The Hive Poetry Collective

Join Julia Chiapella in conversation with award-winning Santa Cruz poet Charles Atkinson. We talk about his recent release, New and Collected Poems, life reflected in poetry, and his clear-eyed embrace of a diagnosis of lewy body dementia. You can purchase the book at Bookshop Santa Cruz or Two Birds Books . Chuck is joined in the conversation by his wife, writer and educator Sarah Rabkin.

Ellen Bass talks about her experience having Ann Sexton as a teacher in the '70s at Boston University. Then, Francesca Bell zooms in, and we read and discuss a few of Sexton's poems. I mention Sexton's fabulous biography by Diane Middlebrook. If you are interested in reading Sexton's poems, a good place to start is her collected poems or also her selected poems.

Paola Bruni chats with Dion O'Reilly about the collaborative book, How do you Spell the Sound of Crickets , written with the late Jory Post. Jory Post was an educator, writer, and artist who lived in Santa Cruz, California. He and his wife, Karen Wallace, created handmade books and art together as JoKa Press. Jory was the co-founder and publisher of phren-Z , an online literary quarterly, and foun...

Join Farnaz Fatemi as she talks with Lucian about the planet's creature, clouds, climate change and curing ham--and the poems Lucian writes invoking all of these things.  Lucian Mattison is a US-Argentinian poet and translator. He is the author of three books of poetry, Reaper's, Peregrine Nation and, most recently, Curare , just released from C&R press.

John Sibley Williams is the author of Scale Model of a Country at Dawn (Cider Press Review Book Award, 2021), The Drowning House (Elixir Press Poetry Award, 2021),   As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize, 2019), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press, 2019), Summon (JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize, 2019),  Disinheritance , and Controlled Hallucinations . His bo...

Listen in to New York Times best-selling author Javier Zamora read poems from his book Unaccompanied and talk about the process that led him to write the wildly popular memoir Solito . You can find copies of Unaccompanied and Solito on Amazon. Read the New York Times article about Javier here .

Join Julie Murphy as she talks with renown poet David Baker about his new book Whale Fall .  We read Stanley Plumly's In Passing and talk about the how poems are one of the most connective things we have as humans, how a lyric moment opens from the pastoral to the sublime in the midst of a story, and about the solace of poetry.  Known from his early days as a nature poet, Baker's work ha...

Matt Sedillo takes on the Western canon, discussing how many of the literary giants, such as Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg, disparaged Mexico/Mexicans. In his poems, Matt reclaims Chicanx/Latinx/Indigenous literary traditions and histories.  Matt Sedillo has been described by critics as the "best political poet in America" as well as "the poet laureate of the struggle." Sedillo was the reci...

Join all the members of the 2022 Hive Poetry Collective. Listen to new poems from Victoria Bañales , Julia Chiapella, Farnaz Fatemi , Julie Murphy and Dion O’Reilly in this special group episode.

Join Dion O'Reilly as she chats with Gregg Shapiro about his new book Fear of Muses . We read The Skokie Theater by Edward Hirsch  and talk about the power of poetry to change us, the uses of the lyric, the poet Denise Duhamel , and Shapiro's life in poetry.

Farnaz Fatemi, an Iranian American poet and member of the Hive,  reads from her debut book, Sister Tongue , that won the 2021 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize (selected by Tracy K. Smith). Julie Murphy and Farnaz Fatemi discuss longing, language, loss, identity and sisterhood as they weave through the remarkable poems in this collection. Farnaz's poetry and prose appear in Poets.org (Poem-a-Day...

Gregory Orr reads from his book Last Love Poem I will Ever Write . Dion O'Reilly and Gregory Orr discuss the "threshold," the boundary between the tolerable and intolerable and how poetry crafts disorder, revealing tools to survive or, even better, to discover the Beloved. We discuss the lyric poem, the villanelle, and how moments of bliss and pain turn us into poets and lovers of poetry, bringing...

Celebrated Chicana poet Naomi Helena Quinoñez reads and discusses poems that thematize divine feminine power, women’s spirituality, racial oppression, social justice, and more. Naomi Helena Quiñonez is a poet, educator and activist, and author of three collections of poetry, Exiled Moon, The Smoking Mirror, and Hummingbird Dream/Sueño de Colibri . Quiñonez edited several critical and literary publ...

  Rebecca Foust and Susan Cohen. are longtime friends and have attended the same writing group for years. In this interview with Dion O'Reilly , they both read from their new books: Susan Cohen's Democracy of Fire and Rebecca Foust's ONLY . 

Cate Kennedy chats with Dion O'Reilly and reads from her book, The Taste of Water . Cate Kennedy is the author of two short story collections, a novel, three poetry collections and a memoir.  Her awards include the Victorian Premier’s Literary Prize for Poetry for her collection “The Taste of River Water” (Scribe, 2011) and the NSW People’s Choice Award for her novel “The World Beneath” (Scri...

Kemi Alabi reads and discusses poems from her book Against Heaven which was selected by Claudia Rankine for the 2021 Academy of American Poets First Book Award. Find more about Kemi on her website and at the Academy of American Poets website. Against Heaven can be purchased on Amazon .

Hear Tim Fitzmaurice talk about and read from his book of poems, The Things We Take With Us: New and Selected . We talk about writing, poodle personas, Santa Cruz, and community in poetry. Bonus tracks : Tim singing and playing guitar! The Things We Take With Us is available in Santa Cruz at Bad Animal Books and Bookshop Santa Cruz and by contacting him at  timfitz@ucsc.edu . That w...

Please join poets and writers Charles Atkinson , Ellen Bass , Jack Foley, David Swanger, Hannah Sward and Ken Weisner celebrate the life and work of Santa Cruz's beloved poet Robert Sward who died this past February. Hosted by Julie Murphy , this episode includes readings and discussions of the guests' favorite poems of Robert's and their remarkable remembrances of him. Robert was a gifted poet, p...

Francesca Bell and Dion O'Reilly read some of their favorite poets and a few of the own. She reads from her next book What Small Sound and her previous collection, Bright Stain . Dion reads from her debut collection, Ghost Dogs , and from her upcoming collection Sadness of the Apex Predator. They also read a little Maggie Smith and a few other favorites.

Journal X poets Carla Schick, Claudia Ramírez Flores, and GusTavo A. Guerra Vásquez read and discuss their poems, touching upon themes of racial oppression, jazz, homophobia, border violence, culture, ancestry, “Watsón(ville)”, and more. Journal X , also known as Xinachtli Journal , is a literary/arts magazine focusing on social justice issues. To read or submit to the journal, visit https://www.c...

Join host Julia Chiapella and guest teacher, writer, and poet Patrice Vecchione as they chat about grief, feminism, and reckoning with a parent’s death. Julia will also share poems by students participating in the Young Writers Program’s Word Lab. For Patrice's website and information on upcoming classes: patrice@patricevecchione.com For information on the Catamaran Writing Conference where Patric...

Joe Millar chats with Dion O'Reilly about the value of emotion and feeling in poetry. He reads from his fabulous new collection Dark Harvest .

Kelli Russell Agodon Chats with Dion O'Reilly about her newest book, Dialogues with Rising Tides (Copper Canyon Press) and her previous book Hourglass Museum Finalist for the Washington State Book Award  and the Julie Suk Prize. They discuss eco-poetry and read one of Kelli's favorite poems, Small Kindnesses by Danusha Laméris.  

Please listen to this episode of the Hive with Rick Barot interviewed by Julie Murphy .  Rick reads a poem by Joy Harjo as well as several of his new poems. Join our conversation of poetry as elegy, the power of image and metaphor, and writing in difficult times. 

Shara McCallum reads from and discusses her book No Ruined Stone , a finalist for the 2022 Rilke Prize . Join us as we explore this riveting alternate history that spans Scotland and Jamaica, colonialism and self-determination, the literary tradition and the individual poet. Hear Shara’s wonderful stories about the making of her sensitive and searching new collection.