The Subvocal Zoo

The Subvocal Zoo: Danez Smith – Only in Safety

Poetry Northwest‘s monthly podcast series, The Subvocal Zoo, features editors and friends of the magazine interviewing poets. Each episode features lively conversation between writers in a different location.

IMG_0764Episode 9 features Danez Smith in conversation with William Camponovo during the 2015 AWP Conference in Minneapolis. Topics of discussion include the importance of community; The Dark Noise Collective; composing for the page vs. composing for performance; Ocean Vuong, Chinaka Hodge, Patricia Smith; Yusef Komunyakaa; The BreakBeat Poets and the April 2015 issue of Poetry magazine.

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Danez Smith is the author of [insert] boy (2014, YesYes Books), winner of the 2014 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry and “Black Movie,” winner of the 2014 Button Poetry Chapbook Prize. His second full-length collection will be published by Graywolf Press in 2017. His work has been published & featured widely including in Poetry Magazine, Beloit Poetry Journal, Buzzfeed, Blavity, and Ploughshares. He is a 2014 Ruth Lilly – Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellow, a Cave Canem and VONA alum, and a recipient of a McKnight Foundation Fellowship. He is a two time Individual World Poetry Slam finalist, placing second in 2014. He edits for The Offing and is a founding member of the Dark Noise and Sad Boy Supper Club collectives. He lives in the midwest most of the time.

William Camponovo earned his B.A. in Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and his M.F.A. in poetry at the University of Washington and has also studied creative writing pedagogy at Antioch University – Los Angeles. His work has appeared in The Seattle Review, The Los Angeles Review, Best New Poets 2011, and Irony Horse. Currently in the PhD program at the CUNY Graduate Center (in New York), William spends most of his time writing about the poets Adrienne Rich, Harryette Mullen, and Alice Notley, a fact about which he could not be happier.

This is Episode 9 of The Subvocal Zoo. Episode 10 will feature Sierra Nelson in conversation with Johnny Horton.

This podcast is made possible in part by listener support. If you enjoy what we’re doing here, we hope you’ll become a supporting listener by donating to our Patreon page! (The promo video uses some footage taken of Danez and William during their conversation in Minneapolis.)

Thanks to Ben Swire for the drummy outro! Theme music is by William Bernhard.

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