Rattle Poetry

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.

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.

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.

Doug Ramspeck is the author of nine collections of poetry, one collection of short stories, and a novella. Recent books include Blur (The Word Works), winner of the Tenth Gate Prize, Book of Years (Cloudbank Books), Under Black Leaves (Etchings Press), Black Flowers (LSU Press), and The Owl That Carries Us Away, winner of the G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction. His poems and stories have appeared in literary journals that include Kenyon Review, Slate, The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, and Missouri Review. He is a three-time recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award. His short story, "Balloon," was listed as a Distinguished Story of 2018 by The Best American Short Stories. Find more on Doug here: https://dougramspeck.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 in spring that includes personification. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem with internal rhyme 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.

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.

Raymond P. Hammond is the editor-in-chief of both The New York Quarterly and NYQ Books. He holds an MA in American Poetry from NYU's Gallatin School and is the author of Poetic Amusement, a book of literary criticism. He lives in Beacon, NY with his wife, the poet Amanda J. Bradley, and their dog Hank. Find more information on Raymond, visit: https://raymondhammond.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 short poem that explores someone else’s awe. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem from the perspective of one of your childhood toys. 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.

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, which has over 100,000 copies in print. He has been featured in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, The Christian Science Monitor, and on NPR’s Morning Edition. James is the author of four prize-winning books of poetry—The Book of What Stays, Telling My Father, Bluebird, and Every Waking Moment—and a book of short essays, Kindness Will Save the World: Stories of Compassion and Connection. James also speaks and leads workshops on kindness, mindfulness, and writing for self-compassion. He lives with his husband on forty rocky acres in the woods of Southern Vermont. Find more information on James, visit: https://www.jamescrews.net/ 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 “golden" sestina or tritina: start with an epigraph from another poem, and use six (or three) words from that quote as the end-words of your sestina or tritina. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a short poem that explore someone else’s awe. 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.

Erica Reid appeared in this winter's issue of Rattle. Her manuscript, Ghost Man on Second, won the 2023 Donald Justice Poetry Prize and was just published by Autumn House Press in spring of 2024. She lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, and earned her MFA at Western Colorado University. Find more information on Erica, visit: https://ericareidpoet.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 “What to Do if …” poem about what to do in an unusual situation. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a “golden sestina” (or tritina): start with an epigraph from another poem, and use six (or three) words from that quote as the end-words of your sestina or tritina. 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.

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.

Sally Ashton is a poet, writer, Editor-in-Chief of the DMQ Review, San José State University professor emerita, lecturer, blogger, and workshop presenter who has taught over 100 workshops. She was appointed the second Santa Clara County Poet Laureate, 2011-2013. She has collaborated with both visual artists and musicians. She is Assistant Editor of They Said: A Multi-Genre Anthology of Contemporary Collaborative Writing, Black Lawrence Press, 2018. Her work is included in many anthologies. Listening to Mars, her fifth book of poetry, was just released. Find more information on Sally, visit his website: https://sallyashton.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 haiku sequence that talks about love without mentioning it by name. Next Week’s Prompt: Revise a poem that you wrote a long time ago by radically shifting its perspective. 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.

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.

George David Clark is The author of Reveille (winner of the Miller Williams Poetry Prize) and Newly Not Eternal (just released from LSU Press). After earning an MFA at the University of Virginia and a PhD at Texas Tech University, David held the Olive B. O’Connor Fellowship in Poetry at Colgate University and, later, the Lilly Postdoctoral Fellowship at Valparaiso University. The editor-in-chief of 32 Poems, he previously served in various capacities on the staffs of Meridian, Iron Horse Literary Magazine, and the Best New Poets anthology. Since 2015 David has taught creative writing and literature at Washington & Jefferson College, where he is now an associate professor. He lives in McMurray, PA with his wife, Elisabeth, and their four children. Find more information and George's books here: http://www.georgedavidclark.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 entitled, “A Brief History of [X],” where X is a word that needs to be translated, and the poem is less than a page. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a song of someone or something, as a persona poem 32 lines long. 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.

Rimas Uzgiris is a poet, translator, and critic. He is the author of North of Paradise, published by Kelsay Books (2019). Tarp, a collection of his poetry in Lithuanian translation was published by Kauko laiptai. He is translator of Caravan Lullabies by Ilzė Butkutė, Then What by Gintaras Grajauskas, Now I Understand by Marius Burokas, The Moon is a Pill by Aušra Kaziliūnaitė, and Vagabond Sun by Judita Vaičiūnaitė. Uzgiris has contributed significantly as editor and translator to two anthologies: How the Earth Carries Us: New Lithuanian Poets, and New Baltic Poets. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MFA in creative writing from Rutgers-Newark University. Recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Grant, a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Translation Fellowship, and the Poetry Spring 2016 Award for translations of Lithuanian poetry into other languages, he teaches translation at Vilnius University. Find North of Paradise here: https://kelsaybooks.com/products/north-of-paradise 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 tells a story about a silent interaction with a stranger. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem entitled, “A Brief History of [X],” where X is a word that needs to be translated, and the poem is less than a page. 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.

Diana Goetsch is an American poet and essayist, author of eight poetry collections, the acclaimed memoir This Body I Wore, and dozens of features and columns. She was winner of the 2017 Rattle Chapbook Prize for her book, In America. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Gettysburg Review, LitHub, Tricycle, The American Scholar, The LA Times, The Chicago Tribune, Best American Poetry and The Pushcart Prize. Her honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Grace Paley Teaching Fellowship at The New School. Find the more on Diana here: https://www.dianagoetsch.com/ The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. For the full interview, including Poets Respond, the Prompt Lines, and more, visit YouTube.com/RattlePoetry.

Tim Seibles is the author of seven collections of poetry, including Body Moves (1988), Hurdy-Gurdy (1992), Hammerlock (1999), Buffalo Head Solos (2004), Fast Animal (2012), which won the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize, received the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and was nominated for a 2012 National Book Award, and One Turn Around The Sun (2017). His latest work of poetry, Voodoo Libretto, was published by Etruscan Press in 2022. Seibles lives and teaches at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Find the more on Tim here: https://blueflowerarts.com/artist/tim-seibles/ And Voodoo Libretto here: https://etruscanpress.org/product/voodoo-libretto-new-selected-poems-by-tim-seibles/ 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/ The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find the full episode, including the Prompt Lines and Poets Respond, at YouTube.com/RattlePoetry

Miracle Thornton is a winner of the 2023 Rattle Chapbook Prize, and her book, Plucked, was published with the winter issue of Rattle. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Rattle, DREGINALD, Silent Auctions, UpNorth Lit, and elsewhere. She’s been recognized by the National YoungArts Foundation and Princeton University, among others. She currently studies Literature at Bennington College. Find the chapbook here: https://www.rattle.com/product/plucked/ 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/ The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. For the full episode, which includes the Prompt Lines, Poets Respond, and more, visit YouTube.com/RattlePoetry

Matthew Buckley Smith's poems and stories have appeared in AGNI, American Life in Poetry, and elsewhere. His first book of poems, Dirge for an Imaginary World, was selected by Andrew Hudgins for the 2011 Able Muse Book Award. His second book of poems, Midlife, was selected by David Yezzi for the 2021 Richard Wilbur Award, and will be published soon. For more information: matthewbuckleysmith.com Order his book, Midlife, here: https://www.amazon.com/Midlife-Matthew-Buckley-Smith/dp/1939574382/ The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. To watch the full version, including our Poets Respond poems and Prompt Lines, visit YouTube.com/RattlePoetry

Debra Marquart is a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts & Sciences and teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State University, as well as the Stonecoast Low-Residency MFA Program at University of Southern Maine. Marquart serves as Iowa’s Poet Laureate and the Senior Editor of Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment. The author of seven books―including The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere and Small Buried Things: Poems―Marquart has been featured on NPR and the BBC and has received over 50 grants and awards including an NEA Fellowship, a PEN USA Award, a New York Times Editors’ Choice commendation, and Elle Magazine’s Elle Lettres Award. In 2021, Marquart was awarded a Poets Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. Her most recent book is Gratitude with Dogs: New and Collected. For more information: debramarquart.com 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 includes multiple lists. Next Week’s Prompt: Look at an old family photograph, and find an object in the background that you hadn’t noticed before. Write a poem about it. 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.

Gaetan Sgro is an internal medicine doctor, girl dad, and medical educator at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine where he co-directs a program in the medical humanities. He is the recipient of teaching awards including the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award, the Golden Apple Teaching Award, and the Carl R. Fuhrman Clinical Educator of the Year Award. His writing has appeared in Rattle, The Bellevue Literary Review, Hippocampus Magazine, Hektoen International, The Healing Muse, Academic Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, JAMA, the Best New Poets Anthology, and elsewhere. Find more at his website: https://www.gaetansgro.com/ 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: Move through an unnatural environment and describe it as though you were writing a nature poem. Next Week's Prompt: Write a poem that includes multiple lists. 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.

Greg Kosmicki is a poet and retired social worker who lives in Omaha, Nebraska. He founded The Backwaters Press in 1997, which he now serves as Editor Emeritus. Greg’s poetry has been published in numerous magazines since 1975, both print and online. Some of his earliest publications were in Poetry NOW in 1975 and Paris Review, in 1977. He received artist’s fellowships for his poetry from the Nebraska Arts Council 2000 and 2006. Three of his poems have been read on Writer’s Almanac. Author of thirteen books and chapbooks of poems, he is a 2000 and 2006 recipient of the Nebraska Arts Council's Merit Award. His previous collection, It’s As Good Here as It Gets Anywhere (Logan House) was a finalist for the 2017 High Plains Book Award. His new book is We Eat the Earth. He and his wife Debbie are parents of three children and grandparents of two. Find Greg's most recent book here: https://wscpress.com/3157/features/we-eat-the-earth-by-greg-kosmicki-2/ Find Edward Nudelman's new book here: https://www.edwardnudelman.com/books 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 begins with an idiomatic expression that you take literally or incorrectly, and see where it goes. Next Week’s Prompt: Move through an unnatural environment and describe it as though you were writing a nature 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.