RETURN THE KEY PODCAST

The cognitive dissonance involved in living ethically under tRvmp 2.0 is such that at times, I realize that my blood is boiling at 4 am—surely not a healthy condition to live through. What has been keeping me sane and even at times exuberant is the chance for protracted (i.e. off-Meta) conversations with friends, allies, and loves. In this episode of the Return the Key podcast, Julie Carr and I discuss the inevitable, gorgeous mingling of language and culture against all attempts to wall them off, and the ways poetry can animate that process (as I show at length in, y'know, that new book of mine). They can burn books, disenfranchise whole communities, fire their reality-TV Cabinet members, kick comedians off the air, attempt wars of distraction, poison the planet, pose as ersatz Jesuses, but they can't reach into our mouths and police our language. Speak up, speak out. It's almost May Day, and we're ready to not work and be loud in Chicago, the city that gave rise to our stolen holiday.

Many thanks to Martine Bellen for this glimpse of me performing at the glorious New Orleans Poetry Festival in April, which I didn’t have time to post about, so busy have I been….