Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

Aaron Smith and James Allen Hall
  • 5.0 (101)
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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. 4d ago

    Wht R U Lookin At

    Beauty's where you find it, not just where you bump and grind it, the girls discover. Support Breaking Form by reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.  Notes: The documentary Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World is a 91-minute biographical film directed by Sasha Waters that explores the life, career, and private world of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. You can watch it on YouTube for free here. Read Mary Oliver's essay "Bird" here and her poem "Summer Day" here. Janna Levin's book How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space is a popular 2023 book that mixes memoir and visionary science. Levin is a leading astrophysicist. Find her online at https://jannalevin.com Mark Doty's essay, "Can Poetry Console a Grieving Public?" which also features Szymborska's "Photograph from September 11th." Patricia Hampl's most recent books are the nonfiction book The Art of the Wasted Day (2019) and It's Come to This, which pairs her nonfiction text with illustrations. The book itself is 36 pages, bound with quarter yellow leather over illustrated paper-covered boards, and enclosed in a cloth clamshell box with a paper spine label. Only 75 copies were printed; the copy I found online retails for $1500. Watch a short interview and reading by Tyree Daye here. Read more about Patrick Radden Keefe's book London Falling  You can read the beginning of Yiyun Li's Things in Nature Merely Grow in the New Yorker here.

  2. Sep 28

    Birth

    The ladies try to place the poet in this episode that combines geography with poetry. Support Breaking Form by reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.  Notes: Rita Dove is the Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia. Visit her online here. If you hadn't heard about the controversy surrounding the edition, here's a recap.  Read Seamus Heaney's "Digging" from Death of a Naturalist (1966) Read Donald Justice's poem "Psalm and Lament"  We read William Stafford's poem "Traveling Through the Dark" in our Touchstone Poems episode.  Ellen Bryant Voigt is from Danville, Virginia  Read more about Mary Gabriel's 2018 book Ninth Street Women. And read more about Susan Glaspell's collected stories here, or read her powerful one-act play "Trifles." During the Great Depression, Glaspell worked in Chicago for the Works Progress Administration, where she was Midwest Bureau Director of the Federal Theater Project. Visit Bruce Snider online. If one wanted to track state arts funding, one could use this explorer tool at the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.

  3. Sep 21

    The Unbecoming (with Special Guest Kathy Fagan)

    The girlz queen out with Kathy Fagan who joins for the Breaking Form Interview! Support Breaking Form by reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.  Notes: Visit Kathy Fagan's website: https://www.kathyfagan.com/ Read a review of The Unbecoming by Jane Zwart in Plume or this one in Library Journal Read Kathy's poem "Planned Community" in The Adroit Journal—where you can also hear her read it. Read "The Elevens" Read "Bad Hobby," the title poem of Kathy's 2022  book Bad Hobby, which won the William Carlos Williams Award in 2023. If you're in the Columbus, OH area on Sept 24, get thee to Kathy Fagan's book launch (with Maggie Smith)  Louise Glück published Winter Recipes from the Collective in 2021. Read the title poem here. Her last published book was a prose work, the novella-length Marigold and Rose.  Atsuro Riley is the author of the poetry collections Heard-Hoard (University of Chicago Press, 2021) and Romey’s Order (University of Chicago Press, 2010). He was brought up in the South Carolina lowcountry, and lives now in San Francisco. Visit his website here: https://atsuroriley.org Read T.S. Eliot's "The Four Quartets" Visit Brenda Hillman on the web: https://www.brendahillman.net/index.html

  4. Sep 14

    Make It Fashion

    Make poetry chic with the Breaking Form ladies in our Season 5 opener! Support Breaking Form by reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.  Notes: You can watch Aaron's video essay on Thom Browne here.  Read Frank Bidarts poems "The Yoke" and "Herbert White" Visit Tom Ford's Instagram account  The Dickinson poem we reference is "I heard a Fly buzz —when I died —" (591) If you haven't heard the "Tongue in Butt" clip, hit the 15 minute mark of our episode "Bad Animals" Hervé Guibert's" Red Tape" appears in his book Ghost Image. Here's a consideration of the writer, filmmaker, and critic: "When a Virus Becomes a Muse" by Julian Lucas in the New Yorker.  Check out Iris van Herpen here: https://www.irisvanherpen.com or on Instagram here. Read "(Im)mortal Fashion: Iris van Herpen's 'Skeleton' Dress" and you can see her famous "Bubble Dress" here. Read Sara Nicholson's poem "What the Lyric Is" Here is Joshua Edwards's small essay on Nicholson's work Pharrell published Places and Spaces I've Been (2012), which explores his creative intersections in music, streetwear, and contemporary art, featuring interviews and contributions from figures like Jay-Z and Takashi Murakami. In 2018, he published  A Fish Doesn't Know It's Wet: Also published by Rizzoli, this lavishly-illustrated volume highlights his expanding portfolio in design, high-fashion collaborations (Chanel, Moncler), and his Billionaire Boys Club/Ice Cream clothing lines .In 2023, he released Carbon, Pressure & Time: A Book of Jewels. The Louis Vuitton building on the Champs-Élysées in Paris is undergoing renovation—masked by a giant trunk façade. The massive silver-monogrammed suitcase structure remains a prominent landmark and photo spot on the avenue while the project moves toward completion. Learn more about Schiaparelli Read Joshua Bennett's poem "On Flesh" from his book The Sobbing School (Penguin, 2016). Watch Bennett perform his poem "Transatlantic Love Manifesto" You can see a great photograph of Ariana Grande's Oscar dress, designed by Schiaparelli's Daniel Roseberry, here.  Learn more about Betsey Johnson Read Monica Ferrell's "Safranbolu" here.  Dior's Jonathan Anderson homage to Joe Brainard for Loewe AW 2021-22. Read a consideration of Anderson's refashioning of art history for his debut Dior show here.  Read Terrance Hayes's "New York Poem"

  5. Sep 7

    Breaking Form Selects: Marie Howe (A Summer Poetry Salon)

    Please enjoy this Summer Salon Series episode of Breaking Form Selects: Marie Howe.  Support Breaking Form by reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.   Notes: Marie Howe was born in Rochester, New York in October 1950 (she's a Libra!). She earned an MFA from Columbia University before publishing The Good Thief (1988, chosen by Margaret Atwood for the National Poetry Series); What the Living Do (Norton, 1997), a book that centers other brother John's death from AIDS-related illness; The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (2008); Magdalene (2017); and New and Selected Poems (2024), which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Howe has received fellowships from the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She was the Poet Laureate of New York State from 2012 to 2014. She is the poet in residence at The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine and a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.  Visit Marie Howe's website: http://www.mariehowe.com/ Listen to her talk on Poetry Unbound here and watch her comprehensive interview with Krista Tippett here (90 minutes). You can see her give a reading in 2020 here (27 min); or read her poem "The Gate" from What the Living Do here (1.5 min); or read from her book Magdalene here (~23 min). Read this 1997 interview with Howe conducted by Victoria Redel.

  6. Aug 31 ·  Bonus

    Breaking Form Selects: Toi Derricotte (A Summer Poetry Salon)

    Please enjoy this Summer Salon Series episode of Breaking Form Selects: Ai  Support Breaking Form by reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.   Notes: Toi Derricotte was born in Hamtramck, Michigan, on April 12, 1941. She earned her BA in special education from Wayne State University and her MA in English literature from New York University. Derricotte’s books of poetry include I: New & Selected Poems (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019), which was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award in Poetry; The Undertaker’s Daughter (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011); and Tender (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997). She is also the author of a literary memoir, The Black Notebooks (W. W. Norton, 1997), which won the 1998 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Nonfiction. Together with Cornelius Eady, Derricotte cofounded the Cave Canem Foundation in 1996, a national poetry organization committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African American poets. For more about Derricotte (and her poems) go here and here.  Watch Toi Derricotte give a reading here (2015; ~30 min) Watch Toi Derricotte talk about reading and writing long poems here.  Read excerpts in Kenyon Review from Derricotte's Black Notebooks here. Read this Bettina Judd essay on Derricotte (from Poetry Northwest). Poems we read include: "Not Forgotten" "In Knowledge of Young Boys" "Touching/Not Touching: My Mother" "The Undertaker's Daughter"

  7. Aug 24

    Breaking Form Selects: Rigoberto González (A Summer Poetry Salon)

    Please enjoy this Summer Salon Series episode of Breaking Form Selects: Rigoberto González  Support Breaking Form by reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.   Notes: Rigoberto González was born in Bakersfield, California and raised in Michoacán, Mexico. He earned a BA from the University of California, Riverside and graduate degrees from University of California, Davis and Arizona State University. He is the author of To the Boy Who Was Night: Poems Selected and New (2023), The Book of Ruin (2019), Unpeopled Eden (2013), winner of a Lambda Literary Award, and Black Blossoms (2011), all published by Four Way Books. His other poetry collections include Other Fugitives and Other Strangers (Tupelo Press, 2006) and So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water Until It Breaks (University of Illinois Press, 1999), a National Poetry Series selection.  González has also written multiple books in other genres including the novel Crossing Vines (University of Oklahoma Press, 2003), the memoir Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), the critical essay collection Pivotal Voices, Era of Transition: Toward a 21st Century Poetics (University of Michigan Press, 2017), and the book of stories Men without Bliss (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008). Read more about González (and more poems by him) here.  Read this essay on González by Darrel Alejandro Holness here.  Read this essay penned by González on writing memoir. Watch this short, fabulous interview with Rigoberto González here (~20 min). And watch González read his poem "A Note on Resentment" (~2 min). Poems we read include: "What Smells Dead" "Casa" "Thinking Stones" "Carnivore"

  8. Aug 17 ·  Bonus

    Breaking Form Selects: The Poet Ai -- (A Summer Poetry Salon)

    Please enjoy this Summer Salon Series episode of Breaking Form Selects: Ai  Support Breaking Form by reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.   Notes: The poet Ai was noted for her uncompromising poetic vision and dramatic monologues which give voice to marginalized, poor, and abused speakers. She  legally changed her name to Ai which means “love” in Japanese. Ai self-identified as Japanese, Choctaw-Chickasaw, Black, Irish, Southern Cheyenne, and Comanche. Her collections include: Cruelty (1973), Killing Floor (1978), Sin (1986), Fate (1991), Greed (1993), Vice: New and Selected Poems (1999) which was awarded the National Book Award for Poetry, and Dread (2003). Read more about her (as well as poems by her) here.  Read her obituary in the New York Times here, and this recollection essay by Tamiko Beyer in Kenyon Review here. Watch Ai read from her first book here (~6 min; recording made in November 1974). We discussed Ai in our episode "We Can Shift the Canon" Poems we read by Ai include: "The Hitchhiker" - hear Ai read it here.  "Twenty-Year Marriage" "James Dean" "True Love"

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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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