Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

Aaron Smith and James Allen Hall
  • 5.0 (95)
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  • 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. 6D AGO

    Say Yes to the Dress

    Dress shopping is cardio & life for the Breaking Form fashionistas.  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 Tran's "Provenance" appeared first February 22/March 1, 2021 issue of The Nation and was included in All the Flowers Kneeling, which was published by Penguin in 2022 and was a finalist for the 2023 PEN Open Book Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Visit Tran's website here: https://iampaultran.com/ The poem "'What Do Women Want?'" is from Kim Addonizio's Tell Me (2000) Read "Boy in a Stolen Evening Gown" by Saeed Jones Read "Esta Noche" by Mark Doty The poem we read of Allison Benis White's is from “Please Bury Me in This” [Maybe my arms lifted ...]" In recollection of a first memory in A Sketch of the Past, Virginia Woolf wrote: "My mother would come out onto her balcony in a white dressing gown. There were passion flowers growing on the wall; they were great starry blossoms, with purple streaks, and large green buds, part empty, part full." Read torrin a. greathouse's "Ekphrasis on My Rapist's Wedding Dress" and visit their website: https://www.torringreathouse.com/ Read Victoria Chang's "OBIT [The Blue Dress]" from her 2020 book, Obit. You can watch Chang read from Obit here (~43 min).

    29 min

  2. MAR 23

    Horsepower (with Special Guest Joy Priest)

    Get set for a poetry gabfest for the ages! The fabulous Joy Priest joins us for the Breaking Form Interview. 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: Buy Joy's prizewinning collection of poems, Horsepower, from the University of Pittsburgh Press here or from Loyalty Books, a  Black, Queer, and Asian owned independent bookstore in DC. Visit Joy Priest's website: https://www.joypriest.com You can see Joy reading from her work here, here, and here. Or read this interview with her here. Read Joy's ode to Whitney Houston, "When I See the Stars in the Night Sky" Nikky Finney won the 2011 National Book Award for her book Head Off and Split. Watch her iconic speech here.  Read more about American Honey, a film by Andrea Arnold starring Sasha Lane We mention a few forms, including the Abecedarian and the Sestina. Click the links for more information about them.  Poets we mention: Emily Dickinson and Poem 269 ("Wild nights!") Hear poet Jane Kenyon read her poem "Otherwise." Donald Hall Terrance Hayes Ross Gay Louise Glück's "Anniversary"

    53 min

  3. MAR 16

    James Went to AWP (2026)

    The queens kindly request your presence for some piping hot tea as they recap the AWP Conference in Baltimore.  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: James posted some AWP tips on Facebook here.  For the curious, AWP has posted its "Community Participation in #AWP26 Conference & Bookfair" stats here. The journals mentioned on the "Editing for Change and Community" panel were: Small Orange edited by Carlie Hoffman. Carlie's poems were included in our Breaking Form episode "The Hof[f]man[n]s" which you can listen to here. Georgia Review edited by Gerald Maa.  Brink edited by Nina Lohman  Hopkins Review edited by Dora Malech Cherry Tree: A National Literary Journal at Washington College, by James.  AWP has said it will post the video of John Waters's keynote address for conference registrants to view, but we can't find it yet. But if you're curious, here's a written recap of the event by Baltimore Fishbowl. You can find The Adroit Journal online at  https://theadroitjournal.org. They're open for submissions currently (til April 1, 2026). They are a paying market.

    36 min

  4. MAR 9

    The Wild Iris: A Breaking Form Revisit

    That which you call death, the queens remember in this episode that revisits The Wild Iris, Louise Glück's Pulitzer-Prize winning volume from 1992. 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: While the recording released by the Academy of American Poets of Glück reading from The Wild Iris and other work can be purchased online, you can also hear many of these poems read on SoundCloud here.   Much of our information about Glück's process comes from this interview with the poet Devin Becker, who was also her former student. Read Richie Hofmann's remembrance here.   Some of the poems from The Wild Iris that we mention (and links to read them) are: Witchgrass The Red Poppy Clear Morning The Garden Vespers Retreating Light The White Lilies, which you can hear read by Glück here. We also mention the poem "Purple Bathing Suit" from Meadowlands, the book which follows The Wild Iris.  Louise' Glücks astrological chart is here. (Taurus sun, Leo rising, Scorpio moon.) Watch interviews with Glück: 1982, for Kalliope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAB-JqABvq8 2004, at Smith College: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw0nlVYZ39A  2012, Academy of Achievement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1rpGy8XRzU  2016, with Peter Streckfus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeoaLNGy_Ms 2020, for NYPL with Colm Tóibín, on writing The Wild Iris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3kQGM_KhHQ

    37 min

  5. MAR 2

    Fum*ble*cunk: Victorian Slang

    What nanty narking our Reginas have with some slang from the Victorian era.  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: Marilyn Nelson's poem in The New Yorker that Aaron was thinking of is "Pigeon and Hawk." Poets we mention include (with a poem by each): Marie Howe Cleopatra Mathis Linda Gregg Lucie Brock-Broido Adrienne Rich Yvor Winters Frank O'Hara Anna Akhmatova Lynn Melnick Mary Jo Bang Jean Valentines, "Ghost Elephants" Larry Levis and Aaron's poem "Elegy" which references Levis's "The Smell of the Sea" James Merrill Brenda Hillman Richard Howard Shaon Olds Henry David Thoreau Laura Kasischke Lucille Clifton Aracelis Girmay Kenneth Koch Rupi Kaur Jacques J. Rancourt Terrance Hayes

    29 min

  6. FEB 23

    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

  7. 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

  8. 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
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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.

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