Arlene Keizer, an Afro-Caribbean American poet and scholar, writes about the literature, lived experience, theory, and visual culture of the African Diaspora. The recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, she later earned an MA in English and Creative Writing (Poetry) at Stanford University and a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Black Subjects: Identity Formation in the Contemporary Narrative of Slavery (Cornell UP), and her poems and articles have appeared in African American Review, American Literature, The Kenyon Review, Obsidian: Literature and Arts in the African Diaspora, PMLA, Poem-a-Day, TriQuarterly, and other venues. Fraternal Light: On Painting While Black, her collection of poems about the African American painter Beauford Delaney, won the 2022 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize and was published in 2023 by the Kent State University Press. She is a professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.

Links:

Arlene Keizer

Arlene Keizer’s page at Pratt Institute

Interview with Arlene Keizer at Speaking of Marvels

“Canopy” in Poem-A-Day

Fraternal Light: On Painting While Black at Kent State University Press

Beauford Delaney

Bio and artwork at Knoxville Museum of Art

Bio and Artwork at the Smithsonian

Bio and artwork at Studio Museum in Harlem

Artwork at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery

“Beauford Delaney in Knoxville” at Knoxville History Project

Mentioned in this episode:

KnoxCountyLibrary.org

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Chris Barton is the author of the poetry chapbook A Finely Calibrated Apocalypse, published by Bottlecap Press in 2024. His writing has appeared in Epiphany, Peach Magazine, The Plenitudes, Hotel, and elsewhere. From 2016 to 2019, he co-hosted the Electric Pheasant Poetry in Knoxville, TN.

Peter Gizzi grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His many books of poetry include Artificial Heart, Threshold Songs, In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems, 1987–2011 and Archeophonics, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. His book Fierce Elegy, published in 2023, won the T. S. Eliot Prize. He teaches at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

“In Defense of Nothing” from In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems, 1987–2011 © 2015 by Peter Gizzi. Published by Wesleyan University Press. Used by permission.

Links:

Read "our free trial lives," "last supper," and "the bafflement" by Chris Barton

Read "In Defense of Nothing" by Peter Gizzi

Chris Barton

A Finely Calibrated Apocalypse by Chris Barton (Bottlecap Press)

"2 Poems by Chris Barton" in Peach Magazine

"Ouroboros as a Treat" in The Plentitudes

"Three Poems" in Potluck Magazine

Peter Gizzi

Bio and poems at The Poetry Foundation

Bio and poems at Poets.org

"Peter Gizzi Talks About His Work" (YouTube Video--T.S. Eliot Prize)

Mentioned in this episode:

KnoxCountyLibrary.org

Thank you for listening and sharing this podcast. Explore life-changing resources and events, sign up for newsletters, follow us on social media, and more through our website, www.knoxcountylibrary.org.

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Charles Douthat is a poet, retired litigator, and visual artist. Born and educated in California, he practiced law for many years in New Haven and began writing poems during a long mid-life illness. His first collection, Blue for Oceans, received the PEN New England Award, as the best book of poetry published in 2010 by a New England writer. Concerning Douthat’s newest book, Again, the poet Alan Shapiro writes, “This book is impossible not to love.” Douthat lives in Weston, Connecticut, with his wife, the artist Julie Leff.

Robert Frost was born in 1874 in San Francisco. When he was just ten years old, his father died, and Frost’s family moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts to live with his paternal grandparents. Though Frost attended Dartmouth College and Harvard University, he never earned a formal degree. He spent much of his twenties and thirties farming and teaching. In 1912, he moved, with his wife and children, to England where publishers were more receptive to his work. But he moved back to the States in 1915 after the start of the First World War. He lived for the rest of his life mostly in Massachusetts and Vermont. Robert Frost won four Pulitzer Prizes and the Congressional Medal of Honor. He died in Boston in 1963.

Links:

Read "Polk Street" and "Mercy" by Charles Douthat

Read "After Apple-Picking" by Robert Frost

Charles Douthat

Charles Douthat's website

"Charles Douthat Unbound," Authors Unbound podcast

"A Few Minutes After Nine" in The Los Angeles Review

"The Planting" in The Nature of Our Times

"Grounds" in Leon Literary Review

Robert Frost

Bio and poems at Poets.org

Bio and Poems at The Poetry Foundation's website

Mentioned in this episode:

KnoxCountyLibrary.org

Thank you for listening and sharing this podcast. Explore life-changing resources and events, sign up for newsletters, follow us on social media, and more through our website, www.knoxcountylibrary.org.

Rate & review on Podchaser