Purchase: Fifty Mothers (River River Books, 2026)

Read: "Gridlock" and a process note! (Periodicities)

Preeti Vangani is an Indian poet & writer based in San Francisco. She is the author of Mother Tongue Apologize (2019), winner of the RLFPA Poetry Prize. Her work has been published in AGNI, The Georgia Review, Gulf Coast, Prairie Schooner among several other places. Her debut short story won the 2021 Pen/Dau Emerging Writers Prize. Vangani has been a resident at UCross, Djerassi and Ragdale. She has received artist grants from San Francisco Arts Commission and YBCA through which she facilitates poetry workshops rooted in writing grief through joy. She holds an MFA in Writing from University of San Francisco.

Recommended Reading:

Saeed Jones

Natalie Shapera

Agha Shahid Ali

Jejuri by Arun Kolatkar (Bombay poet discussed on episode)

K Ming Chang's "Auntland" (short story)

Ross Gay

Erika Meitner

Martha Silano's Terminal Surreal

John Donne's sonnet "I am a little world made cunningly"

D.A. (Doug) Powell

Sharon Olds

Rick Barot

top pens for arthritic hands (friends recommend Dr. Grip pens by Pilot!)

Purchase: Antibody (River River Books) by Elane Kim

Read: The Body As Archive, a review of Antibody by Leah Choi (Harvard Crimson) and Kim's poem "Respite" (Poetry Foundation)

Elane Kim is a Korean American writer from California. The editor-in-chief of Gaia Lit, she is the recipient of the 2024 Roger Conant Hatch Prize for Lyric Poetry, the winner of the 2021 Columbia Journal Winter Poetry Contest, and a Davidson Fellow in Literature. Her writing can be found in Poetry, Narrative Magazine, One Teen Story, and more. She is the author of Postcards (Bull City Press, 2022) and a student at Harvard College.

Recommended Reading:

Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Kimberly Grey

Volta (wikipedia)

Shakespeare's Sonnets (with free, downloadable text, at Folger Library)

Jericho Brown

Diane Seuss

Naruto

Of Poetry is hosted by Han VanderHart, author of Larks (Ohio UP, 2025).
--
Read: "Alcestis as the Dead Woman’s Auto-Roman à Clef" and "Alcestis as Peripheral | Swift | Ominous Movement in the House" in Arcturus Magazine

Purchase: House of Myth and Necessity(River River Books, 2026)

Jennifer A Sutherlandis a poet, essayist, and attorney in Baltimore. She is the author of House of Myth and Necessity (River Riverbooks, 2026) and the lyric-hybrid, book-length poem Bullet Points, also from River River Books (2023). Her work has appeared in Birmingham Poetry Review, Hopkins Review, Best New Poets, Denver Quarterly, Cagibi, EPOCH, and elsewhere.

Recommended Reading

Robin Robertson

Anne Carson

Claire Millikin’s TELEVISION (Unicorn Books, 2016)

Monica Youn’s Blackacre

Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House

Tron (film, 1982)

Jameela F. Dallis

Diane Seuss's essay "Restless Herd: Some Thoughts on Order—in Poetry, in Life" (Poets & Writers, on building a bearable myth)