Shows
The Poetry SaloncastThe Sailor Moon Transformation SequenceWhy This Poem Matters: Listen to Tresha Faye Haefner discuss Rita Mookerjee's poem, "The Silor Moon Transformation Sequence." Hear her explain why it matters to her personally, and what it teaches her about the craft of writing poems. 2024-07-1912 min
The Poetry SaloncastFalse Offering with Rita MookerjeeInspiration, mental health struggles and what to make with a giant bag of tapioca starch, this conversation has it all. Rita tells me about her new book, False Offering, and a bit about her upcoming book, Banana Heart. She discusses the way her partner, Dorothy K. Chan helped her get back into writing poetry after taking a haitus and how important it is for her to see people with her background represented in the art. False Offering navigates much of what it means to be the daughter of Indian immigrants growing up in Pennsylvania, exploring a hunger for culture, and...2024-07-192h 45
The Poetry SaloncastSarah Browning: Poetry, Politics and Really Hot Priests“If we can’t face it, we can’t change it.” In our interview, Sarah Browning discusses her latest book, Killing Summer (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017). It tackles subjects such as racism and gun violence, but also memories of being a nerdy girl in high school and the year she was lucky enough to live in Italy. What comes through is Sarah’s attention to both the personal and the political realms. Early in her career, one of Sarah’s mentors told her not to write political poems because they were propaganda. Over the years Sarah has written to change this dynamic, wit...2024-05-161h 12
The Poetry SaloncastKelli Russell Agodon and Susan Rich: Demystifying the ManuscriptPlease enjoy our interview with Kelli and Susan on their new book! Here are the key take aways I got from our discussion.
You don’t necessarily need to go in chronological order. Start with the juciest parts or the most vulnerable poems.
Get an outside perspective. It’s the best way to be objective.
If you can you identify more than one theme, try organizing and titling your book after one sub-topic so that it becomes a main topic. Can you use the same poems to tell alternative stories?
Take writing advice from a ghost, not a muse...2024-05-161h 27
The Poetry SaloncastJose Hernandez Diaz: Realism and SurrealismJose calls his book, Bad Mexican, Bad American (Acre Books, 2024) “two books in one.” The first section is deeply autobiographical, but the second half is truly surreal. Jose and I talked about honoring his writing and life.
In the first section the speaker subverts stereotypes around growing up in economic hardship. Jose notes that though his family was poor they were, “Fucking happy, because his parents showed us so much love.” He felt that if he had only collected his surreal poems, people would ask, “Where are your Chicano poems? Where are your poems about social justice?”
Then his book shif...2024-05-161h 01
The Poetry SaloncastXochitl-Julisa Bermejo - How Love Leads to Revolutions
Audre Lorde
Pleasure Activism adrienne maree brown
Octavia Butler
Chen Chen, “When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities”
Khadija Queen’s “I’m so Fine”
Take-Away Quotes
“I thought about (the book) like a jewel setting. The Gettysburg poems were the center ring. The first and last sections would be the side settings. There are memoriam poems, and then there are love poems and happier poems about children.
“You don’t have to try so hard to just be yourself. . . There’s plenty to write about each day...2024-04-301h 01
The Poetry SaloncastHow Love Leads to RevolutionCan you write love poems during a time of war? What about sex poems or erotic poems about your current “situationship?” In this interview, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo discusses her latest book, Incantation, Love Poems for Battle Sites. She tells us that the book started with an artists grant which allowed her to visit Gettysburg to write about national monuments during a time when many were fighting over the meaning of those monuments and whether or not they should be kept or torn down. These poems became a centerpiece for the book, but around those central poems she also wrote poems about chil...2024-04-301h 01
The Poetry SaloncastNadia Colburn: A Dawn Practice to Call Yourself BackIn this interview Nadia discusses her second book of poems, I Say the Sky from published by University Press of Kentucky. You can take Nadia’s 7-Day New Year Writing and Meditation Program, starting January 17th, for free when you buy a copy of her book.2024-01-2650 min
The Poetry SaloncastLindsey Royce: Writing With and Without GodHow do you process the passing of someone you love? In this interview, Lindsey Royce discusses her latest collection, The Book of John. Already an established poet, when her late husband, was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Royce wrote consistently about what she experienced during his last year of life. Her book documents the tender beauty, despair, anger and resilience of that last year and her journey into the next chapter. As the title suggests, The Book of John takes on a magnitude of biblical proportions, though it is not God who cares for John as he passes, but Lindsey. In...2023-10-131h 07
The Poetry SaloncastAngela Penaredondo - Layered Themes, Layered VoicesTresha talks with Angela Penaredondo about her third collection, nature felt but never apprehended (Noemi Press, 2022). Angela discusses how personal and world history inspired her book. She relies on reading and research to generate writing, but sometimes allows another voice, less conscious and more magical. She utilizes different parts of her voice, voices of others, and multiple themes to create a collection that is intricately layered and rewards a second reading. 2023-09-171h 12
The Poetry SaloncastJane Muschenetz - Writing HomeWe're born in a specific place with a specific history. How do these arbitrary facts affect us as artists? In this podcast I talk with Jane Muschenetz about her collection, All the Bad Girls Wear Russian Accents (Kelsay Books, 2023). Jane was born to a Jewish family in Lviv, a city once under Soviet control, now located in Western Ukraine. As a resident of the US, Jane wrote poetry about a variety of topics. However, when Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, Jane wrote about her roots and her experience as a Russian-Jewish immigrant. She writes, "Naming God is an ambition I do...2023-08-191h 00
The Poetry SaloncastDeShawn McKinney: The Value of DeadlinesCan a writer finish a book in time to meet a deadline? In our interview with DeShawn McKinney we discuss the genesis of his first chapbook, father, forgive me from Black Sunflower Press, 2003. Deshawn explains that he wrote a large portion of the book in 12 hours in order to meet the deadline for Black Sunflower. How does this help the process and how can other writers learn to work with these kinds of deadlines to catch and capture the heat of their emotions? Listen to this interview to hear our thoughts on this and other topics.
References: James...2023-07-241h 34
The Poetry SaloncastJoan Kwon Glass: The Tribe of Invisible PeopleHow does a person deal with grief in poetry? In this interview Joan Kwon Glass discusses her first full-length collection, Night Swim, winner of the Diode Poetry Prize (2021), which explores the death by suicide of both her nephew and sister. Glass believed nobody would want to read her book, but she discovered many with similar issues who craved an open forum to discuss them. These are the "Tribe of invisible people." Kwon discusses the poets she read to give her courage to write her own book, and what she learned about truth-telling along the way.
References
Black...2023-06-161h 17
The Poetry SaloncastJon Pearson - A Creative Pep TalkDo you struggle to make time for your creative self? In this episode, creativity experts and writers Tresha Faye Haefner and Jon Pearson discuss their different approaches to making time and finding motivation for their writing. As Jon notes, the difficulty is not writing but "starting" to write. Get some great tips to use in your creative process, from starting to celebrating, to just making the time! Listen now. 2023-06-031h 23
The Poetry SaloncastHeather Bourbeau: The Poetry of History-"We thought we knew a lot about our history. We were wrong." - Heather Bourbeau
How do you write poetry about historical people and events? In this interview, Heather Bourbeau discusses the way she tackles the personal and historical in her new book, Monarch. Broken into four parts, the collection illuminate aspects of history that schools often leave out of their curriculum, like the Miss Atomic Blast beauty pageant held in Nevada to celebrate the creation of the bomb, or the list of items left after Mt. St. Helens exploded. Heather gives tips how to connect with historical...2023-04-081h 00
The Poetry SaloncastJessica Cuello: Does the Lyrical "I" Lie?How do we know what other people know?
In this interview Douglas Manuel and Tresha Faye Haefner talk with Jessica Cuello about her third collection, Liar, selected by Dorianne Laux for the Barrow Street Book Prize. Her book explores issues of childhood trauma that children are taught to lie about or to hide from adults. Jessica discusses her own ambiguous, uncertain relationship with the lyric "I" when writing, and asks the question, "How do we know what others know?" As James Baldwin says, all art is a form of confession.
Listen for references to James Baldwin, Dorianne Laux...2023-02-181h 13
The Poetry SaloncastHow Seasons Stir the ImaginationIn this interview, host Douglas Manuel gets his chance to interview Lois P. Jones, who interviewed him on Poet's Café. Lois discusses how winter stirs her imagination for poetry (as Wallace Stevens put it, "One must have a mind of winter") because of its mystery. Doug, Tresha and Lois discuss how poems confront readers, challenging them to use their own imaginations, and "complete" the poems as they read. She also references Lorca, Rilke, Neruda, Galway Kinnel and Joseph Fasano. Enjoy.2023-01-191h 03
The Poetry SaloncastEdward Vidaurre: Waving the Flag of ActivismGet inside the mind of poet-activist, writer, and publisher Edward Vidaurre as Tresha and Douglas ask about his book Cry, Howl from PricklyPear Press and his work running FlowerSong Press. He talks about riding the bus to school and seeing others reading; how that inspired him to seek out authors like Miguel Hernandez, Wanda Coleman, Naomi Shihab Nye, Richard Wright, Claude Brown and others. Now he uses his writing to speak up about issues as a contrary political force in Texas and to use his position as an editor to elevate writers who might not get heard. 2022-11-1851 min
The Poetry SaloncastKelly Cressio-Moeller: The Moon Wrote This PoemIn this interview Kelly Cressio-Moeller discusses how music, art and cinema play into her writing. As a student of art history and a drummer, Kelly describes how she created flow in and between poems to make her first collection, Shade of Blue Trees! When Pulitzer Prize winner Dianne Seuss gave her advice to "build a section" of her book, she had to make hard choices to cut out her darlings. Quoting Yusef Kommunyakkaa, she reminds us, "The ear is the greatest editor," and as a poetry editor who reads hundreds of manuscripts, the hard work that makes things flow can...2022-10-0649 min
The Poetry SaloncastEllen Bass: Try Try AgainDoes a poem start with an image or with sound? In this interview Douglas Manuel and Tresha Faye Haefner ask Ellen Bass about her writing process. She tells us about ways she uses an image to start a poem and her use of tools like sound to distract her "overly logical mind" while her more intuitive mind goes to work. When things don't go right the first time, though, she keeps trying, reorganizing syntax, talking with friends, etc. She tells the story of writing the title poem of her latest book, Indigo by writing many "failed" poems first, and only...2022-09-101h 02
GEMS with Genesis Amaris KempEp. 583 - What a Creative Writing Community can do for You with Tresha Faye Haefner of The Poetry SalonAre you FULLY embracing your creativity?
In this segment, Tresha Faye Haefner shares what a creative writing community can do for you. She started The Poetry Salon 10 years ago to help those have a creative breakthrough when writing a poem, but a slightly broader pitch might be how to have a creative breakthrough when writing or creating anything in general.
See video here - https://youtu.be/7a5Lvwk3cdQ
WHO IS TRESHA?
Tresha Faye Haefner’s poetry appears, or is forthcoming in several journals and magazines, most no...2022-06-1424 min
The Poetry SaloncastKelli Russell Agodon: Why Poets Need RestrictionsHow can you cope with anxiety? Try writing a book about it. In this interview Kelli Russell Agdon discusses her latest book. Originally she tells us that the book began with two separate manuscripts melding into one. One book was a collection of poems about the broken world, and another about the broken self. Together they become her manuscript, Dialogues with a Rising Tide, out from Copper Canyon Press. Hear Kelli discuss the way she channels anxiety into writing, how she uses constraint to help her choose titles for her poems, and why she has more fun and ease when...2022-06-1149 min
The Poetry SaloncastDiannely Antigua: Speaking the Words that Are Not AllowedWere there certain topics that were off limits to talk about when you were growing up? Any words you weren’t allowed to say? In this interview Diannely Antigua discusses her book Ugly Music, a book where the speaker explores her complicated relationship to sexuality against a strict religious background. Antigua tells us about her transformation from being a girl who didn’t want to fall asleep having impure thoughts to becoming a poet who can use the word p***y and d**k. If you have taboos to break in your writing, you’ll be able to relate.
2022-03-1242 min
The Poetry SaloncastTanaya Winder: When Poetry Makes MusicIn this interview Tanaya Winder discusses the way she has combined poetry and performance with social advocacy to help others feel seen in real life and on the page. Once a student at Stanford driven to pursue a degree in law, Tanaya eventually turned to poetry seeing it as a way to help marginalized communities and survivors of trauma find their voices. Coming from a life rooted in music and ceremony she also tells us about the way she uses song and sound to help her access her poems and honor her own heritage. Find out more by listening to...2022-02-1247 min
The Poetry SaloncastMeghan SterlingIn this interview Meghan Sterling, author of These Few Seeds (Terrapin Books, 2022), passionately discusses the complexities of love and how profound that experience is as a mother of a four-year-old girl. She says love is, “An enormous braid of hope, fear, longing, joy, exhaustion, disappointment, exhilaration and feeling like a fraud.” People limit themselves because loving is so frightening. “In the veins of love runs the iron of fear,” but for her, writing poetry keeps her honest. Even in seemingly “mundane” events, there is a voice that says, “This means more than what you see on the surface.” If you give it space, t...2022-01-1559 min
The Poetry SaloncastKai Coggin: Making the Moments HolyIn this wide-ranging interview, Kai Coggin tells her story of meeting Sandra Cisneros along with her middle school English class and how the famous author encouraged her to make time for her own writing as well as bringing writing to others. Now Kai Coggin on her fourth book Mining for Stardust, uses poetry to "freeze time", recording the darkness and tempering it with the power of the light. She introduces young people to the kinds of poems that help them find and define their own identity and shows them that poetry is meant for everybody. This interview is packed with...2021-10-0951 min
The Poetry SaloncastWelcome Doug Manuel and Season PreviewBig Announcement for the podcast: Kelly Grace Thomas is stepping aside as co-host with Tresha Faye Haefner. Kelly has a new baby! With an infant in the house she's focusing on being a new mother, and stepping into her prodigious shoes is creative powerhouse and high-spirit extraordinaire Doug Manuel, author of Testify. Join us as Tresha catches up with what Doug has been doing since our interview with him a few years ago, and then the two of them preview the Saloncast interviews ahead! Welcome Doug!2021-10-0909 min
The Poetry SaloncastBrian Sonia-Wallace: Poetry in Service“What does it mean to call every stranger friend?” That’s a question poet and innovator Brian Sonia-Wallace asks as he discusses his unusual journey writing spontaneous poetry at events. In his twenties Brian Sonia-Wallace put out a typewriter on the street to write poetry for strangers and has been doing it ever since. He is the founder of “Rent Poet” and travels the world to write for others, including at a residency at The Mall of America. You can read about his adventures in his new book from Harper Collins, The Poetry of Strangers. In this interview, he discusses the ways t...2021-09-1844 min
The Poetry SaloncastGustavo Hernandez:What does it mean to carry a landscape with you when that landscape belongs to someone else? In this interview, Gustavo Hernandez discusses the way poetry has helped him deal with living as an immigrant, and what it means to have two places always with him - California and Jalisco, Mexico. He talks about using poetry to help mourn his father. He also discusses the way short-fiction helped him create not just individual poems, but a full book with a "coming of age arc". That collection Flower Grand First ends in a vision of the hereafter, in which he notes, "...2021-08-1343 min
Thread BareSaloncast with Eilidh Zerebic2021-05-1931 minThread BareSaloncast with Liberty Hodes2021-05-1228 min
The Poetry SaloncastLynne Thompson: Embracing the UnknownMany poets are beguiled by the fundamental where did I come from question. Much of Lynne Thompson’s work traces the threads that influenced her sense of identity and how it interacts with politics and race. At the same time, the job of a poet is to find a new angle on how to address issues that may be “universal” or at the forefront of the zeitgeist. So, Thompson advises, “You need to get outside the frame and try on all the shoes in the story.” This is how you find your way through to something more unique.
In this int...2021-05-0855 minThread BareSaloncast with Jaleelah Galbraith2021-05-0529 minThread BareSaloncast with John Aggasild2021-04-2827 minThread BareSaloncast with Ruth HunterThe Saloncast is the Lockdown brainchild of two of Glasgow’s finest feminist comedians Emily Benita and Rachel Anne Clarke. The comedy duo host The Salon, Glasgow’s monthly, alternative, comedy-cabaret night. Every week Emily and Rachel Anne interview comedians from the comedy circuit. In true Salon style the Saloncast is a comedy podcast that continues to deliver topical, feminist comedy that won’t make you wince. It’s the perfect way to enjoy the duo’s sketch comedy writing until they can open the doors of The Salon once again.
Guest - Ruth Hunter2021-04-2120 minThread BareSaloncast with Rach Leonard2021-04-1426 min
The Poetry SaloncastKim Addonizio: Finding the Voice of a PoemHow do you find your voice? What about the voice of a poem or piece? In this interview Kim talks about her influences, and how they have helped her find her own voice. She also talks about getting past her own voice to find the voice of the poem itself, and how she helps support her students in doing the same. You'll also get bonus anecdotes about rhyming in the high desert, writing about a scorpion in an Italian Castle, having her poem printed in the New York City subway, and the really surprising journey she had to go on...2021-04-0952 min
The Poetry SaloncastCameron Morse: The Poetry of ConfessionWhat can we learn from reading the Confessions of St. Augustin? In this interview Tresha asks Cameron Morse to discuss his latest book, Far Other, titled after a line from St. Augustin. Cameron discusses his interest in the Confessional Tradition, how it began around 300's BC, and what it can still teach us today about the value of an "ordinary" individual telling their personal story.
We discuss our evolving understanding of what it means to be born a human being, to search after something greater, to reflect on and tell our own stories. We also discuss the role that "...2021-03-1952 min
The Poetry SaloncastSonia Greenfield - Balancing Grief and GratitudeHow do you find the place in your poetry for your complete self - the sorrow and the joy, the eventful and the mundane, the gratitude and the grief? Is the balance found in a single poem or across multiple poems? In this interview award-winning poet Sonia Greenfield talks to us about her journey towards finding her voice, and how several teachers helped her along the way. Sonia also discusses her mission to help provide a platform for a diversity of other voices in Rise Up Review, the political protest journal she started the day Trump was inaugurated. Finally, Sonia a...2021-02-1943 min
The Poetry SaloncastNancy Lynee Woo: Living your Creative MissionDo writers have a duty to share their work? In this interview Nancy Lynee Woo discusses what it’s like to come out of an Emerging Writers Fellowship, to wrestle with the pressure to become a “literary celebrity,” and the difference between trying to get published by a journal, vs. sharing art more freely on social media and personal platforms. She tells us how writing a mission statement for her life helped her get clear about her goals – what was important and what she could let go of, and when. Nancy also discusses her challenges writing a poem about a family m...2021-01-1546 min
The Poetry SaloncastJon Pearson: Unhinging Your MindProlific writer, cartoonist and public speaker Jon Pearson talks to Tresha and Kelly about unleashing the inner genius of the imagination. Pearson talks fast, draws fast and writes fast, and his ideas about freeing the mind from our adult restrictions have inspired thousands of souls. Hear from him the benefits of not making sense, and allowing the creative child within to run wild. In addition to being a fount of thoughtful ideas and stirring anecdotes, he also happens to be the life-long mentor of The Poetry Salon’s own Tresha Faye Haefner who often claims, “It’s Jon’s fault I’m a wr...2020-11-2156 min
The Poetry SaloncastCreative in Quarantine II - Jennie Linthorst, Arthur Kayzakian, Brian Sonia WallaceOur second poets panel on surviving 2020 as a writer and poet is chock full of great suggestions and helpful life tips to staying creative and staying sane while keeping your distance from other people. Three amazing talents - Poetry Salon teacher Arthur Kayzakian, creativity coach Jennie Linthorst and cultural writer and critic Brian Sonia Wallace chime in, read some poetry and offer their wisdom on absorbing the news, staying connected and keeping your projects going.2020-08-0648 min
The Poetry SaloncastBonus Minisode - Julie Hartley and Tresha on narrative typesThis short segment is an excerpt from last week's interview where Julie Hartley, founder of the Centauri School of Writing and Tresha Faye Haefner talk about narrative types, truth in memoir and expanding that to the poetry field. It didn't fit in with the flow of the epsiode itself, but was too interesting to leave on the cutting room floor, so we're releasing it this week.2020-07-1715 min
The Poetry SaloncastJulie Hartley: Founder of the Centauri School of Writing Listen to this bonus episode to hear Julie Hartley talk about how she turned her love of writing into a career. Julie and her husband founded The Centauri School for Writing in Canada, plus a Costa Rica-based camp and retreat center that runs a whole slate of classes for both teens and adults. All genres and mediums are taught to free participants' creative spirits and find their true voices. We end with a beautiful reading from her middle-grade fiction book, The Finding Place. Julie continues to support writers during the Covid Pandemic. Find out more at www.centauriarts.com 2020-07-0149 min
The Poetry SaloncastCreatives in Quarantine 1 - Brendan Constantine, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Nancy Lynee WooBonus episode! This week, we gather three amazing poets - Brendan Constantine, Jeannine Hall Gailey and Nancy Lynee Woo - for the first of two panels on how these poets are coping with stay-at-home orders during a global pandemic. Are they reflecting the national scene in their writing? What habits are they forming? Are they able to connect with a writing community? Listen in as Tresha Faye Haefner hosts this fascinating conversation about artists coping with isolation.2020-06-131h 24
The Poetry SaloncastTresha Haefner and Kelly Thomas Season Two WrapupWe've interviewed some amazing word artists for Season Two - Arthur Kayzakian, Victoria Lynn McCoy, Marie-Elizabeth Mali, Antionette Brim, and Dorothy Chan. Kelly Grace Thomas and I review all the lessons we've learned this season and read a couple of poems that were changed fundamentally by the prompts and advice these amazing writers offered us in their interviews. We wrap up the season here.2020-05-3052 min
The Poetry SaloncastA Writing Prompt You Can Use EverydayThe COVID quarantine has sent our schedule all higgeldy piggeldy, so this week we grant you, our loyal listeners, with this writing prompt from Tresha that will serve you throughout all your years as a writer. Really, this one's the one. Print it, laminate it and sleep with it under your pillow. Thank us later.2020-04-1506 min
The Poetry SaloncastArthur Kayzakian - Writing the Opposite Gender and Letting Language LeadIn this episode we interview Iranian-Armenian-American poet, Arthur Kayzakian who has just joined The Poetry Salon as a workshop facilitator! Kazakian talks about what it’s like to grow up in a war zone and migrate to a different country, how he learned English as a language of abandonment, and ultimately how he fell in love with poetry as a profession. Listen to us discuss the ways language can infuse energy into a poem and how we can responsibly use poetry to explore the POV of people different from ourselves.
2020-04-0149 min
The Poetry SaloncastVictoria Lynne McCoy: Processing Grief with PoetryHow do we create a safe space to process our grief through art? Victoria Lynne McCoy discusses Carmen Maria Machado's metaphor of a "house for grief" and how she enters that house to find the material for her poems about the dead, and then finds her way out again, back to her daily life. Listen to her discuss the way writing epistilary poems (poems written as letters to a specific person) help her address both the departed, herself, her reader, and God at the same time. This is indespensable listening for anyone who has loved, lost, and used writing as...2020-03-1845 min
The Poetry SaloncastMarie-Elizabeth Mali: Writing Yourself StrongerCan writing poetry make you a stronger person? In this interview Marie-Elizabeth Mali, author of Steady, My Gaze (2011) discusses the ways writing helps her explore her own nature, and come to terms with parts of herself she doesn't necessarily like. Specifically she discusses the way diving into the ocean and exploring nature helps her find images and metaphors to help her connect with and understand different parts of herself. Learn new ways to write yourself stronger by listening to this interview.2020-03-1149 min
The Poetry SaloncastAntionette Brim: Speaking Your Voice to HistoryIs there a special way poets have of explaining love? What about history? Or the Bible? In this episode, the poet Antoinette Brim discusses the challenges she had in taking on the topic of women in Genesis in her most recent book, These Women You Gave Me. Hear about this and other topics of her work, like how she copes with ageing and how to define the meaning of love.
Rewrite Exercise: Look at the world around you. Check out the news, mythology, science, etc. Is there an image or event that could serve as a metaphor for w...2020-03-0455 min
The Poetry SaloncastMichelle Bitting: Preparing the Body for PoetryIn this interview captivating poet Michelle Bitting discusses the connection between movement, mythology, and writing poetry. A trained actress and dancer, Michelle says that writing poetry is a lot like being in a performance, where one needs to generate and sustain a certain mood in which to enter the text and keep the momentum going. Elliptical machines, walking, and everyday rituals can support such endeavors, and help break us open to what the unconscious had been recording all along.
Rewrite exercise: Move. Go for a walk, dance, get the blood flowing before you re-enter the poem. Approach a s...2020-02-2544 min
The Poetry SaloncastDorothy Chan: Food, Sex and SonnetsPoet Dorothy Chan discusses pleasure, pop-culture, and the addiction she has to writing sonnets. Sonnets, she says, are like appetizers on a menu at a fancy restaurant – small, experimental, and the perfect size to taste without filling up. Unlike traditional sonnets though, Dorothy has pioneered the triple-crown sonnet, a variation that strings three little sonnets into a fuller three-course meal. Chan says, “Three is a lucky number, and I want poetry to make us feel lucky.” See how you can use her method to feel lucky too!
Revision Technique: We discuss the importance of line-breaks, and powerful end-stop words...2020-02-1951 min
The Poetry SaloncastSecond Season TeaserOur second season launches next week. Listen to this and find out which poets we'll be interviewing in the coming eight weeks. Plus join our growing community on Patreon to get commentary on your drafts on our private Facebook Group.2020-02-1201 min
The Poetry SaloncastTerrie Silverman: The Magic of Mentoring StorytellersWhat is a “Story Mentor” and how does Terrie Silverman, founder of Creative Rites, make magic happen through her mighty teaching powers? Silverman works with her clients to help them discover and refine their voices in such mediums as memoir, personal essay, storytelling, alt comedy, fiction, and plays/screenplays. She’s one of the few facilitators in LA who coach others in creating their own one-person performances. Plus, she’s the creator of Goativity, letting your creative imagination flow through interaction with live goats. Yes, goats! The ones who eat tin cans.
Come listen to her wax rhapsodic on her tw...2020-01-0733 min
The Poetry SaloncastPaul Shirley: Writer’s Blok, Home of Community and Productivity How does a former basketball player for the Chicago Bulls wind up with two published books and a writing center in Culver City? How does he keep dozens of writers on track to completing their novels and screenplays? Writer’s Blok founder, Paul Shirley, describes his origins as an artrepreneur in the L.A. writing scene and his philosophy of patient, regular practice in small amounts as the key to a writer’s success. He parallels his experience training as a professional athlete to the writing process and how both depend on consistent routine and the support of a community with...2019-12-2446 min
The Poetry SaloncastJennie Linthorst: What is Poetry Therapy and How is it Different from Writing Class?One of the fascinating application of the poetic medium is as a form of healing in therapy. Jennie Chapman Linthorst is a poet, expressive writing teacher and founder of LifeSPEAKS Poetry Therapy. She and Tresha talk in depth about poetry therapy, how she qualified to become one and what the treatment consists of. They explore the difference between the role of a therapist and that of a teacher of workshops, as well as how Linthorst has been uniquely successful in gathering clients and maintaining a thriving art therapy practice.
2019-12-1759 minThe Poetry SaloncastTresha Faye Haefner and Kelly Grace Thomas: What We Learned from Saloncast Season OneTresha and Kelly close out two months of amazing interviews with a discussion of what they’ve learned. They review their biggest takeaways from their conversations with poets Arminé Iknadossian, Hannah Gamble, Douglas Manuel, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Brendan Constantine, Alexis Rhone Fancher, and one another. Then, both Tresha and Kelly offer a poem they edited over the last two months and explain how using one of those techniques helped them put their poem in a new light!
*Poem mentioned by Tresha in this episode, “How I Knew Harold” is written by Deborah Harding 2019-12-051h 03
The Poetry SaloncastTresha Faye Haefner - Finding the Form to Contain the Chaos of the WorldIn this podcast Armine’ Iknadossian and Kelly Grace Thomas ask Poetry Salon founder Tresha Faye Haefner when and how she decided to make a full commitment to her poetry. Tresha discusses feeling out of place in performing arts, but needing to reach out, needing to make sense of silence, mystery, chaos, the largeness of the world and the passage of time. What can we learn from silent animals and wordless artifacts? How can we react, what can we say about all this mystery? In terms of rewriting poems she shares the value of using “how to” books, and looking for the ri...2019-11-191h 08
The Poetry SaloncastKelly Grace Thomas - Metaphors for the Body, Saying the UnsayableIn this podcast, Kelly Grace Thomas discusses how she uses poetry to explore issues that nobody talks about. Her latest book focuses on issues of the body, femininity, and changing conceptions of what it means to be a woman. A poet who has won Rattle’s Neil Postman Award, Kelly discusses how she comes up with metaphors, and how she uses them, not just in one poem, but as a way to hold an entire collection together.
Rewrite Technique: Listen to many poems. Listen to them being spoken out loud, or else read them, in large groups, in a r...2019-11-121h 04
The Poetry SaloncastAlexis Rhone Fancher: Work-Ethics, Sex and Power, and the Writing CommunityIn this interview Alexis Rhone Fancher discusses the value of a near Pavlovian work-ethic, and the ability to detach herself from her writing, even when writing about very personal subjects. Often referenced as an “erotic” poet, Alexis says she uses sex in her writing to explore power, to write for women who are like herself, and to encourage others to share their stories and poems with the world. There may not be a lot of money in poetry, but there is a hell of a lot to be gained from building a community around one’s art.
Rewrite Strateg...2019-11-051h 09
The Poetry SaloncastBrendan Constantine: Defending the Moon, Making Big Mistakes, and Finding the Momentum in a PoemWhy do poets still write about the moon? Should we stop? In this interview poet Brendan Constantine discusses the way the moon and the sea and other eternal markers act as a ground zero for discussing poetry. Art is a marker of our mortal consciousness. It is where we go to make mistakes, where we go to get things wrong. Constantine affirms his belief in making big mistakes in poetry, and therefore making a public discussion possible through art. Art does not resolve our problems or disagreements, but it makes discussions of challenging subjects possible.
Rewrite Strategy: Br...2019-10-291h 09
The Poetry SaloncastJeannine Hall Gailey: Having Fun Being Bad, Persona Poems, and Villains of the Poetry WorldDo you like Persona Poems? Do you like villains? Do you think powerful women are misunderstood or misrepresented in art? So does Jeannine Hall Gailey, author of Becoming the Villainess, X, Y, and Z. In this interview we discuss how female authors can use personas to speak up for themselves and others, and how writing from the persona of a villain can be liberating for the poet, the reader and the “character”.
Rewrite Strategy: Show your poem to a workshop or a few friends. What feedback do they give you? What questions do they ask? Try incorporating feedback, criti...2019-10-2241 min
The Poetry SaloncastDouglas Manuel: The Different Stages of Writing, Ruthless Revisions and Trusting the CollisionsPh.D. student and teacher Douglas Manual discusses the different stages of writing a poem, from taking notes on his iPhone, to doing free-writes, to editing. He shares how his process has changed over time, why he switched from writing short stories to writing poems, and how he’s become more patient with the work over time.
Rewriting Strategies: Douglas shares the “Tippecanoe" exercise, showing us how rearranging sentences can create new associations that often work in unexpected ways. The same goes for a ruthless revision, taking out pieces we think we need and letting the rest collide into...2019-10-141h 36
The Poetry SaloncastHannah Gamble: Imagination, Discomfort and The Rolodex of DelightWhat propels you to the page? Listen to Hannah Gamble talk about her creative writing process, how she lets feelings get cluttered until she is too vexed to procrastinate anymore. After that she scrolls through the Rolodex of Delights in her mind, flipping through options, experimenting with different possibilities, and finding the most fun ideas to fill her poems. Sometimes this comes easily. Sometimes it takes years to grow enough feeling to fully follow the impulse.
Rewrite Strategy: Read the poem out loud to a group or a friend. What parts are you excited to say? What parts f...2019-10-0853 min
The Poetry SaloncastArminé Iknadossian: Inspiration, Procrastination, and Giving the Poem Its SpaceDoes a poet have to write every day? In this podcast, Armine Iknadosian discusses what it means to be a “poet-in-the-world.” For her this means having a “poet-mind” instead of a “practical-mind.” She continuously scrolls through the world around her for stories that want to be told, whether they be her own stories, or stories from voices across the globe. In this way her work is a matter of both inspiration and procrastination. . . and when she can’t get a poem “right,” she respects the poem enough to give it “space,” until the poem itself is ready to be written.
Rewrite Stra...2019-09-1254 min