Sara Henning on radical truth, obsessive forms, and letting go of grief. 

 Philip Metres on middle age, writer's block, and praying for the people of Palestine.

April Gibson on chronic illness, religion, and being a teenage mother.

Declan Ryan on his father's construction job, tenderness between boxers, and the inevitable tragic end.

Monica Rico on cooking, grunt work, and the heat at General Motors.

Nam Le on commerce, irony vs. sincerity, and being in the Arctic. 

Gregory Pardlo on improv, therapy, and driving around with his father’s ashes.

Caitlin Cowan on rejection, tradwives, and poems from our better self.

Blake Butler on complex mourning, the suicide of his wife Molly Brodak, and finding his way back.

Remembering the lesbian poet and activist Minnie Bruce Pratt, as well as the Palestinian poet and symbol of the resistance, Refaat Alareer.

Steve Zeitlin and Bob Holman on the healing act of writing, small frogs, and politics at the fiddle festival.

Laura Mullen on academia, death threats, and doing the next brave thing.

Daniel Brock Johnson on risk, a T-shirt mantra, and life after the death of his friend James Foley.

Sebastian Merrill on the voice of his former self, the underworld, and laughing during yoga.

 Sahar Muradi on cyclical time, leather butterflies, and saying goodbye to her father.

Sean Cole on loneliness, fear of aging, and what poems can do.

Eric Sneathen on queer utopia, bad writing, and San Francisco in the ’70s.

Irène Mathieu on pediatrics, suburbs without a TV, and our body's unknown terrain.

Natalie Shapero on Wheel of Fortune, babysitting for her landlord, and pretending not to grieve.

Rosanna Young Oh on her parents’ grocery store, leaving poetry, and the duties of the firstborn. 

Airea D. Matthews on self-interest, starry skies, and her parents’ fateful wedding day.

Sophus Helle on empire, Calvin and Hobbes, and the world's first author. 

Leslie Sainz on Bill O’Reilly, glassblowing, and the lure of praise.

Diane Seuss on New York in the ’70s, virtue, and her father’s early death.

Katie Farris on cancer, desire, and her early-menopause care package. 

Paisley Rekdal on maps, Sisyphus, and the dangers of beauty.

Aaron Smith on shame, telling the truth, and his mother's last lipstick.

Rebecca Gayle Howell and Ashley M. Jones on working-class poems, good food, and their fathers’ bodies.

Jennifer Jean on foster care, finding her voice, and loving her father as he was.

Mahogany L. Browne on her first kiss, family secrets, and having your book banned.

Janine Joseph on memory loss, car sounds, and a mirror that loves you.

Peter Cole on his brother's death, finding his vocation, and the erotic pull of letters.

Raymond Antrobus on late-night BBC poetry dubs, real people, and becoming a father.

Gabrielle Bates on betrayal, home church, and living in her mother's slaughterhouse.

Marisa Tirado on Selena, cow skulls, and the memory of adobe brick.

Remembering Richard Howard as a poet, mentor, and friend, plus a few words on money by Bernadette Mayer.

Celes Tisdale on similarities, teaching after the uprising, and his mother's favorite poet.

Belarussian poets Valzhyna Mort and Julia Cimafiejeva on magic, transformation, and what's hidden underneath the forest floor.

JoAnna Novak on islands, a plush placenta, and a gift from the suicide hotline.

Alexandra Lytton Regalado on fate, snake mirrors, and the daily work of letting go.

Ama Codjoe on normal naked bodies, solving problems, and her childfree life.

Noʻu Revilla on ancestral history in newspapers, ocean consciousness, and how to be a guest.

Chelsea Harlan on knowledge, creaturehood, and the quest for her mother’s secret sadness.

André Naffis-Sahely on desert sand, rootlessness, and the long shadow of fascism.

Elisa Gabbert on commitment, boredom, and the poem as theater. 

Saeed Jones on accuracy, being funny, and creating what we need.

Chantal Gibson on ancestors, laundry, and Frantz Fanon for beginners.

Nina Mingya Powles on muscle memory, Haka tutorials, and the shock of home.

Niina Pollari on sunflowers, redemption, and the most depressing phone note in the world.

Victoria Chang on bonsai trees, witticisms, and the wisdom of not giving a crap.

Tom Sleigh about his romance with experience, fancy jackets, and one last visit to the dog beach.

Sylvie Kandé and her translator Alexander Dickow on the courage of migrants, the limits of language, and an epic without a nation.

Kim Moore on playing the trumpet, misogyny, and the men we love.

Tommye Blount on transformation, Kids Incorporate, and the joy of drowning in diction.

Oksana Maksymchuk and Oksana Lutsyshyna on life as a refugee, the God of comfort, and the deep roots of the war.

Julie Enszer and Elena Gross on community care, the AIDS epidemic, and OutWrite, the conference that shaped queer literary history.

Hoa Nguyen on photographs, her mother's past with the motorcycle circus, and the quiet ways to talk to ghosts.

Poet and playwright Malcolm Tariq on listening, field trips with his brother, and the perils of dating while Black.

Kaveh Akbar on human wondering, fat squirrels, and the best spouse in the world.

Bianca Stone on family trauma, wrinkled towels, and the case against self-improvement.

Remembering the life, poetry, and activism of Janice Mirikitani, plus a few words on love by bell hooks.

Keats Conley on smelly ducks, spiders, and the limits of the human perspective.

Steven Espada Dawson on possibility, toothpaste, and the grief of cosmic aloneness.

Noor Hindi on home ownership, evictions court, and her father's grief.

Clint Smith on being human, healing on a plantation, and the difference between Jefferson and Grant.

Isabel Duarte-Gray on town gossip, folk remedies, and the music of Kentucky.

Poet and priest Spencer Reece on his cousin's murder, the AIDS epidemic, and bearing witness to a moment.

Chen Chen on nourishment, homophobia, and breaking free of the fear of failure.

Zohra Saed on cooking, culture, and the volunteer-led rescue operation to get Afghans to safety.

Mary Jo Bang on her 15-year long translation effort to remake Dante’s Divine Comedy for the modern ear. 

Tracy Fuad on Yelp reviews, mortality, and the weather in her mind.

torrin a. greathouse on public transport, horror, and the love of a chosen family.

Raymond Antrobus on forgiving his dad, becoming a father, and poetry dubs on late-night BBC.

Natasha Trethewey on writing a memoir about her mother’s life and murder.

Vievee Francis (part 2) on beauty in a racist world.

Vievee Francis on dark corners, an encounter with a bear, and the promise of the north.

Translator Emily Drumsta geeks out about the poetic patterns in the work of Iraqi modernist Nazik al Mala'ika.

Molly McCully Brown and Susannah Nevison on Gmail poems, pot roast, and the legacy of pain.

Famous Polish poet Adam Zagajewski remembered by friend and Translator Clare Cavanagh.

Cornelius Eady on Sterling Brown’s South: his porch, banter, and barbershop.

Kimiko Hahn on tie-dying on the stove, puns, and her father's things.

C. Dale Young on sugar cane fields, his favorite saint, and the machinations of the mind.

Poet and founder of Friends of the Los Angeles River Lewis MacAdams, in the words of his friend Kevin Opstedal.

Hafizah Geter on shelves full of Black writers, forgiveness, and knowing your history.

Meg Day on the poetry and activism of the late Laura Hershey, lip reading in a masked world, and the joy of connection.

A look back at the early days of the pandemic—eight poets about Zoom calls, the egg shortage, and being stranded abroad.

How a Victorian and a Harlem Renaissance poet struggled with poverty and the publishing world—while facing racism and classism—to become widely read and legends to us. Featuring interviews with experts Dr. Gene Jarrett, Dr. Tara Betts, Dr. Elizabeth McHenry, Dr. Joe Trotter, and Dr. R. Baxter Miller.

Lilly Rosenberg Fellowship winner Khaty Xiong on intergenerational trauma, a chicken's neck, and the long wave of grief.

Lilly Rosenberg Fellowship winner Luther Hughes on crows, processing trauma, and the allure of the wind.

Alexandria Hall on farm sounds, solo time, and the way into a difficult poem.

EJ Koh on distance, broken English, and writing poems that forgive.

Will Harris on mixedness, intimacy, and the music of difficult poems.

Camille Dungy on words, home, and motherhood in times of climate collapse.

Joy Ladin on the failures of language, courage, and the trans parable of Jonah and the Whale.

Remembering Irish poet Eavan Boland, with her friends Jody Allen Randolph and Paula Meehan.

Terrance Hayes on Wanda Coleman. Note from Terrance Hayes: “I cancelled this interview about Wanda Coleman’s work after signing the Poetry Foundation Petition. When the Foundation President and Board chair resigned, I decided to resume the interview believing the actions an indication of the PF’s willingness to change. Though I’m not yet quite convinced I should resume submitting my own poems to the magazine, I hope this interview represents  a willingness to remain in dialogue as PF rises to meet the other demands and challenges. Do check out the work of Wanda Coleman." To learn more: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/LetterOfCommitment

Interrogating the government’s half century of surveillance of Black writers.

Take a walk through post-WWI Paris in this recently reissued Modernist epic.

Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Alexander, and Haki Madhubuti on America’s perennial struggle to recognize that Black Lives Matter.

Nikky Finney on her father, her childhood, and the memories that made her.

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers on listening to her ancestors.

The first installment of a special series about the intersections between poetry and poverty.

Peter Murphy on a 16th-century poem that still speaks to us today.

Quarantined with kids, Zoom chats, and stranded abroad: eight poets on what life is like for them these days.

Dorianne Laux on her favorite shirt, ugly California, and bringing her mother back to life.

Biographer Jonathan Blunk on the life and longing of James Wright. Need a transcript of this episode? Request a transcript here.

Layli Long Soldier on the sacred and the useful.

Jericho Brown wants to make rebellious art.

Brenda Shaughnessy stares her fears in the face.

Bruce Beasley on his writing process, and on how fathers might be like warm ice cubes.

Timothy Liu remembers the life and work of his friend Linda Gregg, plus readings by Marie Ponsot and W.S. Merwin.

Matthew Zapruder on dreams, silence, and smoking with Brodsky.

Ada Limón is done with hiding in poems.

Fanny Howe gives away the secret to being cavalier and brave.

Ross Gay finds joy in life that outlives us.

Toi Derricotte on feeling part of something bigger.

Sally Wen Mao reanimates the past.

Two teachers on life through children's eyes.

The healthcare industry through the eyes of two doctor-poets.

Forrest Gander talks about love, loss, and the remarkable properties of lichen.

Naomi Shihab Nye talks about a trunk full of treasures, childhood in Palestine, and her grandson's poetic bone.

A look into the various approaches to the U.S. poet laureate position.

On Whitman's bicentennial, a contemporary poet finds a Whitmanic kinship with wonder, language, and the environment.

Marilyn Nelson's poetic legacy, through the eyes of one of her many protégés, Tyehimba Jess.

Two Muslim American poets discuss the intersections between poetry and Ramadan.

Carolyn Forché discusses her memoir of the same title, about her time in pre-civil war El Salvador in the late 1970s.

The life and legacy of Vladimir Mayakovsky.