Of Poetry Podcast

Episode 82: Frances Klein (Of the Alaskan Rural, the Quantifying Work That Poets Do Best, and the Emotional Intensity of Writing Labor)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Read: Three Poems by Frances Klein at Cultural Daily

Purchase: Another Life (Riot in Your Throat Press, 2025)

Frances Klein is an Alaskan poet and teacher. Klein is the author of the poetry collection Another Life (Riot in Your Throat Press, 2025). She is also the author of several poetry chapbooks, including (Text) Messages from The Angel Gabriel (Gnashing Teeth, 2024). Klein is the founding editor of Flight: A Literary Sampler, and an editor at The Weight Journal. Her writing has appeared in Best Microfictions, Rattle, the Harvard Advocate, the London Magazine, HAD, and others. Klein lives in Southeast Alaska with her husband and son.

Recommended Reading:

Terrance Hayes, “Wind in a Box” (poem, also recommend book)

Jericho Brown

Marianne Baruch, Grace, Fallen from

Joshua Bennett

Robert Hass

Lucille Clifton

Sarah Vap, End of the Sentimental Journey

James Tate

Episode 81: Nicole Cooley (Of Form and Flood, the Documentation of Grief, and Poetry That Violates Rules)

Nicole Cooley, author of *MOTHER WATER ASH* (LSU Press, 2024)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Read: “Mother Water Ash” (Poets.org)

Purchase: MOTHER WATER ASH (Louisiana State University Press 2024)

Nicole Cooley grew up in New Orleans and is the author of seven books of poems, most recently MOTHER WATER ASH (Louisiana State University Press 2024), as well as OF MARRIAGE (Alice James Books 2018), GIRL AFTER GIRL AFTER GIRL (LSU Press 2018) and BREACH (LSU Press 2010). She has received the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, an NEA grant, and the Emily Dickinson Award from The Poetry Society of America, and most recently a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Arts. She is a professor in the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation at Queens College, The City University of New York and lives in NJ with her family.

Reading Recommendations:

Yannis Ritsos

Incendiary Art by Patricia Smith

The Dream of Reason by Jenny George

The Poet in the World by Denise Levertov

The Art of Death by Edwidge Danticat

Against Forgetting by Carolyn Forche

Orbit by Victoria Chang

Mother Hunger by Kelly McDaniel

“A Small Needful Fact” by Ross Gay

C.D. Wright

Philip Levine

Episode 80: Natalie Solmer (Of Genealogies of Water, the Great Lakes and Diane Seuss, and the Working Class, Rural Lyric)

Natalie Solmer, author of *Water Castle* (Kelsay Books, 2024)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Read: “I Am a Great Lake” (MER)

Purchase: Water Castle (Kelsay Books, 2024)

Natalie Solmer was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana, a granddaughter of Polish and German immigrants. She worked in the field of horticulture for many years, including 13 years as a grocery store florist, before becoming a professor of English and creative writing. She teaches at Ivy Tech Community College in Indianapolis and is the founder and editor in chief of Indianapolis Review. Her work has been published in journals such as North American Review, Notre Dame Review, Pleiades, Mom Egg Review, and Tab Poetry Journal. Her debut book of poems, Water Castle, was published by Kelsay Books in the fall of 2024. You can find her poems, visual poetry, and visual art at http://www.nataliesolmer.com

Reading Recommendations:

The Indianapolis Review

Diane Seuss, Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl (Graywolf, 2018)

“Song in my Heart” by Diane Seuss

Gustav Klimt

Frida Kahlo

“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin

Joyelle McSweeney, Death Styles (Nightboat Books, 2024)

Episode 79: Sarah Green (Of Dictionaries, Salvage and Destruction, and the Longing to Make Something Good)

Sarah Green, author of *The Deletions* (University Akron Press, 2025)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Purchase: The Deletions (Editor’s Choice, Akron Poetry Prize)

Sarah Green is the author of an April 2025 release, The Deletions (Editor’s Choice, Akron Poetry Prize) and a previous collection, Earth Science. Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Paris Review, New Ohio Review, 32 Poems, FIELD, Copper Nickel, Gettysburg Review, Pleiades, and elsewhere. A two-time Pushcart Prize winner, she is an Associate Professor of English at St. Cloud State.

Reading Recommendations:

Kylie Gellatly

Marie Howe

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey

James Wright

Marianne Moore

Merriam-Webster

The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane

Episode 78: Donna Vorreyer (Of Unrivering, Writing the Liturgy of the Body, and Creating Giving Communities in the Arts)

Donna Vorreyer, author of *Unrivered* (Sundress Publications, 2025)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Read: “Dysmorphia (Autumn)” at Harpur Palate

Purchase: Unrivered (Sundress Publications, 2025)

Donna Vorreyer is the author of four full-length poetry collections: Unrivered ( 2025), To Everything There Is (2020), Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (2016) and A House of Many Windows (2013), all from Sundress Publications. Recent work has appeared in Ploughshares, Pleiades, Poet Lore, Colorado Review, Harpur Palate, Baltimore Review, Salamander, and many other journals. Donna lives in the western suburbs of Chicago and runs the online reading series A Hundred Pitchers of Honey. She is the co-founder/co-editor of Asterales: A Journal of Arts & Letters.

Reading/Listening Recommendations:

Mary Ruefle’s essay “Pause”

Diane Seuss’s frank: sonnets

John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)

Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella (1591)

Jane Hirshfield “Changing Everything”

Richard Wilbur, “The Beautiful Changes”

Joanne Kyger

Eileen Myles

Salvage by Heji Choi

Taylor Byas’s Resting Bitch Face

Dustin Brookshire, Wild and Precious Life Series

Robin Wall Kimmerer’s The Serviceberry

Lewis Hyde’s The Gift

Episode 77: Jameela F. Dallis (Of Oysters, Ekphrasis, and Filtering Emotion through The Beasts of the Sea)

Jameela F. Dallis, author of *Encounters for the Living and the Dead* (River River Books, 2025) Photo by SASSS WORLD

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Purchase: Encounters for the Living and the Dead (River River Books, 2025)

Jameela F. Dallis lives in Durham, NC. Her publications include poems, interviews, arts journalism, and literary scholarship in Feminist Studies, Honey Literary, The Fight and the Fiddle, Our State, Walter, The Bloomsbury Handbook to Toni Morrison, and elsewhere. She’s inspired by memory and desire, the thrill of wandering new cities, and the wonder of everyday encounters. Her work explores texture, taste, sound, sensation, and the richness of visual art. She curated Material Encounters (Peel Gallery, Carrboro, March 2024), juried Scaffold (Artspace, Raleigh, April 2023), and has served on regional curatorial and fellowship committees. Jameela has taught dozens of university courses and facilitated creative workshops for more than a decade. Originally from Chattanooga, TN, Jameela received her B.A. in English from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, and holds both an M.A. and Ph.D. in English from UNC-Chapel Hill. Encounters for the Living and the Dead is her first book of poetry. Read more at jameeladallis.com

Reading Recommendations:

Pieter Aertsen‘s A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms (1551)

Henri Matisse’s Les Betes de la Mer (1950)

Five Questions with Author Jameela F. Dallis: River River Books’ Newsletter

Jaki Shelton Green

Episode 76: E.G. Cunningham (Of Field, the Suburban Exclusion of the Wild, and the Potential of Abstracts)

E.G. Cunningham, author of *Field Notes* (River River Books, 2025)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Purchase: Field Notes (River River Books, 2025)

E. G. Cunningham was born in South Carolina and grew up in Italy and Florida. Her poems, essays, stories, and hybrid pieces have appeared in or are forthcoming from a wide range of national and international publications, including The Abandoned Playground, Colorado Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Nation, Poetry London, The Poetry Review, Puerto del Sol, Southern Humanities Review, and ZYZZYVA. Her most recent chapbook, Oranges for Venus, was selected as the 2023 1br/3bath Editor’s Choice from Tilted House Press. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Georgia. Read more about her writing and music at egcunningham.com.

Reading Recommendations

“What are the United States and why are there so many of them?” essay by Heriberto Yepéz

Sonia Sanchez’s essay in Civil Disobediences: poetics and politics in actions (Coffee House Press, 2004)

Transnational Battle Field (Commune Editions, 2017) by Heriberto Yepéz

Poem for Difficult Children (Broken Sleep Books, 2022) by Daniele Pantano

The Gleaners and I (2001, film) by Agnes Varda (watch on The Internet Archive)

Whose Justice? Which Rationality? by Alasdair MacIntyre

The Southern Reach Series by Jeff VanderMeer

“Some Notes on Silence” by Jorie Graham

Episode 75: Christen Noel Kauffman (Of Appalachian Poetics, American Evangelicalism, and Writing About Subjects We’re Not Supposed to Speak Of)

Christen Noel Kauffman, author of *The Science of Things We Can Believe* (Ghost Peach Press, 2024)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Read: “Faith Test” at The Florida Review Online

Purchase: The Science of Things We Can Believe (Ghost Peach Press, 2024)

Christen Noel Kauffman is author of The Science of Things We Can Believe which won the Ghost Peach Press Prize in Poetry chosen by Tiana Clark (2024) and the chapbook Notes to a Mother God (2021), which was a winner of the Paper Nautilus Debut Chapbook Series. She is a 2022 National Poetry Series Finalist and her work can be found in A Harp in the Stars: An Anthology of Lyric Essays (University of Nebraska Press), Tupelo Quarterly, Copper Nickel, The Cincinnati Review, DIAGRAM, and Smokelong Quarterly, among others. She’s currently a poetry editor for Driftwood Press and lives in Richmond, Indiana.

Reading/Listening Recommendations:

Frank X Walker’s Affrilachia

Sara Moore Wagner’s Of Poetry Episode

upfromsumdirt’s Of Poetry Episode

Joe Wilkin’s Of Poetry Episode

Episode 74: Sara Moore Wagner (Of Annie Oakley’s Narrative and Myth, Small Press Interconnectedness, and Writing A Project Book That Breathes)

Sara Moore Wagner, author of *Lady Wing Shot* (Lynx House Press, 2024)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Purchase: Lady Wing Shot by Sara Moore Wagner (Lynx House Press, 2024)

Read: “Annie Oakley’s Bullet Inventory” Jet Fuel Review

Sara Moore Wagner is the author of three prize winning full length books of poetry, Lady Wing Shot, winner of the 2023 Blue Lynx Prize (2024), Swan Wife (Cider Press Review Editors Prize, 2022), and Hillbilly Madonna (Driftwood Press Manuscript Prize, 2022), and of two chapbooks. She is also a 2022 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award recipient, a 2021 National Poetry Series Finalist, and the recipient of a 2019 Sustainable Arts Foundation award. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in many journals and anthologies including Gulf Coast, Smartish Pace, Waxwing, Beloit Poetry Journal, and The Cincinnati Review, among others. In 2023, she became the Managing Poetry Editor of Driftwood Press. She lives in West Chester, OH with her husband and three children.

Recommended Reading

Christen Noel Kauffman (with us in spirit on Episode 74!)

[Buffalo Bill ‘s] by E.E. Cummings

Lit Youngstown

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Episode 73: Rachel Mennies (Of the Sapphic Epistolary Tradition, Braiding Your Work With Others’, and Having It Out With Melancholy)

Rachel Mennies, author of *The Naomi Letters* (BOA Editions, 2021)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Purchase: The Naomi Letters (BOA Editions, 2021)

Read: “Practice Elegy” at Copper Nickel

Rachel Mennies is the author of the poetry collections The Wolf (BOA Editions, forthcoming fall 2027); The Naomi Letters (BOA Editions, 2021); The Glad Hand of God Points Backwards, the 2014 winner of the Walt McDonald First-Book Prize in Poetry at Texas Tech University Press and finalist for a National Jewish Book Award; and No Silence in the Fields, a chapbook from Blue Hour Press. Her poetry has recently appeared at Poetry Magazine, The Believer, Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Rachel’s essays, criticism, and other articles have appeared, or will soon, at The Millions, The Poetry Foundation, LitHub, and numerous other outlets.

Reading Recommendations:

“Having it out with Melancholy” by Jane Kenyon

Portrait of a Woman on Fire, Dir. Céline Sciamma (film)

Aracelis Girmay’s The Black Maria

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Circe by Madeline Miller

Galatea by Madeline Miller

[Eugenio] Montale in English

Adrienne Rich

Anne Sexton

Virginia Woolf

Anaïs Nin

Sylvia Plath