Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

Get set for a poetry gabfest for the ages! The fabulous Joy Priest joins us for the Breaking Form Interview.

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:
Buy Joy's prizewinning collection of poems, Horsepower, from the University of Pittsburgh Press here or from Loyalty Books, a  Black, Queer, and Asian owned independent bookstore in DC.
Visit Joy Priest's website: https://www.joypriest.com
You can see Joy reading from her work here, here, and here. Or read this interview with her here.
Read Joy's ode to Whitney Houston, "When I See the Stars in the Night Sky"
Nikky Finney won the 2011 National Book Award for her book Head Off and Split. Watch her iconic speech here. 
Read more about American Honey, a film by Andrea Arnold starring Sasha Lane
We mention a few forms, including the Abecedarian and the Sestina. Click the links for more information about them.
 Poets we mention:
Emily Dickinson and Poem 269 ("Wild nights!")
Hear poet Jane Kenyon read her poem "Otherwise."
Donald Hall
Terrance Hayes
Ross Gay
Louise Glück's "Anniversary"

The queens kindly request your presence for some piping hot tea as they recap the AWP Conference in Baltimore. 
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:
James posted some AWP tips on Facebook here. 
For the curious, AWP has posted its "Community Participation in #AWP26 Conference & Bookfair" stats here.
The journals mentioned on the "Editing for Change and Community" panel were:
Small Orange edited by Carlie Hoffman. Carlie's poems were included in our Breaking Form episode "The Hof[f]man[n]s" which you can listen to here.
Georgia Review edited by Gerald Maa. 
Brink edited by Nina Lohman 
Hopkins Review edited by Dora Malech
Cherry Tree: A National Literary Journal at Washington College, by James. 
AWP has said it will post the video of John Waters's keynote address for conference registrants to view, but we can't find it yet. But if you're curious, here's a written recap of the event by Baltimore Fishbowl.
You can find The Adroit Journal online at  https://theadroitjournal.org. They're open for submissions currently (til April 1, 2026). They are a paying market.

That which you call death, the queens remember in this episode that revisits The Wild Iris, Louise Glück's Pulitzer-Prize winning volume from 1992.

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:
While the recording released by the Academy of American Poets of Glück reading from The Wild Iris and other work can be purchased online, you can also hear many of these poems read on SoundCloud here.  
Much of our information about Glück's process comes from this interview with the poet Devin Becker, who was also her former student.
Read Richie Hofmann's remembrance here. 

 Some of the poems from The Wild Iris that we mention (and links to read them) are:
Witchgrass
The Red Poppy
Clear Morning
The Garden
Vespers
Retreating Light
The White Lilies, which you can hear read by Glück here.

We also mention the poem "Purple Bathing Suit" from Meadowlands, the book which follows The Wild Iris. 
Louise' Glücks astrological chart is here. (Taurus sun, Leo rising, Scorpio moon.)
Watch interviews with Glück:
1982, for Kalliope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAB-JqABvq8
2004, at Smith College: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw0nlVYZ39A
 2012, Academy of Achievement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1rpGy8XRzU
 2016, with Peter Streckfus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeoaLNGy_Ms
2020, for NYPL with Colm Tóibín, on writing The Wild Iris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3kQGM_KhHQ

What nanty narking our Reginas have with some slang from the Victorian era. 

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:
Marilyn Nelson's poem in The New Yorker that Aaron was thinking of is "Pigeon and Hawk."
Poets we mention include (with a poem by each):
Marie Howe
Cleopatra Mathis
Linda Gregg
Lucie Brock-Broido
Adrienne Rich
Yvor Winters
Frank O'Hara
Anna Akhmatova
Lynn Melnick
Mary Jo Bang
Jean Valentines, "Ghost Elephants"
Larry Levis and Aaron's poem "Elegy" which references Levis's "The Smell of the Sea"
James Merrill
Brenda Hillman
Richard Howard
Shaon Olds
Henry David Thoreau
Laura Kasischke
Lucille Clifton
Aracelis Girmay
Kenneth Koch
Rupi Kaur
Jacques J. Rancourt
Terrance Hayes

The queens read for filth another toxic masculinist article before we play a saucy game based on a gay novel. 

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:
Heather Christle's post sparked this episode's discussion and can be found here. Christle's most recent book of poetry is Paper Crown (Wesleyan UP, August 2025)
While there isn't an out gay character in Dead Poets Society, there is some gay-coded stuff going on. Read Kaeya Merchant's fabulous essay on the topic: "Dead Poets Society is Queer; Here’s Why"
 The Garth Greenwell essay on Andrew Holleran's Dancer from the Dance which Aaron references was also published in the Yale Review. Check out Garth's website at https://www.garthgreenwell.com
At the end of the show, we quote the line "What did you think, that joy was some slight thing?" which is from Mark Doty's "Visitation"
Other poems or poets we reference are:
Garret Hongo's "What For"
e.e. cummings, "somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond"
David Bottoms, "Sign for My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt"
A.E. Stallings, "Sea Girls"
Jorie Graham, "At Luca Signorelli's Resurrection of the Body"
Emily Dickinson, Poem 591