On today’s episode of The Poems We Made Along the Way Gregory Kearns speaks to Sasha Debevec-McKenney about British stand-up comedy Stewart Lee, taking a break from writing, and approaching drafting poems like a puzzle.
Sasha Debevec-McKenney’s poems have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books and The Yale Review. She was the 2020–2021 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin and is currently a creative writing fellow at Emory University. She was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and lives in Madison, Wisconsin. Joy Is My Middle Name, her debut, won the 2026 Dylan Thomas Prize.
Books and other things
Joy is my Middle Name: https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/joy-is-my-middle-name/
You can also use our affiliate link for Bookshop to find most of the books by most of the guests from the show. They are organised into lists for each series. If you use this link, we get a fraction of the money you spend: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/series-seven-the-poems-we-made-along-the-way
We’d also recommend enquiring with your local bookshops or libraries as well.
Things to read/watch/listen/etc in relationship to this interview:
Sasha’s poem I Went Out to See All The Downed Trees: https://poetrysociety.org.uk/poems/i-went-out-to-see-all-the-downed-trees/
Interview with The Rumpus: https://therumpus.net/2025/12/29/in-praise-of-confessional-poetry-and-being-known-a-conversation-with-sasha-debevec-mckenney/
Interview with Lithub: https://lithub.com/poet-sasha-debevec-mckenney-on-writing-rituals-maximalism-and-how-to-surprise-an-audience/
Interview with Litro: https://www.litromagazine.com/arts-and-culture/sasha-debevec-mckenney-joy-is-my-middle-name-dylan-thomas-prize/
The Usual
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Theme tune: Joe Chesterman-March who can be found here: https://joecm.co.uk
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