The Poetry Magazine Podcast

In the final episode of season 2, Marie Howe invites listeners to find what’s praisable.  Matsuo Bashō wrote: Wake, butterfly—  it's late, we've miles  to go together. Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly, a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating. The series is produced by Rachel James with sound design by Axel Kacoutié. Here’s an edited version of Marie Howe’s pro...

Dawn Lundy Martin invites listeners to notice where the grief resides, then let it go. Matsuo Bashō wrote: Wake, butterfly— it’s late, we’ve miles to go together. Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly , a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating. The series is produced by Rachel James with sound design by Axel Kacoutié. Here’s an edited version of Dawn Lundy Martin’s...

Manny Loley invites listeners to make an offering. Matsuo Bashō wrote: Wake, butterfly—  it’s late, we’ve miles  to go together. Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly, a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating. The series is produced by Rachel James with sound design by Axel Kacoutié. _____ Here’s an edited version of Manny Loley’s prompt: Create a poem in four steps...

Maggie Nelson invites listeners to productively disassociate. Matsuo Bashō wrote: Wake, butterfly—  it's late, we've miles  to go together. Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly, a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating. The series is produced by Rachel James with sound design by Axel Kacoutié. _____ Here’s an edited version of Maggie Nelson’s prompt: Write on a pie...

Nick Makoha invites listeners to build a cocoon, then break free. Matsuo Bashō wrote: Wake, butterfly—  it's late, we've miles  to go together. Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly, a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating. The series is produced by Rachel James with sound design by Axel Kacoutié. _____ Here’s an edited version of Nick Makoha’s prompt: Part one: th...

In the first episode of season 2, Naomi Shihab Nye invites readers to develop a ritual. Matsuo Bashō wrote: Wake, butterfly—  it's late, we've miles  to go together. Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly, a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating. The series is produced by Rachel James with sound design by Axel Kacoutié. _____ Here’s an edited version of Naomi Shihab...

In the sixth and final episode of this season, Saretta Morgan and Bo Hwang invite listeners to create a guided meditation that allows for arrival. _____ Matsuo Bashō wrote: Wake, butterfly—  it’s late, we've miles  to go together.  Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly, a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating. The series is produced by Rachel James with sound desig...

In the fifth episode, Amelia Bande invites listeners to play a game. _____ Matsuo Bashō wrote: Wake, butterfly— it’s late, we’ve miles to go together. Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly, a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating. The series is produced by Rachel James with sound design by Axel Kacoutié. _____ Here’s an edited version of Bande’s prompt: Think about...

In the fourth episode, Pamela Sneed invites listeners to create a protest poem and an antidote. _____ Matsuo Bashō wrote: Wake, butterfly— it’s late, we’ve miles to go together. Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly, a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating. The series is produced by Rachel James with sound design by Axel Kacoutié. _____ Here’s an edited version of...

In the third episode, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge invites listeners to observe a plant and receive its messages. _____ Matsuo Bashō wrote: Wake, butterfly— it’s late, we’ve miles to go together. Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly, a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating. The series is produced by Rachel James with sound design by Axel Kacoutié. _____ Here’s an edited...

In the second episode, Edward Salem invites listeners to find what’s beyond “so what.” _____ Matsuo Bashō wrote: Wake, butterfly— it’s late, we’ve miles to go together. Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly, a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating. The series is produced by Rachel James with sound design by Axel Kacoutié. _____ Here’s an edited version of Salem’s p...

In the first episode, Gabrielle Calvocoressi invites listeners to make a web. _____ Matsuo Bashō wrote: Wake, butterfly— it’s late, we’ve miles to go together. Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly , a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating. The series is produced by Rachel James with sound design by Axel Kacoutié. _____ Here’s an edited version of Calvocoressi’s pr...

This week, Cindy Juyoung Ok speaks with Kiki Petrosino, who has published five elegant and remarkable books, all with Sarabande, including the memoir Bright (2022) and the poetry collection White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia (2020). Petrosino speaks about crestfallenness and her new essay in the October issue of Poetry , “On Crestfallenness: A Pilgrim, Not a Tractor,” which appeared as part of the H...

This week, Cindy Juyoung Ok speaks with Kimiko Hahn, who won the 2023 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation, and who is featured in the October 2023 issue of Poetry . Hahn talks about how her work has changed over the years, including her current love of form, and how she’s been mentoring her younger self while putting together her forthcoming new and selected, The Ghost Forest (W.W....

This week, Cindy Juyong Ok talks with Cathy Park Hong, who has published three volumes of poetry and the collection of essays Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning , which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Hong introduces us to a new selection from “Spring and All,” featured in the September 2023 issue of Poetry . She discusses how feeling like a “shit mom” during the early days of the...

On this week’s episode, Cindy Juyoung Ok speaks with poet, essayist, and translator Lena Khalaf Tuffaha about the life and work of the renowned Palestinian poet and writer Zakaria Mohammed. Born in Nablus, Palestine, Mohammed was a freelance journalist, editor, and poet who authored nine volumes of poetry. In 1994, after twenty-five years in exile, he returned to his homeland to live in Ramallah w...

This week, Cindy Juyoung Ok speaks with Kevin Young, who has authored or edited over twenty books including the poetry collection Stones (Knopf, 2021) and the nonfiction investigation  Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News (Graywolf Press, 2017 ) . In addition to directing the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, Young i...

This week, Cindy Juyoung Ok talks with Richie Hofmann, whose latest book is A Hundred Lovers (Knopf, 2022), about the ancient tale of Hermias of Iasos which informs Hofmann’s poem “Dolphin.” The poem appears in the July/August issue of Poetry alongside “Breed Me,” and we’ll hear both on today’s episode. Hofmann and Ok reveal they are both “Cavafy heads,” and Hofmann discusses the influence of Robe...

This week, Cindy Juyoung Ok talks with torrin a. greathouse, a transgender cripple-punk poet and essayist who is the author of the forthcoming  DEED  (Wesleyan University Press), as well as  Wound from the Mouth of a Wound (Milkweed Editions, 2020). Ok and greathouse get into poetic forms—which they liken to open-source software—particularly the beloved “burning haibun” form that greathouse create...

This week, Cindy Juyoung Ok speaks with Douglas Kearney, who joins from Saint Paul, Minnesota. Kearney is the author of eight books of poetry, prose, and libretti, and his poems are often highly distinctive both on and off the page. Today’s conversation begins with spite and Scrabble, which Kearney writes about in his new essay in the July/August issue of Poetry , a continuation of the “Hard Feeli...

This week, Cindy Juyoung Ok speaks with Elisa Gabbert, who joins us from Providence, Rhode Island. Gabbert is the author of six, soon to be seven, collections of essays and poems, including Normal Distance (Soft Skull Press, 2022) and the forthcoming  Any Person Is the Only Self  (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024). Ok writes, “For Elisa, seemingly no field, no form, no fondness, is exempt from her...

This week, new host Cindy Juyoung Ok speaks with Omar Sakr, who joins us from Sydney, Australia. Sakr tends to the in between, writing prose and poetry, and moving between poetic and political urges, and through queerness and diasporic experience. On this episode, we spend time with a series from Sakr’s newest collection, Non-Essential Work  (UQP, 2023). The series, “On Finding the Prophet Muhamma...

This week, new host Cindy Juyoung Ok speaks with Donika Kelly. The author of two poetry collections, The Renunciations  and  Bestiary,  Kelly teaches creative writing at the University of Iowa. Rita Dove called  The Renunciations , “poetry of the highest order,” and Nikki Finney, who selected Kelly’s first book for the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, wrote, “ Bestiary ’s lesson is complicated and also si...

This week, Charif Shanahan speaks with Cynthia Cruz, who joins us from Berlin, Germany. Born on a US military base in Wiesbaden and raised in Northern California, she is currently pursuing a PhD at the European Graduate School where her research focuses on Hegel and madness. Cruz is the author of seven poetry collections, as well as two collections of critical work, including The Melancholia of Cl...

This week, Charif Shanahan continues asking the Big Questions, this time with Brian Tierney, who joins us from Oakland, California. They get into poetry as a way to pursue truth, living in a time of ruin, and more. We hear poems from Tierney’s debut collection, Rise and Float  (Milkweed Editions, 2022), as well as poems from the May issue of Poetry . In keeping true to Tierney’s complex poetics, t...