Dear listener,

In the process of recording and editing this episode—a conversation between myself and the poet Cody-Rose Clevidence—I often remembered connections that I had made but never stated during the recorded conversation. This doesn’t happen when I’m editing someone else’s conversations, but this feeling (which I’m sure Rachel knows intimately) haunted me as I combed through this conversation over and over and over again. As I was editing, I remembered the exact association that occurred to me when Cody-Rose told me about the familiar sense, articulated in a stranger’s tweet that became a meme, that “we weren’t supposed to know this many people, let alone their thoughts.” I remembered, in that moment, sitting on a blanket in Prospect Park on the first warm day in Spring with what seemed like thousands of people around me.

I watched these people from a distance walking above the Long Meadow on East Drive and through the arches near Grand Army Plaza. I realized, suddenly, that there were more human beings in my vicinity than there would have been across continents at one point. The sheer number of people around me made visible the enormous improbability of the trajectories of human evolution, expansion, free will, and folly, and the scale of currently unfolding crises, including mass extinction and climate change.

I didn’t have time in the moment to share it with Cody-Rose, but every time I hear this part of our conversation, this is exactly where it takes me: the painful and beautiful realization that we humans have evolved toward cohabitation and collective feeling, and the memory of a collective feeling of elation at the arrival of spring. We talk at some point about the dishonesty of retroactively adding things to projects that articulate a history of mind—and about Rachel’s recent discussion of this with poet Douglas Kearney. But, Cody-Rose says: “You get to choose.” So while this memory isn’t part of the episode you’re about to listen to, I’m choosing to add it to the tapestry of connections between me and Cody-Rose, and now you, listener. I hope that you'll take these patterns and weave your own stories and memories into Commonplace’s conversations, and that our collective understanding will be greater for these additions than the sum of all of our fragmented histories.

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” (2021, The Song Cave) and Aux Arc / Trypt Ich, (2021, Nightboat Books) as well as several handsome chapbooks, most recently DEARTH & Gods Green Mirth (2022, Fonograph). They live in the Arkansas Ozarks with their two dogs, The Bird and Ramses II, and a lunatic cat named Monkey.

Valentine Conaty is a writer, editor, and literary worker from Birmingham, AL living in Brooklyn. They’re a Producer at Commonplace, and have been working with Rachel and the team to produce a series of episodes around questions about literary labor and the creative gig economy. They founded Bomb Cyclone, an online journal of ecopoetics and mixed media art, and continued to publish genre-bending work responding to ongoing environmental crises from 2018-2020. They’ve also edited poetry for Roof Books. They previously organized community readings at Poets House, a 70,000-volume poetry library in Manhattan, before being laid off with their coworkers after collectively petitioning to form a union.

LISTEN TO EPISODE 103!

‎For this episode, listeners will receive 30% off when purchasing Sei Shōnagon’s The Pillow Book from Columbia University Press with the code CUP30.

All Commonplace Patrons will get access to:

• a new, unpublished poem by Cody-Rose Clevidence

• a recording of Cody-Rose reading from Kamau Brathwaite’s “Red Rising” from Sun Poem 

• a recipe for Cody’s go-to breakfast sandwich and hangover cure

• the 1-hour introduction Rachel and I recorded for this conversation

Some members of the Commonplace Book Club will receive a copy of one of the following books:

• Listen My Friend, This is the Dream I Dreamed Last Night

• Aux Arc / Trypt Ich

• The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life

To become a Commonplace patron or a member of the Commonplace Book Club, please sign up here. To make a one-time donation to Commonplace please contact rachel [at] commonpodcast [dot] com or send your donation via Paypal to rachel [at] rachelzucker [dot] net

For this episode, Commonplace’s charitable partner will donate $250 to InTRANSitive, chosen by Cody-Rose Clevidence. From the website: “Intransitive works to advance the cause of Trans liberation in Arkansas through art, education, advocacy, organizing and culture in order to create effective systemic change and on-the-ground impact. We focus on supporting and building the leadership of Trans people with the commitment to a vision and strategy rooted in the grassroots experience of Trans migrants of color.”

Tune in to our next few special episodes, including conversations with choreographer and teacher Liz Lerman and a few followers of her Critical Response Process method for providing creative feedback; poet S. Yarberry; and poets Chase Berggrun and Claire Schwartz in conversation, mediated by Valentine Conaty.

Look out also for more content-rich newsletters from Commonplace. We’re testing out some new ideas, including moving to a pay what you can, tip-based newsletter model with episode “pairings,” book recs, recipes, and more. All current subscribers will receive this new newsletter, free of charge, through the end of the year. Any who wants to continue receiving it after this time may opt-in. But don’t worry—we’ll always announce our new episodes in shorter e-blasts and on social media!

We’re still hoping to share listener feedback! If you have a favorite Commonplace moment or want to share some way that Commonplace has impacted your life, please feel free to reach us at (347) 762-3405 or talk to us on Speakpipe, then your story might end up in an episode! As always, you can also Tweet at us, DM us on Instagram, or even just reply to this email.

Thank you for listening and for your continued support.

Love and solidarity,

Valentine & the Commonplace Team

LISTEN TO EPISODE 103!