Of Poetry Podcast

Episode 87: Beth Gilstrap (Of Genre as a Place to Leave & a Place to Come Back to, Finding the River’s Flow, and Grief & Healing in Writing)

Beth Gilstrap, author of *There Is News Along the Ohio River* (River River Books, 2026)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Read: Four excerpts from There Is News Along the Ohio River at Heavy Feather Review

Purchase: There Is News Along the Ohio River (River River Books, 2026)

Beth Gilstrap (she/her) is a multi-genre author, copywriter, editor, and educator. Her debut hybrid/flash CNF collection, There Is News Along the Ohio River, was released February 2026 from River River Books. She is also the author of two story collections including: Deadheading & Other Stories (2021), winner of the Red Hen Press Women’s Prose Prize, shortlisted for the Stanford Libraries William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and finalist for the Foreword 2021 Foreword Reviews Awards in Short Fiction; I Am Barbarella: Stories from Twelve Winters Press (2015), and the chapbook No Man’s Wild Laura (2016) from Hyacinth Girl Press. A true southern goth/punk gal at heart, she is the Publisher & Editor-in-chief of the goth/punk zine, Black Lily (find them on Instagram @blacklilyzine). Her essays, stories, and hybrids have appeared in Poets & Writers, Wigleaf, Craft, Bending Genres, and The Cincinnati Review, among others. She lives with her husband and a bunch of cuddly fur muppets in Charlotte, North Carolina. As a neurodivergent human who lives with c-PTSD, she is open about her struggles and fearlessly vocal about ending the stigma surrounding mental illness.

Recommended Reading

Terese Marie Mailhot, Heart Berries

Terrance Hayes, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin

Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know

Pete Walker – Complex PTSD: from Surviving to Thriving

Tara Westover, Educated

Jen Soriano, Nervous

Rebecca Olander, Singing From the Deep End

Episode 86: Zoë Ryder White (Of Wonder, Emily Dickinson, and Titling Poems)

Zoe Ryder White, author of *The Visible Field*

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Read: “Listen to Yourself” (Sixth Finch)

Purchase: The Visible Field (River River Books, 2026)

Zoë Ryder White’s first full-length collection, The Visible Field, was published by River River Books in February, 2026. A chapbook, Via Post, was a finalist for Tupelo Press’ Snowbound Chapbook award and won the Sixth Finch chapbook contest in 2022. HYPERSPACE was the editors’ choice pick for the Verse Tomaž Šalamun Prize in 2020 and is available from Factory Hollow Press. She co-authored A Study in Spring (Rabbit Catastrophe Press, 2015) and Elsewhere (Sixth Finch Press, 2020) with Nicole Callihan. Her poems have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Iterant, Plume, and Threepenny Review, among others. A former elementary school teacher, she edits books for educators about the craft of teaching. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her family.

Reading Recommendations

Vijay Seshadri

Emily Dickinson

Letters of Emily Dickinson

Nicole Callihan

Imogene’s Antlers (children’s book)

The Poetics of Revery by Gaston Bachelard

The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard

Molly Spencer

Episode 85: J.D. Ho (Of Mystery and Empathy, Cover Design, and Foraging in Winter)

J.D. Ho, author of *Backyard Alchemy* (River River Books, 2026)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Read: the title essay “Backyard Alchemy” (The Common)

Purchase: Backyard Alchemy: on life with other creatures in a time of salvage (River River Books, 2026)

J.D. Ho was born by the sea, raised on a rock, schmoozed in Hollywood, drove to Austin, Texas for an MFA, and now lives among foxes and deer on a sliver of east coast green. J.D.’s work has appeared in Georgia Review, Missouri Review, Ninth Letter, and other journals.

Reading Recommendations

Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Tsing

The Fall of Iris Henley by Jennifer Graham

Brilliant Minds (tv show)

Alban Fischer (Designer and editor)

Pastoral, 1994 by Joe Wilkins

Scythe by Elizabeth Sylvia

Your Mother’s Bear Gun by Corrie Williamson

EcoTheo Review

Episode 84: Elizabeth Sylvia (Of Gardens, Marie Antoinette, and Loving What is Flawed)

Elizabeth Sylvia, author of Scythe (River River Books, 2026)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Read: “On Learning that Kim Kardashian Exceeded her Water Allowance by 232,000 Gallons in June” (Passengers Journal)

Purchase: Scythe (River River Books, 2026)

Elizabeth Sylvia’s first book, None But Witches: Poems on Shakespeare’s Women (2022), won the 2021 3 Mile Harbor Press Book Award. Her chapbook My Little Book of Domestic Anxieties (2025) is available from Ballerini Books, and her second full-length collection, Scythe, is available now from River River Books. She has been a finalist or semi-finalist in competitions sponsored by the Burnside Review, C&R Press, DIAGRAM, Thirty West, Rare Swan, and Wolfson Press, and is a reader for SWWIM Every Day. Elizabeth has received fellowships from the New York Public Library, the West Chester University Poetry Center, and the Longleaf Writers Conference, and is the winner of the 2023 riverSedge Poetry Prize. Elizabeth grew up on Martha’s Vineyard and currently teaches in Southeastern Massachusetts, where she lives with her husband, two daughters, and an extravagantly demanding garden.

Recommended Reading:

Richard Siken’s Crush

Lady Wing Shot by Sara Moore Wagner

If Some God Shakes Your House by Jennifer Franklin

Ceive by BK Fischer

Rue by Kathryn Nuernberger

No Longer at This Address by Andrew Hemmers

The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing

Episode 83: Majda Gama (Of Arabic Oral Tradition, the Sonics of the Ghazal, and the Western Luxury of Telling the Truth in Your Poems)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Read: “Ghazal: Morning” (The Offing)

Purchase: In the House of Modern Upbringing for Girls (Wandering Aengus Press, 2025)

Majda Gama was born in Beirut to a Saudi father and American mother. Her hometown is Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and her roots Hijazi, but she also has a long, complicated relationship with Northern Virginia where her father was stationed in the 1970’s. Majda is the author of In the House of Modern Upbringing for Girls (Wandering Aengus Press, 2025) and The Call of Paradise, (Two Sylvia’s, 2023). Her poetry has been honored with the Graybeal-Gowen award for Virginia poets from Shenandoah and the Gregory Djanikian scholar award for poetry from Adroit. Recent poems have appeared in, or are forthcoming from, AGNI, Ploughshares, POETRY, Prairie Schooner, Swamp Pink, Tupelo Quarterly, and TriQuarterly.

Recommended reading

2017 PEN America World Voices: Sheyr Jangi (Poetic Battles)

Episode 82: Frances Klein (Of the Alaskan Rural, the Quantifying Work That Poets Do Best, and the Emotional Intensity of Writing Labor)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Read: Three Poems by Frances Klein at Cultural Daily

Purchase: Another Life (Riot in Your Throat Press, 2025)

Frances Klein is an Alaskan poet and teacher. Klein is the author of the poetry collection Another Life (Riot in Your Throat Press, 2025). She is also the author of several poetry chapbooks, including (Text) Messages from The Angel Gabriel (Gnashing Teeth, 2024). Klein is the founding editor of Flight: A Literary Sampler, and an editor at The Weight Journal. Her writing has appeared in Best Microfictions, Rattle, the Harvard Advocate, the London Magazine, HAD, and others. Klein lives in Southeast Alaska with her husband and son.

Recommended Reading:

Terrance Hayes, “Wind in a Box” (poem, also recommend book)

Jericho Brown

Marianne Baruch, Grace, Fallen from

Joshua Bennett

Robert Hass

Lucille Clifton

Sarah Vap, End of the Sentimental Journey

James Tate

Episode 81: Nicole Cooley (Of Form and Flood, the Documentation of Grief, and Poetry That Violates Rules)

Nicole Cooley, author of *MOTHER WATER ASH* (LSU Press, 2024)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Read: “Mother Water Ash” (Poets.org)

Purchase: MOTHER WATER ASH (Louisiana State University Press 2024)

Nicole Cooley grew up in New Orleans and is the author of seven books of poems, most recently MOTHER WATER ASH (Louisiana State University Press 2024), as well as OF MARRIAGE (Alice James Books 2018), GIRL AFTER GIRL AFTER GIRL (LSU Press 2018) and BREACH (LSU Press 2010). She has received the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, an NEA grant, and the Emily Dickinson Award from The Poetry Society of America, and most recently a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Arts. She is a professor in the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation at Queens College, The City University of New York and lives in NJ with her family.

Reading Recommendations:

Yannis Ritsos

Incendiary Art by Patricia Smith

The Dream of Reason by Jenny George

The Poet in the World by Denise Levertov

The Art of Death by Edwidge Danticat

Against Forgetting by Carolyn Forche

Orbit by Victoria Chang

Mother Hunger by Kelly McDaniel

“A Small Needful Fact” by Ross Gay

C.D. Wright

Philip Levine

Episode 80: Natalie Solmer (Of Genealogies of Water, the Great Lakes and Diane Seuss, and the Working Class, Rural Lyric)

Natalie Solmer, author of *Water Castle* (Kelsay Books, 2024)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Read: “I Am a Great Lake” (MER)

Purchase: Water Castle (Kelsay Books, 2024)

Natalie Solmer was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana, a granddaughter of Polish and German immigrants. She worked in the field of horticulture for many years, including 13 years as a grocery store florist, before becoming a professor of English and creative writing. She teaches at Ivy Tech Community College in Indianapolis and is the founder and editor in chief of Indianapolis Review. Her work has been published in journals such as North American Review, Notre Dame Review, Pleiades, Mom Egg Review, and Tab Poetry Journal. Her debut book of poems, Water Castle, was published by Kelsay Books in the fall of 2024. You can find her poems, visual poetry, and visual art at http://www.nataliesolmer.com

Reading Recommendations:

The Indianapolis Review

Diane Seuss, Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl (Graywolf, 2018)

“Song in my Heart” by Diane Seuss

Gustav Klimt

Frida Kahlo

“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin

Joyelle McSweeney, Death Styles (Nightboat Books, 2024)

Episode 79: Sarah Green (Of Dictionaries, Salvage and Destruction, and the Longing to Make Something Good)

Sarah Green, author of *The Deletions* (University Akron Press, 2025)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Purchase: The Deletions (Editor’s Choice, Akron Poetry Prize)

Sarah Green is the author of an April 2025 release, The Deletions (Editor’s Choice, Akron Poetry Prize) and a previous collection, Earth Science. Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Paris Review, New Ohio Review, 32 Poems, FIELD, Copper Nickel, Gettysburg Review, Pleiades, and elsewhere. A two-time Pushcart Prize winner, she is an Associate Professor of English at St. Cloud State.

Reading Recommendations:

Kylie Gellatly

Marie Howe

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey

James Wright

Marianne Moore

Merriam-Webster

The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane

Episode 78: Donna Vorreyer (Of Unrivering, Writing the Liturgy of the Body, and Creating Giving Communities in the Arts)

Donna Vorreyer, author of *Unrivered* (Sundress Publications, 2025)

Listen: On Spotify, Apple, Google, and elsewhere

Read: “Dysmorphia (Autumn)” at Harpur Palate

Purchase: Unrivered (Sundress Publications, 2025)

Donna Vorreyer is the author of four full-length poetry collections: Unrivered ( 2025), To Everything There Is (2020), Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (2016) and A House of Many Windows (2013), all from Sundress Publications. Recent work has appeared in Ploughshares, Pleiades, Poet Lore, Colorado Review, Harpur Palate, Baltimore Review, Salamander, and many other journals. Donna lives in the western suburbs of Chicago and runs the online reading series A Hundred Pitchers of Honey. She is the co-founder/co-editor of Asterales: A Journal of Arts & Letters.

Reading/Listening Recommendations:

Mary Ruefle’s essay “Pause”

Diane Seuss’s frank: sonnets

John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)

Philip Sidney, Astrophil and Stella (1591)

Jane Hirshfield “Changing Everything”

Richard Wilbur, “The Beautiful Changes”

Joanne Kyger

Eileen Myles

Salvage by Heji Choi

Taylor Byas’s Resting Bitch Face

Dustin Brookshire, Wild and Precious Life Series