Episode 129: Eugenia Leigh

Dear listeners, 

Our latest episode, a special Reading with Rachel exclusive conversation with Eugenia Leigh, is now OUT! We are very excited to share this conversation with you, and we are especially excited to announce the new Reading with Rachel lineup, which you can sign up for here. This conversation with Eugenia is inspiring and one I truly enjoyed listening to over and over again while producing, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! The new Reading with Rachel lineup will continue this series of insightful author conversations and we hope to see you there. 

Rachel and Eugenia talk about mental health and the relationship that mental illness can have with the production of a book. Eugenia details the making of Bianca and how formal poetry plays a large role in her work, especially the zuihitsu and couplets. It is a really interesting conversation that we are delighted to debut, and we hope you enjoy it too! 

Here is some more information on Eugenia Leigh:  

Eugenia Leigh is a Korean American poet and the author of Bianca (Four Way Books, 2023) and Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014). Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous publications including TIME, The Nation, Poetry, Ploughshares, Waxwing, and the Best of the Net anthology. Eugenia serves as a Poetry Editor at The Adroit Journal and as Valentines Editor at Honey Literary.

A great way to connect with more amazing authors like Eugenia Leigh and with Rachel Zucker would be to sign up for a Reading with Rachel class! There are new sessions through July 2025. Here’s a preview of the next upcoming sessions:

• November 3: Sarah Manguso’s Liars

• December 1: Eileen Myles’s For Now

• January 5: Maira Kalman's Still Life with Remorse

In this episode, Rachel briefly talks about our previous Reading with Rachel guests, Hafizah Geter and Nicole Sealey. This community allows for a sense of threading between these authors and subjects that are relevant now more than ever. I highly recommend joining one of our sessions from this new round of Reading with Rachel! You will get a behind the scenes firsthand look at how these special Commonplace episodes are recorded, and you may get the chance to ask Rachel or these authors your OWN questions among other people just as excited as you to be there. We have some really great audience questions that you will hear in this episode!

If you’d like to know more about Reading with Rachel and other Commonplace School classes, check out our new website: commonplace.today where you’ll also find all Commonplace episodes, extra resources for each episode and transcripts for almost every episode! And if you are interested in supporting us here at Commonplace—we operate without any institutional funding—I encourage you to support us on Patreon! 

Our lucky patrons will be receiving an annotated bibliography along with writing prompts and invitations to reflect with some of Rachel’s notes from when she taught Bianca with her NYU students. They will also get an exclusive audio of Eugenia Leigh reading her poem “June Fourteenth”.  

Thank you so much to Four Way Books for giving us some copies of Bianca to give to our Reading with Rachel participants for this session! 

In honor of this episode, Commonplace’s charitable partner will donate $250 to Brooklyn Poets. They “honor the literary heritage of Brooklyn by celebrating and cultivating community and craft through a wide range of educational programs and events accessible to all—especially those marginalized by traditional literary and academic structures.”

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with a poetry lover in your life, and also give our recent Instagram post a like or share: @commonplacepod 

ALSO, we have developed an audience poll to get feedback from YOU about Commonplace! We would love to hear your thoughts and about your engagement with Commonplace, whether that be as a listener, a patron, a Commonplace School attendee, or any combination of these. Please fill out this form here and if you do, you will be entered into a raffle for FREE BOOKS! 

Thank you so much to Rachel for making this special episode happen, and to my other Commonplace colleagues, Christine Larusso and Leigh Sugar, for producing Episode 129 with me. We have been going through some turbulent personal matters, but keeping Commonplace an active community for us to learn and connect has been so valuable to us. Additionally, Reading with Rachel has provided a truly unique way to connect with some amazing writers and hear more about their craft and motivations. We are so lucky to learn together and hope that you all feel as inspired as we do. Let’s stay connected! 

With love,

Lola Anaya