No Good Poetry

This week Todd Cirillo joins us to talk about his belief that poetry should be fun and accessible and that poets should be at home in barrooms, bowling alleys and truck stops. We discuss what accessibility in poetry might mean, what could be different about poetry readings, and how to expand poetry's audience, and Todd shares some of his own poems and some poems by other poets that he loves.

 

This week poet Lauren Burgess joins us to talk about her experience of making a videopoem, what videopoetry is, and all the aesthetic opportunities videopoetry offers as a medium.

This week we are back in the studio and talking about how to revise poetry, why revision is important, and what revision really means. 

In Episode 66, we share with you some poetry recordings from earlier in July at the monthly Poetry Buffet, held on the first Saturday of every month and hosted by past guest and poet Gina Ferrara.

For episode 65, we share recordings from a poetry extravaganza at Siberia in New Orleans earlier this month organized by past guest Bernard Pearce, including poetry by Bernard and Laura Mattingly and music by Jim Trainer, Jerry Linder, and Lee Tiger & the broken blues band.

Rosalyn Spencer, writer and editor of Rigorous Magazine, joins us to talk about 6 poets that are lesser known, and we read some of their poetry: William Corbett, Pat Parker, Joan Murray, Carlyle Reedy, Angelina Weld Grimke, and Adam Cornford.

In this episode we look at the psychological research into higher rates of suicide among those in  creative professions, especially poets, and why that might be. We look at the "Sylvia Plath effect," Janusian thinking, and the problematic romanticization of suicide among writers. We also celebrate and share the poetry of some poets who killed themselves, including Hart Crane, Lew Welch, Sylvia Plath, Elise Cowen, Richard Brautigan.

The outro music for this episode is Songs for Sylvia Plath Volume 1 by Jeff Pagano

Finding A Mental Health Professional
National Alliance on Mental Health New Orleans

In Episode 62 poet and editor Jonathan Penton joins us to talk about online literary magazines, publishing, and the 2oth anniversary of Unlikely Stories, then shares a couple of poems about his time in a nunnery in Toledo and how he found America in Juarez.

 

While in Cleveland, Joseph Makkos visited R.A. 'Rafiq' Washington at "Guide to Kulcher" and conversed about DIY publishing, the current state of Cleveland, poetry's place in the shifting culture, and his forthcoming book of poetry from Outlandish Press, Black Eunuch.

Joseph M. is in his hometown of Cleveland this week, and he sits down at a Greek diner with  Zena Smith and Kyle J. Osborne of Outlandish Press, to talk about printing, making books, and Zena shares some poetry from her new chapbook.