You Are Hear: Fools & Poets (April 2012)
We're celebrating National Poetry Month: featured writers for this episode are poets Todd Boss (PITCH, 2012) and Paula Cisewski (GHOST FARGO, 2010).
ABOUT THE PODCAST: You Are Hear is a literary podcast production of mnartists.org. Each monthly edition will feature new, original work by a Minnesota writer or two. The show is available on our site, of course, but also mnartists.org’s Audioboo page (for ease of sharing and downloading). Stories, poems, humor pieces, spoken word performances and whatever else talented folks can do with nouns and verbs – all presented in downloadable audio form for you to enjoy when and where you choose. It’s like a dozen free little books to put in your ears.
ABOUT THE HOST: Brian Beatty has published his jokes, poems and short stories in a variety of print and online publications. He’s performed comedy all over the Twin Cities. Brian’s humor chapbook DUCK! was published in 2009.
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FEATURED WRITERS FOR THIS EPISODE:
Paula Cisewski is a poet and a teacher. While raising her son and earning her BA from St. Catherine’s University and her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, Paula worked in warehouses, mentored Minneapolis teens in a public art project, owned a coffee shop, and waited one million tables.
Paula’s second poetry collection, Ghost Fargo, was selected by Franz Wright for the Nightboat Poetry Prize. She is also the author of Upon Arrival (Black Ocean), and of three chapbooks: How Birds Work, Or Else What Asked the Flame w/Mathias Svalina, and Two Museums. A Jerome grant recipient, her poems appear regularly in literary magazines such as A Handsome Journal; H_NGM_N; Forklift, OH; failbetter; Poetry City, USA; We Are So Happy to Know Something; the BOMBlog; and REVOLUTIONesque. You can find more on mnartists.org/paula_cisewski.
Related articles:
Erin Lynn Marsh reviewed Paula Cisewski’s collection, Upon Arrival, in 2007 >>
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Todd Boss grew up on an 80-acre cattle farm in west central Wisconsin, where he helped his parents in garden, pasture, field, and forest. His poetry debut, Yellowrocket (W. W. Norton, 2008), was followed by Pitch in February 2012.
Todd’s poems have appeared in Poetry, The London Times, The New Yorker, NPR, Best American Poetry, and Virginia Quarterly Review, which called Yellowrocket “one of the year’s 10 best poetry books” and awarded him the Emily Clark Balch Prize. Yellowrocket was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award and was named a Midwest Booksellers’ Honor Book for Poetry.
His first libretto, Panic, a verse retelling of Knut Hamsun’s 1896 novella Pan, will premiere in Fall 2013, as an evening-length piece composed by Boston Conservatory’s Andy Vores. Todd is a co-founding co-director of Motionpoems, a new poetry film initiative currently collaborating with Milkweed, Graywolf, Copper Canyon and Ecco Press, among other outstanding literary publishers. Todd lives in north suburban Saint Paul with his wife and children. You can find him on mnartists.org/todd_boss.
Related articles:
Read Connie Wanek’s recent review of Todd Boss’ new poetry collection, Pitch >>
Alison Morse profiled the Motionpoems project in 2010 >>
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