No Good Poetry

Should poets be poets full-time or should they ply a trade? In episode 49, four of our past guests give us their thoughts on whether or not poets should have day jobs.

Poet Ben Aleshire joins us this week to talk about his recent travels, selling poetry on the street, and troubadours in this extra-long episode. We hit on all kinds of odd subjects, George Whitman's shenanigans at Shakespeare and Company, whether Johnny Depp might have stolen a poetry broadside from City Lights, the fecundity of letterpress printing in Germany, fake news, Ezra Pound's Fascism and Antisemitism, improvisation vs. revision in poetry, John Ashbery, how poetry is like free jazz, and why you should never submit poetry to the New Yorker.

This week printer Peter Anderson joins us to talk about letterpress, book making and the value of tailoring a book specifically to a poet;'s work. We get into the esoterics of page size, paper, and the economy of books, and talk about what we love about books as physical objects.

t's just a little after Valentine's Day, and my wife Raina and our daughter Emma join me to read and talk about love poetry. We share love poems by Gary Snyder, Denise Levertov, Robert Creeley, Zachary Schomburg, Sappho, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Louis Aragon, Anne Waldman, Tony Hoagland and Everette Maddox.

This week Chris Sullivan joins us to discuss found poetry and his publications, including the Journal of Public Domain,  Catastrophe Basketballs From New Orleans, and I Love My Van.

This week Chilean poet Óscar Saavedra Villarroel joins us to share a few of his poems and to talk about the poetical/political state of Chile. His friend Daniel Medi Truol (translator & humorist) was kind enough to join us as his interlocutor. 

In episode 43 Jamie Bernstein joins us to talk about the intersection of songwriting and poetry, sound and meter, the commodification of music/poetry, genres, sub-genres, the value society places on poetry and art, and how we can change the mainstream.

This week Mark Statman joins us to talk about poetry communities, poetry in Mexico and Uruguay, translating poetry, and revising poetry. He also shares with us both his own poetry and translations of three poems by Marianna Stephania. 

Poet, comedian, playwright, and political satirist joins us to talk about poetry, comedy, Archie comics, spoken word contests, and performing in public, how texting originated in Finland, and he graces us with some of his poems.

Poets Laura Mattingly & Raina Zelinski join us to talk about 6 poets that are lesser known, and we read some of their poetry: János Pilinszky, Will Alexander, Jess Stoner, Aase Berg, José Lezama Lima, and Brian Swann.