Conversations about Poetry & Creative Influence
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Contact: melodyorwitchcraftATgmailDOTcom
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(Also see Season 1 and Season 3.)
Season 2 Trailers
Season 2 Episodes
Episode 7, April 20: “poetry as an endurance technology” LISTEN NOW!
My talk with Dana includes conversation about psychological states of being, our society’s allowance (or not) for the range of them, chosen solitude, marrying the Muse… Listen to a teaser:
Dana Levin is the author of five books poetry. Her latest is Now Do You Know Where You Are (Copper Canyon), a 2022 New York Times Notable Book and NPR “Book We Love.” Levin teaches for the Bennington Writing Seminars, the MFA program at Bennington College, and serves as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Maryville University in St. Louis. Her first book of prose, House of Feels, comes out from Graywolf Press in 2027.
Episode 8, April 27: “the sensitive heart” LISTEN NOW!
Victoria goes deep into how to navigate the world as mostly nervous system, what poetry can hold safe for us, and the joys and pitfalls of new love… Listen to a teaser:
Dr. Victoria Kennefick is a writer, poet, editor and teacher who lives in Tralee, Co. Kerry (Ireland). She completed a PhD in Irish and American Literature at University College Cork and was a Fulbright Scholar at Emory University. Her debut collection, Eat or We Both Starve (Carcanet Press, 2021), won the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize and the Dalkey Book Festival Emerging Writer of the Year Award. It was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Costa Poetry Book Award, Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and the Butler Literary Prize. Her second collection, Egg/Shell (Carcanet Press, 2024) was a Poetry Book Society Choice for Spring 2024 and won the Farmgate Café National Poetry Prize 2025. She was the 2025 Arts Council of Ireland/Trinity College Dublin Writer Fellow.
Episode 9, May 4: “led by the dead” Full Episode LISTEN NOW!
for a Bonus Bit with Kelli Russell Agodon Listen HERE!
Kelli and I kick up our heels to chat about loved ones on the other side, Emily and Susan, the encroachment of technology in our everyday, refusing to check a box…Here’s a trailer:
Kelli Russell Agodon‘s next book Accidental Devotions will be published by Copper Canyon Press in May 2026. Her previous collection, Dialogues with Rising Tides, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards. Kelli is the cofounder of Two Sylvias Press and teaches in Pacific Lutheran University’s MFA program, the Rainier Writing Workshop. She is also the cohost of the poetry series Poems You Need with Melissa Studdard.
Episode 10, May 11: “filling in the gaps” Full Episode LISTEN NOW!
for a Bonus Bit with Matt Donovan Listen HERE!
Matt shares amazing stories about what came out of his collaborative art installment at the Dickinson Museum, the strangeness of wanting to know another, and how we build stories and lives from small but significant artifacts…Listen to a bit of our conversation:
Matt Donovan is the author most recently of We Are Not Where We Are (Bull City Press, 2025) which was co-authored with Jenny George, and The Dug-Up Gun Museum (BOA 2022). He is the recipient of a Whiting Award, a Rome Prize in Literature, a Pushcart Prize, and an NEA Fellowship in Literature. Donovan serves as the director of the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center at Smith College.
Episode 11, May 18: “a velocity in the language” LISTEN NOW!
Camille gets into the moment she went from rolling her eyes at the idea of Dickinson to being a lifelong devotee, scientific language and paths not taken, what happens when reading the past is problematic… Listen to a clip to whet your appetite:
Camille T. Dungy is the author of America, A Love Story, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden, and five other books of poetry and prose. She has edited three anthologies, including Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry. Dungy is currently a University Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University.
Episode 12, May 25: “keeping it wild” Full Episode: LISTEN NOW!
for a Bonus Bit with Gabrielle Calvocoressi Listen HERE.
Gaby has lots to say about bees and trains and trains and bees, Emily as the perfect figure for the (changing) moment in the time she lived in, why stages aren’t that cool, who we need to read right now that can teach us not to look away…a teaser for you:
Gabrielle Calvocoressi’s new collection of poetry, The New Economy, was a finalist for the 2025 National Book Award in Poetry. Other collections include The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart, Apocalyptic Swing, and Rocket Fantastic, which is the winner of the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry. They serve on the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets and live in Old East Durham, NC, where joy, compassion, and social justice are at the center of their personal and poetic practice.