The queens discuss and revise a recent list of "best poetry," adding other tops (& bottoms & verses & sides, you get the point, miss thing).

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Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

For a few lists of best 21st Century poetry: The Atlantic (which we read in the show). The New York Times

Read Mark Strand's titular poem "Man and Camel"

Read Craig Morgan Teicher's review of Glück's Faithful and Virtuous Night

Watch Tracy K. Smith's answer to "Does poetry matter" in this conversation with Tracey E. Hucks at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. If you'd like to see Smith read from her Pulitzer-Prize-winning Life on Mars, here's a particularly good one.

Read "Deception Story" by Solmaz Sharif from Look

James mediated a conversation and workshop with Diane Seuss on poetry and mental health, which can be viewed on YouTube here

Read a selection of poems from Patricia Smith's Blood Dazzler

The Brigit Pegeen Kelly poem James talked about in the show is "Closing Time; Iskandariya." Here it is, posted on Ilya Kaminsky's social media.

Read a portfolio of writers on Kelly's book Song published recently in West Branch online (edited by Shara Lessley with short essays by David Baker, Amit Majmudar, Gabrielle Bates, and C. Dale Young).

The queens dish this year’s AWP Conference!

Please Support Breaking Form!

Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.

James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

Notes:

The Association of Writers and Writing Programs can be found online at www.awpwriter.org

Marcela Fuentes is the author of the award-winning novel Malas and you can find her online at https://www.marcelafuentes.com

Check out the exhibit Flesh World at Central Server Works, showcasing paintings by Monica Berger and Sofia Heftersmith.

Julie Marie Wade's The Mary Yearsis a novella which won The 2023 Clay Reynolds Novella Prize, selected by Michael Martone.

Purchase a copy of the Maureen Seaton tribute book When I Was Straight

Check out "From the Motel-By-the-Hour" (originally in The Iowa Review) from Nancy K. Pearson's book Two Minutes of Light from Perugia here.

Claire J. Bateman's book is The Pillow Museum, available from the University of Alabama Press

Jen Jabaily-Blackburn's Girl in a Bear Suit won the Elixir Press Award. Buy it from her on her website: https://www.jenjabailyblackburn.com

Emily Lee Luan won the Nightboat Poetry Prize for Return. Visit her website here.

More information about the Civitella Ranieri Foundation can be found here.

James's Best American Poetry 2025 selection is called "Inheritance at Corresponding Periods of Life, at Corresponding Seasons of the Year, as Limited by Sex" originally published in Adroit Journal.

Get in, gurl, we're reading poetry at your unfriendly neighborhood leather bar.

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

NOTES:

Learn more about Tom of Finland, the artist name of Finnish Touko Laaksonen who signed his erotic work "Tom."

Follow messygayspod on Instagram, or @messygays.bsky.social on Blue Sky, or on FB at MessyGaysPod

Read Heather McHugh's "The Amenities" (care warning: sexual assault)

Read sam sax's "On PrEP or on Prayer [“when i say pre-exposure prophylaxis”]

Read Elizabeth Bishop's "The Moose"

Read Diane Wakoski's "Uneasy Rider"

Here's an excerpt from Mark Bibbins's 13th Balloon

Read this poem by Tyehimba Jess

Check out Robin Coste Lewis's page on The Elders Project here. TEP captures and celebrates untold and underrepresented stories of activists, storytellers, and community builders who have witnessed and shaped great change in American public life.

Read this consideration/critique of Cruising

Read this interview of Mary Jo Bang.

Stephen King addresses rumors about Musk insults here.

Read this great review of Bianca Stone's fabulous The Mobius Strip Club of Grief.

If you haven't seen the 20th anniversary edition of Richard Siken's Crush, check it out here.

Check out Nighboat's Rob Halpern's Music for Porn

Read Jenny Johnson's essay "Butch Blow Job" in Bomb.