In this episode of The Write Question, host Lauren Korn speaks with poet Melissa Kwasny, author of The Cloud Path (Milkweed Editions), a collection that reckons with grief and its subsequent healing-. At the heart of this collection is Melissa’s mother’s passing—the caretaking, the sick- and death-bed rituals, her mother’s after. Meanwhile, the world is in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the natural world continues to be ravaged by us, our human population—and it’s a devastation, a physical decline, rivaled only by our divisive social tensions. The Cloud Path is a field guide for the living and an elegy for those we’ve lost and are currently losing.
About Melissa:
Melissa Kwasny is the author of seven collections of poems, including The Cloud Path, Where Outside the Body Is the Soul Today, Pictograph, and The Nine Senses. Melissa is also the author of Earth Recitals: Essays on Image and Vision, and has edited multiple anthologies, including Toward the Open Field: Poets on the Art of Poetry 1800–1950 and, with M.L. Smoker, I Go to the Ruined Place: Contemporary Poems in Defense of Global Human Rights. Melissa lives outside of Jefferson City, Montana, in the Elkhorn Mountains.
Melissa Kwasny recommends:
The English Elegy Studies in the Genre from Spenser to Yeats by Peter Sacks (Johns Hopkins University Press)
Bad Hobby by Kathy Fagan (Milkweed Editions)
Winter Recipes from the Collective Louise Glück (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
To Free the Captives: A Plea for the American Soul by Tracy K. Smith (Alfred A. Knopf)
Nox by Anne Carson (New Directions)
What Does Not Return by Tami Haaland (Lost Horse Press)
Lauren Korn recommends:
The Cloud Path (Milkweed Editions), Pictograph (Milkweed Editions), Where Outside the Body is the Soul Today (University of Washington Press), and Earth Recitals: Essays on Image & Vision by Melissa Kwasny
Another Attempt at Rescue by M. L. Smoker (Hanging Loose Press); read the title poem here.
The poetry of Louise Glück, especially The Wild Iris (Ecco Press), Averno (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and Meadowlands (Ecco Press)
Plainwater (Vintage Books) and Eros the Bittersweet (reprint, Princeton University Press) by Anne Carson
The poetry of Mary Szybist, especially Incarnadine (Graywolf Press)
The poetry of Sue Sinclair—a good place to start is Almost Beauty: New and Selected Poems (Goose Lane Editions)
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The Write Question team for this episode was Lauren Korn, host, co-producer, and editor; and Chris Moyles, co-producer, editor, and sound engineer. This episode is sponsored by Elk River Books in Livingston, Montana, offering new, used, and rare books—and frequent author readings in their line-up of events offered each season. A full events calendar and online shopping can be found at ElkRiverBooks.com.
The Write Question logo and brand (2022) was designed by Molly Russell. You can see more of her work at iamthemollruss.com and on Instagram @iamthemollruss. Our music was written and recorded by John Floridis.
Funding for The Write Question comes from Humanities Montana; members of Montana Public Radio; and from the Greater Montana Foundation—encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans.
The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.
