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S3: E4 Roxi Power Chats with Josh Brahinksy about Speaking in Tongues and Poetry
En•Trance Journal's contributing editor, Roxi Power, chats with Josh Brahinksy about the relationship between speaking in tongues and poetry.
Josh Brahinsky is a psychological anthropologist at McGill's Department of Transcultural Psychiatry and Stanford's Religious Studies department studying contemplative practices like prayer, meditation, psychedelics and breathwork using ethnography, brain imaging and detailed accounts of experience. His work examines how these practices cultivate surrender—emotionally, mentally, and physically— and how they change people's behavior. Josh teaches at UC Santa Cruz. His research can be found in academic journals as well as podcasts and in his book Tongues of Fire: How Charismatic Prayer Changes Evangelical Brains and Inspires Spirit-Filled Activism, the book we discuss in this podcast.
S3: E3 Danusha Laméris Reads and Discusses her Poem "U-Pick Orchards"
Danusha Laméris is a poet and essayist raised in Northern California. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Kenyon Review, and Ploughshares, among others. She is a Pushcart Prize recipient, a winner of the 2021 Northern California Book Award in Poetry, and a 2020 Lucille Clifton Legacy Award honoree. Her publications include The Moons of August (2014), chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as winner of the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize; Bonfire Opera (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020); and Blade by Blade (Copper Canyon Press, 2024). She teaches in Pacific University's low-residency MFA program.and leads the on line Litfield Writing Community.
S3: E2 Jane Hirshfield Reads and Discusses Her Poem: "And if you like numbers, I will tell you that here on Earth--"
Jane reads her poem "And if you like numbers, I will tell you that here on earth." The poem is a wonderful window into the presence that poetry can bring, even as it recounts and counts the many terrors of the world. They discuss the many portals of poetry and its service to us in difficult times. Neither Jane nor Dion could remember the words to Yeats's poem, "Easter, 1916," but here's the poem for your reading pleasure:
Award-winning poet, essayist, and translator Jane Hirshfield is the author of ten collections of poetry, including The Asking: New and Selected Poems (2023); Ledger (2020); The Beauty (2015), longlisted for the National Book Award; Come, Thief (2011), a finalist for the PEN USA Poetry Award; and Given Sugar, Given Salt (2001), a finalist for the National Book Critics Award. Hirshfield is also the author of two collections of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (1997) and Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World (2015), and has edited and co-translated four books collecting the work of world poets from the past: The Ink Dark Moon: Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan (1990); Women in Praise of the Sacred: Forty-Three Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women (1994); Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems (2004); and The Heart of Haiku (2011).
S3: E1 Cornelius Eady talks to Paul Nelson about his poem "Proof"
Editor-at-large Paul Nelson and poet Cornelius Eady discuss "Proof," an occasional poem written for the inauguration of mayor Zohran Mamdani in New York City.
Poet and cofounder of Cave Canem Cornelius Eady’s published collections include Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (Omnation Press, 1986), winner of the Lamont Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets; The Gathering of My Name (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1991), nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; Brutal Imagination (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2001), a National Book Award finalist; and Hardheaded Weather: New and Selected Poems (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2008).
He is a recipient of the 2023 Pegasus Award for Service in Poetry. In 1996, Eady and poet Toi Derricote founded Cave Canem, a nonprofit organization that supports emerging African American poets through summer retreats, regional workshops, first-book prizes, annual anthologies, and events and readings across the country.
S2 E2: Paul Nelson Chats with Sharon Thesen
Sharon Thesen grew up in small towns across Western Canada, and for many years she taught English and Creative Writing at Capilano College in North Vancouver and was an active member of the poetry scene in the Lower Mainland. Since 2003 she has lived in the Central Okanagan and is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at UBC’s Okanagan campus. She is the editor of two editions of The New Long Poem Anthology, and was an editor of The Capilano Review and co-editor of Lake: A Journal of Arts and Environment. She has also co-edited, with Ralph Maud, two editions of the correspondence between Charles Olson and Frances Boldereff. Her recent poetry books include A Pair of Scissors, The Good Bacteria, and Oyama Pink Shale, from House of Anansi in Toronto, and The Receiver from New Star in Vancouver.
Paul Nelson is En•trance Journal's editor at large and contributing editor.
S2 E1: Kim Addonizio Reads and Discusses Kansas, 4 A.M
We hear Kim read "Kansas, 4 A.M." from her newest poetry collection, Exit Opera.
In this version, a sound accompaniment is provided by Kim's partner, the musician Danny Caron. We then discuss the mythic, musical, and trancelike elements of the poem and the way, in the final analysis, poetry originates from a kind of wordless listening.
Kim Addonizio is the author nine poetry collections, two novels, two story collections, and two books on writing poetry, The Poet’s Companion (with Dorianne Laux) and Ordinary Genius. She has received fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation, Pushcart Prizes in both poetry and the essay, and her work has been widely translated and anthologized. Tell Me was a National Book Award Finalist in poetry. Her new poetry collection, Exit Opera, is out from W.W. Norton. She lives in Oakland, CA
S1 E3: Jan Beatty Chats with Dion O'Reilly
Jan Beatty and Dion read and discuss two poems that appear in the first issue of En•Trance Journal--"Mission" and "Chalk Outline." The conversation touches on the numinous moments in the poems as well as some practical elements of craft. Jan's rich and adventurous life feeds energy into these poems, bringing the whole range of human emotion and experience.
Jan Beatty’s eighth book, Dragstripping, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, September, 2024. Her memoir, American Bastard, won the Red Hen Nonfiction Award. Recent books include The Body Wars and a chapbook, Skydog (Lefty Blondie Press, 2022). Other work includes Jackknife: New and Selected Poems (University of Pittsburgh, 2018 Paterson Prize) named by Sandra Cisneros on LitHub as her favorite book of 2019. Beatty worked as a waitress, abortion counselor, and in maximum security prisons. She is Professor Emerita at Carlow University, where she directed creative writing, the Madwomen in the Attic workshops, and the MFA program.
S1 E2: Paul Nelson Interviews Andrew Schelling
This is a snippet of a longer conversation between Paul Nelson and Andrew Schelling. Andrew reads from his poem, "The Bristlecone"--a poem about a dream in which Michael McClure appears.
Paul Nelson is En•trance Journal's editor at large and contributing editor.
S1 E1: Ellen Bass Chats with Dion O'Reilly
Ellen Bass and Dion O'Reilly discuss Bass's poem, "You're the Top." We discuss the unique characteristics of the prose poem--how humble and quirky it is.
We take a look at the narrator's altered state in the poem, where she is destabilized, terrified, disoriented, and ultimately exhilarated in a moment of cosmic consciousness. It's a heady ride!
We also discuss how and why Bass enters a trance state as a way to dramatize her life's experience and create her fabulous poems. She offers a few easy tips for ways to enter a creative trance and also reminds us of the joy of doing so.
Ellen Bass’s most recent collection, Indigo, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2020. Her other poetry books include Like a Beggar, The Human Line, and Mules of Love. Her poems appear frequently in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, and many other journals. Among her awards are Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The NEA, and The California Arts Council, The Lambda Literary Award, and four Pushcart Prizes. She co-edited the first major anthology of women’s poetry, No More Masks!, and her nonfiction books include the groundbreaking The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse and Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth. A Chancellor Emerita of the Academy of American Poets, Bass founded poetry workshops at Salinas Valley State Prison and the Santa Cruz, California jails, and teaches in the MFA writing program at Pacific University.