Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast Podcast By Aaron Smith and James Allen Hall cover art

Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

By: Aaron Smith and James Allen Hall
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James Allen Hall and Aaron Smith talk about their favorite poems and poets, interview amazing writers, laugh a lot, gossip, and get real about life and art.© 2025 Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast Art Entertainment & Performing Arts Literary History & Criticism
Episodes
  • Touchstone Poems
    Jul 21 2025

    The gals talk foundational poems--and they might just surprise you!


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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.

    Quan Barry's "The 1986 Apple Super Bowl Commercial as Intervention" refers to this iconic 1984 Apple Computer commercial aired during the SuperBowl.

    The Brigit Pegeen Kelly poem we mention is "Three Cows and the Moon" was originally published in New England Review in 1993. You can hear Kelly read the poem here (~10 minutes). It's fucking worth it!

    William Stafford, "Traveling Through the Dark" was the title poem of Stafford's 2nd book, published in 1962, which won the 1963 National Book Award. To look at some drafts of this poem, check out the Stafford archive online. Hear him read it here.

    Read more about Kevin Killian's Selected Amazon Reviews. And check out this brief (~1min) Instagram post of Killian reading from it here.

    The poem by Linda Gregg that James mentions (with women standing in the trees knocking down figs) is "The Poet Goes About Her Business."

    You can read Kate Daniels "War Photograph" here. For more about the photograph and the people in it, read this article.

    Read Nazim Hikmet's "On Living" and learn more about Hikmet here.

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    30 mins
  • Prose for Poets
    Jul 14 2025

    The library is open--to prose the queens find indispensable for poets!

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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.

    You can find John Hollander's Rhyme's Reason here.

    Check out an excerpt in the NYT from Michael Schmidt Lives of the Poets.

    Here's an NPR review of Olivia Laing's Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency. For more about Agnes Martin by Olivia Laing, check out this interview. Maggie Nelson engaged in this conversation with Laing about Laing's book Everybody.

    Check out this reading and conversation between Adam Moss, the author of The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing, and two of his subjects: Marie Howe and Michael Cunningham.

    Purchase Rebecca Brown's The Gifts of the Body, which Publisher's Weekly called "beautifully controlled, immensely affecting." It is 176 pages.

    You can get Brown's What Keeps Me Here (stories) here.

    Read this review of Annie Ernaux's The Use of Photography, which includes some excerpts from the book.

    Read James Baldwin's "Notes of a Native Son."

    For more about Kevin Killian's Selected Amazon Reviews, click here.

    Here's an NPR "Fresh Air" interview with Toni Morrison about writing Beloved.

    Watch Wayne Koestenbaum's "Why I Make Mini-Movies"

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    33 mins
  • Where Are They Now
    Jul 7 2025

    The queens put the "arch" in "archive" and rediscover some favorite poetry blasts from the past.

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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.

    Listen to a reading Scott Cohen gave with poet Tom Weatherly at St. Mark's Poetry Project in 1968. Read his poem "Coke" from a 1971 issue of The Paris Review.

    David Henderson was raised in Harlem and helped to found the Black Arts Movement. Henderson’s books include Neo-California (North Atlantic Books, 1998) and De Mayor of Harlem (E. P. Dutton, 1970). His first poetry collection, Felix of the Silent Forest, was published by Diane di Prima for Poets Press in 1967 with an introduction by Amiri Baraka. Read 3 of his poems here, or check out his Poem-A-Day selection (from Dec. 19, 2024) here.

    Also, check out David Henderson reading his poems with comment in the Recording Laboratory, May 3, 1978

    Carter Ratcliff's books on art include examinations of John Singer Sargent, Robert Longo, Jackson Pollock, and Andy Warhol. He won a Guggenheim for his fine art scholarship, and his articles and criticism have appeared widely in such magazines as Art in America, ARTnews, and Artforum. Check out his novel, Tequila Mockingbird and this poem from The Baffler.

    Read more about Iris Rifkin-Gainer here and watch an interview with her regarding her work in dance therapy. Read a poem of hers here too.

    Read Edwin Denby's bio as well as three poems here.

    David Denby is indeed an American journalist and reviewed films until 2014 for The New Yorker.

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    31 mins
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