No Good Poetry

This week poet and editor Brendan Lorber joins us to talk about the poetic space of train travel and torturing a neighbor by reading Rimbaud's Drunken Boat, but the conversation really gets going when we discuss what white space can add to poetry, exploring different ways of using the page, and why more poets don't make use of it.

 

There's no guest this week as we explore the concept of abstraction in poetry. Writers often make a distinction between abstract and concrete language, and imply that concrete is best, but we look at how the distinction between concrete and abstract is actually much more complex and interesting than we usually think about. We talk about Dame Edith Sitwell, medium & content, Dada, Abstract Art, visual poetry, Emily Dickinson, techonology & physical media, Christian Dotremont.

Dr. Jeffery U. Darensbourg joins us to talk about the new zine Bulbancha is Still A Place: Indigenous Culture from New Orleans, share with us some poems by  Native writers from the first issue, and talk about the too often forgotten and ignored contributions of indigenous culture to Louisiana culture.

This week we talk about giving poems titles. What strategies are there to titling poems? Why might a poet decide not to title their poems? How do titles set reader expectations?

Poet Zena Smith joins us to talk about 6 poets that are lesser known, and we read some of their poetry: Frank Stanford, Kate Sopko, David Schubert, Mike Lala, Matthew Timmons, and Corrado Costa.

This week is all about sonnets, both traditional and modern. We read and talk about sonnets by John Keats, Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Butler Yeats, John Berryman, e.e. cummings, Ted Berrigan, Bernadette Mayer, Ron Padgett, and Terrance Hayes.

Rapper #FFFFFF of Sex Party joins us this week to talk about how performing rap and poetry intersect, we read a couple poems from the used copy Of Jim Tate's Viper Jazz that I just got in the mail, and Makkos shares a collaborative poem that he and Xena Smith wrote.

Aime'SansSavant and Shadow Angelina, hosts of the Esoterotica Reading Series, join us this week to talk about their reading series and erotic poetry.

In this episode we are joined by special guests Sidney Manuel and David Moss of the Parking Lot Movie Podcast to review another poetry flick: Alejandro Jodorowsky's Endless Poetry. Spoilers abound, so if you plan on watching the movie, watch it before you listen.

 

Caroline Zimmer, poet and bartender, joins us to talk about 6 poets that are lesser known, and we read some of their poetry: Hannah Weiner, Paul Klee, Henri Michaux, Richard Hugo, Bernard Heidsieck, and Albert Goldbarth.