“Sometimes our motivations aren’t what we asked for—they are given to us.”
That is the experience of Visiting Assistant Professor of English Didi Jackson, who joined Vanderbilt’s College of Arts and Science in Spring 2021. A true lover of the humanities, Jackson brings to A&S a deep passion for telling stories through poetry and visual art.
This interview with David Campos is part of a Latino Stories series with Latinx authors. David Campos, a CantoMundo Fellow, is the author of American Quasar (Red Hen Press 2021) and Furious Dusk (University of Notre Dame 2015) which won the 2014 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize.
In 1987, when I was three years out of graduate school and expanding my views of contemporary American poetics, I undertook an eight-hour interview, comprised of four two-hour sessions, with my former Pomona College English professor, renowned poet Robert Mezey. Each session of our interview began with the poet’s arrival at my cabin high up on Mt. Baldy, located in southern California’s San Gabriel Mountains. Because Mezey would be a bit breathless from the altitude (7,500 feet), we’d sip cups of chamomile tea before I clicked on my reel-to-reel tape recorder. Suffering from a skin ailment that required direct daily exposure to sunlight, he spent part of each interview discreetly sunbathing nude on my deck (I once told him that wearing his birthday suit was apt for the editor of his much-heralded anthology, Naked Poetry). Clothed or unclothed, Mezey illuminated our discussions with his characteristic wit, passion, humility, and erudition.
Mezey’s academic secretary later transcribed the resulting interview on her Selectric typewriter, making just two copies of it, one for him and one for me. Stacking up to a hefty 251 typed pages, this transcript of our conversations was lively, far-ranging, and occasionally controversial, but always instructive and insightful. In addition to discussing traditional, modern, and contemporary poetry and poets, we examined how America’s counterculture of the 1960s influenced Mezey, his work, and his writing process. We also talked about many of the great themes in poetry, including love, death, transformation, and loss.
In this podcast, Robert Powell, the editor of the Retirement Daily at TheStreet interviews Jennifer Risher, author of We Need to Talk, on an experience that millions share but no one discusses: what it’s like to be rich.
Author Jennifer Risher discusses the critical role communication and conversation has in demystifying wealth, and normalizing tough money conversations.
I was born in Roselia Asylum and Maternity Hospital in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. It was a “home for unwed mothers” where pregnant girls could stay until they had their babies, and then they would leave the babies there. I spent the first year of my life in the Roselia orphanage before I was adopted—as far as I know.
American Bastard is a powerful memoir by Jan Beatty, sure to draw the reader into better understanding another’s journey. Jan provides a visceral walk in her shows, through which we all may recognize bits and pieces universal to us all, while also gaining a greater sense of empathy for the rough path others have had to tread.
Allison Joseph is the author of many poetry collections, editor, professor of English and director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Southern Illinois University; Lexicon is a refreshingly genuine demonstration of passion in poetic form.
Author of the award-winning, Confessions of a Barefaced Woman, Allison Joseph, is back with her newest book, Lexicon. Lexicon explores her appreciation of language and how it affects us, for better and for worse. We were lucky enough to chat with her about creating Lexicon, her journey through poetry, what advice she would give a new writer and more.
Listen to Praising the Paradox, Tina Schumann’s latest poetry collection with Red Hen Press, as the poet reads her own audiobook! Available now wherever audiobooks are sold!
A money story is your history and relationship with money and wealth. Did you grow up with enough of it? Are you still insecure about it? Are you afraid to make more of it? Everyone has a money story but not everyone shares them. Author Jennifer Risher is breaking this cycle with her recent book, ‘’We Need to Talk: A Memoir About Wealth.” In this episode, we talk to Jennifer about her experience getting wealthy during the dot-com boom and what she’s learned through documenting how money affects her family, friendships, and life in her memoir.
After they furnished us mortality estimates
on a sheet to post in the hall, after they sealed
the doors, after they counted our days of water—
by megaphone from outside the perimeter—after
they locked the gate, and then drove away, after our
desperate questions had exhausted all our tears, after we
looked at each other, first with suspicion of contagion,
then with curiosity, and then with love, someone
found a guitar, remembered a song, and we all
got in a line, laughing arm in arm, and danced.
Thanks to your support, and the support of generous anonymous donors, we were able to raise $165,000 at our annual Benefit on Sunday!
Read the full story at Pasadena Now below!
Author Jan Beatty stopped by the Bunker to talk about her award-winning memoir, American Bastard. If you follow the show, you know that title alone was going to Brad interested. But, the two writers took a really deep dive into some difficult subjects: adoption, addiction, recovery, trauma, therapy, and the brokenness of some families.
Just the little things that make up life. This conversation is long, slow burn, and one of the best we’ve had on the Jam.
