Explore every episode of the podcast Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

The queens play poetry matchmakers and nine months later, boom, there's a poetry baby!

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Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

Robyn Schiff's most recent book is Information Desk: An Epic (Penguin Poets, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2024).

Read more about Karyna McGlynn's book I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl

Check out Randall Mann's latest book, a new and selected, from Copper Canyon.

Do yourself a favor and buy Laura Newbern's book A Night in the Country (also available on the awful conglomerate) and check out Newbern's website.

Watch this tribute to Eavan Boland. 

You can find many poems of Richard Siken's on his website. 

Watch this half-hour interview with Mark Strand (from when he was Poet Laureate). 

The gals talk foundational poems--and they might just surprise you!

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Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

Quan Barry's "The 1986 Apple Super Bowl Commercial as Intervention" refers to this iconic 1984 Apple Computer commercial aired during the SuperBowl.

The Brigit Pegeen Kelly poem we mention is "Three Cows and the Moon" was originally published in New England Review in 1993. You can hear Kelly read the poem here (~10 minutes). It's fucking worth it!

William Stafford, "Traveling Through the Dark" was the title poem of Stafford's 2nd book, published in 1962, which won the 1963 National Book Award. To look at some drafts of this poem, check out the Stafford archive online. Hear him read it here.

Read more about Kevin Killian's Selected Amazon Reviews.  And check out this brief (~1min) Instagram post of Killian reading from it here. 

The poem by Linda Gregg that James mentions (with women standing in the trees knocking down figs) is "The Poet Goes About Her Business." 

You can read Kate Daniels "War Photograph" here. For more about the photograph and the people in it, read this article.

Read Nazim Hikmet's "On Living" and learn more about Hikmet here. 

The library is open--to prose the queens find indispensable for poets!

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Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

You can find John Hollander's Rhyme's Reason here.

Check out an excerpt in the NYT from Michael Schmidt Lives of the Poets. 

Here's an NPR review of Olivia Laing's Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency. For more about Agnes Martin by Olivia Laing, check out this interview. Maggie Nelson engaged in this conversation with Laing about Laing's book Everybody. 

Check out this reading and conversation between Adam Moss, the author of The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing, and two of his subjects: Marie Howe and Michael Cunningham. 

Purchase Rebecca Brown's The Gifts of the Body, which Publisher's Weekly called "beautifully controlled, immensely affecting." It is 176 pages.

You can get Brown's What Keeps Me Here (stories) here.

Read this review of Annie Ernaux's The Use of Photography, which includes some excerpts from the book.

Read James Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son."

For more about Kevin Killian's Selected Amazon Reviews, click here.

Here's an NPR "Fresh Air" interview with Toni Morrison about writing Beloved. 

Watch Wayne Koestenbaum's "Why I Make Mini-Movies"

The queens put the "arch" in "archive" and rediscover some favorite poetry blasts from the past.

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Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

Listen to a reading Scott Cohen gave with poet  Tom Weatherly at St. Mark's Poetry Project in 1968. Read his poem "Coke" from a 1971 issue of The Paris Review. 

 David Henderson was raised in Harlem and helped to found the Black Arts Movement. Henderson’s books include Neo-California (North Atlantic Books, 1998) and De Mayor of Harlem (E. P. Dutton, 1970). His first poetry collection, Felix of the Silent Forest, was published by Diane di Prima for Poets Press in 1967 with an introduction by Amiri Baraka. Read 3 of his poems here, or check out his Poem-A-Day selection (from Dec. 19, 2024) here.

Also, check out David Henderson reading his poems with comment in the Recording Laboratory, May 3, 1978

Carter Ratcliff's books on art include examinations of John Singer Sargent, Robert Longo, Jackson Pollock, and Andy Warhol. He won a Guggenheim for his fine art scholarship, and his articles and criticism have appeared widely in such magazines as Art in America, ARTnews, and Artforum. Check out his novel, Tequila Mockingbird and this poem from The Baffler. 

Read more about Iris Rifkin-Gainer here and watch an interview with her regarding her work in dance therapy. Read a poem of hers here too.

Read Edwin Denby's bio as well as three poems here.

David Denby is indeed an American journalist and reviewed films until 2014 for The New Yorker.

The queens talk literary confidantes; then we discuss the pros and pitfalls of poetic friendships.

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Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

Read a bit more about Spencer Williams's Tranz, including from the poem "Laramie" in the book, here. 

Watch this reading celebrating the Transgender Day of Visibility, featuring some  poets from our episode, including Amir Rabiyah and Stephanie Burt. Rabiyah's first    book, Prayers for My 17th Chromosome, is available through Sibling Rivalry Press.

Here is "Queer Facts About Vegetables" by Oliver Baez Bendorf. 

Read Jameson Fitzpatrick's poem "How to Feel Good" (and scroll for an essay by the poet).

Read Cameron Awkward-Rich "Lucille's Roaches" and visit the poet's website at https://www.cawkwardrich.com/

Read Joshua Jennifer Espinoza's sonnet from the episode.

Watch Espinoza read from her first book, I Don't Want to Be Understood, with guest D.A. Powell.

Read Taylor Johnson's "Trans is Against Nostalgia" and order Inheritance (Alice James).

Read Stephanie Burt's "Inside Out Stephanie" and check out the Breaking Form interview with Stephanie about the anthology she edited, Super Gay Poems.

Subhaga Crystal Bacon's "Crossings" appears in Transitory (Boa Books; purchase it here). Check out Bacon's website. 

Read torrin a. greathouse's "There’s No Trace of the Word “Transgender” in Adrienne Rich’s Biography"

Anthologies:

Troubling the Line

We Want it All

Subject to Change

The queens talk literary confidantes; then we discuss the pros and pitfalls of poetic friendships.

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

Check out Toni Morrison's  1987 eulogy for James Baldwin in the New York Times.

We read from Fran Lebowitz's remembrance of her friend Toni Morrison, printed in the Paris Review.

If you haven't already, read Brenda Hillman's "Male Nipples" 

Read "The Curious Friendship of Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell" from The Atlantic.

Check out this exploration of the dynamics in literary friendships published in Esquire. 

The Breaking Form broads recount their poetic travels abroad in this Season 3 opener.

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

The David Hockney retrospective in Paris is on view until August 31. For more about his painting "Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy," click here.

For more about Hockney and the Muse, read "David Hockney's Literary Influences" 

For a map that names the regions comprising Italy, go here. 

Jorie Graham's poem "San Sepolcro" first appeared in Erosion, and it concerns Piero della Francesca's iconic fresco "Madonna del Porto," on view at the Musei Civici Madonna del Parto, in the tiny Umbrian village of Monterchi, Italy. (In fact, the only work on view at the museum is the Madonna, which is worth the trip).

For more about Civitella Ranieri, visit https://civitella.org, and follow them on Instagram @civitellaranieri or on Facebook. Civitella livestreams presentations by these world-class artists on IG Live.

The queens boil down the essence of some favorite poems and poets in this game that decides what poetry is *really* about.

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

Read the NY Times review of Michael Schmidt's The Lives of the Poets

Listen to James Merrill read his poem "For Proust" and while we're on the subject, here's a madeleine recipe. 

For an examination of Bishop's sensible sensibility, go here. 

Watch Anne Carson read from Nox (~24 min).

Here is a Galway Kinnell tribute reading from May 2015 which included Marie Howe and Sharon Olds (among others).

Watch Dorianne Laux read "Trying to Raise the Dead" published in her book Smoke

In a New Yorker profile interview, Natasha Trethewey discusses Native Guard, and says that we have to remember "the nearly two hundred thousand African American soldiers who fought in the Civil War, who fought for their own freedom, who fought to preserve the Union rather than destroy the Union, to whom there are very few monuments erected. Just think how different the landscape of the South would be, and how differently we would learn about our Southern history, our shared American history, if we had monuments to those soldiers who won the war—who didn’t lose the war but won the war to save the Union. Those are the monuments we need to have." Read the whole conversation and profile here.

Here's a BBC4 adaptation of Browning's The Ring and the Book (~1 hour)

Go here for more about George Meredith's sonnet sequence Modern Love.

If you were looking for a free audio full-text version of Tennyson's In Memoriam read by Elizabeth Klatt, today's your lucky day. (~2.5 hours).

If you're looking to submit, the queens have some advice for you!

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

Check out On the Seawall: a community gallery of new writing, art and commentary hosted by poet Ron Slate.

Here's some great advice about submitting & publishing poetry.

Here's another good article about submitting to literary magazines.

And here's yet some more advice, this time by published writers and editors like Krista Marie Darling (Tupelo Press), Sandra Beasley (Blair Publishing), and others.

The ladies ask AI to write poems about Brad Pitt's butt. It’s not so bad Brad, sad Brad, is it?

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

Aaron's "Brad Pitt" appeared in his first book, Blue on Blue Ground. Read the poem here. 

Here's the official video for the Miley Cyrus song "End of the World" and here's a remix that is rocking our worlds, too. 

I couldn't find Brad Pitt reciting poetry, but he does read from A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James in this clip.

For more about Matsuo Bashō go here.

Read this excellent and moving piece about AI and grief by Jason Fagone: "The Jessica Simulation: Love and loss in the age of A.I." details a grieving man's use of the AI called Project December in order to cope with the loss of his fiancé.

The queens discuss and revise a recent list of "best poetry," adding other tops (& bottoms & verses & sides, you get the point, miss thing).

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

For a few lists of best 21st Century poetry:                                                                                  The Atlantic (which we read in the show).                                                                                The New York Times

Read Mark Strand's titular poem "Man and Camel"

Read Craig Morgan Teicher's review of Glück's Faithful and Virtuous Night

Watch Tracy K. Smith's answer to "Does poetry matter" in this conversation with Tracey E. Hucks at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. If you'd like to see Smith read from her Pulitzer-Prize-winning Life on Mars, here's a particularly good one.

Read "Deception Story" by Solmaz Sharif from Look

James mediated a conversation and workshop with Diane Seuss on poetry and mental health, which can be viewed on YouTube here

Read a selection of poems from Patricia Smith's Blood Dazzler

The Brigit Pegeen Kelly poem James talked about in the show is "Closing Time; Iskandariya." Here it is, posted on Ilya Kaminsky's social media. 

Read a portfolio of writers on Kelly's book Song published recently in West Branch online (edited by Shara Lessley with short essays by David Baker, Amit Majmudar, Gabrielle Bates, and C. Dale Young).

The queens dish this year’s AWP Conference!

Please Support Breaking Form!

Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.

James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

 Notes:

 The Association of Writers and Writing Programs can be found online at www.awpwriter.org

 Marcela Fuentes is the author of the award-winning novel Malas and you can find her online at https://www.marcelafuentes.com

Check out the exhibit Flesh World at Central Server Works, showcasing paintings by Monica Berger and Sofia Heftersmith.

Julie Marie Wade's The Mary Yearsis a novella which won The 2023 Clay Reynolds Novella Prize, selected by Michael Martone.

Purchase a copy of the Maureen Seaton tribute book When I Was Straight

Check out "From the Motel-By-the-Hour" (originally in The Iowa Review) from Nancy K. Pearson's book Two Minutes of Light from Perugia here.

Claire J. Bateman's book is The Pillow Museum, available from the University of Alabama Press

Jen Jabaily-Blackburn's Girl in a Bear Suit won the Elixir Press Award. Buy it from her on her website: https://www.jenjabailyblackburn.com

Emily Lee Luan won the Nightboat Poetry Prize for Return. Visit her website here.

More information about the Civitella Ranieri Foundation can be found here.  

James's Best American Poetry 2025 selection is called "Inheritance at Corresponding Periods of Life, at Corresponding Seasons of the Year, as Limited by Sex" originally published in Adroit Journal.

Get in, gurl, we're reading poetry at your unfriendly neighborhood leather bar.

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

Learn more about Tom of Finland, the artist name of Finnish Touko Laaksonen who signed his erotic work "Tom." 

Follow messygayspod on Instagram, or @messygays.bsky.social on Blue Sky, or on FB at MessyGaysPod

Read Heather McHugh's "The Amenities" (care warning: sexual assault)

Read sam sax's "On PrEP or on Prayer [“when i say pre-exposure prophylaxis”]

Read Elizabeth Bishop's "The Moose"

Read Diane Wakoski's "Uneasy Rider"

Here's an excerpt from Mark Bibbins's 13th Balloon

Read this poem by Tyehimba Jess

Check out Robin Coste Lewis's page on The Elders Project here. TEP captures and celebrates untold and underrepresented stories of activists, storytellers, and community builders who have witnessed and shaped great change in American public life. 

Read this consideration/critique of Cruising 

Read this interview of Mary Jo Bang.

Stephen King addresses rumors about Musk insults here.

Read this great review of Bianca Stone's fabulous The Mobius Strip Club of Grief.

If you haven't seen the 20th anniversary edition of Richard Siken's Crush, check it out here. 

Check out Nighboat's Rob Halpern's Music for Porn 

Read Jenny Johnson's essay "Butch Blow Job" in Bomb.

The queens super-gay it up with Stephanie Burt, the editor of the new poetry anthology, SUPER GAY POEMS.

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

Check out SUPER GAY POEMS: LGBTQIA+ Poetry after Stonewall, edited by Stephanie Burt, out on April 1, 2025. 

Read Hera Lindsay Bird's "Bisexuality"

Check out Best New Zealand Poets and 20 Contemporary New Zealand Poets.

Read JD McClatchy's "My Mammogram" 

The article we reference by the founders of AALR is "The World Doesn't Stop for Derek Walcott, or: An Exchange between Coeditors." Gerald Maa and Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis.

Here's a link, if you haven't listened to our episode "We Can Shift the Canon"

Vendler's final book is called Inhabit the Poem: Last Essays, out from Penguin on September 2, 2025.

Read "Breakfast with Miss Bishop"--Helen Vendler on Elizabeth Bishop.

Read here for more about Essex Hemphill.

Stephanie wrote about teaching the Taylor Swift course at Harvard for Vanity Fair.

Read Stephanie's "Taylor's Version: The Poetic and Musical Genius of Taylor Swift"

The Tay Learning Podcast that Stephanie mentions can be found here.

Read Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market"

We're talking resistance, joy, and queer communities with Brenda Shaughnessy!

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Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

Click here for Brenda’s Queer Resistance Playlist 2025 (Spotify).

Check out Brenda's poem "Panopticon" from Interior with Sudden Joy.

Visit Brenda Shaughnessy’s website . And hear her read from her newest book, Tanya here. 

Read more about UC Santa Cruz closing the Feminist Studies Dept here. 

Read more about Maria Ressa

For more about Roland Barthes’s contribution to literary criticism, read here.

While dated, here’s a list of creative writing programs that are LGBTQ+ friendly.

 Read more about Bettina Aptheker

Read more about Donna J. Haraway

Read on for more about the clubs Brenda mentions: Meow Mix, Clit Club, Henrietta Hudson (still open!), Pandora's Box, and more.

Read more about Angela Davis's work here.

For more about Wendy Brown, read her Guggenheim citation here.

You can learn more about Allan Bérubé here.

 Learn more about the incredible Urvashi Vaid here.

Watch/listen to Cécile McLorin Salvant's "Until" here. 

Read more about Kate Clinton on her website here.

For more about Teresa de Lauretis, click here. 

The queens get to the poetic essence with the help of erasure and re-envisioning.

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

The Nicole Sealey poem we read at the end of the episode comes from the first four pages of her book The Ferguson Report: An Erasure

We revise poems by:

Robert Bly, "The Beauty of Women"

George Herbet, "Death"

Dean Young, "Belief in Magic"

William Stafford, "Accountability"

Billy Collins, "Design"

The video we mention posted by The New Yorker was posted in April 2023 to FaceBook: "How a New Yorker Poetry Editor Selects Poems"

Watch John Travolta introduce Idina Menzel as "the wickedly talented Adele Dazeem" and then Menzel getting her good-natured revenge.

For more about the feminist practice of erasure poetry, we can recommend Erase the Patriarchy: An Anthology of Erasure Poetry. 

Join the thirsty queens for a gin & Sextonic, in this tribute to the iconic work of Anne Sexton.

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

Click here for a pdf from the Poetry Society that includes a folio of essays about Sexton's life and work by David Trinidad, Lois Ames, and Maggie Nelson. (Originally published in Crossroads, fall 2001.)

Trinidad talks about Anne Sexton on the podcast here.

And, lastly, we'd be remiss if we did not link to this dishy, well-researched article--again by the fabulous David Trinidad--about the palace intrigue behind Sexton's winning the Pulitzer for Live or Die.

Want to read more about Sexton, faith, and love? Your wait is over. 

Curious about Anne Sexton's houses? Click here! 

Here's an hour of Sexton reading some of her most iconic poems. 

Anne Sexton gave her last public reading at Goucher College in October 1974, three days before she completed suicide. You can find the reading here.

Here are links to some of the poems we mention:

"The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator"

"Menstruation at Forty"

"Her Kind"

"Sylvia's Death"

"The Fury of Cocks"

"Cigarettes and Whiskey and Wild, Wild Women"

The queens talk with gay literary icon Edmund White about his new book, The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir. (Miguel Murphy joins in the fun, too!)

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.                            

Miguel's SHORE DITCH is available from Barrow Street.

You can purchase Edmund White's new book, The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir, at BookWoman here. Bookwoman was founded to increase access to queer and feminist literature in Texas nearly fifty years ago. 

Read Colm Tóibín's essay, "On the Casual Brilliance of Edmund White"

Read a tribute to Gary Indiana  in The Guardian here. 

Need a quick definition refresher of auto fiction? Here you go!

 Miguel mentions that composer Arnold Schoenberg's archive destroyed in LA fires, and you can read more about that here. 

Here's a dishy roundup of Nabokov's insults of Dostoevsky

For a bit more about Larry Kramer's objections to The Farewell Symphony, read on.

Learn more about Richard Howard and his poetry here. 

Edmund White and Michael Carroll talk about their relationship, and their experiences writing gay fiction here.

And here's the Interview Magazine article we mention in the episode, in which gay writers ask Edmund White a question: “Tall Blonde With a Big Dick”: 18 Men Ask Edmund White Some Sexy Questions"

 Finally, check out the fabulous Garth Greenwell's website: https://www.garthgreenwell.com

The queens prove that it's not the size of the ship but the motion etc etc in this episode devoted to short poems.

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Pretty Please with Aaron's cherry on top.....  Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

Poems we mention in the show include:

A.R. Ammons's "Their Sex Life"

Rae Armantrout's "Anti-Short Story" and "Custom"

Mahogany L. Browne's "Marigold." Listen to it read here.

Andrea Cohen's "After" and "Matinee" and "Flight Pattern" and "Ghosting"

Robert Creeley, "The Answer"

Jim Harrison's "Another Country" and "Barking"

Jane Hirshfield's "Like Others" and to "The Woman, The Tiger." You can hear her read that poem here (at the 18:12 mark).

Sandra Lim, "Just Disaster" and "At the Other End of the Wire" and "Endings"

Listen to Sandra Lim read her poems (~40 minutes) with many short poems at the end. 

Samuel Menashe's "Adam Means Earth" and "Apotheosis"

Harryette Mullen's "Way Opposite"

Kay Ryan's "Winter Fear" 

Listen/watch the music video for Gilette's "Short, Short Man" here.

Get out your UV lights & swabs--the queens play a game that fuses poems, then guess the poetic DNA samples. Then we spark up a fusion of a different strain!

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Pretty Please.....Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

SHOW NOTES:

Watch Jools Lebron get mindful and demure here, diva

Don't soak tampons in vodka. 

Poems we discuss in the episode include:

Philip Levine's "Bitterness"

Laura Kasischke's "Champagne"

Kay Ryan's "Shark's Teeth"

Kenneth Koch's "One Train May Hide Another"

Annie Finch's "Wild Yeasts"

Dorothea Lasky's "Toast to my friend or why Friendship is the best kind of Love"

Danusha Laméris's "Bonfire Opera"

Marie Ponsot's "Among Women"

Tina Chang's "God Country"

Campbell McGrath's "Sunset, Route 90, Brewster County, Texas"

Elizabeth Bishop's "The Fish"

W.B. Yeats's "Leda and the Swan"

Gerard Manley Hopkins's "The Windhover"

Anne Sexton's "Jesus Awake" & "Wanting to Die" 

Langston Hughes's "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" & "I, Too"

Philip Larkin's "Sad Steps" 

And Beyonce's "You Won't Break My Soul [Queens Remix]," in which she sampled Madonna's song "Vogue," returning it to the culture where it rightly belongs.

The queens get sassy and sissify toxic cisheteronormative gender ideas about poetry.

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Pretty Please.....Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

The site in such desperate need of sissification (and better poets) can be found here. Or just skip to a queer critique here and/or to Esther Wang's super smart deep-dive takedown "My Brief Hero's Journey into the 'Art of Manliness,' Which Unfortunately Did Not Teach Me to Chop Wood" (on Jezebel, so you know that shit's good).

Bill Waterson is the creator and writer of Calvin and Hobbes, which also includes poems over the years. 

Sam Elliott chews the scenery with Cher in Mask--watch a great scene here. 

For some terrifically sissy poems, read on:

"Sissy" by Aaron Smith

"Hypothesis" by Paul Tran

"Sissy Aqueducts" by Brandon Menke

"LISP" by sam sax

The queens discuss gay icon status with Brenda Hillman--and then launch in to a revisit of several of her poems, including her fabulous "Male Nipples."


Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Pretty Please.....Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

 You can see readings by Brenda Hillman here (one poem, ~4 min, 2020), here (20min, 2012), and here (2024, poetry and conversation with Jesse Nathan).

For a review and discussion of Hillman's new book, Three Talks, check out this episode of The Only Property. (~30 min).

(Re)read Wallace Stevens's "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"

Learn more about Kathleen Fraser here. 

Discover more about Barbara Guest and her 9 collections of poetry here.

If you'd like to know more about Kelsey Street Press's mission and history, it's a fascinating journey that you can start here.

A basic introduction to gnosticism can be had here. 

Learn more about the Black Mountain Poets here.

Read about Objectivist Poetics here.

Candle-extinguishing butts, 3am afterparties, collections of seamen (and semen)--this dishy tour of Langston Hughes's love life will leave you gagging with the gays.


Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Pretty Please.....Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

SHOW NOTES:

Watch Hughes recite his poem, "The Weary Blues" to jazz accompaniment on tv in 1958.

You can check out troves of Hughes's poetry here, here, and here.

Read Langston Hughes's poem "Café: 3AM"

Listen to Hughes read "Harlem."

Langston Hughes's first memoir, The Big Sea, about his seafaring travels--including upon the West Hesseltine where he said he had that fateful encounter with a sailor--can be found here.  It includes  the essay "Spectacles in Color" in which Hughes describes queer ballroom scene and Countee Cullen's wedding  to Yolanda Du Bois (with Harold Jackson, his boyfriend, serving as best man).

Faith Berry's biography of Hughes is Before and Beyond Harlem. Her papers are at the Library of Congress.

Read more about Arnold Ampersad's biography of Hughes:
Volume 1 (which covers 1902-1940 and does have a snazzy subtitle: I, Too, Sing America).
Volume 2 (which covers 1941-death and also has a snazzy subtitle: I Dream a World).

Other receipts for the episode can be found in the following essays and scholarship:
Hilton Als, "The Elusive Langston Hughes" (The New Yorker, 2015)

Juda Bennett, "Multiple Passings and the Double Death of Langston Hughes" (Biography, vol 23.4, 2000).Link through Project Muse.

Andrew Donnelly, "Langston Hughes on the DL" (College Literature, Volume 44, Number 1, Winter 2017). Link through Project Muse.

Mason Stokes, "Strange Fruits: Rethinking the Gay Twenties" (Transition , 2002, No. 92). Link through JSTOR.

Shane Vogel, "Closing Time: Langston Hughes and the Poetics of Harlem Nightlife," in Criticism (Vol 48.3, 2006). Link through Project Muse.

Jennifer Wilson, "Queer Harlem, Queer Tashkent" (Slavic Review , FALL 2017). Link through JSTOR.

Finally, visit Ann Patchett's bookstore online here: https://www.parnassusbooks.net/

Whet your appetite with half a poem from 3 fabulous poets and choose your own poetic fulfillment!

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Pretty Please.....Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
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SHOW NOTES:

Read Catherine Bowman's poem "1-800-Hot-Ribs."
Read Catherine Barnett's poem "'Have You Ever Written a Poem About Death?' My Mother Asks."
Read Catherine Pierce's poem "The Curator of the Earth Museum Speaks of People."

Watch Catherine Bowman’s read her poem "Makeshift" (~1.5 mins) from Can I Finish, Please (Four Way Books, 2016). Bowman's title poem from 1-800-HOT-RIBS  which we read on the show can be found on the blog “Read Good Poetry,” which was updated through 2022.

Watch Nicole Sealey read Catherine Barnett's poem "Apophasis at the All-Night Rite Aid" (1 min). You can catch Catherine reading (about 7 min) here. Click here to read another Barnett poem in APR called “Envoy” (also from Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space).  Visit Barnett's website here.

Catherine Pierce reads four poems from Danger Days here (~20 mins) and talks craft on the Wednesday Night Sessions show. Visit Pierce's website here, and check out episodes of Mississippi Poetry Podcast (which Pierce hosts) here.

The queens go in (and out) on poetry trends for 2025, all while doing their Kegel exercises.

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Pretty Please.....Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
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SHOW NOTES:

Watch Marie Howe in conversation with poet and friend of the show, Nicole Tallman (18 mins), for South Florida Poetry Journal.

 You can catch a reading of some poets included in Invisible Strings: 113 Poets Respond to the Songs of Taylor Swift here. 

Read Carol Frost's poem "Gross Clinic" from her book I Will Say Beauty (mentioned in the show).

When we mention "the Sharon Olds stanza," here’s a representative of what we mean: "After Making Love in Winter" (Poetry Magazine, May 1987)

A bit more about The Vivienne, a drag superstar and winner of Season 1 of Drag Race UK, can be found here.

More about Ada Limon's historic appointment as Poet Laureate can be accessed here.

A few Game Shows poems:
Jennifer L. Knox, “The New Let’s Make a Deal”
Julie Marie Wade, "From the Jeopardy! Category Spoiler Alerts"

A special encore presentation of our World AIDS Day episode from last year, featuring work by writers we've lost to AIDS.

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Pretty Please.....Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
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SHOW NOTES:
According to the website for World AIDS Day, more than 38 million people are currently living with HIV. And, since 1984, more than 35 million people have died of HIV or AIDS-related illnesses, making it one of the most destructive pandemics in history. Donate here.

Please consider buying the books of the poets we honor! We recommend Loyalty Bookstores, a DC-area Black-owned bookshop.

We dedicated a Breaking Form Episode ("The Invisible Embrace") to Paul Monette (October 16, 1945--February 10, 1995). Monette was the author of 4 novels, 3 books of nonfiction, and 4 books of poems, including a New and Selected Poems  called West of Yesterday, East of Summer (1994). He died of complications due to AIDS on February 10, 1995.

Read more about Essex Hemphill here, and  "American Wedding" (the poem Aaron reads during the show) here.  He published 2 chapbooks and 2 books of poetry, and edited the anthology Brother to Brother: New Writing by Black Gay Men, winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Hemphill died of complications from AIDS in 1995. Watch a short film written and performed by Hemphill called "From the Anacostia to the Potomac" here(~15 min)

Dorothy Karen "Cookie" Mueller (March 2, 1949 – November 10, 1989) was an American actress and writer who starred in many of filmmaker John Waters's early films, including Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble.  Mueller wrote columns and criticism for magazines and papers, and released several books as well, including a memoir, Garden of Ashes. A short film of remembrances about Mueller can be seen here.  In April 2022, Semiotext(e) released Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black: Collected Stories.

Iris de la Cruz inspired the foundation Iris House. You can read more about Iris and the foundation here. De la Cruz died in 1991, leaving a 15-year legacy of fighting for health rights for women/femmes living with HIV. Hear the entire essay James reads ("Sex, Drugs, Rock 'n' Roll, and AIDS”) in this video here.  (TW for anachronistic language regarding sex work.)

David Michael Wojnarowicz (September 14, 1954 – July 22, 1992) was an American painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, songwriter/recording artist, and AIDS activist. He died in 1992, having written more than 10 books (including Close to the Knives, from which Aaron reads), exhibited his visual art all over the world, and directed at least two films. 

Melvin Dixon was born on May 29, 1950 and died October 26, 1992. He authored two poetry collections: Change of Territory and the posthumous Love's Instruments. His novels were Vanishin

The queens play a round of Step Your Poetry Up before poet-voicing porn dialogue.

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     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
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SHOW NOTES:

Here are links to some of the poems we mention:

Amy Lowell, "Patterns"
Robinson Jeffers, "Credo"
H.D., "Sea Rose"
Sara Teasdale, "Moonlight"
An essay on Hart Crane's "The River"
Robert Duncan, "My Mother Would Be a Falconress"
Theodore Roethke, "In a Dark Time"
Robert Creeley, "The Rain"
James Dickey, "The Sheep Child"
Galway Kinnell, "The Bear"
Stanley Kunitz, "Father and Son"

We make reference to the poet C. Dale Young--visit him online here. 

If they wanted only to hold you, the queens could hold you prisoner in this tribute to America's most recent Nobel Laureate.

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     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
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SHOW NOTES:

"Happiness" from Descending Figure
Part 9 of "Marathon" in Meadowlands
"Adult Grief" in The Triumph of Achilles
"Lost Love" in Ararat
"New World" in Ararat
"Averno" from Averno
"Winter Morning" in Triumph of Achilles
"Crossroads" in A Village Life

Here are some remembrances of Glück published in The Paris Review.

Another terrific tribute appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, collecting memories by Paul Tran, Katie Peterson, Spencer Reese, Eliza Gonzalez, and Richie Hofmann.

Listen to Glück read "Crossroads."

The queens get Bossy Rossy before they compare thee to a summer's eve.

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Pretty Please.....Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
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SHOW NOTES:

Ross Gay is a Leo who has authored four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding, and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. In addition to his poetry, Gay has released three collections of essays—The Book of Delights was a New York Times bestseller; Inciting Joy; and The Book of (More) Delights. Visit Ross Gay’s website here.

Ross Mathews is a Libra born Sept. 24, 1979. He’s appeared on numerous shows, and is currently a co-host on The Drew Barrymore Show and a judge on the panel of RuPaul’s Drag Race. He is also the author of two books: Name Drop and Man Up! And with his husband, Dr. Wellinthon Garcia-Mathews, who has a PhD in education and education policy. Visit Ross Mathews’s website here.

The Ross Gay poems we mention in the episode are:
“Sorrow Is Not My Name”
“Ode to the Puritan in Me”
"Poem to My Child, If Ever You Shall Be"
“Thank You”
"Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude”
"Opera Singer"

André Leon Talley was known for his love of bespoke black tie and colourful, couture kaftans – which he often wore together for red carpet events. Check out his top 10 fashion moments from Elle Magazine.

Drew Barrymore had a spit take with Ross Mathews (check it out here) and with Leslie Jones (check it at the 3:45 mark)

Ross Gay does love basketball. Read “Have I Even Told You Yet About the Courts I’ve Loved?” in LitHub.

You can follow Joy Behar on Instagram at @joyvbehar, and see the spat between RuPaul and Behar here.

Read Sonnet 18, “Shall I Compare Thee…” here or watch the fabulous Harriet Walter perform the poem here.

Watch this clip from 1969’s The Gay Deceivers to learn the difference between peonies and marigolds.

Gottmik’s RuPaul’s Drag Race roast appeared in “The Nice Girls Roast” not one dedicated just to Ross Mathews. You can watch Gottmik’s jokes here (hit the 8:45 mark). If you do want to watch the RPDR roast of Mathews, you can 

The queens talk bisexual poetics and genius with Nicky Beer, before getting all dolled up in a game of real vs fake Dolly.

Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

SHOW NOTES:

Visit Nicky Beer’s website: http://www.nickybeer.com

Read this conversation with Nicky Beer published in The Adroit Journal in 2022.

Read this review of Beer’s The Octopus Game in F(r)iction.

Nicky mentions the Las Culturistas podcast and you can check that out here.

Read Nicky’s fabulous 3-line poem “Sawing a Lady in Half”

Learn more about Jim Steinmeyer’s Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear.

Read Nick’s poem “The Demolitionists”

“Death is god’s apology for suffering”--a line Aaron mentions in the show--is from Nicky’s poem “The Poet Who Does Not Believe in Ghosts.”

Nicky mentions Steel Magnolias, in which Dolly Parton starred as Truvy Jones. Watch the trailer for the movie here.

Visit the HRC’s Resource Guide to Coming Out Bisexual. Also check out Bi.Org’s coming out guide.

Learn more about June Thomas’s A Place of Our Own

The queens have one thing to say: you better werk!

Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
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SHOW NOTES:

Click here to read Philip Levine's "What Work Is"

Read more about Philip Levine

Read Ada Límon's poem “How We Are Made” dedicated to Levine, who was her teacher. Límon talks about Levine in this interview.

Read the iconic and heartbreaking James L. White poem "Making Love to Myself"

You can watch Jimmy Merrill read from his 560-page epic poem “The Changing Light at Sandover” in this 12-minute clip.

Read more about the Academy of American Poets's Poem-a-Day series here.

Read Carl Phillips’s Poem-a-Day that James loves: “That Part in the Music”

And check out Poetry Daily: https://poems.com

Snap INTO it, girlarina! The queens re-cast Cher movies with poets.

Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

SHOW NOTES:

Read Patricia Smith's "Incendiary Art."

Here's Cher's cover of “Shoop Shoop (It's in His Kiss)." And here's Merry Clayton's version.

Cher starred in the movie Mask, which was released in 1985. Mask won the Academy Award for Best Makeup at the 58th ceremony, while Cher and Stoltz received Golden Globe Award nominations for their performances. Watch the scene where Rusty Dennis (Cher) barges into a high school to fight for her son. The director, when asked a question about the most difficult actor he'd worked with, replied it was Cher.

If you haven't read Mary Oliver's "The Summer Day," go here.

For more about the Future Library, read an article here. 

One of Jorie Graham's poems that make James cry is "At Luca Signorelli's Resurrection of the Body." 

Read Marie Ponsot's poem "Language Acquisition"

You can read Jericho Brown's iconic poem "Track 5: Summertime" here. Or watch a video of him reading it here.

Here's the trailer for The Witches of Eastwick, which is also a 1984 novel by John Updike.

Read Sandra Beasley's blog here. Listen to Beasley read her poem "Peaches" (first published in Cherry Tree).

Read more about Rigoberto González here.

 Cher was just inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Watch her induction speech and a live performance of "Believe" here. 

The queens get all Brenda on that Brenda, you Brenda?


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Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.


SHOW NOTES:

Read more about Brenda Coultas here. Watch Coultas read with Alice Notley here (1 hour). And read this conversation between Coultas and Stacy Szymaszek.

Watch the best of Brenda Walsh’s outfits from Season 3 of Beverly Hills, 90210

You can find Brenda Hillman's website here. Hear her read “Species Prepare to Exist After Money." Read Jesse Nathan’s conversation with Hillman (in his “Short Conversations with Poets” series) here in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

 
Follow Brenda K. Starr on Instagram @officialbrendakstarr. Watch Mariah Carey recall singing backup with Starr here. And here is Mariah’s official video for “I Still Believe” (covering BKS).

Visit Brenda Shaughnessy’s website. Hear her read from her newest book, Tanya. And read Hilton Als’s essay, “Brenda Shaughnessy’s Ferocious Mother Poems” in the New Yorker here.

Watch Brenda Blethyn get humped by her dog during a This Morning television interview.

For the craziest trip, visit Brenda Walsh Ministries online at https://brendawalsh.com

Join the Salami Sisters for this episode of The Real Housef*gs of Breaking Form.

Support Breaking Form!
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Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.


SHOW NOTES:

Soufiane Ababri is the artist we talk about whose series of artworks is Bedwork / Yes I AM

Here are are versions (one & two & three) of Dickinson's "One need not be a Chamber—to be Haunted—”

Learn more about the etymology of the word “faggot."

Read John Donne's “The Flea”

Watch Cher on Graham Norton. 

The queens get out their big smooth (crystal) balls to predict the National Book Award shortlist in poetry. Play along! The shortlist is announced Oct. 1.

Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.


SHOW NOTES:

You can find the National Book Awards longlists for fiction, translation, young people's literature, and poetry here. 

Watch Lena Khalaf Tuffaha read her poem "Mountain, Stone" here. You can find the text of the poem here. 

Check out this NY Times article, "The Inscrutable Brilliance of Anne Carson." Or check out this Lannan conversation with Carson.

Here is an hour-long conversation, "Aesthetics of Return: Palestinian Poetry," with Fady Joudah and Prof. Fida Adely, moderated by Bassam Haddad.

Watch Elizabeth Willis give a reading at the Univ. of Georgia in Feb. 2024.

Watch this fabulous reading and interview with Diane Seuss, conducted by Ron Charles.

Watch Rowan Ricardo Phillips read his poem "Boys" at the Griffin Prize ceremony.

Watch Octavio Quintanilla read his poem "Exiliados"

Dorianne Laux appeared on Grace Cavalieri's fabulous The Poet and the Poem series July 2024. Watch here.

Watch m.s. RedCherries give a reading as part of the Fellows Reading of the Indigenous Nations Poets here. 

Your favorite bridesmaids are (drunk and dis)orderly in this episode about writing for special occasions.

Support Breaking Form!
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Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
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SHOW NOTES

Here's a cinematic example of an epithalamion--an e.e. Cummings poem (from In Her Shoes).

James’s poem “A Monument for This Morning” appears on p. 4 here. It’s not supposed to be centered on the page. But oh well.

 Signed copies of Cher’s book The First Time is a collectible, being sold here for $600. We did find copies in the more affordable $300-range too.

Mike and the Mechanics’s song “The Living Years” was their biggest hit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGDA0Hecw1kHere's the video for the song.

 The name “Shayla” was Charlotte’s secret baby name, and her friend Laney stole it for her baby. The episode appeared in Season 1, E. 10. Watch the scene, including a great bit from Samantha, here. 

You can pre-order Invisible Strings: 113 Poets Respond to the Songs of Taylor Swift, which includes work by both of us, as well as Carl Phillips, Diane Seuss, Joy Harjo, and others.

The queens are all lubed up and waiting for you in the badlands that is Breaking Form.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

SHOW NOTES

See Beckian Fritz Goldberg read poems here (at 1:04 mark)

Our friend Maureen Seaton died on August 26, 2023. Watch her read poems for Alaska Quarterly here. You can listen to our tribute episode to Maureen here, and our Breaking Form episodes with her here and here.

Anne and Nancy Wilson of Heart have actually reunited and will tour all over the US in 2024. Watch them sing with Kelly Clarkson here.

Here's a short interview with Ellen Bryant Voigt.

Here's a short interview and reading with Frank O'Hara.

Crisco is 113 years old. Watch this 1981 ad for it, featuring Loretta Lynn.

Throb Magazine can be found online at: https://www.throbmag.com/about

Listen to Ander Monson in this short poetic video "PREDATOR vs. Alien vs. Predator"

Here are three clips from Julianne Moore that we reference in the show:
Julianne Moore and Robert Pattinson (Maps to the Stars) talking about gloves and sex.
Maps to the Stars: bleeding on the $12,000 couch
Heather Graham and Julianne Moore doing coke together in Boogie Nights.

Go tell it on the mountain, darlings! Join the queens for a special Breaking Form report on the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
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SHOW NOTES

If you don't know about Absolutely Fabulous, which first ran from 1992-95, you're missing out. Catch Edina and Patsy's best moments here.

Mona van Duyn taught at Bread Loaf at least once--according to this poster.

Check out audio recordings of Bread Loaf readings and lectures here. I can also recommend the reading by Adrian Matejka & Paul Lisicky, both of whom read from work about celebrity icons (it was like a class on how to do that well).

The t-slur has been recognized as an offensive slur for at least 10 years, if not more, as this Advocate article about the slur indicates.

Daniel Mendelsohn's review ("A Striptease Among Pals") of Hana Yanagihara's A Little Life can be read here (sorry about the paywall!) and the whole dustup gets further press in this Guardian article.

For more information about and to apply to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conferences (there are other conferences in environmental writing and in translation), visit their website here.

Join the queens for this last poetry salon, where we highlight fabulous poets we haven't discussed much on the show.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
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Settle in for this fourth poetry salon, a show as jam-packed with radiant pleasure as a dark room in Rehoboth.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
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This Summer Salon has zero tan-lines and a ton of fabulous poetry!

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
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Who wears short shorts? Celebrate summer with the queens as we read poets we haven't focused on before.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
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The Breaking Form girls are taking a little August break, but we still want to brighten your summer with poems! 

Spill all the tea but spill it slant with the Breaking Form queens in this episode dedicated to the art of secrets.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

SHOW NOTES

Cougar Town is an American television sitcom that ran for six seasons, from 2009 to 2015. See the best moment of Laurie Keller (played by Busy Phillips) here.

The music journalist Hugh McIntyre is indeed gay.

 Patsy Stone's full name is: Eurydice Colette Clytemnestra Dido Bathsheba Rabelais Patricia Cocteau Stone. See some of her best moments from Absolutely Fabulous here.

Read Lucille Clifton's "Lost Baby Poem"

Read Nomi Stone's poems "La Ghriba (“The Stranger”) Tells How and Why," "Waiting for Happiness," and "Archiving What We Saw"

Read Ruth Stone's "Speculation," "Shapes," and "As Real As Life" 

Read Bianca Stone's "Cutting Odette's Fingernails,"Marcus Aurelius," and "The Request of the Doe" 

Aaron and James revisit an iconic poem about queer duty and erasure by Essex Hemphill.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

SHOW NOTES

Read Hemphill's biographical sketch on the Poetry Foundation.

We reference Hemphill's canonical poem, which you can read: "American Wedding" (listen to Justin Smith read the poem here).

Hemphill's Ceremonies was published by Cleis Press in 1992.

Hit the 1:04 mark on this clip to hear Hemphill read a poem as part of Tongues Untied.

Hemphill took part in a panel during the Black Nations/Queer Nations Conference in the early 90s alongside Samuel R. Delaney and Coco Fusco. His talk is about HIV, Blackness, and queerness. 

Spill all the tea but spill it slant with the Breaking Form queens in this episode dedicated to the art of secrets.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
     Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
     James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

SHOW NOTES

Madonna's "Secret" was the lead single off of her sixth album, Bedtime Stories. Watch the video here.

 Read Sharon Olds's "Killing My Sister's Fish"

Len Roberts's "The Problem" appeared in APR March/April 2001 and can also be found in The Silent Singer.

Julia Kasdorf's "Eve's Curse" appears in her book Eve's Striptease. You can watch her give a reading (from As Is) here.

 Read Emily Dickinson's 260. And check out her handwritten copy here. Dickinson published TEN poems and a letter in her lifetime. 

Aaron reads the July 17, 1996 entry from Letters to Wendy's and you can read the text of that here.

Read CP Cavafy's "The Afternoon Sun" (trans. Edmund Keeley). Cavafy's complete literary corpus includes the 154 poems that constitute his poetic canon; his 75 unpublished or "hidden" poems, that were found completed in his archive or in the hands of friends, and weren't published until 1968; his 37 rejected poems, which he published but later renounced; his 30 incomplete poems that were found unfinished in his archive; as well as numerous other prose poems, essays, and letters.[16] According to the poet's instructions, his poems are classified into three categories: historical, philosophical, and hedonistic or sensual.[10]

Here's W.H. Auden's "If I Could Tell You" & you can hear him read it.

Read Laura Kasischke's "Bike Ride with Older Boys" (from her book Dance and Disappear).

Check out Cathy Linh Che's "The German word for dream is trauma."