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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 collection Hard Damage here: https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/university-of-nebraska-press/9781496215703/ Find Aber's resources to support Afghans here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10-SLGJEb39jpN_vEw8ruvba3iS1BmeU5QoW1AdGEL7M/edit First Snow By: Aria Aber How easy for snow to turn to ice, for snow to disappear the light from the ragged frame of chestnut trees around the warehouse by what’s left of wild chicory, scraped sculptures, weeping dogbane. Hunger borders this land, while snow turns all to immigrants, snow salts the embankment, where turtles wash ashore, literally hundreds of them, frozen hard like grenades of tear gas thro

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 John Brown's story exemplifies. Learn more a out Benét, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/stephen-vincent-benet Find us at our website: www.closetalking.com/ Find us on Facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking 
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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 - written decades ago - speaks to the contemporary human rights crisis in Yemen, and Yemen's deep history of art, culture, and music. Learn more about Abdullah Al-Baradouni, here: https://yemenusedtobe.org/abdullah-al-baradouni/ Learn more about Threa Almontaser, here: https://www.threawrites.com/ Get a copy of her new book The Wild Fox of Yemen, here: https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/wild-fox-yemen Why I Am Silent About The Lament By: Abdullah Al-Baradouni (trans. Threa Almontaser) They tell me my silence is about lamentation. I tell them the howling is ugly. يقولون لي مالي صمتّ عن الرّثاء فقلت لهم ان العويل قبي Poetry is only for life and I felt like sin

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 of sound, and the time-warping events of the last year and a half. You can read the whole poem, here (or below): https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/90658/time-traveler Get a copy of Sonic White Poise, here: https://www.dedaluspress.com/product/sonic-white-poise/ Time Traveler By: Patrick Cotter Now is before he was born. Days of air shaken by bees, crow song probing eaves and quays. Maker of the future a perfect terra-cotta tense, a tense which sings. The absence of push in his education was unpresaged by the door’s lack of wired Sesame. He waits and waits for egress. The door needs only his touch. Its only desire is to swing. He waits for it

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, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/audre-lorde Coping By: Audre Lorde It has rained for five days running the world is a round puddle of sunless water where small islands are only beginning to cope a young boy in my garden is bailing out water from his flower patch when I ask him why he tells me young seeds that have not seen sun forget and drown easily Find us at our website: www.closetalking.com/ Find us on Facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking 
Find us on Twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking
 Find us on Instagram: @closetalkingpoetry You can always send us an e-mail with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions

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/postcolonial-love-poem Hear Diaz read the title poem, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm6poGV9H_Q Hear Connor and Jack discuss Diaz's poem "My Brother at 3A.M." here: https://soundcloud.com/close-talking/episode-040-my-brother-at-3-am-natalie-diaz Find us at our website: www.closetalking.com/ Find us on Facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking 
Find us on Twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking
 Find us on Instagram: @closetalkingpoetry You can always send us an e-mail with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at closetalkingpoetry@gmail.com.

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 Workshop By: Chrystos For Alma Banda Goddard my cynical feet ambled prepared for indigestion & blank faces of outrageous innocence knowing I'd have to walk over years of media declaring we're vanished or savage or pitiful or noble My toes twitched when I saw so few brown faces but really when one eats racism every time one goes out one’s door the appeal of talking about it is minuscule I sat with my back to the wall facing the door after I changed the chairs to a circle This doesn't really protect me but I con myself into believing it does One of the first speakers piped up I'm only here because my friend is Black & wanted me to do this with her I've already done 300 too many racism workshops Let it be entered into

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.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi…25/say-grace Read more about Yoon here: www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/emily-jungmin-yoon Read more about Kelly Oliver's Witnessing here: www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/witnessing [italics from the original poem do not display below] Say Grace By: Emily Jungmin Yoon In my country our shamans were women and our gods multiple until white people brought an ecstasy of rosaries and our cities today glow with crosses like graveyards. As a child in Sunday school I was told I’d go to hell if I didn’t believe in God. Our teacher was a woman whose daughters wanted to be nuns and I asked What about babies and what about Buddha, and

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.org/dispatches/the-house-murdered/ "Israelis Let Bulldozers Grind to Halt —American newspaper headline dropped in our village” by Naomi Shihab Nye: https://losangelesreview.org/review-tiny-journalist-naomi-shihab-nye/ Find us at our website: www.closetalking.com/ Find us on Facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking 
Find us on Twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking
 Find us on Instagram: @closetalkingpoetry You can always send us an e-mail with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at closetalkingpoetry@gmail.com.

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 "candelabra with heads" Paisley Rekdal's anagrammatical sonnets, Jericho Brown's creation of The Duplex and more are discussed. candelabra with heads by Nicole Sealey Had I not brought with me my mind as it has been made, this thing, this brood of mannequins, cocooned and mounted on a wooden scaffold, might be eight infants swaddled and sleeping. Might be eight fleshy fingers on one hand. Might be a family tree with eight pictured frames. Such treaties occur in the brain. Can you see them hanging? Their shadow is a crowd stripping the tree of souvenirs. Skin shrinks and splits. The bodies weep fat the color of yolk. Can you smell them burning? Their perfume clim

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. In this episode, they explore sonnets from the United States and discuss how the sonnet traveled around the world. They dig into Claude McKay's "America" and Gwendolyn Brooks' "the rites for Cousin Vit." America By: Claude McKay Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth, Stealing my breath of life, I will confess I love this cultured hell that tests my youth. Her vigor flows like tides into my blood, Giving me strength erect against her hate, Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood. Yet, as a rebel fronts a king in state, I stand within her walls with not a shred Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer. Darkly I gaze into the days ahead, And see her might and granite wonders there, Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand, Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand. the rites for Cousin Vit By:

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. In episode five they travel forward hundreds of years and explore sonnets that go beyond the bounds of love to describe war, internment, and much more. Poems featured include "The Road to Corbie" by American war poet John Allan Wyath and "Barracks Home" by Toyo Suyemoto. The Road to Corbie By: John Allan Wyath Our staff car flies and trails a long-spun haze over the looping road and the surge and fall of the heaving plains ~~ quick dusty tree trunks throw their flickering bars of shadow in our eyes. A wood ~~ men leading horses out to graze ~~ a misty bridge, and past the lumbering crawl of crowded lorries ~~ low hills all aglow with tufts of trees against the evening skies and long blond hill slopes catching level rays along their quilted flanks ~~ and under all, the deep earth breathing like a thing asleep. And there, Corbie ~~ her brittl

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. In episode four they travel to 1500s England to discuss the next major development of the sonnet, the Shakespearean sonnet. They discuss its differences from the Petrarchan, carpe diem, as well as one of John Donne's Holy Sonnets. Sonnet 73 By: William Shakespeare That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire, Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, T

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. In episode three they travel back to cusp-of-the-Renaissance-Italy to discuss Petrarch, one of the earliest and best known masters of the sonnet. They discuss his infatuation with a woman named Laura, dig into one of his works, and even bring the conversation around to the MCU. Sonnet 90 By: Petrarch (translated by Anthony Mortimer) Upon the breeze she spread her golden hair That in a thousand gentle knots was turned And the sweet light beyond all measure burned In eyes where now that radiance is rare; And in her face there seemed to come an air Of pity, true or false, that I discerned: I had love’s tinder in my breast unburned Was it a wonder if it kindled there? She moved not like a mortal, but as though She bore an angel’s form, her words had then A sound that simple human voices lack; A heavenly spirit, a living sun Was what I saw; n

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. Episode 2 explores one of the most fundamental features of the sonnet: the volta. They discuss the voltas of a canonical if problematic sonnet, "Leda and the Swan" by W.B. Yeats, as well as the first sonnet in Eduardo Corral's "Border Triptych." Leda and the Swan By: W.B. Yeats A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? And how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies? A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead. Being so caught up, So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on hi

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 start off they travel back almost 800 years to the birth of the sonnet, discuss "Sonetto 26" by Giacomo da Lentini, and then zoom back to the present and dive into Terrance Hayes American Sonnet for my Past and Future Assassin." Sonetto 26 By: Giacomo da Lentini (Translation by Leo Zoutewelle) I’ve seen it rain on sunny days And seen the darkness flash with light And even lightning turn to haze, Yes, frozen snow turn warm and bright And sweet things taste of bitterness And what is bitter taste most sweet And enemies their love confess And good, close friends no longer meet. Yet stranger things I’ve seen of love Who healed my wounds by wounding me. The fire in me he quenched before; The life he gave was the end thereof, The fire that slew eluded me. Once saved from love, love now burns more. American Sonnet for my Past and Future Assas

Revisit our conversation about the poem "Could We Please Give the Police Departments to the Grandmothers?" by Junauda Petrus. This episode originally aired almost a year ago, but the events of the last few weeks had both Connor and Jack thinking about this poem's urgent message. More about Junauda Petrus here: junauda.com/ Could we please give the police departments to the grandmothers? By: Junauda Petrus Give them the salaries and the pensions and the city vehicles, but make them a fleet of vintage corvettes, jaguars and cadillacs, with white leather interior. Diamond in the back, sunroof top and digging the scene with the gangsta lean. Let the cars be badass! You would hear the old school jams like Patti Labelle, Stevie Wonder, Anita Baker and Al Green. You would hear Sweet Honey in the Rock harmonizing on “We who believe in freedom will not rest” bumping out the speakers. And they got the booming system. If you up to mischief, they will pick you up swiftly in their sweet ride and look at you until y

Connor and Jack discuss the newly resonant poem "[By the road to the contagious hospital]" by the great William Carlos Williams, which is the first poem in Williams' iconic Spring and All. They explore the now-emergent "pandemic in spring" sub-genre, which this poem is surely canon. They also talk about the poem's modernist context, its grounded attention to detail and nature, and its striking first line. [By the road to the contagious hospital] By: William Carlos Williams By the road to the contagious hospital under the surge of the blue mottled clouds driven from the northeast-a cold wind. Beyond, the waste of broad, muddy fields brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen patches of standing water the scattering of tall trees All along the road the reddish purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy stuff of bushes and small trees with dead, brown leaves under them leafless vines— Lifeless in appearance, sluggish dazed spring approaches— They enter the new world naked, cold, uncertain of all save that they

Connor and Jack are joined by special guest (and Close Talking social media manager) Corey China for this discussion of Marilyn Chin's devastating poem "Blues on Yellow." In the conversation they discuss the history of anti-Asian hatred and violence in the United States, the struggles for cross-community solidarity, and the resonances of the poem's use of the blues form. Blues on Yellow By: Marilyn Chin The canary died in the gold mine, her dreams got lost in the sieve. The canary died in the gold mine, her dreams got lost in the sieve. Her husband the crow killed under the railroad, the spokes hath shorn his wings. Something’s cookin’ in Chin’s kitchen, ten thousand yellow-bellied sapsuckers baked in a pie. Something’s cookin’ in Chin’s kitchen, ten thousand yellow-bellied sapsuckers baked in a pie. Something’s cookin’ in Chin’s kitchen, die die yellow bird, die die. O crack an egg on the griddle, yellow will ooze into white. O crack an egg on the griddle, yellow will ooze into white. Run, run, sweet lit

Connor and Jack discuss Zaffar Kunial's elegant sonnet, "The Word." They marvel at the poem's seemingly effortless meditation on being between two cultures—particularly in a postcolonial context—and how it evokes so much through one simple word: "the." Check out Kunial's latest collection, here: https://www.faber.co.uk/9780571337651-us.html. You can hear Kunial read "The Word", here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P87bOpCzn6o The Word By: Zaffar Kunial I couldn’t tell you now what possessed me to shut summer out and stay in my room. Or at least attempt to. In bed mostly. It’s my dad, standing in the door frame not entering – but pausing to shape advice that keeps coming back. “Whatever is matter, must enjoy the life.” He pronounced this twice. And me, I heard wrongness in putting a the before life. In two minds. Ashamed. Aware. That I knew better, though was stuck inside while the sun was out. That I’m native here. In a halfway house. Like that sticking word. That definite article, half right, half