George Guida and Gerry LaFemina are back in the studio and we are joined by Jan Beatty. Today, we talk about work and poetry, how work influences poetry, worst jobs and more.
About the Readers:
Jan Beatty’s book, Jackknife: New and Selected Poems, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2017. Her last book, The Switching/Yard, was named by Library Journal as one of ...30 New Books That Will Help You Rediscover Poetry. The Huffington Post called her one of ten “advanced women poets for required reading.” Books include Red Sugar, Boneshaker, and Mad River (winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize), published by University of Pittsburgh Press. Beatty hosts and produces Prosody, a public radio show on NPR affiliate WESA-FM featuring national writers. She worked as a welfare caseworker, as an abortion counselor, in maximum security prisons, and as a waitress for fifteen years. She directs the creative writing program at Carlow University, where she runs the Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops and directs the MFA program.
Sarah Freligh is the author of Sad Math, winner of the 2014 Moon City Press Poetry Prize and the 2015 Whirling Prize from the University of Indianapolis. Other books include A Brief Natural History of an American Girl, winner of the Editor’s Choice award from Accents Publishing, and Sort of Gone. Her work has appeared in Sun Magazine, Hotel Amerika, BOAAT Journal, diode, SmokeLong Quarterly, on Writer’s Almanac, and anthologized in the 2011 anthology Good Poems: American Places. Among her awards are a 2009 poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a grant from the Constance Saltonstall Foundation in 2006.
George Guida is the author of eight books, including The Pope Stories and Other Tales of Troubled Times (Bordighera Press, 2012), two collections of critical essays, and four collections of poems--Pugilistic (WordTech Editions, 2015), The Sleeping Gulf (Bordighera Press, 2015), New York and Other Lovers (Smalls Books, 2008) and Low Italian (Bordighera, 2006). His recent work appears in Aethlon, Grief Diaries, J Journal, The Maine Review, Poet Sounds: Poems Inspired by the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, Poetry Daily,The Tishman Review, and Verse Daily. He teaches at New York City College of Technology, and co-edits 2Bridges Review.
Gerry LaFemina is a poet, prose poet, fiction writer, literary arts activist, professor, editor and musician. He is the author of eleven books. He’s received fellowships from the Irving Gilmore Emerging Artists Fund and the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs, awards from the University System of Maryland Board of Regents and the Bordighera Foundation as well as a Pushcart Prize. He is an Associate Professor of English Frostburg State University