The Poetry Magazine Podcast

Dawn Lundy Martin invites listeners to notice where the grief resides, then let it go.
Matsuo Bashō wrote:
Wake, butterfly—
it’s late, we’ve miles
to go together.
Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly, a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating. The series is produced by Rachel James with sound design by Axel Kacoutié.
Here’s an edited version of Dawn Lundy Martin’s prompt:
Exercise grief from your body by first noticing where it resides. Sit outside in the sun for ten minutes in silent meditation with the phrase “let go” being a return thought if any other language enters. Focus on your breath and on where your body feels grief—not what produced the grief. After, write a list of those parts of the body. Then write for ten minutes toward that vibrational place of beautiful, wet longing. Draft a poem that brings together the parts of the body where grief is held and the language of hunger and unrestrained longing. 
 
Credits: Anne Sexton, “The Truth the Dead Know” from The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981). Copyright © 1981 by Linda Gray Sexton and Loring Conant, Jr. Reprinted with the permission of Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc.

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Manny Loley invites listeners to make an offering.
Matsuo Bashō wrote:
Wake, butterfly— 
it’s late, we’ve miles 
to go together.
Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly, a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating. The series is produced by Rachel James with sound design by Axel Kacoutié.
_____
Here’s an edited version of Manny Loley’s prompt:
Create a poem in four steps. First: Find a body of water to sit with and listen. Let it connect with the water inside of you. And let the sound that it makes work on your body and your mind and your heart. Second: Build your relationship with the water. Listen for what the water has awakened inside of you. What do you feel? Where do you feel it in your body? What stories are brought to the surface? Third: Follow the reverberations. Write down some of your thoughts, your feelings, your memories. Don't worry about spelling or grammar, or about making things sound writerly or whether they make sense or not. Fourth: Make an offering to the water. Share what the water gave life to in the form of your poem. Touch the water and give thanks.
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The poem “REMEMBERING A CRESCENT MOON/DAH YIITA BEE HANIIH” that Loley reads in the episode was originally published by Arkansas International and can be read in full on their website.

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Maggie Nelson invites listeners to productively disassociate.
Matsuo Bashō wrote:
Wake, butterfly— 
it's late, we've miles 
to go together.
Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly, a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating. The series is produced by Rachel James with sound design by Axel Kacoutié.
_____
Here’s an edited version of Maggie Nelson’s prompt:
Write on a piece of paper: “Here is what I did with my body one day:” and tell us an anecdote that the Roland Barthes passage “The Rib Chop” inspired in you from your own body and life. 
(You can read the text of the passage by expanding the transcript for the episode.)

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Nick Makoha invites listeners to build a cocoon, then break free.
Matsuo Bashō wrote:
Wake, butterfly— 
it's late, we've miles 
to go together.

Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly, a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating. The series is produced by Rachel James with sound design by Axel Kacoutié.
_____
Here’s an edited version of Nick Makoha’s prompt:
Part one: the cocoon of shelter.
What is the cocoon you are entering? A place of tension? Of hiding? Of gestation? Or of potential? What are you protecting yourself from or preparing yourself for? Can you name the walls of this cocoon? What are they made of? Silk? Sound? Guilt? Waiting? Where do you feel most alive in that space? 
Part two: unfolding into the restlessness. 
Now comes the pressure, the restless, irreversible becoming: what begins to stir inside the cocoon. There will be chaos. Begin writing from that internal movement—this place just before the break. Let that force build in your body. Notice where it lives. Behind your ribs? In your hands? Just under the skin? What is the chaos? Let it press against the limits of the cocoon.
Part three: speak back. 
Break out of the cocoon, become the butterfly. Ask yourself: what part of me wants to speak back? What voice have I silenced? Return to a version of yourself that you might have thought was lost. Let this be your poem.
Part four: speak the piece aloud. 
Notice how your breath feels. If you're by yourself, read what you have written to yourself aloud. If you're in a community, share it with them, and do it as a chorus of voices.

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In the first episode of season 2, Naomi Shihab Nye invites readers to develop a ritual.
Matsuo Bashō wrote:
Wake, butterfly— 
it's late, we've miles 
to go together.

Poetry magazine presents Wake, Butterfly, a series of intimate portraits that invite listeners to keep creating. The series is produced by Rachel James with sound design by Axel Kacoutié.
_____
Here’s an edited version of Naomi Shihab Nye’s prompt:
First, write three “nuggets” of three lines each:
For nugget 1, write three questions that you're carrying.
For nugget 2, write three outstanding details observed or absorbed by the senses within the past twenty-four hours.
For nugget 3, write three lines you've overheard, or three things that are causing you trouble, or three memories you're suddenly carrying, or three things about what's going on in the news, or three overheard quotes you’ve heard within the past day or two. 
Then go away from your page for a minute; read a poem or reread a letter from your old friend.
Come back to your page and reread what you wrote this morning and pick out two or three things that you like best from what you wrote down. Try to write a poem that incorporates those things.
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Credits: Naomi Shihab Nye’s poems “Come With Me” and “For Mohammed Zeid of Gaza, age 15” are from Everything Comes Next by Naomi Shihab Nye. Read by: Naomi Shihab Nye. Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems copyright (c) 1994, 1995,1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
The excerpt of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poem read in the episode is from Back Roads to Far Places (New Directions, 1971).

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