We continue our series on Rilke’s Duino Elegies with Edward Snow’s translation of The Second Elegy, talking with poet Mark Wunderlich. Wunderlich, who is currently at work on a book on Rilke, is deep research into the biography, which give us rich insight into creation of “The Second Elegy.” Beginning with what Wunderlich calls the […]

Rainer Maria Rilke has been hailed as one of the most profound and genius poets of the 20th century. His Duino Elegies in particular, in tandem with the Sonnets to Orpheus, are seen as the pinnacle of his poetic achievements. Whole books could be written on each elegy. Here, Bianca Stone joins with guests to […]

An incredible and in-depth conversation with Classical scholar, Stephanie McCarter about Ovid, Horace, greco Roman poetry, the tradition of translation, retelling of myth, and the movements of poetry across the ages. Ovid’s Metamorphoses continues to speak to our fundamental issues, but how, and why? What can this new translation tell us about not only Ovid’s […]

Talking today about the work of creating a book from our private work on the self, reckoning with the most unbearable past; as it overlaps and interacts with the art in our lives, which in turn connects to the history of our relationship with art and others: Ed Steck, who spent much of his childhood […]

What is the private space of a diary, what is the public space of a poem, and what does the psyche do in each? What is confession and what is memory in the poem, if it plays with the mechanism, or tone of Diary? How to explore and play the the personal expectations of those […]

Dorothea Lasky and I discuss her newest collection of poetry The Shining, the deceptive nature of the “I” in poetry; the undiscovered language that haunts our very psyche–and of course a lot about Kubrick’s film adaptation of The Shining. Mactaggart Jewelry: use the code Psyche20 for 20% off! Louise Glück’s The Wild Iris Jung’s The […]

Talking with the incredible poet and artist, Mathias Svalina, about language and space of dreams, as it mirrors and informs the poem. Working consistently within the epistolary form, and the “telling” of dream form, Svalina continues the work of looking and seeing the world through the lens of the surreal, pushing against the boundaries of […]

In Paul Hlava Ceballos’s Banana [] is a stunning debut full length collection that explored the crushing reality of the violence of “the extractive relationship the United States has with the Americas and its people through poetic portraits of migrants, family, and memory.” The title poem is part poetry and part reportage that traces the […]

Today we’re starting a new randomly occurring series on the podcast where we talk about–on top of whatever else–dreams. We start today with the poet and translator Ana Božičević, whose new book New Life came out this year from Wave Books. Ana Božičević is a poet, translator, teacher, and occasional singer. Ana grew up in […]

SOPHIE KLAHR IS THE AUTHOR OF TWO OPEN DOORS IN A FIELD (BACKWATERS PRESS), MEET ME HERE AT DAWN (YESYES BOOKS) AND THERE IS ONLY ONE GHOST IN THE WORLD (FICTION COLLECTIVE 2), WINNER OF THE RONALD SUKENICK INNOVATIVE FICTION CONTEST, WHICH WAS CO-AUTHORED WITH COREY ZELLER. HER POEMS APPEAR IN THE NEW YORKER, AMERICAN […]

Today I’m talking with my friend and collaborator, Candace Jensen about the embodied and disembodies; poetry and inspiration; the soma and psyche; dyadic knowing and hidden; and the multifarious states of consciousness– this is what inspired us to host a week long in-person retreat this summer called The Unconscious Speaks and we wanted to include […]

Charif Shanahan is the author of Into Each Room We Enter without Knowing, a Lambda Literary Award and Publishing Triangle’s Thom Gunn Award Finalist. His work has appeared in American Poetry Review, The Nation, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, PBS NewsHour, and Poetry. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Stegner […]

These conversations in and around poetry always attempts I think to reiterate in new ways to experience being alive…and love between people: the desire, frustration, denial as well as the joy…we gravitate in our work to those relationships that hurt, or that traumatize. The painfulness of relations between men and women is often the concern […]

Today I’m talking about the various forms of nonfiction that poet, essayist and novelist Hilary Plum has found herself interacting with in her newest book Hole Studies. From listening to music, to obsessively reading journalism, podcasts, or editing and examining the conventional forms of academic publishing–Plum’s inquisitive mind investigates the structures and mechanisms of forms […]

What does it mean to make a narrative out of our thoughts and feelings. And really too, how do the people in our lives our relationships factor into our reality. When we write an ode to a lover, are we watching them in love with another person? Are we Keats watching the lovers in the […]

We’re talking today about some of the origins of the themes of this podcast, my personal interest in combining poetry and the psychoanalytical, which are of course two instances of  exploring psyche through language and the relational, searching the self through lyrical uncertainty and narrative. It’s almost frustrating to listen back to the conversation because […]

Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi (They/Them) is a queer, Iranian born, Toronto-based Poet, Writer and Translator. They were shortlisted for the 2021 Austin Clarke poetry prize and 2022’s Arc Poem of the year award and they are the winner of the 2021 Vallum Poetry Prize. They are the author of four poetry chapbooks and three translated poetry […]

Talking the poet Elisa Gabbert about her amazing new book Normal Distance. A collection of funny and thought-provoking poems inspired by surprising facts that will appeal to poetry lovers and poetry haters alike, from the author of the essay collection The Unreality of Memory, “a work of sheer brilliance, beauty, and bravery” (Andrew Sean Greer) Known […]

Dara Barrois/Dixon (formerly Dara Wier) is the author of Tolstoy Killed Anna Karenina (Wave Books, 2022). Other titles include In the Still of the Night (Wave Books, 2017), You Good Thing (Wave Books, 2014), Reverse Rapture (Verse Press, 2005), Hat on a Pond (Verse Press, 2002) and Voyages in English (Carnegie Mellon, 2001).  She has received awards from the Lannan Foundation, American Poetry Review, The Poetry Center Book Award, […]

Talking with the poet and artist, Sommer Browning about her new book GOOD ACTORS, from Birds LLC. Sommer Browning is an author, curator, and artist living in Denver. Her books include two collections of poetry Backup Singers and Either Way I’m Celebrating (both with Birds, LLC), as well as the artist book, The Circle Book (Cuneiform Press), the joke book You’re On My […]

Talking in this episode with the poet and writer, Ben Purkert, about the manuscript editing process, teaching, self-imposed identities as a poet, and reading a lot of poems from his debut poetry collection For the Love of Endings! Ben Purkert is the author of the forthcoming novel The Men Can’t Be Saved (Overlook, 2023). His […]

HEALTH / POETRY / CARE / CONSCIOUSNESS / DYAD / INFINITUDE / BODY MIND “Having spent most of his life exploring the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta and its implications on the relationships among consciousness, mind, body, and society, Anoop found that our understanding of these is outdated and incomplete. He’s spent the last several years speaking around […]

Meg Reynolds is a poet, artist, and teacher living in Burlington, VT. Her work has appeared in The Missing Slate, Mid-American Review, Fugue, and the anthology Monster Verse: Poems Human and Inhuman as well as The Book of Donuts. She is the co-director of writinginsideVT, a program that offers writing instruction at the Chittenden Regional […]

In this episode, Bianca Stone and Ben Pease offer a recap of the Ruth Stone Foundation panel presented at the New Hampshire Poetry Fest: See What You Miss By Being Dead: The Modern Elegy and the Alternative Landscape of Grief.       Resources: Steel by Alison Prine In the Still of the Night by […]

The Shining, moon landing, bees--just some of the subjects covered in Ben & Bianca’s conversation with Dorothea Lasky about her amazing new collection MILK!