New KTCO: Anahid Nersessian
I tend not to read a whole lot of nonfiction books—for the most part, if I'm going to read criticism then I tend to read it as separate essays, and usually online. But Anahid Nersessian's Keats's Odes: A Lover's Discourse was such an edifying and resonant experience to read. Not only did she teach me a lot about a set of poems that I hadn't thought about in years—John Keats's Great Odes—but moving through the essays in this book is a personal narrative about a relationship that, although oblique, I found both emotionally moving and intellectually fascinating, particularly in how that personal narrative functions with the more straightforward critical portions. I really enjoyed having this conversation with Anahid, and I hope you enjoy it, too.
Here are some handy episode links:
And some purchase links for the book! As always, I recommend picking it up from your local independent bookstore, but if you don't have one of those available, here are some other options:
Some additional resources that you might find interesting in conjunction with this conversation:
- Anahid has a new piece out in the New York Review of Books, titled "Catastrophic Desire," which is about the Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad.
- This conversation between Anahid and her friend, the actor Zoe Kazan, about the book was one of the first sources I checked out to help shape this conversation, and I thought it was pretty enlightening.
- Similarly, this conversation between Anahid and Michael Robbins was very useful.
- I also very much enjoyed reading Anahid's NYRB piece "Love for Sale," about Eva Illouz’s The End of Love. Reading someone's critical work, I find, always gives an interesting perspective into how they think.
Happy listening!
New KTCO: Anahid Nersessian
I tend not to read a whole lot of nonfiction books—for the most part, if I'm going to read criticism then I tend to read it as separate essays, and usually online. But Anahid Nersessian's Keats's Odes: A Lover's Discourse was such an edifying and resonant experience to read. Not only did she teach me a lot about a set of poems that I hadn't thought about in years—John Keats's Great Odes—but moving through the essays in this book is a personal narrative about a relationship that, although oblique, I found both emotionally moving and intellectually fascinating, particularly in how that personal narrative functions with the more straightforward critical portions. I really enjoyed having this conversation with Anahid, and I hope you enjoy it, too.
Here are some handy episode links:
And some purchase links for the book! As always, I recommend picking it up from your local independent bookstore, but if you don't have one of those available, here are some other options:
Some additional resources that you might find interesting in conjunction with this conversation:
- Anahid has a new piece out in the New York Review of Books, titled "Catastrophic Desire," which is about the Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad.
- This conversation between Anahid and her friend, the actor Zoe Kazan, about the book was one of the first sources I checked out to help shape this conversation, and I thought it was pretty enlightening.
- Similarly, this conversation between Anahid and Michael Robbins was very useful.
- I also very much enjoyed reading Anahid's NYRB piece "Love for Sale," about Eva Illouz’s The End of Love. Reading someone's critical work, I find, always gives an interesting perspective into how they think.
Happy listening!
New KTCO: KTCO Book Club - Piranesi (with Maggie Tokuda-Hall)
For our first KTCO Book Club episode of the year I'm joined by writer and podcaster Maggie Tokuda-Hall to discuss Susanna Clarke's novel Piranesi! I was a huge fan of Clarke's first novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and had been meaning to read Piranesi since it first came out, so I was delighted that Maggie picked it for our conversation.
Here are some handy episode links:
And some purchase links for the book! As always, I recommend picking it up from your local independent bookstore, but if you don't have one of those available, here are some other options:
Finally, a few other tidbits you might find interesting in association with this episode:
- You can find information about all of Maggie's books at her website, prettyokmaggie.com.
- Maggie's podcast Failure to Adapt with comedian Red Scott is a hilarious show about stories that have been adapted from one form to another. If you’re looking for a place to start, I’d suggest either the first episode—the Twilight episode with guest Sarah Gailey—or the recent Princess Bride episode with guest Chris Sarandon.
- I read a whole bunch of reviews of Piranesi in preparation for this conversation, and the one that stood out to me the most for its depth and insight was Abigail Nussbaum's review for her blog Asking the Wrong Questions.
Happy listening!
New KTCO: Yanyi
We're back! For our first episode of 2022, I'm talking with poet Yanyi. There’s a way in which the end of a serious relationship can shake your entire concept of yourself, and through your grief you have to find yourself again. Yanyi’s latest book of poems, Dream of the Divided Field, braids poems about heartbreak and implied emotional violence with poems about transition and immigration. Each has a similar but distinct sense of a loss of self, a search for self, a yearning for connection and belonging, a sometimes violent disconnection—to a partner, to a place or culture, to oneself and one’s own body. In our conversation, Yanyi and I discussed his book, deconstruction and reconstruction, attachment to nuance, and the relationship between beauty and violence. Then for the second segment, we talked about grief.
Here are some links where you can listen to the episode:
You can also listen to the full episode and find show notes and a transcript at the episode page on the KTCO website.
Toward the end of the first segment, Yanyi and I talked about the ways that Dream of the Divided Field is different from his first book, The Year of Blue Water. If you'd like to hear more about that book, check out our first conversation from back in 2019.
Dream of the Divided Field is available for purchase now and you can find it wherever books are sold. As always, I encourage you to purchase a copy from an independent bookstore, like The Book Catapult here in San Diego.
New KTCO: Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
This week on Keep the Channel Open, I'm talking with writer Rowan Hisayo Buchanan. Rowan’s second novel, Starling Days, is a beautiful story about the complex love between the book’s two protagonists, Mina and Oscar, and their respective challenges in the wake of Mina’s suicide attempt. Starling Days explores family and love in many forms, and how people both connect and separate. In our conversation, Rowan and I discussed the depiction of mental illness in her book, how she approached writing the multifaceted relationships between the book’s characters, and why it was important to her to include multiracial characters. Then in the second segment, we talked about faith and how we make and find meaning.
Here are some links where you can listen to the episode:
You can also listen to the full episode and find show notes and a transcript at the episode page on the KTCO website.
Starling Days is now available in paperback, and you can purchase a copy wherever books are sold. I highly encourage you to pick up a copy from an independent bookseller like Pages of Hackney in London, Greenlight Bookstore in New York, The Book Catapult in San Diego, or your local bookstore.
A few pieces that I found helpful in putting both our conversation and the book in context:
- The first piece of Rowan's writing that I'd ever encountered was her essay "The Woman Scared of Her Own Kimono." The idea of being a stranger to your own ancestral culture is one that we discussed in our conversation, and one that's very relevant to the character of Oscar in Starling Days.
- In addition to being a writer, Rowan is also an illustrator. Her comic "An Agnostic's Longing" has a quiet, elegiac beauty to it, and I think it provides a good companion for some of what we discussed around faith and language.
- Right around the time of the US publication of Starling Days, Rowan published an essay with LitHub called "How To Write a Novel When Everyone You Love Might Be Losing It." In it, she writes about negotiating wellness and sickness, and how even though fiction draws from real-life experience, it's not the same as autobiography.
New KTCO: Farrah Karapetian
This week on Keep the Channel Open, I'm talking with artist Farrah Karapetian. Known for her large-scale photograms, Farrah’s wide-ranging practice incorporates sculpture, performance, and different forms of mark-making to stretch the photographic medium as she is driven by her intense and rigorous curiosity. In our conversation, Farrah and I talked about the appeal of the photographic medium, the tension between constructing an image and the happy accident, and the ethics of artistic beauty. Then in the second segment, we discussed the Nardal sisters and how we develop a language around issues like exoticization.
Here are some links to where you can listen to the episode:
You can also listen to the full episode and find show notes and a transcript at the episode page at the KTCO website.
From the KTCO Archive: Ken Rosenthal
This week on Keep the Channel Open, I'm revisiting my 2016 conversation with photographer Ken Rosenthal. Ken's work has always stuck in my mind for both its striking visual style and the way that he uses images to represent and explore his internal emotional and psychological state. Whether he's looking at landscapes or family members or familiar objects, his photographs resonate because they represent the personal. We talked about several bodies of work, including his series The Forest and a series that was then a work-in-progress called Days On the Mountain. For the second segment, Ken and I talked about change, and how when it comes in our personal lives it can spur us to new heights in our work.
Since I first released our conversation, Ken has gone on to publish Days On the Mountain as a beautiful photobook via Dark Spring Press. You can order a copy directly from Ken via his website, either the book on its own, or a signed and numbered limited edition copy with a print.
Here are some links to where you can listen to the episode:
You can also listen to the full episode and find show notes and a transcript at the episode page at the KTCO website.
New KTCO: KTCO Book Club - Song (with Gabrielle Bates)
This week for the KTCO Book Club, I'm talking with poet and podcaster Gabrielle Bates about Brigit Pegeen Kelly's 1994 poetry collection, Song. In our conversation, Gabrielle and I talked about how Kelly builds the worlds of her poems, how the poems layer metaphor, and how the poems manage to be simultaneously (and paradoxically) both surreal and grounded.
Here are some links to where you can listen to the episode:
You can also listen to the full episode and find show notes and a transcript at the episode page at the KTCO website.
As always, I recommend purchasing copies of Song from your local independent bookstore, but if you don't have one available to you, Open Books in Seattle and The Book Catapult here in San Diego take online orders and can ship to you. (Those links will take you straight to the ordering pages for Song.) You can find links to Gabrielle Bates's work at her website, and you can listen to her podcast The Poet Salon (one of my favorite literary shows) in your favorite podcast app.
New KTCO: Kary Wayson
This week on Keep the Channel Open, I'm talking with poet Kary Wayson. The poems Kary’s latest collection, The Slip, are wonderfully slippery in both form and feeling, in a way that demands attention and rewards deep engagement. In our conversation we discussed what a poem can do, how we approach “meaning” in poetry, and how life changes affect our art. Then in the second segment, we talked about time and our human perception of duration.
Here are some links where you can listen to the episode:
You can also listen to the full episode and find show notes and a transcript at the episode page on the KTCO website.
You can purchase a copy of The Slip directly from the publisher, or from an independent bookstore like Open Books in Seattle, The Book Catapult in San Diego, or your own local bookstore.
KTCO: Remembering Paula Riff
My friend Paula Riff passed away recently, after having been ill with cancer for two years. Paula was a wonderful, kind, generous, and enthusiastic person, and a brilliant artist whose work pushed the boundaries of the photographic medium. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to talk with her about that work for the show. In our conversation, Paula and I talked about what photography is to her, why she’s attracted to alternative processes, and how her work is ultimately autobiographical. Then for the second segment, we talked about the value of physical art spaces. In honor of her memory, I’m re-sharing our conversation today.
If you haven't experienced Paula's work before, I'd like to encourage you to do so. In order to see all of the subtle detail, texture, layering, it's really best to see it in person if you can. I'm not sure when or where it will be on walls in the future but if you get the chance, please take it. In the meantime, you can see it on her website at paulariff.com, including her newest series Cut, Paste, Breathe, Repeat, which she worked on right until the end.
Here are some links to where you can listen to the episode:
You can also listen to the full episode and find show notes and a transcript on the episode page at the KTCO website.