Rachel Zucker speaks with poet Aracelis Girmay about creating new forms and structures, employing fragments, the time it takes to get to urgent questions, research, patience, appreciating snails with Kamau Brathwaite, menarche, estrangement, pregnancy, naming, our fathers and families, worrying about doing harm in poems, effort, June Jordan, Ross Gay, writing about family, history, avoiding and countering the language of violence and brutality, writing long poems and find ways to express anger and rage without adopting the language of tyranny and oppression.
EXTRA RESOURCES FOR EPISODE 35Books by Aracelis GirmayThe Black Maria (BOA Editions, 2016)
Kingdom Animalia (BOA Editions, 2011)
Teeth (Curbstone, 2007)
Changing, Changing (George Braziller, 2005)
Other Books and Writers Mentioned in the EpisodeMonticello in Mind: Fifty Contemporary Poems on Jefferson by Lisa Russ Spaar (University of Virginia Press, 2016)
Kamau Brathwaite
June Jordan
Ross Gay
James Baldwin
Joy Harjo
Shane McCrae
Other Relevant LinksDodge Poetry Festival
Poetry Society of America: Aracelis Girmay (New American Poets)
End of Kingdom Animalia — “Ars Poetica”
Interview with Rosa Alcalá and Eduardo C. Corral
Arielle’s Greenberg’s article in American Poetry Review on Shane McCrae
Aracelis’s poem “You Are Who I Love,” written for Split this Rock
Review of Aracelis’ book The Black Maria by Tara Betts in APR
Poetry Society of America, Latino/a Poetry Now: 3 poets discuss their art (Aracelis Girmay, Rosa Alcalá, Eduardo C. Corral
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