This week, I talk to two poets.

First, I speak with the joyous Jericho Brown about his complex relationship to poetic tradition, identity, and music. Frankly, I kept making tangents to music. Perhaps too many. But this was one of my favorite interviews from Miami Book Fair International.

Second, I speak with Richard Blanco about the poetry of we, and the importance of giving an audience an entertaining performance, and writing poetry that makes me cry in yet another of my favorite interviews from MBFI.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

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This week, Vanessa Blakeslee and I assail more essays on the craft of literature, this time two by T.S. Eliot.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

"Hamlet and Its Problems" can be found here; "Tradition and the Individual Talent" can be found here.

This week, I offer another round of conversations from Miami Book Fair International, in which I talk to Steve Almond about his favorite novel, Stonerby John Williams,

plus I speak with poet Carolyn Forché about her memoir, All You Have Heard is True.

TEXTS DICSUSSED

This week, I talk to fiction writer Nathan Englander about the pressurized form of fictional worlds, giving the reader something worth their time and money, getting to the pain as soon as possible, continuing to learn about one's craft deep into one's career, Judaism in literature, and the wisdom of our friend Darin Strauss.

Nathan Englander and your humble host in The Confucius Institute at Miami Dade College.[/caption]

Books Discussed