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Stephen A. Allen joins Timothy Green on The Rattlecast for a conversation about poetry, music, formal verse, Tourette syndrome, and his debut collection, Difficult Music. A former Rattle Poetry Prize finalist and longtime Rattle contributor, Allen was born and raised in Vermont and now lives in Michigan. His poetry has also appeared in Modern Haiku, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Northern New England Review, and elsewhere. In this episode, we discuss Difficult Music, a collection structured like a traditional orchestral concert, using poetic form as a way to give shape to a restless mind. We’ll talk about sonnets and formal poetry, sound and rhyme, writing about Tourette syndrome, and the ways poetry can approach faith, family history, nature, and illness. Stephen will read from his debut collection as well as other work, and we’ll explore how constraint can create freedom in a poem. As always, we’ll open the lines for this week’s prompt-based poetry reading. Find more on his new book here: https://finishinglinepress.com/product/difficult-music-by-stephen-a-allen/ This Week’s Prompt from Katie Dozier: Write a persona poem from another time. Next Week’s Prompt: Write an informal formal sonnet. Submit your poem through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited on the show: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online The Rattlecast livestreams every Monday on YouTube, Facebook, and X, then becomes available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

Molly Fisk returns to The Rattlecast for a conversation with Timothy Green about poetry, storytelling, history, and her new book, Walking Wheel. A poet, essayist, radio commentator, and former Poet Laureate of Nevada County, California, Fisk is an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow and a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. She first joined us on Rattlecast #61 in 2020 to discuss California Fire & Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology. Her new book, Walking Wheel, is a novel in verse set in 1875, following newlyweds Phoebe and Miles Imlay as they journey from central Oregon to California’s Surprise Valley and build a life together. Told through linked poems in alternating voices, the book explores marriage, love, labor, sex, pregnancy, landscape, and the relentless physical work of making a home. In this episode, we’ll discuss historical poetry, writing in persona, turning research into lived experience on the page, and using poetry to tell a sustained narrative across an entire book. Molly will also read from Walking Wheel and look back at earlier work from across her career. As always, we’ll open the lines for this week’s prompt-based poetry reading. Find more on Molly here: https://www.mollyfisk.com/ This Week’s Prompt from Katie Dozier: Time to pair up! Send one line of your own poetry to a poet and ask for one in return. Write your own poem that utilizes their line, and give them credit for it. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a persona poem from another time. Submit your poem through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited on the show: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online The Rattlecast livestreams every Monday on YouTube, Facebook, and X, then becomes available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

Lance Larsen joins Timothy Green on The Rattlecast to celebrate Secretary of the Invisible Thing, one of the three winners of the 2026 Rattle Chapbook Prize. A former Poet Laureate of Utah, Larsen is the author of six full-length poetry collections, including Making a Kingdom of It, What the Body Knows, and Genius Loci. His poems have appeared in Poetry, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The Southern Review, and elsewhere, and his honors include a Pushcart Prize and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. In this episode, we’ll read from Secretary of the Invisible Thing and talk about poetry, humor, faith, mystery, and Larsen’s gift for finding the strange and sacred in ordinary life. We’ll also discuss the craft behind his playful, image-rich poems, how lived experience becomes something larger through imagination, and what it means to win the Rattle Chapbook Prize. As always, we’ll open the lines for this week’s prompt-based poetry reading. Find the winning chapbook here: https://rattle.com/publications/secretary-of-the-invisible-thing/ This Week’s Prompt from Katie Dozier: Write a poem about a specific wild animal. Include as many tactile details as possible. Next Week’s Prompt: Time to pair up! Send one line of your own poetry to a poet and ask for one in return. Write your own poem that utilizes their line, and give them credit for it. Submit your poem through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited on the show: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online The Rattlecast livestreams every Monday on YouTube, Facebook, and X, then becomes available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

In this special episode of The Rattlecast, we reveal the results of the 2026 Rattle Poetry Prize, our annual poetry competition offering $25,000 in total awards for individual poems. We’ll announce this year’s $15,000 winner and ten finalists, and most of the 11 prize-winning poets will join us live to read their winning poems and talk briefly about the work. The Rattle Poetry Prize is one of the highlights of our year, bringing together poems selected from thousands of entries by poets around the world. This episode is a chance to hear the winning poetry in the poets’ own voices and meet the writers behind the poems. Learn more about the Rattle Poetry Prize: https://rattle.com/page/poetryprize/ As always, we’ll also open the lines for Prompt Lines, our live prompt-based poetry reading. A Zoom link will be shared in the YouTube chat before that segment begins. For all past episodes of The Rattlecast: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

Wendy Videlock returns to The Rattlecast for a conversation with Timothy Green about poetry, nature, animals, language, and her new book, Desert Kin: Speaking Animal in the American Southwest. A poet, essayist, visual artist, and Poet Laureate of Western Colorado, Videlock’s work has appeared in Poetry, The New York Times, Best American Poetry, Hudson Review, and Rattle. She was also a two-time Rattle Poetry Prize finalist and previously joined us as the featured guest on Rattlecast #84. In this episode, we discuss Desert Kin, a collection of poems and essays rooted in the landscape and wildlife of the American Southwest, and the ways close attention to place can shape a poet’s voice. We’ll talk about nature poetry, animals and the human imagination, rhythm and sound, humor and wonder, and the relationship between poetry and the visual arts. Wendy will also revisit older poems from across her career and discuss how her work has evolved since her first Rattlecast appearance. As always, we’ll open the lines for this week’s prompt-based poetry reading. Find more about the poet here: https://wendy-videlock.constantcontactsites.com/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem about a time that speed was a big factor in your life. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem about a specific wild animal. Include as many tactile details as possible. Submit your poem through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited on the show: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online The Rattlecast livestreams every Monday on YouTube, Facebook, and X, then becomes available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

Rebecca Gayle Howell joins Timothy Green on The Rattlecast for a conversation about poetry, erasure, climate change, spirituality, and her new book, Erase Genesis. A poet, translator, editor, and librettist, Howell is the recipient of a United States Artists Fellowship, the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, and a Pushcart Prize. She previously served as poetry editor of the Oxford American and currently teaches poetry and translation at the University of Arkansas. Howell is also a former Rattle Poetry Prize finalist and Readers’ Choice Award winner for “My Mother Told Us Not to Have Children.” In this episode, we discuss Erase Genesis, a book-length poem that repeatedly erases the first three chapters of the King James Bible to reimagine the creation story for the age of climate change. We’ll talk about erasure poetry, visual poetry, ecopoetics, literary translation, faith and spirituality, and the process of making each page by hand with watercolor. Rebecca will also look back at earlier poems—including her Rattle Readers’ Choice winner—and read work spanning different periods of her career. As always, we’ll open the lines for this week’s prompt-based poetry reading. Find more about the poet here: https://www.rebeccagaylehowell.com/ This Week’s Prompt: Write an ode to an antiquated piece of technology. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem about a time that speed was a big factor in your life. Submit your poem through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited on the show: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online The Rattlecast livestreams every Monday on YouTube, Facebook, and X, then becomes available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

Mary Keating joins Timothy Green on The Rattlecast for a conversation about poetry, disability, humor, resilience, and her memoir in verse, Recalibrating Gravity. A poet, lawyer, and disability-rights advocate, Keating became paraplegic following a car accident at age fifteen and went on to graduate from Yale Law School, build a legal career, and advocate for accessibility and disability rights. A longtime member of the Rattle community and three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her poetry has appeared in Rattle, The Fiddlehead, ONE ART, Wordgathering, and elsewhere. In this episode, we discuss Recalibrating Gravity, writing honestly about disability without being defined by it, using humor in poems about difficult experiences, and turning a lifetime of memories into a memoir in verse. We’ll also talk about poetry as a way of finding balance after life changes, Mary’s journey into the Rattle community, and her Rattle poem “Full of It,” a ghazal featured as Poem of the Day. As always, we’ll open the lines for this week’s prompt-based poetry reading. Find more about Mary Keating here: https://www.marykeatingpoet.com/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that’s a page or longer, and then edit it down to a maximum of 14 lines. Include both versions of your poem in the submission, with the shorter poem first. Next Week’s Prompt: Write an ode to an antiquated piece of technology. Submit your poem through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited on the show: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online The Rattlecast livestreams every Monday on YouTube, Facebook, and X, then becomes available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

Matthew Olzmann joins Timothy Green on The Rattlecast for a conversation about contemporary poetry, humor, love poems, imagination, and what makes a poem connect with readers. The author of Mezzanines, Contradictions in the Design, and Constellation Route, Olzmann is an assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College and the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, and Kundiman. His fourth collection, An Oral History of the Flat Earth, is forthcoming from Alice James Books in 2027. Olzmann has appeared several times in Rattle, most famously with “Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem,” one of the most-read poems in Rattle’s history and a love poem that has continued to find new audiences online. In this episode, we discuss humor and surprise in poetry, love poems, memorable images, the strange places poems can begin, and how poetry can move between the absurd and the profound. We’ll also talk about “Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem,” Olzmann’s other work and books, and the craft of writing poems that readers want to return to and share. As always, we’ll open the lines for this week’s prompt-based poetry reading. Find more about Matthew Olzmann here: https://matthewolzmann.com/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a hot haibun. Next Week's Prompt: Write a poem that’s a page or longer, and then edit it down to a maximum of 14 lines. Include both versions of your poem in the submission, with the shorter poem first. Submit your poem through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited on the show: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online The Rattlecast livestreams every Monday on YouTube, Facebook, and X, then becomes available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

Katie Dozier joins Timothy Green on the Rattlecast for a conversation about poetry, trauma, memoir in verse, and her new book, Residency Review: A Memoir in Verse. Rattle’s Creative Editor and creator of The Poetry Space_, Katie is also the author of All That Glitter and Watering Can. Residency Review grew out of her experience at a low-residency MFA program and braids poetry with emails, quotations, and a Title IX document to explore sexual assault, institutional silence, disability, motherhood, and what happens when a community fails to listen. In this episode, Katie shares poems from Residency Review and discusses writing about trauma, transforming lived experience into poetry, the possibilities of memoir in verse, and using forms including haibun and contemporary haiku alongside documentary material. We’ll also talk about the relationship between poetry and testimony, the challenges of writing an intensely personal book, and how poetry can say what official language cannot. As always, we’ll open the lines for this week’s prompt-based poetry reading. This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem about something you’ve kept on a shelf for far too long. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a hot haibun. Submit your poem through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited on the show: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online Find more about Katie Dozier here: https://www.khdpoet.com/ The Rattlecast livestreams every Monday on YouTube, Facebook, and X, then becomes available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

Hemat Malak joins Timothy Green on the Rattlecast for a conversation about poetry, identity, poetic form, and her debut collection, Shelf Life, published by 5 Islands Press. An Australian poet based in Picton, New South Wales, Hemat returned to poetry after more than four decades away and won the 2025 Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize for “I Don’t Say My Name Right.” A longtime Rattle listener and member of the community, she has published several poems with Rattle, including the title poem “Shelf Life,” which we nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In this episode, we discuss Shelf Life, returning to poetry later in life, Australian poetry, identity and immigration, motherhood and belonging, formal poetry, sound and revision, and the role that prompts and poetry communities can play in developing a writer’s voice. We’ll also talk about Hemat’s journey from Rattle listener to Rattle contributor and award-winning poet, and open the lines for this week’s prompt-based poetry reading. This Week’s Prompt: Write a contemporary epic poem. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem about something you’ve kept on a shelf for far too long. Submit your poem through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited on the show: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online Find more about Hemat Malak here: https://hematmalak.com/ The Rattlecast livestreams every Monday on YouTube, Facebook, and X, then becomes available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

Jeffrey Bean joins Timothy Green on The Rattlecast for a conversation about poetry, invented poetic forms, music, and his latest collection, Everywhere, Everywhere, winner of the 2024 Vern Rutsala Book Prize. A poet and professor of English at Central Michigan University, Jeffrey appears in the Invented Forms section of Rattle’s Summer 2026 issue with “Bach’s Bones,” part of a new series of poems inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach. In this episode, we discuss the quatrain ghazal and the possibilities of combining traditional poetic forms, Bach and music as influences on poetry, rhyme and formal poetry, the poems of Everywhere, Everywhere, and the craft of writing poems that make the ordinary strange and new. We’ll also open the lines for this week’s prompt-based poetry reading. This Week’s Prompt: Think of something you didn’t expect to open up but did. Make it risky! Next Week’s Prompt: Write a contemporary epic poem. Submit your poem through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited on the show: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online Find more about Jeffrey Bean here: https://www.jeffreybeanpoet.com/ The Rattlecast livestreams every Monday on YouTube, Facebook, and X, then becomes available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

Joanna Preston joins Timothy Green on The Rattlecast for a conversation about her poetry and writing life. An Australian-born, New Zealand-based poet, editor, and creative writing tutor, Joanna is the author of The Summer King (winner of the Kathleen Grattan Award and Mary Gilmore Award) and Tumble (winner of the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry). She appears in the Invented Forms section of our Summer 2026 issue, sharing her "decima." In this episode, we discuss her work, the craft of poetry, myth and nature, and life between two countries. We’ll also open the lines for this week’s prompt-based reading. This Week’s Prompt: Pick a time in your life that was particularly impacted by the weather, and make us feel it right alongside you. Next Week’s Prompt: Think of something you didn’t expect to open up but did. Make it risky! Submit your poem through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited on the show: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online Find more about Joanna Preston here: https://joannapreston.com/ The Rattlecast livestreams every Monday on YouTube, Facebook, and X, then becomes available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

Lisa Baird joins Timothy Green on The Rattlecast for a conversation about her poetry and writing life. A spoken word poet, essayist, and community acupuncturist, her work has been shortlisted for the Room Poetry Contest, Ralph Gustafson Poetry Contest, and Sappho Poetry Prize, and longlisted twice for the CBC Poetry Prize. Her most recent book is When Whales Went back to the Water. In this episode, we discuss her work, the craft of poetry, trauma and recovery, nature, acupuncture, and more. We’ll also open the lines for this week’s prompt-based reading. This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that quotes a line from a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist from the year you found out about Rattle. Next Week’s Prompt: Pick a time in your life that was particularly impacted by the weather, and make us feel it right alongside you. Submit your poem through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited on the show: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online Find more about Lisa Baird here: https://www.lisabaird.ca/ The Rattlecast livestreams every Monday on YouTube, Facebook, and X, then becomes available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

Rasaq Malik Gbolahan joins Timothy Green on The Rattlecast for a conversation about his poetry and writing life. A Nigerian poet, performer, translator, and editor, Rasaq is the winner of the 2024 Anhinga Prize for Poetry for his first full-length collection The Origin of Wounds. He is the founding editor-in-chief of Agbowó and co-founder of Àtẹ́lẹwọ́, a digital journal dedicated to Yorùbá-language literature. In this episode, we discuss his work, the craft of poetry, and African literary spaces. We’ll also open the lines for this week’s prompt-based reading. This Week’s Prompt: Think of the moment in your life that you most wish you had a photo of but don’t. Make it come to life in a sensory-rich poem. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that quotes a line from a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist from the year you found out about Rattle. Submit your poem through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited on the show: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online Find more about Rasaq Malik Gbolahan here: https://rasaqmalikgbolahan.com/ The Rattlecast livestreams every Monday on YouTube, Facebook, and X, then becomes available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

Adam Scheffler is the author of two books of poems: Heartworm, which won the 2021 Moon City Press Prize, and A Dog’s Life, which won the 2016 Jacar Press Book Contest. He is also the author of a book of literary criticism, So This Is What It Feels Like: Empathy in the Poetry of James Wright (LSU Press, 2026). He grew up in Berkeley, California, received his MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and his PhD in English from Harvard. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Wichita State University and a member of their MFA Faculty in Poetry. Find more here: https://adamscheffler.com/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. Submit your poems through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem so light that it may even float! Next Week’s Prompt: Think of the moment in your life that you most wish you had a photo of but don’t. Make it come to life in your sensory-rich poem. 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.