Conversations about Poetry & Creative Influence
Season 1, Trailer 1
The Melody or Witchcraft Podcast is based on the idea that poetry can be a launchpoint to discuss the pressing issues of today. Poetry deserves a place in our everyday lives—indeed it already occupies our days and increasing our awareness of where it lives, stimulates joy and reflection.
On the podcast we hear a poet read a work of their own and an Emily Dickinson poem of their choosing that contributed to their work. The conversations delve into questions like where creative influence arrives from, how the past lives in the creative present, and why literary ancestors matter. Along the way, I try to dip into my history as a former guide at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts to unpack just a wee bit about some of the reasons one particular 19th Century poet has had the lasting, international impact that she has. These are conversations that start within the frame of Emily Dickinson and bust out of that frame to talk more broadly about creative influence.
“The Past is such a curious Creature,” Dickinson wrote. (J1203). What if Then and Now is just one more binary that doesn’t serve us anymore? Join us to find out how it can teach us about our now.
The name “Melody or Witchcraft” comes from an April 25, 1862 letter Dickinson wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, where she asked a question of this man who would become one of her lifelong correspondents and an editor of her posthumously-collected works. In her letter, she says, “I would like to learn – Can you tell me how to grow – or is it unconveyed – like Melody or Witchcraft?” (L 261)
Season 1
Set to release over the months of February and March 2026!
Here is a link to a video conversation with the composer of our beautiful theme music, Emma Wallace, that started things off and that includes a live performance of the complete song you’ll hear teasers of at the start and close of each episode: a musical interpretation of Emily Dickinson’s poem “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?”.
Emma Wallace
Season 1 Guests
Photo Credit: Cormac Crump
Tina Cane is the founder and director of Writers in the Schools, Rhode Island and served as Poet Laureate of Rhode Island 2016-2024. Her books include Dear Elena: Letters for Elena Ferrante, Body of Work, and Year of the Murder Hornet. She’s also published two verse novels for young people, Alma Presses Play and Are You Nobody, Too? and is co-host with Joey Sweeney of the forthcoming podcast Stay Free.
Jennifer Franklin is a poet, professor, and editor whose last book is If Some God Shakes Your House (Four Way Books, 2023). Her work has been commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and her awards include a Pushcart Prize, a NYFA/City Artist Corp grant, and residencies from the T.S. Eliot Foundation and Café Royal Cultural Foundation. Her publications include The Paris Review, The Nation, poets.org, and “Poetry in Motion” from Poetry Society of America. She leads manuscript revision workshops and teaches in Manhattanville’s MFA Program.
Photo Credit: Úna O’Connor
Nuala O’Connor lives in Galway, Ireland. Her fifth poetry collection Menagerie (Arlen House) was published in 2025. Her novel Miss Emily, about Emily Dickinson’s friendship with an Irish maid, was published in 2015 by Penguin USA and Sandstone in the UK. She’s currently writing a memoir about late-diagnosed autism. She is a member of Aosdána.
Katie Farris’s recent poems & translations appear in Granta, Poetry, and The New York Times. Her book, Standing in the Forest of Being Alive (Alice James, 2023) was shortlisted for the 2023 TS Eliot Prize.
Dr. Barbara Mossberg has led an Emily Dickinson-infused life for 77 years, writing poetry since age 6 in the now-burned Altadena, California foothills, and publishing poetry and criticism since age 12; her first book was Emily Dickinson: When a Writer Is a Daughter, 1982, named by Choice Outstanding Academic Book of the Year. In 1986 she co-founded the Emily Dickinson International Society when she was serving in a federal appointment as U.S. Scholar in Residence for USIA (U.S. State Department), American Studies Specialist. As a dramatist and actor, she has written “Flying with Emily Dickinson,” about her career of lecturing on Dickinson in over 25 countries as a Fulbrighter and cultural diplomat. California laureate/Poet in Residence for Pacific Grove (CA), and author of two recent books of memoir poetry, one organized around Emily Dickinson, she is Professor of Practice in Environmental Humanities, Clark Honors College, University of Oregon.
Dr. Tacey M. Atsitty de Gonzales, Diné (Navajo), is Tsénahabiłnii (Sleep Rock People) and born for Ta’neeszahnii (Tangle People). Atsitty is a recipient of the Wisconsin Brittingham Prize for Poetry and other prizes. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in POETRY; EPOCH; Kenyon Review Online; Prairie Schooner; Leavings, and other publications. Her first book is Rain Scald (University of New Mexico Press, 2018), and her second book is (At) Wrist (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023). She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Florida State University and is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Beloit College in Wisconsin, where she lives with her husband.
