The award-winning poet Sarah Vap joins guest host Susan Briante for a discussion of poetry as a “martial art,” an every day object, as well as a “gun of wishes.” Featuring new and recent poems by Joy Harjo, Camille Rankine, Vievee Francis, Joy Katz, Mai Der Vang, and Jean Valentine as well as soon to be released work in translation from the Ivorian poet Josué Guébo.
With musical selections by Aretha Franklin, Juana Molina, The Books, The Fleet Foxes and more.
Joy Harjo |“ For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Fee” and “It's Raining in Honolulu,” Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings. Norton, 2017.
Camille Rankine | “Still Life Mechanical,” Incorrect Merciful Impulses. Copper Canyon, 2015.
Vievee Francis | “Gun of Wishes,” Horse in the Dark. Northwestern University Press, 2012.
Joy Katz| “Poem” from Poem-A-Day. Academy of American Poets, March 14, 2017.
Josué Guébo|“An Excerpt from Think of Lampedusa,” Think of Lampedusa translated by Todd Fredson. University of Nebraska Press, forthcoming October 2017.
Mai Der Vang |“Dear Exile,” Afterland. Graywolf, 2017.
Jean Valentine | “Bees,” Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems. Wesleyan, 2007.
SPEEDWAY & SWAN is a fortnightly, one-hour free-format radio program that presents contemporary poetry against a context of variously compatible and offbeat musical selections. Culling from the exceptional libraries of his partners, the University of Arizona Poetry Center and KXCI 91.3 Tucson Community Radio, creator and host Brian Blanchfield is joined in conversation each episode by a rotating guest co-host who brings to the hour a selection of poetry from his or her personal canon, which, along with the freshest and best from the "new shelves," they read live.
Most episodes also feature a recorded performance from Voca, the Poetry Center's audio archive of its legendary poetry readings since 1963. SPEEDWAY & SWAN represents a partnership between the Poetry Center, which archives the show in listenable format with an annotated playlist, and KXCI, where the show streams live.
Since 1983, KXCI 91.3 FM has been committed to connecting Tucson and Southern Arizona to one another and to the world with informative, engaging, and creative community-based radio programming.
Susan Briante’s most recent book The Market Wonders (Ahsahta Press) was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. The Kenyon Review calls it “masterful at every turn.” She is also the author of the poetry collections Pioneers in the Study of Motion andUtopia Minus (an Academy of American Poets Notable Book of 2011), both from Ahsahta Press. Briante has received grants and awards from the Atlantic Monthly, the MacDowell Colony, the Academy of American Poets, the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund and the US-Mexico Fund for Culture She is an associate professor of creative writing and literature at the University of Arizona.