Breaking the logjam with two poets sharing each others work.

Phillis Levin’s poems have appeared in the&nbsp;New Yorker, the&nbsp;Atlantic, Poetry&nbsp;magazine, Kenyon Review, among others, she has also published 5 collections of poems, and edited the&nbsp;sonnet anthology.&nbsp;She has taught at The University of Maryland, the Unterberg Poetry Center, the New School, and New York University, and currently is professor of English and poet-in-residence at Hofstra University.&nbsp;Among her honors are the Amy Lowell Traveling Scholarship and a residency at the American Academy in Rome&nbsp;Heather Dubrow holds the John D. Boyd Chair in the Poetic Imagination at Fordham; she specializes in early modern lyric poetry and Shakespeare.&nbsp;She also taught at the University of Wisconsin.&nbsp;Faced with the academic profession’s stigma that scholars should not be creative writers, Dubrow had given up writing poetry for twenty years, but returned to poetry in the 1990s.&nbsp;She has published two chapbooks and two collections.&nbsp;Among the journals where her poetry has appeared are Prairie Schooner, Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and The Yale Review.&nbsp;She was co-director of Fordham's Poets Out Loud public reading series from Fall 2009 to Summer 2020.

Poetry as Play with Phillis Levin & Heather Dubrow

Poetry matters because people matter.  Keep poetry alive.

It has been awhile since we have posted a "Poetry! What Is It Good For" episode. And this one was not done on Zoom but with the living poets before us at Gebhard's Beer Culture Bar on Manhattan's Upper West Side. For this conversation we talked about running live poetry readings with three poets and organizers: Anton Yakovlev is a well-published poet born in Moscow, Russia; he co-hosts the Carmine Street Metrics poetry reading series. We first heard about Lola Koundakjian when she hosted the World Poetry Movement's "For a World Without Walls" global poetry reading event. Lola heads up the Dead Armenian Poetry Society. And, Rachel Aydt has moved from writing poetry to short stories; she formerly co-hosted the Crystal Radio Sessions poetry reading series at a local UWS bar.

Poetry Readings Abide!

Poetry raises our awareness-- expands agency -- helps us understand who we are.

The<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Poetry Foundation</a> editors write: “When major parts of our lives seem to change in a flash, we are reminded that poetry can help us to cope with new realities and to assess the unknowns ahead. When we are stepping out into uncharted terrain, alone or together, poetry can capture our emotions. It can share our vulnerabilities and scars, along with our strengths.”Today. we are sharing the first program of our new podcast co-produced with Chris Brandt -- <a href="https://shows.acast.com/poetry-what-is-it-good-for" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">“Poetry. What is it good for?” </a> For this first episode, we explored the 20-year social and emotional after-tremors of the attack by Saudi Arabian terrorists on the United States through the powerful tool of poetry with J. Chester Johnson and Cornelius Eady.&nbsp;J. Chester Johnson is a poet, playwright, essayist, translator, speaker and teacher.&nbsp;He visited Bar Crawl Radio a couple of months ago to talk about his book – “Damaged Heritage” --&nbsp;on the history and his family’s connection with the 1919 Elaine, Arkansas Massacre, one of many human crimes against humanity in which&nbsp;U. S.&nbsp;White citizens killed over 100 U.S. Black citizens and then prosecuted the survivors for their act of murder.&nbsp;Though Cornelius Eady, an American poet, focuses on issues of race and society, his verse accomplishes a lot more as indicated in his deeply felt reactions to the 9/11 attack on this country. Cornelius is also a musician whose verse is performed as song by <a href="https://corneliuseadytrio.com/home" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Cornelius Eady Trio.</a> His poetry is simple and accessible, centering on jazz and blues, family life, violence, and society from a racial and class-based POV.

9/11: 2001 - 2021

PWIIGF podcast brings together two poets who have something in common read and talk about their work. For this episode we consider how word, image and mass interact within the creative artist.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.stringpoet.com/2013/05/5-artist-rick-mullin/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Rick Mullin’s poetry</a> has been published in many journals and anthologies, including&nbsp;The Dark Horse, American Arts Quarterly, The New Criterion,&nbsp;and&nbsp;Rabbit Ears:TV Poems.&nbsp;His collection “Lullaby and Wheel,” was published in 2019 by Kelsay Books.&nbsp;When he was in his mid-30s Rick visited the LosAngeles County Museum of Art and encountered paintings by Matisse, Braque and other Fauve artists that changed his life and he began to paint.&nbsp;Later, hebecame fascinated with the painter Chaim Soutine and wrote a biography of Soutine in poetry form.&nbsp;Thank you, Rick for joining us. <a href="https://meredithbergmann.com/poetry/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sculptor Meredith</a> <a href="https://meredithbergmann.com/poetry/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bergmann</a> creates public monuments exploring issues of history, social justice, race, human rights, disabilities, and the power of poetry andmusic.&nbsp;Bergmann’s work is well known in New York City for the FDR Hope Memorial on Roosevelt Island unveiled in 2019 – the September11th Memorial in Cathedral of St. John the Divine in 2012 – and most recently the “Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument” in Central Park. MeredithBergmann is also an accomplished poet and poetry critic -- her writing has appeared in Contemporary Poetry, Hudson Review and The New Criterion and she was poetry editor of The American Arts Quarterly from 2006 - 2017&nbsp;

Bergmann & Mullin: 2 Poets :: 1 Sculptor / 1 Painter

Poetry raises our awareness and allows for agency.

Coming out of the call for “Black Power” in the 1960s by Malcolm X and others, historian and playwright Larry Neal describes a new breed of Black artist taking on the contradictions of the Black person’s experience in the racist West and developing a “black aesthetic.” For this "Poetry--What Is It Good For?" episode, we talked with one of the lead architects of Black Arts Movement [BAM] poetry, Eugene B. Redmond -- the longtime poet laureate of East St. Louis -- and with poet and Redmond colleague Darlene Roy who has run the <a href="https://eugenebredmond.com/home/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Eugene B. Redmond Writer's Club of E. St. Louis</a> for several decades. The conversation ranged from the beginnings of BAM within the Black Power era of the 1960s -- to the important poets of the period -- to the changes that were happening in this country as "negro / colored" turned to "Black." Ms. Roy read from her book <a href="https://www.left-bank.com/book/9781880748664" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">"Afrosynthesis: A feast of Poetry and Folklore."</a>

Black Arts Movement 2021: Eugene Redmond & Darlene Roy

We were joined by two world-class poets from Hispaniola --&nbsp;<a href="http://jeandanyjoachim.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Jean Dany Joachim</a>&nbsp;writes in Haitian Creole and Spanish poet&nbsp;<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rhina-p-espaillat" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Rhina P. Espaillat&nbsp;</a>who left the Dominican Republic as a young girl fleeing the Trujillo massacre of 1937. Their poetry cuts to the bone of the immigrant experience in simple but deeply revealing ways. This episode is a lively conversation with lovely people who interpret their poetry in most accessible performances.

Expat Poets from Hispaniola: Rhina P. Espaillat & Jean Dany Joachim

<a href="http://esthalynneweiner.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Estha Weiner </a>was born in Maine and from an early age, yearned to live in New York City and be an actress.&nbsp;Her early experiences as an actor and working for the BBC clearly show up in her poetry.&nbsp;Amongst her many other books of poetry – At the Last Minute – was published in Ireland in 2019.&nbsp;Her poems have appeared in&nbsp;The New Republic&nbsp;and&nbsp;Barrow Street and many others. Estha is an alum of Sarah Lawrence where she is the founding director of the College’s &nbsp;NY Alumni/ae Writers Nights. &nbsp;She is a Speaker on Shakespeare for The New York Council for the Humanities and is a Professor in the English Dept. at City College of NY, CUNY, and the Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute.<a href="http://alanwalowitz.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Alan Walowitz </a>has been writing poetry, sometimes successfully and sometimes un-, for more than 50 years. He has a small portion of an MFA in Writing from Goddard College, and an entire degree from Eastern Connecticut State University and several from Queens College of the City University of NY. And he studied with Estha Weiner. Though writing poems can be quite lucrative, Alan has earned the bulk of my fortune as a teacher and supervisor of secondary English for 34 years.&nbsp; He is retired after teaching at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York.&nbsp;His poems can be found lots of places on the web and off.This podcast was recorded in January 2022 at <a href="https://www.beerculture.nyc/gebhards" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Gebhard's Beer Culture Bar.</a>

Weiner & Walowitz on why people hate poetry & more ...

This was a fun +hour talking with two brilliant poets who mentor each other's new work. MERVYN TAYLOR born and lives in Trinidad, and now retired there, Mervyn graduated from Howard and Columbia Universities.&nbsp;He taught at Bronx Community College, The Young Adult Learning Academy,&nbsp;He has published six books of poetry and won the Paterson Poetry Prize for sustained literary achievement.&nbsp;&nbsp;His poetry focuses on the particular and the personal, but there's always somehow the consciousness of the world.Mervyn suggested that we invite SUSANA H. CASE to the BCR conversation because he found that there was an affinity in their work.&nbsp;Susana has written seven books of poetry and two of her chapbooks have won poetry prizes. Her work appears in many magazines and anthologies. Dr. Case is a professor and Program Coordinator at the NY Institute of Technology.This conversation was first posted to <a href="https://shows.acast.com/bar-crawl-radio/episodes/mentoring-poets-susana-h-case-mervyn-taylor" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bar Crawl Radio podcast </a>in August 2020

Mentoring Poets: Susana H. Case & Mervyn Taylor

Two poets talk about each others work.

"Poetry! What is it good for?" [PWIIGF] originated as a Bar Crawl Radio series and is now its own podcast. This episode continues our conversation with three poets who advocate and write about the potential of peace in world that celebrates war -- Veronica Golos, Angelo Verga, and Chris Brandt [Chris is also one of the co-hosts of PWIIGF]. This conversation opens with a rendition of "America the Beautiful" performed by the students of the Curtis Institute of Music and conducted by Robert Kahn -- followed by a look at the gendered quality of poetry -- in which we try to discern the unique qualities of the male and female voices. The examples here tend to feature coitus and so ...CONTACT: <a href="mailto:poetrygoodfor@gmail.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">poetrygoodfor@gmail.com</a>

3 Poets 4 Peace--Part 2

Conversations with two poets who know each others work.

"Poetry! What is it good for?" podcast is different. In other poetry podcasts -- a poet reads and talks about her poetry. "PWIIGF" brings together two poets who appreciate each others work to engage in a lively conversation and poetry reading on a topic that fascinates them. Along the way we find that poetry is good for a lot -- mostly to keep us human.Moderators Rebecca McKean and Alan Winson -- lovers of poetry -- and Chris Brandt -- a writer of poetry -- keep the conversation informal, critical and emotionally connected.If you enjoy poetry and want to meet some amazing poets and people -- give PWIIGF a try.

Poetry! What is it good for?

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