Today we released the latest episode (#158) in the PoemTalk Podcast series, which is focused on Bob Kaufman's poem "Suicide," as taken from Billy Woodberry’s docu-film on Kaufman, And When I Die I Won’t Stay Dead. For this program, host Al Filreis assembled an exciting panel via Zoom that included (from left to right) Maria Damon, Christopher Stackhouse, and Devorah Major.
"'Suicide' is just three short stanzas, but our group found a great deal to discuss — about the lines and phrases of this complex expression of survival, and about the many ways this poem teaches us about Bob Kaufman's modes of art and life overall," Filreis notes early on in his PoemTalk blog post announcing the new episode. "Two dealers open the scene, named obliquely yet there’s no doubt about them. They are what’s extant after the big botch of the US, which can only be what Kaufman means by 'the largest colony / of the new world,'" he continues, before asking, "Who could have predicted that it would all come down to this — to these dealers, but also to the particular way Vinne gets around and moves around?"
You can learn more about this latest program, read Kaufman's poem, and listen to the podcast here. The full PoemTalk archives, spanning more than a decade, can be found here.
