Commonplace: Conversations with Poets (and Other People)
121 episodes - English - Latest episode: 7 months ago - ★★★★★ - 206 ratingsIntimate and compelling interviews by Rachel Zucker with poets and other artists. Become a Patron & support our growing podcast! www.patreon.com/commonplacepodcast
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Episodes
Episode 21: Undocupoets Part 1 — Christopher Soto aka Loma
February 26, 2017 18:25 - 2 daysRachel Zucker talks with author of the chapbook Sad Girl Poems and co-founder of Undocupoets Christopher Soto, aka Loma, about their experience at NYU, the exploitation of pain and sadness of poets of color, the pressure on poets of color and queer poets to write a certain kind of poem or a embrace a certain kind of content, the redistribution of money, and the presence of the physical body in activism. They talk about literary activism, including Loma's Tour to End Queer Youth Homelessness,...
Episode 20: Kristin Prevallet
February 11, 2017 11:00 - 1 hourRachel Zucker speaks with poet, hypnotherapist, teacher, workshop leader and activist Kristin Prevallet about teaching grammar in prisons, trancepoetics, hypnotherapy, radical femininity, retrograde meaning, and what it means to be a tender of the garden of language. They discuss Kristin’s new novel and new book on healing, teaching writing to non-writers, and the power of female sexuality.
Episode 19: Andi Zeisler
February 01, 2017 11:00 - 1 hourRachel Zucker speaks with writer and illustrator Andi Zeisler, co-founder of Bitch Media. They discuss the recent election, feminism, and Andi’s most recent book We Were Feminists Once, which offers a critical analysis of the ways that feminism has been co-opted by the marketplace. They also discuss the impulse behind the foundation of Bitch Media, new projects, and how to move forward in an era of uncertainty. Help support our growing podcast by becoming a patron of Commonplace: patreon.com/...
Episode 18: Terrance Hayes
January 20, 2017 11:00 - 2 hoursHost Rachel Zucker talks with award-winning poet Terrance Hayes about Terrance’s new work, living in New York City, the election, teaching workshop, painting, sharing work with peers, not wanting help, provocation, offensive language, the role of audience, and staying true to oneself. Terrance reads a selection of new poems all titled “American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin” to start the conversation.
Episode 17: Natalie Diaz and Roger Reeves
January 16, 2017 11:00 - 1 hourRachel Zucker talks with poets Natalie Diaz and Roger Reeves right before all three of them are about to read at a poetry event called “Love, especially love,” organized by Natalie Diaz and held at NYC’s Housingworks Cafe. The three talk about racism, family, the family that poetry makes, long poems v. shorter, self-contained poems, getting in the way, taking up space, risk, pleasure, joy, public/private, spectacle, spectator and poetry of witness. They also talk about the artists and writers...
Episode 16: Jericho Brown
January 02, 2017 11:00 - 1 hourHost Rachel Zucker speaks with award-winning poet Jericho Brown about the differences between poetry and journalism, the role of truth and facts in poetry, the complexities of separating a poet’s autobiography from the work especially in the age of Facebook, writing about family and about queerness, coming out, “bad people,” the complications of assembling a collection a poems, poetry projects v. poems, and treasuring the “small, complete thing.”
Episode 15: Bernadette Mayer
December 22, 2016 11:00 - 1 hourHost Rachel Zucker speaks with poet Bernadette Mayer.
Episode 14: Alicia Ostriker
December 15, 2016 11:00 - 1 hourIn this episode, host Rachel Zucker speaks with poet, critic, biblical scholar Alicia Ostriker about the election, feminism, the difference between the contemporary moment and the idealism of the sixties, how the ego is subsumed in the process of writing poetry, William Blake, and the differences between writing poetry and prose. They also talk about motherhood, daughterhood, Ostriker's friendship with Toi Derricotte, teaching, and the interpretive process of biblical reimagining called "midr...
Episode 13: D.A. Powell
December 01, 2016 11:00 - 1 hour - 105 BytesHost Rachel Zucker talks with her friend D.A. Powell, author of five award winning books of poetry and professor at University of San Francisco. They talk about the presidential election, outrage, disturbance, poetry as social activism and action, normalization, resistence, erasures, palimpsests, minimalism, droplifting, notebooks, revision strategies, chaos and order(ing), and going forward. They also talk about their time together at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, teaching, their mutual affect...
Episode 12: Steph Burt
November 15, 2016 14:51 - 1 hourRachel Zucker talks with poet-critic-professor Steph Burt about types of criticism, ethical problems of criticism, gender expression, female embodiment, an aesthetic of adornment and neon violet and an aesthetic of naturalness and apparent authenticity, Yeats, form, formalism and informality, The Vision, Kitty Pride and the desire to dematerialize, authority and male privilege, Steph’s recent book of criticism “The Poem Is You” and their unpublished manuscript “Advice from the Lights,” differ...
Episode 11: Shane McCrae
November 01, 2016 14:00 - 1 hourRachel Zucker speaks with Shane McCrae, professor and author of five books, about his poetic process, what he’s working on, and the current political climate. The two discuss the limitations of the term “confessional poetry,” the difficulties of writing about tragedies in the immediate wake of their occurrences, the impulse to witness humiliation in popular culture, the American anxiety of the long poem post-Eliot, and how one might curate an “overwhelming sadness” through art. Shane McCrae r...
Episode 10: Olena Kalytiak Davis
October 17, 2016 14:00 - 1 hourRachel Zucker speaks with Olena Kalytiak Davis, author of three books and a chapbook, about her daily writing practice (or lack thereof), writing autobiographically, and what it means to not fake it in her work. The two discuss a new poem of Rachel’s, “Enough Is Enough,” in which Olena is prominently featured as a subject without her prior knowledge. The poem sparks an animated conversation that explores questions of shared memory, the ethics of writing about people you know, and what it’s li...
Episode 9: Wayne Koestenbaum
September 29, 2016 14:00 - 2 hoursRachel Zucker speaks with Wayne Koestenbaum, an artist of multiple mediums and a cultural critic, about nudism, the shame of writing, sensual upsurge, ecofeminism, the different challenges posed by writing and painting, and what he calls “the cage of language.” They explore questions of self-validation, changing one’s relationship to language, and what it means to be a cautious person who “bares all” in their work. In the latter part of the conversation, Zucker and Koestenbaum discuss the imp...
Episode 8: Craig Morgan Teicher
September 15, 2016 14:00 - 1 hourRachel Zucker speaks with poet, critic, professor, and overall poetry-immersed figure Craig Morgan Teicher. The two discuss Teicher’s various roles in the poetry community, the poetry economy, and the glimpses into people’s inner lives that poetry affords. By delving into his past as an aspiring comedian and his eventual path to poetry, Teicher offers an insight into what motivates him both professionally and personally in his current life. Through their conversation, Teicher and Zucker attem...
Episode 7: Cathy Park Hong
September 01, 2016 12:46 - 1 hourRachel Zucker speaks with Cathy Park Hong, author of three books of poetry, professor at Sarah Lawrence, and recipient of the NEA, NYFA and Fulbright fellowships. They discuss how motherhood can change one’s poetic aesthetic, the limitations of poetry and prose, the intersections of poetry and politics, and the new phenomenon of “viral poems.” Cathy Park Hong shares her thoughts on why she uses persona and shifting pronouns in her poetry and how writing nonfiction allows her to be more person...
Episode 6: Erika Meitner
August 15, 2016 13:20 - 1 hourIn this special two-part episode, Rachel Zucker speaks with poet Erika Meitner, author of four books, most recently Copia. In part one, Meitner details her circuitous route to becoming a poet, her early influences (especially the work of Mark Doty), and her conversational diction and increasingly straight-forward poetics. She explains that much of her work arises from a commitment to writing accurately and respectfully about the small town in which she lives, and the challenges of writing as ...
Episode 5: Matthew Rohrer
August 01, 2016 13:25 - 1 hourRachel Zucker speaks with poet Matthew Rohrer, author of eight books. The two discuss marriage, lightheartedness, serious poetic practice, little league baseball, and Rohrer’s collaboration with haiku masters in his most recent book, Surrounded by Friends. With jaunts into his own academic career and his influences, Rohrer speaks on his understanding of the New York School, an unpublished interview with Ron Padgett, and receiving criticism for being “too adoring.” The conversation touches on ...
Episode 4: Claudia Rankine
July 15, 2016 22:00 - 49 minutesAward winning poet, playwright, professor, editor, essayist, and critic Claudia Rankine speaks with Rachel Zucker about collaboration, poetry’s role in social change, and the investigation of feeling. In this episode, Rankine discusses the importance of ideas put forward by writers such as James Baldwin and Adrienne Rich, the known unknown, the arena of consciousness, being a spectator, willed ignorance, and the illusion of difficulty in poetry.
Episode 3: John Murillo
June 30, 2016 13:51 - 1 hourIn this episode, Rachel Zucker speaks with John Murillo, author of Up Jump the Boogie, about his initiation as a priest in La Regla de Ocha, his writing process, Philip Levine and other poets he loves, his thoughts on the ethics of writing poetry, and duende. Murillo explores the interstices of narrative and lyric poetry, the structure of love poems, how to navigate the line between one’s own story and the stories of others and what it means to be in someone’s poetry tribe.
Episode 2: Nick Flynn
June 15, 2016 21:33 - 1 hourPoet Rachel Zucker interviews Nick Flynn, author of My Feelings (among many other books), out from Graywolf Press.
Episode 1: David Trinidad
May 15, 2016 16:42 - 1 hourIn this episode, poet David Trinidad discusses collecting vintage Barbies and Vera scarves and how images of collecting and the process of collecting have affected his poems and poetics.