Break out the croquet for a game of poets named Heather before the queens talk poetry inspired by the movie Heathers. No, Heather, it's Heather's turn!

Please support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

When she released her 2nd book of poems, TheTrees The Trees, Heather Christle set up a phone number which people could call to have her read a poem to them. The number was (413) 570-3077. You can read more about that endeavor here and here.

You can read Heather McHugh's poem "I Knew I’d Sing," listen to McHugh read it, or watch Mary Karr discuss it.

Read McHugh's ars poetica "What He Thought" or click here to listen to her read it (at the 30:45 mark).

Find out more about the singer Conan Gray.

Watch here the clip of the father eulogizing his son at the funeral for Jake and Ram.

Check out Dustin Brookshire's poem "If Dolly Parton Had Been My Mother" And then check out the magazine Dustin edits, Limp Wrist.

Read GC Waldrep's poem "What Is a Soprano"

Read Frank Bidart's "Herbert White"

Check out a lunchtime poll in Heathers.

Watch the official video for P!nk's song "Trustfall"

The queens blur the boundaries between Dylan Thomas James, then become shady ladies about Broetry.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

Read Dylan Thomas's incredible villanelle "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" or listen to Thomas read it here. We reference a few readings of this poem by actors:
Here's Anthony Hopkins getting choked up reading it.
And here's Michael Sheen's rendition.

Listen to Thomas read "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London." You can read the text of the poem here.

Read Dylan Thomas's "The Girl's Story"

Watch a short (30 min) Dylan Thomas documentary here.

Read Dylan Thomas's poems "Once Below a Time" and "Where Once the Waters of Your Face"

Read Thomas James's poem "Dragging the Lake" and his poem "Mummy of a Lady Named Jemutesonekh"

Read another pair of Thomas James poems: "Reasons" and "Waking Up"

Check out this FABULOUS Lucie Brock-Broido's essay on Thomas James: "The Rebirth of a Suicidal Genius"

The art of losing isn't hard to master in this episode devoted to the loves and losses of Elizabeth Bishop's life.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

Read Bishop's villanelle (the only one she ever published!) "One Art." Read about her drafting process (at least 16 versions) here.

You can listen to Bishop read a few of her poems, including "In the Waiting Room" here--recorded at the 92nd Street Y in October 1977. And here's a much younger Bishop reading "The Fish."

Bishop's Paris Review interview is absolute gold.

For more on Lota and Samambaia, the house she built north of Rio, read this Paris Review article on two recent movies made about Bishop and Lota.

Other receipts for what we say in the show are found in this New York Times article, "The Love of Her Life"

For more about the acrimonious "war of the legal wills" between Bishop and Macedo Soares, I recommend David Hoak's article "Proofs of Love: The Last Letters of Lota de Macedo Soares," published in PN Review Volume 42 Number 2 (Nov-Dec 2015). The link contains a paywall.

See more photographs of Samambaia, the glass butterfly-shaped house Lota built in Petrópolis.

Here are the receipts about Judy Flynn.

Receipts for the Louise Crane-Billie Holiday tryst are here and here.

Read "The Loneliness of Elizabeth Bishop" in The Nation.

Crusoe in England" was a coded coping with grief over Soares' death. when the repatriated Robinson Crusoe recalls the loss of “Friday, my dear Friday,” who “died of measles / seventeen years ago come March.” Had Soares lived to one more March birthday, the couple would have spent seventeen years together. You can hear Bishop read (and follow along the text of) "Crusoe in England" here.