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.
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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.
Gregory Orr has written thirteen poetry collections, a memoir, and several books of criticism, most recently A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry. His poetry collections include Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved and The Caged Owl: New & Selected Poems. The recipient of Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, he lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Find more info here:
http://gregoryorr.net/
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 an ekphrastic poem based on a well-known painting that you dislike.
Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem in which someone is taken to a surprising school.
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.
