Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

Doing Lines

Aaron Smith and James Allen Hall Episode 115

The gorls chop up some gorgeous lines before playing Mean, Queen, or Blue Jean.

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"It was a time when they were afraid of him" is from Jimmy Santiago Baca's poem "Ancestor"

"An opening to a story should be / unremarkable" is from Catherine Chen's " My Poem Asks to Be Read Right to Left"

"Things happen when you drink too much mescal" is from Moira Egan's "Bar Sonnet # 11"

Rabindranath Tagore's poem "Gitanjali 11" begins: "Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship."

"Crickets are stitching the afternoon" is how Rosanna Warren begins her poem "Boletus"

"Arlene learned to dance backwards in heels that were too high" is the start of Patricia Smith's poem "Siblings"

"I will die in Paris, on a rainy day," writes Cesar Vallejo at the beginning of his "Black Stone Lying on a White Stone"

"Monterosa, your body is dead on Avenue A." is from Jack Agueros's "Sonnet for Angelo Monterosa"

"We kept war in the kitchen" is the beginning of Reetika Vazirani's  "Dream of the Evil Servant"

"This did not happen" begins Thylias Moss's poem "Did Not Happen"

Watch "10 Things Joseph Sikora Cannot Live Without" from GQ here.

Check out Forbes's list of The Most Comfortable Heels That Consistently Earn Top Reviews

Pattiann Rogers is the author of at least 17 books, including most recently Flickering, just published in April of 2023. Read this interview with her in Lit Hub

The Frank O'Hara line I reference in the game "Queen, Mean, or Blue Jean" is "Poem [Lana Turner Has Collapsed" which you can read here.

For more tea about Virginia Woolf and her paid domestic workers, read this review.