Ep. 365 The Poets that Make Me Understand Myself with Tiana Clark

Written By Megan Caballero

This week, we're kicking off National Poetry Month with poet and essayist Tiana Clark. Tiana's newest collection, Scorched Earth: Poems, explores themes of heartbreak, identity, and radical self-acceptance. In this conversation, Tiana reflects on what it means to be vulnerable in poetry, how she approaches the lyric “I,” and what she looks for when reading other poets’ work.

The Stacks Book Club pick for April is Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988–2000 by Lucille Clifton. We will discuss the book on April 30th with Tiana Clark returning as our guest.

 
 

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

0:00

One of my first things I do in class is I always talk about heart lines, and I say, what are those lines that resonate with you? You are struck in some way, and it could be different for everyone, which is why I love poetry, because we could read the same poem, and you and I could have very different heart lines. So what I love is discussing. It's like, why did that line resonate with you? Why did that line resonate with me? We go to literature to feel less alone in the world. We all have our genres that do that. And so I think poetry are those ways that, like they make me feel less alone in the world. And so those are the poets, the poets that make me feel like I have a sense of belonging and the pain. You know, those are the poets that make me understand myself.

0:42

Welcome to the stats podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host, Traci Thomas, and today I am thrilled to welcome to the podcast. Tiana Clark. Tiana is a poet and essayist whose work delves into race, faith and personal history. She is the author of the brand new poetry collection scorched earth, and today she and I talk about writing poems that are extremely personal, the ways that the lyric eye manifests itself on the page and the kinds of poems that really speak to Tiana. In case you missed the announcement, our book club pick for April is blessing the boats new and Selected Poems, 1988 through 2000 by Lucille Clifton Tiana will be back on Wednesday, April 30 to discuss this book with me, so be sure to read along and then tune in. Quick reminder, everything we talk about on each episode of the stacks can be found in the link in the show notes. If you love this podcast and you want inside access to it, there are two incredible ways to support the work that I do here, one is by joining the stacks pack at patreon.com/the stacks, and the other is to subscribe to my newsletter. Traci Thomas, dot sub stack.com both of these places give you extremely cool perks, and they help me make this podcast possible. Okay, now it is time for my conversation for National Poetry Month with the one and only Tiana Clark.

All right, everybody, it's Poetry Month. You know, we had to bring a poet out. And I gotta tell you this poetry collection, it's called scorched earth, and our guest, her name is Tiana Clark, but I'm gonna give you a preamble before I introduce this book just showed up on my doorstep. An editor at Washington Square press, which is where the book was published, just sent it to me with a really nice note. Said, Traci, I really like what you do. I think you'd like this book. Not two weeks later, I get a message from friend of the show, Jose Olivares, who's like, Do you know what you're gonna do for Poetry Month yet? I don't know. He said, If you thought about Tiana Clark, I said, I'm not sure who that is. And he said the book is called scorched earth. And I said, Oh my God, that just showed up to my house with a note. So I was like, well, that is a sign, because Jose is my poetry guy, so I am bringing to the show. And then I found out that this guest is also a friend of Saeed Jones, another one of our poetry faves, and so I'm thrilled to welcome to the podcast. Tiana Clark, welcome to the stacks.

3:03

Thank you so much for having me. I'm such a big fan of you this podcast of said of Jose. That's so sweet. I love how, just like all these Kismet connections colliding together,

3:13

yes, all the poet the poets know, and you will know now too, for future poets you want to recommend to the show, I know very little about poetry, so a recommendation from a poet that I like is basically like an automatic booking. If you ever want to pressure me to put your friends on the show, you just have to say, I like this person. But of course, they were right. The collection is fantastic. I loved it so much, though, you know, I only know so little about poetry, but it spoke to me, and that's what I've been told by all the poets, is the only thing that matters if I if I like it, it's great, and if I don't like it, it's the worst poetry collection ever. So this is a great one. Thank you. Um, will you just tell folks a little bit about yourself, who you are, where you come from, maybe how you got into poet? Poetry?

3:59

Yeah. So I was born in Los Angeles in 1980 think that was the year of the Los Angeles Summer Olympics. And are you a summer baby? No, I don't know. I just said that I was a February baby. I want to be a summer baby, because it's always so cold on my birthday. But I moved to Los Angeles in 1991 my mom actually worked for a Christian record company. You moved to I moved to Nashville, and I remember my mom being like, you want to move to Nashville? And I was like, Where is Nashville? And it was so wild. And I think this also shapes my experience as a writer, because, as you know, being in Los Angeles, it's such a diverse community. Everyone in my kindergarten classroom was from all over the world, and then I moved from there to Nashville, Tennessee in 1991 where I was like, one in four, like, black students. And it was the first time in my life that I got asked, What are you and I was so confused, because no one had ever asked me, What did you say? Well, what's funny is, I went home and I go, Mom, what am I? I was like, people are asking me. And she was like, just say, you're beautiful. And so I would go back to school and say, I'm beautiful. And they'd be like, You're a freak. Um. Um, especially the first time I got, I

5:02

have a similar story. Oh, really. When I was I was at a pool in, like, Tahoe, and these older girls were like, what's your heritage? And I was like, I was like, Oh, I just got it done last week because I thought they were asking me about my hair.

5:18

Oh, my god, so good. Oh my gosh, it's a good one. I feel like they should take all the mixed people in the world and we should, like, like, have like, it should be a poem of like, all the questions and answers.

5:27

Like, especially when you're a kid, yeah, because, like, as an adult, I have answers now that are sort of like buying your own fucking business. But as a kid, I legitimately thought these girls were telling me that my hair was beautiful. It's like, Oh, I like your interpretation. I

5:39

like that up here, yeah. And then I lived in Nashville for most of my life, and then I had a fellowship here at UW Madison, Wisconsin, and then I lived in Southern Illinois for my first teaching job. And now I'm in Boston, and I'm a writer in residence at Smith College, so she's been all over. How did you come to poetry? I had an incredible poetry teacher in high school. His name was Mr. Bill Brown. He actually just passed away last year, so it's Tinder for me.

6:04

Oh, what you wrote to him in the ED in the acknowledgements? Very sweet.

6:08

Yeah, he utterly changed my life. I was a little bit of a rebellious teenager, a little bit Daria asked lots of emotions, and he was just the first teacher that took the time space and permission to invest in me, to believe in me, to tell me that I was good at something. And I think when you're that young, and someone tells you you're good at something, that feels really powerful also, as you know, you have all these hormones surging through your body. And it was so amazing to concretize those emotions into language, and I was good at English, but all my English teachers would be like, Tiana, why can't you just do the five paragraph essay? And I'm like, I hate this form. I wanted to create my own form. And so when Bill Brown was reading Sharon olds and Li young lead to me and Rita, I was like, whoa, what? What is this powerful magic? And he was showing me, like, how my brain worked, because I went to a magnet school and I and all of these kids were like, I knew they knew they wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer. I didn't know what I wanted to be. But when he introduced poetry to me, I was like, Oh, wait, this is, this is how my brain works. Because until the until you have that moment, you feel, you feel like something's wrong with you, because you haven't figured out how you how you see and interpret the world.

7:17

Yeah, that's so interesting. Do you feel like that has shaped how you are as a teacher or when you work with students?

7:27

Absolutely, I actually found out later, because we stayed friends my whole entire life, until he recently passed away. But he had dyslexia, and it was actually a teacher that he had in graduate school that pulled him aside and spent extra time with him, and so he made sure to to be more patient and take that extra time with his students. And it's changed my pedagogy and that I think there's an instinct sometimes, as an early teacher to get kind of frustrated when students aren't paying attention or aren't listening to you or disruptive. But because of him, I have that pause now, of like, not frustration, but of like, curiosity. Hmm. Okay, let me, let me ask some questions. Student a little bit more. Let me have some grace here, and that that softness and that tenderness has yielded such beautiful results, versus that kind of instinct to want to like, you know, punish or like, be harsh with students, which is especially after the pandemic, like students need so much grace now more than ever.

8:22

This is very comforting to me as a person who is going to have to talk publicly with you about poetry. I'm hoping that you'll be very patient with me, of course, my thoughts and questions. Because everyone who listens to the show knows that this is my most scary episode. These are my most scary episodes every year. Because I just I, I'm like, so I feel like panic about discussing poetry, even though everyone who ever comes on is like, there's no right answer. That's I am the five paragraph essay. Person, oh, really tell my brain. Oh, baby, yes, I love a structure. I'm like, oh, there's a rule. We can follow it. I can recreate this every single time, which is why I think poetry is, like, scary for me, but also, like, kind of like sexy, but like scary, like dangerous, maybe is a good way to put it. But this isn't about me. This is about you. So so this collection kind of is about your divorce, but also about a lot of other parts of your life. There's a lot of, like, real relationship with God and sort of, like, the rules of religion and how maybe as you move forward, it sort of changes about future love or love that's come in since the divorce. It's very personal. I think it's fair to say, what is it like to write publicly about such personal things, and how do you protect yourself from that? As you're out on a book tour, as you're out in the world, as you're talking to your students, who I imagine, at least know you've written this book,

9:54

yeah, such a great question. I think when I was younger, I. I miss. I think I had this false idea that if i Blood let my life like an open mic night, that was connection. And it actually took me a long time to actually protect myself. And it's something that I teach my students. I always tell them. We always say it's the speaker and not the person, to have a little bit of protection in the classroom. We all know we're writing about ourselves, yeah, but I think I have, as I've gotten older, I'm learning how to care for myself for the exact reasons that you're saying because even though I do reveal a lot that's very close to experiences in my life, I think one thing that poetry has taught me is that the lyric eye is a collage of real and imagined experiences, and it creates a little bit of that psychic distance, although people just assume that it's 100% based off my life, and a majority of it is, but I think I've have more confidence in myself now to not feel like I have to answer every question that's asked of me. I think when I was younger, I just I felt I'm such a people pleaser, so I was an over share naturally. So I would just like reveal so much. And then I would look back and I think Renee Brown calls it that vulnerability hangover the next day, and be like, Why did I just say all of that? Like, I didn't need to give all that extra information. And one of the most powerful experiences I had the poet Carl Phillips came to Vanderbilt during my graduate school experience, and someone asked me this really long, convoluted question. You know, those people do those, like, common answer questions?

11:21

Yes, yes. It wasn't even like, my enemies, yeah. And I just Carl

11:25

Phillips, this amazing thing where he just looked at the student, was like, Sure, yeah, next question. And I was like, what we're allowed to do that? Like, that's on the table. Like, we don't have to, like, cater or pander to people. And I think one thing for me that I tell people like, my poems are braver than I am. My poems are, you know, and so like, sometimes when I read, I want to step into that boldness, but during the Q A, there's a poem in the book called after the reading, where I kind of have all those collected experiences of all the wild things people have said to me. And it's mostly it's do with race, which makes me feel uncomfortable, or asking me really personal questions. And now I've learned to pivot, or to be like, Oh, that's so sweet of you. But like, I don't feel comfortable asking that or, you know, but students ask me to read certain poems, and especially the more sensitive poems, I just don't read those in public, because I don't I try to protect that energy for myself.

12:10

Okay, I have like, three different follow ups. This one is, do you ever read after the reading at readings? Yes, I love actually reading it, because it's so great. That's a good one. Yeah,

12:19

it creates this fun dynamic where, when I read it now, I'm like, Are you gonna be added to the list? Do you want to be in part two? What's funny now is people are like, kind of hesitant now, because they're like, Oh, but I actually love it. I'm like, you should

12:33

have this. You should pause. You should pause before you fucking Open your mouth. Okay. Question number two is about in your acknowledgements, because I love an acknowledgement, and your acknowledgement, you thank your therapist, and you say that your therapist reminds you that you are more important than your work, and I'm just, I feel like that's maybe kind of in conversation with what we're talking about right now. Yeah, can you talk a little bit about what that struggle for you has been like, because I think it's common for a lot of creative people,

13:04

yeah. Well, one, I didn't like it when she said that to me, because I was like, Sure, sure. You know, yeah. Well,

13:12

you know, therapists always be saying too much, like, Okay, we get it. You have a therapy degree or whatever you did so many hours, okay, could you the truth is a little it's a little direct.

13:22

Yeah, she it was. This is my old therapist, Brenda. Shout out to Brenda. She really helped me in a time of crisis, actually, during my first book tour, where I was so overwhelmed and so burned out and I didn't know how to negotiate boundaries, or how to separate my identity from the from the production of of the marketplace and creativity. It was all mixed up and all complicated, and she helped me through that. And I think she was that was a constant reminder, because I think I did over identify with my work, and she was always wanting to separate that identity, and that was really hard to make that distinction. I think the pandemic was a time for all of us where it was kind of this, like global pause in a time of trauma, but where all of us were like, wait a second, if we're all stopping the marketplace is slowed down, then who are we actually, if we're not publishing or, you know, putting out another podcast, or this whole thing of capitalize on momentum is actually something I'm trying to work against, even though I understand why we all have that right, like, that's what capitalism teaches us, or the attention economy teaches us, that's what Instagram is making us feel constantly that we're not good enough, that we have to put out there. Oh, yeah, that person doing that. Look that, oh, they just put another book. What? How did, when do they do that? Yeah, it makes you feel like you're not good enough. But I think my therapist was always trying to remind me that who I am at my core is not about what I produce or put out in the world, but I have to like that person, not to take care of that person. And she's always asking me, like, Tiana, how can you lower the bar? How can you lower the bar? For example, I got, oh, my god, yeah, wonderful scholarship. She traveled the world for a year. It's called the amylo Traveling poetry scholarship, and the only rule is I couldn't return back to. North America for one year. It's like, great. But when I started, actually in Berlin, and I got a horrible case of COVID, and I had all these ambitions to, like, write all these things and publish all these things and do these things, but I was down bad for six weeks, and we had a session, and she was like, what if you instead of writing, you just convalesced? What if you just rested? What if you actually just did nothing? And I was like, Brenda, I don't know what you're talking what you're talking about, because I didn't know who I like, because it's, I think I over identified with that gerbil and the hamster wheel. Energy, right? You know, I've been, I've been team Hermione from day one, you know what I mean? And when she don't know what that means, Hermione, like that kind of, like, raising your hand, energy, like, always having the answers. Like, you

15:40

know, I've never, I never, I never did those books.

15:44

Oh yeah, I didn't, well, I didn't read them, but just like, from the movies of just like, that kind of I didn't

15:47

see the movies. I've never engaged with any of that. I never did. And then, you know, the author's a horrible, transphobic woman, and so then I was like, Well, I don't have to, there you go. So I don't know anything about them. Okay, I don't know, but I'm assuming type a nerd, overachiever, so I relate a

16:08

reference, yeah, rest and recuperation. And now I'm working, actually, on a memoir about black burnout. And actually wrote an essay about black burnout, and really, really digging deep into what does it actually mean to rest and what does it actually mean to take care of yourself, especially, you know, for black people, something that I'm exploring?

16:29

Yeah, I bet your therapist doesn't like that. You're making it into work, though,

16:34

I know right. Like, wait

16:36

a second, this sounds like a great idea. But also Brenda's not gonna like this, or formerly, Brenda, yeah,

16:43

she told me. She said she's like, You always take notes during her sessions. I was like, Yeah, this is great for my book. Can you stop?

16:50

You take notes during your therapy session? You don't know. Oh yeah,

I'm okay. Now I'm doing therapy wrong. Thank you, Tiana. She

17:00

was making me stop, because she was like, stop turning this into your work. And also she was like, Tiana, not everything is theory, you know, she's like, we're in a conversation. So I think it's actually was a bad habit that I was doing

17:12

that. Okay, you can hot job. You Yeah. Um, okay, here's my third question, and this is about poetry, so it's a real hard shift when you first started answering my question, before you said something about the lyric eye,

17:24

what is that? Oh, yeah, that's great. Like, so I I think the eye, like, when you when people think about poetry, I think people, again, think it's totally autobiographical. So when I say the lyric eye, I guess I'm saying that the eye that's in my poems is more of a poetic eye. It's a lyrical. I was thinking,

17:41

E, y, E, oh, like, oh, like, looking at it lyrically, you're saying the lyric letter I. But you know

17:49

what? I love. I myself. I love both. I kind of love thinking about a lyrical I kind of like, yeah, that way. I think that's beautiful. Yeah.

17:57

I first person is a version of you that is also a version of fantasy, that is also a version of a past you like it is not, it's not Tiana. It's like fictional but real. It's like auto fiction. Tiana, yeah. Oh, that's

18:10

a great way to put it. One of my favorite poets, toy Derek hot, she has this great excerpt from one of her poems, speculations of the eye. And there's the line goes, I am not the eye in my poems. I is the net. I pull me in with, and I just love that idea of eyes and like this, like this net that gathers all the versions of me, right, real or imagines and like that's what I get. That is That is my perspective in my POV, and that is the place that I write from. And I just that has really helped me kind of understand it a little bit more. I

18:38

love that. I want to know what makes someone one of your favorite poets. What is, what in a poem Do you love? Because, like I said, I'm learning a lot about poetry. I was just actually talking with Nate and Nate Marshall and Jose, who are my my poetry professors. They do private text message poetry therapy with me, and I was asking them. I was like, You know what makes a poem good? Because I was saying, you know, I read a lot of non fiction. I can tell you if a non fiction book is quality without having liked the thing. I can be like, I did not enjoy this, but I recognize what the author is trying to do, what they did, why it works. But with the poem, I was like, I literally can't do that. I can only tell you if it resonated with me or not. I can maybe tell you know if it rhymed. I can maybe tell you if it's but none of those things to me equal like a successful air quotes poem. And then Nate, after like, 20 voice memos, was finally like, Well, I think maybe you just like a narrative poem. And I was like, Oh, I didn't even know that there were different kinds of poems like that. So I'm wondering for you, if you can articulate what kinds of poems you're drawn to, what your quote, unquote taste in poetry is. Oh, what

19:53

a great question. One of my first things I do in class is I always talk about heart lines. And I got this idea from. Am adamezio and Dorian Lux, where they talk about every poem as a heart line, and it's exactly what you're talking about. And I say, what are those lines that resonate with you? You are struck in some way. And then I connect that to the this theory from Roland Barthes about the punctum in photography, where he talks about, there's, there's always something in a photograph when you're looking at it, what is that the punctum comes from that pierces you. He said, It bruises you. And it could be different for everyone, which is why I love poetry, because we could read the same poem, and you and I could have very different heart lines. So what I love is discussing that like, why did that line resonate with you? Why did that line resonate with me? So I think the poems that I love are bursting with heart lines are things that have, like, connect with me in a deep way. Have explained a situation, a conflict, that something that I've been struggling with, and they gave it language, then that feels really, really powerful, like, wait, they were able to explain this, like amorphous thing that I haven't been able to name. They just gave it back to me. It feels like a gift. And so I think those are the poems and poets that I love, like a poet that I love is Terence Hayes. One of my favorite poems is lightheads, Guide to the Galaxy. And so there's a line in there where he says, I'd rather have what my daddy calls scrimp he says discreet, and means the street just out of sight, not what you see, but what you perceive. That's poetry. Not the noise, but it's rhythms I'll eat you to live. That's poetry. And that last line, poetry isn't for me. It means, like, poetry is a means of survival, because that's what it means, like, to me. Like, I don't know if poetry can save anyone, but it has absolutely saved my life. And so, like, I just love this thing also, where Terence is, like, saying, I want to have up my daddy's language. I want to have that, that dialect of scrimp like, I'm not going to take, you know this, like, traditional Western canon, and he's kind of repositioning of what poetry means for him. And so I think for me, like we go to literature to feel less alone in the world, we all have our genres that do that. And so I think poetry are those ways that, like, they make me feel less alone in the world. And so those are the poets, the poets that make me feel like I have a sense of belonging and the pain. You know, those are the poets that make me understand myself. Those are, those are the poems and poets that I'm drawn to. I mean, I can get into specifics without that's just one with Terence

22:08

Hayes, yeah, do you memorize all these poems? Is that, are you like a memorizer? I'm actually

22:12

not. I think it's just because I'm a teacher, professor, just year after year. You know, it just like, it's almost like catechisms or something I don't know, just kind of comes out of me. I don't actually have ever, like, committed it to memory. I remember when I was in grad school, one of my professors, Mark Darman, would you go all the time? And I was like, how does he do that? And then it weirdly started happening to me, like, You're seven or eight of teaching. And I was like, Oh, God, the transformation.

22:35

We're like, I'm really a poetry Professor now. Like, it's all kind of to wear the robe and, like, the hat, graduation, every day to class. I love it.

22:44

I also think another key factor poets like Ross, gay, Ada, Lamone, these poets, poets that they're insanely brilliant, insanely smart, but kind of what you're saying, I think a lot of people have hang ups about poetry because they feel it's opaque, or it's trying to be mysterious, and they feel like it's not for them. Those are not necessarily the poems that I'm drawn to. Like, I want to connect with you. I want you to understand coming from it's so interesting with my students, because they love to be opaque. They love to be mysterious. And I'm like, Guys, but then I ask them, What does this line mean? They give me a whole novel. And I'm like, where's that in the poem? Y'all

23:13

like, do they like opaque poets? Your students like, if you ask them, who's my favorite poet, or who's your favorite poet, are they giving you opaque kinds of people, or are they giving you colloquial, conversational poets?

23:28

Yeah, that's a interesting question. It's kind of a mixture of both, but I would say it definitely leans more to poets that are, this is a complicated term, like, accessible, you know, like, it's so funny, they're drawn to poets where they do feel a deep connection, because there was something particular about that poet that is speaking to them, and that that thing that is connected is something that's translated very easily in the work. So that's why I think it's so funny. But also I think there's just something with younger generation I've noticed I'm like, Why do you want to be so mysterious? I heard Bobby Francis say this, another poet that I adore. What does it mean to risk clarity? I always tell my students, risk clarity. Why are you so afraid to be clear? Why are you so afraid to just, I would call it say the damn thing. I'm like, just say the damn thing.

24:05

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I mean, I think that's like, what's really nice about your collection is, like, there was no point in your collection where I was like, I don't know what she's talking about, right? Like, I again, I can't say whether something is good or not in poetry. Like, I just don't think I've read enough poems to even have, like, a depth of knowledge to really know anything. But what I can say is, like, I certainly got it. Like, I certainly for the most part. I mean, there's definitely things that I didn't get. Like, there's layers. I know that you're working with that I was like, no clue what that means, but overall it it's you can read the poem and be like, This is what Tiana is talking about. And I feel like, you know, I know that accessible is sort of like a interesting word for poets, because it maybe feels like pejorative, because there is this sense that poets should be opaque, like that poetry should be hard or like and that's so funny to me, because I feel like every. Everywhere else accessible is like the highest compliment. It's like, this is readable, you know, where like this is accessible, you can come to this event. More people are welcome. There will be a ramp for you in your chair. There will be, you know, someone doing sign language, like it means more people get to be part of the thing. And the idea that that is bad in poetry or not bad, but just like, maybe looked down on I think that's maybe fair for some people, or that it's an insult is, really, is, like, definitely worth thinking about?

25:33

Yeah, honestly, I totally agree with you. It does have a pejorative meaning, and I wish there would be a more expansive way to talk about it. Another poet that I love, June Jordan, she has this poem like my poems are hands, like reaching for you in the dark. And I love that. I want my I want to be held. I want, I want my poems to feel like

25:51

I want to be held. I want to tingle. I want and like.

25:56

I love that you said that you got it like I want people to get it. Because it's so funny. Because it's so funny when I talk to my students and they tell me all these things that they are their intentions from the poem, and I will tell them I got none of that, and I would love to know that. And I was like, how can you put that? And I think the work is, how can you layer and do those things in a way that it's like, striking and interesting? But I totally agree with you. I think I want all the community in my work. You know, I want to do the work. Obviously, I want the poem to be a piece of art, but, like, I My goal is absolute connection with my reader. I want my reader to feel like I'm with them, there with me. You know, I tell my students, it's almost like museum curation. You get to decide the distance for your is a piece of art you want them to touch. Do you want a 10 foot pole? Like you get to decide the psychic distance in each of your work? And I would say, I love that you said that, because when people talk about voice and literature, I think it's so funny people talk about voice. For me, it's, how can you display you, who you are, your guts on the page. And so when you said, like, you felt like you were with me, it's like, just as much as we got dinner, you would get that same energy, like, all my like, I am a gesticulator. I'm gonna, like, tell you about my life, you will know very quickly. And I talk about all the things that you should things that you shouldn't talk about, God, sex, money, like we're gonna talk about all of it, because that's just who I am. So it's naturally gonna spill over into my work. And what I tried to get to do with my students is, do not think about your audience and what you think they want or need. Like, how can you be authentic to who you are, and how can you spell it on the page? I always tell them, like, think about dancing. I was like, you know those moments when you're dancing, okay, people are watching me and you're kind of like, restricted, but like, those moments when you're actually free and it's kind of awkward and you maybe look kind of silly. But I was like, people are drawn to someone who's being authentic. And like, think about your friends when you fall in love with them, or a lover. Like, it's those idiosyncratic moments when you're like, that person just did something weird. But I love it. Like my best friend, siana, I did something weird in front of her one time, and she goes, I'm obsessed with you, and I feel so loved and seen that she saw something in me and she was in it like it drew her to me, not away from me, yes, and that's what you want from your readers, I would assume, yeah, okay,

27:52

but so I have to ask you about audience, because audience is my personal obsession. Okay, how do you think about audience? And when do you think about audience, because at some point you have to, because you're writing these poems to be read, you're putting is it when you're writing them? Is it when you're putting the collection together? At what point does someone else enter the picture for you as a writer, what's

28:17

in his first initial drafts? I didn't think about anybody, because if I did, wouldn't get anything done. It's messy. It's wild. At some point in my revision process, I do start reading my work out loud, where I started to hear the stickiness, and I'm just trying to get the language down. Probably when I'm thinking about submissions, I am thinking about, it's probably when I'm submitting the poem I'm thinking about, Okay, do I want this out in the world? What does this mean to have this out in the world? I think the truth is, like, I really don't think about it along the way, which is why probably, if I did, I would probably pause, because, like, for example, I have a poem here, like, I masturbate and pray to God. My mom hasn't gotten the book yet, but she has asked me about that poem. I just, like, pretend I didn't hear her, and I'm like, I will just never talk about that poem with her. But like you would think that I'd have a pause on that. I may not read that during a reading, I think that's when I think about audience. But I just feel accountable to the feeling, and I want to capture that feeling, and it's more important for me to be married to the authenticity of nailing that feeling down than it is about my relationship to how that will be perceived in the world. And I think that is maybe what's honest. I think I almost have a naive block, because I, if I thought about it too much, I probably wouldn't publish anything. I probably should think about it, but I don't.

29:33

Well, we don't do should around here. Yeah, I just so care. I mean, every you know, everyone's so different. But I just, I'm upset. I'm obsessed with audience. I think about audience a lot. And I think about and I do think, even if you maybe don't know it, I think you are thinking about audience because, like, the lyric eye, some of your poems are like, sort of hostile to your reader, or some poems are like, more welcoming. So like, you're definitely thinking about what you're doing to the reader, or, like to the person you're talking to. So, I mean, at least I sensed that in the book

30:03

that's fair, because I am interested in breaking the fourth wall, because I do like, I do like, like, that moment in fleabag, you know, interesting the audience. I do like playing with that manipulation of, Oh, you, oh, like, I love, oh, okay,

30:23

sure. I mean, I know. I know breaking the fourth wall, okay, I was a theater major. That's, I know everything about breaking,

30:29

okay? So you know that, yeah. So that idea of, like, breaking that convention, like, you know, the Play World, and, like, I always ask my students I looked at, since you grew up in theater, what do you think that effect does to the audience?

30:38

I think it's one of the strongest things, if you do it, well, I think it's unreal. I mean, think of Iago and Othello. Bye, yeah, you're kidding me. Like, when he turns to the audience and he's like, Did you see that? Did you see what I just did? You're literally like, this man like that. Because, because, again, a person obsessed with audience. I think when art can effectively acknowledge that you are there, the audience is there. It is unsettling and also sort of an invitation at the same time. And I think that's really cool. And I think, you know, I have done live shows for this podcast a lot, and if you've ever seen them, one of my favorite things to do is when someone's talking is to look out of the audience and be like, get a load of this guy, right? Or like, Isn't that hilarious? Like, do you hear what they're saying? Because I do feel like when we consume art, it's sort of nice to be reminded of the thing that we're doing together, whether we're actually doing it together, or whether we're doing it separately. When when Iago acknowledges the audience, whether you're reading it on the page or you're watching it in the theater, everyone who is consuming Othello is having a moment of, Oh, this guy's talking to me now, or whatever. And I think that's really cool. I think sometimes it can be overdone. I think sometimes it's not done well, but, but when it's done well, I almost always like it. I almost always like it.

32:03

That's that is so fun. I love that you said. It's unsettling, but it's also an invitation. I see that dullness, because I think it turns you from a passive spectator to an active one. You are now a part of the play. You are now part of it. You now have to be confronted with what's happening. You are now just not. You're not, you're not, you're on a dream. You're not sleeping, you know. And I think I love that. I love to play with that. And I think you're right. If you overdo it, you can, you know, tip it too much, yeah. But I think there is a poem in here you're right where I do say, like father daughter, reader, lover, I don't have to tell you everything, to be honest with you, I think that is an extension from after the reading of it's more of me, of having to be accountable to some of the things that people have asked me to where I was being a little sassy and being like, you know what, you're right? I think there was a moment where I was, I was like, You know what? I don't have to, I don't have to do this. So I, I do think there are moments, especially in that breaking in the fourth wall, where audience absolutely comes in, for sure, yeah. But I think there's a way it was a kind of like contentious thing for me in that, yeah, in that particular poem, we

33:03

love contention. I want to ask you one more thing about the collection, and then we have to move on to books and other other people's books. But one of the things that I felt that you were doing in the book, but I can't, I don't have the words to articulate it, so you're gonna have to help me out here, is, I feel like you seem deeply interested in writing conventions, styles, forms. I mean, you have a poem about epigraphs. You reference like the guzzle a few times you are like referencing literary style, form technique a lot throughout the collection. Can you talk about that?

33:42

Yes. So going back to Bill Brown, he grew up in like that beatnik, Frank O'Hara, those kind of poets where it's very free verse style, very, very flowing, which is similar to my style. And when I went to graduate school, that's when I started being introduced to all these forms, like the sonnet and the sestina. And honest, to be honest, I was afraid. I had a lot of trepidation and a lot of imposter syndrome in graduate school, until I asked my professor about imposter syndrome, and he's like, Oh, you're gonna have it for the rest of your life. Okay, fine, great. But I was like, Tiana, why are you afraid of these forms? I honestly thought in graduate school that if I wrote it like a traditional sonnet, and I am a contaminant, I couldn't do it. Then that didn't mean I was like a real poet. But then when I started working with the forms and addressing my fears, I was like, Wait a second. I see you form. I see what you're doing. And then when I started making and breaking forms, that felt really exciting to me, where I had to have them make sense to me. Going back to the five paragraph essay, I was against the form, but then when I got inside the form, dismantled it, figured out its guts, and made my own recipe that felt exciting. Now I look at form in an expansive way, of like, How can I break it and remake it and make it my own? And so I think with this book, I was really interested in breaking all the poetry rules that I know. So you're seeing a lot of this play a lot of this, like dexterity, because I again, I'm trying to figure. How to Make form work for me in my own language. And so like playing around with it, was something that I wanted to bring back to myself, not only the sense of joy, but honestly, to go back to, like a childlike sense of what the heck did I get involved with poetry to begin with, you know. So okay,

35:15

we're gonna take a quick break, and then we're gonna come back. We are back. I did not prep you for this, but we do a segment here called Ask the stacks, where someone has written in asking for a book recommendation. I'm going to read to you what they said, and you're going to come up with at least one, up to three recommendations. And people at home, I am really low on Ask the stack submission. So if you email ask the stacks at the stacks podcast.com with what you're looking for, maybe some books you like or don't like, and we will read them on the air. So do that. This one comes from Derek. And Derek said, I recently read Charlie hustle, which is the Book about Pete Rose, and it is easily one of my favorite reads of the year. I'm looking for another non fiction read that is going to be as gripping as that one, with a similar deep dive into an aspect of someone's life, rather than a full blown biography. Would love it to be sports related and or scandal related, but doesn't have to be just something that takes over my life for a week. I can go first if you want, or if you have one, you can go right away.

36:17

Question, who is Pete Rose? Pete Rose is the

36:21

baseball player who got kicked out of baseball for cheating that he bet on baseball. Sorry for betting not cheating. He was like, famous in the 70s. He was really famous then in the 80s, he got kicked out of baseball. He's like, blacklisted. He's sort of like the great sports villain. Yeah, the book is great, if you haven't read it. Um, I can, I can give some recommendations if you want to think. But basically, he's asking for, like, a really gripping story about, like, some sort of person or event that is sort of scandalous. Is kind of what I took out of this. Okay. Um, my first one, Derek, is a true classic. It is a true, at least a true non fiction classic. It is All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. It is about the Nixon Watergate scandal. It's from the journalists who uncovered it. It's got deep throat, it's got scandal. It's got the Washington Post. It's just, I mean, it's so good and it holds up even though you know what happens. So that's one another one. The other two I have are brand new. One is careless people by Sarah Wynn Williams. This is the Facebook expose book that came out earlier this month. She was pretty high up at Facebook and was a sort of diplomat inside the company, and she spills the tea on Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, this guy named Joel. And, I mean, it's juicy, like you'll be obsessed with it for a week. I don't know if it's a I wouldn't say it's a great book. I have a lot of notes for Sarah. Talk about form and function, but if you want to be sucked in to a crazy story, and just like scandal and incompetent humans, that would be one. And then my third pick is a book called a better ending by a guy named James Whitfield Thompson in the 1970s James, he goes by Jim. Jim's sister died by suicide, and when it comes out, that's what they decide. And the sister was married to a police officer who was in the house when the gun goes off. So after years, the author, Jim decides to go back and sort of investigate this death, because he always felt like something wasn't quite right about what happened. And so this isn't really like a biography. It isn't really a scandal, but it is such a gripping book, and it almost shouldn't be, because, like, I don't know, I just I was really taken by it. I think he handles the subject really well. So it's kind of memoir, but also sort of investigative journalism. I did it on audiobook. I started it on my morning walk, and went on an extra walk that day so that I had time to finish the entire book in the day. So, like, it won't take over your life for a week. It'll take over your life for like, 24 really good hours. But So those would be my recommendations. Tiana, what do you have for Derek? Well,

39:21

a memoir that really gripped me. I don't know if this will be Derek's cup of tea, but I love Carmen Maria Machado in the dream house, and It delves into the like verbal kind of abuse in a queer relationship. But it's also the form is really interesting, because it is constantly flipping, because it's like dream house as a Southern Gothic, dream house as a choose your own adventure. Dream House as a Star Trek Generation episode. It's constantly like, it's like flipping forms, but it's investigating, kind of the end, like the the beginning, middle and end of this relationship, all through this like lens of a dream house. And it. A wild book. I've never read anything like that. Like the Choose drone adventure chapter is so fun to read. And so actually, the experience of reading, it feels really exciting and really explosive. And it was one of those, like, I just, like, had to read it and the whole day because I just wanted to know what happened. And also, the experience of reading, it was also kind of my it was my medic to what was happening at the same time. So that was a really engrossing read for me that I would suggest to Derek, I'm trying to, like, loop my mind around to other ones, but that's what's on the top of my head right now. That's

40:28

great. That's a great recommendation. Derek, if you read any of our books, let us know, and everyone else email. Ask the stacks of the stacks podcast.com to get your recommendations read on air. Okay, Tiana, now it's now you're really in the hot seat. Two books you love, one book you hate.

40:45

I love Sula by Tony. I'll be both Tony Morrison, Sula and The Bluest Eye. I think that first chapter of The Bluest Eye, think about constantly, and also the end of The Bluest Eye. I think about with Bucha, kind of having that, that breakdown in her psyche. And then I think in Sula, the relationship between the women and the family just reminded me so much of my relationship with my mom and my favorite chapters 1923 where Hannah's like, Mom, Mama, did you ever love us? And she's like, love you. You're alive, aren't you? And I was like, you know, and, um, my favorite quote from this like, thin love ain't love at all. Um, one book I hate. One book I hate, you know what? I gotta be honest. I hope I don't get hate for the police. Guys don't know hate mail for me. Um, I have tried to pick up and read Moby Dick so many times. And I just like, I just like, can't do it. And someone even like, told me, like, revisit it when you're abroad, like, something will click in and I tried, and I just like, I just like, couldn't or do you like, Moby Dick?

41:50

No, I've never read it sounds awful. I just No, no one here will hate you for any hate. The only way you get hate on this show is if you don't like snacks, or if you don't pick a book that you hate, if you're like, I don't hate any books, that's when people are like bullshit. But if you hate about snacks, okay, good. Also,

42:07

I tried to, I tried to read infinite just to I couldn't. I would

42:13

never. X, why? Why would anyone

42:16

I do? I do, like some of his short stories, but like, I could not. I think I just got, like, 20 pages in, and I was just like, I can't do it, guys. I can't imagine

42:24

being good at writing short stories and then being like, now I'm gonna write infinite Jess like, which is the opposite of a short story. It's like 1000 plus pages being like, Okay, well, I nailed the 10,000 word story. Now here's the 5 billion word story. What kind of reader Are you? How would you describe who you are as a reader?

42:45

I would say kind of a magpie, and that I kind of flitter and foot about like, I think, because I'm a professor, I'm always having to, you know, I'm reading students work, I'm preparing for class. I'm rereading books for my class. I'm knee deep in research, so I'm all for constant projects. So I'm just like, constantly, bit bopping around, you know, knee deep in the J store, and then I'll go get a book, and then I'll be like, knee deep in that book. But then I'm like, I'm constantly pivoting and turning, kind of like Minority Report, but with books. So it is rare that I would like, sit down and read a whole book, unless it, like, utterly, just kind of consumes me. So I'm very much like a Nibbler, a nibble like, you know, it's a charcuterie board of books. I'm just content, you know, if

43:25

you were gonna go on vacation, no work allowed, what kind of book would you turn to? So recently,

43:32

our last August, I went on vacation and I took Miranda July's all fours because I just wanted something I was hearing. It was sexy. It was fun, yeah, she's also just kind of like an intense, weird writer, so I wanted something weird and sexy, and it definitely hit those notes.

43:48

And what's the last really great book you read?

43:52

The last, um, the Secret Lives of church, ladies? Oh,

43:55

great book. I'm actually gonna have lunch with a Disha tomorrow, because it's a w p, as we're recording this a w p this

44:04

week. I love the short story collection so much, and especially the short story dear sister, because I've never met my father. So remember when I broke down crying, but also the way that ducia wrote this book, I had never read anything like it, where I felt so seen, or it felt like it captured especially black life, where it wasn't just about pain and suffering, not that it ignored that, but there was also like joy and sex, and like queerness and ways that I just hadn't seen myself reflected, or seen, like the holistic black life, you know, reflected. And I just, oh, I just was obsessed with it. And I just, like, this was a book I couldn't put down, and I was just and dish was also incredible and so brilliant, and also so, like, amazing and, and, yeah, I don't know, yeah. I feel

44:46

like one of the great joys for me of reading that book is I read it pretty close to after it came out, because Kia say layman told me to read it, and I had no expectations going in no. Or did I know anything about Disha? And I loved the book so much, and then Disha lived up to how much like as a person, she lived up to how much I loved the book. So I love the book even more, because, you know, sometimes you'll love a thing and then, like, you'll meet the person and you'll be like, Oh well, you're a genius, but like, don't want to talk anymore, or you'll read something and be like, the book wasn't great. Then you'll meet the person and they'll be great for me, it was like Disha matched the book, and has continued to match the book. So I just, I do, love, love, love, love that book.

45:33

I was there some heavy, heavy was like an incredible I mean, also listening to it on so I read it, no, listen to it to hear him read it. I

45:41

did the same thing. I read it and I listened to it. What are some books you're looking forward to reading? I'm definitely

45:48

looking forward to ocean. Vong, new novel Emperor Brock, Miss. I love ocean. Vong, I love his poetry. And I really liked on Earth were briefly gorgeous. I loved when poets step out in other genres and they're still their poet, poetry, self, lyrical self. And, yeah, you know, remaking form self. Um, so I'm definitely looking forward to that book. Um, what are some other books coming down the pipeline? I think Gabrielle cavacress, another poet that I adore, has a

46:14

book. Oh, she comes up in your book. You have games. Yeah,

46:17

I love Gabrielle cavacrese so much a life giving poet, for me, for sure.

46:23

Ooh, I love a life giving poet. A life giving poet, yeah, we call books here that are, like, favorite books, or, like, not even favorite like, but like, important books to your life. We call those books of my life, like, that's what I call a book of my life. So I like life giving because that's, you know, in conversation,

46:39

yeah, one of my best friends and a writer that I adore, Jennifer hook Choi, has a book coming out called the wonders curse, and it's her first memoir. I'm really looking forward to that one. And what else is coming on the pipeline? What are you looking forward to? What is coming? I'm like, Are there any ones that are coming up? Well,

46:59

I mean, there's so many books that I am always looking forward to, of like a spreadsheet full of them. Because, as you might know, I love a form, love a rule. Got a whole spreadsheet, are you a Virgo? No, but I have weird I'm like, I'm a Leo. But I I don't know I am giving Virgo energy, though. I know I do feel like I have Virgo somewhere. What am I looking forward to? I'm looking forward as we're recording this to the Andrea Andrea long Chu collection authority. I'm looking forward to Angela flournoys forthcoming book the wilderness. I'm looking forward to there's this book called The Last Supper. This is such a me book by this guy, Paul Ellie or something, and it's about the 1980s pop culture and religion. So it's like talking about the song hallelujah beloved, the AIDS crisis. It's like, real, you know, non fiction shit. Like, really my cup of tea. But I am. I'm curious. I'm curious I'm curious to see if he can pull it off. I don't know him, but he's, I guess, a pretty well known writer that people know. I don't know he's, like, a white guy I've never heard of, but it really sucked me in. I know. So those are some things I just sold

48:13

today on Instagram. Claudia rinkein has a book coming out late 2026,

48:19

and I'm looking,

48:20

I was like, screenshot, and I was like, because I will read anything Claudia and kingdom. So sorry. Let me interrupt

48:24

you. No, no. I mean, I'm also, you know what I'm, you know, has a book coming that I'm really excited about, but I don't know when is Clint Smith is doing love Clint, and he's doing a sort of how the word is passed. But for World War Two, oh yes, I saw that. I can't fucking wait. I mean, like, same, any same, the moment it comes out, it's immediately getting injected to my veins. So there's some

48:46

writers that it's just, like, immediate pre order. Like, I don't like whatever, like

48:50

whatever Clint wrote I was gonna read. But also, I personally have an obsession, like, with World War Two stuff. So the combination of, like, Clint Smith and my favorite war, the war to end all wars. For me, I don't know is, like, too good to be I'm like, I'm sweating. Talk about your body tingling. I'm like, tingling over Traci, tingly. I love it. Yeah. And

49:12

then Jose holovirus, I think is working on a novel, and a novel, it's

49:16

allowed to be said, or No, I think he mentioned it when he was on the show. Maybe, I think it's, I think he's posted that he's working on something, and it's a novel. And I Yes, whenever that comes. I mean, there's so many things like that where I'm like, I'm I can't, I'm looking forward to your next collection. Like, I don't know when it's coming, but I'll be ready. I mean, that's the thing about working in books. I'm always looking forward to everyone's next thing. Okay, back to you. Back to you. This is about me. This about you. What's a book you love to recommend to people?

49:46

I love to recommend Ross Gay's catalog of unabashed gratitude. I feel like it's like, this is like, if I could carry like, 10 copies in my purse and just give that to everyone. I think going back to that word accessible. But I say it, and I say it with. All the abundance of like love of like this. This book will fill you with joy. This book will fill you with like sadness, but this book will give you a hug. It this, that book has so many poems for me that are so beloved, and I have dog eared and starred and are you? Are you a

50:20

get in the book. Okay, I can be, but not always. But you know what, Tiana, you're gonna hate this. We did catalog of unabashed gratitude on this podcast for book club with Clint Smith. I couldn't get it. I couldn't get into it. It was I, it didn't I just none of it stuck with me. No, there were moment we talked. It was a few years ago, and we talked about it, and like, you know, but it hasn't stuck with me. It was actually one of the poetry collections I was talking to Nate about what I was like, I How can I know if something is good? Because I know that people love this collection, but it just I couldn't, I couldn't do it. So I think part of it is long poems are very hard for me. And you write about long poems, yeah, for some reason you're long poems. They're not as long as catalog of unabashed gratitude. Some of those are, like, 20 pages. I don't know. I struggled with that a lot, and I really thought I was gonna be like, Yeah, and I read book of delights, and I liked book of Delights quite a bit. But that is not it's very different. But don't hate me, but that's just why you're up again. I don't see you're up again.

51:25

Now. I'm like, Okay, well, what else can I get for Traci? I'm like, No, but

51:30

you know who I love? Do you know what poet I love? Ellen bass. Oh,

51:34

I love Ellen bass. Yeah. Beautiful poet, oh, so good. Yeah. What do you like about her? Or what is it? What is it that you connect with her work?

51:45

I don't know that. The thing is, that poem, The thing is, you know, it, it's really famous. It's like, the thing is to love life and to like, Well, anyways, I don't know. I just really like I get I, first of all, I feel like I get them. And second of all, I feel like I like her. I don't know there's something about her that feels extremely likable in the poem. She's short of like, no bullshit, maybe a little bit energy, yeah, which

52:12

makes me think I wonder, have you ever seen Ross gate live? No. People always say, I think it's a different you're like, now, okay, you're done. But no, no, no, no. People

52:19

have told me that I just never have I'm trying to prove the thing is, yes, everything is the poem. It's like to love to love life, to love it, even when you have no stomach for it, and everything you've ever held dear crumbles. And at the end, the end is what I love. Then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say, Yes, I will take you. I will love you again. Come on. It's just, it's short, it's sweet. It does what it needs to do. How can a body withstand this? I don't know, Ellen, oh yeah. I just love, I think that's, like, my favorite poem ever,

52:55

yeah, but like, about Ellen bass is something small that Ada Lamone has where you step into the poem, and you think, like, oh, okay, this is cute. This is nice. And also like, just like, that just happens when you're like, Yeah,

53:06

same thing that I love about Traci McMillan cotton, her writing she does, it's at the turn, the switch, the like, it's that trick. It's a trick of writing. It's a trick of a good writer. I was like, when you think, when the reader thinks they're doing one thing and you're really doing another thing. And I've, yeah, I think I love that too. I do. I There are other poems I have loved and liked and thought of, but the thing is, really, I'm trying to think any and there's an EE Cummings poem that I love, and those are the two poems that I think that like, like, in the way that you can recite everything. Those are the two poems that I sometimes think about. Do you know, yeah,

53:47

me coming was a was a big hope for me when I was younger. Was like playing with punctuation or playing with form? Was

53:54

he like an awful person or a racist or anything bad? Do I need to know anything about him? Like, because I really like that one poem,

54:01

I know. I mean, not off the top of my head, okay, honestly, when it, when it gets back to the, yeah, the older poets, there's always a letter or something that's weird, where you're up there, it is like, there's that word, or there's, there's some anti semitism. But I don't he's not,

54:14

like, a notably problematic person, not to my knowledge, not

54:17

I hope, I hope anybody listening,

54:19

if he's terrible, can you DM me kindly, because I have a lot of strong feelings about one single poem, and I just, I, I'm too scared to look, but I carry you in my heart that poem. No, it's my father moved in waves of gray and Oh, yeah. Anyways, again, not about me. You keep

54:39

another. Another quick poet, another quick poet. I know I can't help, but I think it's like the teacher in me, but Ada limon's bright, dead things, or the hurting kind would be another one that I would give to people, because I think the way that she ends poems, and the way that I think her poems touch people, and the concepts that she talks about so personal, but it's also, it's like so personal, but it zooms out to the world. And. And in a way that I find super delightful. And the first time I heard a lemon read, I just wept and wept in my seat and and because I felt so touched, and I felt so emotional from the way her poems touched me. Yeah, and she calls fireflies filled bling. How could you don't fall in love with her? What does that mean? Like, they look like filled bling to her fireflies. What does fill bling? Filled bling like, fireflies are like, like, like, you know,

55:30

yeah, yeah, yeah, I see. Okay. Do you have a favorite bookstore?

55:34

Books are magic, probably in Brooklyn. And then there's also, oh, I just was at a bookstore for the first time for my book tour that I fell in love with possible futures in New Haven, Connecticut. I've never had this experience before. I walked in and I felt such vibrant joy, and it almost is set up like a living room, like it's it's like it invites you to sit down and read. And owner, Lauren is just full of so much joy and beautiful energy. And they have a beautiful mural on the outside of an abolitionist. And there's so much color, and it's divided by all these like different sections and like new ways that I've never seen, like sections before, and there's plants. It just feels like you're inside someone's really cool house, and they've invited you into the living room. And it just had this like energy of just, I couldn't it was just vibrancy and joy, but I was like, If I lived here, I would be here all the time. So possible features in New Haven, Connecticut,

56:21

that's good. What's the last book that made you cry? So

56:26

it's a poetry collection called short film starring my beloved's red Bronco by Kay Iver. And they are a non binary poet, and this collection is almost like an eligate collection that is about the loss of the speaker's lover, missy. And I think the way that they talk about grief in this collection was in a way that I've never seen before, of just making grief a character, or carrying your grief with you, or making grief reckoning with grief, in a way that I just have never seen kind of manifested in a collection. And I think also the way that k i ver talks about gender and kind of tenderly exploding those concepts in ways that I've just never seen before on the page. And I felt really held and I this was almost an emotional one for me. For sure,

57:15

what's a book that you feel proud to have read?

57:18

I want to shout out, said, because I just looked around and it's how we fight for our lives, especially because I was raised by a single mother, and so I think the way that said talks about his mother in his collection, and the grief that he carries, and the way that he writes about her, which is so similar to the way that I see my mom, and I just, I Think I felt that. I think he helped me, I think see my mom and a new way, and want to hold her and cherish her and a new way after reading that collection. So I feel very I think that that when I think of pride of how I made me re see my mom in a new way. And so I'll say that one. I love

57:58

that answer, okay, what's a book you're embarrassed to have never read. Embarrassed

58:04

to have never read. I've never read War and Peace. Oh, yeah, me neither. Like, that's one I feel like, that's when people like, talk about, I've never read Middlemarch. Me neither. There's a lot of things I haven't read. I remember when I got to grad school, someone asked me, like, where are the gaps in your reading? And I said, Where aren't the gaps? Yeah, and my reading like, I haven't read a lot of like, I haven't read a lot of like, the like, a lot of the classics, especially in fiction that my knowledge there is pretty thin, same,

58:28

same, same. Um, okay, we have to talk about snacks a little bit. What's your ideal reading setup, snacks and beverages. Where are you?

58:39

What's the vibe? I love this question. I am a person who has mini drinks. So in the morning, I definitely have to have my coffee. I definitely have to have a soda water. Okay, um, it's usually a plain soda water. Is this

58:52

in a can? Do like, get in a bottle? Do you have a soda making machine?

58:56

It's a can. And then I definitely have to have a tea. I love a throat coat tea, ginger, peppermint, okay, okay. Um, so usually three drinks are going and then I always have my water as well a flat water just still. I put apple cider vinegar in my water. But I actually do not like the taste of water, and so I need a little, I always need a little bit of something, something. And I think I read about a CV long time ago, and I've just gotten hooked to it. So apple cider vinegar. Okay, I love snacks so much. I have to be careful I don't have a ton of snacks like while I'm writing, but I definitely have snack breaks. So lately, I've been into the lesser evil space balls. Have you seen these?

59:36

No, but I love the lesser evil popcorn. Just, I just wrote about this in my sub stack. I love that. Which one, though? Which one? Which one of the pink, the Himalayan sea salt, pink, just oh, I'm the Himalayan gold. You like the yellow? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I've never tried that. I tried the pink. I loved it. Never strayed. I've never tried any of their other things. I'm

59:53

just saying go just one day. Go gold. No, no. Go back. Okay, butter. It has more. That buttery, more butter, more butter. That's Oh, I'm saying more butter. Can't wait. Okay, okay. Costco sells a very big bag.

1:00:07

My Costco does not sell. My Costco sells boom chicken or whatever the fuck. And I think boom chicka is so subpar that I didn't think that I even liked bagged popcorn, because I was like, bagged popcorn tastes like boom chicka and boom chicka tastes like black.

1:00:23

Okay, yeah. Well, if you see it somewhere, go for the gold. It'll change your life,

1:00:28

for sure. I'm

1:00:30

learning about their snack. Okay, I love any kind of honey mustard pretzel situation, okay, okay, okay. I love a seaweed snack.

1:00:37

Okay, yes, yes.

1:00:41

I love a good apple slice and a peanut butter. Okay,

1:00:44

you're losing me. You're losing me. I'm losing you. You're getting further and further away from delicious and closer to nature. Okay, I need you to peanut butter. Okay, apple slice not your best answer.

1:00:56

Um, yeah, I love, oh, my god, I love snacks. I couldn't talk about snacks all day. What are your some what are some of your favorites? Well, my

1:01:02

signature snack that I feel like I can't believe I have not gotten Pepperidge Farm to sponsor me on. This is a goldfish mixed with Swedish Fish. We call it a pescetarian, and it's the greatest salty, sweet combo. You don't put both the things in your mouth at the same time. Sometimes people hear me say this, and then they start putting both. And I'm like, No, you eat a few goldfish, then you put a few Swedish Fish, then you eat a few more goldfish. It's a perfect balance. You can also do it with raisins if you're in a pinch, but it's not as good with raisins. I like a pretzel, thin dipped in whipped cream cheese. That's delicious. I like a I've I have five year old twins and I have recently gotten back into salty peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

1:01:47

Oh, cute. I forgot about those. Uh, don't sleep

1:01:50

on those. Wow.

1:01:54

Okay, I love a good PB and J Okay, you just took my memory. Have you ever had the um that popcorn? I think it's like something creators, where it's the caramel and the cheddar,

1:02:01

perfect, yeah. Oh, it's perfect. It's perfect. I love that salty, sweet, yeah. And I also like the pretzel stuffed with peanut butter from, like, Trader Joe's or whatever, also iconic, um, yeah, it's the combo for me. And I love candy, like a nerd, nerd cluster. Oh, my God, just so sweet. Okay,

1:02:18

there's this Swedish brand. I don't know the name, because it's like, or Swedish, but it's actually, I like the Swedish Fish with the all the, like, the sour ones, yeah,

1:02:27

yeah. It's delicious. A friend actually brought those back for me from actual or brought something back for me from actual Sweden, where I was like, Okay, I am seen. Um, okay, we are still running out of time. I have to, I could do snacks forever. Um, okay. Last two questions. One is, if you were a high school teacher, what is the book you would assign to your students? I mean,

1:02:51

honestly, the first thing that came into my head was Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. I don't know if that's age appropriate, though, but I kind of love, I think it's, um, I kind of love having adult themes, especially in high school, because you're already experiencing those emotions. You feel like an adult, yeah, it makes you feel kind of cool when you're like, Yeah, I don't know that one came to mind, that Giovanni's Room is so important to me, and especially that idea of figuring out, that sense of loneliness when you leave the place that you're from. And I think relation, messy, relationship complications, especially when you're in high school, like, I feel like you would love, like, it's so messy, but it's also so lonely, and you just feel like the ache. And I think it's interesting in that book when Baldwin says, like, home is not a place, but I can never say word irrevocable condition. I would just love to discuss that, I think, with students. Or like, what does it mean to talk about home when you're not there, and what does it mean to, like, have identity and pleasure and not be able to express that? I feel like that would be a really interesting book. I love that.

1:03:52

Okay, last one, if you could require the current president of the United States to read one book, what would it be? I mean,

1:03:59

I'm trying to think of a book that would somehow engender empathy in him. And I'm like, I don't even know if that's possible. I'm like, what, what would, what would make him have empathy, or make him feel I'm like, is that even? Is that even doable? I think I would have him read when my brother was an Aztec, Anatoly Diaz, because I think it would, I want to go with an indigenous poet from this land, and I think Nethers collection is absolutely stunning, and how she collides the personal and the political, and also deals with the personal family issue around addiction. And I think that would be the one that I would select for.

1:04:42

I love it. Okay, everybody, Tiana will be back on April 30 for our book club discussion of blessing the boats by Lucille Clifton, a poet I've never read. I've only read like whatever poems you know, float around on the internet. So I'm really excited. This is, I think, our fifth time doing like Poetry Month. Poetry collection, and we've never really done a classic. I think the furthest back we've sort of gone is Ross gay. Everything else has been more like a more recent poet. So I'm really excited to kind of go back a little bit and dig in with you. So everybody, you can get your copy of that book. Wherever you get your books, you should also get your copy of scorched earth Tiana's book that just came out in March, and read that, and I can vouch for the audio book. I listen to some of the poems. Tiana reads them, and she reads them like an actual human being and not like a robot. So if you want to listen, you can do that too, Tiana. Thank you so much for being here.

1:05:37

Thank you, Traci, so much. This is such a fun, delightful conversation, and I appreciate you so much. Yay.

1:05:43

Thank you everyone else. We will see you in the stacks.

All right, y'all that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening, and thank you again to Tiana Clark for joining the show. I'd also like to say a huge thank you to Holly rice, Jose Olivares, Jenny xu and Nate Marshall for helping to make this episode possible. Don't forget, our book club pick for April is blessing the boats new and Selected Poems, 1988 to 2000 by Lucille Clifton. We will be discussing the book on Wednesday, April 30 with Tiana Clark. If you love the show and you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/the stacks andjoin the stacks pack and check out my substack at tracithomas.substack.com. Make sure you're subscribed to the stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts, and if you're listening through Apple podcasts or Spotify, please, please, please leave us a rating and a review for more from the stacks. Follow us on social media @thestackspod on Instagram, threads and Tiktok, and @thestackspod_ on Twitter, and you can check out our website at thestackspodcast.com. This episode of the stacks was edited by Christian Dueñas, with production assistance from Megan Caballero. Our graphic designer is Robin McCreight, and our theme music is from Tagirijus. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

Megan Caballero
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Ep. 364 They Were Her Property by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers — The Stacks Book Club (Tembe Denton-Hurst)