Dick Westheimer and his wife and writing companion, Debbie, have lived on their plot of land in rural southwest Ohio for over 40 years. A regular at the Rattlecast open mic, his poems have appeared several times in Rattle's Poets Respond series, and he was a finalist for the 2021 Rattle Poetry Prize. Other poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Paterson Review, Whale Road Review, Minyan, Gyroscope Review, and Cutthroat. His debut collection, A Sword in Both Hands: Poems Responding to Russia’s War on Ukraine, was just released by Sheila-Na-Gig. 

Find more on Dick Westheimer here:
https://dickwestheimer.com/

As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a series of small poems as journal entries this week. Each day, write about a detail that you would want your future self to remember.

Next Week’s Prompt:
Pick a noun, either randomly or with intention. Write a poem that includes that noun in every line.

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 188 - Dick Westheimer

Recorded on September 21, 2022, and published in Rattle #78, this conversation is a deep dive into the divided brain, exploring the role the two unique hemispheres play in creativity. We also discuss how the modern world has come to be dominated by the left hemisphere’s narrow focus and how poetry might be an antidote to “the matter with things.”

Dr. Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, philosopher, and literary scholar. He is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and of the Royal Society of Arts, as well as a former Clinical Director of the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. His previous book, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World reached international recognition and acclaim and has marked him out as one of the greatest thinkers and philosophers of our time. His latest publication is a two-volume work, The Matter with Things, which was published in 2021 by Perspectiva Press. A sustained critique of reductive materialism, it concerns the questions of who we are and what is the world? What do we mean by purpose, value, and the divine? And how do we most reliably set about finding out?

Find more at:  channelmcgilchrist.com

A Conversation with Iain McGilchrist

Jane Hirshfield is the author of ten collections and is one of American poetry’s central spokespersons for concerns of the biosphere. Hirshfield’s honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the Poetry Center Book Award, the California Book Award, and finalist selection for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She’s also the author of two now-classic collections of essays on the craft of poetry, and edited and co-translated four books presenting world poets from the deep past. Hirshfield’s work, which has been translated into seventeen languages, appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, and ten editions of The Best American Poetry. A former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2019. Her newest book is The Asking: New & Selected Poems.

Order your copy of The Asking here:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/715681/the-asking-by-jane-hirshfield/

Review the Rattlecast on iTunes! 
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rattle-poetry/id1477377214

As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem set in the first place you ever worked. 

Next Week's Prompt:
Write an assay—a poem that breaks down an idea or topic into it's constituent parts. (See Jane's assays, "Silence" and "To Judgment.")

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 214 - Jane Hirshfield

Bob Hicok’s tenth collection, Water Look Away, was published by Copper Canyon Press this year. A two-time finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and recipient of the Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress, he’s also been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, and eight Pushcart Prizes, and his poems have been selected for inclusion in nine volumes of The Best American Poetry. He teaches at Virginia Tech.

Find Bob's most recent book here:
https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/water-look-away/

Review the Rattlecast on iTunes! 
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rattle-poetry/id1477377214

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem that addresses a pain from childhood, and use a refrain. 

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem that begins with an idiomatic expression that you take literally or incorrectly, and see where it goes.

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 222 - Bob Hicok

Joshua Eric Williams is author of two full-length collections of haiku from Red Moon Press: The Strangest Conversation, which received an honorable mention in the Haiku Society of America’s 2020 Merit Book Awards, and Silent After, which was just released. His haiku, "silent after," from Rattle' Poets Respond series, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and won a 2022 Touchstone Award from the Haiku Foundation of America. 

Find more information on Eric, visit his website: 
https://thesmallestwords.com/

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a song of someone or something, as a persona poem 32 lines long. 

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a haiku sequence that talks about love without mentioning it by name. 

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 232 - Joshua Eric Williams

Michael Meyerhofer is a contemporary poet and fantasy author who believes those two genres genuinely can get along. His fifth poetry book, Ragged Eden, was published by Glass Lyre Press. His fourth, What To Do If You're Buried Alive, was originally published by Split Lip Press, then recently re-released by the fine books at Doubleback Press. In addition to his poetry books, he has published two fantasy trilogies. His debut fantasy novel, Wytchfire (Book I in the Dragonkin Trilogy), was published by Red Adept Publishing, and went on to win the Whirling Prize and a Readers Choice nomination from Big Al's Books and Pals. An avid weightlifter, medieval weapons collector, and unabashed history nerd, he currently lives, teaches, and inhabits various coffee shops around Fresno, CA.

Find more information on Michael, visit his website: 
https://www.troublewithhammers.com/

In the second hour, we'll be joined by special guest Zilka Joseph, who first appeared on episode 131, to share a few poems from her new book, Sweet Malida. Find her new book here:
https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/pb-daily/the-laadu-makers-my-mother-and-grandmothers-legacy

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Revise a poem that you wrote a long time ago by radically shifting its perspective. 

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a “What to Do if …” poem about what to do in an unusual situation. 

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 234 - Michael Meyerhofer

José Edmundo Ocampo Reyes is the author of the chapbook Present Values (Backbone Press, 2018), winner of the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award from the New England Poetry Club. His poems have previously appeared in various Philippine and U.S. journals and have been anthologized in The Powow River Anthology, Villanelles, The Achieve Of, The Mastery: Filipino Poetry and Verse from English, mid-‘90s to 2016, and No Tender Fences: An Anthology of Immigrant and First-Generation American Poetry. 

Find José's chapbook here:
https://backbonepress.org/titles/present-values/

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem from the perspective of one of your childhood toys.

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem set in spring that includes personification.

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 238 - José Edmundo Ocampo Reyes

Winner of the 2023 Rattle Chapbook Prize, George Bilgere, his wife, and his two exceptionally fine little boys spend the school year in Cleveland, Ohio, because living in Cleveland builds character. In the summers the family heads off to Berlin, Germany, where the kids study German while George does important research on beer gardens. He’s the author of eight collections of poetry and shows no signs of slowing down.

Find more on George here:
https://www.georgebilgere.com/

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem with internal rhyme in every line. 

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem with a single word as the title, in which our understanding of that word shifts by the end of the poem. 

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 240 - George Bilgere

Kim Stafford is Emeritus Professor at Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. He writes, teaches, and travels to raise the human spirit through poetry. In 1986, he founded the Northwest Writing Institute, and he has published a dozen books of poetry and prose, including The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer’s Craft and 100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do: How My Brother Disappeared. His most recent book is the poetry collection As the Sky Begins to Change (Red Hen Press, 2024). He has taught writing in dozens of schools and community centers, and in Scotland, Italy, Mexico, and Bhutan. In 2018 he was named Oregon’s 9th Poet Laureate for a two-year term.

Find more on Kim here:
https://www.kimstaffordpoet.com/

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem with a single word as the title, in which our understanding of that word shifts by the end of the poem. 

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem to share on social media about what poetry means to you. 

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 241 - Kim Stafford

Gerald Locklin (1941 - 2021) published over one hundred volumes of poetry, fiction, and literary essays including Charles Bukowski: A Sure Bet, (Water Row Press) and Go West, Young Toad, (Water Row Press). Charles Bukowski called him “One of the great undiscovered talents of our time.” The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Literature in the English Language calls him “a central figure in the vitality of Los Angeles writing.” A volume of his selected poems, Requiem for the Toad, has just been published by NYQ Books. We'll be joined by former Rattlecast guest Clint Margrave, who edited the book, as well as Locklin's literary executors, Patricia and David Cherin. 

Find the new book here:
https://nyq.org/books/title/requiem_for_the_toad

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem to share on social media about what poetry means to you. 

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write an ekphrastic poem about your favorite painting. 

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 242 - Gerald Locklin

Richard Garcia was born in San Francisco in 1941 and began writing in his teens. After publishing his chap book, Selected Poems, in 1972, he stopped writing for a number of years until an encouraging letter from Octavio Paz convinced him to return to it. In 1978 he published a bilingual book for children, My Aunt Otilia's Spirits, and University of Pittsburgh Press published The Flying Garcias in 1991. He earned the MFA degree in creative writing from Warren Wilson College Writers' Program in 1994. His third volume of poetry with BOA Editions, The Chair, was released in 2014; The Other Odyssey won the 2012 American Poetry Journal Book Prize, and his most recent book, Porridge, won the Press 53 Prize.

Find more on Richard here:
https://www.richardgarcia.info/

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write an ekphrastic poem about your favorite painting. 

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a golden prose poem: one that includes the words from your favorite haiku but goes in a different direction.

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 243 - Richard Garcia

The great-grandchild of eight Irish immigrants, poet Julie Kane was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She grew up in Massachusetts, upstate New York, and New Jersey, graduating from Cornell University with a B.A. in English and winning first prize in the Mademoiselle Magazine College Poetry Competition, judged by Anne Sexton and James Merrill. That led her to graduate school in creative writing at Boston University, where she was one of Sexton's students at the time of her death.  Since 1999 she has lived in Natchitoches, where she is Professor of English Emeritus at Northwestern State University and winner of the Excellence in Teaching Award, Mildred Hart Bailey Faculty Research Award, and Dr. Jean D'Amato-Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award. During 2002 she was a Fulbright Scholar to Lithuania, teaching at Vilnius Pedagogical University. She won the National Poetry Series, judged by Maxine Kumin, in 2002 and the Donald Justice Poetry Prize, judged by David Mason, in 2009. From 2011-2013 she served as the Louisiana Poet Laureate. In 2018 she joined the poetry faculty of the Western Colorado University low-residency MFA program.

Find more on Julie and her books here:
https://www.juliekanepoet.com/

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Find a partner and write a collaborative poem in some kind of form. 

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem using a regular meter of some kind that references your ancestral home. 

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 246 - Julie Kane

Nancy Miller Gomez first appeared on Rattlecast 146. Her chapbook, Punishment, was published as part of the Rattle chapbook series. She has worked as a waitress, a stable hand, an attorney, and a television producer. She co-founded an organization that provides writing workshops to incarcerated women and men and has taught poetry in Salinas Valley State Prison, the Santa Cruz County Jails and the Juvenile Hall. She has a B.A. from The University of California, San Diego, a J.D. from the University of San Diego and a Master in Fine Arts in Writing from Pacific University. She is currently working on a collection of personal essays. Her first full-length poetry manuscript, Inconsolable Objects, is now available from YesYes Books. She grew up in Kansas, but currently lives in Santa Cruz, California. 

Find more on Nancy and her books here:
https://www.nancymillergomez.com/

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem using a regular meter of some kind that references your ancestral home. 

Next Week's Prompt:
Write an ode to something that doesn’t conform to typical ode topics and begins with an epigraph.

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 247 - Nancy Miller Gomez

Alan Shapiro has published many books of poetry and prose, including Reel to Reel, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Night of the Republic, finalist for both the National Book Award and the International Griffin Prize, The Dead Alive and Busy, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Award, and Mixed Company, winner of the LA Times Book Prize. His new books of poetry, Proceed to Check Out, and By and By, were published in 2022 and 2023 respectively. He now lives in New England. 

Find Proceed to Checkout here:
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo130500563.html

Find By and By here:
https://waywiser-press.com/product/by-and-by/

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write an ode to something that doesn’t conform to typical ode topics and begins with an epigraph.

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem set in a place you’ve always dreamed of going to but never have. Allude to all the basic senses. 

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 248 - Alan Shapiro

Annie Finch is an American poet, writer, translator, speaker, teacher, and performer.  She is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Spells: New and Selected Poems. Her other works include influential essays, books, and anthologies on poetics, feminism, and women’s earth-based spirituality, including the influential book Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters. Educated at Yale and Stanford University, where she earned her Ph.D, she has lectured at universities including Berkeley, Harvard, and Oxford and performed her poetry across the United States and in India, Mexico, Africa, and throughout Europe. She was the interviewee in issue 82 of Rattle. 

For more on Annie, visit her website:
https://anniefinch.com/

Annie also shared some links and notes on meter:

How to Scan a Poem video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZh1NNP6WsQ

Substack scansion intro
https://anniefinch.substack.com/p/useful-background-on-scansion

How to Scan a Poem (print)
https://bookshop.org/a/1041/9781737307563

Poetry Witch Community/Meter Magic Spiral
www.poetrywitch.org

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem set in a place you’ve always dreamed of going to but never have. Allude to all the basic senses. 

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write an extended metaphor poem that features a celestial body.

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 249 - Annie Finch

Christine Potter is the author of the time-traveling YA series The Bean Books. She has also published three collections of her poems: Zero Degrees At First Light, Sheltering In Place, and most recently, Unforgetting. She's taught creative writing to high schoolers, junior high students, and senior citizens. Christine ran the online poetry workshop The Gazebo for many years. Her poems have appeared in magazines ranging from Rattle to The Anglican Theological Review--and once wrapped around a stick of Double Bubble in Gum Ball Poetry. She's been nominated for the Pushcart Prize a few times, and has had a poem commissioned for July 4th by ABC Radio News. Christine is also a sometimes-singer and a dulcimer and guitar player who knows how to fake change ringing on a small carillon. She's appeared many times in Rattle and Poets Respond, and is the new poetry editor of Eclectica magazine. 

For more on Chris, visit her website:
https://chrispygal.weebly.com/

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write an extended metaphor poem that features a celestial body.

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write an elegy for something that was in your home.

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 250 - Christine Potter

Erin Murphy first appeared on Rattlecast 142. She is the author or editor of thirteen books, including Human Resources, forthcoming from Salmon Poetry; Fluent in Blue (April 2024); Taxonomies (2022), a collection of demi-sonnets, a form she devised; and Assisted Living (2018), poems about caregiving. In addition, her chapbooks include Fields of Ache, a collection of centos (2022). Her most recent co-edited anthologies are Bodies of Truth, a collection of narrative medicine essays (University of Nebraska Press), and Creating Nonfiction (SUNY Press), both of which won Gold Medals in the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards.

For more on Erin, visit her website:
https://sites.psu.edu/erincmurphy/

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write an elegy for something that was in your home.

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem set on a specific road or path. 

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 251 - Erin Murphy

Maaz Bin Bilal is a poet, translator, and academic. His first collection of poetry, Ghazalnama: Poems from Delhi, Belfast, and Urdu, was shortlisted for the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar. His translations of Fikr Taunvis’s Partition diary, The Sixth River, and Mirza Ghalib’s Persian long poem on Banaras, Chiragh-e-Dair, Temple Lamp, were also critically noted. Reviews of his books may be found in Wasafiri, World Literature Today, The Hindu, Indian Express, and other publications. His poems have been translated into German, Hindi, Irish, and Bengali. Maaz was the recipient of the Charles Wallace Trust fellowship in writing and translation in Wales (2018–19), and  the Akademie Schloss Solitude fellowship in writing in Germany (2022–23). He holds a PhD on the politics of friendship in E. M. Forster’s work from Queen’s University Belfast and teaches literary studies at O. P. Jindal Global University.

For more on Maaz, visit his website:
https://www.maazbinbilal.com

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem set on a specific road or path. 

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a traditional ghazal that references at least one other poet. When submitting, please include the name of the poets referenced in the submission note.

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 252 - Maaz Bin Bilal

Kari Gunter-Seymour first appeared on Rattlecast 48 and was interviewed in our Appalachian Poets issue. She is the current Poet Laureate of Ohio and just published a new book of poems, Dirt Songs. Her previous poetry collections include Alone in the House of My Heart and A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen, winner of the 2020 Ohio Poet of the Year Award. A ninth-generation Appalachian, she is the editor of I Thought I Heard A Cardinal Sing: Ohio’s Appalachian Voices, funded by the Academy of American Poets and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Women of Appalachia Project’s anthology series Women Speak. 

For more on Kari, visit her website:
https://www.karigunterseymourpoet.com/

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a traditional ghazal that references at least one other poet. When submitting, please include the name of the poets referenced in the submission note.

Next Week's Prompt:
Write journalistic poem that explores the sensory details of where you live. 

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 253 - Kari Gunter Seymour

Chera Hammons is a winner of the 2017 PEN Southwest Book Award through PEN Texas and the 2020 Helen C. Smith Memorial Award through the Texas Institute of Letters. She holds an MFA from Goddard College and recently served as Writer-in-Residence at West Texas A&M University. Her poetry chapbook Amaranthine Hour received the 2012 Jacar Press Chapbook Award. Poetry collections include Recycled Explosions, The Traveler's Guide to Bomb City, and Maps of Injury. Her debut novel, Monarchs of the Northeast Kingdom, is available through Torrey House Press. She is a member of the editorial board of poetry journal One. She often writes about chronic illness and invisible disability, horses, and the unique landscape of the Texas panhandle, where she resides. Find her on Instagram @chera_writes. 

For more on Chera, visit her website:
https://www.cherahammons.com/

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write journalistic poem that explores the sensory details of where you live. 

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem that features multiple unexpected turns, leaps, or voltas. 

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 254 - Chera Hammons

Suzanne Lummis is an influential poet and publisher, educator and arts organizer in Los Angeles. As series editor of The Pacific Coast Poetry Series (Beyond Baroque Books), she edited the anthology Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, named one of the ten best books of 2015 by The Los Angeles Times.  She teaches for the UCLA Extension Writers' Program and was the Mellon Foundation Institute for the Study of Los Angeles visiting poet at Occidental College, Spring 2017.  Her web series, They Write by Night, produced by poetry.la, explores film noir, crime fiction, and writers who incorporate influences from those arts into their poetry.

Find Open 24 Hours here:
https://wsupress.wsu.edu/product/open-twenty-four-hours/

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem that features multiple unexpected turns, leaps, or voltas. 

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem that directly references your favorite theatrical play.

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 255 - Suzanne Lummis

Jennifer Hambrick is a classical musician, broadcaster, and poet. Her full-length poetry collection In the High Weeds won the Stevens Prize. In her haikai work, Hambrick won the Martin Lucas Haiku Award and the HSA Haibun Award. Her haibun collection, Joyride (2021), won the Marianne Bluger Book Award from Haiku Canada. Hambrick served as program chair for the 2023 Haiku North America conference; she resides in Columbus, Ohio. Her new book of haiku is A Silence or Two.

Find more on Jennifer here:
https://jenniferhambrick.com/

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem that directly references your favorite theatrical play.

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a hot haiku sequence.

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 256 - Jennifer Hambrick

Siddharth Dasgupta writes poetry and fiction from lost hometowns. His fourth book, A Moveable East, was published in early 2021. A fifth book and third collection of poetry, All These Streets We've Known By Heart, was published in 2022. Siddharth’s literature has appeared or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Prairie Fire, Epiphany, Rogue Agent, Lunch Ticket, Kyoto Journal, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. He has read in cities like Bombay, Lucknow, Mandalay, Galle, Paris, Istanbul, and Dubai. Siddharth serves as Editor, Visual Narratives with The Bombay Literary Magazine, but calls the city of Poona home. 

Follow Siddharth on Instagram here:
https://www.instagram.com/citizen.bliss/

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a hot haiku sequence.

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem with your least favorite word to appear in a poem as the title. Include why it’s your least favorite in the submission note.

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 257 - Siddharth Dasgupta

Chris Anderson first appeared on episode 143. Chris is a Catholic deacon, poet, and retired professor of English living in Corvallis, Oregon.  He grew up in Spokane, Washington, went to college at Gonzaga University, and attended graduate school at the University of Washington.  He taught literature and writing for 38 years, 34 of them at Oregon State University. In 1997 he completed a Masters in Theology at Mount Angel Seminary and was ordained a deacon.  Since then, he has served at St. Mary’s in Corvallis, as well as leading retreats and offering spiritual direction.  He has written, co-written, or edited 15 previous books, Love Calls Us Here, which was just published by Wild House Publishing. He and his wife, Barb, have lived for many years on the edge of the forest north of Corvallis.  They have three children, four grandchildren, and two dogs. 

For more, visit:
deaconchrisanderson.com

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem with your least favorite word to appear in a poem as the title. Include why it’s your least favorite in the submission note.

Next Week’s Prompt:
Use the random feature on Wikipedia twice to find two articles. Write a poem about one of the topics, and use the other as the title. 

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 258 - Chris Anderson

Susan Terris began her writing career in children’s fiction, publishing 21 books with major New York publishing houses before dedicating herself to poetry. Since then, she’s published 7 books of poetry, 17 chapbooks, 3 artist's books, and 2 plays. Poems of hers have appeared in Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies. Susan is editor emerita of Spillway, former co-editor of Runes, and a poetry editor at Pedestal Magazine. 

For more, visit:
www.susanterris.com

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Use the random feature on Wikipedia twice to find two articles. Write a poem about one of the topics, and use the other as the title. 

Next Week’s Prompt:
Find someone’s last words, and use that as an epigraph in a poem where “death” is not mentioned by name.

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 259 - Susan Terris

These highlights from Rattlecast #236 aired on KPFK-Los Angeles (90.7 FM) August 28, 2024. James Crews is the editor of several bestselling anthologies, including The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope.

Rattlecast 2024

James Crews (Rc on the Radio)

Ori Fienberg has appeared twice in Poets Respond, and his new book, Where Babies Come From, was just released by Cornerstone Press. Ori is also the author of the chapbooks Old Habits, New Markets (2020) and Interim Assistant Dean of Having a Rich Inner Life (2023). His writing has appeared in Mid-American Review, Ploughshares, Rattle, Smartish Pace, and many other journals and anthologies. A graduate of Oberlin College and the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program, Ori teaches poetry for Northeastern University and lives in Evanston, Illinois.

For more, visit:
https://orifienberg.com/

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Find someone’s last words, and use that as an epigraph in a poem where “death” is not mentioned by name.

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a persona prose poem set in the future. 

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 260 - Ori Fienberg

Dorianne Laux first appeared on episode 44. She published two new books in 2024: Life on Earth, a collection of poems, and Finger Excersizes, a book of essays on craft. She is author of seven books, including Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected Poems  which was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and The Book of Men, which won The Paterson Prize. 

For more, visit:
https://www.doriannelaux.com

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a persona prose poem set in the future. 

Next Week’s Prompt:
I dare you to write a poem in which you dare someone to do something colorful.

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 261 - Dorianne Laux

Molly Peacock was featured in issue 32 of Rattle. She is the author of nine books of poetry, including The Widow’s Crayon Box, The Analyst, The Second Blush, and Cornucopia: New & Selected Poems. She is also the author of several books of prose and a memoir, and has written two biographies of painters. Molly served as president of the Poetry Society of America, where she initiated the Poetry in Motion series on New York City’s subways and buses. After moving to Canada, she created The Best Canadian Poetry series, and serves as its general editor. 

For more, visit:
https://www.mollypeacock.org

In the second hour, we'll announce this year's Rattle Poetry Prize results live on the air. The winner has not been notified—we'll let them know together.

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
I dare you to write a poem in which you dare someone to do something colorful.

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem in which someone unexpectedly wins something. 

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 262 - Molly Peacock

Ron Riekki has a B.S. in Religion, with a focus on Buddhism, and an M.A. in Interreligious Studies, with a primary focus on indigenous religious practice and a secondary focus on Buddhism. His books include U.P., Posttraumatic, My Ancestors are Reindeer Herders and I Am Melting in Extinction, and i have been warned not to write about this. Ron is also a filmmaker and his plays have been performed in Massachusetts, Michigan, Texas, Virginia, Illinois, and New York, and he was selected as a Tennessee Williams Scholar where he studied with Arlene Hutton and Pulitzer Prize-winner Lee Blessing. His most recent book is Blood / Not Blood then the Gates. 

Find that here: 
https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Not-Then-Gates-Poems-ebook/dp/B0B6Y9YSX8/

As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.  

For links to all the past episodes, visit: 
https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/

This Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem in which someone unexpectedly wins something. 

Next Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem in haiku stanzas (tercets with lines of five, then seven, then five syllables). Do not make it haiku!

The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

ep. 263 - Ron Riekki

Meet a new poet every week, as they talk life and share poems with Rattle's editor, Timothy Green. All that, plus Poets Respond and the Prompt Lines—live every Monday! 

Rattle is a publication of the Rattle Foundation, an independent 501(c)3 non-profit organization whose mission is to promote the practice of poetry, and is not affiliated with any other organization.

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