01/19/2024
You may have noticed that I keep pretty busy, so sometimes it's hard for me to stay on top of all the cool things there are to listen to and read and know about out there. One of the things that I love about being invited to participate on panels or podcasts or other group projects is that this gives me a chance to hear about other people's amazing work. That is certainly true for this episode of To the Best of Our Knowledge
I've long been a fan of the writing and thinking that comes from the minds of both Philip Metres and Kaia Sand, and the two writers are featured on this episode, with original poems they wrote just for this.
I'm particularly happy about Kaia's because I tried to commission a poem from her for the recent "Shelter" issue of Orion Magazine, but as the Executive Director of StreetRoots in Portland, she chose instead to share the commission with several of her magazine's regular contributors, so that we at Orion got the honor of reading the work of multiple poets who have experienced homelessness. And now that Kaia has her own poem on this podcast, I feel like I've gotten to have my cake and eat it too.
Anyway, I read some poems and say some things about poetry and docupoetics and the great Muriel Rukeyser at the end of this episode, but you should for sure tune it at the beginning to hear from Phil, Kaia, and one of my new favorite people, Suncere Ali Shakur.
For generations, through wars, crisis, and political upheaval, documentary poets have helped make sense of some of our most difficult moments – by expressing what might otherwise be impossible to say. So what are they writing about today?
