Today on the show it's Natalie Shapero, and her new book, Stay Dead, her fourth full-length collection. Stay Dead was nominated for the longlist of the National Book Award in Poetry, I think even before it actually came out! And overseas, its British-published counterpart is a finalist for the equally impressive TS Eliot Prize. These are punchy poems, full of irony and humor and a sharp critical eye. We have a great talk about her poetry, the labor of working in space, washing the red item with the whites, and putting together a notes section for a book.
Natalie Shapero’s previous books include Popular Longing and Hard Child, also from Copper Canyon, and No Object, her debut, from Saturnalia books, which received the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award. Hard Child made the 2018 shortlist for the Griffin Poetry Prize. Her work has earned her a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Ruth Lilly Fellowship and has appeared in The New Yorker, The London Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, The Nation, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles and teaches writing at UC Irvine.
Pick up a copy of Stay Dead here.
Read more about Shapero here.
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It’s episode 20! And a special one in many ways. It’s my first live in-person podcast recording, and it’s with my great friend Ross White! White is the author of Charm Offensive and the chapbooks Valley of Want, How We Came Upon the Colony, and The Polite Society, and is teaching faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. White also runs Bull City Press, which focuses on chapbooks of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, Tin House, and The Southern Review, among others. He also hosts a weekly trivia show and podcast, Trivia Escape Pod, which I have been lucky enough to help with for a couple years now.
Pick up a copy of Charm Offensive here.
And while you’re at it, grab a chapbook or three from Bull City Press. Get ready for the Sealey Challenge!
Read more about White here.
The show now has swag! Check out the store here: https://drunk-as-a-poet-on-payday-shop.fourthwall.com/
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Something special today everyone! Double poet day! My guests are Matt Donovan and Jenny George, coauthors of the new chapbook, We Are Not Where We Are, published this week by Bull City Press. The book is an erasure of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. It’s fascinating to hear the two of them, long-time friends, talk about how they worked together on the project and what they were looking to do with the work.
Matt Donovan is the author of the poetry collections The Dug-Up Gun Museum and Vellum, among others, and the collection of lyric essays, A Cloud of Unusual Size and Shape: Meditations on Ruin and Redemption. He is the recipient of a Whiting Award, a Rome Prize in Literature, a Creative Capital Grant, and an NEA Fellowship in Literature. Donovan lives in Massachusetts and serves as the Director of The Boutelle-Day Poetry Center at Smith College.
Jenny George is the author of After Image and The Dream of Reason and the chapbook * (asterisk). She is also a winner of the Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Prize and a recipient of fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Lannan Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo. Her poems have appeared in The New York Times, Ploughshares, Narrative, Granta, The Iowa Review, FIELD, and elsewhere. Jenny lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she works in social justice philanthropy.
Pick up a copy of We Are Not Where We Are here.
And while you’re at it, grab Donovan’s The Dug-Up Gun Museum and George’s After Image.
Read more about Donovan here and George here.
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Today on the show we have Felicia Zamora with her new book Interstitial Archaeology, an Editor’s Pick for the Wisconsin Poetry Series. Like the title says, it’s a book that digs down into undiscovered spaces; but it’s also one that pushes out, makes those spaces have a place in the surface world. There’s such a breadth of artistic craft in this book, and it’s incredibly smart and funny at times—any book that quotes from The Simpsons is going to have a special place in my heart.
Along with Interstitial Archeaology, Zamora is the author of eight books of poetry including the forthcoming Murmuration Archives, a part of the Akrílica Series with Noemi Press. Her work has won the Loraine Williams Poetry Prize from The Georgia Review, Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards, the C.P. Cavafy Prize from Poetry International, and she served as the 2017 Poet Laureate of Fort Collins, CO. Currently, she is an associate professor of poetry at the University of Cincinnati, and a poetry editor for Colorado Review.
Pick up a copy of Interstitial Archaeology here.
Read more about Zamora here.
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Today on the show is Sandra Marchetti, author of the new poetry collection, Diorama. In addition to Diorama, Marchetti is the author of Aisle 228, the 2023 Winner of The Twin Bill Book Prize for Best Baseball Poetry Book of the Year, and Confluence. Her poetry and essays have appeared in Poet Lore, Blackbird, Ecotone, Southwest Review, The Rumpus, Pleiades, and other venues. She is Poetry Editor Emerita at River Styx Magazine. Sandy earned an MFA in Creative Writing—Poetry from George Mason University and now serves as the Assistant Director of Academic Support at Harper College in Chicagoland.
Pick up a copy of Diorama here.
Read more about Marchetti here.
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On the show today is Kansas State Poet Laureate Traci Brimhall. Her new book of poems, Love Prodigal, is recently out from Copper Canyon. Brimhall's previous books of poetry include Come the Slumberless to the Land of Nod, Saudade, Our Lady of the Ruins, and Rookery. Brimhall’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, Orion, Poetry, The Nation, and The New York Times Magazine. Through fellowships with the National Endowment of the Arts, National Park Service, and Academy of American Poets she’s taught writing workshops in farm schools, art museums, libraries, medical communities, and the outdoors.
Pick up a copy of Love Prodigal here.
Read more about Brimhall here.
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Today's show features poet Lesley Wheeler, and her wonderful new book of poems, Mycocosmic. It’s a fascinating book both in its individual poems and in its overall assembly. It takes us under the earth to the mycelia below, and under the skin to the heart inside.
Lesley Wheeler’s previous poetry collections include The State She’s In, Radioland, The Receptionist, Heterotopia, and Propagation. She has also published the novel Unbecoming and and a collection of essays, Poetry’s Possible Worlds. Wheeler edits poetry for the literary magazine Shenandoah and teaches at Washington & Lee University. Her work has been supported by the Fulbright program, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Breadloaf, and the Sewanee Writers Conference.
Pick up a copy of Mycocosmic here.
Read more about Wheeler here.
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Today on the show we have poet Christian Teresi, talking about his new book, What Monsters You Make of Them, recently published by Red Hen Press. Teresi has published poems in AGNI, The American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Blackbird, and many other places. He has also translated Book 7 of Nonnus of Panopolis’s Dionysiaca, the longest surviving text from Ancient Greece, as a part of a collection from several translators. His work has been supported by a fellowship from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. He holds degrees from Binghamton University and George Mason University.
Pick up a copy of What Monsters Your Make of Them here.
Read more about Teresi here.
Content note: There is a mention of suicide in the episode.
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On the show is poet Ava Nathaniel Winter, whose new book, her first full-length collection, is the National Poetry Series–winning Transgenesis.
Winter has also published the chapbook, Safe House, and her work has appeared in The Baffler, Beloit Poetry Journal,Poetry International, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. She served as a Stadler Fellow at Bucknell University and now teaches at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the department of English and the women’s and gender studies program.
Pick up a copy of Transgenesis here.
Read more about Winter here.
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I’ve always loved the poem "Year's End" by Richard Wilbur, and it is of course a great choice for the last day of the year, so here’s a short episode on this amazing poem. Wishing you all a wonderful New Year's Eve, and a great year to come!
Richard Wilbur, twice-winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, was the author of eleven collections of poetry, and was also the second Poet Laureate of the United States.
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In time for your holiday travels, here is a new episode to cue up! Today, Abbie Kiefer talks about her new book, Certain Shelter, which focuses on the loss of her mother and the loss of her home, a Maine mill town. We also talk about the poet, E.A. Robinson. Happy Thanksgiving!
Besides Certain Shelter, Kiefer is the author of the chapbook Brief Histories. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in Copper Nickel, Gulf Coast, The Missouri Review, Pleiades, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, and other places. She is on the staff of The Adroit Journal and lives in New Hampshire.
Pick up a copy of Certain Shelter here.
Read more about Abbie Kiefer.
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Today on the show is Carl Phillips, whose new book, Scattered Snows, to the North, has recently been published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the US and Carcanet in the UK, where it has been shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. Phillips' previous book, Then the War and Selected Poems, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. In total, Phillips has published 17 books of poetry and three prose volumes. His work has earned him many awards and accolades besides the Pulitzer, including the 2021 Jackson Prize and the Kingsley Tufts Award.
Pick up a copy of Scattered Snows, to the North here. (Want the British version? Here you go.)
Read more about Carl Phillips.
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Today's guest is Matthew Buckley Smith, whose new book, Midlife, won the 2021 Richard Wilbur Poetry Award, and is out from Measure Press. He is also the author of Dirge for an Imaginary World, which won the 2011 Able Muse Book Award. His poems and stories have appeared in AGNI, American Life in Poetry, Beloit Poetry Journal, Best American Poetry, Cincinnati Review, Fairy Tale Review, The Nation, Ploughshares, Subtropics, and Threepenny Review.
He also hosts a terrific podcast of his own—Sleerickets—a podcast about “poetry and other intractable problems” as he calls it. It’s a smart and in-depth look at poetry and the poetry world and is absolutely worth giving a listen to.
Pick up a copy of Midlife here.
Read more about Matthew Buckley Smith.
Listen to Sleerickets. (Also, subscribe to the Secret Show!)
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A new sidebar edition! This week I read and discuss Barbara Jordan's poem "The Discovery Room," from her book, Channel. Jordan only published two books of poems, and they are excellent. What happened to her, why she stopped writing, or publishing, is a bit of a mystery. Do you know Jordan's work? Do you have clues as to her whereabouts? I'd love to know. Send me a note, please!
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Today's show features poet Christian J. Collier, author of the new book of poems, Greater Ghost, hot off the press from Four Way Books. This is a book full of smart, tough, and beautiful poems. It was wonderful to be introduced to him and his work.
Christian Collier is the author Greater Ghost and the chapbook, The Gleaming of the Blade, the 2021 Editors' Selection from Bull City Press. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Poetry, December, and elsewhere. A 2015 Loft Spoken Word Immersion Fellow, he is also the winner of the 2022 Porch Prize in Poetry and the 2020 ProForma Contest from Grist Journal.
Pick up a copy of Greater Ghost here and The Gleaming of the Blade here.
Read more about Christian J. Collier.
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Today on the show is Dan O'Brien, discussing his new book, Flying on Easter and Other Poems. This pamphlet was published by Poetry London Editions in the UK, and is drawn from his recent full-length collection from Acre Books, Survivor's Notebook.
O'Brien is the author of previous poetry collections, including Our Cancers, New Life, War Reporter, and the nonfiction books From Scarsdale: A Childhood and A Story That Happens: On Playwriting, Childhood, & Other Traumas. He is an accomplished playwright as well, having won several awards for his plays The House in Scarsdale: A Memoir for the Stage and The Body of an American, which also earned him a 2015-16 Guggenheim Fellowship in Drama & Performance Art.
A content note about today's show: it does feature a mention of suicide, so please use discretion.
Pick up a copy of Flying on Easter here and Survivor’s Notebook here.
Read more about Dan O’Brien.
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Today on the show is poet Callie Siskel, discussing her new book, Two Minds. It's a terrific book, one that is, in part, about her father, the late, wonderful film critic Gene Siskel. Two Minds is Siskel's first full-length book, after her Poetry Society of America chapbook, Arctic Revival, which was selected for publication by Elizabeth Alexander.
Siskel's poetry appears in The Paris Review, The Atlantic, and The New York Review of Books. She is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and holds an MFA from the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars and a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Southern California. She lives in Los Angeles, where she is a poetry editor at The Los Angeles Review of Books.
Pick up a copy of Two Minds here.
Read more about Callie Siskel.
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On the show this week is Kevin Prufer, author of the new book of poems, The Fears, which just won the Rilke Prize, as well as the new novel, Sleepaway. Prufer is the author of several previous collections of poems, including The Art of Fiction, Churches, and National Anthem. With Wayne Miller and Martin Rock, Prufer directs the Unsung Masters Series, a book series devoted to bringing the work of great but little known authors to new generations of readers. Prufer is a professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston and the low-residency MFA at Lesley University.
Pick up a copy of The Fears here and Sleepaway here.
Read more about Kevin Prufer.
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Today's show features poet Philip Metres discussing his new book, Fugitive/Refuge, published in April by Copper Canyon Press.
Philip Metres is the author of twelve books, including Fugitive/Refuge, Shrapnel Maps, The Sound of Listening: Poetry as Refuge and Resistance, Sand Opera, and I Burned at the Feast: Selected Poems of Arseny Tarkovsky. His work—poetry, translation, essays, fiction, criticism, and scholarship—has garnered fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, the Watson Foundation. He is the recipient of the Adrienne Rich Award, three Arab American Book Awards, the Lyric Poetry Prize, and the Cleveland Arts Prize. He is professor of English and director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights program at John Carroll University. He lives with his family in Cleveland, Ohio.
Pick up a copy of Fugitive/Refuge here.
Read more about Philip Metres.
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Today on the show is poet J.L. Conrad, whose new book, A World in Which, was released in April by Terrapin Books.
J.L. Conrad’s first full-length book is A Cartography of Birds (LSU Press), and she has published the chapbooks Recovery (2022 Robert Phillips Chapbook Prize) and Not If But When (Salt Hill’s 2015 Dead Lake Chapbook Contest). Her poems have appeared in Pleiades, Sugar House Review, Jellyfish, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA in creative writing from American University and PhD in English from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. And she lives in Madison still, that great capital city and land of delicious fried cheese curds, as well as a fantastic writing community.
Pick up a copy of A World in Which here.
Read more about J.L. Conrad.
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