Close Talking: A Poetry Podcast

Connor and Jack take a detour into American gothic territory with Ted Kooser's eerie "Abandoned Farmhouse." They hone in on what makes the poem so creepy, how the specific and the unnamed work together to heighten its unsettling atmosphere, and end up reflecting on how it almost sounds like a horrific children's book. Read the poem below.
 More on Ted Kooser, here: http://www.tedkooser.net/about.s...

Connor and Jack talk about the poem "And" by Rae Armantrout. Connor asks, "Why is this a poem?" Jack expounds upon Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and both burrow deep into the strange roots and meanings of words. Read the poem below.
 More on Rae Armantrout, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rae-armantrout Find us on facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking 
Find us on Twitter at: tw...

EXTRA EPISODE! This is a short outtake from our conversation on Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese." Jack discusses some connections he sees between Oliver and Kierkegaard, and Connor comments on the philosophical depth of Oliver's poetic project. Read the poem below.
 More on Mary Oliver, here: www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-oliver Find us on facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking 
Find us on twitter...

In the wake of Mary Oliver's recent passing, Connor and Jack delve into one of her most popular poems, "Wild Geese." Connor is dazzled by the way the poem moves, and Jack can't help bringing Tom Petty into the conversation. Read the poem below.
 More on Mary Oliver, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-oliver Find us on facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking 
Find us on twitter at: tw...

In the first episode of 2019, Connor and Jack discuss Natasha Trethewey’s “Letter.” Jack calls Connor out for his poetical preferences, Connor waxes abstractly about associative logic, both explore how things as small as a letter can reveal our most profound grief. A Dybek umbrella descends. Read the poem below.
 More on Natasha Trethewey, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/natasha-treth...

In this episode, Connor and Jack discuss Mary Karr's "Carnegie Hall Rush Seats." In the course of the conversation they also talk about big-R Romanticism, Calvinism, the Netflix program Chef's Table, and the quasi-mystical process behind the crafting of the world's finest classical instruments. Connor sticks up for the midwest, Jack's poetic preferences are laid bare, and a physical copy of the OE...

Content Warning: Suicidality Connor and Jack discuss a poem by this year's National Book Award winner for Poetry: Justin Phillip Reed. The poem, "How to Keep it Down / Throw It off / Defer Until Asleep," is from that award-winning collection, Indecency, published by Coffee House Press. We talk about the effects of the poem's shifting POV, the intersection of mental illness and white supremacy, and...

It has been two years since Connor and Jack launched Close Talking! After 50 episodes, they decided to commemorate the occasion by looking back on an episode they particularly enjoyed on Monica Youn's "Ersatz Ignatz" To read the poem, go here or below: www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53591/ersatz-ignatz For more on Youn: www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/monica-youn To check out the collection Ignatz:...

For the 50th episode of Close Talking, Connor and Jack dive into a classic: Ozymandias. They discuss Percy Bysshe Shelley's many accomplishments, the poem's history, and how the poem has been deployed in popular culture. Jack can't help bringing up Roger Federer, and Connor offers a curated tour of poems about urns, sculptures, and other objects. Read the poem below. Poetry Foundation Poem Guide (...

In this special spooky Halloween episode, we talk about Anna Journey's terrifying and haunting poem "Mercy." We consider serial killers and Brett Kavanaugh, squirrel meat and patriarchal violence, and the ghoulish openness of the grotesque. Content Warning: Sexual Violence. Read the poem below. More on Journey: http://annajourney.com/ Check out Journey’s collection, Vulgar Remedies, where this poe...

In this episode, Connor and Jack explore an the poem “Emplumada,” by Lorna Dee Cervantes. They discuss the poem’s ending, its ambiguity and beauty; how the poem might fit into a three-act structure; the poem’s negotiation with an oppressive history; the poem’s tonal distance between quiet and intensity; and, finally, hummingbirds and their possible mating practices? Read the poem below or here: ht...

Connor and Jack delve into Fatimah Asghar's incredible poem, "If They Should Come for Us." They discuss the lack of punctuation, the use of the ampersand, the historical connections in the title, brave line breaks, The Dark Knight, the blending of the political and the personal, and much more. This show starts with a short discussion of a listener response to episode 42, Manifesto on Ars Poetica,...

In this larger episode, Connor and Jack explore an excerpt of Layli Long Soldier’s sequence “Whereas Statements,” which responds to the Congressional Resolution of Apology to Native Americans that US President Barack Obama signed on Saturday, December 19, 2009. They discuss how Long Soldier interrogates and writes against the language of the Apology, the effects of her syntactical experimentation,...

Many poems were shared online in the wake of Aretha Franklin's recent passing. Connor and Jack explore the emotional and poetic depths of this poem by Ada Limon, written ten years ago, which simultaneously celebrates Franklin and her music, shows the immediate impact hearing that music for the first time can have on an unsuspecting young listener, and also contains the contradictions and glories o...

Connor and Jack go on a mid-summer romp in the blackberry patch for a discussion of Seamus Heaney's "Blackberry-Picking." Along the way they discuss the poem's accessibility to a variety of audiences, Heaney's ability to create sonically perfect moments, and the meaning of the word "crepuscular." They also take time to marvel at Heaney's overall mastery of all things poetic and the way he uses all...

Connor and Jack delve into Ross Gay's powerhouse poem "Pulled Over in Short Hills, NJ 8:00am. Jack breaks down how he arrived at his choice of this poem and the two discuss police violence, the inescapability of race in the United States, the ending of the film Inception, and the Green Book, a travel guide used by black families during the Jim Crow era. Find out more about Ross Gay, here: http://w...

Connor and Jack discuss Frank Chipasula's poem "Manifesto on Ars Poetica." They discuss the poem's historical context regarding Malawi, its contrast with Carolyn Forche's style of witnessing, the juxaposition of light and dark, self-reflexivity, and the tradition of ars poetica. Check out the poem below or at this link: https://theafricanbookreview.com/2014/11/27/frank-chipasula/ Read more about C...

Connor and Jack discuss Emily Jungmin Yoon's poem "Say Grace." They discuss how gender and religion intertwine in the poem, the difficulties immigrant populations face in new oppressive states, and Yoon's particular kind of reclaiming. Check out the poem below or at this link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/144625/say-grace Read more about Yoon here: https://www.poetryfounda...

Connor and Jack discuss Natalie Diaz's poem "My Brother At 3 A.M." They discuss the form of the pantoum and explore how the pantoum's repetitive structure works with a poem about addiction. Check out the poem below or at this link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56355/my-brother-at-3-am Read more about Diaz here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/natalie-diaz Read more about pantoums...

For the second time on Close Talking, Connor and Jack consider an excerpt from a play. In a wide-ranging discussion of Harper's Monologue from Tony Kushner's eight hour masterwork "Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes," they discuss modes of writing, lyricism, echoes within the sprawling play, and how the work draws out, smashes together, and interrogates seemingly disconnected asp...

Connor and Jack talk about Carolyn Forche's elegy "Because One Is Always Forgotten" digging into the troubled history of the United States' involvement in South and Central America -- many times being on the wrong side of (and in some cases starting) brutal conflicts. This episode comes out the same week that Oliver North, the man indicted in the Iran-Contra Scandal, was named president of the NRA...

Connor and Jack talk about a poem that was likely written hundreds of years ago (more on this in the podcast) by Jewish poet and philosopher Yehuda Halevi. More recently, it was featured in the Netflix original series, Godless. This episode contains a wide-ranging discussion of poetic translation, religion, and universality in poetry. Find us on facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking Find us on tw...

Connor and Jack explore the fantastic poem "I Have Got To Stop Loving You So I Have Killed My Black Goat" by Ai. Connor and Jack talk about grotesque and profane images, and how they get us to the profound and sacred, and make a million references in order to talk about how images work, including Call Me By Your Name and Star Wars. Check out the poem below, or at this link: https://words-end-here....

While preparing for episode 26 of Close Talking on Kaveh Akbar's Waiting for the Twelfth, Jack stumbled onto a musical interpretation of the poem. As a special Poetry Month extra, here is a recording of Jack's sung version of Waiting for the Twelfth. Check out our episode discussing this poem, here: https://soundcloud.com/close-talking/episode-026-waiting-for-the-twelfth For more on Akbar: www.poe...

Connor and Jack discuss Joy Harjo's "An American Sunrise. Along the way Jack recommends a documentary, Connor gives his current hot take on form in poetry, and both think about the origins of blues, jazz, and rock and roll. Check out the poem below, or at this link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/92063/an-american-sunrise Find us on facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking Fin...