Shining Moon Episode 04: Speculative Poetry I

Hello, and welcome to Shining Moon: A Speculative Fiction Podcast Episode 4. Today we’ll continue our series by asking questions about speculative poetry. We’ll talk a little about the history of speculative poetry, what it takes to write genre poetry and regular poetry, and where you can find poetry in the wild.

 My guests today are Elgin-winning poet Amelia Gorman, Michelle Muenzler, and Lynne Sargent. Truth be told, I owe a lot of my success as a writer to Michelle getting me started with the Submission Grinder and telling me that poetry could actually be written and sold in the modern age. 

Contains: Interviews with three poets, and a Poetry "Thunderdome" in which the poets are given 2 minutes to write poems including three prompt words.

"Don't tell me that the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." -- Anton Chekov

Piano music for closure

Thank you for listening to Shining Moon! You can reach the host, Deborah L. Davitt, at the following social media platforms:

www.facebook.com/deborah.davitt.3

Bluesky: @deborahldavitt.bsky.social

www.deborahldavitt.com

Transcript

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hello and welcome to Shining Moon, a speculative fiction podcast episode four. I'm your host, Deborah Eldavid. Today we'll continue our series by asking questions about speculative poetry. We'll talk a little about, about the history of speculative poetry, what it takes to write genre poetry and regular poetry and where you can find poetry in the wild. My guests today are Elgin winning poet, Amelia Gorman, Michelle Munzler and Lynn Sargent. Truth be told, I owe a lot of my success as a writer to Michelle getting me started with the submission grinder and telling me that poetry could actually be written and sold in the modern age. 
So let's start with some introductions. Amelia Gorman lives in Eureka where she spends her free time exploring forests and tide pools and fostering dogs. Her fiction appears in Night Script Six and Settler Door. Read her poetry in Dreams and Nightmares, Penumbrake and Vestarian. Her chapbook, the Elgin Winning Field Guide to Invasive Species of Minnesota, which is wonderful and I recommend that everybody go get a copy now,

Amelia Gorman:
Thank

Deborah L. Davitt:
is available

Amelia Gorman:
you.

Deborah L. Davitt:
from Interstellar Flight Press. Her myCard chapbook, The Warm Sonnets, is available from The Quarter Press. Hi Amelia, welcome to the podcast and thank you for being on.

Amelia Gorman:
Hello, I'm looking forward to this.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Michelle Munzler is an author of the weird and sometimes poet. Though rarely seen outside of her cave, she can be lured into visibility with offers of food and drink. She is also owned by three cats, one of whom would make a terrible human, but she loves him anyway. Hi Michelle, thank you for being on!

Michelle Muenzler:
Deborah, happy to be here.

Deborah L. Davitt:
We are having a little bit of audio problems with Michelle, but be patient with us. We'll get this all upgraded in post if necessary. Lynn Sargent is a writer, aerialist,

Michelle Muenzler:
Sorry,

Deborah L. Davitt:
and holds

Michelle Muenzler:
hello

Deborah L. Davitt:
a PhD

Michelle Muenzler:
Deborah, happy

Deborah L. Davitt:
in applied

Michelle Muenzler:
to be here.

Deborah L. Davitt:
philosophy. They are the poetry editor at Utopia Science Fiction Magazine. Their work has been nominated for Reisling, Elgin, and Aurora awards and has appeared in such venues as Auger Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Daily Science Fiction. To find out more, visit them at scribblechadows.wordpress.com. Right, so let's talk about the history of speculative poetry. I personally think that anything that involves a monster should, or flights of fancy, should pretty much be considered speculative by default. But... a lot of literary people would say, but if that's in the canon of Western literature, we can't include Beowulf in that. We can't include the Iliad in the Odyssey there. I look at stuff written by Lucian of Samosata, who talked about trips to the moon in the second century AD. He did it as a satire, but he managed to invent science fiction over Where do you start the history of speculative fiction or speculative genre poetry as it might be? Where do you think it starts? and I'm going to pick on Lin.

Lynne Sargent:
Well, I'm gonna start off, I guess, I don't know, being a little bit contrary. So I'm one of those horrid speculative poets that doesn't actually believe that there is such a thing as speculative poetry or that it's like distinct in any way from non-genre poetry.

Deborah L. Davitt:
I love that.

Lynne Sargent:
So I'm definitely with you, Deborah, in that I think that the historical stuff is definitely speculative in nature, at least in part because I think that all poetry is speculative in nature. But I also think that stuff like the Iliad. A lot of Tennyson's Arthurian poetry, a lot of Shakespeare, all that stuff, I think, would fall under a modern speculative canon as well for people that are a little bit pickier about those distinctions.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Lynne Sargent:
And that's certainly what I grew up reading and grew up loving and was what informed my poetry practice from the very start.

Deborah L. Davitt:
All right, Amelia, do you have any thoughts on this?

Amelia Gorman:
Yeah, I actually kind of agree with Wynne. Someone said on your first podcast that like, one thing speculative is, is a marketing term. And without

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Amelia Gorman:
sounding too jaded, I would say in a lot of ways, speculative poetry only sort of exists as speculative fans exist. It's sci-fi poetry is poetry for sci-fi fans. Fantasy poetry is poetry for fantasy fans. And that includes these ancient poems. You know, Beowulf obviously is a huge one. All the old monster poems, at least I love them as a fantasy fan, so.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah, it's hard not to. Michelle, how about you? Do you see that there is a longer tradition of speculative poetry or do you think it's a shorter thing, a more recent thing? That is a great point. When you're saying that it's a question of a point of view and people may have thought of these things as being real at that point in time, I totally agree. But then I look at people like Lucien of Sama Sada, and he was deliberately putting people on the moon 1,800 years ago. And it was clear that he was going against the religion of his time because He was taking more of a scientific look at things. He was saying it was possible to go there and travel there and talk to the people who lived there. So there's different levels, absolutely.

Lynne Sargent:
Yeah, I think,

Deborah L. Davitt:
My next question, I'm sorry, Lynn.

Lynne Sargent:
I was just gonna say too, that I don't necessarily think that what is speculative is not true. And I don't know if there's necessarily a need for there to be a line between the real and the unreal, or even that line, like A, that line exists and B, that line lines up with what is speculative and what is not.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah, it's a slippery distinction, isn't it? It's, yeah, I agree. All right, I would normally ask, do people really pay you to write this? But the answer is yes. So I'm gonna skip that question. I'm gonna ask instead, why do you write poetry? And I'm gonna start with Lynn again.

Lynne Sargent:
I write poetry because I don't know how to not write poetry. I always tell this story that like the first time I wrote a poem it was for a book report in high school. And it was actually for a book report on a speculative book. And I started and I just didn't stop, you know? Like if I don't write things down they're going to knock around in my head and I'm never going to be able to sleep at night. So it's just got to happen.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm. Amelia, why do you write poetry?

Amelia Gorman:
Yeah, I think you're gonna get a lot of like, because I have to. For me it's just such a fundamental way of how I process emotions. So I mean even with the more abstracted poems, like, are still very much me processing relationships with people in my life. A lot of processing other things I've read that have moved me by writing about them myself.


Deborah L. Davitt:
We may as well move on to our next question, which is, where can people find speculative poetry in the wild? What are some of your favorite menus that you've been published in or that you just like to read? I'm going to start with Amelia.

Amelia Gorman:
Um, one of my all-time favorites would definitely be the poetry that Strange Horizons publishes. They do such a cool job, like, very interesting questions. They're not afraid to do kind of weird visual things with the poetry they publish. There's really some, like, cutting-edge neat stuff of how poetry can exist on the internet. Uh-oh.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh yeah, there was a recent poem by, I want to say, Daniel Ossima that was animated. And

Amelia Gorman:
Yeah.

Deborah L. Davitt:
the animation added so much to the actual poem that I can't imagine just trying to read it straight on a page. It was beautiful.

Amelia Gorman:
Mm-hmm.

Deborah L. Davitt:
then that was in Strange Horizons.

Amelia Gorman:
Yeah.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Lynn, what's one of your favorite venues?

Lynne Sargent:
So I am definitely partial to places like Uncanny and Augur. Fantasy, unfortunately, of course, is closing, but I think they publish some really great stuff while they were around just like different perspectives, like some lovely, you know, lots of diversity. Like I like to read different things. And so it's nice to see. sort of like the spectrum of, you know, longer poems, shorter poems, some form stuff, some not form stuff, you know, different subject matters.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Lynne Sargent:
I'm also a big fan, honestly, of if you're looking for collections, Interstellar Light Press has quite a few lovely collections out, including Amelia's, but not

Amelia Gorman:
Brandon

Lynne Sargent:
limited

Amelia Gorman:
O'Brien's

Lynne Sargent:
to... I know.

Amelia Gorman:
is amazing.

Lynne Sargent:
Yeah.

Amelia Gorman:
Oh.

Lynne Sargent:
Can you say... I love Brandon. Brandon's like one of my favorite spec poets.

Amelia Gorman:
Yeah.

Lynne Sargent:
But yeah, so like they've got some really great, I guess, do they have any like multi-author collections yet or is it just single-author collections

Amelia Gorman:
They have

Lynne Sargent:
so

Amelia Gorman:
a,

Lynne Sargent:
far?

Amelia Gorman:
I think only their fiction, they have a

Lynne Sargent:
Okay.

Amelia Gorman:
like, or no, it's their non-fiction even, like their best of Interstellar Flight Press magazine, but that's

Lynne Sargent:
Ah.

Amelia Gorman:
just non-fiction pieces.

Lynne Sargent:
I guess the thing we'll have to suggest to Holly in the future then is to pull together a multi-author collection for

Amelia Gorman:
Is that weird?

Lynne Sargent:
Interstellar.

Amelia Gorman:
Yeah.

Deborah L. Davitt:
That would be really cool. Michelle, if you're with us, what are some of your favorite venues to find speculative poetry in the wild?

Michelle Muenzler:
Oh man, yeah like if I'm going for collections, Interstellar Flight Press is a great place to go as already mentioned. Other than that, I just like to kind of flit around to magazines like, you know, Strange Horizons or Penumbrake, Vastarian, just, you know, kind of random actually.

Deborah L. Davitt:
All right, I would like to give a shout out to Aqueduct Press because they recently published a set of poems by me. And I know that they also have recently published Numinous Stones by Holly Lynn Walrath. So I know that they definitely do publish speculative poetry.

Amelia Gorman:
Yeah,

Deborah L. Davitt:
And

Amelia Gorman:
they

Deborah L. Davitt:
they

Amelia Gorman:
also

Deborah L. Davitt:
are

Amelia Gorman:
did

Deborah L. Davitt:
wonderful.

Amelia Gorman:
the...

Deborah L. Davitt:
And they are very supportive of their authors. So if you want to check them out. they definitely do publish some really good poetry.

Amelia Gorman:
They have the poetry inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin book, too, the multi-author collection, which

Lynne Sargent:
climbing lately through

Amelia Gorman:
isn't

Lynne Sargent:
forests.

Amelia Gorman:
all spec- yeah, isn't all speculative, but obviously so many of the poems are a response to her sci-fi work.

Deborah L. Davitt:
right. So I'm going to go ahead and let you guys a little bit off the leash here and I want you each to read one of your own poems and then we'll get to talk with you a little bit about it. And that's something that's a rare delight is to be able to ask an author what they were thinking when they were writing something, what they meant by the words, and just to go forward from that. And I know that... Lynn has The Wolf of Your Passions, which appeared in Augur issue 5.2 in November of 2022. Would you like to start us off?

Lynne Sargent:
Sure. The Wolf of Your Passions. Perhaps getting to love requires a few wrong turns, going off the garden path so you might stumble into the Wolf of Your Passions. Eating a few poisoned apples and therefore learning which drug brings you satisfaction. Trying on a few tight-laced corsets proffered by a myriad of witches and after know which brings the deepest sleep. Following through that trap door to the place with gold and silver trees bearing fruits like jewels. All of them yours when you have learned to step from the trodden path to know yourself, to speak your wants. Even the monstrous ones.

Deborah L. Davitt:
love this poem. I read it before when you sent it to me and hearing you read it, it just gives it so much more life. Thank you for sharing it. What gave you the inspiration for this poem?

Lynne Sargent:
Um, so I definitely like find myself running over fairy tales a lot. Um, I think I heard this described by Gagriel Kay one time in a talk is like, you know, like authors have cats. Um, they just like little obsessions that they, they keep coming back to. And so fairy tales are definitely one of mine. Um, and I think I had maybe been reading Tanneth Lee's. redder than blood at this point. And so I think she's got a great story in that that's like a threesome between Little Red and the wolf and granny.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh my.

Lynne Sargent:
I love Tanneth Lee. Anyways, so I was thinking about that, you know, and like, and all these sort of like fairy tale retellings that it's like, you know, why are certain things bad? Why do parents caution their children away from certain things when it is sort of like possible to want things that are like kind of bad for you sometimes? And like... that's something that we're allowed to choose for ourselves as adults is to do things that are like, maybe slightly dangerous sometimes, or that can be dangerous if they're not in controlled circumstances. And then we can like sort of like finagle ways to make them safer and enjoy these things that are taboo. Right? We can have weird sex, we can do drugs. And that's what this poem is about.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hmm? All right, Amelia, you did not share a poem with me ahead of time, but are you ready to read something?

Amelia Gorman:
Oh, I thought, yeah, I thought I did. I said I was gonna do the Eye to the Telescope one, but, but yeah. I'm going to read The Dead Knocking from July 2023's Eye to the Telescope. The dead knocking. I'm not going to be one of those women who doesn't open the door when the dead come knocking. I'm not going to end a story when it's beginning. I'll let that corpse inside, no matter how many of its fingers have fallen off, no matter how shattered the femurs that lean against the boards, or how bloodless by disease or bloodied by machinery. I'm not going to be one of those women held back from the door where the dead are pounding, where their mealy fists are bashing through the wood. I'll be there to offer them coffee or meat or rigid chairs. Oh, my sister, oh, my father, oh, my neighbor dead yesterday or 20 years now this past Tuesday. Not even the kind of woman who pulls it open a crack, cheat peaks before deciding what's too ugly and what's allowed. No, I'm tossing that door open, a reverse slam, and I am letting all of the dead flood my hallway and all their dead friends. None of us ending our story where it's beginning.

Deborah L. Davitt:
love this poem. Thank you for sharing it. Again, what gave you the inspiration for this one?

Amelia Gorman:
Um, I picked this one to read because writing it, it was my frustration reading the story, The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs, a classic family gets a monkey's paw and wishes and they wish their son back to life and then they don't let, they wish him dead again. They realize they're going to be too horrified by him. And so in the spirit of speculative poetry, this is my poem about a speculative story and that I didn't like it, that I wanted it to end different. I wanted to see the corpse. I wanted to, you know, and kind of like Lynn Sargent's, I wanted to have sympathy for the more monstrous figures from stories.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah, that all works perfectly and it was a very evocative poem. I loved the repetition, which gave it such cadence as it moved through. It gave it a forward motion that propelled you through the stanzas. I loved that.

Michelle Muenzler:
Sure, I

Deborah L. Davitt:
Michelle,

Michelle Muenzler:
was thinking of going with

Deborah L. Davitt:
can

Michelle Muenzler:
There

Deborah L. Davitt:
you

Michelle Muenzler:
Can

Deborah L. Davitt:
share

Michelle Muenzler:
Only

Deborah L. Davitt:
a poem

Michelle Muenzler:
Be

Deborah L. Davitt:
with

Michelle Muenzler:
One

Deborah L. Davitt:
us?

Michelle Muenzler:
Soul Princess, which was a Pinnumberg Speculative Fiction Magazine back in 2021. There can only be one, soul princess. How many times did mother tell me that? A hundred, a thousand? More than I can count for sure. More than the moons have seen. But if there can be only one, why, why must that one be me? Mother strokes my hair with a silver brush to keep the souls from straying. Mother spoons thistle milk down my throat to keep the souls from straying. Mother whistles out of tune and beats my thighs with birch to keep the souls from straying. Mother, mother, every day a different face, every day a different voice. Sometimes I wonder if she's still my mother anymore. I dreamt that I dreamt that I yet dream. And in that dream, a soul rose up and with its last breath swallowed me whole and said to me, stupid girl, what's good's a dream? A true soul princess has no use for such wasteful things. Remember, mother says, as she shoves me through the gate and into the arena, hungry souls crackling in my spine. Other girls cry at their gates. Other girls scream. Other girls grind their souls like blades against their meat. But all of us, from the meanest to the meek, know but this one thing. There can only be one, soul princess, come the end. Just the one, just the one, just the one.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Again, beautiful use of repetition, beautiful use of the juxtaposition between the beautiful and the terrifying. Again, I loved

Michelle Muenzler:
This

Deborah L. Davitt:
this

Michelle Muenzler:
one kind

Deborah L. Davitt:
poem.

Michelle Muenzler:
of came

Deborah L. Davitt:
What gave

Michelle Muenzler:
a lot

Deborah L. Davitt:
you the inspiration

Michelle Muenzler:
out of

Deborah L. Davitt:
to write this

Michelle Muenzler:
number

Deborah L. Davitt:
one?

Michelle Muenzler:
one, my dislike of chosen ones. Because I'm always having an issue with like this one specific person being a chosen one. So I wanted to write a poem where a bunch of people are sort of this chosen one, but they're being groomed into it. And then that led into parental expectations and the ways that sometimes parents try to force their children down paths that their children don't want.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Alright. Have any of you ever played in the poetry thunderdome before? I know Michelle has, but have Amelia or Lynn?

Amelia Gorman:
Never.

Lynne Sargent:
Yes, I did one of your Thunderdomes, I think, for a codex thing one time.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah. So you know how it goes. It is going to be a three words and then we are going to have two minutes which I will edit out of unless we think it's a good idea to leave two minutes of dead time so people at home can play along. I figure

Amelia Gorman:
They

Deborah L. Davitt:
they

Amelia Gorman:
can

Deborah L. Davitt:
can

Amelia Gorman:
pause

Deborah L. Davitt:
probably go

Amelia Gorman:
for

Deborah L. Davitt:
ahead

Amelia Gorman:
two

Deborah L. Davitt:
and

Lynne Sargent:
Yeah,

Amelia Gorman:
minutes.

Deborah L. Davitt:
just push the button

Lynne Sargent:
exactly.

Deborah L. Davitt:
and pause if they want to play along. So I'll edit out the two minutes of dead time and then we'll beautiful, brilliant poetry in two minutes

Michelle Muenzler:
What's our

Deborah L. Davitt:
or less,

Michelle Muenzler:
usual tagline?

Deborah L. Davitt:
it will probably be highly amusing. And because we do not have a convention crowd here to make suggestions for us, I have instead a spreadsheet of words. And I have the traditional person, place, or thing, or I have noun, verb, adjective, and we'll probably try both. I'm going to ask each of you for a number between 1 and 30. So Amelia, give me a number between 1 and 30.

Amelia Gorman:
28th.

Deborah L. Davitt:
28, your noun is teaching. Lynn, what is your number between, I'm sorry,

Lynne Sargent:
sex.

Deborah L. Davitt:
six C's. That's

Michelle Muenzler:
Twenty

Deborah L. Davitt:
your verb.

Michelle Muenzler:
six.

Deborah L. Davitt:
And Michelle, what's your number? 26, faint. So our words are teaching, seize, and faint. We have two minutes to write it. and I will do that here in a second as I set up the stop minute, the stopwatch. Beginning now. All right, pencils down. We're gonna start with Amelia.

Amelia Gorman:
Okay, this poem is called How to be a Woman in an Exorcism Story. Step 1. Faint. This is the hardest part of the teaching. Don't hit your head. Put a delicate chaise beneath you, pillows piled high for a princess. Step 2. Seize. Throw your body around the room. Levitate. Let your limbs go. Step 3. Recover. Say the ghost is no longer within you, but lie if you need to.

Deborah L. Davitt:
I love this! I would never have thought of this!

Amelia Gorman:
Thank you.

Lynne Sargent:
ending a suite.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Lynn, could you go next?

Lynne Sargent:
Sure, mine doesn't have a title because two minutes is not long enough to think of titles as well

Amelia Gorman:
Mm.

Lynne Sargent:
as

Amelia Gorman:
Ha

Lynne Sargent:
poems.

Amelia Gorman:
ha ha.

Deborah L. Davitt:
I feel much the same way.

Amelia Gorman:
I'm definitely going through a phase

Lynne Sargent:
Faint

Amelia Gorman:
where I'm

Lynne Sargent:
underst-

Amelia Gorman:
like, sorry, go ahead.

Lynne Sargent:
Faint understanding hovers beyond the horizon. The universe teaching, regardless of if mathematics are real. We seize gravity, mythologize forces weak and strong alike. The stars as close as the next big discovery.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Woo. Very nice.

Amelia Gorman:
I love poems that romanticize

Michelle Muenzler:
questions.

Amelia Gorman:
physics like that.

Lynne Sargent:
My husband is a physicist.

Amelia Gorman:
Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Deborah L. Davitt:
Haha.

Michelle Muenzler:
Thanks for watching!

Lynne Sargent:
My life is a constant act of hermeticizing

Amelia Gorman:
Heheheheh!

Lynne Sargent:
physics.

Michelle Muenzler:
Sure, I am also untitled.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Michelle, can you go next?

Michelle Muenzler:
Dark waters seize the lost, faint voices failing ever fainter. Something slips against my leg, another corpse, another voice now gone, or something else, a lesson too late learned.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Ooh, very nice. That is dark and creepy, and you manage that in such a short amount of time.

Amelia Gorman:
Yeah.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Ah, mine is not as good as yours. Seize the day, the ancients said, but what when the day grows faint and hard to grasp, what lesson could they teach us when time and space fade out of existence with nothing left to seize? Just to be stoic in the face of disillusion or to be hedonistic in the face of the void, or is there a third path, a way between, that leads to paradise? Right, so next round, we're gonna do the traditional person, place or thing. And

Michelle Muenzler:
Night!

Deborah L. Davitt:
we're going to have Michelle start us off with picking a number between one and 30. 19,

Michelle Muenzler:
Ooh,

Deborah L. Davitt:
that

Michelle Muenzler:
ouch.

Deborah L. Davitt:
is, oh, one of my favorites, use car salesman.

Amelia Gorman:
I'm sorry.

Deborah L. Davitt:
All right, Amelia, could you pick a number between one and 13?

Amelia Gorman:
uh, ten.

Michelle Muenzler:
Pompeii?

Deborah L. Davitt:
10. Pompeii.

Michelle Muenzler:
Oh my god, you're killing me. Killing me, Debra!

Deborah L. Davitt:
Pompeii, like where Vesuvius erupted.

Amelia Gorman:
I'm sorry.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hahaha! and Lin

Lynne Sargent:
27.

Deborah L. Davitt:
27? Glass. A glass or just glass in general. Alright, I'm gonna give you guys a moment to think about this because this one's gonna be hard

Amelia Gorman:
Thank you.

Deborah L. Davitt:
All right, begin. Bye!

Michelle Muenzler:
All right, not

Deborah L. Davitt:
We're

Michelle Muenzler:
sure

Deborah L. Davitt:
gonna

Michelle Muenzler:
this

Deborah L. Davitt:
start

Michelle Muenzler:
one

Deborah L. Davitt:
with

Michelle Muenzler:
quite

Deborah L. Davitt:
Michelle

Michelle Muenzler:
came

Deborah L. Davitt:
this

Michelle Muenzler:
together,

Deborah L. Davitt:
time.

Michelle Muenzler:
but let's go for it. No title again because, grr, who wants titles? Only the cool people. Vesuvius erupts like a used car salesman, sputtering, the keys to my ride in hand. I was hoping to hit the road by now, be anywhere but here, but now the future is glass. Yeah, yeah that was kind of pinger down.

Amelia Gorman:
Oh, I love the beginning. But

Michelle Muenzler:
If

Amelia Gorman:
like

Michelle Muenzler:
only

Amelia Gorman:
that's

Michelle Muenzler:
it had

Amelia Gorman:
such

Michelle Muenzler:
not

Amelia Gorman:
a punch

Michelle Muenzler:
stuck in there.

Amelia Gorman:
to start with. It's great.

Michelle Muenzler:
Oh,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Lynn,

Michelle Muenzler:
sorry,

Deborah L. Davitt:
you wanna

Michelle Muenzler:
just

Deborah L. Davitt:
take

Michelle Muenzler:
saying, if

Deborah L. Davitt:
up this?

Michelle Muenzler:
only it had gone somewhere.

Deborah L. Davitt:
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Michelle.

Amelia Gorman:
Hehehe

Deborah L. Davitt:
Well, that's what the second draft is for

Lynne Sargent:
I'm gonna

Deborah L. Davitt:
when

Lynne Sargent:
go.

Deborah L. Davitt:
you have more than two minutes. Lynn, you want to go next?

Lynne Sargent:
Sure, so also untitled again. Disaster is sold. Disease by politicians like used car salesman as though Pompeii was necessary for Atlantis. Like volcanic glass is the same as magic gemstones. Like the Ouroboros of civilizations fall is an

Michelle Muenzler:
Nice.

Lynne Sargent:
inescapable narrative certainty.

Deborah L. Davitt:
You managed to get depth in two minutes. That's not fair. Amelia?

Lynne Sargent:
I blame the philosophy classes.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hmm hmm hmm.

Amelia Gorman:
Okay, here's my untitled poem. We wanted to drive around the ruins, air conditioning on blast, looking at bodies scorched enough to be nearly glass, looking for the used car salesman of Pompeii, the rental of ruin, no tourists more gauche than us, radio on, convertible roof

Michelle Muenzler:
Nice.

Amelia Gorman:
down, surrounded by fools and casts and stone.

Michelle Muenzler:
I'm going to go to bed.

Amelia Gorman:
I wanted to write about someone not likable.

Lynne Sargent:
Hahaha

Deborah L. Davitt:
Well, you succeeded, but they were self-aware enough to know that they weren't. So that is interesting. Mine is again, probably not as good as yours. Under the ashes of Pompeii, a broken bit of glass, the bones of people long gone. Can you hear the sound of chariots rattling past? The sound of voices as Marcus Paulinus, the used chariot salesman calls people to come see what he has in stock. The sound of voices as prostitutes hock their wares, as philosophers teach their students, all gone now under the hardened ash, a lesson to the future.

Amelia Gorman:
I'm so melancholy.

Lynne Sargent:
Mm-hmm.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Pompeii makes me melancholy.

Amelia Gorman:
Mm-hmm.

Deborah L. Davitt:
all that information, all that culture, all that loss. But as an interesting side note, they have recently been able to sort of take some of the charred scrolls that were all bound up and they've been able to read them using a very specialized spectrography. So they think that they'll be able to recover probably an entire library worth of ancient scrolls. So we might get back people that we never knew existed. Or we might get back some of the full continuity of SAFO, for example, which would be really cool if they are able to continue doing this.

Michelle Muenzler:
That is super cool.

Deborah L. Davitt:
So I am excited about that. All right, onto our next round. We're gonna go back to noun and verb adjectives since you guys

Michelle Muenzler:
Does

Deborah L. Davitt:
didn't like

Michelle Muenzler:
anyone

Deborah L. Davitt:
my

Michelle Muenzler:
like

Deborah L. Davitt:
used car

Michelle Muenzler:
a news

Deborah L. Davitt:
salesman.

Michelle Muenzler:
to our salesman?

Deborah L. Davitt:
Alright, uh, Amelia, start us off with picking a number between 1 and 30.

Amelia Gorman:
Oh,

Michelle Muenzler:
Woohoo!

Amelia Gorman:
let's go with one.

Deborah L. Davitt:
One alcohol. Lin?

Lynne Sargent:
13

Deborah L. Davitt:
React.

Michelle Muenzler:
30.

Deborah L. Davitt:
and Michelle. Dashing. So that's alcohol, react, and dashing. And begin. All right, how do we do with this one?

Michelle Muenzler:
We did it again. There are words.

Lynne Sargent:
Yeah, that's how I feel.

Amelia Gorman:
Um...

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hehehehe

Michelle Muenzler:
Oh, lucky me.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Michelle, you want to

Michelle Muenzler:
All

Deborah L. Davitt:
start

Michelle Muenzler:
right.

Deborah L. Davitt:
us off again?

Michelle Muenzler:
Untitled again. Add a drop to your goggles. Really any alcohol will do. Watch the daring become dashing. A hormonal chain reaction of nothing to every dream. Apply with care. Effects, alas, may not last.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hehehehe Amelia, you wanna go?

Amelia Gorman:
Sure. Um. Dashing fur of wool for fox, jars of alcohol, rocks that react to light with rust, collection cabinet of all the lost things, this extinct animal, this meteor so far from its home, homesick fish in their jars too, dead eyes slowly fading, skin turning to strings, then nothing. I love when I like can't read my own handwriting when I do these things, but I'm like, what does this even say?

Deborah L. Davitt:
That's why I type.

Amelia Gorman:
Hmm.

Deborah L. Davitt:
It's so much faster for me and it's a more natural method of composition for me, but it also goes faster for me, therefore,

Amelia Gorman:
Woo.

Deborah L. Davitt:
and I can read it.

Michelle Muenzler:
Hehehe

Deborah L. Davitt:
Although, being able to read it might not actually save this poem. Lynn, you want to finish us? Oh, I'll not finish this off because I still have to go, but.

Lynne Sargent:
Sure, yeah. The dizziness in proximity to a dashing prince, like a heady dose of alcohol. We're built like this, react as our bodies necessitate chemical reactions, and yet afterwards we may

Michelle Muenzler:
Thank

Lynne Sargent:
still

Michelle Muenzler:
you.

Lynne Sargent:
choose to proliferate them further, blow the palace up.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hmm,

Amelia Gorman:
Ooh,

Deborah L. Davitt:
interesting.

Amelia Gorman:
that's good.

Deborah L. Davitt:
The dashing count plied the debutante with alcohol expecting a reaction he knew all too well. Lighten skirts and enlarged libido, shame in the morning. But what he didn't know was that to her people alcohol did far more than lightening

Michelle Muenzler:
Dun

Deborah L. Davitt:
skirts,

Michelle Muenzler:
dun dun!

Deborah L. Davitt:
and the morning found him utterly devoured.

Amelia Gorman:
fun.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Nom nom indeed. I think he deserved it. So there. We're going to do one more round and that's we're going to go back to the traditional person place and thing. Amelia, you want to pick first?

Amelia Gorman:
Uh, sure. Five.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Five is a surveyor. Amelia? I'm sorry, I'm not Amelia. You just went. Lynn.

Lynne Sargent:
Did we already do 30?

Deborah L. Davitt:
We did not on

Michelle Muenzler:
Oh,

Deborah L. Davitt:
this

Michelle Muenzler:
jeez.

Deborah L. Davitt:
column. That's Makupichu.

Amelia Gorman:
Yeah.

Lynne Sargent:
Is

Deborah L. Davitt:
Surveyor

Lynne Sargent:
that how you're

Deborah L. Davitt:
in

Lynne Sargent:
supposed

Deborah L. Davitt:
Maku

Lynne Sargent:
to

Deborah L. Davitt:
Picchu.

Lynne Sargent:
pronounce it? I feel like I've never... ma-makupichu?

Deborah L. Davitt:
I do the best I can with it. I think that's the way you're supposed to pronounce it, but I could be dead wrong.

Lynne Sargent:
Very cool, I love learning new things.

Michelle Muenzler:
10.

Deborah L. Davitt:
and a thing, Michelle?

Michelle Muenzler:
Unless it's really bad, then I choose 11.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Can? Tissue paper.

Amelia Gorman:
I'm sorry.

Michelle Muenzler:
Ooh, yes,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh,

Michelle Muenzler:
okay.

Deborah L. Davitt:
okay. The 11 makes it easier, a death mask.

Amelia Gorman:
Oh, I kind of like tissue paper.

Deborah L. Davitt:
All right, begin.

Michelle Muenzler:
Ha ha!

Deborah L. Davitt:
Bonus points if you get both tissue paper and death mask

Amelia Gorman:
Hehehehe

Deborah L. Davitt:
in. All right.

Michelle Muenzler:
Hehehe

Deborah L. Davitt:
For the fun of it, I'm going to go first this time, then I'm going to pick on all of you. The surveyor plied her lines over and around the ruins of Makupichu. The ancient monolithic stones would be transferred onto lines of information tissue-thin, arranged in a holographic array on a generation ship, a death mask for the old world.

Amelia Gorman:
also very bittersweet.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Alright Amelia, you're up first.

Amelia Gorman:
Um, surveyors sketching lines of angled temples outside Machu Picchu and its known unknowns. Here, this curve, this line here, a map evolves that is more than a map, but what giant creature of old could have a death mask as big as the ground? Acres of face in dark repose, what body underneath that trembles still?

Deborah L. Davitt:
Ooh, your interest in cryptids is coming through.

Michelle Muenzler:
Oh.

Amelia Gorman:
And the earthquake we got yesterday morning.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah, exactly. Lin!

Michelle Muenzler:
Thanks for watching!

Lynne Sargent:
I think I think I have to claim worst poem for this round. So I apologize in advance Peaks and palaces we might dream even of real things, become surveyors with more deathly masks than those of them incorrectly deemed savages. Make Machu Picchu tourism and all else besides thin as tissue paper.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hmm. No, I think you've got a point and you conveyed it, so I don't think that's the worst poem.

Michelle Muenzler:
I'm going to go

Lynne Sargent:
I

Michelle Muenzler:
to

Lynne Sargent:
can

Michelle Muenzler:
bed.

Amelia Gorman:
Yeah,

Lynne Sargent:
eat

Amelia Gorman:
that was

Lynne Sargent:
some

Amelia Gorman:
like...

Lynne Sargent:
work.

Deborah L. Davitt:
They all

Amelia Gorman:
I really

Deborah L. Davitt:
need

Amelia Gorman:
like

Deborah L. Davitt:
work.

Amelia Gorman:
those, yeah,

Deborah L. Davitt:
They

Amelia Gorman:
those

Deborah L. Davitt:
all

Lynne Sargent:
I'm

Deborah L. Davitt:
need

Lynne Sargent:
going

Amelia Gorman:
last,

Lynne Sargent:
to

Deborah L. Davitt:
more

Lynne Sargent:
go to

Deborah L. Davitt:
than

Lynne Sargent:
bed.

Deborah L. Davitt:
two minutes.

Amelia Gorman:
yeah, those last two lines were, were good though. Like, the tissue paper works really

Michelle Muenzler:
All right,

Amelia Gorman:
well.

Michelle Muenzler:
I'm coming for your worst point.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Alright, Michelle?

Michelle Muenzler:
The mask slips from her skull, revealing desiccated tissue paper skin, grayed by centuries beneath the Machu Picchu stones. Empty sockets blink against the new light, survey the blare of sun and curious stares. Then, annoyed, she pulls the mask back on and curls up again.

Deborah L. Davitt:
I like that one. I don't see why that one would be worst poem either.

Amelia Gorman:
Yeah, the humor was surprising and really enjoyable.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Right. Do you guys feel like a final round or are we good here?

Lynne Sargent:
I think my brain is kind of squeezed out. Ha ha

Amelia Gorman:
Yeah.

Lynne Sargent:
ha.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay, four or five rounds is usually about where it goes. So we'll stop there. All right. Do any of you have any recent projects that you'd like to talk about or any upcoming projects that might be coming out soon that people should be looking for? I'll start with Amelia because I know you've got the warm sonnets.

Amelia Gorman:
Yeah, I just had a microchapbook come out with the quarter press. It's called The Worm Sonnets. It does what it says on the label. There are a lot of worms in it. Imagines a world where everything except parasitic nematodes have stopped existing and how these kind of clouds of parasitic nematodes interact with each other.

Lynne Sargent:
That's so

Deborah L. Davitt:
What

Lynne Sargent:
exciting

Deborah L. Davitt:
I love about

Lynne Sargent:
sounding.

Deborah L. Davitt:
this since I finished reading it recently and

Amelia Gorman:
I'm

Deborah L. Davitt:
I cannot

Amelia Gorman:
sorry.

Deborah L. Davitt:
recommend it highly enough is the fact that these worms create this negative space around where the people used to be and they still interact and they still love and they still hate

Amelia Gorman:
They still have

Deborah L. Davitt:
and

Amelia Gorman:
sex. Ha

Deborah L. Davitt:
all

Amelia Gorman:
ha

Deborah L. Davitt:
the things that we do

Amelia Gorman:
ha.

Deborah L. Davitt:
as humans, but they do it in a wormy way and it's wonderful. Don't be deterred by the fact that it's about worms,

Michelle Muenzler:
Why would worms

Deborah L. Davitt:
is what

Michelle Muenzler:
deter

Deborah L. Davitt:
I'm saying.

Michelle Muenzler:
us? That's

Deborah L. Davitt:
It's also

Michelle Muenzler:
a plus.

Deborah L. Davitt:
about humans and how we relate. So, Lynn, do you have anything coming out soon or recently out that you'd like to talk about?

Lynne Sargent:
My last collection came out in 2020, so it's not new at this point, but A Refuge of Tales is out for Renaissance Press. I think it's like three dollars if you buy the ebook version, so pretty accessible. I do not have any new collections coming out yet, although I have. See, my problem is that I'm kind of writing three different collections at the same time, and neither of them are quite long enough yet to do

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah,

Lynne Sargent:
anything

Deborah L. Davitt:
that

Lynne Sargent:
with.

Deborah L. Davitt:
happens. Michelle, do you have anything out recently that you'd like to talk about

Michelle Muenzler:
I alas

Deborah L. Davitt:
or anything

Michelle Muenzler:
have

Deborah L. Davitt:
coming

Michelle Muenzler:
no collections

Deborah L. Davitt:
out in the near future?

Michelle Muenzler:
in poetry

Deborah L. Davitt:
It can be pros

Michelle Muenzler:
or anything

Deborah L. Davitt:
too.

Michelle Muenzler:
because that requires me to write enough things that relate to each other in some way. I tend to keep going all over the place. But I guess if you want to go prose a pseudopod just pulled out the podcast a few weeks ago I think that has my reprint Bitter as the Sea and Bright if you like really horrific seaside tales told from the Universal

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Michelle Muenzler:
Wee. Well, you should take a listen.

Lynne Sargent:
Yes.

Amelia Gorman:
I do.

Deborah L. Davitt:
I loved

Amelia Gorman:
I

Deborah L. Davitt:
that

Amelia Gorman:
like

Deborah L. Davitt:
one.

Amelia Gorman:
those things very much.

Deborah L. Davitt:
that it's a very poetic story as well because you don't write anything that doesn't have poetry in it. Even your prose is poetic. So it's beautiful and terrible at the same time is truly in the old sense of the term awful, full of awe. So yeah, I highly recommend people check that one out. It's really good. I personally just had in 2023 through Aqueduct Press, my collection called From Voyages Unreturning is out and available, I think it's like $5. It's a volume about, it's basically a novella inverse about a person who has lost their family to the effects of time and space flight and everything like that. and how they take solace with a living ship, and how they are tempted by the possibility of time travel to undo their decisions, and then they have to decide, no, I have to live with my decisions, and go forward in time, not back in time. And it sounds very reductive when I put it that way, but I think it's fun.

Michelle Muenzler:
Nice.

Deborah L. Davitt:
So if anybody wants to check that out, it's at Aqueduct Press. Ah, this is gonna be a shorter than average podcast, but that's fine because we don't have to have them all drag on forever and ever. Thank you all for having been on the podcast. It was a delight getting to speak with all of you.

Amelia Gorman:
Thank you.

Deborah L. Davitt:
And for

Lynne Sargent:
Thank

Deborah L. Davitt:
the

Lynne Sargent:
you

Deborah L. Davitt:
next

Lynne Sargent:
for

Deborah L. Davitt:
two

Lynne Sargent:
having

Deborah L. Davitt:
weeks,

Lynne Sargent:
us.

Deborah L. Davitt:
thank you so much. For the next two weeks, the topic will be translation and writing in English as your second language. My guests next time will be Anatoly Belilovsky and Alex Schwartzman. This has been Shining Moon. Thank you very much.