Rattle Poetry

Latest Episodes:

ep. 46 - Erik Campbell Jun 24, 2020

Show notes

Episode #46 welcomes Erik Campbell, one of the most frequent Rattle contributors over the last 20 years. Erik Campbell’s poems and essays have appeared in New Letters, Tin House, Prairie Schooner, The Massachusetts Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Rattle, and other literary journals. His first poetry collection, Arguments for Stillness (Curbstone Press 2006), was named by Book Sense as one of the top ten poetry collections for 2007. Red Hen Press published his second collection, The Corpse Pose, in spring 2016. His poem "Faith for My Father circa 1980" is included in the 2019 Pushcart Prize anthology. A high school English teacher for many years, he currently lives in Nebraska. As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt. For details on how to participate, either pre-recorded, via Skype, or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Write a poem based on your most recent dream. Must not use adjectives or adverbs. Next Week's Prompt: Three minute poem. Set a timer for three minutes and write until your three minutes is up. No editing afterward! The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Periscope.

ep. 45 - Marc Alan Di Martino Jun 10, 2020

Show notes

Episode #45 welcomes Marc Alan Di Martino and his new book, Unburial. Marc has appeared in Rattle #62, Poets Respond,and was the featured artist for one of this February's Ekphrastic Challenge. Marc Alan Di Martino was born in the United States in 1974. He is the author of Unburial (Kelsay Books, 2019) and co-editor, along with Betsy Mars, of the anthology Unsheathed: 24 Contemporary Poets Take Up the Knife (Kingly Street Press, 2019.) He lives in Italy. For more information, visit: https://marcalandimartino.com/ As always, we'll also include live open mic afterward for our weekly prompt or recent publications. For details on how to participate via Skype or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: With your eyes closed, open any book to a random page. Make the title of your poem the first word you see. Next Week's Prompt: Write a poem based on your most recent dream. Must not use adjectives or adverbs. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Periscope.

ep. 44 - Dorianne Laux Jun 09, 2020

Show notes

Episode #44 features Dorianne Laux and her recent recent new and selected collection, Only as the Day Is Long. Dorianne was interviewed in issue #8 of Rattle and has also appeared in issue #25 and Poets Respond. Dorianne Laux’s sixth collection, Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected Poems was named a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Her fifth collection,The Book of Men, was awarded The Paterson Prize. Her fourth book of poems, Facts About the Moon, won The Oregon Book Award and was short-listed for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Laux is also the author of Awake; What We Carry, a finalist for the National Book Critic’s Circle Award; Smoke; as well as a fine small press edition, The Book of Women. She is the co-author of the celebrated text The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. For more information, visit: http://www.doriannelaux.net/ This Week's Prompt: With your eyes closed, open any book to a random page. Make the title of your poem the first word you see. Next Week's Prompt: Write a poem based on your most recent dream. Must not use adjectives or adverbs.

ep. 43 - John Philip Johnson May 27, 2020

Show notes

Episode #43 features John Philip Johnson and his two graphic poetry books, STAIRS APPEAR IN A HOLE OUTSIDE OF TOWN and BOOK OF FLY. The title poems for each of the books originally appeared in Rattle, and John worked with several well-known comic book artists to turn them into Kickstarted books. John Philip Johnson is a poet and writer, mostly doing science fiction and fantasy. He has had work in many journals and magazines, both literary and genre. He has a master’s degree in poetry and teaches college English. Find more information at http://www.johnphilipjohnson.com/ Note: The contact link on John's website isn't working. If you'd like to contact him, do so through Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/JohnPhilipJohnson This Week's Prompt: Write a poem that begins and ends with a question (not the same question—two different questions.) Next Week's Prompt: With your eyes closed, open any book to a random page. Make the title of your poem the first word you see. As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt. For details on how to participate, either pre-recorded, via Skype, or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ The Rattlecast will be livestreaming on YouTube, Facebook, and Periscope.

Poets Respond Live: May 22, 2020 May 24, 2020

Show notes

This week's episode of Poets Respond Live features Stephen Gibson's poem for Memorial Day, Tishani Doshi on a tragic mass-shooting in Kabul, Jennifer Jean with a speculative poem, Charles Harper Webb on Little Richard, and much more, including Megan Wildhood, Katie Entner, Harpreet Kathuria, Neal Lemery, Vidya Venkat, and Amit Saha. _____ A weekly livestreaming open mic for all of your news poems. Every week, Rattle receives hundreds of submissions for our Poets Respond series, but we're only able to publish one or two of them. This is an opportunity to share more as we gather around and explore current events through poetry. The best way to participate is to send Tim a chat message over Skype during the show at "rattlepoetry." You can also call the phone number shown during the show. Let it ring a few times, then hang up, and he'll call you back. Space is limited, so we'll just be choosing guests at in the order received from those who try to connect. Please note that the poems you share will be shown and archived on the livestreamed video, both on Facebook and on YouTube, so only share poems you'd like to be saved in this format.

ep. 42 - Meg Eden May 20, 2020

Show notes

Episode #42 welcomes Meg Eden and her most recent book, Drowning in the Floating World, about the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Meg has appeared in issues #48 and #49 of Rattle. Meg Eden's father has worked in Japan for most of her life, so she considers Japan her second home. Her work is published or forthcoming in magazines including Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Crab Orchard Review, RHINO and CV2. She teaches creative writing at Anne Arundel Community College and the MA program at Southern New Hampshire University. She is the author of five poetry chapbooks and the novel Post-High School Reality Quest (2017). She runs the Magfest MAGES Library blog, which posts accessible academic articles about video games. Find her online at www.megedenbooks.com or on Twitter at @ConfusedNarwhal As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt. For details on how to participate, either pre-recorded, via Skype, or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ Warm-up Poem: “The Twenty-Year Workshop” by Lynne Knight https://www.rattle.com/the-twenty-year-workshop-by-lynne-knight/ This Week's Prompt: From the perspective of a ghost or spirit. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that begins and ends with a question (not the same question—two different questions.)

ep. 41 - Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer May 13, 2020

Show notes

Episode #41 welcomes Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and her most recent book, Naked for Tea. Rosemerry has been a regular contributor to Poets Respond and the Ekphrastic Challenge for years. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer lives in southwest Colorado and is the author of eleven collections of poetry. Her poems have appeared in O Magazine, Rattle.com, TEDx, in back alleys, on A Prairie Home Companion, and on river rocks she leaves around town. She’s taught poetry for Think 360, Craig Hospital, Ah Haa School for the Arts, Weehawken Creative Arts, Camp Coca-Cola, meditation retreats, addiction recovery programs, hospice, and many other organizations. She’s won the Fischer Prize, Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, the Dwell Press Solstice Prize, the Writer’s Studio Literary Contest, and was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. As Colorado’s Western Slope Poet Laureate (2015–2017), she created and curates Heard of Poets, an interactive poetry map. She earned her MA in English Language & Linguistics at UW-Madison. Since 2006, she’s written a poem a day. One-word mantra: Adjust. Naked for Tea was a finalist for the 2017 Able Muse Book Award. For more information, visit: https://www.wordwoman.com/ As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt. For details on how to participate, either pre-recorded, via Skype, or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Run-on-sentence poem. Write a prose poem consisting of one long sentence (commas and other punctuation OK). Next Week's Prompt: From the perspective of a ghost or spirit. The Rattlecast will be livestreaming on YouTube, Facebook, and Periscope.

ep. 40 - Danusha Laméris May 06, 2020

Show notes

Episode #40 features Danusha Laméris and her latest book, Bonfire Opera. Danusha has appeared in issues #31, 33, and 68. Danusha Laméris is the author of The Moons of August (Autumn House, 2014), which was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press poetry prize and was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Book Award. Some of her poems have been published in: The Best American Poetry, The New York Times, The American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, The SUN Magazine, Tin House, The Gettysburg Review, and Ploughshares. Her second book is Bonfire Opera, (University of Pittsburgh Press), and she is the 2020 recipient of the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award. She teaches poetry independently, and is the current Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, California. For more information, visit: http://www.danushalameris.com/ As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt. For details on how to participate, either pre-recorded, via Skype, or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: A superhero comes home after a hard day at work. Next Week's Prompt: Run-on-sentence poem. Write a prose poem consisting of one long sentence (commas and other punctuation ok).

ep. 39 - William Trowbridge Apr 29, 2020

Show notes

Episode #39 welcomes former Missouri Poet Laureate William Trowbridge and has new book, Oldguy: Superhero—poems from which have been featured regularly in Rattle for years. William Trowbridge holds a B.A. in Philosophy and an M. A. in English from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University. He served as Poet Laureate of the State of Missouri from 2012-2016. His poetry publications include six full collections: Put This On, Please (Red Hen Press, 2014), Ship of Fool (Red Hen Press, 2011), The Complete Book of Kong (Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2003), Flickers, O Paradise, and Enter Dark Stranger (University of Arkansas Press, 2000, 1995, 1989). He has also published three chapbooks, The Packing House Cantata (Camber Press, 2006), The Four Seasons (Red Dragonfly Press, 2001), and The Book of Kong (Iowa State University Press, 1986). He is a Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at Northwest Missouri State University, where he was an editor of The Laurel Review/GreenTower Press from 1986 to 2004. Now living in Lee’s Summit, MO, he teaches in the University of Nebraska low-residency MFA in writing program. For more information, visit: http://www.williamtrowbridge.net As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt. For details on how to participate, either pre-recorded, via Skype, or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Must be titled “The Swimmer.” Must not use the words “water” or “pool.” Next Week's Prompt: A superhero comes home to an empty house after a long day on the job. The Rattlecast will be livestreaming on YouTube, Facebook, and Periscope.

ep. 38 - George Bilgere Apr 22, 2020

Show notes

Episode #38 features Wordplay host George Bilgere and his newest book, Blood Pages. George Bilgere is the author of six previous poetry collections, including most recently, Imperial. The White Museum was chosen by Alicia Suskin Ostriker for the Autumn House Poetry Series. His third book, The Good Kiss, was selected by Billy Collins to win the University of Akron Poetry Award. He has won numerous other awards, including the Midland Authors Award, the May Swenson Poetry Award, and a Pushcart Prize. Bilgere is the recipient of grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fulbright Commission, and the Ohio Arts Council. His poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including Poetry, Ploughshares, the Kenyon Review, Fulcrum, and the Best American Poetry series. Bilgere’s poems have also been featured over fifty times on Garrison Keillor’s National Public Radio program, The Writer’s Almanac, and he has been a guest on A Prairie Home Companion. For more information, visit: http://www.georgebilgere.com/ As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt. For details on how to participate, either pre-recorded, via Skype, or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ As always, we'll also include live open mic for responses to our weekly prompt. For details on how to participate, either via Skype or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: From the point of view of the oldest living tree. Next Week's Prompt: Must be titled “The Swimmer.” Must not use the words “water” or “pool.” The Rattlecast will be livestreaming on YouTube, Facebook, and Periscope.

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