Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

Aaron Smith and James Allen Hall
  • 5.0 (92)
  • BOOKS
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

James Allen Hall and Aaron Smith talk about their favorite poems and poets, interview amazing writers, laugh a lot, gossip, and get real about life and art.

  1. 5D AGO

    Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?

    The queens read for filth another toxic masculinist article before we play a saucy game based on a gay novel.  Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. And BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press.  James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.   Show Notes: Heather Christle's post sparked this episode's discussion and can be found here. Christle's most recent book of poetry is Paper Crown (Wesleyan UP, August 2025) While there isn't an out gay character in Dead Poets Society, there is some gay-coded stuff going on. Read Kaeya Merchant's fabulous essay on the topic: "Dead Poets Society is Queer; Here’s Why"  The Garth Greenwell essay on Andrew Holleran's Dancer from the Dance which Aaron references was also published in the Yale Review. Check out Garth's website at https://www.garthgreenwell.com At the end of the show, we quote the line "What did you think, that joy was some slight thing?" which is from Mark Doty's "Visitation" Other poems or poets we reference are: Garret Hongo's "What For" e.e. cummings, "somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond" David Bottoms, "Sign for My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt" A.E. Stallings, "Sea Girls" Jorie Graham, "At Luca Signorelli's Resurrection of the Body" Emily Dickinson, Poem 591

    33 min

  2. FEB 16

    Rimshot

    "Dawns are heartbreaking," as is the queer love story of Arthur Rimbaud & Paul Verlaine. Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. And BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press.  James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Show Notes: Paul Verlaine was born in 1844. Read more about him here. Verlaine was an Aries sun, Leo Moon, and Scorpio ascendant. Arthur Rimbaud was born on October 20, 1854, and you can read more about him here. Rimbaud was a triple Libra (sun, moon, ascendant).  Rimbaud met Verlaine in September 1871, a month before his 18th birthday. Following his tumultuous relationship with Paul Verlaine, which ended in 1873, Rimbaud traveled extensively through Europe, often on foot. He became a trader/merchant, selling coffee, hides, and eventually guns, becoming a "soldier of fortune." In 1891, a tumor developed on his right knee and forced him to return to Paris and died later that year at 37, without knowing how popular his poems had become in Symbolist circles.  The gun Verlaine used to shoot Rimbaud recently went up for auction. One of the poems Rimbaud sent to Verlaine in 1871 was "Le Dormer du Val," which you can watch recited as part of the Favorite Poem Project here. (Recited by chef Jacques Pépin.)  Rimbaud and Verlaine wrote a collaborative poem, "Sonnet to the A*****e" which you can read (and read about) here.   In 2016, the poet Eileen Myles told The New York Times, "I think men should stop writing books. I think men should stop making movies or television. Say, for 50 to 100 years. Sounds great." Read the interview here. When we reference "tongue in the butt," we are talking about a segment from an early Breaking Form season 1 show called "Bad Animals." Check it out here, and hit the 14:30 mark.  If you've never read Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," stop what you're doing and read it here.

    31 min

  3. FEB 9

    Perfectly Good Dick

    James has to choose his favorite from an array of poetic Dicks. Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. And BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press.  James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Show Notes: Read Richard Wilbur's "The House" from Anterooms: New Poems and Translation (2010). Watch Wilbur read his iconic poem, "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" Here is Richard Howard's "Oystering" from The Damages (1967). You can watch Howard give a reading here. And check out Howard's sequel to Browning's "My Last Duchess" here. Read Richard Blanco's "Burning in the Rain" from Looking for The Gulf Motel (1998). Watch Blanco deliver the inaugural poem here.  Read Richard Brautigan's "Love Poem" and watch Brautigan give a reading and interview here. Check out Richard Aldington's poem "Images" from Images Old and New (The Four Seas Press, 1916). Watch an introduction to Aldington here.   Here is Jana Prikryl's poem "To Tell of Bodies Changed" from The After Party (2016). Watch a reading Prikryl gave at the Hammer Museum here.   Read Richard Newman's "Coins." Watch Newman give a reading here. The Richard Jones poem we read is "Rest" from The Correct Spelling and Exact Meaning (2010). Watch Jones give a reading for Smartish Pace here.

    28 min

  4. FEB 2

    Lucille Clifton

    Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. And BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press.  James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.   Show Notes: Read the London Review of Books praising Aracelis Girmay's volume, How to Carry Water: Selected Poems by Lucille Clifton.  Watch Girmay read Clifton's poem "praise song." Learn more about Lucille Clifton here, here, and here.  Explore more about The Clifton House, and learn more about Clifton's life in Baltimore.  Watch Debby Boone sing her 1977 hit, "You Light Up My Life"  Listen to Deborah Ann Gibson sing "On My Own" from Les Misérables.  Here is the trailer for Boxing Helena, directed by Jennifer Lynch. Read more about the friendship between Toni Morrison and James Baldwin. For more about Clifton's children's book series, Everett Anderson, read here. Here is a partial list of the poems we read and discuss on the show: "my friends" "a poem written for many moynihans" "5/23/67 RIP" (for Langston Hughes) "alabama 9/15/63" (which appeared in a 1999 special folio of Callalo) "jasper Texas 1998" in Ploughshares Issue #78 Spring 1999 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49491/jasper-texas-1998 "If I should (to clark kent)" "further note to clark" "hag riding" "to my last period"

    37 min

  5. JAN 26

    The Eras: a Poetry Tour

    Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. And BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press.  James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. NOTES: Gwendolyn Brooks published "The Bean Eaters" in Poetry Magazine in 1959. Check out the video of this interview with Gwendolyn Brooks.  Here is Sylvia Plath's "Aftermath." Listen to this October 1962 interview with Plath by Peter Orr for the British Council.  Read Gary Soto's "Avocado Lake."  Linda Pastan published her poem "Waiting Room" in the October 1984 issue of Poetry.  Here's Suji Kwok Kim's "Occupation" which appeared in the July 1994 Poetry. Here is a 2008 reading by Kim (~28 min). Watch Cher introduce her song "Just Like Jesse James" during her Farewell Tour. Read "The Speed of Darkness" by Muriel Rukeyser.

    41 min

  6. JAN 19

    Hap

    Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. And BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press.  James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. NOTES: Read "Hap" by Thomas Hardy. And watch a here's a video enactment/reading of "Hap" by Thomas Hardy. And watch a reading/enactment of the poem here.  Read a terrific essay about Hardy's poem published by the Thomas Hardy Society here.  Thomas Hardy wrote 947 poems, and you can read them all online here.   For more about Taylor Swift's newest album's variations, read this piece in Vareity. Tom Brady does not have a brother who plays football.  Gayle King interviewed Heated Rivalry star Hudson Williams at the Golden Globes. See the viral-video exchange here.  Here's a reddit thread on being rejected on Christmas Eve.

    40 min

  7. JAN 12 · BONUS

    I Am a Receptical (A Poetry Salon)

    Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Show Notes: We read poems by Amy Lowell and Jubi Arriola-Headley Check out Jubi Arriola-Headley's website here, and an obituary here.  Learn more about Amy Lowell here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/amy-lowell

    7 min

  8. JAN 5 · BONUS

    François Sagat (A Poetry Salon)

    Happy New Year! Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Show Notes: We read poems by Giada Scodellaro and Natalie Louise Tombasco. Check out Giada Scodellaro's website here: https://giadascodellaro.com/ Check out Natalie Louise Tombasco's website: https://natalielouisetombasco.com/

    9 min
See All (233)

Trailers

5
out of 5
92 Ratings

About

James Allen Hall and Aaron Smith talk about their favorite poems and poets, interview amazing writers, laugh a lot, gossip, and get real about life and art.

Information

You Might Also Like