Rattle Poetry

Latest Episodes:

ep. 156 - Prisoner Express Aug 23, 2022

Show notes

Prisoner Express creates an opportunity for incarcerated men and women to get information, education and a public forum for creative self-expression through books. Fourteen poets from the program were featured in this summer's issue of Rattle. We'll talk to Gary Fine, the founder of the program, as well as Elizabeth S. Wolf, who's Rattle Chapbook Prize-winning book Did You Know? inspired hundreds of prisoners to write their own chapbooks and encouraged us to participate, too. Find more at: https://prisonerexpress.org/ September 6th, 6pm CST SpoFest event with guest author Elizabeth S. Wolf: The link to the Zoom registration is provided inside the FB event page details. Sign up to read in our open mic, and to enter your name in our book raffle! https://www.facebook.com/events/1105419076847302/ Find Elizabeth's new book at:: https://kelsaybooks.com/products/a-collection-of-partings 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 snippet of conversation you overhear this week. Next Week's Prompt: Write a poem about every place you’ve ever lived, how it felt to be there. What made that place different or special, beautiful or terrible? What did you see or eat there? How did it smell? What did you pass on your way home? 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. 155 - Cati Porter Aug 16, 2022

Show notes

Cati Porter is the author of ten books and chapbooks, including her newest, Novel, a chapbook from Bamboo Dart Press. Her work has appeared in So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art, as winner of their annual poetry competition, as well as many others including Rattle, Verse Daily, Salon.com, Contrary, Shark Reef, West Trestle, and Pratik. She is the founder of poetry journal Poemeleon, and lives in Inland Southern California with her family where she directs Inlandia Institute, a literary nonprofit. Find more at: https://www.catiporter.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 about a time you were a stranger in a strange land. Next Week's Prompt: Write a poem about a snippet of conversation you overhear this week. 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. 154 - Raquel Franco Aug 09, 2022

Show notes

Raquel Franco is a wife, mother, friend, sister, daughter and author. Her work has been featured in Thought Catalog, Harness Magazine and Rattle Magazine. She is the author of poetry collections, Keep Me Wild, This Woman is Still Girl and When the Bee Stings. She is also featured in the poetry compilation, Crown Anthology, that includes over 100 widely known Instagram artists. Find more at: https://www.raquelfranco.co/ 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 obituary for an inanimate object or idea. Next Week's Prompt: Write about a time you were a stranger in a strange land. 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. 153 - Heather Altfeld Aug 02, 2022

Show notes

Heather Altfeld has an undergraduate degree from Columbia University with majors in both Anthropology and Creative Writing, and an MFA in Poetry from the California State MFA consortium. She teaches in the Honors Program and for the Department of Comparative Religion and Humanities at California State University, Chico. Heather's second book of poems, Post-Mortem was selected by Eric Pankey for the 2019 Orison Prize, and is now available for order through Orison Books. Find more at: https://www.heatheraltfeld.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: Choose a local news article. Follow Anna M. Evan’s process from The Quarantina Chronicles: Make a word cloud from the text. Write a tritina using the three most common words as its line endings. Next Week’s Prompt: Write an obituary for an inanimate object or idea. 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. 152 - Anna M. Evans Jul 19, 2022

Show notes

Anna M. Evans is author of six books of poetry, most recently Under Dark Waters: Surviving the Titanic and The Quarantina Chronicles. She gained her MFA from Bennington College, and is recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Artists' Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and winner of the 2012 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers' Choice Award. She currently teaches at West Windsor Art Center and Rowan College at Burlington County. Find more at: http://www.annamevans.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 the movie you've seen the most often. Next Week's Prompt: Choose a local news article. Follow Anna M. Evan’s process from The Quarantina Chronicles: Make a word cloud from the text. Write a tritina using the three most common words as its line endings. 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. 151 - Troy Jollimore Jul 12, 2022

Show notes

Troy Jollimore is the author of four books of poetry and three books of philosophy, as well as numerous articles, essays, and reviews. His first collection of poetry, Tom Thomson in Purgatory, won the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry for 2006. His third, Syllabus of Errors, appeared on the New York Times' list of the best books of poetry published in 2015. His most recent, Earthly Delights was published last year by Princeton University Press. He is currently a Professor in the Philosophy Department at California State University, Chico. Find more at: https://www.troyjollimore.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 canzone that confesses something. Next Week's Prompt: Write a poem about the movie you've seen the most frequently. 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. 150 - Alexis Sears Jul 04, 2022

Show notes

Alexis Sears's first book, Out of Order, won the the 2021 Donald Justice Poetry Prize and was just published by Autumn House Press. Alexis received her BA in Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins University and her M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her work has been widely published, including in Rattle's Poets Respond last month with her "Heartbreak Ghazal." She was a scholar at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference in 2019. Currently, she teaches 9th grade English in Oakland, California. Find more at: https://www.alexissears.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 (from Katie Bickham): Take any abstraction like sorrow, envy, loneliness, desire, homesickness, hope, etc. and make that your title. Then the body of the poem is simply a description of that abstraction using ONLY concrete images and stories. Three great examples are Anne Sexton's "Courage," Stephen Dunn's "Tenderness," and Jane Kenyon's "Happiness." Next Week's Prompt: Write a canzone that confesses something. 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. 149 - Katie Bickham Jun 28, 2022

Show notes

Katie Bickham's second book of poetry, Mouths Open to Name Her, is now available from LSU Press. It was selected by former Louisiana Poet Laureate Ava Leavell-Haymon as part of the Barataria Poetry Series. Her debut collection, The Belle Mar (Pleiades 2015), won the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize. Katie is the recipient of The New Millenium Poetry Prize, The Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize from Pleaides Press, The Missouri Review Editor's Prize, and Rattle's Reader's Choice Award for "The Blades." Katie teaches creative writing at Bossier Parish Community College in Bossier City, Louisiana. Find more at: http://www.katiebickham.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 (from Mark Gibbons): Write a poem titled, “If This Were a _______ Poem” (insert some known artist or character: Charlie Chaplin, Madonna, Jackson Pollack, Miles Davis, Isadora Duncan, Prince, Hemingway, etc.), as in Mark Gibbons' “If This Were a Sam Shepard Poem.” Next Week's Prompt (from Katie Bickham): Take any abstraction like sorrow, envy, loneliness, desire, homesickness, hope, etc. and make that your title. Then the body of the poem is simply a description of that abstraction using ONLY concrete images and stories. Three great examples are Anne Sexton's "Courage," Stephen Dunn's "Tenderness," and Jane Kenyon's "Happiness." 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. 148 - Mark Gibbons Jun 21, 2022

Show notes

After a week off due to a forest fire, the Rattlecast is back online! Montana Poet Laureate Mark Gibbons is the author of nine books and two chapbooks of poetry, most recently In the Weeds. He’s edited two poetry collections for Drumlummon Institute and is the editor of the Montana Poets Series for FootHills Publishing. For four decades, Gibbons has taught poetry to a variety of citizens in Montana from one-room schools to colleges to the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs. He lives in Missoula with his wife and continues to teach with the Missoula Writing Collaborative. Find more at: https://gibbonspoetry.com/ Learn more about NFT poetry at KHDM's website: https://www.thenftpoetrygallery.com/ Or follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/katie_dozier Note: Cati Porter's episode has been rescheduled for August 15th. 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: The coal miner descends. Next Week's Prompt: Write a poem titled, “If This Were a _______ Poem” (insert some known artist or character: Charlie Chaplin, Madonna, Jackson Pollack, Miles Davis, Isadora Duncan, Prince, Hemingway, etc.), as in Mark Gibbons' “If This Were a Sam Shepard 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. 147 - Campbell McGrath Jun 05, 2022

Show notes

Campbell McGrath is the author of eleven books of poetry, most recently Nouns & Verbs: New and Selected Poems, and XX: Poems for the Twentieth Century, a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in scores of literary journals and anthologies, as well as the New Yorker, Atlantic Magazine, Harper's and the New York Times. McGrath's writing has been recognized with some of the most prestigious awards in American letters, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress, a United States Artists Fellowship, and a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Award." He lives with his wife in Miami Beach, and teaches in the MFA program at Florida International University. Find more at: https://www.campbellmcgrath.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: May is National Photography Month. Write a poem inspired by a photograph of your own, and share the photo along with the poem. Next Week's Prompt: The coal miner descends. 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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