Connor pops in to announce incredibly belatedly what has already been apparent for months: Close Talking is on a hiatus! We've had some big life and career changes that have unexpectedly cut into our capacity for the podcast, but it's not a permanent hiatus! Okay, a poem:TuneBy: Kay RyanImagine a seaof ultramarinesuspending amillion jellyfishas sof…

A slight departure from our regular format. On today's show, Connor and Jack remember the recently departed poet Charles Simic. They read some of his poems, reflect on them, discuss his life and legacy, and even give a shoutout to the Oak Park Public Library.Poems Connor and Jack read in this episode include: "Summer Morning" "Hotel Insomnia" "Wate…

Connor and Jack bid farewell to the year they've taken to calling "Twenty Twenty Poo" and contemplate the complexities of language in a wide-ranging conversation about a spectacular untitled poem by Diné poet Sherwin Bitsui, from his 2009 collection Flood Song. They discuss movement, the natural world, an extremely informative dissertation and more…

Connor and Jack discuss the sonically and thematically dense poem "Topsoil, in Repentance" by Sherry Shenoda. Shenoda's book MUMMY EATERS was longlisted for the National Book Award in 2022. The conversation moves from an exploration of internal rhymes and alliteration, to the climate crisis, to the religious implications of the word "repentance," t…

After a busy couple weeks at Close Talking headquarters, a slightly different show. This episode is from our sister-podcast, Poetry Spoken Here. The episode first aired in the summer of 2020 and was simply called "Black Lives Matter." The poems and voices featured are all from the Poetry Spoken Here archives and address race, policing, and more. Re…

In this special episode, Connor and Jack discuss the 2022 National Book Awards — the long list, the finalists, and the winner "Punks: New and Selected Poems" by John Keene. They read and explore a marvelous poem from the collection, "Folks Are Right, My Nose Was Wide Open," which also appeared in BOMB Magazine.Listen to the National Book Awards Awa…

Connor and Jack discuss a classic poem from a classic poet: The Dancing by the recently departed Gerald Stern. They marvel at how the poem is constructed, get deep into a discussion of encroaching fascism, and even have time to rage at the "evil Mellons," bring in Bruce Springsteen and Michael Bay, and pause to reflect on how lyric poetry can addre…

Connor and Jack have a time talking about the poem "A Time" by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke. She is a multi-award winning poet whose latest book-length poem "Look at This Blue" is on the short list for the 2022 National Book Award. Come for the poetry analysis, stay for the discussion of red wolves, climate crisis, Tolkein, impermanence, and diectic w…

Connor and Jack dig into the list/poem/prose piece/literary mystery Not Writing by Anne Boyer. Along the way they discuss what they are and are not writing themselves, Jack asks about why the poem never becomes monotonous, and Connor offers his thoughts about how writing, time, and capitalism intersect both in the poem and in life.Read the poem, he…

Connor and Jack discuss Sasha Banks' poem, america, MINE from her collection of the same name. They start by examining some of the poem's formal elements like its lack of traditional punctuation, and quickly jump to big themes like how the idea of vengeance is transformed in the poem and the contested symbol of the American flag is used.Read the fu…

Posted at long last after overcoming major technical difficulties!! Connor and Jack dive into the poem "I Hear a Dog Who is Always in My Death" by Samuel Ace. They discuss the poem's evocative imagery, ruminate on it's call to action against encroaching fascism, and find resonances with English and Egyptian mythology. They also make some time to du…

Connor and Jack discuss the poem "First Snow" by Arthur Sze. They discuss life, death, being, nothingness, and all the hidden meaning waiting to leap out of the every day. They also talk about how some poems can urge us towards presence and mindfulness and the necessity of taking the occasional pause in life.First SnowBy: Arthur SzeA rabbit has sto…

A dive into the Close Talking archives - one of the first episodes we ever recorded in which we discuss the poem "The Lynching Postcard, Duluth, Minnesota" by Ray Gonzalez. Poetry can seem a little insignificant in the face of an onslaught of historically awful news, like the one we've all been experience the last few weeks. But poems like this one…

Connor and Jack are joined by special guest Tara Betts to discuss the poem "Small Illuminations" from her forthcoming collection REFUSE TO DISAPPEAR. They discuss the legacy of Margaret Taylor-Burroughs, the realities of incarceration, and how the collection REFUSE TO DISAPPEAR grew over time.Get a copy of REFUSE TO DISAPPEAR, here: https://wordwor…

Connor and Jack are joined by poet, essayist, and journalist Noor Hindi. They dig into the poem "Self Interrogation" the first poem in Hindi's new collection DEAR GOD. DEAR BONES. DEAR YELLOW. coming out on 5/31 from Haymarket Books. She discusses the inspiration behind some of the poems in the book, the significance of the color yellow, and the im…

Connor and Jack explore Aracelis Girmay's poem "Elegy" from her 2011 collection Kingdom Animalia. They talk through the opening line's call to community and the ways it resonates with Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese," they get scientific while discussing the nature imagery in the poem, and they delve into the poem's pandemic-era relevance.ElegyBy: Aracel…

Connor and Jack conclude their exploration of poetic line breaks with a bit of a catch all episode looking at how line breaks can reveal information, play with time, and enhance surprise. They pull examples from Audre Lorde, Chris Tse, Rae Armantrout, and Emily Dickinson. There's even time for mentions of laminated dough and Indiana Jones.Episode 1…

As line break week hurdles towards its conclusion, Connor and Jack pause to consider ambiguity in line breaks. When the meaning of a word or phrase is altered by the positioning of a line break. They discuss the classic WB Yeats poem "Leda and the Swan" and Franz Wright's "Empty Cathedral." Along the way they talk about twists and turns in other li…

Connor and Jack delve ever deeper into the world of poetic line breaks. This time they're looking at how line breaks build rhythm in poems. They discuss rhythm within lines running through various literary terms and talking through some of the most popular meters. Then they move on to how line breaks facilitate rhythm through rhyme and anaphora. us…

Connor and Jack continue their exploration of all the ways lines can be broken and all the reasons a poet might have for breaking a line. Today they discuss using line breaks for emphasis focusing on the poem "The Pope's Penis" by Sharon Olds. They also discuss the sacred and profane resonances the poem has with Bob Dylan's masterpiece, "It's Alrig…

Connor and Jack continue their dive into the intricacies of the poetic line break this time discussing miming in line breaks. They draw examples from Pierre Joris, James Wright, and Frank O'Hara to close out National Poetry Month 2022 in style!Episode 1 of Line Break Week: https://soundcloud.com/close-talking/episode-157-why-break-a-line-line-break…

Connor and Jack continue their week-long exploration of line breaks in poetry closing out National Poetry Month 2022. Today they focus on how line breaks can build drama in a poem. Do they take a detour into discussing Entourage along the way? Maybe. But that's all part of the drama. The focus on a poem by Tacey M. Atsitty that uses line breaks to …

Starting a little later than planned, but it's time for the fourth annual last-week-of-poetry-month Close Talking extravaganza! In past years Connor and Jack have talked about haiku, shared comforting poems, and investigated the sonnet. Now, they take on their grandest subject yet - the line break. They dig into why poets break lines, what makes li…

Connor and Jack discuss "Beckoned" by living legend Forrest Gander. The poem, from Gander's Pulitzer Prize winning collection "Be With" grapples with grief and loss. In the discussion, Connor and Jack touch on the poem's use of anaphora and use of sound, investigate the ways nature imagery shows up throughout, and even find some stylistic connectio…

Connor and Jack are joined by special guest Caitlin Scarano to discuss the poem "Buttercream" from her new collection THE NECESSITY OF WILDFIRE. The collection won the Wren Poetry Prize, selected by final judge Ada Limón. Scarano discusses the poem, the collection, and the ways her work has taken what she describes as an "environmental turn" since …

Connor and Jack are joined by special guest Michael Kleber-Diggs for a conversation about the Gwendolyn Brooks poem "A Sunset of the City." Michael Kleber-Diggs won the 2020 Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, has been widely published, and teaches poetry through the Minnesota Prison Writers Workshop. In addition to digging into Gwendolyn Brooks' captivating p…

Connor and Jack discuss a classic poem by a classic poet - The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens. They talk about something. They talk about nothing. They talk about how the something of the poem perhaps resides in the nothing. Along the way they reference Taskmaster, King Lear, and much more.(Delayed after some technical difficulties!)The Snow Man By: W…

Connor and Jack discuss the poem I.R.L. by New Zealand poet Chris Tse. They talk about how media representations and creations can cross into reality, the meaning of "gritty," and why S.O.S is so evocative.In the second part of the show they answer a listener question about how to know where to submit poetry. Connor recommends a study that examines…

Connor and Jack discuss the generation melding poem "Hear the Dogs Crying" by Christy Passion. They discuss the power of car radios, the way the language of the poem leaps along with its subject matter, and even arrive at new readings of the last stanza in real time. In the second part of the show, Connor recommends the recent adaptation of "Statio…

Connor and Jack celebrate the 150th episode of Close Talking with a classic poem from a living legend - "Dreams" by Nikki Giovanni. They dig into poem's coming-of-age narrative discussing and along the way make musical references galore. Ray Charles and Marjorie Hendrix are just the tip of a harmonious iceberg in this wide-ranging conversation.Lear…

Connor and Jack discuss Catherine Barnett's beautiful poem "Epistemology." Fittingly for the season of solstice logs, Hannukah bushes, and Christmas trees, this poem - which contemplates the nature of knowing - name checks "The Secret Life of Trees" and considers the aliveness of our arboreal friends.Learn more about Catherine Barnett, here: https:…

Connor and Jack discuss a poem from Seema Yasmin's book "If God Is A Virus." They discuss Yasmin's status as a journalist, poet, and medical doctor; the way she weaves her many areas of expertise together in the poem; and what kind of art might one day represent this period of time.Read more about Yasmin, here: https://pulitzercenter.org/people/see…

In a slight departure from our regular format, Jack offers a brief remembrance of three recently departed poets - Kamilah Aisha Moon, Etel Adnan, and Robert Bly. Links to more information about the poets and to the poems read in the episode are below.Learn more about Kamilah Aisha Moon, here: http://www.kamilahaishamoon.org/Read Disbelief here: htt…

In this special episode, Connor and Jack discuss the 2021 National Book Awards - the long list, the finalists, and the winner "Floaters: Poems" by Martín Espada. They dig into an excerpt from the title poem "Floaters" and discuss how it brings urgent attention to issues of immigration and uses narrative to fight against the dehumanizing language of…

Connor and Jack are joined by special guest Dr. Len Lawson, co-editor of the new collection "The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry." just released from Blair Publishing. Together they discuss Lawson's poem "Amanda Waller Suite Episode 3: Amanda Waller Has a Woman-to-Woman with Harley Quinn." They discuss finding the …

Connor and Jack dive into an iconic poem by an iconic poet - Oodgeroo Noonuccal, also known as Kath Walker, a trailblazing indigenous Australian writer and activist. They discuss the history of racism towards indigenous Australian people, explore the ways the poem plays with perspective, and get a little lost on an environmental tangent about invas…

A return to when Connor and Jack explored Fady Joudah's poem "Additional Notes on Tea." They discuss how the poem moves around the globe, how it interrogates history, and engages with the concept of God.Close Talking Ep. 132: Poetry and Palestine - https://soundcloud.com/close-talking/episode-132-poetry-and-palestineUNBOXED Vol 15: Poetry and Pales…

Connor and Jack discuss a poem by Andrés Cerpa whose book "The Vault" was recently long-listed for the 2021 National Book Award in Poetry. They dive into the short poem "The Nightmare Touched Its Forehead to My Lips" unpacking the ways it describes grief and loss, the meaning of vaults, and spend time on the title, which is also the title of a whol…

In this bonus episode Connor and Jack continue their discussion of Don Mee Choi's poem, Shitty KItty. This time they focus on (rant about?) the history of US foreign policy failures, the lack of consequences for the architects of those disasters, and connect the histories that Shitty Kitty surfaces to contemporary struggles. They also share a some …

Connor and Jack discuss Don Mee Choi's "Shitty Kitty" from her 2016 book "Hardly War." They enmesh themselves in the tangled histories the poem explores - racial violence on US Navy ships in the 1970s, massacres committed by South Korean troops in Vietnam - talk about how the poem fits into the wider project of the book, and explore how the poem en…

Connor and Jack discuss the poem "First Snow" by Aria Aber. They explore the poem's subtle and marvelous use of perspective, the representation of snow and frost, and the poem's resonances with the devastating impact US war and intervention has had on Afghanistan.Learn more about Aria Aber here: https://www.ariaaber.com/Get a copy of her debut coll…

Connor and Jack dig into an excerpt from the epic, book-length poem "John Brown's Body" by Stephen Vincent Benet. In the late 1920s the book was a mega-best seller and won the 1929 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. They discuss the implications of the poem's popularity, other literary and artistic works that re-tell history, and the durable cultural myths…

Connor and Jack discuss the poem "Why I Am Silent About The Lament" by Abdullah Al-Baradouni, translated by Threa Almontaser. Despite being one of the most prominent and influential poets in the Arab world, until recently only one of Baradouni's poems had been translated into English. Connor and Jack discuss Baradouni's legacy, the ways this poem -…

Time travel stories are everywhere - Avengers: Endgame, Loki, Back to the Future, Outlander, the list is endless - but what happens when a poem takes on the question of time travel? Connor and Jack dive into Irish poet, Patrick Cotter's "Time Traveler." They discuss the challenges of thinking about the practicalities of time travel, the poem's use …

Connor and Jack discuss the Audre Lorde poem "Coping." They discuss Lorde's legacy as a writer and theorist, how poems and other pieces of culture can be palatable containers for unruly emotions, and the nature imagery the poem uses. They also take time to reflect on the ways the poem gets them thinking about climate change.More about Audre Lorde, …

The Pulitzer Prizes just announced the 2021 winners and in poetry, Natalie Diaz won for her collection "Postcolonial Love Poem." In this special episode, Connor and Jack discuss the title poem, the histories at play in the collection, Diaz's well-deserved Pulitzer win, and more!Find "Postcolonial Love Poem" here: https://www.graywolfpress.org/books…

Connor and Jack explore the poem "Into the Racism Workshop" by award-winning, Menominee, two-spirit poet, Chrystos. Along the way they discuss the long, complex histories held in the term two-spirit, the wry humor in Chrystos' poem, and the note of tempered hope on which it ends.Into the Racism WorkshopBy: ChrystosFor Alma Banda Goddardmy cynical f…

This episode revisits Connor and Jack's discussion of Emily Jungmin Yoon's poem "Say Grace." They explore how gender and religion intertwine in the poem, talk about the difficulties immigrant populations face in new oppressive states, and reflect on Emily Jungmin Yoon's particular kind of reclaiming.Check out the poem below or at this link: www.poe…

Connor and Jack share poetry from Palestinian poets and reflect on the power of poetry as a form of resistance.Poems shared:"Resist, My People, Resist Them" by Dareen Tatour: https://arablit.org/2016/04/27/the-poem-for-which-dareen-tatours-under-house-arrest-resist-my-people-resist-them/ "The House Murdered" by Mahmoud Darwish: https://progressive.…

Connor and Jack close out National Poetry Month 2021 with a series of episodes exploring the history and enduring popularity of one of poetry's iconic forms: the sonnet. To finish off a full week of episodes, a look at some contemporary sonnets and ways that poets have added to (and moved beyond)the basic fourteen line form. Nicole Sealey's 29 line…