December 8, 2013 Stephen Ratcliffe LIve!

This past Sunday, Stephen Ratcliffe came to Lightrail Studios to discuss his book Selected Days (Counterpath, 2012). This aptly named collection contains a selection from much larger collections, in which Stephen wrote a poem a day for several years. The book is divided into six sections; three sections contain consecutive day poems chosen from 474-poem collections and three sections contain consecutive day poems from 1000-poem collections. Stephen used rather strict constraints when constructing these pieces, both in form and in content. The poems largely contain the morning view from Stephen's home but he also lets artists, musician and characters from To The Lighthouse into the pieces. He injects thought into the poems, so they combine the internal world with the external. His interest in photography is evident in these pieces which perfectly depict the changes in sky, greenery and wildlife from day to day; the reader witnesses the slow changes of season and the passing of time. Stephen performed the larger collections four times; three of which can be listened to on Pennsound at http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/. The readings were several hours long, during which he performed with musicians. Listen to our show and then listen to his readings!
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November 24, 2013: Miranda Mellis Live

This past Sunday, Miranda Mellis met with us to talk about her books None of This is Real (Sidebrow Books, 2012) and The Spokes (Solid Objects, 2012). Miranda's short fiction is compelling in its surrealist narrative. Her background in poetry is evident in her incredibly beautiful prose. Her stories seek to illustrate our habits, our interactions with time, the goals that propel us into action and the ways in which we make sense of our places in the world. At the same time, her stories are political in how they mirror how we are caught up in the wheel of capitalism or how we look away when we know we are acting as part of a societal machine that may be harming others. Miranda's characters seek knowledge, seek approval and are sometimes not sure why they do the things they do. In this way, we can relate to them, even within the surrealist landscape of her worlds. Her stories deal with death, family dynamics, ancestral powers and the growing line at the cafe. She talked about the things she resists in her narrative, like locating the events in a specific time and place. At the same time, she is able to work through a sentence that perfectly represents her character's emotional state in the same way a poet will work through a line until it's just right.
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November 17, 2013 Jackqueline Frost Live

On November 17th, we welcomed Jackqueline Frost into Lightrail Studios to discuss The Antidote (Compline 2013). The book is a long poem divided into four sections. The content deals with the economic and social critiques of the Occupy movement, as well as the pondering of how gender and queer-ness interact with that movement. She talks about how when reading the book now, new meaning surfaces for her from when it was written. The poem emerged after she had done a good deal of critical and theoretical writing, "trying to engage critically with the events that were going on." The fact that the poem was written in reaction to a social movement is evident in the way it interacts with Jackqueline's writing community. She includes other writers in the book through epigrams. She and Evan Kennedy wrote their books (Kennedy's book Terra Firmament just came out from Krupskaya) at the same time and they exchanged their work throughout the process. As has been discussed on earlier shows, we talked about if art and/or poetry can be transformative in the larger society.
At the end, Jackqueline gave information about the queer reading series she is curating, called Red Element, at the n/a gallery in Oakland.
David Brazil's The Ordinary (Compline 2013), is the "twin" book to The Antidote. Jackqueline, Evan and David books are being framed as a trilogy, so check them all out!
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November 3, 2013- Camille Roy Live!

This past Sunday we had the great pleasure to welcome Camille Roy to Lightrail Studios to discuss Sherwood Forest (Futurepoem, 2011). We began our interview talking about the relevance of Sherwood Forest and how this fictional place represents a possible underworld or counter-culture. Camille wanted to capture how these spaces are both intimate and under-represented in mainstream art and media. "Sherwood Forest is about what can't be assimilated." This is a wonderful and surprising work of poetry that reveals the fluidity of human identity and experience. She wants to represent narrative in a way that captures actual human interaction. Camille talks about how we never truly know each others complete stories and yet contemporary narrative often assumes that the reader should know the story in totality. Her book works towards a more realistic retelling of story. The book is filled with peril and what she calls the "purity of dread" that we encounter when we are so involved in a situation that we cannot have a distanced perspective. The poems foreground experience rather than intellectualization. In this work, humans, and human bodies are presented in their natural state, as opposed to the stripped down version we tend to present when we privilege the image/visual rather than the sense of smell. We also found out that Camille has a very soothing reading voice, when she shared a few pieces from her book.
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October 20, 2013- Avery Burns discusses the Iliad

On October 20th, we had our first reunion show when Avery Burns returned to talk about Homer's The Iliad. We learned how the story is still relevant today. We started off talking about the varied translations and even began the show reading from four different versions. Avery assigned us certain passages to read and questions to ponder in preparation for the show. We talked about the ways in which we as readers may feel disconnected from the characters and moral code in this story. Avery  helped us see the themes at play in The Iliad and how they connect to our more contemporary concerns, as well as how the story surprises the reader by running contrary to typical hero tales. Here, we see an argument against war, an argument that is very present in our modern-day psyche. Towards the end, we got a little Trojan geography lesson. Thanks Avery!
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October 27, 2013 The Evelyn Avenue Reading

Former guest and all-around beautiful poet, Susanne Dyckman, was gracious enough to invite the three of us to read at her Evelyn Avenue reading series.
Thank you Susanne and everyone who joined us!
Here's what happened:

Jay Thomas 10-27-13

Delia Tramontina 10-27-13

Nicholas Leaskou 10-27-13

We got an underwriter!!!!

Thank you to Green Apple Books for underwriting us!!!

Green Apple Books is a generalist bookstore serving the Bay Area since 1967. On Clement Street in the lively inner Richmond, Green Apple sells new and used books in all subject areas, poetry included, of course. They also sell magazines, journals, LPs, CDs, DVDs, and more. Top-rated on Yelp and a perennial winner of Best of the Bay awards, Green Apple is paradise for booklovers. 

September 29, 2013 Nico Peck Live!!!!

This Sunday the great Nico Peck joined us at Lightrail studios to discuss their chapbooks The Pyrrhaiad (Trafficker Press 2012) and Welter (Queer City, 2012). In Pyrrhaiad they are presenting a "Queer Iliad;" the title character emerged when they read Ulysses in which the characters ponder what Achilles's name was when he lived as a girl. This question led them to Robert Graves who answered this question by naming Pyrrha. This "re-membering" of the classics is part of Nico's own "gender journey" in which the page can be a mirror of that journey. While writing off of the very gendered text of mythology, they employ transgender pronouns. The work includes varied forms, and the chapbook, since it is published by Trafficker Press, includes an interview with Nico at that end. After the break, we talked about the separation of subject and object and how troubling that dichotomy may allow one to move past the world of thought, where we separate ourselves from the world, and into a space where oppression of the other is no longer possible. Towards the end of the interview we discussed Welter, a beautiful chap which is typed in courier font and has old maps as its end sheets. This work tackles etymology as well as Nico's activist spirit as it recounts reading at Occupy Oakland and entering/leaving "temporary utopian zones." They are also involoved in the Bay Area Public School, which is a free school where anyone can teach or take a class. Check it out at bayareapublicschool.org. You can email Nico if you are interested in their chapbooks, through queercity.org.
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September 15, 2013 Hazel White Live!!!

Last week we had Hazel White live in the studio, discussing her book Peril As Architectural Enrichment (Kelsey Street Press 2011). This is her first book of poetry, following her 12 books on gardening and landscape design. We started off talking about peril in landscape and language. She discussed meeting the 'resistance of language' when attempting to write about landscape. Her book grapples with the experience of being in gardens, in landscapes that are created and inhabited by people. Hazel told us about the 'de-centering' that can happen when interacting with the garden and in the potential discomfort of reading poetry.  We learn from our discomfort and de-centering. Hazel transitioned from prose to poetry while attending CCA, when she discovered that one can write about landscape architecture in poetry.
Later in the show, Hazel talked about her collaborative project with Denise Newman, "Botanica Recognita: Signage to Facilitate a Greeting," at UC Botanical Garden's show, "Natural Discourse: Artists, Architects Scientists and Poets in the Garden." In this exhibit, Hazel and Denise created 25 plant signs that re-imagined the content one encounters when learning about plants in a garden. We also learned about her "Site Sonnets," which were presented at the Eco-poetics Conference at UC Berkeley.
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September 8, 2013 - Roundtable Discussion #6- ERROR!

On September 8th, in lieu of a guest, we had our sixth roundtable discussion about error in writing. We started out with a rather apropos error while attempting to negotiate the phone system. We hope to one day be able to interview writers by phone, but sadly, we have yet to master this skill. For those of you who would like to avoid listening to us fumble with the button pushing, you can skip the first nine minutes of this show.
Once we got talking, we spent the remainder of the time tossing around the concept of mistakes.... or perhaps happy accidents. A mistake could be on the spelling or grammar level or on the language or content level. One might see these errors as just an opportunity to get out of the way of the writing, letting the language do its thing without being obstructed by our own overdetermination. On the other hand, sometimes the error is a lack of generatively or productivity. What are the different ways we can inhabit our errors so they serve our poetry? How can we, as Kathleen Fraser says, 'dismantle seductive writing practices?' What examples and parallels can we find in other types of art? In the end, perhaps error is just the beautiful aliens talking through us and onto our page. And if this is the case, there are different ways we can see ourselves as the conduit for these foreign voices. Let us all revel in our awesome accidents!!!!
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August 18, 2013 Elizabeth Robinson Live!

Today we welcomed Elizabeth Robinson into the studio. We primarily discussed her book Counterpart (Ahsahta Press, 2012). The conversation began with a consideration of 'the uncanny' in writing and the investigation of the double, the doppelganger. Robinson's poems grapple with what happens when we meet our counterpart, how we interact with, criticize, investigate the copy of ourselves. How does the poet act as 'other'? The book contains quotes by other writers who similarly interrogated the 'other;' these quotes act as part of this conversation. Like Robinson's other work, Counterpart contains the religious and spiritual, including a 'study' of Hell. In the second half of the interview we discussed the uncanny in writing from the point of view of the writer and the reader. Elizabeth shared with us perhaps the best analogy of poetry ever, as compared to the Invisible Man. A large section of the book, 'The Golem,' was inspired by the novel of the same name by Gustav Meyrink. Towards the end of our time together, Elizabeth was kind enough to share poems from her newer books, Blue Heron and On Ghosts. We talked about how her work, and her form, have transformed over time.
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August 4, 2013 Susan Gevirtz live!

Today we interviewed Susan Gevirtz live in the studio, discussing two of her books. First, we engaged with her book of poetic essays, Coming Events (Collected Writings) (Nightboat Books, 2013).  This book is divided into three sections and includes work spanning 21 years. Since she is so present in Susan's essays, we had an introduction to Dorothy Richardson, who was the first to write in stream of consciousness. Susan is interested in ethnography as a writing practice and through this lens, was able to analyze Richard's work as a illustration of what it was like to be a turn-of-the-century woman in London. Throughout this half of the interview we tackled 'feminist poetics.'
After the top of the hour we moved into discussing her book of poetry, Aerodrome Orion & Starry Messenger (Kelsey Street Press 2010). The physical book is quite large, giving space to the text which is often spread out on the page. The work deals with the skies and air travel, including the language of air traffic controllers. There is also a healthy helping of mythology which demonstrated an understanding of how planets and stars work. In modern day, different countries own different parts of the sky and this influences the way we negotiate being in the air. We were lucky enough to hear a number of pieces from both Susan's books.
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July 21, 2013 Hugh and Mary Behm-Steinberg live!

We had the great pleasure to welcome Hugh and Mary Behm-Steinberg in the studio to discuss their beautiful book The Opposite of Work (JackLeg Press 2013). The book is very formally interesting; the poetry was provided by Hugh and the illustrations by Mary. The poems occupy the odd numbered pages and the pictures the even numbered pages. The illustrations (which were created based on a poem that is not in the book) comprise a flip book; these visuals create a narrative of a serpent that becomes a tree with a knot and a child running up a staircase. There are also lovers and a winged woman. The visuals are dreamlike and gorgeous and need to be seen. The poems deal with spirituality and love. They are arranged in a way that slows the reader down; they are centered on the page and the lines are spaced so that they are not read with the breath. The content deals with both the fantastic and surreal and the mundane. Hugh discussed his 'mosiac I' and how different sources and registers find way into the poetic content. There is a mystical tradition that informs this work, mapping experience through language. There is also a political element as some of the pieces were written during our war with Iraq. Throughout our talk we witnessed Mary and Hugh's loving relationship made manifest on the page.
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June 23, 2013 Round Table #5- Meaning

On June 23rd, the three of us tackled MEANING in writing. We come from a generation of polysemantics, or writing that has multiple meaning. We started off with a Edwin Denby quote provided by past guest, Tinker Greene: the holding of the poem renders meaning. Can we say that something has meaning when it has coherence? Another level of meaning is contained in the conversation about a piece of art, even when we might be questioning the piece's efficacy. We talked about how writing constraints play with the possibility of meaning.
Art is always a form of communication, a social object. When we make art, we may have an audience in mind. Readers bring their own stuff to the poem that informs the meaning they derive from it. But even if we are not invested in the meaning our audience gets from our writing, how do we react if a reader derives meaning that runs contrary to our core values? Through this conversation, we grappled with the 'death of the author.' Once a poem is released into the world, in a sense it no longer belongs to the writer, because the audience will imbue it with meaning.
Towards the end, we talked about how journalling fits into our ideas about meaning, and how writing that is never shared with others functions within our writing practice.
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June 9, 2013 Rodney Koeneke Part 2

After tackling some technically difficulties, it was our pleasure to play the second half of our interview with poet Rodney Koeneke. He shared how he constructed his upcoming book Etruria (Wave Books, 2014), and the diverse array of source material that finds its way into his work. Rodney thinks of his poems as 'complete thoughts/songs;' he works in singularity as opposed to series. In discussing his editing process, he talked about how the bulk of his poem is a way of investigating or 'puzzle over the why' of how he came to find something interesting. At the top of the hour, in the studio, we wondered how much collage plays a part in Rodney's work, and even where writing from a place of possessing diverse and expansive knowledge that just finds its way into the work ends and collage begins. Rodney's poems have 'time signatures,' that is, references to technology and contemporary phenomena. Poetry that includes these references is new to us in both reading and writing. We considered how Flarf strays from the lyrical tradition. How liberating! When we returned to Rodney's interview, he talked about how he took part in the Bay Area writing community. He read some newer work that will be published in a chapbook by Hook Press. We ended by talking about Rodney's online presence; check him out on Goodreads! After the interview, Jay read a Amazon review by Bay Area's own Kevin Killian.
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June 2, 2013 Rodney Koeneke

This Sunday, we played part 1 of our April interview with Rodney Koeneke. Rodney, who, while living in the Bay Area, had been involved with the Flarf Collective, now lives in Portland, where he works as a history professor. His expertise in history is evident in his work, which is chock-full of literary, historical and social references; we follow him as he leaps from obscure factoid to pop-culture gem throughout the poem. Rodney was generous enough to share his forthcoming Etruria (Wave Books, 2014) with us and we hear quite a bit of it during our interview. Just as Napoleon created the territory Etruria, poets create a world within their writing. His work is both complex and conversational.  Rodney is the first poet to discuss Flarf poetry on our show and it was great to hear the social context of this movement. He introduced Urdu writing through reading his 'ghazal.' In closing today, we touched on meaning within poetry and what types of content we allow into our work to communicate meaning.
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May 19, 2013 Carla Harryman live!!!!

On Sunday May 19th, Carla Harryman did us the honor of joining us live in the studio. The show opens (and closes) with a recording of a performance of Carla's translation of a Theodor Adorno lecture. The lecture addresses how 'New Music' is 'bracketed away' from 'music as a totality' and how this new music strives to address social concerns. In this lecture, Adorno questions the term of 'New Music' while focusing mainly on Arnold Schoenberg. Carla talked about the possible connections between New Music and social critique. We discussed Carla's own relationship to music as well as how her poetry works on the page but also in performance. A little later in the interview, we transitioned to talking about her book of essays and poetry, Adorno's Noise (Essay Press 2008), and listened to examples of how the pieces within allow slippage between these two forms. Carla discusses her 'poetics of negation,' which grapples with the problem of language, it having become a doubtful mode of public communication and discourse (as similarly critiqued by Language poets.) We luckily did not end without hearing some work from this wonderful and complex book.
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May 5, 2013 Tinker Greene Live!

On May 5th poet, and awesome chapbook-maker, Tinker Greene joined us in the studio. We started off the interview talking about how Tinker began making chapbooks of his poetry. Tinker makes his chaps at home, incorporating photographs and art, and passes them out to those who want them. We discussed the tendency towards seriality. Tinker dates most of his poems; this fact led us to discuss time and writing, how time informs process and construction. We had the pleasure of hearing quite a few of his poems read in the studio. As a photographer, Tinker's poetic attention to the visual strongly conveys emotional content without sentimentality. Due to this interplay of the visual and written, his poems end up being inter-media pieces. He trusts that the images that come to him should be gathered in the poem. Tinker gives away his chaps to those who want them so if you can email us or comment on this post, and we can connect you with him. He is creating a new chap so expects to be doing readings soon. Keep your eyes open for announcements!!!!
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April 28, 2013 Round Table Discussion 4: Writing as Revolution

On April 28th, we sat down to chat amongst ourselves about writing as a revolutionary act. We hope that hearing our discussion will spur our listeners to join the conversation. First we tossed around the idea of 'revolution' itself and the different ways that writing can affect change. Through this conversation, we briefly returned to the subject of audience and how might writing and poetry reach enough people to create societal change. Also, who owns language and where does the poem come from? When we put words on paper, from where do those words originate? How do we strive to be political in our own writing. What attracts us to writing and talking about writing? And lastly, what kind of revolution are we looking for in the world?
This coming Sunday we'll have our first live interview in some weeks, but for now, we hope this round table talk encourages further consideration of poetry and social transformation.
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April 7, 2013 Round Table Discussion 3: Audience

On April 7th, the three of us sat down to talk about poetic audience. Who reads our writing and what agency does the poetry have in the larger world? We discussed 'difficult' poetry and whether this type of work is only read by other poets. We hope this work has a broader reach than just other experimental or Bay Area writers, but in this case, how do we share our work with those who might not otherwise feel drawn to it? We talked about how poetry and literature are taught in schools and how we may have come to be attracted to experimental work. As poets, we may or may not consider who we are writing to or about when we write the poem. We started to tackle issues of words and ownership (which we we delve further into in our next round table). Towards the end, we discussed the editing process and how community effects our writing.
Post a comment! Join the conversation!
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March 31, 2013 Steve Saari reads poetry, Candy Shue reviews Hazel White, and we talk nature poetry

This week we had a bit of a grab bag show, including a poetry submission, a book review, and an insightful (ahem!) conversation about nature poetry. First, we played an audio submission from Minnesotan poet Steve Saari, who luckily discovered himself to be a writer later in life, and who shared with us his beautiful poems, which are strongly influenced by his interaction with his natural, social and professional environments. He pays enormous attention to the every day habits and occurrences in a given place, those that we often forget to notice. And in this vein, Candy Shue joined us again in the studio to read her review of Hazel White's Peril as Architectural Environment (Kelsey Street Press, 2011). White, who is the author of many books on gardening and landscape design, investigates "language and poetry as ecosystem." As always, Candy did an incredible job of presenting and responding to this book of eco-poetics. After the break, we had our own conversation about nature poetry, what it is capable of doing and how it interacts with the environment and the body. We talked about ideas of what eco-poetics can do and how we might trouble the traditional concept of nature poetry. Candy also talked about how culture affects how the speaker sees the land and rights to that land. Lastly, we talked about writing reviews and what responsibilities we take on when we present a writer's work to the world. 

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March 24, 2013: Chris Daniels Part 2

This Sunday we played the second half of our interview with Chris Daniels. During this segment, we talked about Chris's translation work, most specifically that of Fernando Pessoa, a Portuguese writer who wrote under 81 heteronyms. Through discussing how Pessoa used varying personas in his work, we came to discuss the human personality as other than 'monolith.' We as people are able to change our thoughts and points of view, and for Chris, poetry is a way of working through this fluidity.  Also, the act of translation allows the opportunity to try on another persona. We talked about the considerations of form and language in translation work. The conversations inherent in translation (and in poets' interviews) create a social space for poetry, where a poet can engage with another poet. We were reminded of the fun and beauty in poetry, along with its inherent value, which we should remember if ever we question why we write.
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March 17, 2013 Chris Daniels Part 1

On March 17th, we played part one of our interview with poet and translator Chris Daniels. We opened and closed with his reading of "Ode to the West Wind," which we had the pleasure of hearing live at Occupy Oakland in late 2011. During our conversation, we talked about his chapbook porous nomadic, (airfoil, 2010), which challenges ideas of form and ownership. In this vein, the chapbook opens with a number of epigraphs; Chris later added addenda erratum, including more quotes that have influenced his writing. He discussed how his poetry and translation are a manifestation of "art as a social act," how politics inform his writing, and his engagement with the baroque. He talked about his translation work, especially the works of Fernando Pessoa, and how he came to love the Portuguese language. Lastly, during this segment we discussed the culture around poetry and writing poetry in Brazil, in contrast with the United States. We will play part two next week!

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Excerpt from porous nomadic

Excerpt from porous nomadic

March 10, 2013 Toni Mirosevich Part 2!

On March 10th, we played the second half of our interview with writer Toni Mirosevich. We spent the majority of this section talking about her book of poetry The Takeaway Bin, (Spuyten Duyvil, 2010), which employed Oblique Strategy prompts. The book is divided into three sections which focus on 'human frailty,' politics and hope. Toni talks about what the takeaway is both in the book and in life. She talks about the Oblique Strategy cards specifically and how they attempt to offer ways to address an issue from in an indirect way, as well as how those cards helped spur the pieces in the book. Toni works in both prose and poetry and discussed how these different forms can manifest an idea. She references her aikido practice: "If you're thinking about it, it can't happen." In other words, being too directive in writing can be stifling. We had a rich discussion about how the mind works in the process of creating.
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March 3, 2013 Toni Mirosevich Part 1!

This past Sunday we played part one of our interview with Toni Mirosevich. Throughout the interview we discussed her books The Takeaway Bin, (Spuyten Duyvil, 2010), poems inspired by Oblique Strategies, a card game created in 1975 by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, and Pink Harvest: Tales of Happenstance, (Mid List Press, 2007) a collection of creative non-fiction. When reviewing the pieces in The Takeaway Bin, Toni generously shared with us her process and decision making in her form, as well as her sense of play when choosing what to include in her poems. In her creative non-fiction, Toni pays great attention to human error and imperfection. We discussed how detail, (the 'smallest door'), reveals the emotion or conflict of a story. Tune in next week when we play part 2!
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February 24, 2013: Kathleen Fraser Part 3

Sadly, this is the third and last installment of our interview with the fascinating and fabulous Kathleen Fraser. Kathleen talked the various ways she constructs her work. She discussed collaging her journal entries and creating an artist book for Charles Alexander at Chax Press. She read her piece written for Norma Cole, which originally sought to capture the experience of Easter in Italy, but ended up becoming "hi dde violeth i dde violet" (from her recent book moveable TYYPE, Nightboat Press, 2011), a poem generated when she physically cut up her words to create collages on her walls. In the second half of the show, Kathleen talks about her ground-breaking journal HOW(ever) which focused on women poets at a time when they were ignored. We close the show by reading Marianne Moore's poem 'Poetry' which inspired the title of this amazing journal.
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February 17, 2013- Kathleen Fraser Part 2

This Sunday, we played the second part of our lively discussion with Kathleen Fraser. We pick up from where we left off last week, discussing the assignment Kathleen received from Steve Benson, and continue on to talk about her encounter with Oppen's work. In his work, she discovered 'being true to the voice.' She talked about her artist books, which are comprised of poetry written off of visual art. Her book, movable TYYPE (Nightboat Books, 2011), includes poems constructed by physically taping cut up words on the wall. She talked about her experience writing in Washington at a research center for oceanography (please contact us at poetasradio@gmail.com if you know the name of this center) and her move, as a young writer, to New York City.
Please tune in next week when we play part 3 of this fabulous interview!!!
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February 10, 2013 Kathleen Fraser part 1

We sat down with Kathleen Fraser early in January, and are now sharing the lively and inspiring interview on Poet as Radio! This week we played the first part of our talk, when we discussed the visual aspect of Kathleen's poetry. Much of her work is in conversation with visual art. Her book movable TYYPE (Nightboat Books, 2011) is rich in its visual diversity, employing space, form and illustrations. Because she lives part time in Italy, she is also influenced by Etruscan language. She talked about the writing and illustrations she created out of an assignment given to her by Steve Benson; he asked her to write in conversation with the work of French director, Robert Bresson.
We'll play part 2 of Kathleen's interview on February 17th.
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February 3, 2013- Round Table Discussion on LABELS

On Sunday, sans interview, the three of us discussed how 'labels' are used when talking about writing. These labels could be references to literary criticism, artistic movements or poetic forms. How does this talk differ from the 'technical vocabulary' we use in our work, if at all? Do these labels exclude others from the conversation? Do they pigeonhole our writing? Or do they facilitate the conversation by providing a common vocabulary? If we have read literary criticism, in what different ways have we engaged with it? And if we have not, how do we still participate in a conversation about our writing, and the writing of others? And what is that stuff anyway???? We reach no conclusions, but create, what we hope you'll find, a stimulating and thought-provoking inquiry. And if not, don't worry. We'll be playing the first part of our awesome interview with Kathleen Fraser next Sunday!
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January 27, 2013 Susanne Dyckman Live!

On Sunday, we had the pleasure of welcoming Susanne Dyckman live in the studio. She shared her book, equilibrium's form, (Shearsman Books, 2007).  We started the discussion talking about the 'serendipitous' process that created this work. In her poetry, Susanne pays great attention to form and space, which is evident in this beautiful book. She talked about the 'poetic problem' which is the impetus for the work; she is often struggling with making the internal external. She shared her new work 'omen,' for which her son's book of Irish Superstitions acted as 'poetic trampoline.'
(Please excuse the few gaps in the recording; we were experiencing some technical difficulties).
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January 13, 2013- Laura Walker Live!!!

It was a pleasure to have Laura Walker join us for a live interview this past Saturday. A large portion of the interview was a discussion of Laura's latest book Follow-Haswed (Apogee Press 2012), which is a collection of collage poems composed from fragments from Volume VI of the Oxford English Dictionary. We discussed the constraint of the project as well as how narrative is utilized within the poems. Her book investigates definition itself, in part by deconstructing the narratives used within the dictionary to illustrate the definitions. Laura shared some new poems-in-progress called Genesis, which are inspired by the cadences of the King James Bible. We ended the interview with a discussion about writing process.
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Baby you're a podcast now!

We're thrilled to announce that Poet as Radio is not only a live show on KUSF in Exile/San Francisco Community Radio, but also a podcast! Like, an in-the-iTunes store podcast!

If you're not familiar with podcasts, they're a convenient way to automatically receive new episodes of audio shows such as Poet as Radio. When you subscribe to a podcast via iTunes or other similar software, new episodes can automatically be downloaded to your computer when they're published, and you can also select which past episodes you'd like to download. Once an episode has been downloaded, it's yours to listen to whenever you like, transfer to a portable media player, etc.

We'll continue to make all of our new and existing episodes available via links on this blog and our archives page, but wanted to offer the podcast as another listening option.

This has been in-the-making for a long time -- to everyone we've told "the podcast is just around the corner," thank you for your patience and we hope you enjoy it.

Additional details, including a few frequently-asked-questions, can be found on our podcast page.

January 6th 2013 WE'RE BACK!!!

Happy New Year! The three of us came back into the studio after our holiday hiatus. We have some great interviews lined up for January and February, including Kathleen Fraser, Laura Walker, Susanne Dyckman and Toni Mirosevich. This past Sunday we had a round table discussion about writing and process. We deconstructed the word 'craft.' We discussed our own writing habits, including where we write, how we write and how sound and speech are incorporated. Throughout the discussion, we referred back to our interview with Kathleen, which we recorded on January 5th, and which we plan to air in February.
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December 2, 2012: Juliana Spahr live!

We closed out 2012 with an in-studio interview with Juliana Spahr, discussing her recent collection Well There Then Now as well as the anthology A Megaphone, which she edited with Stephanie Young.

Juliana Spahr edits with Jena Osman the book series Chain Links and with nineteen other poets she edits of the collectively funded Subpress. With David Buuck she wrote Army of Lovers, a book about two friends who are writers in a time of war and ecological collapse (forthcoming from City Lights). She has edited with Stephanie Young A Megaphone: Some Enactments, Some Numbers, and Some Essays about the Continued Usefulness of Crotchless-pants-and-a-machine-gun Feminism (Chain Links, 2011), with Joan Retallack Poetry & Pedagogy: the Challenge of the Contemporary (Palgrave, 2006), and with Claudia Rankine American Women Poets in the 21st Century (Wesleyan U P, 2002). And several times she has organized free schools with Joshua Clover: the 95 cent Skool (summer of 2010) and the Durruti Free Skool (summer of 2011).

Click here to listen.