Of Poetry Podcast

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart, author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025).--Read: "Everyone Said Nature Was Healing" (Poetry Northwest)Purchase: Portrait of Us Burning(Curbstone Books, 2023)Sebastián H. Páramo is the author of Portrait of Us Burning (Curbstone Books, 2023) and was named a finalist for the 2023 Best First Book of Poetry by the Texas Institute of Letters. His poems have recently appeared or will appear in AGNI, Poetry Northwest, The Arkansas International, Prairie Schooner, New England Review, and elsewhere.  His work has received fellowships and support from the Dobie Paisano Fellowship Program at UT-Austin, CantoMundo, among others. He is the founding editor of The Boiler and lives in Texas.Recommended Reading:Apocalypse and Disaster Communities Reading List on BookshopTomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabriel ZevinMeltwater by Claire Wahmanholm Alas, Babylon by Pat FrankThe World Keeps Ending, the World Goes On by Franny ChoiThe Murderbot Diariesby Martha WellsStanley KunitzLarry LevisThomas LuxNicola Davison-Reed

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart, author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025).--Read: Emily's poem "The Meat of the Plum" in Moist Poetry JournalEmily Kramer is a poet and editor living in Boston, MA. She received her BA in English from Barnard College, and her PhD from Boston University’s Editorial Institute. Her critical edition of Arthur Henry Hallam’s collected poems is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. Recommended Reading:Saskia HamiltonArthur Henry HallamAlfred, Lord Tennyson's In MemoriamRobert LowellWords in Air: the complete correspondence of Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, edited by Thomas Travisano and Saskia HamiltonThe Dolphin by Robert Lowell, edited Saskia HamiltonVirginia Woolf's Letters with Vita Sackville-West (Paris Review)John Keats' Letters

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart, author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025).--Read: "Invitatory" at Poetry DailyPurchase: Invitatory (Parlor Press, 2024)Molly Spencer is a poet, critic, editor, and writing instructor. Her debut collection, If the House (University of Wisconsin Press, 2019) won the 2019 Brittingham Prize judged by Carl Phillips. A second collection, Hinge​ (SIU Press, 2020), a finalist for the National Poetry Series, won the 2019 Crab Orchard Open Competition judged by Allison Joseph. Invitatory, her forthcoming third collection, won the 2022 New Measure Poetry Prize and will be published in 2024 by Free Verse Editions / Parlor Press. Molly’s poetry has appeared in Blackbird, Copper Nickel, FIELD, The Georgia Review, Gettysburg Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, and Prairie Schooner. Her critical writing and essays have appeared at Colorado Review, The Georgia Review, Kenyon Review online, Literary Hub, The Writer's Chronicle, and The Rumpus, where she is a senior poetry editor. Molly's work has won a Lucile Medwick Award from the Poetry Society of America, a Glenna Luschei Award from Prairie Schooner, a Writers@Work Fellowship Award, and a faculty fellowship from the University of Michigan's Institute for the Humanities. She holds an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop and an MPA from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and teaches writing at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. ​Further Reading:Carl PhillipsJorie Graham"Home Burial" by Robert FrostWordsworth's Prelude, Book 1 ("Fair seedtime had my soul...")Aracelis Girmay's essay From Woe to WonderJake Skeets' essay Poetry as FieldLouise Glück

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart, author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025).--Read: "Dawn's Fool" (author's website), also "[your mind that beautiful country]" at Malarkey BooksPurchase: But Then I Thought by Kyla Houbolt (above/ground press, 2023)Kyla Houbolt writes poems and occasional reviews, and takes care of two goats, 11 chickens, and 8 ducks. Chapbooks But Then I Thought available from above/ground press, Tuned available from CCCP Chapbooks, Surviving Death available from The Broken Spine, and a re-issue of Dawn’s Fool(a micro chap) also available from above/ground press. Recommended Reading:Lucille CliftonTang Dynasty poetsGary SnyderFrank O'HaraEmily Dickinson

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart, author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025).--Read: "Disambiguation" at Poetry Daily Purchase: Asterism by Ae Hee Lee (Tupelo Press, 2024)Ae Hee Lee--born in South Korea and raised in Peru--is the author of ASTERISM, which was selected by John Murillo for the 2022 Dorset Prize, and the poetry chapbooks Bedtime || Riverbed (Compound Press 2017), Dear bear, (Platypus Press 2021), and  Connotary (Frost Place Chapbook Competition Winner – Bull City Press 2021). Ae Hee is a Just Buffalo Literary Center Fellow, Adroit Journal Gregory Djanikian Scholar, recipient of the James Olney Award by The Southern Review, and Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship Finalist. She has also received scholarships and honors from the Academy of American Poets, AWP, Bread Loaf, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, among others.  Recommended Reading:Build Yourself a Boat by Camonghne FelixThe Body: An Essay by Jenny BoullyGhost by Rachel Whiteread (National Gallery)The Atomic Sonnets by Rosebud Ben-OniGoblin Market by Christina Rossetti

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart, author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025).--Read: Excerpt from Beth Gilstrap's There is News Along the Ohio River (Cincinnati Review), and Lee Potts' "A Time of Splinters" (Moist Poetry Journal)Purchase: Deadheading & Other Stories (Red Hen Press, 2021) by Beth Gilstrap and We Will Miss the Stars in the Morningby Lee PottsBeth Gilstrap is the author of Deadheading & Other Stories (2021), Winner of the Red Hen Press Women’s Prose Prize, short-listed for the Stanford Libraries William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award, Bronze-winner of Reader Views Literary Awards, and a finalist for the 2021 Foreword Reviews Awards in Short Fiction. She is also the author of I Am Barbarella: Stories (2015) from Twelve Winters Press and No Man’s Wild Laura (2016) from Hyacinth Girl Press. Born and raised near Charlotte, she and her house full of critters now call the Charleston-metro area home. She also lives with c-PTSD and is quite vocal about ending the stigma surrounding mental illness. For the ’24/’25 academic year, she’ll be in service with Americorps/Reading Partners.Lee Potts (he/him) is author of two poetry chapbooks: We Will Miss the Stars in the Morning (Bottlecap Press, 2024) and And Drought Will Follow (Frosted Fire, 2021). He was poetry editor at Barren Magazine from 2020 to 2023 and co-editor of the Painted Bride Quarterly back in the late 80s and early 90s. He is a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net nominee. His work has appeared in The Night Heron Barks, Rust + Moth, Whale Road Review, UCity Review, Firmament, Moist Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. He lives just outside of Philadelphia with his wife, the last kid still at home, and two cats named Franny and Zooey.Further Reading:Black Lily ZineStone Circle ReviewSiddhartha by Herman HesseCirce by Madeline MillerAndrei Tarkovsky (particularly Stalker)Aftersun (Dir. by Charlotte Wells)Aubrey HirschPoor Things (Dir. by Yorgos Lanthimos)Little Fiction Big TruthsBarren MagazinePainted Bride Quarterly

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart, author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025).--Read: "I'd Rather Be" by Mitchell Nobis and "After the Last" by Jared Beloff, both published in Moist Poetry JournalPurchase: Who Will Cradle Your Head by Jared Beloff (and be on the lookout for Mitch Nobel's Beginning to Sense, forthcoming from ELJ Editions in 2025)Jared Beloff is the author of the Who Will Cradle Your Head (ELJ Editions, 2023). Jared is currently a poetry editor at The Weight Journal and Poets of Queens. His poetry can be found in AGNI, Baltimore Review, Rust & Moth, Crab Creek Review and elsewhere. His work has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Queens, NY.Mitchell Nobis is a writer and K-12 teacher in Metro Detroit. His poetry has been nominated for things by Whale Road Review, Nurture Literary, and Exposition Review. His collection Beginning to Sense is forthcoming from ELJ Editions (2025), and he has two poetry manuscripts making the rounds. He facilitates the Teachers as Poets group for the National Writing Project, hosts the Wednesday Night Sessions reading series, serves as an assistant editor at Bracken Magazine, and co-founded the NAWP reading series. Find him at @MitchNobis (various platforms).Further Reading:NAWPPatricia SmithUCity Reviewrob mclennanGabriel Garcia Márquez's Until August review

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart, author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025).--Read: "What If Pain No Longer Ordered the Narrative" (The Sun)Purchase: No Spare People (Black Lawrence Press, 2023)Erin Hoover was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She is the author of two poetry collections: Barnburner (Elixir, 2018), which won the Antivenom Poetry Award and a Florida Book Award, and No Spare People (Black Lawrence, 2023). Her poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry and in journals such as Cincinnati Review, Poetry Northwest, Shenandoah, and The Sun. Hoover lives in Tennessee and teaches creative writing at Tennessee Tech University. She curates and hosts a poetry reading series, Sawmill Poetry, and produces the “Not Abandon, but Abide” monthly interview series for the Southern Review of Books. Visit her website at erinhooverpoet.com.Further Reading:Ever BaldwinAdrienne RichRachel ZuckerDiane SeussBernadette Mayer

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart, author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025).--Read: "Dream, with an interior" in Moist Poetry JournalPurchase: World's End (ARP Books, 2023) and groundwork: The best of the third decade of above/ground press: 2013–2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023)Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2010, the Council for the Arts in Ottawa Mid-Career Award in 2014, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012 and 2017. In March, 2016, he was inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour. His most recent titles include the poetry collection World’s End, (ARP Books, 2023), a suite of pandemic essays, essays in the face of uncertainties (Mansfield Press, 2022) and the anthology groundworks: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023). His collection of short stories, On Beauty (University of Alberta Press) will appear in fall 2024. An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics (periodicityjournal.blogspot.com) and Touch the Donkey (touchthedonkey.blogspot.com). He is editor of my (small press) writing day, and an editor/managing editor of many gendered mothers. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.comRecommended Reading:Midwinter Day by Bernadette MayerLydia DavisRussell EdsonSarah MangusoNate LoganBen NiespodzianyRosmarie WaldropCole SwensonRachel ZuckerLisa RobertsonNorma Cole, Writing on Writing in French

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart, author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025).--Read: Book X and Book VII from "The Queerness of Eve"Purchase: Nonbinary Bird of Paradise (University of Akron Press, 2024)Emilia Phillips (they/them) is a poet, nonfiction writer, and book reviewer. They are the author of five poetry collections from the University of Akron Press, including Nonbinary Bird of Paradise (forthcoming February 2024) and Embouchure (2021), and four chapbooks. Winner of a 2019 Pushcart Prize, 2015 StoryQuarterly Nonfiction Prize, and the 2012 The Journal Poetry Prize, Phillips’s poems, lyric essays, and book reviews appear widely in literary publications including The Adroit Journal, Agni, American Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, The Kenyon Review, New England Review, The New York Times, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. They are an Associate Professor of Creative Writing in the Department of English; MFA in Writing Program; and the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at UNC Greensboro, where they regularly teach MFA- and undergraduate-level poetry workshops, Queer Poetry & Poetics, and Women’s Health & Bodies. Recommended Reading:Linda GregersonJenny Johnson — "Fisting Party" (Cortland Review), "Bottoms" (APR)Donika Kelly -- "On What Gay Porn Has Done For Me"Destiny O Birdsong - "what lesbian porn has done for me" (PoFo)Xan Phillips - "Want Could Kill Me"Cameron Awkward-RichAri BaniasChen Chen