Of Poetry Podcast

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart -- Read : "Love Poem With Dereliction of Duty" at Wesleyan Press Purchase : Five-Paragraph Essay on the Body-Mind Problem Rachel Trousdale is a professor of English at Framingham State University. Her first book of poetry, Five-Paragraph Essay on the Body-Mind Problem , was selected by Robert Pinsky for the Cardinal Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in the Yale Review, The Nation, Diagram, and a chapbook, Antiphonal Future for Marx Brothers, Elephant, and Slide Trombone. Her latest scholarly book is Humor, Empathy, and Community in Twentieth-Century American Poetry. Reading Recommendations: Marianne Moore Les Murray Orlando - Virginia Woolf Amiri Baraka Mary Ruefle June Jordan "Reading Orlando: Genderqueerness Across Time" by Han VanderHart (Essay, Poetry Northwest) Morgan Parker "Now More Than Ever" Patience Agbabi - Tales (Canterbury tales)

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart -- Purchase : Utopians in Love (Game Over Books, 2025) Read : "Self Portrait as Utopian" (IDK Magazine) Bob Sykora is the author of the collection Utopians in Love (Game Over Books 2025) and the chapbook I Was Talking About Love–You Are Talking About Geography (Nostrovia! 2016). A graduate of the UMass Boston MFA program, he teaches at community college, edits with Garden Party Collective , co-hosts The Line Break podcast , and curates the KC Poetry Calendar . Recommended Reading: The Village by M. Night Shyamalan Boston's Athenaeum Thalia Field Susan Howe Iris Murdoch, "The Idea of Perfection" Lewis Hyde's The Gift Lazy & Entitled podcast The Line Break Podcast The Poet in the World by Denise Levertov (and "The Untaught Teacher" essay)

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart -- Purchase : The Fall of Iris Henley (Wednesday Books, 2026) Read/Listen : The Fall of Iris Henley (excerpt) Jennifer Graham graduated from Reed College and received her MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. Under the name Jennifer Donaldson, she is the author of Lies You Never Told Me and I Know You Remember. She also co-wrote the Veronica Mars duology with Rob Thomas. Jennifer currently lives in Austin with her family. Recommended Reading: Fanny Howe Ann Leckie Martha Wells The Epiphany Machine by David Burr Gerrard Writing for Stage and Screen by Sherry Kramer The Triggering Town by Richard Hugo Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg Scythe by Elizabeth Sylvia An Angel at My Table (1990 Jane Campion film) The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart -- Purchase: Fifty Mothers (River River Books, 2026) Read: "Gridlock" and a process note! (Periodicities) Preeti Vangani is an Indian poet & writer based in San Francisco. She is the author of Mother Tongue Apologize (2019), winner of the RLFPA Poetry Prize. Her work has been published in AGNI, The Georgia Review, Gulf Coast, Prairie Schooner among several other places. Her debut short story won the 2021 Pen/Dau Emerging Writers Prize. Vangani has been a resident at UCross, Djerassi and Ragdale. She has received artist grants from San Francisco Arts Commission and YBCA through which she facilitates poetry workshops rooted in writing grief through joy. She holds an MFA in Writing from University of San Francisco. Recommended Reading : Saeed Jones Natalie Shapera Agha Shahid Ali Jejuri by Arun Kolatkar (Bombay poet discussed on episode) K Ming Chang's "Auntland" (short story) Ross Gay Erika Meitner Martha Silano's Terminal Surreal John Donne's sonnet "I am a little world made cunningly" D.A. (Doug) Powell Sharon Olds Rick Barot top pens for arthritic hands (friends recommend Dr. Grip pens by Pilot!)

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart -- Purchase: Antibody (River River Books) by Elane Kim Read: The Body As Archive , a review of Antibody by Leah Choi ( Harvard Crimson ) and Kim's poem "Respite" ( Poetry Foundation ) Elane Kim is a Korean American writer from California. The editor-in-chief of Gaia Lit, she is the recipient of the 2024 Roger Conant Hatch Prize for Lyric Poetry, the winner of the 2021 Columbia Journal Winter Poetry Contest, and a Davidson Fellow in Literature. Her writing can be found in Poetry, Narrative Magazine, One Teen Story, and more. She is the author of Postcards (Bull City Press, 2022) and a student at Harvard College. Recommended Reading : Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Kimberly Grey Volta (wikipedia) Shakespeare's Sonnets (with free, downloadable text, at Folger Library) Jericho Brown Diane Seuss Naruto

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart , author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025). -- Read : "Alcestis as the Dead Woman’s Auto-Roman à Clef" and "Alcestis as Peripheral | Swift | Ominous Movement in the House" in Arcturus Magazine Purchase : House of Myth and Necessity (River River Books, 2026) Jennifer A Sutherland is a poet, essayist, and attorney in Baltimore. She is the author of House of Myth and Necessity (River Riverbooks, 2026) and the lyric-hybrid, book-length poem Bullet Points , also from River River Books (2023). Her work has appeared in Birmingham Poetry Review, Hopkins Review, Best New Poets, Denver Quarterly, Cagibi, EPOCH, and elsewhere. Recommended Reading Robin Robertson Anne Carson Claire Millikin’s TELEVISION (Unicorn Books, 2016) Monica Youn’s Blackacre Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House Tron (film, 1982) Jameela F. Dallis Diane Seuss's essay "Restless Herd: Some Thoughts on Order—in Poetry, in Life" ( Poets & Writers , on building a bearable myth)

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart , author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025). -- Read : Four excerpts f rom There Is News Along the Ohio River at Heavy Feather Review Purchase : There Is News Along the Ohio River (River River Books, 2026) Beth Gilstrap (she/her) is a multi-genre author, copywriter, editor, and educator. Her debut hybrid/flash CNF collection, There Is News Along the Ohio River , was released February 2026 from River River Books . She is also the author of two story collections including: Deadheading & Other Stories (2021), winner of the Red Hen Press Women’s Prose Prize, shortlisted for the Stanford Libraries William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and finalist for the Foreword 2021 Foreword Reviews Awards in Short Fiction; I Am Barbarella: Stories from Twelve Winters Press (2015), and the chapbook No Man’s Wild Laura (2016) from Hyacinth Girl Press. A true southern goth/punk gal at heart, she is the Publisher & Editor-in-chief of the goth/punk zine, Black Lily (find them on Instagram @blacklilyzine). Her essays, stories, and hybrids have appeared in Poets & Writers, Wigleaf, Craft, Bending Genres, and The Cincinnati Review, among others. She lives with her husband and a bunch of cuddly fur muppets in Charlotte, North Carolina. As a neurodivergent human who lives with c-PTSD, she is open about her struggles and fearlessly vocal about ending the stigma surrounding mental illness. Recommended Reading Kathy Fish Ross Gay Maggie Nelson Lydia Davis Terese Marie Mailhot, Heart Berries Terrance Hayes, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know Pete Walker - Complex PTSD: from Surviving to Thriving Tara Westover , Educated Jen Soriano, Nervous Rebecca Olander, Singing From the Deep End

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart , author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025). -- Read : "Listen to Yourself" ( Sixth Finch ) Purchase : The Visible Field (River River Books, 2026) Zoë Ryder White ’s first full-length collection, The Visible Field, was published by River River Books in February, 2026. A chapbook, Via Post, was a finalist for Tupelo Press’ Snowbound Chapbook award and won the Sixth Finch chapbook contest in 2022. HYPERSPACE was the editors’ choice pick for the Verse Tomaž Šalamun Prize in 2020 and is available from Factory Hollow Press. She co-authored A Study in Spring (Rabbit Catastrophe Press, 2015) and Elsewhere (Sixth Finch Press, 2020) with Nicole Callihan. Her poems have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Iterant, Plume, and Threepenny Review, among others. A former elementary school teacher, she edits books for educators about the craft of teaching. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her family. Reading Recommendations Vijay Seshadri Emily Dickinson Letters of Emily Dickinson Nicole Callihan Imogene's Antlers (children's book) The Poetics of Revery by Gaston Bachelard The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard Molly Spencer

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart , author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025). -- Read : the title essay "Backyard Alchemy" ( The Common ) Purchase : Backyard Alchemy : on life with other creatures in a time of salvage (River River Books, 2026) J.D. Ho was born by the sea, raised on a rock, schmoozed in Hollywood, drove to Austin, Texas for an MFA, and now lives among foxes and deer on a sliver of east coast green. J.D.’s work has appeared in Georgia Review, Missouri Review, Ninth Letter, and other journals. Reading Recommendations Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Tsing The Fall of Iris Henley by Jennifer Graham Brilliant Minds (tv show) Alban Fischer (Designer and editor) Pastoral, 1994 by Joe Wilkins Scythe by Elizabeth Sylvia Your Mother’s Bear Gun by Corrie Williamson EcoTheo Review

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart , author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025). -- Read : "On Learning that Kim Kardashian Exceeded her Water Allowance by 232,000 Gallons in June" ( Passengers Journal ) Purchase : Scythe (River River Books, 2026) Elizabeth Sylvia ’ s first book, None But Witches: Poems on Shakespeare’s Women (2022), won the 2021 3 Mile Harbor Press Book Award. Her chapbook My Little Book of Domestic Anxieties (2025) is available from Ballerini Books, and her second full-length collection, Scythe , is available now from River River Books. She has been a finalist or semi-finalist in competitions sponsored by the Burnside Review, C&R Press, DIAGRAM, Thirty West, Rare Swan, and Wolfson Press, and is a reader for SWWIM Every Day. Elizabeth has received fellowships from the New York Public Library, the West Chester University Poetry Center, and the Longleaf Writers Conference, and is the winner of the 2023 riverSedge Poetry Prize. Elizabeth grew up on Martha’s Vineyard and currently teaches in Southeastern Massachusetts, where she lives with her husband, two daughters, and an extravagantly demanding garden. Recommended Reading : Richard Siken's Crush Lady Wing Shot by Sara Moore Wagner If Some God Shakes Your House by Jennifer Franklin Ceive by BK Fischer Rue by Kathryn Nuernberger No Longer at This Address by Andrew Hemmers The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart , author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025). -- Read: "Ghazal: Morning" ( The Offing ) Purchase: In the House of Modern Upbringing for Girls (Wandering Aengus Press, 2025) Majda Gama was born in Beirut to a Saudi father and American mother. Her hometown is Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and her roots Hijazi, but she also has a long, complicated relationship with Northern Virginia where her father was stationed in the 1970's. Majda is the author of In the House of Modern Upbringing for Girls (Wandering Aengus Press, 2025) and The Call of Paradise , (Two Sylvia’s, 2023). Her poetry has been honored with the Graybeal-Gowen award for Virginia poets from Shenandoah and the Gregory Djanikian scholar award for poetry from Adroit. Recent poems have appeared in, or are forthcoming from, AGNI, Ploughshares, POETRY, Prairie Schooner, Swamp Pink, Tupelo Quarterly, and TriQuarterly. Recommended reading 2017 PEN America World Voices: Sheyr Jangi (Poetic Battles) Lena Khalaf Tuffaha Mahmoud Darwish Fady Joudah Gwendolyn Brooks Jill Kitchen

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart , author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025). -- 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

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart , author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025). -- 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

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart , author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025). -- Purchase : Water Castle by Natalie Solmer (Kelsay Books, 2024) Read : "I Am a Great Lake" ( MER ) 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)

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart , author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025). -- 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

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart , author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025). -- Purchase: Unrivered (Sundress Publications, 2025) Read: "Dysmorphia (Autumn)" at Harpur Palate 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

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart , author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025). -- 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

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart , author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025). -- 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

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart , author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025). -- 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

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart , author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025). -- 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