Episode 127: Ecstatic Collapse (ENCORE)

Greetings, Slushies! In this, our final encore episode for the summer, we revisit two poems from Glenn Shaheen. We hope you enjoy the conversation. We’ll be back in your feeds with a brand new episode on September 9. Thanks, as always for listening.

Our first order of business was debating lifestyle choices in NY vs. Philly, after which we dug into two wonderfully different poems by Glenn Shaheen. “Imago” plunged us into an elegaic interrogation of modern life, identity, and poetics framed by both the real world and open world gaming. With Glenn’s poem as our guide we roamed wide, touching on gaming terminology, Bey’s “Single Ladies” and 2008 as the last year of optimism, Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions, Shakespeare’s “filthy” Sonnet 135, and the ageless concern over the shelf life of language in poems and artistic works. The circular format of short, interlinked stanzas in the second poem, “Power and Punish”, introduced a real change in tone in the discussion. Frankly, we wondered if the poem’s format and approach would allow us to discuss it. We were delighted to discover it was possible, if different – but hey, you be the judge!

Some links we think you’ll like:

NPC (Non Player Character) on WikiHow

Beyoncé - Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)

Michel Foucault on the Panopticon Effect, Farnham Street blog

At the table: Marion Wrenn, Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Dagne Forrest, Isabel Petry

Glenn Shaheen received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston and his PhD in English Literature & Creative Writing from Western Michigan University. He was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and currently lives in Houston, Texas where he is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Prairie View A&M University. His book of poems, Predatory, won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize and was the finalist for the Norma Farber First Book Award. It is available from the University of Pittsburgh Press. He is also the author of the chapbook of flash fiction, Unchecked Savagery, available from Ricochet Editions. His second collection of poetry, Energy Corridor, is available from the University of Pittsburgh Press, and was published in 2016. Carnivalia, his full-length collection of flash fiction, was published by Gold Wake Press in February of 2018.

Website: https://glennshaheen.com/

IMAGO

DROSOPHILA MUTANTE