Michigan’s Poet Laureate Nandi Comer read from Tapping Out (Triquarterly Books 2020). We talk about lucha libre, masks, Detroit, travel, and home. We also talk about being the Michigan Poet Laureate, the moment now and her vision to come. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2024-02-07-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio *thanks to Olivia Aguilar at Northwestern University Press *thanks to Jason Voss for engineering
Michigan’s own poet Keith Taylor read from All the All the Time You Want (Dzanc Books 2024). We talk about selecting poems, Isle Royale National Park, and being outdoors, no matter the weather or terrain. We also talk about bookstores, birds, traveling, fear/no fear, and love. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2024-01-17-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio
Airea D. Matthews read from Bread and Circus (Scribner 2023). D came through town this June. We talk about hybrid memoir, economics, family, capitalism, and resistance. We also talk about erasure poems and making things visible, Sicily, and being a poet laureate. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2023-08-30-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio *Thanks to Rev Andrew for engineering pre-recorded June 2023
Eduardo C. Corral reads from Guillotine (Graywolf Press 2020). We talk about attentiveness, structuring books, audience and interiority. We also talk about expanding possibilities and French pop songs. Playlist:
Kaveh Akbar reads poems from Calling A Wolf A Wolf (Alice James Books 2017) and Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf 2021). We talk about technology of language–its limitations and failures–and ways of working to subvert it. We also talk about addiction, country roads and cats. Playlist: Angel Olsen, Creator, Destroyer T Rex, Cosmic Dancer Frank Ocean, Nights
From the archive 2017 Joy Harjo talks about Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings and Crazy Brave (W.W. Norton). We talk about perceived power, flying, stories and the saxophone, and debut her latest song! Joy Harjo gave the Second Annual Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr. Lecture in Native American Studies. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2017-03-15-170001-EDT.mp3 Download Audio Original airdate: March 15, 2017
Michael Dickman reads from Days & Days (Knopf 2019). We talk about interconnectedness, structure, place and butterflies.
Ilya Kaminsky reads from Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press 2019). We talk about language and silence, fabulism, the imagined town of Vasenka with its puppet theater, and poets that inspire. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2020-02-05-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio
Carmen Bugan reads from Lilies from America: New & Selected Poems (Shearsman Books UK 2019). We talk about narrative poems, memoir, and recording a documentary. We also talk about resistance, reclaiming your story, and planting a garden. http://beanball.wcbn.org/rss/Living_Writers/wcbn-living_writers-2020-01-15-170001-EST.mp3 Download Audio
Poet Shane McCrae reads from The Gilded Auction Block (FSG Originals 2019). We talk about history and the contemporary moment, meter, narrative, epigraphs and a robot bird.
