Rachel Zucker speaks with poet Tommy Pico about his first three books: IRL, Nature Poem, and Junk. Pico talks about epic cycles, the birdsong, growing up on a Kumeyaay reservation, becoming a poet, the culture shock and class shock of going to college in the Northeast, deciding not to go to medical school, training himself to become a performer, his influences and the teachers who helped him stop taking the easy way out and write longer work, learning to write no matter what, letting his voice open up, going from being unknown except in the world of local readings and zines to a headliner reading to a packed house, the craft, form and function of his books, the importance of being alone, the reason he loves long poems, experiments in screenwriting, genre, traveling for work, his podcast Food 4 Thot and so much more.
Extra Materials for Episode 53Books by Tommy Pico
Junk (Tin House, 2018)
Nature Poem (Tin House, 2017)
IRL (Birds LLC, 2016)
Other Writers and Books Mentioned in the Episode
William Carlos Williams’ Paterson (New Directions, 1995)
Robert Graves’ The White Goddess (FSG, 2013)
Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely (Graywolf, 2004)
Maggie Nelson’s Jane (Soft Skull, 2013)
Alice Notley’s The Descent of Alette (Penguin, 1996)
The Monster at the End of this Book (Golden Books, 2003)
Morgan Parker
Kathleen Ossip
Sam Ross
Jason Koo
Pamela Sneed
Ariana Reines
Natalie Eilbert
Sasha Fletcher
Ocean Vuong
Sampson Starkweather
June Jordan
Natalie Diaz
Simone White
Paul Muldoon
Mary Ruefle
“Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats
Other Relevant Links
Beyonce
FEED (High Line installation)
Soft Skull Press
Ugly Duckling Presse
Bird Song Collective
Birds LLC
Cinereach
Food 4 Thot
Gramma Poetry
Vignette
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