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Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. And BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press.  James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.   Show Notes: Read the London Review of Books praising Aracelis Girmay's volume, How to Carry Water: Selected Poems by Lucille Clifton.  Watch Girmay read Clifton's poem "praise song." Learn more about Lucille Clifton here, here, and here.  Explore more about The Clifton House, and learn more about Clifton's life in Baltimore.  Watch Debby Boone sing her 1977 hit, "You Light Up My Life"  Listen to Deborah Ann Gibson sing "On My Own" from Les Misérables.  Here is the trailer for Boxing Helena, directed by Jennifer Lynch. Read more about the friendship between Toni Morrison and James Baldwin. For more about Clifton's children's book series, Everett Anderson, read here. Here is a partial list of the poems we read and discuss on the show: "my friends" "a poem written for many moynihans" "5/23/67 RIP" (for Langston Hughes) "alabama 9/15/63" (which appeared in a 1999 special folio of Callalo) "jasper Texas 1998" in Ploughshares Issue #78 Spring 1999 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49491/jasper-texas-1998 "If I should (to clark kent)" "further note to clark" "hag riding" "to my last period"  

Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. And BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press.  James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. NOTES: Gwendolyn Brooks published "The Bean Eaters" in Poetry Magazine in 1959. Check out the video of this interview with Gwendolyn Brooks.  Here is Sylvia Plath's "Aftermath." Listen to this October 1962 interview with Plath by Peter Orr for the British Council.  Read Gary Soto's "Avocado Lake."  Linda Pastan published her poem "Waiting Room" in the October 1984 issue of Poetry.  Here's Suji Kwok Kim's "Occupation" which appeared in the July 1994 Poetry. Here is a 2008 reading by Kim (~28 min). Watch Cher introduce her song "Just Like Jesse James" during her Farewell Tour. Read "The Speed of Darkness" by Muriel Rukeyser.

Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. And BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press.  James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. NOTES: Read "Hap" by Thomas Hardy. And watch a here's a video enactment/reading of "Hap" by Thomas Hardy. And watch a reading/enactment of the poem here.  Read a terrific essay about Hardy's poem published by the Thomas Hardy Society here.  Thomas Hardy wrote 947 poems, and you can read them all online here.   For more about Taylor Swift's newest album's variations, read this piece in Vareity. Tom Brady does not have a brother who plays football.  Gayle King interviewed Heated Rivalry star Hudson Williams at the Golden Globes. See the viral-video exchange here.  Here's a reddit thread on being rejected on Christmas Eve.  

Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Show Notes: We read poems by Amy Lowell and Jubi Arriola-Headley Check out Jubi Arriola-Headley's website here, and an obituary here.  Learn more about Amy Lowell here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/amy-lowell

Happy New Year! Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Show Notes: We read poems by Giada Scodellaro and Natalie Louise Tombasco. Check out Giada Scodellaro's website here: https://giadascodellaro.com/ Check out Natalie Louise Tombasco's website: https://natalielouisetombasco.com/

Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Show Notes: We read poems by Kelli Russell Agodon and Afaa Michael Weaver. Learn more about Afaa Michael Weaver here: https://www.theshipmanagency.com/afaa-michael-weaver Check out Kelli Russell Agodon's website: https://www.agodon.com/index.html

Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Show Notes: We read poems by Jonterri Gadson & Patrica Traxler Check out Jonterri Gadson's website: https://www.jonterrigadson.com/ You can read more about Patricia Traxler on this Wikipedia page.

Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Show Notes: We read poems by Mary Helen Callier & Virginia Chase Sutton Check out Mary Helen Callier's website: https://maryhelencallier.com/ Check out Virginia Chase Sutton's website: https://www.virginiachasesutton.com/

Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Show Notes: We read poems by David Hernandez and Dorian Elizabeth Knapp.  Check out Dorian Elizabeth Knapp's website: https://dorianelizabethknapp.com/ Check out David Hernandez's website: http://www.davidahernandez.com/

Nerd tops, dom tops, soft tops: the queens go gaga over a discussion of their top poems by favorite poets.  Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. SHOW NOTES: Poems and poets discussed in this episode include: Sharon Olds: "The Race"; "Topography"; "First"  Louise Glück: "Widows"; "Celestial Music"; "The Mirror" (text); "The Mirror" (audio only); "Parable of the Dove" Jorie Graham: "Masaccio's Expulsion"; "At Luca Signorelli's Resurrection of the Dead"; "Salmon"  Mark Doty: "Visitation"; "Lament-Heaven"  Vijay Seshadri: "The Disappearances" & an essay about the poem here.  Linda Gregg: "Summer in a Small Town"; "Sigismundo"; "Let Birds"; "We Manage Most When We Manage Small" Etheridge Knight: "Feeling F****d Up"  C. Dale Young: "Torn"; check out this review of the book by Dilruba Ahmed in Kenyon Review here.

Let's get trioleted, girls! The queens delve into some fun poetic forms. Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Watch TLC's music video for "No Scrubs"  Discover more about Jehanne Dubrow's The Arranged Marriage, about which Claudia Rankine writes,"The poet here is positioned to observe, to picture, and to record in order to communicate coherence in the face of incoherence." Aaron reads: Sonia Sanchez "Haiku and Tanka for Harriet Tubman." Learn more about Tubman here.   Read  Agha Shahid Ali's ghazal, "Tonight". Shahid died in 2001.  Here's more about the triolet.  For a few examples of the form, here's Gabriel Fried's "Parenting Triolet" and Rachel Hadas's "Fortress"  Read more about the Golden Shovel here, and read Terrance Hayes's "Golden Shovel."  Read more about the Duplex, or watch Jericho Brown explain it here. Read Jericho Brown's "Duplex" or watch him read the poem here.    

Tracy K. Smith joins for the Breaking Form Interview to discuss her new book of prose about poetry, Fear Less. Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Show Notes: See Tracy K. Smith read from Life on Mars at the Kelly Writers' House . Here's a reminiscence of Lucie Brock-Broido by her student, Stephanie Burt. Read more Brock-Broido-isms on writing & wonderment here. Read Diane Seuss's "My Education," first published in Massachusetts Review and which appeared later in her 2024 book Modern Poetry. Joy Harjo's poem "She Had Some Horses" was published in the book of the same name by Thunder's Mouth Press in 1983 and reissued in 1997. The link is to the original poem Tracy reads on the show. Read reviews of Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times here, here, and here. Visit Tracy's website here.  Two more poets who appear in Fear Less are Victoria Adukwei Bulley (Read her "The Ultra-Black Fish" & follow her on Instagram) and Francisco Marquez (read his "Provincetown")  

Sometimes poetry is a shield. Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Show Notes: Poems and poets mentioned in this episode include: Galway Kinnell, "Prayer"   A. Van Jordan, "Details Torn from MacNolia’s Diary." Read a consideration of the book on Poetry Daily here. Jaime Gil de Biedma, "Contra Jaime Gil de Biedma" and the translation here. Read this LitHub article considering the life and poetry of de Biedma by Spencer Reece. Gregory Orr writes about the accident in which his brother died here. Aaron posted a photo of "Poem for My Dead Mother" on his FaceBook here. The poem was first published in the Antioch Review in Vol. 31, No. 1, Spring, 1971 Ethna McKiernan, "Washing My Mother's Hair." Read an obit for the poet in The Irish Times here .  Kathy Fagan's "A Vocabulary of Icons" was first published in Southwest Review Vol. 83, No. 3, 1998 Julia Kasdorf's "Eve Curse" is from her book Eve's Striptease. Visit her website. Jane Kenyon, "Let Evening Come" Toi Dericotte's poem "Clitoris" was first published in Kenyon Review, Spring 1994, Vol. XVI No. 2

The ladies break out the poetry crystal ball and predict the winner of the 2025 National Book Award for Poetry. Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Show Notes: The 76th National Book Awards Ceremony will be streamed live on Wednesday, November 19, 2025, at 8:00 PM EST. You can watch the free livestream by registering on the National Book Foundation's website at nationalbook.org/awards. It will also be available on Facebook and YouTube.  The poem we read of Calvocoressi's is "Praise House: The New Economy"; check out their website: https://www.gabriellecalvocoressi.com/ Read the poem by Ross Gay that Calvocoressi references: "Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude"  We talked about Cathy Linh Che on our show "(Taylor's Version)"; read the title poem  "Becoming Ghost." Visit Che's website: https://www.cathylinhche.com/ Tiana Clark maintains an online presence at https://www.tianaclark.com. Read "After the Reading" here.  We interviewed Richard Siken in episode 12 of this season (season 3). "Flevato" is from I Do Know Some Things, though it was first published in Four Way Review. Visit Siken online at https://richard-siken.com.  Read Patricia Smith's poem "70." And feel free to read more work on her website: https://www.wordwoman.ws/

The queens revisit and sing the praises of Brigit Pegeen Kelly's poem "Song."  Please Support Breaking Form! Review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books. Show Notes: You can read the text of "Song" here. And read more about BPK here.  James was wrong: "Song" was published in the Autumn 1993 issue of The Southern Review. Thanks to C.Dale Young for the correction! In ancient Greece, a tragoidia was a poem or play that was written and performed in formal language and that had an unhappy ending. The word combines tragos ("goat") and oide ("song").  A tragedy is literally a “goat song.” The journal West Branch published "This Long Winding Line: A Poetry Retrospective" about Kelly's book Song. The collection includes essays by Amit Majmudar, David Baker, C. Dale Young, Gabrielle Bates, and Shara Lessley, who also edited the portfolio.  Watch Hiba Tahir on "Song" (including a prompt) Read this remembrance of BPK by two friends in Plume. And read this remembrance by Ryo Yamaguchi (who was BPK's student) in Michigan Quarterly Review.  Gabrielle Bates talks about "Song" on Keep the Channel Open Podcast Nickole Brown reads and discusses "Song" here. Read GC Waldrep's essay on another poem from the book Song ("All Wild Animals Were Once Called Deer") here.  Emilia Phillips reads and discusses "Song" here.  You can hear Brigit Pegeen Kelly read (unfortunately, not "Song") here, at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in 2004.