The queens talk literary confidantes; then we discuss the pros and pitfalls of poetic friendships.

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Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

Check out Toni Morrison's 1987 eulogy for James Baldwin in the New York Times.

We read from Fran Lebowitz's remembrance of her friend Toni Morrison, printed in the Paris Review.

If you haven't already, read Brenda Hillman's "Male Nipples"

Read "The Curious Friendship of Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell" from The Atlantic.

Check out this exploration of the dynamics in literary friendships published in Esquire.

The Breaking Form broads recount their poetic travels abroad in this Season 3 opener.

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

The David Hockney retrospective in Paris is on view until August 31. For more about his painting "Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy," click here.

For more about Hockney and the Muse, read "David Hockney's Literary Influences"

For a map that names the regions comprising Italy, go here.

Jorie Graham's poem "San Sepolcro" first appeared in Erosion, and it concerns Piero della Francesca's iconic fresco "Madonna del Porto," on view at the Musei Civici Madonna del Parto, in the tiny Umbrian village of Monterchi, Italy. (In fact, the only work on view at the museum is the Madonna, which is worth the trip).

For more about Civitella Ranieri, visit https://civitella.org, and follow them on Instagram @civitellaranieri or on Facebook. Civitella livestreams presentations by these world-class artists on IG Live.

The queens boil down the essence of some favorite poems and poets in this game that decides what poetry is *really* about.

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

Read the NY Times review of Michael Schmidt's The Lives of the Poets

Listen to James Merrill read his poem "For Proust" and while we're on the subject, here's a madeleine recipe.

For an examination of Bishop's sensible sensibility, go here.

Watch Anne Carson read from Nox (~24 min).

Here is a Galway Kinnell tribute reading from May 2015 which included Marie Howe and Sharon Olds (among others).

Watch Dorianne Laux read "Trying to Raise the Dead" published in her book Smoke

In a New Yorker profile interview, Natasha Trethewey discusses Native Guard, and says that we have to remember "the nearly two hundred thousand African American soldiers who fought in the Civil War, who fought for their own freedom, who fought to preserve the Union rather than destroy the Union, to whom there are very few monuments erected. Just think how different the landscape of the South would be, and how differently we would learn about our Southern history, our shared American history, if we had monuments to those soldiers who won the war—who didn’t lose the war but won the war to save the Union. Those are the monuments we need to have." Read the whole conversation and profile here.

Here's a BBC4 adaptation of Browning's The Ring and the Book (~1 hour)

Go here for more about George Meredith's sonnet sequence Modern Love.

If you were looking for a free audio full-text version of Tennyson's In Memoriam read by Elizabeth Klatt, today's your lucky day. (~2.5 hours).

If you're looking to submit, the queens have some advice for you!

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

Check out On the Seawall: a community gallery of new writing, art and commentary hosted by poet Ron Slate.

Here's some great advice about submitting & publishing poetry.

Here's another good article about submitting to literary magazines.

And here's yet some more advice, this time by published writers and editors like Krista Marie Darling (Tupelo Press), Sandra Beasley (Blair Publishing), and others.