Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

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The Impossible May 29, 2023

Show notes

The queens try to say it clearly and make it beautiful, no matter what, in this episode revisiting Bruce Weigl's poem "The Impossible." TW for sexual assault and pedophilia.
If you need resources, for yourself or a loved one, regarding sexual assault and pedophilia/incest, please visit https://www.rainn.org.
Support Breaking Form, the spirit so moves you:
Review Breaking Form on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDYis available from Four Way Books.
Born January 27, 1949 (which makes him an Aquarius), Bruce Weigl enlisted in the Army soon after turning 18 and served in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. He was awarded the Bronze Star. After he came back from the war, he attended Oberlin College, where Franz Wright was his classmate and encouraged Weigl to send his poems to James Wright. JW wrote back, and a line from that letter serves as the epigraph to Weigl's third book, Song of Napalm. The line is: "Out of the horror there rises a musical ache that is beautiful." Song of Napalm was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He earned an MA from the University of New Hampshire and a PhD at the University of Utah. He is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry and a memoir, The Circle of Hanh. His book The Abundance of Nothing was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. His most recent book is Among Elms, in Ambush, from Boa in 2021. Read more about him here.
Read Weigl's poem "The Impossible" here. "The Impossible" is included in Bruce Weigl's fourth book of poems, What Saves Us, published in 1992 from Northwestern University Press. We forget to fact check this, but the poem is comprised of 26 lines.
Hear Weigl read "The Impossible" in this hourlong reading, starting at the 35:25 mark. The reading was delivered and recorded at the Friends of Scranton Public Library in October 2013.
We reference an interview with the journal Blast Furnace, the entirety of which you can read here. Another interview with Memorious can be found here.
Watch Weigl read "Song of Napalm" at the College of Southern Maryland in 1981 here (~3.5 min). He discusses beauty and horror before reading the poem.
You can hear a more recent reading by Weigl at Eastern Connecticut State U on 10/3/18 here (~1 hour).

Favorite Least Favorite May 22, 2023

Show notes

All tea, no shade: the queens spill their favorite--and least favorite--books from beloved poets. As the great poet said, "If equal affection cannot be..." etc, etc.
Please support Breaking Form by:
Reviewing Breaking Form on Apple Podcasts here.
Buying our books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDYis available from Four Way Books.
We mention the following poets and books:
Sharon Olds
Balladz
The Gold Cell
The Dead and the Living
Blood, Tin, Straw
Stag's Leap
Odes
The Unswept Room

Terrance Hayes
American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin
Wind in a Box
Lighthead
How to Be Drawn

Anne Sexton
Live or Die
Transformations
45 Mercy Street
Louise Glück
Firstborn
The Triumph of Achilles
Meadowlands
Ararat. "The Untrustworthy Speaker" that James references appears in Ararat and can be read here.
Averno
Vita Nova; James quotes one of the title poems, "Vita Nova" (read it here).
Watch Louise Glück read with Katie Peterson here (~1 hour).
Mark Doty
Source. Read "At the Gym" which you can read here.
Atlantis. Aaron references the lines "... lucky we don’t have to know / what something is in order to hold it," which is from the section titled "Michael's Dream" in the title poem of Atlantis.
My Alexandria
Turtle, Swan. Read the title poem here.
Anne Carson
Autobiography of Red
Glass, Irony and God
Float
Nox
Marie Howe
The Kingdom of Ordinary Time
What the Living Do
The Good Thief
Magdalene

Aaron references Robley Wilson's Kingdoms of the Ordinary, published by the Pitt Poetry Series on Oct. 1, 1987.
Ama Codjoe's website is https://www.amacodjoe.com. Her book, Bluest Nude, was published by Milkweed in 2022.
Nancy Krygowski is the author of The Woman in the Corner, named one of 2020’s top 100 poetry books by Library Journal, and Velocity, winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press. She teaches in Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops and is a member of the Pitt Poetry Series interim editorial committee.

Mercy Mercy: Cherapy May 15, 2023

Show notes

The queens talk poetry through the lyrics of our diva & icon: Cher, who'll turn 77 on May 20.
Review Breaking Form on Apple Podcasts here.
Please support Breaking Form and buy Aaron's and James's books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDYis available from Four Way Books.
Cher appeared twice on the show Will & Grace — once in 2000, when Jack mistook her for a drag-queen Cher impersonator, and again in an appearance in 2002's season 4 finale, where she advises Jack" "Follow your bliss."
Matthew Dickman's poem "Slow Dance" appears in his book All-American Poem, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Award. The poem first appeard in The Missouri Review (Volume 29, Number 3, Fall 2006). Read it here. Or watch a video of the poet reading the poem here.
Hear Ann Lauterbachtalk about sound, performance, and folk music through this reading at U Penn's PennSound archive.
Justin Torres does say he learned a lot from reading poetry and says he loves condensed short stories in this illuminating interview.
Read Sharon Olds's poem "I Go Back to May 1937" first published in her 2nd book, The Gold Cell (1987), here. You can hear a recording of Olds reading that poem here.
Watch the SNL sketch with Molly Shannon, "Sally O'Malley's Rockette Open Audition," here.
You can read Christine Garren's title poem "Among the Monarchs" here.
Find Anne Sexton's "Music Swims Back to Me" here. And read more about Hugh Priesthood's inspiration drawn from that poem for his "The Song Remembers When," recorded by Trisha Yearwood.
Aaron referenced the Sexton poem "How We Danced," in which the speaker's father has an erection as they dance together.

Hero Ratio May 08, 2023

Show notes

These queens need a hero, not a zero in this episode of heroic percentages.
Review Breaking Form on Apple Podcasts here. Please support Breaking Form and buy Aaron's and James's books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDYis available from Four Way Books.
In the Season 5 Finale of Game of Thrones, Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) was forced to walk naked through the city. The scene lasts for 6 minutes, not 8 as James says. The nun who follows behind Cersei, ringing a bell and calling out "Shame!" in intervals, is played by Hannah Waddingham. You can get a sense of the scene here. TW for intense misogyny.
Wednesday Addams was played by Christina Ricci in the movies The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993). See the lemonade stand scene here and the "I'd pity him" scene here.
Aaron references the Fire Swamp in The Princess Bride. Measuring about 8.3 square miles, the Florin/Guilder Fire Swamp is located between Florin and Guilder. Like other fire swamps, it has large, lush trees, and contains a large percentage of gas bubbles, especially sulfur, which spontaneously combust.
In Fargo, Marge delivers the "And it's a beautiful day" speech in the police cruiser, with the murder suspect in the back of her car as she's driving. In a freaking blizzard.
When Clarice Starling first meets Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter calls Starling a rube and mocking her accent. It occurs around the 5:21 mark here. Foster says that Hopkins improvised the part where Lecter makes fun of Starling's accent. And she also told Graham Norton that she and Hopkins never spoke to one another on set until the end of shooting.
Read more about Weaver landing the role of Ellen Ripley in the Alien films here. Watch Ripley fight the Supreme Alien here; watch Ripley tell Burke to fuck off here.
You can read more about the idea for cutting (and then recovering) "Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz here.
Goldie Hawn is a riot as the titular Private Benjamin. Watch Benjamin tell Capt. Lewis she joined a different army here.
Carrie is a 1976 film starring Sissy Spacek as Carrie White, and it's based on Stephen King's first published novel of the same name (1974). Piper Laurie plays Carrie's mother, the uber-unstably-religious Margaret White. Watch the tender and poetic Prom scene with Carrie and Tommy here. And watch Carrie argue about her Prom dress with her mom here.

Hot Takes May 01, 2023

Show notes

This episode's got Aaron sweating, then Miguel Murphy joins the queens for some flaming hot poetry takes.
Review Breaking Form on Apple Podcasts here.

Please support Breaking Form and buy Aaron's and James's books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDYis available from Four Way Books.
Or, if you'd like to shop indie, we recommend Loyalty Bookstores, a DC-area Black-owned bookshop.
Read a recent Beckian Fritz Goldberg poem. Or listen to her read at the University of Arizona Poetry Center (from In the Badlands of Desire and Never Be the Horse).
Rilke recalled: "I had to wear beautiful long dresses, and until I started school I went about like a little girl. I think my mother played with me as though I were a big doll." Speaking of dolls, read Eva-Maria Simms's article "Uncanny Dolls: Images of Death in Rilke and Freud" in New Literary History here.
The Bernadette Mayer book Aaron references is Midwinter Day (New Directions, reissued the original 1982 book in 1999). Read more about the book's composition (in one day, as Aaron says) in this interview with Mayer conducted by Fanny Howe.
Read more about Eric McHenry's discovery of Langston Hughes's real birthday
Heather McHugh's poem that Aaron references is "I Knew I'd Sing" from her first book, Dangers. Visit McHugh's website: https://www.heathermchugh.com
For more about gay sincerity, here's a Gawker article by Paul McAdory called "Gay Sincerity is Scary" and has a tagline that is too shady to not quote: "When it comes to popular gay fiction, on earth we're briefly cringe."
Visit the online Whitman archive (which documents the many, many photographs of Whitman, many of them nudes), thus validating what Miguel says when he calls Walt our first Instagram poet.
Richard Hugo talks about public and private poets in his essay "The Triggering Town"
Read Plath's "Letter in November" and her poem "Berck-Plage" or listen to her read that poem here.
Miguel references Lucille Clifton's poem "Leaving Fox," which begins "so many fuckless days and nights."

In Brief Apr 24, 2023

Show notes

The queens get quick (and dirty), summarizing a poet's oeuvre in one sentence.
If you'd like to support Breaking Form, please consider buying Aaron's and James's books (both 2023):
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDYis available from Four Way Books.
When James says that Aaron makes a "Stuck the Landing" flourish, he means the kind of gesture made over and over in this montage of gymnasts sticking the landing!
Watch an Elizabeth Bishop documentary here (including interviews with Bidart, Strand, Howard Moss, Mary McCarthy, and James Merrill). ~56 min.
Watch John Ashbery accept, in delightfully odd fashion, a lifetime achievement award at the 2011 National Book Award here. (~10 min).
Here's a 40-min documentary on Robert Frost that's worth watching.
Watch this interview with Gwendolyn Brooks (~30 min), courtesy of Maryland's Howard County Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo).
Listen to this ~2min recording of Jorie Graham reading her poem "Why" from To 2040 (Copper Canyon Press) here.
Watch James Merrill read Bishop's "One Art" and his own "Developers at Crystal River" at the San Francisco Poetry Center in 1980. (~5 min)
Watch this interview with Stanley Kunitz, on the occasion of his becoming Poet Laureate (~20 min).
Read Anthony Hecht's poem "More Light! More Light!" which deals centrally with Nazi executions in the Holocaust, or listen to him read the poem (3.5 min) here.
We mention two articles about Cummings's anti-Semitism. The review of Susan Cheever's biography is here. The article Aaron mentions is available through J-Stor here. The article (and lost poem) that The Awl published about Cummings can be read here.
Eloise Klein Healy's most recent book is A Brilliant Loss, published in 2022 by Red Hen Press and available here. She is the author of 10 books of poetry. Check out her website: https://www.eloisekleinhealy.com. You can read the poem that Celeste Gainey recites on the show, "Asking About You," here.
Celese Gainey is the author of The Gaffer, published by Arktoi Books, an imprint of Red Hen Press. You can read more about her and her poetry on her website here.
In 1974, Gainey was the first woman to be admitted as a gaffer to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (I.A.T.S.E.). In addition to lighting dozens of documentaries, she worked for such programs as 60 Minutes, ABC Close-Up, and 20/20, as well as on feature films like Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver, and The Wiz.

HaydenCarRuthStone Apr 17, 2023

Show notes

The queens discuss how poetry uses us as they highlight the work of Ruth Stone and Hayden Carruth.
Support Breaking Form and buy James's and Aaron's new books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDYis available from Four Way Books.
Please consider supporting the poets we mention in today's show! If you need a good indie bookstore, we recommend Loyalty Bookstores, a DC-area Black-owned bookshop.
Read Ruth Stone's obit in the NY Times.
Phoebe Stone gave a recorded talk about her mother Ruth Stone. It's an audio recording but has a ton of photographs and drafts of Stone's work. It's a personal glimpse into Ruth Stone's life and work. Catch it here (15 min).
Watch the trailer for Ruth Stone's Vast Library of the Female Mind, Nora Jacobson's documentary on the poet, here. (~3 min).
And you can stream the entire documentary now here (76 min). It includes interviews with family members and friends as well as poets Sharon Olds and Toi Derricotte.
Hayden Carruth's last public poetry reading was at Marlboro College in Vermont in 2009 (~60 min). (Marlboro College is the alma mater of poet Cate Marvin; it closed in 2020.)

Read a reminiscence of Carruth here (where he's late for lunch with Adrienne Rich).
You can read Carruth's poem "Graves" (from Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey) here.

Elegy Apr 10, 2023

Show notes

Aaron and James stop all the clocks with this episode exploring elegy.
Support Breaking Form and buy James's and Aaron's new books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDYis available from Four Way Books.
Watch the iconic scene from Four Weddings and a Funeral in which Auden's "Funeral Blues" is read.
Listen to Dylan Thomas read "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" here. A stirring and unforgettable performance of the poem by Michael Sheen is worth your time here.
Listen to Lorca's "Despedida" read here by Eduardo Montes-Bradley. Translated as "Farewell," you can read the poem in an English version here. Another is here.
Check out Kathy Fagan's website and online poems here. Buy Bad Hobby here.
Read Robert Cording's poem "Elegy for John, My Student Dead of AIDS" (which Aaron highlights in the show) here.
You can read James L. White's fabulous "Making Love to Myself" here.
The National Institute of Mental Health has a good FAQ about suicide, ideation, and helping those you love to cope with these things.
Text or call 988 for a 24-hour suicide hotline.
Read here for a discussion of what happens if/when you disclose suicidal ideation to a therapist, including the therapist's legal obligations to report or not. The site is supported by Mental Health America, a leading nonprofit community-based organization promoting mental health awareness .
Translifeline is a text / call-based hotline which has a policy against non-consensual active rescue, which means they will not call emergency services or law enforcement without your explicit request – even if you tell them you or someone else is in danger. They are required to alert authorities if they think a minor is being emotionally or physically abused or neglected, or they believe that the caller intends to harm someone else.

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP)
The Trevor Project (for queer youth)
Trevor Lifeline: 866-4-U-TREVOR (866-488-7386)

Spin the Bottle Apr 03, 2023

Show notes

Get ready to spin the bottle! The queens cause some jeopardy in this trivia-filled episode.
Support Breaking Form and buy James's and Aaron's new books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDYis available from Four Way Books.
And please consider supporting the poets we mention on today's show at your favorite independent bookseller. If you need a suggestion, we can recommend Loyalty Bookstores, a Black-owned indie in DC.
Visit Brenda Hillman's website at http://www.brendahillman.net/index.html

Watch this interview with Hillman conducted by Paul Nelson at the Cascadia Poetics Lab in December 2022.

Tracy K. Smith's birthday is April 16, 1972. Life on Mars was published by Graywolf in 2011, and it was the 2012 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. See this great compact interview with Smith on PBS NewsHour here. (~6 min)

In June 2017, Smith was named U.S. poet laureate. She teaches at Harvard University, where she is a professor of English and of African and African American Studies and the Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

Watch Carl Dennis read at Georgia Tech (introduced by Tom Lux; ~25 min). The book of Dennis's craft essays which I mention in the episode is called Poetry as Persuasion.

Watch this short film on Frank O'Hara, where he reads the following poems (~16 min):
Mozart Chemister
Fantasy Dedicated to the Health of Allen Ginsberg
The Day Lady Died
Song (Is it dirty....)
Having a Coke with You

Listen to William Carlos Williams read "The Red Wheelbarrow" here (~16 seconds)

Read W.B. Yeats's "The Fish" here.

Visit Brian Teare at his website: https://www.brianteare.net.

Simeon Berry lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. He has been an Associate Editor for Ploughshares and received a Massachusetts Cultural Council Individual Artist Grant. His first book, Ampersand Revisited (Fence Books), won the 2013 National Poetry Series, and his second book, Monograph (University of Georgia Press), won the 2014 National Poetry Series. Visit Simeon's website here.

John Cranberryman Mar 27, 2023

Show notes

The queens return to the Poetry Gay Bar and talk mixers & pretty dicks.
f you want to support Breaking Form, please consider buying James and Aaron's new books.
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDYis available from Four Way Books.
See Spencer Reese read "The Upper Room" from The Road to Emmaus here (~3.5 min)
Watch the poet Ai read "The Good Shepherd" here (~3.5 min).
A terrific ee cummings documentary can be seen here (~40 min). Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962), often written in all lowercase as e e cummings, was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays, and several essays.
Watch dame Judy Grahn read "I Have Come to Claim" (aka the Marilyn Monroe poem) here (~3:45 min).
Hear Randall Jarrell read from his work at the 92nd Y (no video; ~40 min).
Watch Ruth Stone give a full-length reading (~70 min) here.
Watch Anne Hathaway read Dorothy Parker (~6.5 min) here. (And remember to spell Anne's name right.)
The Gallery of Beautiful Dicks:
Pablo Neruda: watch a documentary on Neruda here (~46 min)
Alexander Pope: watch a BBC episode on the genius of Pope here (~50 min).
Rita Dove (listen to her on The Achiever podcast here)
Claudia Rankine: watch her talk about Just Us at the International Literature Festival in Berlin here (~1 hour).
Maggie Nelson: watch Nelson in conversation with Judith Butler here (~90 min).
Mary Ruefle: watch Ruefle give a lecture about poetry here (~90 min).
WS Merwin: watch Merwin read here (~29 min).
John Ashbery: listen to him read "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" (30 min) here.
Gertrude Stein: Listen to Stein read "If I had Told Him" here.
Read Robinson Jeffers's poem "Birds and Fishes" here.
The Trevi Fountain in Rome is an 18th century fountain designed by Nicola Salvi. You can watch a bit about it here.

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