Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry

Canisia Lubrin returns to Between the Covers for a live conversation in downtown Portland, at Powell’s Bookstore, about her latest poetry collection The World After Rain. A private book, that Canisia never intended to publish, we explore what it means to write elegy beyond personal biography, what it means that “metaphors unmake the too-made,” what it means to write against the literal, with a folk sensibility and consciousness, and much more. How does elegy relate, formally and aesthetically, to water? What is the utility of poetry, its effect in the world? How can autobiography be a way to move beyond the self? Join Canisia for a deep exploration of these animating questions in her latest work.

The first time Canisia was one the show, to discuss her book Code Noir, her contribution to the bonus audio archive was a reading of as-of-yet-unpublished works by Christina Sharpe and Dionne Brand, and a soundscape she stitched together from six years of touring, from Canada to Europe to the Caribbean. This joins an immense and ever-growing archive of supplemental material and is only one of many possible things to choose from when you join the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter. You can find out more at the show’s Patreon page.

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Today’s episode is a classic from the archives, a conversation from 2019 with current Navajo Nation Poet Laureate Jake Skeets about his debut poetry collection Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers. Winner of the Whiting Award in poetry and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, there is no better time to revisit this remarkable collection, and this unforgettable conversation with Skeets, as we await his new book Horses coming this March from Milkweed Editions.

For the bonus audio archive Jake contributed a reading and analysis of a poem by the first Navajo Nation Poet Laureate, Luci Tapahonso, a poem called “Hills Brothers Coffee.”  He talks about it in relation to his thoughts on Diné or Navajo poetics. This joins supplemental readings by many past guests including Tommy Pico, Layli Long Soldier, Brandon Hobson, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Natalie Diaz, Elissa Washuta, Morgan Talty and many others. To learn how to subscribe to the bonus audio and about the many other potential benefits and rewards of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter, head over to the show’s Patreon page.

“When I tell you a story about my body, I cannot separate it from a story about water. And a story about water is also a story about family. And a story about family is rooted in the earth…,” opens Sangamithra Iyer’s Governing Bodies. What does it mean for a memoir to assume the elusive, ever-changing shape of water, to be the story of family but where the notion of family crosses the boundaries of blood, culture, nation and even species? Governing Bodies, as the Whiting judges said in their citation, is “a subtle, meditative exploration on grief and nonviolence, an international and intergenerational voyage through shared histories and a consideration of what we owe to each other and the natural world.”

For the bonus audio archive, Sangu contributes a reading of her remarkable essay “Are You Willing?” which originally appeared in the anthology Writing for Animals: New Perspectives for Writers & Instructors to Educate & Inspire. This joins an ever-growing archive of contributions from past guests—from Richard Powers to adrienne maree brown, Forrest Gander to Arthur Sze, Natalie Diaz to Ada Limón. You can find out how to access the bonus audio and about the many other potential benefits and rewards to choose from, when you join the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter, at the show’s Patreon page.

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In Into Being Lily Dunn explores the ways in which writing one’s life has the potential to transform it; how writing, if done well,  can produce “symbolic repair.” We look at Virginia Woolf’s notion of “moments of being” as a means and method to find the form that best fits your specific story to tell. We look at different ways memoirists have used the imagination within their own work, and the various ethical issues that arise when writing about people close to you or about other peoples’ trauma. And from beginning to end, we look at Lily’s own remarkable memoir, Sins of My Father: A Daughter, A Cult, A Wild Unravelling, as a way into these questions as well.

For the bonus audio archive Lily walks us through one of the writing exercises in the book. This joins a large and ever-growing archive, everything from craft talks by Marlon James and Jeannie Vanasco, to writing prompts from Danez Smith & Lucy Ives, to readings by everyone from Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore to Richard Powers. You can find out about how to subscribe to the bonus audio and about all the other potential benefits and rewards of joining the Between the Covers community at the show’s Patreon page.

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Randa Abdel-Fattah’s new novel Discipline is set in Sydney, Australia in 2021 during Ramadan. Discipline follows two Palestinians there, one in media and one in academia, where each has to confront questions of silence and complicity in their respective fields. As Israel intensifies its bombardment of Gaza, and as an eighteen-year-old student at a local Islamic school is arrested for protesting a university’s investment in an Israeli arms manufacturer—an arrest that results in an Islamophobic moral panic across Australia, our two Palestinian protagonists make very different decisions on how to engage with the power structures within their disciplines and within the country at large. What is the cost of staying and fighting within an organization that wants to silence you? What is the cost of walking way? In addition to being a riveting read on the level of story, Discipline is also a sort of primer on the weaponization of language, particularly liberal rhetoric employed to capture and domesticate radical movements of change.

For the bonus audio archive Randa contributes a reading of excerpts from Chelsea Watego’s “Always Bet on Black (Power): The Fight Against Race.” This joins bonus readings from Dionne Brand, Danez Smith, Isabella Hammad, Natalie Diaz, Omar El Akkad, music from Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and much more. To learn about how to subscribe to the bonus audio and the other potential benefits and rewards of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter head over to the show’s Patreon page.

Finally here is the BookShop for today.