Episode 116: The Gathered Congregation

Poets Jason Schneiderman, Cate Marvin, R. A. Villanueva, Lynn Xu and Rachel Zucker consider the pleasures, challenges, eccentricities and value of live, in-person poetry readings. These musings are followed by excerpts of the June 6, 2023 reading in Bryant Park (hosted by Jason and featuring Cate, Ron, Lynn and Rachel) and comments from the audience.

Author

Commonplace Podcast
October 16, 2023

Dear Listener,

I hope this update finds you safe and cared for and able, if possible, to care for others.

I’ve been working on this episode, lightly, for months, and intensively for the past few weeks. In format it is different from previous Commonplace episodes—it’s not a conversation. Or, if it is a conversation, perhaps it’s my part (in several voices) of a conversation I’m having with you?

The episode is made up of audio messages from Jason Schneiderman, Cate Marvin, R. A. Villanueva, Lynn Xu and me, as well as excerpts from our June 6, 2023 Bryant Park Reading Series and a few comments from members of the audience. I wanted to give you, Commonplace listener, a feeling of what it was like to be at that reading. And I wanted to continue my investigation into the role—pleasures and challenges and purposes—of live poetry readings.

Jason Schneiderman is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Hold Me Tight (Red Hen, 2020). He is Professor of English at CUNY’s BMCC and teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. His next collection, Self Portrait of Icarus as a Country on Fire, will be published by Red Hen Press in 2024.

Cate Marvin's latest book of poems is Event Horizon (Copper Canyon Press, 2022). She teaches at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York and resides in Southern Maine. Her poems have recently appeared in The Kenyon Review.

R. A. Villanueva is the author of Reliquaria, winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize. New work has been featured by the Academy of American Poets, Ploughshares, Poetry, and National Public Radio—and his writing appears widely in international publications such as Poetry London and The Poetry Review. His honors include commendations from the Forward Prizes and fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, and Kundiman. Born in New Jersey, he lives in Brooklyn.

Born in Shanghai, Lynn Xu is the author of And Those Ashen Heaps That Cantilevered Vase of Moonlight (Wave, 2022) and Debts & Lessons (Omnidawn, 2013) and the chapbooks: June (Corollary Press, 2006) and Tournesol (Compline, 2021). She has performed cross-disciplinary works at the MOCA Tucson, Guggenheim Museum, The Renaissance Society, Rising Tide Projects, and 300 S. Kelly Street. She teaches at Columbia University, coedits Canarium Books, and lives with her family in New York City and West Texas.

Rachel Zucker is the author of a bunch of books, including, most recently, The Poetics of Wrongness. She is the founder and host of Commonplace and directrix of the Commonplace School of Embodied Poetics. She lives in Washington Heights, NY and Scarborough, ME and is mother to three sons.

For this episode some members of the Commonplace book club will receive a copy of one of the following books:

Jason Schneiderman’s Hold Me Tight (Red Hen Press), Cate Marvin’s Event Horizon (Copper Canyon), R. A. Villanueva’s Reliquaria (University of Nebraska Press), Lynn Xu’s And Those Ashen Heaps That Cantilevered Vase of Moonlight (Wave Books), José Oliverez’s Promises of Gold (Henry Holt) or Will Harris’s Brother Poem (Wesleyan University Press).

In honor of this episode Commonplace’s charitable partner has donated to The Ali Forney Center, which works to “protect homeless Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgener, and Questioning youth from the harms of homelessness and empower them with the tools needed to be independent.”

Please give as generously as you can to this and other institutions and please consider supporting Commonplace as a patron or with a one time donation.

Commonplace School update: the next book up for Reading with Rachel is an anthology edited by Tamiko Beyer, Destiny Hemphill and Lisbeth White called Poetry as Spellcasting. Click here for the Reading with Rachel syllabus or here to sign up for one session or many.

And here is a link to a sad little love poem (most of what I’m writing late) that I wrote during (and after) the Bryant Park reading.

So much love to you all,

Rachel