A Conversation with Justice Leah Ward Sears on Margaret Walker’s “For My People”

FromThe Poetry Magazine Podcast

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A Conversation with Justice Leah Ward Sears on Margaret Walker’s “For My People”

FromThe Poetry Magazine Podcast

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Length:

29 minutes

Released:

Jul 9, 2020

Format:

Podcast episode

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Justice Leah Wards Sears talks about how Margaret Walker’s poem “For My People” has been a resource for her throughout her life. Justice Sears’s essay, “Love for My People,” appears in the June 2020 issue of Poetry.

Released:

Jul 9, 2020

Format:

Podcast episode

Titles in the series (99)

The editors go inside the pages of Poetry, talking to poets and critics, debating the issues, and sharing their poem selections with listeners.

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Dujie Tahat reads “salat to be read from right to left”: The editors discuss Dujie Tahat’s poem “salat to be read from right to left” from the February 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
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Ashley August reads “Superstition”: The editors discuss Ashley August’s poem “Superstition” from the March 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
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Carolyn Forché and Fernando Valverde read “The Balada of New England”: The editors discuss Fernando Valverde’s “The Balada of New England,” translated by Carolyn Forché, from the March 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
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Leila Chatti and Sharon Olds in Conversation: When we asked Leila Chatti who she wished to speak with most, she chose one of the poets who gave her permission to be a poet herself: Sharon Olds. And not just to be a poet, but to write from a voice she thought wasn’t possible. You’ll hear why. This episode features more poems than we’ve ever had on the Poetry Magazine Podcast. Chatti asked Sharon to read a selection of poems that span 40 years – ranging from her first book, Satan Says, to her most recent book, Arias. Leila also reads from the December issue of Poetry, and her latest collection, Deluge, a chronicle of illness, womanhood, and faith. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
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Kevin Simmonds and Anthony Davis in Conversation: This week we visit the opera. Writer and musician Kevin Simmonds and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis discuss Black sound, Black church, and the future of opera. Davis has been making operas rooted in Black history for over thirty years. X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X, premiered in 1986. Today you’ll hear from X, and his opera Amistad, which revisits the story of the Middle Passage. Simmonds’s new book, The Monster I Am Today: Leontyne Price and a Life in Verse, skillfully travels through the life of one of classical music’s greatest virtuosos. Leontyne Price remains one of the twentieth century’s most revered opera singers, and the first Black opera singer to achieve such international acclaim. The book is structured operatically into overture, acts, and postlude, uncovering complex layers of music history, biography, and the body itself. How do our bodies sound? Why do they sound that way? Simmonds reads from The by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
34 min listen
Nicole Sealey reads “And”: The editors discuss Nicole Sealey’s poem “And” from the March 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
8 min listen
A Conversation with Jeffrey Yang on Mary Oppen: The editors talk with Jeffrey Yang about the poet Mary Oppen and her autobiography, Meaning a Life. Jeffrey Yang’s essay “Mary Oppen, Meaning a Life” appears in the February 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
19 min listen
A Conversation with Justice Leah Ward Sears on Margaret Walker’s “For My People”: Justice Leah Wards Sears talks about how Margaret Walker’s poem “For My People” has been a resource for her throughout her life. Justice Sears’s essay, “Love for My People,” appears in the June 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
29 min listen
Joy Ladin reads “Forgetting”: The editors discuss Joy Ladin’s poem “Forgetting” from the April 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
14 min listen
Michael Hofmann reads “Famous Poets”: The editors discuss Michael Hofmann’s poem “Famous Poets” from the April 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
15 min listen
Janice N. Harrington reads “Wind Shear”: The editors discuss Janice N. Harrington’s poem “Wind Shear” from the May 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
15 min listen
A Conversation between John Kinsella and Thurston Moore: In this special episode, Thurston Moore and John Kinsella read their collaborative poems from the March 2020 issue of Poetry and have an extended conversation about collaboration, music, poetry, and activism. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
23 min listen
André Naffis-Sahely and LeAnne Howe in Conversation: This week, we hear from one of the co-editors of the first historically comprehensive Native poetry anthology – yes the very first. It’s called When The Light of The World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry. It was edited by Poet Laureate Joy Harjo with Jennifer Elise Foerster and LeAnne Howe. Organized by geographical region, each section begins with a poem from traditional oral literatures and closes with an emerging poet. Contributors range from Eleazar, a seventeenth-century Native student at Harvard, to Jake Skeets, a Diné poet born in 1991. The poet, translator, and critic André Naffis-Sahely reviewed the anthology in the April 2021 issue of Poetry. Today he speaks with co-editor LeAnne Howe about how the anthology came to be, and why it took so long to get here. Howe, a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, opens the conversation with a Choctaw chant. You’ll hear two poems by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
26 min listen
A Conversation with Kit Fan and Alice Oswald: Kit Fan talks with Alice Oswald about her latest book, Nobody. Fan’s review of the book appears in the July/August 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
36 min listen
Tishani Doshi reads “They Killed Cows. I Killed Them.”: The editors discuss Tishani Doshi’s poem “They Killed Cows. I Killed Them.” from the April 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
14 min listen
Suzi F. Garcia in Conversation with Ada Limón: This week, Suzi F. Garcia speaks with one of her literary she-roes, Ada Limón. They talk about the importance of seeing but also being seen, the complexity of avoiding a trauma-porn poetics, and naps as part of the creative process. We hear two poems from Limón’s newest book, The Hurting Kind, including “Foaling Season” from the February 2022 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
42 min listen
John Kinsella and Thurston Moore read “Signal Jamming”: The editors discuss John Kinsella and Thurston Moore’s “Signal Jamming” from the March 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
9 min listen
A.E. Stallings reads “Daedal”: The editors discuss A.E. Stallings’s poem “Daedal” from the May 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
12 min listen
Fred Sasaki Interviews Ashley M. Jones: This week, Fred Sasaki had the very special honor of interviewing his friend and colleague, Ashley M. Jones. Jones guest edited the late spring and summer issues of Poetry magazine during a remarkable time in the publication’s history. In this conversation, we hear Jones read from her new book, Reparations Now! Sasaki asks, what are reparations and what do they mean? When did that idea materialize in each of their minds? They also talk about being Gods, being too cool for school, and playing with Barbies. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
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A Conversation with Oli Rodriguez and Xandria Phillips: Oli Rodriguez and Xandria Phillips on queer familia, ephemeral cruising spots, McDonald’s polaroid film, and much more. Rodriguez’s “Papi, Papi, Papi” appears in the October 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
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Ed Roberson and Lyn Hejinian in Conversation: When we asked Ed Roberson who he’d like to speak with on the show he said: Lyn Hejinian. Longtime friends despite living vastly far apart – Lyn in Berkeley and Ed in Chicago – they’ve been in close dialogue for almost 20 years. Now, for the first time, we have the pleasure of listening in. Topics discussed include the survival of the human species, the safety in friendship, and a pesky octopus at a Pittsburgh aquarium. Ed also reads from a new series of poems in the October 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
33 min listen
Ocean Vuong reads “Not Even This”: The editors discuss Ocean Vuong’s poem “Not Even This” from the April 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
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Mary Ruefle reads “Vapor Wake”: The editors discuss Mary Ruefle’s poem “Vapor Wake” from the May 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
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Marilyn Nelson and Nikki Grimes in Conversation: This week: thoughts on form. Both Marilyn Nelson and Nikki Grimes agree, playing with poetic constraints can create an expansive world to write within. Listen as two of the most celebrated authors writing for young readers today share their thoughts on poetic forms. You’ll hear about two of their favorite forms to experiment with, as well as excerpts from both of their memoirs in verse. The impact Nelson and Grimes have had on the field of writing for younger audiences is profound. Both are featured in this month’s special issue of Poetry dedicated to poems for young people. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
23 min listen
Karen Ah-hwei Lee reads “On June Blossoming in June”: The editors discuss Karen Ah-hwei Lee’s poem “On June Blossoming in June” from the June 2020 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
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Ashley M. Jones and Ashlee Haze in Conversation: Ashley M. Jones says she has never met an Ashley she hasn’t liked. This week, the feeling was mutual. Jones caught up with Ashlee Haze, a force of a poet in every sense of the word. Haze’s poem, “temple,” is featured in this month’s issue of Poetry, along with a video of the poem, which you can check out on our website. Jones and Haze talk about the South, its memory, and the ways in which the world of poetry has opened to new ways of writing, working, and experiencing the form. In this episode, they rebuke the Ivory Tower. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
41 min listen
avery r. young in conversation with LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs: young and Diggs both work with words, sound, image – and bodies – as Diggs’s puts it. On today’s show, they talk about about funk, Dolly Parton, taking notes, polyglots, and how these different cadences resonate in young’s series “peestain.” In these collages and poems, featured in the November issue of Poetry, young weaves his own history with the lives of his students and characters like Willis Jackson from the sitcom Diff'rent Strokes. The familiarity and openness of the references are as heartening as they are devastating. Nothing is neat. Nothing is predictable in young’s work—or Digg’s—as you’ll hear today. In the course of the conversation, Diggs reads one of her own poems and a poem by Carl Hancock Rux. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
39 min listen
Cathy Park Hong and Lynn Xu on the Poetry of Choi Seungja: In this week’s episode, Cathy Park Hong and Lynn Xu talk about the startling directness of Korean poet Choi Seungja and the humbling experience of translation. The conversation ranges from Nietzsche to South Korea in the 1980s, and from Paul Celan to capitalism. As Xu says, Choi’s poems contemplate “living with death as one’s companion,” but instead of indulging in nihilism, her poems are often surprisingly hopeful. Choi Seungja is one of the most influential feminist poets in South Korea, and her book Phone Bells Keep Ringing For Me (Action Books) has recently been published in English, thanks to Cathy Park Hong and her cotranslator Won-Chung Kim. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
45 min listen
Alison C. Rollins and Latria Graham in Conversation: Poet Alison C. Rollins recently finished her first outdoor survival training program. Part of her preparation was to read Latria Graham’s essays about the experience of being a Black woman in the outdoors. Graham is a journalist and fifth-generation farmer living in South Carolina. In “Out There, Nobody Can Hear You Scream,” published in Outdoor Magazine, Graham describes a moment when—right before leaving for the Great Smoky Mountains—her mother handed her the gun of her late father for protection. Rollins had a very similar experience. Her mother’s first question, when hearing of her daughter's desire to journey into the outdoors, was, “How are you going to protect yourself?” This moment of recognition led Rollins and Graham together, to talk about writing, survival, and, as Rollins calls it, “Black nature joy.” by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
40 min listen
Tongo Eisen-Martin and Sonia Sanchez in Conversation: On today’s show, Tongo Eisen-Martin talks with activist, icon, legend, Sonia Sanchez. Listen to these brilliant poets pass fire, life, and love between them. Eisen-Martin is a poet, movement worker, and educator. His poem “Pennies for the Opera” is featured in the December 2020 issue of Poetry as part of a portfolio of work from the book Carving Out Rights from Inside the Prison Industrial Complex. Both Eisen-Martin and Sanchez appear in the book, alongside artists incarcerated at Stateville Prison in Crest Hill, Illinois. Sonia Sanchez is a poet, playwright, professor, and activist. You can read “Haiku and Tanka for Harriet Tubman”—which you’ll hear in this episode—in the April 2018 issue of Poetry. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
53 min listen

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Esther Belin and Tacey M. Atsitty on Monsters: This week, Esther Belin speaks with Diné poet Tacey M. Atsitty. Atsitty’s debut full-length collection, Rain Scald, was published in 2018, and Arthur Sze described the book as filled with a poetry “where rain, expected to be nourishing, is also a torrent, burning with sensation.” Today, we’ll hear two new poems by Atsitty, “Things to Do with a Monster” and “Lady Birds’ Evening Meetings” from the December issue of Poetry. Atsitty’s new poems come out of her desire to create a bestiary of Diné monsters. The poems explore how and why we create and abandon monsters, what we learn from them, how monsters humble us, and more. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
35 min listen
Esther Belin and Diamond Forde on poetry as self-definition, self-reclamation, and biomythography: This week, Esther Belin speaks with Diamond Forde, who joins us from Asheville, North Carolina, which she describes as a sort of homecoming. One of five recent recipients of the 2022 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships, Forde’s debut collection, Mother Body, is described as “an intersectional exploration of the trauma and agency held within a body defined by its potential to mother.” Today we’ll hear from a new series of poems by Forde, which appear in the December 2022 issue of Poetry. The poems continue an exploration of maternal lineage, this time centering Forde's grandmother and addressing the complex processes of self-definition, self-reclamation, and biomythography. Belin and Forde also discuss the practice of joy and how poetry is an “assertion of love.” by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
40 min listen
Ashley M. Jones and Marcus Wicker on Afrofuturism, OutKast, and Living in the American South: This week, Ashley M. Jones speaks with Marcus Wicker about a project he began early in the pandemic while looking for sources of calm in books and music. Many of these were space-influenced—OutKast’s album ATLiens, Robert Hayden’s poem “American Journal”—and Wicker began exploring what an extraterrestrial who lands in Atlanta in 2020 would think of America and the way humans treat one another. We’ll hear two poems from this project, “Dear Mothership,” and “How did you learn to speak English?” which appear in Poetry’s December 2022 issue. Like much of Wicker’s poetry, these pieces incorporate popular culture and music references alongside unflinching observations and exciting wordplay. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
43 min listen
Su Cho and Tariq Luthun on Joy, Apocalypse, Crying, and Pokémon by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
36 min listen
Taneum Bambrick and Su Cho on Intimacy and Poetry: This week, Su Cho sits down with Taneum Bambrick to talk about two of her favorite things: poetry and intimacy. Bambrick is the author of Intimacies, Received, recently out from Copper Canyon Press, and Vantage. Their chapbook, Reservoir, was selected by Ocean Vuong for the Yemassee Chapbook Prize. Vuong wrote, “This is poetry that encompasses, that let's no one turn away.” That’s exactly how Cho felt reading Bambrick’s poems in the November 2022 issue of Poetry. Cho says, “Bambrick’s poems make me feel incredibly shy and brave at the same time. I say make me because I can’t look away from them. The poems are telling me to sit down and listen.” Join us for a conversation about break ups, vulnerability, rodeos, and so much more. by The Poetry Magazine Podcast
41 min listen

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A Conversation with Justice Leah Ward Sears on Margaret Walker’s “For My People”

A Conversation with Justice Leah Ward Sears on Margaret Walker’s “For My People”

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