Guests Melissa Balmain and Tony Leuzzi stop by to talk about form in poetry. We talk about the politics surrounding the use of form, its role as a creative tool, and how form can be valuable to all poets. Also, we play a quick game of Who said it: Walt Whitman or Sarah Palin?
About Melissa Balmain:
Melissa Balmain is the editor of Light, the country's oldest journal of humorous verse, which she helped revive and bring online after 20 years in print. She teaches in the English department at the University of Rochester, and her poetry and prose have appeared in places ranging from The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Success magazine to American Life in Poetry, Measure, and The Great American Wise-Ass Poetry Anthology. Balmain has been a finalist for the Donald Justice Poetry Prize, the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, and the X.J. Kennedy Parody Award. Her poetry collection Walking In on People, winner of the Able Muse Book Award, has been described by former poet laureate Billy Collins as "an infectious, often hilarious blend of the sweet and the lethal, the charming and the acidic."
About Tony Leuzzi:
Tony Leuzzi lives in Rochester, NY. His previous books include Radiant Losses (New Sins Press, 2010) and The Burning Door (Tiger Bark Press, 2014); his two chapbooks are Fake Book (Anything Anywhere Anymore Press, 2011) and 40,000 Crows (Hank’s Original Loose Gravel Press, 2012). In 2012, BOA Editions published Passwords Primeval, Leuzzi’s interviews with 20 American poets. He is an Associate Professor of English at Monroe Community College, where has received a Wesley T. Hansen Award for Excellence in Teaching and a State University of New York Chancellor’s Award for Creativity and Scholarship. A critic and review writer for various publications, including The Brooklyn Rail, he is also a visual artist whose paintings incorporate collage and erasure.