Rattle Poetry

Latest Episodes:

ep. 196 - Francesca Bell May 30, 2023

Show notes

Francesca Bell was raised in Washington and Idaho and settled as an adult in California. She did not complete middle school, high school, or college and holds no degrees. She has worked as a massage therapist, a cleaning lady, a daycare worker, a nanny, a barista, and a server in the kitchen of a retirement home. Bell’s writing appears in many magazines including ELLE, Los Angeles Review of Books, New Ohio Review, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and Rattle. Her translations appear in Mid-American Review, The Massachusetts Review, New England Review, River Styx, and Waxwing. Her first book, Bright Stain (Red Hen Press, 2019), was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Julie Suk Award. In 2023, Red Hen Press will publish What Small Sound, her second book of poetry, and Whoever Drowned Here, a collection of poems by Max Sessner that she has translated from German. She is translation editor at the Los Angeles Review and the Marin County Poet Laureate. Find much more at: https://www.francescabellpoet.com/ This episode will also include appearances by Wendy Videlock in Poets Respond, along with 2023 Wrightwood Poetry Slam winner Propaganda Poet! As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem about a cultural myth you no longer believe in. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a about a personal relationship using an extended metaphor throughout the entire poem. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 195 - Anne Casey May 23, 2023

Show notes

Originally from the west of Ireland, Anne Casey is a poet and writer living in Sydney, Australia. Over a 30-year career, she has worked as a business journalist, writer, magazine editor, media communications director and legal author. She is author of five books of poetry, including one co-authored with US poet, Heather Bourbeau. She has served as Vice President of Voices of Women Incorporated, a not-for-profit literary and performance arts initiative; guest editor of Not Very Quiet Journal; and as Senior Poetry Editor for the two literary journals of Swinburne University in Melbourne - Other Terrain Journal and Backstory Journal from 2017 to 2020. Anne has served on numerous editorial advisory boards and is a founding member of Irish-Australian women's arts ensemble, The Prankqueans. She is serving as a guest editor for the 'Archive' issue of Rabbit Poetry Journal (RMIT University) in 2023. Find much more at: http://www.anne-casey.com/ As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem about a memory from childhood using Frank’s form in “Small Town Brewery Blues.” Next Week's Prompt: Write a poem about cultural myth you no longer believe in. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 194 - Frank Dullaghan May 15, 2023

Show notes

Frank Dullaghan is an Irish writer living in the UK after 15 years in the Middle and Far East. He holds an MA with Distinction in Writing from the University of South Wales. He has been widely published in literary journals and has five collections published by Cinnamon Press, most recently In the Coming of Winter. Secrets of the Body, a pamphlet of poems about the mythical Pope Joan, was published by Eyewear Publishing. He has also published two collections of haiku. In Dubai, he was an active member of various spoken word collectives. His screenplay for the short film Melody won the audience award in the Mumbai Women’s International Film Festival. His first full-length movie script, Everything You Ever Believed, is currently under a “shopping agreement” in the United States. Frank was a long-standing poetry judge for the Emirates Festival of Literature. He has regularly collaborated with the University of South Wales to provide poetry responses to artwork for display at various exhibitions. His work has been nominated for Best on the Net, the Pushcart Prize, and the Forward Prizes. Find much more at: https://twitter.com/frankdullaghan As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Pick a poem written in a language you don’t speak. “Translate” the poem into English, without looking up any of the words. Next Week's Prompt Write a poem about a memory from childhood using Frank’s form in “Small Town Brewery Blues.” The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 193 - Michael Favala Goldman May 09, 2023

Show notes

Michael Favala Goldman is a Danish literary translator, educator and jazz clarinetist. Goldman’s books of original poetry include Who has time for this? (2020), Slow Phoenix (2021), Small Sovereign (2021), If you were here you would feel at home (2022), and This May Sound Familiar (2022). Among his seventeen translated books are Dependency (Penguin Classics) by Tove Ditlevsen, The Water Farm Trilogy by Cecil Bødker, and Something To Live Up To, Selected Poems of Benny Andersen. His work has appeared in scores of literary journals and has received rave reviews in the New York Times and The London Times. Goldman lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, USA, where he has been running poetry critique groups since 2018. He also serves as Chair of the Program Committee for Straw Dogs Writers Guild and as Member of the Board of Directors for the Northampton Center for the Arts. Find much more at: https://michaelfavalagoldman.com/ As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Find a photograph at least 100 years old that includes a person. Write a poem as a letter to that person. Next Week’s Prompt: Pick a poem written in a language you don’t speak. “Translate” the poem into English, without looking up any of the words. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 192 - New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust May 02, 2023

Show notes

Published by Vallentine Mitchell of London, publisher of the first English language edition of Anne Frank's diary, New Voices is a ground-breaking multigenre book. The editors selected 58 distinct images from noted collections consisting of vintage photography, propaganda posters, newsreel stills and the like, matching each to a poet, short story or flash fiction writer, plus features by essayists as well. Each writer interpreted these “silent witnesses” from the period in their own unique way, creating new perspectives for our times. Together this diverse group, including writers of color, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, LGBTQ, prominent and emerging writers, from around the world have contributed a powerful body of work, based on the Holocaust, that challenges worrying international trends of xenophobia, anti-democratic movements and alternative truths enabled by social media by recognizing the power of art to portray truth. This episode will feature foreword contributor Joy Ladin, author of eleven books including most recently, the revised second edition of The Book of Anna, winner of the 2021 National Jewish Book Award for poetry and co-editor Howard Debs, former Rattle "Ekphrastic Challenge" artist and guest editor whose chapbook Political is winner of the 2021 American Writing Awards in poetry, along with contributors reading from their work in the book including: Ellen Bass, Lois P. Jones, Geoffrey Philp, Alex Escude, Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum, Lauren Camp, Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach and Jacqueline Osherow. Book cover image: "Symbols: The World Entire" by Amy E. Bartell Find much more at: https://newvoicesproject.org/ As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem about something you will never do. Next Week’s Prompt: Find a photograph at least 100 years old that includes a person. Write a poem as a letter to that person. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 191 - Tresha Faye Haefner Apr 25, 2023

Show notes

Tresha Faye Haefner has studied poetry outside of academia with poets including Kim Addonizio, Sally Ashton, and Ellen Bass. Her own work has been published in several journals, including BloodLotus, The Cincinnati Review Fourth River, Hunger Mountain, Pirene’s Fountain, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, and Rattle. She is founder of The Poetry Salon and is the recipient of the 2011 Robert and Adele Schiff Poetry Prize. Haefner is also a three time Pushcart nominee and author of two chapbooks, The Lone Breakable Night and Take This Longing from Finishing Line Press. She holds a degree in Humanistic Psychology with a Specialization in Creativity Studies from Saybrook University. Her new book, When the Moon Had Antlers, won the Pangea Prize is out this spring from Pine Row Press. Find much more at: https://www.thepoetrysalon.com/tps/ As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Use an object as metaphor for some aspect of the body, as Julia does with fruit in 40 Weeks. Write a poem using colons to create a string of similes, as she does throughout the book. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem about something you will never do. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 190 - Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach Apr 19, 2023

Show notes

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach came to the United States as a Jewish refugee in 1993, from Dnipro, Ukraine, and grew up in the DC metro area suburb of Rockville, Maryland. She spent three years in Eugene, earning an MFA in Poetry from the University of Oregon. She earned a Ph.D in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania for her dissertation, Lyric Witness: Intergenerational (Re)collection of the Holocaust in Contemporary American Poetry, which pays particular attention to the underrepresented atrocity in the former Soviet territories. She is the founder and host of Words Together, Worlds Apart, a virtual poetry reading series born out of pandemic but meant to outlast it. Julia's newest collection, 40 WEEKS is now available through YesYes Books. She is also the author of The Many Names for Mother, selected by Ellen Bass as the winner of the 2018 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry prize and finalist for the Jewish Book Award. Her second collection, Don’t Touch the Bones won the 2019 Idaho Poetry Prize and is available from Lost Horse Press and perhaps your local book store. You can find her poems in POETRY, American Poetry Review, and The Nation, among others. She is Assistant Professor and Murphy Fellow in Creative Writing at Hendrix College and lives in Little Rock, Arkansas with her family. Find much more at: https://www.juliakolchinskydasbach.com/ As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write an ekphrastic poem about a recent image in your camera roll. Next Week's Prompt: Use an object as metaphor for some aspect of the body, as Julia does with fruit in 40 Weeks. Write a poem using colons to create a string of similes, as she does throughout the book. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 189 - Alexis Rhone Fancher Apr 11, 2023

Show notes

Alexis Rhone Fancher’s poem, “when I turned fourteen, my mother’s sister took me to lunch and said:” was chosen by Edward Hirsch for inclusion in The Best American Poetry of 2016. Her poems and flash fiction have been published in over 200 literary magazines and journals, including: RATTLE, Verse Daily, VOX POPULI, Slipstream, Spillway, Askew, Plume, and elsewhere. Find Alexis’s photographs on the cover of Witness, Pithead Chapel, The Pedestal Magazine, and Heyday, as well as a 5-page spread in River Styx. Her street photography is published world-wide. Since 2013 Alexis has been nominated 29 times for the Pushcart Prize, 1 Best Short Fiction award, 1 Best Micro-Fiction award, and 6 Best of the Net awards. In 2018 she won The Pangolin Prize for Poetry. She and her husband live and collaborate on the bluffs of San Pedro, CA, twenty five miles from downtown L.A. She's the other of many books, most recently Brazen. Find much more at: https://www.alexisrhonefancher.com/ As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Pick a noun, either randomly or with intention. Write a poem that includes that noun in every line. Next Week’s Prompt: Write an ekphrastic poem about a recent image in your camera roll. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 188 - Dick Westheimer Apr 04, 2023

Show notes

Dick Westheimer and his wife and writing companion, Debbie, have lived on their plot of land in rural southwest Ohio for over 40 years. A regular at the Rattlecast open mic, his poems have appeared several times in Rattle's Poets Respond series, and he was a finalist for the 2021 Rattle Poetry Prize. Other poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Paterson Review, Whale Road Review, Minyan, Gyroscope Review, and Cutthroat. His debut collection, A Sword in Both Hands: Poems Responding to Russia’s War on Ukraine, was just released by Sheila-Na-Gig. Find more on Dick Westheimer here: https://dickwestheimer.com/ As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a series of small poems as journal entries this week. Each day, write about a detail that you would want your future self to remember. Next Week’s Prompt: Pick a noun, either randomly or with intention. Write a poem that includes that noun in every line. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 187 - John W. Evans Mar 28, 2023

Show notes

John W. Evans is winner of the 2022 Rattle Poetry Prize for The Fight Journal. He's also the author of Should I Still Wish: A Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2017), Young Widower: A Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2014), and The Consolations: Poems (Trio House Press, 2014). His books have won prizes including the Peace Corps Writers Book Prize, a ForeWord Reviews Book Prize, the River Teeth Book Prize, the Sawtooth Poetry Prize, and the Trio Award. Should I Still Wish is published in the American Lives Series. John is currently the Phyllis Draper Lecturer in Nonfiction at Stanford University, where he was previously a Jones Lecturer and a Wallace Stegner Fellow. He lives in Northern California with his three young sons. (web) Find more on John W. Evans here: https://johnwevans.com/ As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Personify a place where you’ve lived as if it were a character sketch of a real person. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a series of small poems as journal entries this week. Each day, write about a detail that you would want your future self to remember. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

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