
Today we’re joined by poet, writer and educator José Olivarez to discuss his new book Promises of Gold, a collection of poems exploring all forms of love, including friendship, romantic and cultural. We find out why José had someone else translate his collection into Spanish when Spanish is his first language. We also discuss how he thinks about organizing his poems on the page and in the book, and why balance in a collection is so important.
The Stacks Book Club selection for March is Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay. We will discuss the book on March 29th with Shanita Hubbard.
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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

- Promises of Gold by José Olivarez
- David Ruano González
- Michael B. Jordan
- Jonathan Majors
- Michael B. Jordan and Jonathan Majors photographed by Gioncarlo Valentine for NYT
- “Opinion: Michael B. Jordan and Jonathan Majors are the future” (Peniel E. Joseph, CNN)
- Saguaro National Park
- Nate Marshall
- Be (Common, 2005)
- Glory, Glory, Glory (Noel Jones and The City of Refuge Sanctuary Choir, 2007)
- Lenny Bruce
- Walt Whitman
- Michael Jordan
- Jimmy Butler
- Derrick Rose
- Baron Davis dunks on Kirilenko
- Kobe Bryant
- Kevin Garnett
- Hanif Abdurraqib
- Shakespearean sonnet
- Petrarchan sonnet
- Sour Patch Kids
- Henry Holt and Company
- Christopher Sergio
- Antonio Salazar
- Por Siempre by José Olivarez and Antonio Salazar
- Haymarket Books
- Homie by Danez Smith
- The World Keeps Ending and the World Goes On by Franny Choi
- Electric Arches by Eve Ewing
- Wild Hundreds by Nate Marshall
- Finna by Nate Marshall
- When My Brother Was an Aztec by Natalie Diaz
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