September 8, 2025 • 14 mins
In this collection of conversations, Ben Palpant, author of Letters From The Mountain, has compiled his intimate, one-on-one interviews with seventeen powerful poets of the 21st century. These conversations cover an entire range of life experience, including grief, hope, culture, the writing craft, family life, and the imagination. Each poet speaks with remarkable candor and joy. Taken together, these interviews are a powerful reminder that poetry remains an essential expression of what it means to be human.
Franz Kafka famously said that "a book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us." And the words and thoughts contained here aim to wake up much that has become silent in each of us. They contain wisdom that may inspire, instruct, and strengthen, confronting us with the reality that words matter, that poetry matters, and that we matter.
You can purchase a copy of An Axe for the Frozen Sea in the Rabbit Room Store.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:00):
The following is brought to you in partnership with Oasis Audio.
Welcome to Rabbit Room Press Presents, a podcast series of
great audiobooks, one chapter at a time.
S2 (00:16):
An axe for the Frozen Sea by Ben Pallant. Read
for you by the author. Chapter 13 Ryan Whittaker Smith.
We met in a coffee shop that my teenagers would
have considered bougie. Is that the word? At any rate,
(00:37):
my dad would have called it swanky. Sitting there, you
could imagine a wealthy old woman dressed in fur, carrying
her fluffy little dog up to the barista for a
doggy drink. I didn't have to imagine it. That actually
happened during the interview. So Ryan Whittaker, Smith and I
didn't exactly fit in with our hoodies and jeans with
our open laughter. Nevertheless, it was quiet enough for conversation,
(01:00):
and a quiet coffee shop is a rare thing these days.
As I turn on my voice recorder, he leans down
and speaks into the microphone. For the record, he says,
I'm a film producer, so I feel very uncomfortable being
called a poet. We laugh. I say we're off to
a great start. Okay. You have two books of poetry.
(01:21):
Tell me about their genesis. I had no intention of
writing a book for publication, he says. I didn't think
I was qualified. That's not false modesty. It's how I felt.
At one point, I rewrote a psalm during my private
devotions as a kind of prayer. The Psalms are already prayers,
so this was more like a poetic rendering. I shared
it with my friend and mentor Dan Wilt, and he
(01:43):
found it interesting. We ended up doing several more together,
a kind of back and forth exchange. By the time
it was said and done, we had 20 of these poems,
which we printed in a little booklet and gave as
a gift to friends and family at Christmas. What a
great idea. Well, one of those friends was Carolyn Weber,
author of Surprised by Oxford. She asked if she could
(02:04):
share them with some publishing friends of hers. Without intending
to do it, that booklet became a kind of proof
of concept which was picked up by a publisher. We
initially just wanted to render a few of the Psalms,
but they asked us to do all of them, so
that's what we did. Sheltering mercy was the first and
endless Grace was the second. Now we're working on another
one based on the proverbs. He glances around the coffee shop.
(02:28):
I feel very blessed that anyone caught the vision for it.
Both of those books were written collaboratively, I say, which
is a unique experience when it comes to poets. Most
poetry is written in solitude. Was collaboration at advantageous? Was
it difficult? I imagine it took a great deal of
communication and compromise, because it was a byproduct of our friendship,
(02:51):
because it happened so organically, it felt right to me,
he says. The biggest challenge was making it sound like
it was one voice. That's why I assumed the editor role,
I suppose I'm assuming I say that the collaboration brought
you closer as friends. We don't talk anymore. He laughs.
I'm just kidding. It absolutely deepened our friendship. We did
(03:14):
several writing retreats together to finish the work. What a
rich experience. Was poetry a part of your upbringing, I ask?
I don't remember writing a lot of poems when I
was a kid. But you can't escape poetry when you
go to a classical school. I remember encountering John Donne
and being impacted by his work. I wrote my thesis
on Donne. I love him to this day. Later I
(03:36):
discovered George Herbert. Those two poets were big for me.
But I am no poetry expert. I certainly came from
a musical family. So to me, there's always been a
musical relationship between music and poetry. That's not a novel observation,
but I would add that my work is a film
producer and scriptwriter overlaps with poetry. There's a cadence, a
rhythm and a pacing to dialogue, to editing a film.
(04:00):
I have to ask myself, how long do I hold
this particular shot and this character's lines. Does the camera
stay on the character for the duration of the line?
Does the line overlap with the next shot? Those are
important decisions, and they rest on a musical sensitivity. He
pauses and takes a drink. There's also the actual sound
of the words. For as long as I can remember,
(04:21):
I've always been drawn to language. So even lies that
are beautifully expressed are to some degree admirable to me.
I might fundamentally disagree with whatever is being said, but
I can recognize when it is being expressed beautifully. I
think of songwriters I loved when I was growing up.
Some of their work is flat out wrong, but I
like the song. It sounds like you're distinguishing between form
(04:43):
and content. The form can be beautiful, even if the
content is a lie. Precisely. When it comes to Donne
and Herbert, I continue. Was it their naked encounter with God,
their vulnerability that moved you? I think that's it. He says,
you know, I've always been attracted to truth expressed beautifully.
In them I encountered rich theological truths expressed in a
(05:07):
vulnerable and vibrant way. Is there a point at which
you could see yourself writing something like Donne or Herbert,
something confessional that's not rendered? It's quite possible, he says.
What drew you to film as a creative medium, I ask?
I drew constantly as a kid. It was the middle
of the 80s when Disney's animation really took off. I
(05:29):
was at the perfect age to get enchanted by the
animation world, so at some point I started making movies
with my friends. We ruined home camcorders trying to film underwater.
I became enthralled with trying to tell stories with film.
My parents actually bought me an editing console that had
two VHS decks, and you could splice your work together.
It looked worse and worse, of course, the more you
(05:51):
edited because the tape deteriorated. Anyway, that's how I started
falling in love with the medium. Did you go to
film school, I ask? No, I just learned on the job,
he says. I'm still learning. I'll always be learning. Do
you find that the experience of making a film impacted
the way you rendered the Psalms? Probably, he says. I
(06:12):
think there's a relationship between poetry and dialogue. It's all
about selection and omission in film, what you show and
what you don't show. I think it was Martin Scorsese
who said that cinema is all about what's in the
frame and what's out. It's the same with writing. You're
working within space and time. What are you going to
do with the space you've been given? When it comes
(06:33):
to writing dialogue in a script, I'm always writing with
economy in mind. Poetry is also about the economy of language.
Many young writers are so caught up in what they're
trying to accomplish, I say that they forget about the
economy of language. I suppose that's probably true in film
as well, he says. When it comes to rendering the Psalms,
(06:54):
how did you decide to end your lines? Was it
a straight line for line decision? Was it the rhythm
of the line? There wasn't a unifying filter for those decisions.
Each one was different, he says. We kind of let
the text speak to us and we let it dictate
those decisions more organically. Can we get into the weeds
a little bit, I ask? What was your workflow? Let's see,
(07:17):
he says. I would go through the psalm and separate
it into sections based on the idea communicated. Then I
would try to write something that captured that idea. Once
I had done that, I would try to stitch them
all together. Sometimes, you know, one line in the original
text was one line in our rendering, but sometimes that
one line in the original became ten lines in our
(07:38):
poem because it was so pregnant with meaning, we wanted
to unpack it a little bit. When I talk to
other writers, I say sometimes they'll tell me that if
they aren't writing, they become agitated a little bit cantankerous.
Did you find that the process made you a better
person when you were writing? That's probably because writing is
their primary creative outlet, he replies. With my life, writing
(08:01):
is only one part of my creative work. I've always
got something that requires my creative effort so I don't
feel that way in general. Let's just say that I
like to stay busy. How does the work of Donne,
Herbert and the psalmist, even the work of Ryan Whitaker Smith,
minister to a people hammered by societal and personal catastrophe?
How does poetry serve people who feel like the world's
(08:24):
falling apart around them? I don't know how most people
interact with poetry, he says. But for me, when my
soul feels heavy, the best thing I can do is
go read the Psalms. I always find something new. It's
about the combination of truth and the beauty of the language.
It's about honesty and vulnerability. I think poetry in general
can be a comfort to people. Maybe it's the beauty
(08:46):
that comforts us. I don't know. Do you find that
true of the music industry as well? I ask, does
a singer climb the charts because she comforts people? You know,
the psalmist is crying out to God and we find
a kinship in those cries. We feel like the psalmist
is articulating something we wouldn't otherwise know how to articulate.
Is the fervor attached to a popular singer connected to
(09:07):
the fact that she is crying out on our behalf.
Maybe she is saying what we don't know how to say. Yes,
I suppose there's some of that, he replies. But the
pessimist in me feels like that's rarely the reason for popularity.
I think the difference might be, I don't know. Maybe
the simplicity of the words on the page. Nobody's wearing
a shirt with the poet Lucy Shaw's face on it.
(09:30):
Maybe we should fix that problem, I say. We laugh.
I guess there's something simple, something very humble about the
written word, he continues. It's not as tied to image.
I would hope that a singer's popularity is due, at
least in some way, to her skill and her vulnerability.
But I'm afraid that image and marketing are tied up
(09:51):
in it as well, so it gets a little complicated.
Is part of the problem that many popular singers are
actually validating us? I ask. I mean, Donne and Herbert
don't validate our feelings. We recognize ourselves in them, but
they change us somehow. Yes, he says, they make us
face uncomfortable truths about ourselves. I think it's rare for
(10:12):
pop culture to produce something, whether song, a movie or
a book that forces us to honestly look at ourselves
in the mirror. Is the song shaping our character in
a substantive way? In a good way. If you had
just a few minutes to say something to Dunn and
to Herbert, I say, what would you say? That's tough.
(10:34):
I feel a little paralyzed by the question. Now you
can understand why I like asking the questions I say
rather than answering them. I see that. Okay, let's try this,
I guess. I would thank them for expressing the truth beautifully.
I would say thank you for giving me the words
to describe what I lack, the ability to describe. I mean,
(10:57):
there are phrases from those writers that have never left me.
It still amazes me that you can read those guys
even today and be moved in our day and age
without strobe lights or smoke machines. It's just words on
a page. But tears come to my eyes. Those guys
never set out to be culture makers, to be famous.
They were just trying to be honest with God. Here's
(11:23):
one of my favorite renderings by Ryan Whitaker Smith, Lord
of the Nations. Psalm two. Lord, sometimes I am burdened
by the politics of earth, the serpentine plots of the proud,
the ruthless maneuvering of the underhanded and double dealing. They
(11:44):
writhe and seethe, hungry for gain, swarming like locusts at
the harvest, darkening the sun, obscuring the radiance of your glory.
But then I remember you are not threatened by their taunts,
and your only proper response is a high and holy laughter.
(12:05):
Your voice thunders from the heavens. Hear me, O great
One's perched and play acting on your thrones. There is
but one king over all. If you have eyes to see,
see him lifted up. Yes, Lord, I remember. I call
to mind the words of your promise, spoken in ages
(12:25):
past to a godly king, that from his offspring you
would send your son in the fullness of time to
live and die among us, bearing the crucible of his cross,
and to rise, bringing this world up with him from
the grave. Are not all nations and peoples your rightful possession,
the ends of the earth, your just domain? Those who
(12:48):
rule in wickedness will be humbled before you. The power
hungry back broken, tossed into the street to beg for
their dinner. May all who reign and rule seek wisdom.
The proud be humbled. The powerful bend their knees before
your throne. May they know their own poverty. That they
(13:08):
might lay hold of the riches of your grace. Indeed,
the ground is level at the foot of your cross,
and all who kneel there, peasant or king, find rest
for their souls. As for those who resist, who cling
to power with clenched fist, they will be crushed beneath
the heel. Blotted out. Expelled, forgotten. For the rightful king
(13:34):
returns for his throne. And blessed are all who are
washed in his blood.
S1 (13:44):
An axe for the Frozen Sea is published by Rabbit
Room Press. The audio book is published by Oasis Audio.
Copyright by Ben Pallant, 2024. By Chris Badeker.
The following is brought to you in partnership with Oasis Audio.
Welcome to Rabbit Room Press Presents, a podcast series of
great audiobooks, one chapter at a time.
S2 (00:16):
An axe for the Frozen Sea by Ben Pallant. Read
for you by the author. Chapter 13 Ryan Whittaker Smith.
We met in a coffee shop that my teenagers would
have considered bougie. Is that the word? At any rate,
(00:37):
my dad would have called it swanky. Sitting there, you
could imagine a wealthy old woman dressed in fur, carrying
her fluffy little dog up to the barista for a
doggy drink. I didn't have to imagine it. That actually
happened during the interview. So Ryan Whittaker, Smith and I
didn't exactly fit in with our hoodies and jeans with
our open laughter. Nevertheless, it was quiet enough for conversation,
(01:00):
and a quiet coffee shop is a rare thing these days.
As I turn on my voice recorder, he leans down
and speaks into the microphone. For the record, he says,
I'm a film producer, so I feel very uncomfortable being
called a poet. We laugh. I say we're off to
a great start. Okay. You have two books of poetry.
(01:21):
Tell me about their genesis. I had no intention of
writing a book for publication, he says. I didn't think
I was qualified. That's not false modesty. It's how I felt.
At one point, I rewrote a psalm during my private
devotions as a kind of prayer. The Psalms are already prayers,
so this was more like a poetic rendering. I shared
it with my friend and mentor Dan Wilt, and he
(01:43):
found it interesting. We ended up doing several more together,
a kind of back and forth exchange. By the time
it was said and done, we had 20 of these poems,
which we printed in a little booklet and gave as
a gift to friends and family at Christmas. What a
great idea. Well, one of those friends was Carolyn Weber,
author of Surprised by Oxford. She asked if she could
(02:04):
share them with some publishing friends of hers. Without intending
to do it, that booklet became a kind of proof
of concept which was picked up by a publisher. We
initially just wanted to render a few of the Psalms,
but they asked us to do all of them, so
that's what we did. Sheltering mercy was the first and
endless Grace was the second. Now we're working on another
one based on the proverbs. He glances around the coffee shop.
(02:28):
I feel very blessed that anyone caught the vision for it.
Both of those books were written collaboratively, I say, which
is a unique experience when it comes to poets. Most
poetry is written in solitude. Was collaboration at advantageous? Was
it difficult? I imagine it took a great deal of
communication and compromise, because it was a byproduct of our friendship,
(02:51):
because it happened so organically, it felt right to me,
he says. The biggest challenge was making it sound like
it was one voice. That's why I assumed the editor role,
I suppose I'm assuming I say that the collaboration brought
you closer as friends. We don't talk anymore. He laughs.
I'm just kidding. It absolutely deepened our friendship. We did
(03:14):
several writing retreats together to finish the work. What a
rich experience. Was poetry a part of your upbringing, I ask?
I don't remember writing a lot of poems when I
was a kid. But you can't escape poetry when you
go to a classical school. I remember encountering John Donne
and being impacted by his work. I wrote my thesis
on Donne. I love him to this day. Later I
(03:36):
discovered George Herbert. Those two poets were big for me.
But I am no poetry expert. I certainly came from
a musical family. So to me, there's always been a
musical relationship between music and poetry. That's not a novel observation,
but I would add that my work is a film
producer and scriptwriter overlaps with poetry. There's a cadence, a
rhythm and a pacing to dialogue, to editing a film.
(04:00):
I have to ask myself, how long do I hold
this particular shot and this character's lines. Does the camera
stay on the character for the duration of the line?
Does the line overlap with the next shot? Those are
important decisions, and they rest on a musical sensitivity. He
pauses and takes a drink. There's also the actual sound
of the words. For as long as I can remember,
(04:21):
I've always been drawn to language. So even lies that
are beautifully expressed are to some degree admirable to me.
I might fundamentally disagree with whatever is being said, but
I can recognize when it is being expressed beautifully. I
think of songwriters I loved when I was growing up.
Some of their work is flat out wrong, but I
like the song. It sounds like you're distinguishing between form
(04:43):
and content. The form can be beautiful, even if the
content is a lie. Precisely. When it comes to Donne
and Herbert, I continue. Was it their naked encounter with God,
their vulnerability that moved you? I think that's it. He says,
you know, I've always been attracted to truth expressed beautifully.
In them I encountered rich theological truths expressed in a
(05:07):
vulnerable and vibrant way. Is there a point at which
you could see yourself writing something like Donne or Herbert,
something confessional that's not rendered? It's quite possible, he says.
What drew you to film as a creative medium, I ask?
I drew constantly as a kid. It was the middle
of the 80s when Disney's animation really took off. I
(05:29):
was at the perfect age to get enchanted by the
animation world, so at some point I started making movies
with my friends. We ruined home camcorders trying to film underwater.
I became enthralled with trying to tell stories with film.
My parents actually bought me an editing console that had
two VHS decks, and you could splice your work together.
It looked worse and worse, of course, the more you
(05:51):
edited because the tape deteriorated. Anyway, that's how I started
falling in love with the medium. Did you go to
film school, I ask? No, I just learned on the job,
he says. I'm still learning. I'll always be learning. Do
you find that the experience of making a film impacted
the way you rendered the Psalms? Probably, he says. I
(06:12):
think there's a relationship between poetry and dialogue. It's all
about selection and omission in film, what you show and
what you don't show. I think it was Martin Scorsese
who said that cinema is all about what's in the
frame and what's out. It's the same with writing. You're
working within space and time. What are you going to
do with the space you've been given? When it comes
(06:33):
to writing dialogue in a script, I'm always writing with
economy in mind. Poetry is also about the economy of language.
Many young writers are so caught up in what they're
trying to accomplish, I say that they forget about the
economy of language. I suppose that's probably true in film
as well, he says. When it comes to rendering the Psalms,
(06:54):
how did you decide to end your lines? Was it
a straight line for line decision? Was it the rhythm
of the line? There wasn't a unifying filter for those decisions.
Each one was different, he says. We kind of let
the text speak to us and we let it dictate
those decisions more organically. Can we get into the weeds
a little bit, I ask? What was your workflow? Let's see,
(07:17):
he says. I would go through the psalm and separate
it into sections based on the idea communicated. Then I
would try to write something that captured that idea. Once
I had done that, I would try to stitch them
all together. Sometimes, you know, one line in the original
text was one line in our rendering, but sometimes that
one line in the original became ten lines in our
(07:38):
poem because it was so pregnant with meaning, we wanted
to unpack it a little bit. When I talk to
other writers, I say sometimes they'll tell me that if
they aren't writing, they become agitated a little bit cantankerous.
Did you find that the process made you a better
person when you were writing? That's probably because writing is
their primary creative outlet, he replies. With my life, writing
(08:01):
is only one part of my creative work. I've always
got something that requires my creative effort so I don't
feel that way in general. Let's just say that I
like to stay busy. How does the work of Donne,
Herbert and the psalmist, even the work of Ryan Whitaker Smith,
minister to a people hammered by societal and personal catastrophe?
How does poetry serve people who feel like the world's
(08:24):
falling apart around them? I don't know how most people
interact with poetry, he says. But for me, when my
soul feels heavy, the best thing I can do is
go read the Psalms. I always find something new. It's
about the combination of truth and the beauty of the language.
It's about honesty and vulnerability. I think poetry in general
can be a comfort to people. Maybe it's the beauty
(08:46):
that comforts us. I don't know. Do you find that
true of the music industry as well? I ask, does
a singer climb the charts because she comforts people? You know,
the psalmist is crying out to God and we find
a kinship in those cries. We feel like the psalmist
is articulating something we wouldn't otherwise know how to articulate.
Is the fervor attached to a popular singer connected to
(09:07):
the fact that she is crying out on our behalf.
Maybe she is saying what we don't know how to say. Yes,
I suppose there's some of that, he replies. But the
pessimist in me feels like that's rarely the reason for popularity.
I think the difference might be, I don't know. Maybe
the simplicity of the words on the page. Nobody's wearing
a shirt with the poet Lucy Shaw's face on it.
(09:30):
Maybe we should fix that problem, I say. We laugh.
I guess there's something simple, something very humble about the
written word, he continues. It's not as tied to image.
I would hope that a singer's popularity is due, at
least in some way, to her skill and her vulnerability.
But I'm afraid that image and marketing are tied up
(09:51):
in it as well, so it gets a little complicated.
Is part of the problem that many popular singers are
actually validating us? I ask. I mean, Donne and Herbert
don't validate our feelings. We recognize ourselves in them, but
they change us somehow. Yes, he says, they make us
face uncomfortable truths about ourselves. I think it's rare for
(10:12):
pop culture to produce something, whether song, a movie or
a book that forces us to honestly look at ourselves
in the mirror. Is the song shaping our character in
a substantive way? In a good way. If you had
just a few minutes to say something to Dunn and
to Herbert, I say, what would you say? That's tough.
(10:34):
I feel a little paralyzed by the question. Now you
can understand why I like asking the questions I say
rather than answering them. I see that. Okay, let's try this,
I guess. I would thank them for expressing the truth beautifully.
I would say thank you for giving me the words
to describe what I lack, the ability to describe. I mean,
(10:57):
there are phrases from those writers that have never left me.
It still amazes me that you can read those guys
even today and be moved in our day and age
without strobe lights or smoke machines. It's just words on
a page. But tears come to my eyes. Those guys
never set out to be culture makers, to be famous.
They were just trying to be honest with God. Here's
(11:23):
one of my favorite renderings by Ryan Whitaker Smith, Lord
of the Nations. Psalm two. Lord, sometimes I am burdened
by the politics of earth, the serpentine plots of the proud,
the ruthless maneuvering of the underhanded and double dealing. They
(11:44):
writhe and seethe, hungry for gain, swarming like locusts at
the harvest, darkening the sun, obscuring the radiance of your glory.
But then I remember you are not threatened by their taunts,
and your only proper response is a high and holy laughter.
(12:05):
Your voice thunders from the heavens. Hear me, O great
One's perched and play acting on your thrones. There is
but one king over all. If you have eyes to see,
see him lifted up. Yes, Lord, I remember. I call
to mind the words of your promise, spoken in ages
(12:25):
past to a godly king, that from his offspring you
would send your son in the fullness of time to
live and die among us, bearing the crucible of his cross,
and to rise, bringing this world up with him from
the grave. Are not all nations and peoples your rightful possession,
the ends of the earth, your just domain? Those who
(12:48):
rule in wickedness will be humbled before you. The power
hungry back broken, tossed into the street to beg for
their dinner. May all who reign and rule seek wisdom.
The proud be humbled. The powerful bend their knees before
your throne. May they know their own poverty. That they
(13:08):
might lay hold of the riches of your grace. Indeed,
the ground is level at the foot of your cross,
and all who kneel there, peasant or king, find rest
for their souls. As for those who resist, who cling
to power with clenched fist, they will be crushed beneath
the heel. Blotted out. Expelled, forgotten. For the rightful king
(13:34):
returns for his throne. And blessed are all who are
washed in his blood.
S1 (13:44):
An axe for the Frozen Sea is published by Rabbit
Room Press. The audio book is published by Oasis Audio.
Copyright by Ben Pallant, 2024. By Chris Badeker.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.