Crystal Simone Smith is the author of Runagate: Songs of the Freedom Bound (Duke University Press, 2025) and Dark Testament (Henry Holt, 2023). In 2022, her collection of haiku, Ebbing Shore, won The Haiku Foundation Touchstone Distinguished Book Award. Smith is the recipient a Duke Humanities Unbounded Fellowship. Her work has appeared in numerous journals including POETRY Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, Rattle, Poetry Daily, Frogpond, and The Heron’s Nest. She teaches in the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University and writes poetry about the human condition and social change.
Find more on Crystal at her website:
https://www.crystalsimonesmith.com/
As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. 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/page/rattlecast/
This Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem about the influence music has had on you over the years while making the poem itself as musical as possible.
Next Week’s Prompt:
Invent a form that borrows something you love about an existing form—but spins it in a new direction. (Also encouraged to submit this to our call for our invented forms tribute section, due January 15th, 2026.)
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.
All content for Rattle Poetry is the property of Rattlecast and is served directly from their servers
with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.
Crystal Simone Smith is the author of Runagate: Songs of the Freedom Bound (Duke University Press, 2025) and Dark Testament (Henry Holt, 2023). In 2022, her collection of haiku, Ebbing Shore, won The Haiku Foundation Touchstone Distinguished Book Award. Smith is the recipient a Duke Humanities Unbounded Fellowship. Her work has appeared in numerous journals including POETRY Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, Rattle, Poetry Daily, Frogpond, and The Heron’s Nest. She teaches in the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University and writes poetry about the human condition and social change.
Find more on Crystal at her website:
https://www.crystalsimonesmith.com/
As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. 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/page/rattlecast/
This Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem about the influence music has had on you over the years while making the poem itself as musical as possible.
Next Week’s Prompt:
Invent a form that borrows something you love about an existing form—but spins it in a new direction. (Also encouraged to submit this to our call for our invented forms tribute section, due January 15th, 2026.)
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.
Bill Hollands was born and raised in Miami, Florida, graduated from Williams College, and received his MA in English as a Dr. Herchel Smith Fellow at Cambridge University. He worked for the New York Public Library and Microsoft before becoming a high school English teacher. He lives in Seattle with his husband and their son. A multiple Best of the Net and Pushcart nominee, he has been a finalist for North American Review’s James Hearst Poetry Prize, Sycamore Review’s Wabash Prize in Poetry, Smartish Pace’s Erskine J. Poetry Prize, and New Ohio Review’s NORward Prize. He reads submissions for Poetry Northwest and is a 2025 Jack Straw Writing Fellow. His debut collection Mangrove is out now from ELJ Editions.
Find that book here:
https://billhollandspoetry.com/
As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. 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 Poet’s Respond poem that is in response to an obscure/off-beat news story.
Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a sonnet in which someone sings.
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.
Rattle Poetry
Crystal Simone Smith is the author of Runagate: Songs of the Freedom Bound (Duke University Press, 2025) and Dark Testament (Henry Holt, 2023). In 2022, her collection of haiku, Ebbing Shore, won The Haiku Foundation Touchstone Distinguished Book Award. Smith is the recipient a Duke Humanities Unbounded Fellowship. Her work has appeared in numerous journals including POETRY Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, Rattle, Poetry Daily, Frogpond, and The Heron’s Nest. She teaches in the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University and writes poetry about the human condition and social change.
Find more on Crystal at her website:
https://www.crystalsimonesmith.com/
As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. 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/page/rattlecast/
This Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem about the influence music has had on you over the years while making the poem itself as musical as possible.
Next Week’s Prompt:
Invent a form that borrows something you love about an existing form—but spins it in a new direction. (Also encouraged to submit this to our call for our invented forms tribute section, due January 15th, 2026.)
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.
