Close Talking: A Poetry Podcast
Close Talking is a poetry podcast hosted by good friends Connor Stratton and Jack Rossiter-Munley. In each episode the two read a poem and discuss at length. The pop culture references fly as freely as the literary theories. Close Talking is a poetry podcast anyone can enjoy.
Episodes
July 7, 2023 • 10 mins
Connor pops in to announce incredibly belatedly what has already been apparent for months: Close Talking is on a hiatus! We've had some big life and career changes that have unexpectedly cut into our capacity for the podcast, but it's not a permanent hiatus! Okay, a poem:
Tune
By: Kay Ryan
Imagine a sea
of ultramarine
suspending a
million jellyfish
as soft as moons.
Imagine the
interlocking uninsistent
tunes of drifting things.
T...
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January 16, 2023 • 22 mins
A slight departure from our regular format. On today's show, Connor and Jack remember the recently departed poet Charles Simic. They read some of his poems, reflect on them, discuss his life and legacy, and even give a shoutout to the Oak Park Public Library.
Poems Connor and Jack read in this episode include: "Summer Morning" "Hotel Insomnia" "Watermelons" and "Back at the Chicken Shack."
At the end of the episode, hear Simic re...
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December 23, 2022 • 58 mins
Connor and Jack bid farewell to the year they've taken to calling "Twenty Twenty Poo" and contemplate the complexities of language in a wide-ranging conversation about a spectacular untitled poem by Diné poet Sherwin Bitsui, from his 2009 collection Flood Song. They discuss movement, the natural world, an extremely informative dissertation and more.
Learn more about Bitsui, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sherwin-bits...
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December 9, 2022 • 88 mins
Connor and Jack discuss the sonically and thematically dense poem "Topsoil, in Repentance" by Sherry Shenoda. Shenoda's book MUMMY EATERS was longlisted for the National Book Award in 2022. The conversation moves from an exploration of internal rhymes and alliteration, to the climate crisis, to the religious implications of the word "repentance," to soil strata, and to the relative weight of humanity.
You can find out more about S...
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November 25, 2022 • 28 mins
After a busy couple weeks at Close Talking headquarters, a slightly different show. This episode is from our sister-podcast, Poetry Spoken Here. The episode first aired in the summer of 2020 and was simply called "Black Lives Matter." The poems and voices featured are all from the Poetry Spoken Here archives and address race, policing, and more. Readers include Pulitzer Prize-winner Jericho Brown, the youngest ever Baltimore Youth ...
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November 17, 2022 • 53 mins
In this special episode, Connor and Jack discuss the 2022 National Book Awards — the long list, the finalists, and the winner "Punks: New and Selected Poems" by John Keene. They read and explore a marvelous poem from the collection, "Folks Are Right, My Nose Was Wide Open," which also appeared in BOMB Magazine.
Listen to the National Book Awards Award Ceremony, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hNtsKasx5U&ab_channel=Natio...
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November 12, 2022 • 82 mins
Connor and Jack discuss a classic poem from a classic poet: The Dancing by the recently departed Gerald Stern. They marvel at how the poem is constructed, get deep into a discussion of encroaching fascism, and even have time to rage at the "evil Mellons," bring in Bruce Springsteen and Michael Bay, and pause to reflect on how lyric poetry can address structural inequalities.
You can read the poem, here: https://www.poetryfoundatio...
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October 29, 2022 • 67 mins
Connor and Jack have a time talking about the poem "A Time" by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke. She is a multi-award winning poet whose latest book-length poem "Look at This Blue" is on the short list for the 2022 National Book Award. Come for the poetry analysis, stay for the discussion of red wolves, climate crisis, Tolkein, impermanence, and diectic words.
You can read the poem, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/89060/a-ti...
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October 19, 2022 • 85 mins
Connor and Jack dig into the list/poem/prose piece/literary mystery Not Writing by Anne Boyer. Along the way they discuss what they are and are not writing themselves, Jack asks about why the poem never becomes monotonous, and Connor offers his thoughts about how writing, time, and capitalism intersect both in the poem and in life.
Read the poem, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58316/not-writing
[I know, I know. This...
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September 26, 2022 • 84 mins
Connor and Jack discuss Sasha Banks' poem, america, MINE from her collection of the same name. They start by examining some of the poem's formal elements like its lack of traditional punctuation, and quickly jump to big themes like how the idea of vengeance is transformed in the poem and the contested symbol of the American flag is used.
Read the full poem below, or here: http://thecollagist.com/the-collagist/2016/8/27/america-min...
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September 10, 2022 • 85 mins
Posted at long last after overcoming major technical difficulties!! Connor and Jack dive into the poem "I Hear a Dog Who is Always in My Death" by Samuel Ace. They discuss the poem's evocative imagery, ruminate on it's call to action against encroaching fascism, and find resonances with English and Egyptian mythology. They also make some time to dunk on transphobes.
I Hear a Dog Who is Always in My Death
By: Samuel Ace
How is it ...
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July 26, 2022 • 75 mins
Connor and Jack discuss the poem "First Snow" by Arthur Sze. They discuss life, death, being, nothingness, and all the hidden meaning waiting to leap out of the every day. They also talk about how some poems can urge us towards presence and mindfulness and the necessity of taking the occasional pause in life.
First Snow
By: Arthur Sze
A rabbit has stopped on the gravel driveway:
imbibing the silence,
you st...
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July 9, 2022 • 30 mins
A dive into the Close Talking archives - one of the first episodes we ever recorded in which we discuss the poem "The Lynching Postcard, Duluth, Minnesota" by Ray Gonzalez. Poetry can seem a little insignificant in the face of an onslaught of historically awful news, like the one we've all been experience the last few weeks. But poems like this one have a special kind of power - cutting to deep truths and insisting on action in the...
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June 11, 2022 • 109 mins
Connor and Jack are joined by special guest Tara Betts to discuss the poem "Small Illuminations" from her forthcoming collection REFUSE TO DISAPPEAR. They discuss the legacy of Margaret Taylor-Burroughs, the realities of incarceration, and how the collection REFUSE TO DISAPPEAR grew over time.
Get a copy of REFUSE TO DISAPPEAR, here: https://wordworksbooks.org/product/refuse-to-disappear/#:~:text=In%20Refuse%20to%20Disappear%20Tar...
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Connor and Jack are joined by poet, essayist, and journalist Noor Hindi. They dig into the poem "Self Interrogation" the first poem in Hindi's new collection DEAR GOD. DEAR BONES. DEAR YELLOW. coming out on 5/31 from Haymarket Books. She discusses the inspiration behind some of the poems in the book, the significance of the color yellow, and the importance of having a variety of experiences and perspectives in newsrooms.
Learn mor...
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May 20, 2022 • 62 mins
Connor and Jack explore Aracelis Girmay's poem "Elegy" from her 2011 collection Kingdom Animalia. They talk through the opening line's call to community and the ways it resonates with Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese," they get scientific while discussing the nature imagery in the poem, and they delve into the poem's pandemic-era relevance.
Elegy
By: Aracelis Girmay
What to do with this knowledge that our living is not guaranteed?
Per...
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April 30, 2022 • 33 mins
Connor and Jack conclude their exploration of poetic line breaks with a bit of a catch all episode looking at how line breaks can reveal information, play with time, and enhance surprise. They pull examples from Audre Lorde, Chris Tse, Rae Armantrout, and Emily Dickinson. There's even time for mentions of laminated dough and Indiana Jones.
Episode 1 of Line Break Week - Why break lines?: https://soundcloud.com/close-talking/episod...
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April 30, 2022 • 31 mins
As line break week hurdles towards its conclusion, Connor and Jack pause to consider ambiguity in line breaks. When the meaning of a word or phrase is altered by the positioning of a line break. They discuss the classic WB Yeats poem "Leda and the Swan" and Franz Wright's "Empty Cathedral." Along the way they talk about twists and turns in other literary work like Spiderman: Homecoming, Midnight Mass, and The Birds.
Episode 1 of L...
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April 30, 2022 • 34 mins
Connor and Jack delve ever deeper into the world of poetic line breaks. This time they're looking at how line breaks build rhythm in poems. They discuss rhythm within lines running through various literary terms and talking through some of the most popular meters. Then they move on to how line breaks facilitate rhythm through rhyme and anaphora. using examples from Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Forrest Gander. Stay tuned for the galactic ...
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April 29, 2022 • 21 mins
Connor and Jack continue their exploration of all the ways lines can be broken and all the reasons a poet might have for breaking a line. Today they discuss using line breaks for emphasis focusing on the poem "The Pope's Penis" by Sharon Olds. They also discuss the sacred and profane resonances the poem has with Bob Dylan's masterpiece, "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)."
Episode 1 of Line Break Week - Why break lines?: https:/...
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