Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

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

"Dawns are heartbreaking," as is the queer love story of Arthur Rimbaud & Paul Verlaine.
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:
Paul Verlaine was born in 1844. Read more about him here. Verlaine was an Aries sun, Leo Moon, and Scorpio ascendant.
Arthur Rimbaud was born on October 20, 1854, and you can read more about him here. Rimbaud was a triple Libra (sun, moon, ascendant). 
Rimbaud met Verlaine in September 1871, a month before his 18th birthday. Following his tumultuous relationship with Paul Verlaine, which ended in 1873, Rimbaud traveled extensively through Europe, often on foot. He became a trader/merchant, selling coffee, hides, and eventually guns, becoming a "soldier of fortune." In 1891, a tumor developed on his right knee and forced him to return to Paris and died later that year at 37, without knowing how popular his poems had become in Symbolist circles.  The gun Verlaine used to shoot Rimbaud recently went up for auction.
One of the poems Rimbaud sent to Verlaine in 1871 was "Le Dormer du Val," which you can watch recited as part of the Favorite Poem Project here. (Recited by chef Jacques Pépin.) 
Rimbaud and Verlaine wrote a collaborative poem, "Sonnet to the Asshole" which you can read (and read about) here. 
 In 2016, the poet Eileen Myles told The New York Times, "I think men should stop writing books. I think men should stop making movies or television. Say, for 50 to 100 years. Sounds great." Read the interview here.
When we reference "tongue in the butt," we are talking about a segment from an early Breaking Form season 1 show called "Bad Animals." Check it out here, and hit the 14:30 mark. 
If you've never read Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," stop what you're doing and read it here.

James has to choose his favorite from an array of poetic Dicks.
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 Richard Wilbur's "The House" from Anterooms: New Poems and Translation (2010). Watch Wilbur read his iconic poem, "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World"
Here is Richard Howard's "Oystering" from The Damages (1967). You can watch Howard give a reading here. And check out Howard's sequel to Browning's "My Last Duchess" here.
Read Richard Blanco's "Burning in the Rain" from Looking for The Gulf Motel (1998). Watch Blanco deliver the inaugural poem here. 
Read Richard Brautigan's "Love Poem" and watch Brautigan give a reading and interview here.
Check out Richard Aldington's poem "Images" from Images Old and New (The Four Seas Press, 1916). Watch an introduction to Aldington here. 
 Here is Jana Prikryl's poem "To Tell of Bodies Changed" from The After Party (2016). Watch a reading Prikryl gave at the Hammer Museum here. 
 Read Richard Newman's "Coins." Watch Newman give a reading here.
The Richard Jones poem we read is "Rest" from The Correct Spelling and Exact Meaning (2010). Watch Jones give a reading for Smartish Pace here.