Episode Forty-four

/
photo of Yanyi

Photo of Yanyi, taken by him

In this episode I spoke with Yanyi about his new book, Dream of the Divided Field, and his newsletter, The Reading.

Yanyi is the author of Dream of the Divided Field (One World Random House, 1 March 2022) and The Year of Blue Water (Yale University Press 2019), winner of the 2018 Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize. His work has been featured in or at NPR’s All Things Considered, New York Public Library, Granta, and New England Review, and he is the recipient of fellowships from Asian American Writers’ Workshop and Poets House. He holds an MFA in Poetry from New York University and was most recently poetry editor at Foundry. Currently, he teaches creative writing at large and gives writing advice at The Reading.

Yanyi's website
You can purchase Dream of the Divided Field here
Yanyi's Twitter
Yanyi's Instagram

Various books, movies, podcasts, etc. mentioned in this episode:

Editor and Social Media Manager: Mitchel Davidovitz

Host and Producer: Avren Keating

Sound of Waves Breaking: Sounds from this video of Merlin, my sweet 5-year-old Frenchie that died of a brain tumor in-between recording and editing this episode. I love you, little bubs.

Episode Forty-two

/

In this episode, I spoke with Cody-Rose Clevidence about their latest publication, Aux Arc / Trypt Ich, out with Nightboat Books. We dug into language, exploring motif, grief, love—all that good stuff. 

Cody-Rose Clevidence is the author of BEAST FEAST (2014) and Flung/Throne (2018), both from Ahsahta Press, Listen My Friend This is the Dream I Dreamed Last Night from The Song Cave and Aux Arc / Trypt Ich as well as several handsome chapbooks (flowers and cream, NION, garden door press, Auric).  They live in the Arkansas Ozarks with their medium sized but lion-hearted dog, Birdie and an absolute lunatic cat.  

Cody-Rose's Instagram

Buy Aux Arc / Trypt Ich!

Poets, books, etc. mentioned in this episode:

  • Cody-Rose Clevidence's BEAST FEAST

  • Turquoise waters of the Ozarks:


Editor and Social Media Manager: Mitchel Davidovitz

Host and Producer: Avren Keating

Sound of Waves Breaking: "Arkansas" by John Linnell. At last, one half of TMBG makes it onto the pod.

Episode Forty-one

/
fei author photo.png

In this episode, I spoke with féi hernandez about Hood Criatura, their poetry collection released in 2020. We also spoke about their incredible skills as an illustrator, and féi recommends some fantastic books and music.

féi hernandez (b.1993 Chihuahua, Mexico) is a trans, Inglewood- raised, formerly undocumented immigrant artist, writer, healer. They have been published in POETRY, Pank Magazine, Oxford Review of Books, Frontier Poetry, The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, amongst others. They are a Define American Fellow for 2021 and are currently the Board President of Gender Justice Los Angeles. féi is the author of the full-length poetry collection Hood Criatura (Sundress Publications 2020) which was on NPR’s Best Books of 2020. féi collects Pokémon plushies.

féi’s website

féi’s instagram

Purchase Hood Criatura

An example of one of féi’s illustrations:

“The Woman Inside” by féi hernandez. You can see more of their illustrations here.

“The Woman Inside” by féi hernandez. You can see more of their illustrations here.

Poets, books, etc. mentioned in this episode:

Editor and Social Media Manager: Mitchel Davidovitz

The Sound of Waves Breaking is “Project - 3_30_21, 6.55 PM.wav” by bradygalp123

Episode Thirty-nine

/
headshot3.jpg

In this episode, I spoke with KB about their zine “a new relationship to pain,” their relationship to poetry, the pandemic, working as a poet and educator, and more.

KB is from Stop Six, Fort Worth, Texas. They are a Black queer nonbinary poet, educator, student affairs professional, and lover of most plants/people. They want to be your friend as well as your reminder to think in abundance. They have words published in Cincinnati Review, Puerto Del Sol, Palette Poetry, and other equally pretty places. Their chapbook How To Identify Yourself with a Wound (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022) won the 2020 Saguaro Poetry Prize and was written with support from workshops with Lambda Literary, In Surreal Life, The Watering Hole, The Hurston/Wright Foundation, The Speakeasy Project, and Winter Tangerine. They are currently a 2021 PEN America Emerging Writers fellow and an African American Leadership Institute - Austin fellow.

When not on stage or in the page, they serve as Program Coordinator for the Gender and Sexuality Center at the University of Texas at Austin, Founding Executive Director of Interfaces, Co-Founder/President of Embrace Austin, and educator in various settings. Follow them on Twitter or Instagram at @earthtokb and access their exclusive teaching, writing, and other content at patreon.com/earthtokb. They live in Austin, TX where they’re writing books & trying their best.

KB’s Zine “a new relationship to pain”

KB’s Instagram

KB’s Twitter

Poets, books, etc. mentioned in this episode:

The Sound of Waves Breaking is “DesertTexasT01” by Riabad

Editor and Social Media Manager: Mitchel Davidovitz

Episode Thirty-eight

/
rainie.jpg

In this episode I spoke with Rainie Oet about their recent publication Glorious Veils of Diane. 

Content warning: We talk a lot about blood and some about self-harming.

Rainie Oet is a nonbinary writer and game designer, former Editor-in-Chief of Salt Hill Journal, and the author of Glorious Veils of Diane (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2021), as well as two other books: Porcupine in Freefall and Inside Ball Lightning. They have an MFA in Poetry from Syracuse University, where they were awarded the Shirley Jackson Prize in Fiction. 

Artists, books, films, games etc. mentioned in this episode:

The Sound of Waves Breaking: "Sanchon Drum - Seoul Korea" by RTB45

Editor and Social Media Manager: Mitchel Davidovitz

Episode Thirty-seven

/
Based on photos taken by imogen and Ben Krusling

Based on photos taken by imogen and Ben Krusling

In this episode, I dive deep into one poem from the We Want it All anthology with its authors, Anaïs Duplan and imogen xtian smith. Tune in for our conversation about of art, love, and utopias.

Anaïs Duplan is a trans* poet, curator, and artist. He is the author of a book of essays, Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture (Black Ocean, 2020), a full-length poetry collection, Take This Stallion (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2016), and a chapbook, Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus (Monster House Press, 2017). He has taught poetry at the University of Iowa, Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence College, and St. Joseph’s College.

His video works have been exhibited by Flux Factory, Daata Editions, the 13th Baltic Triennial in Lithuania, Mathew Gallery, NeueHouse, the Paseo Project, and will be exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art in L.A in 2021.

As an independent curator, he has facilitated curatorial projects in Chicago, Boston, Santa Fe, and Reykjavík. He was a 2017-2019 joint Public Programs fellow at the Museum of Modern Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem. In 2016, he founded the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, an artist residency program for artists of color, based at Iowa City’s artist-run organization Public Space One. He works as Program Manager at Recess.

imogen xtian smith (fka xtian w) is a poet & performer. Recent work is featured or forthcoming in Peach Mag, Cosmonauts Ave, the Rumpus, & WE WANT IT ALL: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics. They live in Brooklyn.

Places, people, art, books etc. mentioned in this episode:

Editor and Social Media Manager: Mitchel Davidovitz

The Sound of Waves Breaking is "Gymnasium, Class Reunion in Distance" by ecfike. Meeting people in-person and hugging after a long period of time? I miss that and them.

Episode Thirty-five

/
aeon author photo.jpg

This month’s guest is Aeon Ginsberg. We dug into their recently published book Greyhound and also talked about PoBiz/Big Lit, death, and teeth poetry.

Aeon Ginsberg (they/them) is an agender transfeminine writer and performer from Baltimore City, MD. They are the author of Greyhound, the 2019 winner of the Noemi Press Poetry Prize, and their work has been published in various magazines in print and online. Aeon is a Taurus, a bartending, and a bitch.

Aeon’s website

Aeon’s Twitter account

Go get Greyhound!

Writers, news, books, events mentioned in this episode:

The Sound of Waves Breaking is this video Aeon sent me of Vin Diesel singing Rhianna.

Editor and Social Media Manager: Mitchel Davidovitz

If you want to get in contact with me, you can email me at wavesbreakingshow@gmail.com and/or message me @WavesBreakPod on Twitter.

Episode Thirty-four

/
Photo by Laurence Philomène

Photo by Laurence Philomène

This month I got to speak with Kama La Mackerel about their just-released book, ZOM-FAM, published by Metonymy Press. We go in-depth in discussion about their decolonial artistic practices and inspiration for the book.

Kama La Mackerel is a Montreal-based Mauritian-Canadian multi-disciplinary artist, educator, writer, community-arts facilitator and literary translator who works within and across performance, photography, installations, textiles, digital art and literature. Kama’s work is grounded in the exploration of justice, love, healing, decoloniality, hybridity, cosmopolitanism and self- and collective-empowerment. They believe that aesthetic practices have the power to build resilience and act as resistance to the status quo, thereby enacting an anticolonial practice through cultural production.

Kama has exhibited and performed their work internationally and their writing in English, French and Kreol has appeared in publications both online and in print. They have lived in far-flung places such as Pune, India and Peterborough, Ontario. ZOM-FAM, their debut poetry collection is published by Metonymy Press.

GO BUY ZOM-FAM!

Kama's website

Media, artists, books, etc mentioned in this episode:

The Sound of Waves Breaking: "Ay Ay Lolo" by Menwar

Editor and Social Media Manager: Mitchel Davidovitz

Episode Thirty-three

/
kiki nicole

In this episode, I spoke with poet kiki nicole about their manuscript, Autobiography of the boi Venus which not published (yet!), their embroidery work, film work, and current interests.

kiki nicole is a Black, Queer, and Non-binary multimedia artist and poet based in Charlotte, North Carolina.. They’ve received invitations to fellowships such as Pink Door Writing Retreat, The Watering Hole, and Winter Tangerine. kiki nicole is currently a reader for Muzzle Magazine. They work to explore a Black, queer, femme & genderless universe that un/bodies, un/genders, & re/news, kiki hopes to lend a voice for the void in which Black femmes not only exist in plain view, but thrive.

from kiki’s Autobiography of the boi Venus, also using a still from ariella tai’s "she's not going to get more dead"

from kiki’s Autobiography of the boi Venus, also using a still from ariella tai’s "she's not going to get more dead"

kiki’s site

kiki’s instagram

Donation link to support kiki

Media, artists, books, etc mentioned in this episode:

The sound of waves breaking is Sylvester's “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).”

This episode was edited and social media managed by Mitchel Davidovitz.

Stay safe, everyone!!

Episode Thirty-two

/
Photo credit: Ananda Lima

Photo credit: Ananda Lima

Như and I discussed her recent chapbook A System of Satellites and her writing practice, finding dignity as a trans poet, and writing past ingrained fear and doubt.

She also asked me questions. Hear me stumble trying to answer questions about my writing practice and how I approach writing with personal experiences.

Như Xuân Nguyễn is a queer and trans Vietnamese American poet and writer. A Kundiman Fellow and a graduate of the MFA program in Creative Writing at Rutgers-Newark, she won the 2018 Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship with her debut chapbook A System of Satellites. Her work has appeared in The Offing, DELUGE (Radioactive Moat), The Journal, The Shade Journal, and Juked. She is currently based in New York City, where she lives with her two cats, Arya and Azula. 

Như's website
Buy Như's chapbook

Note: I refer to a NOLA poetry fest panel that is no longer happening due to COVID-19. Wash your hands and stay at home, everyone.

People and Books Mentioned:

Editor and Social Media Manager: Mitchel Davidovitz

The Sound of Waves Breaking: Lunar Wind, @Walter_Odington

Episode Thirty-one

/
photo_Yim_Sung-cJasonQuigley-683x1024.jpg

This episode, I got to talk with sung about their thoughts on writing, the poetry biz, and what its like to publish a memoir. sung is a writer and interdisciplinary artist from Korea. They are the author of What About the Rest of Your Life (Perfect Day Publishing) and Flowers Are for Pussies (Ghost City Press). Their work has appeared in Nat. Brut, Kweli Journal, Contrary, The James Franco Review, The Wanderer, and Crab Fat Magazine.

The sound of waves breaking is "Wynd" by weerm

This episode's editor and social media manager is Mitchel Davidovitz

Episode Twenty-nine

/
Photo by: Nicole Myles

Photo by: Nicole Myles

This episode, I had the chance to speak with Cyrée Jarelle Johnson about his book, SLINGSHOT.

Cyrée Jarelle Johnson (He/They) is a poet and writer from Piscataway, NJ. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Boston Review, Wussy, The Wanderer, Vice, Rewire News, The Root, and Nat. Brut among other publications. They earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University with support from Davis Putter Scholarship Fund.

SLINGSHOT, his first collection of poetry, is available now from Nightboat Books. Development of the work was supported by Astraea Foundations' Global Arts Fund, CultureStrike Climate Change and Environmental Justice Fellowship, and Rewire News Disabled Writers Fellowship.

They tweet with significant queer millennial ennui at @CyreeJarelle 

Cyrée's website 
Cyrée's TED Talk "What is Autism Neutrality?" 

Authors and books mentioned in the episode:

The Sound of Waves Breaking was "Natural Disaster" by @davidthomascairns 

Editor, Social Media Manager: Mitchel Davidovitz
Host, Producer: Avren Keating

Episode Twenty-eight

/
Samuel Ace.jpg

It's been a minute! Thanks for your patience as I've slogged through life. In this episode I spoke with Samuel Ace about his book Our Weather Our Sea.

Samuel Ace is a trans/genderqueer poet and sound artist. He is the author of several books, most recently Our Weather Our Sea (Black Radish 2019), the newly re-issued Meet Me There: Normal Sex and Home in three days. Don’t wash., (Belladonna* Germinal Texts 2019), and Stealth with poet Maureen Seaton. He is the recipient of the Astraea Lesbian Writer Award and the Firecracker Alternative Book Award in Poetry, as well as a two-time finalist for both the Lambda Literary Award and the National Poetry Series. Recent work can be found in Poetry, PEN America, Best American Experimental Poetry, Vinyl, and many other journals and anthologies. He currently teaches poetry and creative writing at Mount Holyoke College in western Massachusetts.

Sam's website

Buy Our Weather Our Sea

Also buy Meet Me There: Normal Sex & Home in three days. Don’t wash.

Books, poets, artists, etc mentioned in this episode:

The Sound of Waves Breaking: Samuel Ace's "These Nights" 

Editor and Social Media Manager: Mitchel Davidovitz

Episode Twenty-seven

/
CorfmanSBrook.jpg

I had the opportunity to talk with S. Brook Corfman at AWP this year! S. Brook Corfman is the author of Luxury, Blue Lace, chosen by Richard Siken for the Autumn House Rising Writer Prize, and two chapbooks: the letterpress Meteorites from DoubleCross Press and the digital collection of performance pieces The Anima from GaussPDF. The recipient of grants and fellowships from Lambda Literary, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, recent work has appeared in DIAGRAM, Indiana Review, Muzzle, The Offing, Territory, and Quarterly West (Best of the Net Nomination), among other places. Born and raised in Chicago, Sam now lives in a turret in Pittsburgh.

S's website

Luxury, Blue Lace

Meteorites (chapbook)

Writers, topics, etc, mentioned in the show:

This episode's Editor and Social Media Manager is Mitchel Davidovitz

The Sound of Waves Breaking is a field recording of kids playing at a park during the day by JohnnyBeCrafty

Episode Twenty-six

/
bellana.jpg

Hello, hello! Happy Spring! I'm here with another interview for you fine people. I had the opportunity to interview B'ellana Johannx aka Chloe Rose about their two upcoming chapbooks Satanic Verses: A Guidebook for the New Transfaggot (2019) and The Fatbergs (2019).

B'ellana Johannx's gender is Rilke’s dark god: a webbed scrim made of a thousand roots drinking in silence. Also known as Chloe Rose, she/they are a fat, queer, femme, non-binary womxn-of-color living with disabilities and their cats Franz and Pepper in Tacoma, WA. Rose/Johannx has been published in The Wanderer, Dream Pop, and Aspasiology, with Pushcart and Bettering American Poetry nominations henny, so watch out! Tweet them about conlangs, antifa, witchcraft, and drag names @llanaandsuchas. If you are a faggot, you are her/their kin and they love you. May the peace of the Goddess and God be upon you. #SMIB

B'ellana's website

B'ellana's Twitter 

Writers, books, ideas, musicians mentioned:

"The Sound of Waves Breaking" is titled "Ghost Merkel Beat" by stanrams and made me laugh my ass off.

This episode was edited and media managed by Mitchel Davidovitz

Episode Twenty-four

/
june gehringer

This month I got to talk to June Gehringer about her latest book! June Gehringer is the author of I Love You It Looks Like Rain (Be About It, 2017), and I Don't Write About Race (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2018), the latter of which was the winner of Civil Coping Mechanisms's 2017 Mainline contest. She lives in Philadelphia and has more crushes than she can count. She tweets about it @june_gehringer, and if you're a press interested in her next book you can reach her at gehringercat@gmail.com .

She's also an editor over at tenderness lit. 

I Don't Write About Race can be purchased here. 

 

Writers, presses, musicians mentioned in the show:

Editor and Social Media Manager: Mitchel Davidovitz

The Sound of Waves Breaking

Episode Twenty-one

/
55e69c_98fed35e529443b9a26718480d423500_mv2_d_1639_2048_s_2.jpg

This month I got to chat with Kayleb Rae Candrilli. Kayleb is author of What Runs Over, winner of the 2016 Pamet River Prize, with YesYes Books. What Runs Over is a 2017 Lambda Literary finalist for Transgender Poetry. Candrilli is published or forthcoming in Puerto del Sol, Booth, RHINO, Cream City Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Adroit, Bettering American Poetry, Boaat Press, Vinyl, CutBank, Muzzle, New Orleans Review, and many others.

They have served as the nonfiction editor of the Black Warrior Review and as a feature editor for NANO Fiction. They are now an Assistant Poetry Editor for Boaat Press. In 2015, Candrilli was a Lambda Literary Emerging Fellow in Nonfiction, and again in 2017 as a fellow in poetry. Kayleb is a Best of the Net winner and has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes (in prose and poetry) and for Best New Poets. They were also a 2017 recipient of a Leeway Art and Change Grant.

Kayleb's website

Purchase What Runs Over here.

Artists and musicians mentioned in this episode:

The Sound of Waves Breaking is here.

This episode is edited by Mitchel Davidovitz. 
Mitchel Davidovitz is also the Social Media Manager.

You can contact Avren on twitter @WavesBreakPod, and on Facebook at Waves Breaking Podcast, and through email wavesbreakingshow@gmail.com

Episode Twenty

/
NAT IN CORK 07.07.17.jpg

This month(ish) I got to interview Nat Raha! Nat Raha is a poet and trans / queer activist, living in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her poetry includes two collections countersonnets (Contraband Books, 2013) and Octet (Veer Books, 2010); and numerous pamphlets including ‘de/compositions’ (Enjoy Your Homes Press, 2017), '£/€xtinctions' (sociopathetic distro, 2017), '[of sirens / body & faultlines]' (Veer Books, 2015), 'radio / threat' (sociopathetic distro, 2014) and 'mute exterior intimate' (Oystercatcher Press, 2013). She's performed and published her work internationally. Nat co-edited the Radical Transfeminism zine, and is currently finishing PhD in on queer Marxism and contemporary poetry at the University of Sussex.

http://sociodistro.tumblr.com (if you go here, there's pdfs of £/€xtinctions, the first edition '[of sirens...], and 'radio/threat')
http://sociopatheticsemaphores.blogspot.com

Ideas and writers discussed in this episode:

This episode was edited and social media managed by Mitchel Davidovitz

The Sound of Waves Breaking is from CadereSounds, freesound.org

Episode Nineteen

/
Chely Lima -by Leonor Alvarez-Maza.JPG

This month I got to speak with Chely Lima and Margaret Randall, the translator for his new collection of poetry What the Werewolf Told Them/ Lo que los dijo el licantropo.

Chely Lima is a queer Cuban-American writer who has published numerous books (poetry, novel, short story, theater, literature for children) in his country of origin, and also in Spain, United States, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. Some of these books are the novels Lucrecia quiere decir perfidia (2015), Triángulos mágicos (2014) and Confesiones nocturnas (1994), as well as the poetry books Zona de silencio (2004), Discurso de la amante (2013), and Lo que les dijo el licántropo / What the Werewolf told them (2017). His texts have been translated into English, French, Portuguese, German, Italian, Russian, Czech and Esperanto, and numerous selections and anthologies of literature from various parts of the world collect samples of his work. 

** Listeners can use the code WAVES for a 20% on ANY *Operating System* book directly through their online store, here: https://squareup.com/store/the-operating-system/ ** Thanks, Lynne DeSilva-Johnson

Books, authors, and ideas mentioned in this episode:

Editing and Social Media Management mangaed by none other than Mitchel Davidovitz

Sound of Waves Breaking: Wolves in Finland

Episode Fifteen

/

I got to talk on the phone with poet Kenyatta JP Garcia and their most recent collection Slow Living. 

Kenyatta JP Garcia is the author of They Say, Slow Living and ROBOT. JP was raised in Brooklyn but currently resides in Albany, N.Y. where they received degrees in English and linguistics. They are an editor at both Rigorous and Five 2 One Literary Magazine. In a past life, they were a cook for about a dozen years. In this modern incarnation, they get paid to put boxes on shelves by night and by day they read comics, pine, worry, and attempt to craft something worth reading. 

Artists, Music, and Writers Mentioned in This Month's Episode:

The Sound of Waves Breaking is this sound effect of Time Travel.

This episode was edited by Mitchel Davidovitz.