Listen now (42 min) | Chrysalis Poets | I’m continually amazed by the immensity of the world that a small poem can conjure. In just a few lines or words, or even just a line break, a poem can travel across time and space. It can jump from the minuscule to the incomprehensible vastness of the universe. And in these inventive leaps, it can create, in our minds, new ideas and images. It can help us see connections that were, before, invisible. John Shoptaw has conjured such magic with his poem, “Near-Earth Object,” combining the gravity of mass extinction on Earth with the quotidian evanescence of his sprint to catch the bus. John Shoptaw grew up in the Missouri Bootheel. He picked cotton; he was baptized in a drainage ditch; and he worked in a lumber mill. He now lives a long way from home in Berkeley, California, where I was lucky enough to visit him last summer. John is the author of the poetry collection, Times Beach, which won the Notre Dame Review Book Prize and the Northern California Book Award in poetry. He is also the author of On The Outside Looking Out, a critical study of John Ashbery’s poetry. He teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. John has a new poetry collection coming out soon, also called Near-Earth Object. For more, see the episode page at ChrysalisPodcast.org.
9. John Shoptaw — “Near-Earth Object”
9. John Shoptaw — “Near-Earth Object”
9. John Shoptaw — “Near-Earth Object”
Listen now (42 min) | Chrysalis Poets | I’m continually amazed by the immensity of the world that a small poem can conjure. In just a few lines or words, or even just a line break, a poem can travel across time and space. It can jump from the minuscule to the incomprehensible vastness of the universe. And in these inventive leaps, it can create, in our minds, new ideas and images. It can help us see connections that were, before, invisible. John Shoptaw has conjured such magic with his poem, “Near-Earth Object,” combining the gravity of mass extinction on Earth with the quotidian evanescence of his sprint to catch the bus. John Shoptaw grew up in the Missouri Bootheel. He picked cotton; he was baptized in a drainage ditch; and he worked in a lumber mill. He now lives a long way from home in Berkeley, California, where I was lucky enough to visit him last summer. John is the author of the poetry collection, Times Beach, which won the Notre Dame Review Book Prize and the Northern California Book Award in poetry. He is also the author of On The Outside Looking Out, a critical study of John Ashbery’s poetry. He teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. John has a new poetry collection coming out soon, also called Near-Earth Object. For more, see the episode page at ChrysalisPodcast.org.