My Lips" unpacking the ways it describes grief and loss, the meaning of vaults, and spend time on the title, which is also the title of a whole section of "The Vault." Read the poem here (or b...

In this bonus episode Connor and Jack continue their discussion of Don Mee Choi's poem, Shitty KItty. This time they focus on (rant about?) the history of US foreign policy failures, the lack of consequences for the architects of those disasters, and connect the histories that Shitty Kitty surfaces to contemporary struggles. They also share a some from the "Report by the Special Subcommittee on Di...

Connor and Jack discuss Don Mee Choi's "Shitty Kitty" from her 2016 book "Hardly War." They enmesh themselves in the tangled histories the poem explores - racial violence on US Navy ships in the 1970s, massacres committed by South Korean troops in Vietnam - talk about how the poem fits into the wider project of the book, and explore how the poem engages with the theories of Roland Barthes. Read th...

Connor and Jack discuss the poem "First Snow" by Aria Aber. They explore the poem's subtle and marvelous use of perspective, the representation of snow and frost, and the poem's resonances with the devastating impact US war and intervention has had on Afghanistan. Learn more about Aria Aber here: https://www.ariaaber.com/ Get a copy of her debut collection Hard Damage here: https://www.nebraskapre...

Connor and Jack dig into an excerpt from the epic, book-length poem "John Brown's Body" by Stephen Vincent Benet. In the late 1920s the book was a mega-best seller and won the 1929 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. They discuss the implications of the poem's popularity, other literary and artistic works that re-tell history, and the durable cultural myths John Brown's story exemplifies. Learn more a out...

Connor and Jack discuss the poem "Why I Am Silent About The Lament" by Abdullah Al-Baradouni, translated by Threa Almontaser. Despite being one of the most prominent and influential poets in the Arab world, until recently only one of Baradouni's poems had been translated into English. Connor and Jack discuss Baradouni's legacy, the ways this poem - written decades ago - speaks to the contemporary...

Time travel stories are everywhere - Avengers: Endgame, Loki, Back to the Future, Outlander, the list is endless - but what happens when a poem takes on the question of time travel? Connor and Jack dive into Irish poet, Patrick Cotter's "Time Traveler." They discuss the challenges of thinking about the practicalities of time travel, the poem's use of sound, and the time-warping events of the last...

Connor and Jack discuss the Audre Lorde poem "Coping." They discuss Lorde's legacy as a writer and theorist, how poems and other pieces of culture can be palatable containers for unruly emotions, and the nature imagery the poem uses. They also take time to reflect on the ways the poem gets them thinking about climate change. More about Audre Lorde, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/audr...

The Pulitzer Prizes just announced the 2021 winners and in poetry, Natalie Diaz won for her collection "Postcolonial Love Poem." In this special episode, Connor and Jack discuss the title poem, the histories at play in the collection, Diaz's well-deserved Pulitzer win, and more! Find "Postcolonial Love Poem" here: https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/postcolonial-love-poem Hear Diaz read the title...

Connor and Jack explore the poem "Into the Racism Workshop" by award-winning, Menominee, two-spirit poet, Chrystos. Along the way they discuss the long, complex histories held in the term two-spirit, the wry humor in Chrystos' poem, and the note of tempered hope on which it ends. Into the Racism Workshop By: Chrystos For Alma Banda Goddard my cynical feet ambled prepared for indigestion & blank fa...

This episode revisits Connor and Jack's discussion of Emily Jungmin Yoon's poem "Say Grace." They explore how gender and religion intertwine in the poem, talk about the difficulties immigrant populations face in new oppressive states, and reflect on Emily Jungmin Yoon's particular kind of reclaiming. Check out the poem below or at this link: www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi…25/say-grace Read...

Connor and Jack share poetry from Palestinian poets and reflect on the power of poetry as a form of resistance. Poems shared: "Resist, My People, Resist Them" by Dareen Tatour: https://arablit.org/2016/04/27/the-poem-for-which-dareen-tatours-under-house-arrest-resist-my-people-resist-them/ "The House Murdered" by Mahmoud Darwish: https://progressive.org/dispatches/the-house-murdered/ "Israelis Let...

Connor and Jack close out National Poetry Month 2021 with a series of episodes exploring the history and enduring popularity of one of poetry's iconic forms: the sonnet. To finish off a full week of episodes, a look at some contemporary sonnets and ways that poets have added to (and moved beyond)the basic fourteen line form. Nicole Sealey's 29 line "candelabra with heads" Paisley Rekdal's anagramm...