For Election Day, we’re sharing a bit of our recent conversation with poet and scholar Evie Shockley, who shares her poem women’s voting rights at 100 (but who’s counting?) and talks with Jericho Brown about why, in spite of our democracy’s shortcomings and outrages and betrayals, we vote.
Jericho asks about the Dickinson men and the Civil War, and Aife reveals the fascinating (and when you look straight at them, shocking) details of Austin Dickinson’s absolutely legal evasion of the draft.
Jericho on James Baldwin, racial insult, and just wanting to have this drink.
Aife Murray asks Jericho Brown, Brionne Janae, and special guest Malcolm Tariq about where they first found their voice. And all three recounted experiences from the Black churches of their childhoods — speaking, singing, writing, and much more.
In Season 1, Episode 4 of Dickinson, Emily has a disappointing encounter with one of her literary heroes, Henry David Thoreau. In this bonus episode, Jericho, Breezy and US Poet Laureate Ada Limón reflect on poets (Carolyn Kizer, Louise Glück, Thomas Sayres Ellis) whose work they love but who let them down (or even broke their heart) in real life. And they celebrate poets (Toi Dericotte, Terrance Hayes, Yona Harvey) who showed them the way to be a poet in the world.
Danez Smith talks with Breezy and Jericho about why the title on the cover of their latest book (Homie) is not its real title, and what that has to do with language, access, and who you’re writing for. And in the middle of it all, Danez transports us to the scene “at the downlow house party”.
The story of Angeline Palmer reveals how tenuous freedom was for Black people, even in the Yankee North — and how the Dickinsons weren’t exactly reliable allies.