This week, Aparna mostly brags about her visit to Uxbridge. We talk about improbable endings and Haley gets upset about triple threats. Aparna emphasizes the need for stories written by people from everywhere. For the main discussion, we contextualize our dissertations within our broader fields and people who are currently informing our work. Discussions include the social power of poetry, diversity in publishing, empirical ecocriticism, youth participation in social change, intersectionality, globalism, and what to do with the lyrical voice. We decide you could be in a forest of blueberry bushes. Haley discovers the delightful origin of the word 'nickname'. By the end, we mostly devolve into a puddle of giggles.
Haley spotlights “A Good News Paper” (https://www.goodgoodgood.co/goodnewspaper)
Aparna spotlights Eastcote Station in London
Mentions:
“The Moth: Life on a Möbius Strip” by Janna Levin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzy3t4ijKkY)
“The Housekeeper and The Professor” by Yoko Ogawa
“Pomegranates” Tala Rameh (https://fpif.org/two_poems_on_gaza/)
“Ghost fishing: An Eco Justice Poetry Anthology” edited by Melissa Tuckey, 2018
“The Hatred of Poetry” Ben Lerner, 2016
“Diversity in poetry is on the rise”, The Guardian, 2020 (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jun/25/diversity-in-poetry-on-the-rise-but-resistance-to-inclusivity-remains)
The “We Need Diverse Books” Movement, 2014
The “OwnVoices” Movement, 2015
Thank you to Pádraig Ó Tuama whose poem “The Facts of Life” inspired the title of this podcast.
Cover image by Sanjana Kapur.
