New Books Network Podcast

Poetry September 19, 2023

The Asking

New and Selected Poems

Jane Hirshfield

Hosted by Tricycle Magazine

When poet Jane Hirshfield first arrived at Tassajara Monastery nearly fifty years ago, a Zen teacher told her that it was a good idea to have a question to practice …

Poetry September 15, 2023

The Alchemy of the Beast

Alyssa Noelle Coelho

Hosted by Megan Wildhood

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"I wept as time stopped, and I wept as time refused to cease." Grieving her faith, her love, and her identity, twenty-one-year-old Scarlett V. Leonelli is devastated by an unexpected …

Poetry September 12, 2023

The Orange Tree

Dong Li

Hosted by Anna Zumbahlen

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Dong Li’s The Orange Tree (U Chicago Press, 2023) is a collection of narrative poems that braids forgotten legends, personal sorrows, and political upheavals into a cinematic account of Chinese history …

Political Science August 28, 2023

The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley

A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence

David Waldstreicher

Hosted by Susan Liebell

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Thy Power, O Liberty, make strong the weak, And (wond’rous instinct) Ethiopians speak. At the age of 19, Phillis Wheatley published the first book in English by a person of …

Literary Studies August 26, 2023

Forms of Contention

Influence and the African American Sonnet Tradition

Hollis Robbins

Hosted by John Yargo

As I learned from Hollis Robbins’s monograph Forms of Contention: Influence and the African American Sonnet Tradition (U Georgia Press, 2020), there has been a long-standing skepticism of the sonnet …

Poetry August 15, 2023

A Friend Sails in on a Poem

Essays on Friendship, Freedom and Poetic Form

Molly Peacock

Hosted by Megan Wildhood

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For the last forty-five years, the distinguished poets Molly Peacock and Phillis Levin have read and discussed nearly every poem they’ve written-an unparalleled friendship in poetry. In A Friend Sails …

Poetry August 1, 2023

Bone Country

Prose Poems

Linda Nemec Foster

Hosted by Megan Wildhood

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Linda Nemec Foster has published twelve collections of poetry including Amber Necklace from Gdansk (finalist for the Ohio Book Award in Poetry), Talking Diamonds, and The Lake Michigan Mermaid (2019 Michigan Notable Book) …

The Common Magazine July 21, 2023

Guy with a Gun

A Conversation with Matt Donovan

Matt Donovan

Hosted by Emily Everett

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Matt Donovan speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his prose poem “Guy with a Gun,” which appeared in The Common’s fall issue. Matt talks about the conversation that inspired …

Poetry July 15, 2023

The Naomi Letters

Rachel Mennies

Hosted by Anna Zumbahlen

Rachel Mennies embraces the public/private duality of writing letters in her latest collection of poems. Told through a time-honored epistolary narrative, The Naomi Letters (BOA Editions, 2021) chronicles the relationship …

Poetry July 13, 2023

Gravitas

Amy Berkowitz

Hosted by Anna Zumbahlen

Frank, conversational, and darkly funny, Gravitas examines the tendency of MFA programs to teach women that their lives aren’t worth writing about. These poems bear witness not only to alienation …

Poetry July 4, 2023

New Wilderness

Jenifer Debellis

Hosted by Megan Wildhood

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Jenifer DeBellis, M.F.A., is author of New Wilderness (Cornerstone Press, 2023), Warrior Sister, Cut Yourself Free from Your Assault (Library Tales Publishing, 2021), and Blood Sisters (Main Street Rag, 2018) …

The Proust Questionnaire Podcast July 1, 2023

Proust Questionnaire 38

Ricardo Alberto Maldonado

Hosted by Uli Baer

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Ricardo Alberto Maldonado is a poet residing in New York City who was born and raised in Puerto Rico. His first collection of poems, The Life Assignment, was a finalist …

Poetry June 20, 2023

Just Another Jack

The Private Lives of Nursery Rhymes

Michele Herman

Hosted by Megan Wildhood

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Michele Herman is author of the novel Save The Village (Regal House Publishing, 2022) and the poetry chapbook Victory Boulevard (Finishing Line Press) as well as Just Another Jack (Finishing …

Poetry June 19, 2023

Sex Depression Animals

Poems

Mag Gabbert

Hosted by Anna Zumbahlen

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In Sex Depression Animals (Ohio State UP, 2023), Mag Gabbert redefines the bestiary in fiery, insistent, and resistant terms. These poems recast the traumas of her adolescence while charting new paths …

Performing Arts June 10, 2023

Gold

Translated by Haleh Liza Gafori

Rumi

Hosted by Andy Boyd

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In this conversation, we discuss Haleh Liza Gafori's masterful new translations of poetry by Rumi, the 13th-century Persian mystic and poet. Rumi's work is well-known in the West, but has …

Poetry June 6, 2023

Naming the Ghost

Emily Hockaday

Hosted by Megan Wildhood

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Emily Hockaday is a poet from Queens who writes about ecology, astronomy, and the city landscape, alongside more personal subjects. Her first collection Naming the Ghost (Cornerstone Press, 2022) tackles the …

Ukrainian Studies May 27, 2023

A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails

Translated by Amelia Glaser and Yulia Ilchuk

Halyna Kruk

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed

"We act like children with our dead," Halyna Kruk writes as she struggles to come to terms with the horror unfolding around her: "confused, / as if none of us …

Japanese Studies May 26, 2023

This Overflowing Light

Selected Poems. Translated by Janine Beichman.

Rin Ishigaki

Hosted by Takeshi Morisato

Born in central Tokyo in 1920, Rin Ishigaki was one of the most daring and gifted poets of Japan’s postwar cultural renaissance. She knew Japan before the war, during it …

Ukrainian Studies May 24, 2023

In the Hour of War

Poetry from Ukraine

Carolyn Forché and Ilya Kaminsky

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed

Ukraine may be the only country on earth that owes its existence, at least in part, to a poet. Ever since the appearance of Taras Shevchenko's Kobzar in 1840, poetry …

Poetry May 9, 2023

Monarch

Heather Bourbeau

Hosted by Megan Wildhood

Heather Bourbeau’s poetry and fiction appeared in 100 Word Story, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Kenyon Review, Meridian, The Stockholm Review of Literature, and SWWIM. She is the winner of La …