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The Beat: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Knox County Public Library
In each episode of The Beat, host Alan May introduces a poet and we hear a few poems, usually read and recorded by the poets themselves. The Beat is produced by Knox County Public Library in Knoxville, Tenn.
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- 3 weeks ago15 min
Donovan McAbee and Kathleen Jamie
Donovan McAbee is a poet, songwriter, and essayist. His work has appeared in The New York Times, TIME magazine, The Hudson Review, The Sun, Garden & Gun, Poetry London, and others. McAbee grew up in a small town in South Carolina, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He holds a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and a PhD in Creative Writing and Contemporary Poetry from the University of St Andrews in Scotland. McAbee lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife and two children.Kathleen Jamie was raised in Currie, Scotland, and she studied philosophy at Edinburgh University. Her awards include the Forward Prize for best poetry collection of the year, a Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, a Paul Hamlyn Award, and a Creative Scotland Award. From 2021 to 2024, Kathleen Jamie served as Scotland’s Makar (a title given to the national poet)."The Whale-watcher," "The Buddleia," and "The Wishing Tree" were recorded with permission from Kathleen Jamie.Links:Donovan McAbeeRead "The Tunnel," "Holy the Body," and "Sightings" in The Sun MagazineRead "Coming Back Down" in ReflectionsDonovan McAbee's websiteHear Major Jackson read McAbee's "Desert Sayings" on The SlowdownKathleen JamieRead "The Whale-watcher," "The Wishing Tree," and other poems at Scottish Poetry LibraryBio and poems at The Poetry FoundationHear 19 poems by Jamie at The Poetry Archive
- Mar 5, 20269 min
Matt Broaddus
Matt Broaddus is the author of Deeper the Tropics and Temporal Anomalies. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Annulet, Denver Quarterly, and The Paris Review. He lives in Colorado and serves as an Advisory Poetry Editor for The Paris Review. Links:Matt Broaddus' website"'Blue Prints' and Other Poems" at Changes"The Seal of Approval" at American Poetry Review"The Sun Is a Disembodied Thought: An Interview with Matt Broaddus" at Poetry Daily"These Lit Particulars: On Matt Broaddus’ Deeper the Tropics" at Cleveland Review of BooksMentioned in this episode:KnoxCountyLibrary.orgThank you for listening and sharing this podcast. Explore life-changing resources and events, sign up for newsletters, follow us on social media, and more through our website, www.knoxcountylibrary.org.Rate & review on Podchaser
- Feb 9, 20269 min
Shuly Xóchitl Cawood
Shuly Xóchitl Cawood teaches writing workshops, doodles with Sharpies and acrylic paint, and is raising two poodles and a dwindling number of orchids. Her books include Something So Good It Can Never Be Enough (Press 53, 2023) and Trouble Can Be So Beautiful at the Beginning (Mercer University Press, 2021), winner of the Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Sun, and Rattle.Links: Shuly Xóchitl Cawood's website"Poem in Which I Fail to Teach My Dog How to Fetch" at The SunTwo Poems at Have Has HadInterview and four poems at Does It Have PocketsVideo: Cawood reading her poem "You Are Not a Cat"Mentioned in this episode:KnoxCountyLibrary.orgThank you for listening and sharing this podcast. Explore life-changing resources and events, sign up for newsletters, follow us on social media, and more through our website, www.knoxcountylibrary.org.Rate & review on Podchaser
- Nov 15, 20259 min
Arlene Keizer's Poems for Beauford Delaney
Arlene Keizer, an Afro-Caribbean American poet and scholar, writes about the literature, lived experience, theory, and visual culture of the African Diaspora. The recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, she later earned an MA in English and Creative Writing (Poetry) at Stanford University and a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Black Subjects: Identity Formation in the Contemporary Narrative of Slavery (Cornell UP), and her poems and articles have appeared in African American Review, American Literature, The Kenyon Review, Obsidian: Literature and Arts in the African Diaspora, PMLA, Poem-a-Day, TriQuarterly, and other venues. Fraternal Light: On Painting While Black, her collection of poems about the African American painter Beauford Delaney, won the 2022 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize and was published in 2023 by the Kent State University Press. She is a professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.Links:Arlene Keizer Arlene Keizer’s page at Pratt Institute Interview with Arlene Keizer at Speaking of Marvels “Canopy” in Poem-A-Day Fraternal Light: On Painting While Black at Kent State University Press Beauford Delaney Bio and artwork at Knoxville Museum of Art Bio and Artwork at the Smithsonian Bio and artwork at Studio Museum in Harlem Artwork at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery “Beauford Delaney in Knoxville” at Knoxville History Project Mentioned in this episode:KnoxCountyLibrary.orgThank you for listening and sharing this podcast. Explore life-changing resources and events, sign up for newsletters, follow us on social media, and more through our website, www.knoxcountylibrary.org.Rate & review on Podchaser
- Sep 9, 20259 min
Chris Barton and Peter Gizzi
Chris Barton is the author of the poetry chapbook A Finely Calibrated Apocalypse, published by Bottlecap Press in 2024. His writing has appeared in Epiphany, Peach Magazine, The Plenitudes, Hotel, and elsewhere. From 2016 to 2019, he co-hosted the Electric Pheasant Poetry in Knoxville, TN. Peter Gizzi grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His many books of poetry include Artificial Heart, Threshold Songs, In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems, 1987–2011 and Archeophonics, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. His book Fierce Elegy, published in 2023, won the T. S. Eliot Prize. He teaches at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “In Defense of Nothing” from In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems, 1987–2011 © 2015 by Peter Gizzi. Published by Wesleyan University Press. Used by permission.Links:Read "our free trial lives," "last supper," and "the bafflement" by Chris BartonRead "In Defense of Nothing" by Peter GizziChris BartonA Finely Calibrated Apocalypse by Chris Barton (Bottlecap Press)"2 Poems by Chris Barton" in Peach Magazine"Ouroboros as a Treat" in The Plentitudes"Three Poems" in Potluck MagazinePeter GizziBio and poems at The Poetry FoundationBio and poems at Poets.org"Peter Gizzi Talks About His Work" (YouTube Video--T.S. Eliot Prize)Mentioned in this episode:KnoxCountyLibrary.orgThank you for listening and sharing this podcast. Explore life-changing resources and events, sign up for newsletters, follow us on social media, and more through our website, www.knoxcountylibrary.org.Rate & review on Podchaser
- Aug 1, 202512 min
Charles Douthat and Robert Frost
Charles Douthat is a poet, retired litigator, and visual artist. Born and educated in California, he practiced law for many years in New Haven and began writing poems during a long mid-life illness. His first collection, Blue for Oceans, received the PEN New England Award, as the best book of poetry published in 2010 by a New England writer. Concerning Douthat’s newest book, Again, the poet Alan Shapiro writes, “This book is impossible not to love.” Douthat lives in Weston, Connecticut, with his wife, the artist Julie Leff. Robert Frost was born in 1874 in San Francisco. When he was just ten years old, his father died, and Frost’s family moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts to live with his paternal grandparents. Though Frost attended Dartmouth College and Harvard University, he never earned a formal degree. He spent much of his twenties and thirties farming and teaching. In 1912, he moved, with his wife and children, to England where publishers were more receptive to his work. But he moved back to the States in 1915 after the start of the First World War. He lived for the rest of his life mostly in Massachusetts and Vermont. Robert Frost won four Pulitzer Prizes and the Congressional Medal of Honor. He died in Boston in 1963. Links: Read "Polk Street" and "Mercy" by Charles DouthatRead "After Apple-Picking" by Robert FrostCharles DouthatCharles Douthat's website"Charles Douthat Unbound," Authors Unbound podcast"A Few Minutes After Nine" in The Los Angeles Review"The Planting" in The Nature of Our Times"Grounds" in Leon Literary ReviewRobert FrostBio and poems at Poets.orgBio and Poems at The Poetry Foundation's websiteMentioned in this episode:KnoxCountyLibrary.orgThank you for listening and sharing this podcast. Explore life-changing resources and events, sign up for newsletters, follow us on social media, and more through our website, www.knoxcountylibrary.org.Rate & review on Podchaser
- Jul 3, 202519 min
Matthew Minicucci and Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Matthew Minicucci is an award-winning author of four collections of poems including his most recent, Dual, published in 2023 by Acre Books. His poetry and essays have appeared widely in various publications, including American Poetry Review, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, the Kenyon Review, Poetry, and The Southern Review. His work has garnered numerous awards including the Stafford/Hall Oregon Book Award and the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize, along with fellowships from organizations including the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the National Parks Service, and the James Merrill House, among others. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Blount Scholars Program at the University of Alabama.Brigit Pegeen Kelly was born in 1951 in Palo Alto, California. Her first book, To the Place of Trumpets, won the Yale Younger Poets Prize and was published in 1987. Her poems appeared in Best American Poetry, The Nation, The Yale Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Southern Review, and others. She won awards and fellowships from the Poetry Society of America, the Whiting Foundation, and the Academy of American Poets. Her third book, The Orchard, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Kelly taught at the University of California-Irvine, Purdue University, Warren Wilson College, and the University of Illinois. She died in October of 2016, in Urbana, Illinois. Special thanks to Boa Editions, Ltd, for permission to record Brigit Pegeen Kelly's poem "Song," which appeared in her book Song, and "Brightness from the North," which was published in The Orchard. Links:Matthew MinicucciMatthew Minicucci's websiteBio and poems at The Poetry Foundation "Nostalgia" at poets.orgTwo poems in Poetry NorthwestBrigit Pegeen KellyBio and poems at The Poetry FoundationBio and poems at poets.org "Dead Doe" in The Kenyon ReviewReading at Breadloaf Writers' ConferenceMentioned in this episode:KnoxCountyLibrary.orgThank you for listening and sharing this podcast. Explore life-changing resources and events, sign up for newsletters, follow us on social media, and more through our website, www.knoxcountylibrary.org.Rate & review on Podchaser
- Jun 3, 202522 min
Sara Pirkle and Anya Krugovoy Silver
Sara Pirkle is a Southern poet, an identical twin, a breast cancer survivor, and a board game enthusiast. Her first full-length collection of poetry, The Disappearing Act, won the Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry and was published by Mercer University Press in 2018. In 2019, she was nominated for Georgia Author of the Year in Poetry, and in 2022 she was shortlisted for the Oxford Poetry Prize. She also dabbles in songwriting and co-wrote a song on Remy Le Boeuf’s album, Architecture of Storms, which was nominated for a 2023 GRAMMY in the Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album category. Pirkle's poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, the Best of the Net Anthology twice, and the Independent Best American Poetry Award. She earned a PhD in English from Georgia State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Georgia College & State University. She is an Associate Director of Creative Writing at The University of Alabama.Anya Krugovoy Silver was born in Media, Pennsylvania in December of 1968, and she grew up in Swarthmore. The child of immigrants, her first two languages were German and Russian. She graduated from Haverford College, and she earned a PhD in literature from Emory University in Atlanta. In 1998, Silver and her husband began teaching at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. While pregnant with their son in 2004, she was diagnosed with and treated for inflammatory breast cancer. After five years of remission, her cancer returned as bone metastasis in 2010. She published four books of poetry and one book of criticism in her lifetime. She won the Georgia Author of the Year Award in 2015, and she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellow for Poetry in 2018, the same year in which she died. At the time of her death, she was in the process of editing her fifth book, Saint Agnostica, which was published in 2021 by Louisiana State University Press. The following poems were recorded with permission from Louisiana State University Press: Silver, Anya Krugovoy. “Blush” and “The Poem in My Childhood.” The Ninety-Third Name of God: Poems, Louisiana State University Press, 2010Silver, Anya Krugovoy. “There’s a River.” I Watched You Disappear: Poems, Louisiana State University Press, 2014Silver, Anya Krugovoy. “From Nothing.” From Nothing: Poems, Louisiana State University Press, 2016Silver, Anya Krugovoy. “Being Ill.” Saint Agnostica: Poems, Louisiana State University Press, 2021Links: Sara PirkleSara Pirkle's website"Weighing the Options" in Delta Poetry Review"Not Prometheus" in Eclectica"Pretend You Don’t Owe Me a Thing" in Rattle"Evolution of the Writing Process: A Conversation with Dr. Sara Pirkle Hughes"--University of AlabamaAnya Krugovoy SilverBio and poems at The Poetry Foundation"Anya Krugovoy Silver, 1968-1018" in New Georgia Encyclopedia"Reading Poetry in Illness," podcast episode at The SlowDown"Anya Silver’s Heart-Wrenchingly Beautiful Last Poems," a review in The Christian CenturyAnya Silver Archives in Image
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About The Beat
In each episode of The Beat, host Alan May introduces a poet and we hear a few poems, usually read and recorded by the poets themselves. The Beat is produced by Knox County Public Library in Knoxville, Tenn.
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