Painted Bride Quarterlys Slush Pile

We are enswirled in this episode, Slushies, enswirled! We discuss three poems by John Sibley Willliams, two of which are ghazals. Williams’ poems are the gravitational force around which our conversation about craft, form, fluidity, identity, and the flux and spaciousness found inside poetry spirals. Williams’ poems draw the swirl of our attention not only to the choices he makes on the page but to Agha Shahad Ali’s rules for real ghazals, Williams’ poetic conversation with Tarfia Faizullah, and his nod to Kavek Akbar’s “Gloves”. There is a pun these show notes want to make about guzzling ghazals, Slushies, but we are trying hard to resist it…    At the table: Marion Wrenn, Jason Schneiderman, Kathleen Volk Miller, Dagne Forrest, Samantha Neugebauer    This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist  A.M.Mills, whose song “Spaghetti with Loretta” now opens our show.       John Sibley Williams is the author of nine poetry collections, most recently