Keep the Channel Open

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Episode 140: Dayna Patterson Apr 28, 2023

Show notes

Dayna Patterson is a poet, photographer, and textile artist based in the Pacific Northwest. The poems in her latest collection, O Lady, Speak Again, use the voices of the women characters from Shakespeare's plays to talk about patriarchy, motherhood, sexuality, religion, heritage. In our conversation, Dayna and I discussed her creative process and how she finds her way into a poem, her use of persona in O Lady, Speak Again, and how and why she interrogates that same device within the collection. The in the second segment, we talked about play, and how it interacts with the creative process.

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Transcript Episode Credits

Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
Music: Podington Bear
Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Episode 139: Joshua Burton Mar 29, 2023

Show notes

Joshua Burton is a poet and educator based in Houston, TX. The poems in Joshua's debut collection, Grace Engine, ask what grace means in a hostile world of lynchings, mental illness, self-hate, and suicide. These poems offer no solace, yet nevertheless reach toward beauty and peace. In our conversation, Joshua and I talked about what a grace engine is, processing shame through poetry, and what can be unlocked by returning to the same subject in multiple poems. Then for the second segment, we talked about creating mythology as a way of honoring those whom history may have overlooked.

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Joshua Burton
Purchase Grace Engine: Brazos Bookstore (Houston, TX) | The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org
Mike's video review of Grace Engine
Jeff Buckley - Grace
Mono no aware
Lynching of Jim McIlherron
Lynching of Mary Turner
Lynching of Laura and L. D. Nelson (note: link contains graphic images)
Royal Robertson
William O'Neal
Keep the Channel Open - Episode 108: The Craft of the Literary Podcast Interview
Joshua Burton - Fracture Anthology
Roland Barthes - Camera Lucida
Toni Morrison - Song of Solomon
Lupe Fiasco - DROGAS Wave

Transcript Episode Credits

Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
Music: Podington Bear
Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Episode 138: KTCO Book Club - The Cruel Prince (with Mel Thomas) Feb 22, 2023

Show notes

For our latest KTCO Book Club episode, media critic Mel Thomas joins us for a conversation about Holly Black's YA fantasy novel The Cruel Prince. In our conversation, we discuss the ways that craft in YA fiction is often dismissed or overlooked by both critics and readers, the dynamics of abuse and trauma in the novel, and being able to enjoy art on multiple levels.

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Transcript Episode Credits

Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
Music: Podington Bear
Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Episode 137: Gabrielle Bates Jan 25, 2023

Show notes

Gabrielle Bates is a poet based in Seattle, WA. Throughout Gabrielle's debut collection, Judas Goat, there is a feeling of quiet, that the poems are almost being whispered to you. And yet it is not a soft or comforting quiet that these poems bring, but rather one that often contains a sense of menace. In our conversation, Gabrielle and I talked about that disquieting feeling, the slipperiness of memory, the poetics of attention, and how important narrative to her poetics. Then for the second segment, we discussed what literature and poetry can do.

[Recorded Jan 2, 2023]

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Transcript Episode Credits

Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
Music: Podington Bear
Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Episode 136: Abby Minor Dec 14, 2022

Show notes

Abby Minor is a writer based in central Pennsylvania. In her debut book of poems, As I Said: A Dissent, Abby combines the historical narrative of Ann Lohman—a 19th-century abortion provider in New York City—with personal and family history, creating a collection of poems that challenge the typical notion of an abortion story. In our conversation, Abby and I talked about her approach to documentary poetry, why it was important to her to push back against conventional abortion discourse, and how art and activism intersect. Then in the second segment, we talked about American work culture and the necessity of rest.

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Transcript Episode Credits

Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
Music: Podington Bear
Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Episode 135: Molly Spencer Nov 16, 2022

Show notes

Molly Spencer is a poet based in Michigan. The poems in her collections In the House and Hinge engage with chronic illness, divorce, domesticity, motherhood, and the ways that our lives don't always work out the way we expected them to. In our conversation, we talked about dissolution, the uses of poetry, ways of knowing, and speaking unlovely truths. Then for the second section, we talked about attention—both the kind of attention we'd like to cultivate in our own lives, and what kind of attention we ask of our readers.

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Show Notes:

Molly Spencer
Purchase If the House: Literati (Ann Arbor, MI) | The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop
Purchase Hinge: Literati (Ann Arbor, MI) | The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop
Emily Dickinson - "Make me a picture of the sun"
Etel Adnan - Sea and Fog
Wallace Stevens - "The Snow Man"
Susan Glaspell - "A Jury of Her Peers"
Molly Spencer - "On 'Most Accidents Occur At Home'"
Mary Oliver - "Yes! No!"
Solmaz Sharif - Customs
Dionne Brand - Nomenclature

Transcript Episode Credits

Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
Music: Podington Bear
Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Episode 134: Luther Hughes Oct 26, 2022

Show notes

Luther Hughes is a poet based in Seattle, WA. The poems in Luther's debut collection, A Shiver in the Leaves, are tender, erotic, vulnerable, erudite, at times dark, and at times ecstatic. In our conversation, we talked about power dynamics in sexual encounters, different forms of love, and writing as a way of understanding oneself. Then in the second section, we talked about why so many sex scenes in popular media are so strange.

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Transcript Episode Credits

Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
Music: Podington Bear
Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Episode 133: André Ramos-Woodard Oct 05, 2022

Show notes

André Ramos-Woodard is a photographic artist originally from Texas and Tennessee. In their series BLACK SNAFU, André combines photographs celebrating Blackness with appropriated illustrations from racist cartoons as a way of confronting the history and present reality of American racism. In our conversation we discussed appropriation, questions of audience and community, and mental health. Then in the second segment, we talked about what inspires us outside of the visual arts.

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Transcript Episode Credits

Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
Music: Podington Bear
Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Episode 132: Amanda Marchand Aug 31, 2022

Show notes

Amanda Marchand is a Canadian, New York-based photographer. Amanda's Lumen Notebook series is a body of elegant and strikingly beautiful images that nevertheless layer deep meaning within their seemingly simple compositions. In our conversation, Amanda and I talked about her process in creating these photograms and how working within strict constraints allows her to explore the technique more fully. We also discussed how she uses photography to facilitate connection and presence, and the duality of delight and mortality in her work. Then for the second segment we had a meandering conversation about autism, communication, attention, and using art to process and understand our emotional experiences.

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Transcript Episode Credits

Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
Music: Podington Bear
Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Episode 131: Fatemeh Baigmoradi Jun 22, 2022

Show notes

Fatemeh Baigmoradi is a photographic artist originally from Iran. In her series It's Hard to Kill, Fatemeh works with archival family photos from Iran, using fire to obscure or destroy portions of the image—connecting to the way that her own family and many others burned their photos after the Iranian Revolution to protect themselves or others in the photos. In our conversation we talked about the relationship between photography and memory, censorship, and how violence, healing, and cleansing are all intertwined in Fatemeh's work. Then in the second segment, Fatemeh and I talked about immigration.

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