Hi everyone! This week I spoke with ZoeBee about her poem, "A boy in a trench coat," NaNoWriMo, historical fiction, seeing poetry as a beautiful mistake, writing with typewriters, and using terrible writing as a warm-up. Also, this is Part 1 of a Line Break mini-series called "Hannaford Love Poems." Part 2 will be posted in two weeks, so be sure to listen to that episode as well! 
I hope you enjoy!
-Iris 

Hi everyone! This week I spoke with Robo Jacket about his short story, "K-8 and the Grand Reunion," sci-fi and post-apocalyptic worlds, fiction writing as a desire to tell stories, movies we love, and trusting your writing. 
Here is a link to the K-8 podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1231289.
I hope you enjoy!
Iris

clay and muscles have memory,
so my fingers and mug will stay curled
in the last shape that you left them in.
you can walk away and never return,
but my wrists will still hear your name.
my hands will still fold into the space where
your hands used to be.
and the little clay bowl will remember
how you held it so gently,
how your thumb pressed and smoothed
away its ridges,
how you pinched together its sides until
it was strained but not ripped apart.
 
i might forget you.
in a year,
i might forget those gauzy
days in hotel rooms
and underwater motels,
when our toes were intertwined
and the ceiling even smiled.
i might forget the times
that you wrote me letters
and spelled your own name wrong,
or when you bought me flowers,
just because.
but even then,
with all of our memories forgotten
in my mind,
my fingers will remember how to

i am the glass of the mirror,
reflecting both the past and the future.
sometimes i am unsure of where
to follow, and even more unsure
of where to lead.
8 years behind, 8 years ahead,
another reflection of all the things
i could be and once was.
i’m stagnant- never catching up
yet never falling behind.
i’m a riddle of sorts-
i look up to a brother, yet
a brother looks up to me.
what kind of person can you be
if you’re always in the middle?
someone makes mistakes and
you can’t make them too, and
you can’t make mistakes
because someone else might
make them too.
it’s a lot to remember,
and i’ll admit that i sometimes forget.
but those wide eyes, as brown and
as thick with eyelashes as my own,
are forgiving.
they are endlessly forgiving
and they understand when i don’t
even understand myself.
so,
i may not follow and i may not lead,

You sound like the ocean
yet escape my hands every time I try
to hold you.
Sometimes it’s not enough to
press conch shells to my ears and listen to your regrets,
to open little glass bottles that you stuffed
skeletons into and sent away with a kiss.
Sometimes it’s not enough to cry at night
and think of all the bodies in the Titanic,
all the lovers who drowned without saying goodbye,
and even though I’ll meet you again someday,
I still miss your perfume and how your bones
fit so nicely next to mine.
Sometimes it’s not enough to pretend that a section
of driftwood would be big enough
for me to sail across the Atlantic to be beside you.
Sometimes it’s not enough to fill my mouth with seawater
and whisper prayers in languages that I don’t understand.
Sometimes it’s really not enough
to sit under a lamp and wish that I had run out of similes

Hi everyone! This week I spoke with Yellow Sweater about her poem, "The Big Blue," writing with synesthesia, how memories connect to writing, taking inspiration from religion, writing in a specific palette, and prose poetry. Also, here's the signup page for the online open mic that Yellow Sweater and I are hosting October 24th at 7pm EST!
I hope you enjoy!
-Iris
 

Hi everyone! This week I spoke with Alex Muck, a teaching artist who leads monthly online workshops for YWP, including the recent Write with the Harvest Moon. Alex is a certified Gateless teacher and founder of Fun is a Necessity, LLC, a Vermont-based arts education organization. We talked about her poem, "In Praise of Plainclothes Poetry," poems that we've grown with, not having to be perfect with your writing, the 'junk drawer cauldron', staying connected to writing after high school and college, and not letting grades stop you from loving to write.
I hope you enjoy!
-Iris