Interview with Eugene Gloria. Sunday, September 9th, 2012.

43: Eugene Gloria talks about his latest book “My Favorite Warlord.”  A visit to Kyoto re-incarnated a different book idea into his latest collection. The show also discusses the new millennium shifts in the publishing industry.

http://www.eugenegloria.com/

Benjamin Alire Sáenz shares his memories of Ciudad Ciudad Juárez in today’s Poetic License.

Interview with Patrick Rosal. Sunday, September 2nd, 2012.

41: Patrick Rosal, author of “Boneshepherds” and “My American Kundiman” talks about how his latest collection negotiates anger by love, and both Saenz and Rosal honor Baldwin’s work as a teacher for such navigation. Rosal’s Uncle Charlie was as influential to his work as Neruda and Philip Levine and the guest reads a poem from “Boneshepherds” – “Bienvenido: Santo Tomas,” for his Uncle Charlie.  www.patrickrosal.com. 

                             (Photo credit Peter Dressel)

This week’s Poetic License comes from Daniel Chacon.

Interview with Roberto Perezdiaz. Sunday, July 8 th, 2012.

40: Roberto Perezdiaz talks about how his short story collection, "Mas Sabe el Diablo," handles both innocence and maturity. He spent a year as a court translator, and Spanish-to-English translation work helped him craft language.

Interview with Craig Santos Perez. Sunday, July 1st, 2012.

39: Craig Santos Perez, author of "from unincorporated territory [saina],"  talks about Guam, writing [saina], and that poetry’s relationship to neo-colonialization and the history of colonialization, cannot be neutral. Words inspire his activism as a “tongue is the steering paddle of the mouth.” Even as Perez lectures at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, his international presence as a performer and activist allow him to weave his complexities as a migrant and immigrant into his work.

Daniel reads selections from a forthcoming posthumous collection of "Leukemia Poems" by Andrés Montoya, written when the late writer was in the hospital dying of leukemia.

Interview with Javier O. Huerta. Sunday, June 17th, 2012.

37: Javier O. Huerta, whose latest book, "American Copia," captures the American immigrant experience through stories about the everyday grocery shopping grind. Huerta also talks about how the book grew out of a sentence that was assigned to him during his naturalization process. Huerta, Daniel, and Ben also engage in a discussion about whether "bad poetry" can still be good poetry. This week's Poem of the Week is "The Emperor of Ice-Cream," read by Daniel Chacon. This week's Poetic License features a contribution by Ire'ne Lara Silva, who reflects on "The Necessity of Nakedness. www.irenelarasilva.webs.com

Javier O. Huerta is a Mexican-American and Chicano poet. His first book Some Clarifications y otros poemas (Arte Publico 2007) was awarded the Chicano/Latino Literary Prize from the University of California at Irvine. Personal background Huerta was born in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico and immigrated to the United States with his mother and younger brother, crossing the Rio Grande river (Rio Bravo) in 1981. In 1986, he gained legal residency under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 and became a US citizen in January 2000 after serving four years in the United States Navy. As of 2012, he resides in the Bay Area, California. Professional background Huerta also studies the laughter of poetry in the English PhD program at the University of California at Berkeley, where he teaches the following courses, "Politics and Poetics of Refusal," "Documents and the Literature of the Undocumented," and "Laughter and Literature.

Ire’ne lara silva has lived in Austin, TX since 1998. In that time, she has participated in many readings, coordinated writing workshops and literary festivals, edited a few literary magazines, and participated/coordinated in events with Red Salmon Arts/Resistencia Bookstore, Austin Hispanic Writers, and the Lunada Poetry Series, among others. From 2004 to 2008, she was the Executive Coordinator for the Macondo Writing Workshop/Macondo Foundation. She and Moises S. L. Lara are currently co-coordinators for the Flor De Nopal Literary Festival (December 2012) http://flordenopalliteraryfestival.wordpress.com/ ire’ne is also leading the Voz te ‘Viento discussion series on diabetes, illness, healing, and creativity: http://vozteviento.wordpress.com/

Interview with Fred Arroyo. Sunday, June 3rd, 2012.

35: Daniel & Ben talk with Fred Arroyo, author of “The Region of Lost Names” (2008) and “Western Avenue and Other Fictions” (2012).  Arroyo explains why “Western Avenue” is more of a novel told in a cycle of short stories, and why it’s a companion to “Region of Lost Names.”  He also explains why he refers to the central figures in his work as “people,” not “characters.”  Arroyo also describes how he approaches endings.

In this week’s Poem of the Week, Ben reads “The Word ‘Class’ Should Not Appear in The Poem,” from Karen Fiser’s collection, “Words Like Fate and Pain.”

Fred Arroyo, assistant professor of English, Drake University, is the author of The Region of Lost Names: A Novel (University of Arizona Press, 2008). A recipient of an Individual Artist Grant from the Indiana Arts Commission, he has published fiction, poetry, and essays in various literary journals (Crab Orchard Review, Pinyon, Washington Square, North Dakota Quarterly). Fred has completed a collection of stories, Borders of the Heart, and is working on a book of essays, Close as Pages in a Book. Fred was named a 2009 Top Ten “New” Latino Author to Watch (and Read) by LatinoStories.com, and his novel was a finalist for the 2008 Premio Aztlán Literary Prize.  

Initially, Fred grew up on the east coast in a bilingual community, and when his family moved to the Middle West his sense of language, identity, and place became defined and, strangely, more fleeting. He often feels—even with multiple graduate degrees in writing—that he’s still learning how to tap into the potency of words. In Spanish there is the word anyoransa (a deep sense of longing and nostalgia). Nostalgia and possibility, memory and longing—they make life and fiction credible and mysterious, and these are forces Fred’s often discovers alive in his writing.

(Taken from http://redroom.com/member/fred-arroyo/bio )

Interview with Lucrecia Guerrero. Sunday, May 13th, 2012.

32: Ben & Daniel talk with Lucrecia Guerrero, author of "Tree of Sighs," a book which won Guerrero the 2012 Premio Aztlan, a national literary prize awarded to emerging Chicana & Chicano authors. Guerrero talks about what inspires her characters as well as the mostly-male Chicano writers who have influenced her. Guerrero also shares her reading wish list. 

The Poem of the Week comes from another prize winner, Laurie Ann Guerrero. Guerrero is the most recent recipient of the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize. Daniel reads the poem "Preparing the Tongue" from Guerrero's collection "A Tongue in the Mouth of Dying." 

Lucrecia Guerrero's short stories have appeared in literary journals such as The Antioch Review and The Louisville Review. CHASING SHADOWS, her collection of linked short stories was published by Chronicle Books in 2000. TREE of SIGHS, 2011, was published by Bilingual Press. She is the recipient of awards from the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, Montgomery County Cultural Awards and residencies from Hedgebrook for Women, New York Mills, and Fundacion Valparaiso. Guerrero holds an MFA from Spalding University and enjoys facilitating writers' workshops. She grew up in Nogales, Arizona on the U.S.-Mexico border but has lived in the Midwest for years. 

(Taken from http://www.thelatinoauthor.com/authors/G/Lucrecia_Guerrero/ )

Interview with Howard McCord. Sunday, May 6 th, 2012. 11:30 a.m.

31: Howard McCord talks about his book “Walking to Extremes,” in which he walked the hot deserts of New Mexico, and the barren, cold deserts of Iceland. McCord has a passion for walking, and he talks about how it influences his work.

McCord also shares a recent poem, “Note in a Mailbox.” 

Howard McCord was born in El Paso, Texas, in 1932. He served in the Navy during the Korean War, received his BA from University of Texas in 1957, and his MA from the University of Utah in 1958. He taught at Washington State University from 1960 to 1971, and at Bowling Green State University from 1971 to 2000. He was director of the Creative Writing Program there for many years. At various times he has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Alaska Southeast, California State University at Northridge, and Navaho College. The author of three dozen books and chapbooks, he has given readings from his works at more than two hundred universities. 

Poet, essayist, and novelist, he is the recipient of two Fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, and two from The Ohio Arts Council; a Fulbright award took him to India, where he studied at the University of Mysore; Washington State University awarded him a E.O. Holland Fellowship to "explore the back roads of the West;" the University of New Mexico awarded him the D. H. Lawrence Fellowship, and a Research Fellowship from Bowling Green State University sent him to backpack in Iceland and Lapland. He was named an "Author of the Pass" by the El Paso Herald-Post in 1988. The University of Texas at El Paso presented him its Gold Nugget Award in 1990, and the same year he won The Ohioana Poetry Award. In 1996 he won the Robert Loveless Award for the best article in GUN DIGEST.

He has published 3 articles in GUN DIGEST, one in THE AMERICAN RIFLEMAN (later reprinted in THE NRA GUIDEBOOK FOR HUNTERS, 1970), an article in KNIVES 95, and in an issue of THE SHOOTIST. He is a Life Member of The Sandusky County Outdoorsman Association at Gibsonburg, and a member of the Ohio Gun Collectors Association. In 2004 he taught the first class offered by BGSU to fulfill licensing requirements for those wishing to obtain an Ohio Concealed Carry license. He was awarded the Nancy Dasher Book Award in 1999 for his novel, The Man Who Walked To The Moon. His 419 page Complete Poems was published in 2002, as was Bone / Hueso, a collection of poems written in Spanish and English, illustrated with 32 block prints by Adrian Tio, and bound by Russell McKnight. A climber for nearly sixty years, he continues to travel the backcountry of the west in search of interesting rock. An early exploit was recently presented in Pat Ament, A History of Free Climbing in America: Wizards of Rock, Berkeley, 2002. He is married to Jennifer Revis, and they are the parents of four grown children, Susannah, Julia, Wyatt, and Eva. He is also the father of two sons from his marriage with Dora Ochoa, Colman and Robert. He has five grandchildren: Jacob, Valentina, Evan, Skye, and Sophia.

 (Taken from http://www.possibilityx.com/hm/bio.htm )

Interview with Tony D’Souza. Sunday, April 8th, 2012.

28: Daniel & Ben talk with novelist Tony D’Souza, author of “White Man” and “Mule.” D’Souza talks about his latest novel “Mule,” about a struggling writer who turns to drug running to make a living. He discusses the research behind “Mule,” and why the book had such a hard time getting published. D’Souza also talks about why his first book “White Man” is similar to “Mule,” and about the difficulty following up an acclaimed first novel.

Interview with Philip Levine. Sunday, March 4th, 2012.

23: Daniel & Ben talk with Poet Laureate of the United States, Philip Levine. Levine talks about his love of New York City, why he always wanted to be a poet, his life as the U.S. Poet Laureate, and how the Diego Rivera murals in Detroit influenced him as a young man. Levine also contributes this week’s Poem of the Week, reading his own poem, “Llanto” (for Ernesto Trejo).

Philip Levine born in Detroit, Michigan, on January 10, 1928, was formally educated in the Detroit public school system and at Wayne University (now Wayne State University), Michigan's only urban public research university. After graduation, Levine worked a number of industrial jobs, including the night shift at the Chevrolet Gear and Axle factory, reading and writing poems in his off hours. In 1953, he studied at the University of Iowa, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. There, Levine studied with poets Robert Lowell and John Berryman, the latter of which Levine called his "one great mentor."

In 1957, after teaching technical writing in Iowa City, Levine travelled to California, where he hoped to relocate with his wife and two children. Levine was welcomed by the poet Yvor Winters, who agreed to house the aspiring poet until he found a place to live and later chose Levine for a Stanford Writing Fellowship.

Levine published his debut collection of poems, On the Edge (The Stone Wall Press), in 1963, followed by Not This Pig (Wesleyan University Press) in 1968.

Since then, Levine has published numerous books of poetry, most recently News of the World (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010); Breath (2004); The Mercy (1999); The Simple Truth (1994), which won the Pulitzer Prize; What Work Is (1991), which won the National Book Award; New Selected Poems (1991); Ashes: Poems New and Old (Atheneum, 1979), which received the National Book Critics Circle Award and the first American Book Award for Poetry; 7 Years From Somewhere (1979), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award; The Names of the Lost (1975), which won the 1977 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets; and They Feed They Lion (1973).

About writing poetry when not working the night shift, Levine has written:
"I believed even then that if I could transform my experience into poetry I would give it the value and dignity it did not begin to possess on its own. I thought too that if I could write about it I could come to understand it; I believed that if I could understand my life—or at least the part my work played in it—I could embrace it with some degree of joy, an element conspicuously missing from my life."

In a review of Breath, Publishers Weekly wrote: "Levine writes gritty, fiercely unpretentious free verse about American manliness, physical labor, simple pleasures and profound grief, often set in working-class Detroit (where Levine grew up) or in central California (where he now resides), sometimes tinged with reference to his Jewish heritage or to the Spanish poets of rapt simplicity (Machado, Lorca) who remain his most visible influence."

Levine has also published nonfiction essays and interviews, collected in The Bread of Time: Toward an Autobiography (University of Michigan Press, 1994); Don't Ask (1981); and So Ask: Essays, Conversations, and Interviews (2002).

As editor, Levine published The Essential Keats (Ecco Press, 1987). He has also co-edited and translated two books: Off the Map: Selected Poems of Gloria Fuertes (with Ada Long, Wesleyan University Press, 1984) and Tarumba: The Selected Poems of Jaime Sabines (with Ernesto Trejo, Sarabande Books, 2007).

Levine has received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize from Poetry, the Frank O'Hara Prize, and two Guggenheim Foundation fellowships. For two years he served as chair of the Literature Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts.

He taught for many years at California State University, Fresno, and has served as Distinguished Poet in Residence for the Creative Writing Program at New York University.

In 2000, Levine was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Retired from teaching, Levine currently divides his time between Brooklyn, New York, and Fresno, California.

(Taken from http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/19 )

Interview with Dagoberto Gilb. Sunday, February 12th, 2012.

20: Ben & Daniel talk with author Dagoberto Gilb, who talks about his 1994 book “The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuna,” which was better received by readers in Europe than in the U.S. He also discusses his latest collection, “Before the End, After the Beginning.” The life of one of the characters in these stories has a life that somewhat parallels Gilb’s after he suffered a stroke.

The Poem of the Week is W.S. Merwin’s “Inheritance,” from the book “The Shadow of Sirius,” read by Benjamin Alire Saenz.

This week’s Poetic License comes from California poet and educator, Sam Pereira, who reflects on how lucky he is to have a life as a writer.


Dagoberto Gilb's previous books are The Flowers, Gritos, Woodcuts of Women, The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuña, and The Magic of Blood, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in many magazines, most recently Harper's, The New Yorker, and Callaloo, and is reprinted widely. Gilb is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has been a finalist for both the PEN/Faulkner and National Book Critics Circle Award. He makes his home in Austin.

Gilb's first publication was a small press chapbook out of El Paso, Winners on the Pass Line (1985), which came after he won his first literary prize, the James D. Phelan Award from the San Francisco Foundation. The book's first notice was heard on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" in a review by Alan Cheuse. Gilb went on to earn more recognition, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the Texas Institute of Letters' Dobie Paisano Fellowship.

The Magic of Blood (1993) was first published not in New York, but in New Mexico, and, defying expectations, won the 1994 PEN/Hemingway Award, the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Fiction, and was a finalist for the PEN Faulkner Award. The book is now considered a classic not only of Chicano literature but of the American Southwest. It also created a populist stir among those interested in the virtually abandoned American working-class, and made Gilb a voice of labor and unionism, once even as a headliner alongside legendary folk singer Pete Seegar.

The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuña (1994) has been compared more to European novels than American ones. An experimental novel in style and approach, Southwestern in landscape, its speech is both Chicano and ordinary, while its condensed language and composition disguises a deeply layered complexity. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, the novel is well-known to those from Los Angeles to New York who teach cross-cultural "border" issues, be they metaphorical or real.

Woodcuts of Women (2001) has been Gilb's most media celebrated book. A collection of stories about men obsessed with women, this collection overturns the idea that a man can't write stories about women that women will read, admire, and love themselves. Popular and with wide appeal, it is also serious; stories in this volume had been published in The Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, The New Yorker, and Doubletake.

With Gritos (2003), most of Gilb's published essays—the only previously unpublished selection from a personal notebook going back over 20 years ago—are collected into one volume. They are pieces written for The New Yorker, Harpers, The Texas Observer, Carpenter, The Nation, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post; two stories were included in The Best American Essays series. Some of his most intimate were written over two years as a commentator for the National Public Radio program, "Fresh Air." Surprising only to the many who had not been aware of the quality or quantity of his nonfiction work, Gritos was selected as a finalist for the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award, and it has been gradually picking up a larger readership.

Gilb recently published, as its editor, Hecho en Tejas: An Anthology of Texas Mexican Literature (2006). Already this canonical book has been received as a major contribution to Texas literature. Meant to reach the ignored Mexican American community as a whole, the volume is being embraced at the junior high, high school, and college levels—so much attention has been coming to it that the anthology is fast becoming seen as representative of a larger movement of empowerment and education about and for Mexican American culture and story both inside and outside Texas.

Dagoberto Gilb's work has been translated into French, Italian, Japanese, German, Spanish, and Dutch. Anthologized in many literary and college composition textbooks, his fiction and nonfiction is taught in Chicano, Latino, American, and Western literature courses. His work has been honored by national prizes, such as the Whiting Writers' Award and the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and recognized through the El Paso Writer's Hall of Fame, the Library of Congress Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape, and the Texas Book Festival's Bookend Award for Ongoing Literary Achievement.

He lives in Austin, Texas. He has been a visiting writer at the University of Texas at Austin, University of Wyoming, University of Arizona, Vassar, and Cal State Fresno. He is now a tenured professor in the Creative Writing Program at Texas State University, in San Marcos, Texas.

(Taken from http://www.dagobertogilb.com/ )

Interview with R. Zamora Linmark. Sunday, February 5th, 2012.

19: Ben & Daniel talk with R. Zamora Linmark, author of the novel “Leche” and the poetry collection “Drive By Vigils.” Linmark talks about why “Leche” is only partly autobiographical, and about his struggles in getting the novel published. He also touches on the influence that Frank O’Hara had on his poetry.

The Poem of the Week is by this week’s guest, R. Zamora Linmark. Daniel Chacon reads “Sunday Morning” from the collection “Drive By Vigils.”

And in this week’s Poetic License, Sasha Pimentel-Chacon examines “unexpected etymologies” and the purpose of different languages in poetry & speech.

Interview with Cristina García. Sunday, January 29th, 2012.

18: Cristina Garcia talks about her young adult novel, “Girls with Significant Dreams,” and about her decision to tackle the popular YA genre. She also talks about her more adult novel, “Lady Matador’s Motel,” and how some real-life experiences inspired its writing.

The poem of the week is Arthur Sze’s “Written the Day I was to Begin a Residency at the State Penitentiary,” from his collection “The Redshifting Web.” Read by Benjamin Saenz.

And in this week’s Poetic License, Daniel Chacon explores imagination and alternate universes.



Cristina García is the author of five novels: Dreaming in Cuban, The Agüero Sisters, Monkey Hunting, A Handbook to Luck, and The Lady Matador’s Hotel, recently published by Scribner. García has edited two anthologies, Cubanísimo: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Cuban Literature and Bordering Fires: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Mexican and Chicano/a Literature. Two works for young readers, The Dog Who Loved the Moon, and I Wanna Be Your Shoebox were published in 2008. A collection of poetry, The Lesser Tragedy of Death, was published in 2010. Her newest work, Dreams of Significant Girls, is a young adult novel set in a Swiss boarding school in the 1970s.

García’s work has been nominated for a National Book Award and translated into fourteen languages. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, and an NEA grant, among others. Recently, Garcia was a Visiting Professor at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas-Austin and teaches at Texas Tech University most spring semesters. This past fall, Garcia was a Visiting Professor at the University of Miami and will serve as University Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University-San Marcos from 2012-14.

(Taken from http://www.cristinagarcianovelist.com/ )

Interview with Rigoberto González. Sunday, January 15th, 2012.

16: Daniel & Ben talk with writer Rigoberto Gonzalez. He talks about his latest book “Black Blossoms,” his role as a book critic, and about his young adult novel, “Mariposa Club.”

The Poem of the Week is CK Williams “Racist” from his collection “Flesh & Blood.” Read by Benjamin Alire Saenz.

In this week’s Poetic License, local writer Richard Yanez shares 44 Blessings upon celebrating a recent birthday.

Rigoberto González is the author of two poetry books, So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water until It Breaks, a National Poetry Series selection, and Other Fugitives and Other Strangers; two bilingual children’s books: Soledad Sigh-Sighs and Antonio’s Card; the novel Crossing Vines, winner of ForeWord Magazine’s Fiction Book of the Year Award; and a memoir, Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa. His book of stories Men without Bliss, is forthcoming in 2008. The recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, and of various international artist residencies, he writes twice a month a Latino book column, now entering its sixth year, for the El Paso Times of Texas. He is contributing editor for Poets & Writers, on the Board of Directors of the National Book Critics Circle, and on the Advisory Circle of Con Tinta, a collective of Chicano/ Latino activist writers. He lives in New York City and teaches at the MFA writing programs of both Queens College and Rutgers University—Newark.

(Taken from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/rigoberto-gonzalez )

Interview with Camille Dungy. Sunday, January 8th, 2012. 11:30 a.m.

15: Daniel & Ben talk with writer Camille Dungy, author of “Smith Blue” and “Suck on the Marrow.” She talks about why she chose to go the awards-submission route instead of directly publishing “Smith Blue.” She also talks about the extensive research she undertook in writing “Suck on the Marrow”.

The Poem of the Week is by the late Andres Montoya – “The Rains Have Left and Ernesto is Dead,” read by Daniel Chacon.

In this week’s Poetic License, writer Daniel A. Olivas talks about reading Chicano literature to non-Chicano audiences.



Camille Dungy is author of Smith Blue (Southern Illinois University Press, 2011), winner of the 2010 Crab Orchard Open Book Prize, Suck on the Marrow (Red Hen Press, 2010), and What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison (Red Hen Press, 2006).

Dungy is editor of Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry (UGA, 2009), co-editor of From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great (Persea, 2009), and assistant editor of Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade (University of Michigan Press, 2006). Dungy has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, Cave Canem, the Dana Award, and Bread Loaf.

She is a two-time recipient of the Northern California Book Award (2010 and 2011), a Silver Medal Winner in the California Book Award (2011), and a two-time NAACP Image Award nominee (2010 and 2011). She was a2011 finalist for the Balcones Prize, and her books have been shortlisted for the 2011 Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award, the PEN Center USA 2007 Literary Award, and the Library of Virginia 2007 Literary Award. Dungy is currently a Professor in the Creative Writing Department at San Francisco State University. Her poems and essays have been published widely in anthologies and print and online journals.

(Taken from http://www.camilledungy.com/Biography.htm )

Interview with Dorianne Laux. Sunday, January 1st, 2012.

14: Daniel & Ben talk with award-winning poet and author Dorianne Laux, author of “The Book of Men.” She talks about how the letters of the alphabet inspired some of her work, as well as her reflections on 2011.

The Poem of the Week is Natasha Trethewey’s “What the Body can Say,” read by Sasha Pimentel-Chacón.

In this week’s Poetic License, co-host Benjamín Alire Saenz shares his reflections on 2011 and hopes for 2012.



Dorianne Laux is the author of several collections of poetry, including Awake (1990); What We Carry (1994), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Smoke (2000); Facts about the Moon (2005), chosen by the poet Ai as winner of the Oregon Book Award and also a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; and The Book of Men (2011). She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and has been a Pushcart Prize winner.

Laux’s free-verse poems are sensual and grounded, and they reveal the poet as a compassionate witness to the everyday. She observed in an interview for the website Readwritepoem, “Poems keep us conscious of the importance of our individual lives . . . personal witness of a singular life, seen cleanly and with the concomitant well-chosen particulars, is one of the most powerful ways to do this.” Speaking of the qualities she admires most in poetry, Laux added, “Craft is important, a skill to be learned, but it’s not the beginning and end of the story. I want the muddled middle to be filled with the gristle of the living.” She was first inspired to write after hearing a poem by Pablo Neruda. Other influences include Sharon Olds, Lucille Clifton, Anne Sexton, and Adrienne Rich.

Laux has taught creative writing at the University of Oregon, Pacific University, and North Carolina State University; she has also led summer workshops at Esalen in Big Sur. She is the co-author, with Kim Addonizio, of The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry (1997). She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with her husband, poet Joseph Millar.

(Taken from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/dorianne-laux)

Interview with Garrett Hongo. Sunday, December 11th, 2011.

11: Ben & Daniel talk with Hawaiian poet & writer Garrett Hongo, who discusses his latest book “Coral Road,” and talks about the importance of attracting more multicultural writers to publish their works.

The Poem of the Week is Alberto Rios’ “Day of the Refugios,” read by Benjamin Saenz.


And co-host Daniel Chacon contributes to this week’s Poetic License, with a reflection on the tenuous, yet firm, connections between quantum physics and poetry.


Garrett Hongo. Japanese American poet, Garrett Hongo was born in Volcano, Hawai'i, in 1951. He attended Pomona University and the University of Michigan. He received his MFA in English from the University of California at Irvine.

His collections of poetry include Coral Road: Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011); The River of Heaven (1988), which was the Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and Yellow Light (1982). He is also the author of Volcano: A Memoir of Hawai'i (1995), and he has edited Songs My Mother Taught Me: Stories, Plays and Memoir by Wakako Yamauchi (1994) and The Open Boat: Poems from Asian America (1993).

His honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Oregon at Eugene, where he directed the Program in Creative Writing from 1989 to 1993.

(Taken from http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/166 )

Interview with Carl Philips. Sunday, November 20th, 2011.

8: Ben & Daniel talk to American writer, Carl Phillips, whose latest book is "Double Shadow." He discusses why his natural restlessness works its way into his poems, and why he likes to incorporate a variety of styles into his works.

The Poem of the Week features excerpts from the memoir "Shortbread" by Sonja Livingston.

And this week's Poetic License is a counterpoint to last week's segment. Poet Liz Scheid talks about why she refuses to pay to see her work published with BlazeVOX Publishing.

Carl Phillips is the author of eleven books of poetry, including Speak Low (2009) and Quiver of Arrows: Selected Poems 1986-2006. Other books include his translation of Sophocles's Philocetes(2003) and Coin of the Realm: Essays on the Life and Art of Poetry (2004). His new book, Double Shadow, has just been published by Farrar, Staus and Giroux. A finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, he has received honors that include the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the Theodore Roethke Memorial Foundation Poetry Award, the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Male Poetry, an award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Library of Congress. In 2006, he was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

(Taken from http://connotationpress.com/a-poetry-congeries-with-john-hoppenthaler/2010/july-2010/502-carl-phillips-poetry )

Interview with Francisco Aragon. Sunday, November 13th, 2011.

7: Ben & Daniel talk with Francisco Aragon, director of Letras Latinas at the Institute for Latino Studies, University of Notre Dame. He talks about how his time in Madrid inspired his writing, and why he created the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize.

The Poem of the Week is William Carlos Williams’ “At the Ballpark,” read by Benjamin Saenz.

And in this week’s Poetic License, Stacia M. Fleegel defends why she is ok with paying $250 to have her work published with BlazeVOX Publishing, a practice frowned upon by other writers.
A native of San Francisco, Francisco Aragón is the author of Glow of Our Sweat (Scapegoat Press) and Puerta del Sol (Bilingual Press), as well as the editor of The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry (University of Arizona Press. His work has appeared in various anthologies, including, Inventions of Farewell: A Book of Elegies (W.W. Norton & Company), American Diaspora: Poetry of Displacement (University of Iowa Press), Evensong: Contemporary American Poets on Spirituality (Bottom Dog Press) and, Deep Travel: Contemporary American Poets Abroad (Ninebark Press). His poems and translations have appeared in various print and web publications, including, Chain, Crab Orchard Review, Chelsea, The Journal, the online journals, Jacket, Electronic Poetry Review, and Poetry Daily. Among his limited edition chapbooks are, Tertulia, (BOOKlyn). Aragón holds degrees in Spanish from the University of California at Berkeley and New York University, and an MA in English and an MFA in creative writing from the University of California at Davis and the University of Notre Dame, respectively. He is the director of Letras Latinas, the literary program of the Institute for Latino Studies (ILS) at the University of Notre Dame. He is also the editor of Canto Cosas, a book series out of Bilingual Press that publishes Latino poetry. He is a member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop in San Antonio, TX and serves as a Vice President on the board of directors of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP).

(Taken from http://franciscoaragon.net/ )

Interview with Chang-Rae Lee. Sunday, November 6th, 2011.

6: Daniel interviews friend & writer Chang-Rae Lee, author “Native Speaker” and “The Surrendered.” Find out why he chose a profession as a writer and professor, and why it isn’t pretentious to be emotionally involved in your work.

The Poem of the Week is Denise Levertov’s “In California During the Gulf War,” read by Benjamin Saenz.

And, in this week’s Poetic License, poet Michael Luis Medrano ponders the Second Book Blues.

Chang-rae Lee, the first Korean-American novelist to be published by a major press, focuses on the experiences of first-and second-generation immigrants. His novels explore the nuances of intergenerational relations, the problems of assimilation, and the relationship of culture and memory to identity. While these concerns link him to other contemporary Asian-American writers, Lee's fiction also draws heavily on other influences. Lee experiments with form in his first novel, Native Speaker, which is part detective story, part minimalist chronicle of a failing marriage, reminiscent of John Updike. His prose style has been compared to that of both John Cheever and Kazuo Ishiguro.

(Taken from http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4525/Lee-Chang-rae.html)