Poet, playwright, and critic Jane Scharl joins us to explore her debut poetry collection Ponds, the moral labor of finding a poetic voice, and the enduring power of language in an age increasingly dominated by abstraction. In a wide-ranging conversation, she reflects on the poet’s vocation, the dangers of reducing words to mere “tokens,” and why great poetry always returns us to reality.

In this episode, we discuss:
📖 How a spontaneous dramatic monologue in college revealed Scharl’s poetic vocation
📖 Why poets and philosophers diverge—and what poets understand about language that analytic philosophy often misses
📖 The influences that formed her imagination—from David Jones to classical Chinese poetry
📖 What it means to “find a voice,” and why the journey is as moral as it is artistic
📖 The state of contemporary poetry—and where readers can go to find work that still matters

LINKS:
➡️ Ponds by Jane Scharl (Wipf & Stock): https://wipfandstock.com/979838521064...
➡️ Jane's writing: https://https://jcscharl.com/

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