“The Poetry Magazine Podcast: The Life and Poetry of Carolyn Marie Rodgers, with Nina Rodgers Gordon, Andrew Peart, and Srikanth Reddy”
(October 4, 2022)

Delve into the life and poetry of one of the chief architects of the Black Arts Movement in Chicago, Carolyn Marie Rodgers (1940-2010), with a very special guest: Carolyn’s sister, Nina Rodgers Gordon. Today, we have the great honor of hearing her poetry read by Nina, who talks about what it was like growing up with Carolyn and the many phases of her writing and life. She’s joined in the studio by Andrew Peart, a Chicago-based writer and editor who has worked with Nina for several years to organize Carolyn's papers.

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“The Poetry Magazine Podcast: Srikanth Reddy with Liesl Olson and Ed Roberson on Margaret Danner’s ‘The Elevator Man Adheres to Form”
(June 1, 2022)

This week, we return to the little-known world of Margaret Danner with guest editor Srikanth Reddy, historian Liesl Olson, and poet Ed Roberson. Today, we do a deep dive into one of Danner’s poems that explores race, class, and social mobility in 1950s America. It’s called “The Elevator Man Adheres to Form,” and it may (or may not) be about an elevator operator who worked at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

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“The Poetry Magazine Podcast: Srikanth Reddy in Conversation with Josue Coy Dick, Juan Coy Teni, and Jesse Nathan”
(May 19, 2022)

Today we explore the Popol Vuh, the foundational sacred narrative of the K’iche people. This Mayan epic tells the story of creation, the role of the gods in human affairs, and the history of migration and settlement in Central America up to the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century. One incredible thing about the translation we’ll be talking about today is that it’s a family affair. To guest editor Srikanth Reddy, Jesse, Juan, and Josue’s translation—made across borders, languages, and generations—marks an important new chapter in this epic poem’s story.

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“The Poetry Magazine Podcast: Srikanth Reddy in Conversation with James Shea”
(May 3, 2022)

This week, Srikanth Reddy talks shit, quite literally, with the poet and translator James Shea. Shea recently co-translated, with Ikuho Amano, a little-known essay by the Japanese poet Masaoka Shiki titled “Haiku on Shit.” It’s a surprisingly serious, if not a little deadpan, essay about art and reality, beauty and ugliness, and poop and poetry. One favorite that’s shared in the episode is this one by Issa: “When you show it some sympathy, the baby sparrow takes a crap on you.”

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“The Poetry Magazine Podcast: Srikanth Reddy in Conversation with Don Mee Choi”
(April 19, 2022)

Srikanth Reddy first encountered the complex poetic world of Don Mee Choi as a translator of avant-garde Korean poetry before reading Choi’s own poetry. As a poet, Choi invites readers into her personal history—which is also the history of her father and of war. Even if you haven’t read Choi’s poetry, you’ve probably seen the work of her father—a photojournalist who filmed much of the news footage that Americans saw of the Vietnam War and the Cold War era.

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“The Poetry Magazine Podcast: Srikanth Reddy in Conversation with Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis
(April 5, 2022) 

When Srikanth Reddy was reading about Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis’s work as a curator at the Smithsonian, he was surprised to learn about Davis’s interest in ghosts. This week on the podcast, Reddy speaks with Davis about ghosts and “ghost practice,” and about the unusual way Davis’s novel is being haunted by other writers. They also talk about the Center for Refugee Poetics, founded by Davis with the poet Ocean Vuong, which Davis describes as “a mobile literary arts and education project, a Center without a physical home, a roving sanctuary.”

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“The Poetry Magazine Podcast: Srikanth Reddy and CM Burroughs on Margaret Danner”
(March 22, 2022)

This week, guest editor Srikanth Reddy and poet CM Burroughs dive into the world of Margaret Danner. Danner was a contemporary of Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes, whom she knew personally, but she never achieved the recognition she deserved in her lifetime. If you look for Danner’s poetry in your local bookstore, you won’t find anything in print. Recently, Burroughs connected with Danner, a poet from her lineage as a Black woman writing in America, not through Danner’s poems—but through her archival “hair-down letters.”

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“The Poetry Magazine Podcast: Srikanth Reddy in Conversation with Jay Hopler and Kimberley Johnson”
(March 8, 2022)  

When Jay Hopler received a terminal cancer diagnosis in 2017, he was told he had two years to live. He thought, “I have to write a book in twenty-four months.” Poetry guest editor Srikanth Reddy interviews both Hopler and Renaissance scholar and poet Kimberly Johnson in this episode. As a literary couple, Hopler and Johnson have shared a life in art for many years. Despite the heavy subject matter, the conversation between Hopler, Johnson, and Reddy contains plenty of laughter.

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