Two friends try to figure out what it means to write poems and stay sane while putting one foot in a poetry world that seems to baffle us all. By Alice Allan & Jonathan Farmer.
Reading the feed…
What are the things that have turned out to be helpful for you? Show notes Eileen Myles Poetry Says ep 212. with Paul Kane Ronin (1998) Elijah’s podcast Versecraft Alice’s article about envy Scared Shitless by Merlin Mann Spiderman pointing at Spiderman HEAT SLEERICKETS
Tell me about a poet you admire. Show notes Lucille Clifton won’t you celebrate with me by Lucille Clifton The Ern Malley hoax Pam Brown‘s book click here for what we do The ALS gold medal Poetry Says episodes with Pam: 104 (underprepared) and 175 (better prepared) The satin bowerbird Rae Armantrout
How do you promote your poetry and put yourself out there without going insane? Show notes Alice’s Substack Alice’s book The Empty Show The AWP conference Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay At Length
What’s the point of poetry? Show notes Timothée Chalamet’s statement on opera and ballet Ep 01. Fear Asphodel, that Greeny Flower by William Carlos Williams Poetry Says Ep 270. Jonathan Farmer: “I don’t think I love poetry.” On Convention by Alan Shapiro Paradise Lost by John Milton Five Bells by Kenneth Slessor One Art by Elizabeth Bishop The Moose by Elizabeth Bishop Jane Kenyon
How do you manage your obligations to the people who appear in your poems? Show notes The Dolphin by Robert Lowell Alice’s poem Bad Boys for Life Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life by Michael Nott The Hug by Thom Gunn Can Love Last? by Stephen A. Mitchell How to Be a Family by Dan Kois The Night of the Gun by David Carr Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz by Cynthia Carr Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love by Peta Leith Jonathan’s review of the Larkin biography Jonathan’s review of Patricia Lockwood
How do you find your people? Show notes Bonny Cassidy Marrickville by Louise Carter Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life by Michael Nott Jonathan’s essay “A Giving of the Self”: on Thom Gunn and Courtliness Donald Hall Melinda Bufton The Alderman Pam Brown Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Why do you have such a strong need to be productive? Show notes Merlin Mann The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris Getting Things Done by David Allen The Worst Person in the World (2021) Yelling at clouds (Alice on love hearts)
Which pieces of writing advice get on your nerves? Show notes On Writing by Stephen King What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp The Writing Life by Annie Dillard Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert Scrivener The Artists Way by Julia Cameron Eileen Myles Ep 232: Mr Bones, ft. Shane McCrae Joshua Mehigan George Oppen SLEERICKETS group chat! Scared Shitless by Merlin Mann
How should we learn poetry? Show notes Siegfried Sassoon Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen Open Yale Courses’ Modern Poetry taught by Langdon Hammer Modern & Contemporary American Poetry taught by Al Filreis The Orange by Wendy Cope Asphodel that Greeny Flower by William Carlos Williams Easter, 1916 by William Butler Yeats In Memory of W. B. Yeats by W. H. Auden Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021)
If you could clear away all the striving and the desire for recognition, what would you want to make in your poems? Show notes Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey by Hayden Carruth The Other Side of Daylight by David Brooks SLEERICKETS Ep 178: All the Supposedly Wonderful Poetry Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form by Helen Vendler Golden Repair by Louise Carter
