Rattle Poetry

Latest Episodes:

ep. 186 - Rachel Custer Mar 21, 2023

Show notes

Rachel Custer's new book, Flatback Sally Country (Terrapin Books) is a "hard-hitting and harrowing and almost hypnotically beautiful" look at Middle America. Custer is also the author of The Temple She Became (Five Oaks Press, 2017). She is the recipient of a 2019 fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts and a 2015 mentorship from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including Rattle, OSU: The Journal, B O D Y, The American Journal of Poetry, The Antigonish Review, and Open: Journal of Arts & Letters. She attended the University of Indiana and the University of Chicago. She lives in Indiana. Find the new book here: https://www.terrapinbooks.com/rachel-custer.html In the second hour, Jennifer Jean returns to share a few poems from her new book, Voz. Find more here: https://www.jenniferjeanwriter.com/books.html 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 in the voice of one of your ancestors. Use formal verse of some kind. Next Week’s Prompt: Personify a place where you’ve lived as if it were a character sketch of a real 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. 185 - Jennifer Reeser Mar 14, 2023

Show notes

Jennifer Reeser is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently, Strong Feather (Able Muse Press, 2022), and Indigenous (Able Muse Press, 2019), which was awarded Best Poetry Book of 2019 by Englewood Review of Books. Reeser's poems, reviews, and translations of Russian, French, along with the Cherokee and various Native American Indian languages, have appeared in Poetry, Rattle, the Hudson Review, Recours au Poème, Light Quarterly, the Formalist, the Dark Horse, SALT, Able Muse, and elsewhere. A biracial writer of European American and Native American Indian ancestry, Reeser was born in Louisiana and now divides her time between Louisiana and her land on the Cherokee Reservation in Indian Country near Tahlequah, Oklahoma, capital of the Cherokee Nation of which her family is a part. Find much more here: https://jenniferreeser.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 long poem in a single sentence. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem in the voice of one of your ancestors. Use formal verse of some kind. 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. 184 - James Davis May Mar 07, 2023

Show notes

James Davis May is the author of Unusually Grand Ideas, forthcoming from Louisiana State University Press in February 2023. His previous collection. Unquiet Things, was published by Louisiana State University Press in 2016 and named runner-up for the Georgia Author of the Year Award in poetry. His poems have appeared in Five Points, Guernica, The Missouri Review, New England Review, The New Republic, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. He has received scholarships and fellowships from The Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Inprint, and the Krakow Poetry Seminar. In 2016, his poem “Ed Smith” won the Poetry Society of America’s Cecil Hemley Award. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Mercer University, where he directs the creative writing program, and a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in Poetry. Find much more here: https://jamesdavismay.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 time you faced a moral dilemma. Next Week’s Prompt: Write the long poem in a single sentence. 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. 183 - Abby E. Murray Feb 28, 2023

Show notes

Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Abby E. Murray has moved around the country and taught writing in Colorado, Georgia, Alaska, New York, and Washington, where she served as the 2019-2021 Poet Laureate for the city of Tacoma. Her first book, Hail and Farewell, won the 2019 Perugia Press Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. Previous chapbooks include How to Be Married after Iraq (Finishing Line Press, 2018), Quick Draw: Poems from a Soldier’s Wife (Finishing Line Press, 2012) and Me and Coyote (Lost Horse Books, 2010). Find much more here: https://www.abbyemurray.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 around a simile comparing an emotion to a grammatical term, such as “Love as an Intransitive Verb” or “Anger as a Semicolon.” Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem about a time you faced a moral dilemma. 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. 182 - Sarah Etlinger Feb 21, 2023

Show notes

Sarah A. Etlinger holds a BA in English from Skidmore College, an MA in English from Syracuse University, and a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition (English) from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Scholarly interests include new media studies, first-year composition, feminist literature, the Beatles, and popular culture. Currently, she is Associate professor of Composition and Literature at Rock Valley College where she teaches courses in composition, film, and literature. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she is the author of three books: Never One for Promises (Kelsay Books, 2018), Little Human Things (Clare Songbirds, 2020), and most recently The Weather Gods (Barclay Press, 2023). Find much more here: https://sarahetlinger.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 that replies to someone else's poem. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem around a simile comparing an emotion to a grammatical term, such as “Love as an Intransitive Verb” or “Anger as a Semicolon.” 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. 181 - Open Lines Feb 14, 2023

Show notes

The originally schedule guest, Kwame Dawes, couldn't make it, so this week's episode of the Rattlecast featured an extended open lines. But first, Michael Mark and Thomas Mixon joined to share recent Poets Respond poems. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a linked haiku sequence in which each haiku includes a line from the previous haiku. Next Week's Prompt: Write a poem in reply to someone else’s 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. 180 - Michael Dylan Welch Feb 07, 2023

Show notes

Michael Dylan Welch has written haiku since 1976. He is a past or current officer, director, or board member of the Haiku Society of America, the Haiku Poets of Northern California, Haiku Northwest, Haiku North America (cofounder, 1991), the American Haiku Archives (cofounder, 1996), and the Tanka Society of America (founder, 2000; president 2000-2004). Michael is poet laureate for the city of Redmond, Washington, is the proprietor of National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo), and runs an extensive personal website devoted mostly to haiku (graceguts). He is also editor/publisher of Press Here haiku and tanka books (since 1989). His books include True Colour (a collection of solo rengay), Here, There, and Everywhere (an anthology of longer poetry), various Haiku North America conference anthologies, With Cherries on Top: 31 Flavors from NaHaiWriMo (a free PDF book with his photographs featuring poems by NaHaiWriMo contributors), Fifty-Seven Damn Good Haiku by a Bunch of Our Friends (edited with Alan Summers), and several art books from PIE Books in Tokyo with translations from the Japanese (with Emiko Miyashita), including 100 Poets: Passions of the Imperial Court, a translation of the thirteenth-century waka collection, Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, a poem from which was published on the back of 150,000,000 U.S. postage stamps in 2012. Michael lives with his family in Sammamish, Washington. Find much more here: https://www.graceguts.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: Go to quora.com. Answer one of the questions on the home page incorrectly, as a prose poem or haibun. Bonus points if you post it there. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a linked haiku sequence in which each haiku includes a line from the previous haiku. 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. 179 - Nicelle Davis Jan 31, 2023

Show notes

Nicelle Davis is a California poet, collaborator, and performance artist who walks the desert with her son J.J. in search of owl pellets and rattlesnake skins. Her poetry collections include The Walled Wife (Red Hen Press, 2016), In the Circus of You (Rose Metal Press, 2015), Becoming Judas (Red Hen Press, 2013), and Circe (Lowbrow Press, 2011). Her poetry film collaborations with Cheryl Gross have been shown across the world. She has taught poetry at Youth for Positive Change, an organization that promotes success for youth in secondary schools, MHA, Volunteers of America in their Homeless Youth Center, and with Red Hen’s WITS program. She is the creator of The Poetry Circus and collaborator on the Nevermore Poetry Festival. She currently teaches at Paraclete High School. Find much more here: http://www.nicelledavis.net/ 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 phone call you wouldn’t actually make. Next Week’s Prompt: Go to quora.com. Answer one of the questions on the home page incorrectly, as a prose poem or haibun. Bonus points if you post it there. 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. 178 - A.E. Hines Jan 24, 2023

Show notes

A.E. Hines’s debut collection, Any Dumb Animal, received Honorable Mention in the North Carolina Poetry Society’s 2022 Brockman-Campbell Book contest, and was a daVinci Eye finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book award. His poems have been widely published in anthologies and literary journals, including more recently: Rattle, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Southern Review, Rhino, Ninth Letter, The Missouri Review, Poet Lore, The Greensboro Review, and I-70 Review. He is currently pursuing his MFA in Writing at Pacific University. Find much more here: https://www.aehines.net/ In the second hour, we'll be joined by special guest Ron Koertge, who returns to share a few poems from new book, I Dreamed I Was Emily Dickinson's Boyfriend. http://www.ronkoertge.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: Go to a newspaper of your choice. Find a headline you find completely uninteresting. Read the entire article and let your mind wander. Write a poem about where it went. Title it with a phrase from the article. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem about a phone call you wouldn’t actually make. 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. 177 - Sonia Greenfield Jan 17, 2023

Show notes

Sonia Greenfield (she/they) is the author of three full-length collections of poetry: All Possible Histories, released in December 2022 with Riot in Your Throat; Letdown, released in March 2020, selected for the Marie Alexander Series, and published by White Pine Press, and Boy With a Halo at the Farmer's Market, which won the 2014 Codhill Poetry Prize and was published in 2015. Her chapbook, Helen of Troy is High AF will be out with Harbor Editions in January 2023, and American Parable, won the 2017 Autumn House Press chapbook prize. Her work has appeared in a variety of places, including in the 2018 and 2010 Best American Poetry, Antioch Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Los Angeles Review, Massachusetts Review, and Willow Springs. She lives with her family in Minneapolis where she teaches at Normandale College, edits the Rise Up Review, and advocates for neurodiversity and the decentering of the cis/het white hegemony. Find much more here: https://www.soniagreenfield.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: Think about a time in your life when you felt like you lost yourself. What were the circumstances? Use as much detail as possible. How did you find yourself again? Write for 10 minutes. Next, type into a search bar: “If you don’t” and then just one more letter (for example, "If you don't r".) How does the search engine think you might want to finish the sentence? Choose one of these as the first line of your poem. How can you tie the ideas together? Maybe you can incorporate a few of them into your poem? Next Week’s Prompt: Go to a newspaper of your choice. Find a headline you find completely uninteresting. Read the entire article and let your mind wander. Write a poem about where it went. Title it with a phrase from the article. 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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