Friday, April 20, 2007

Audio Podcast: Heather McHugh

Earlier this afternoon I got to speak with Heather McHugh. Her books of poetry include Eyeshot, Hinge & Sign, Shades, and a slew of others; she has received two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. In 1999 she was elected a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets. She teaches in the MFA Program at Warren Wilson College, and is Milliman Writer-in-Residence at the University of Washington in Seattle. She's also one of my favorite living poets, and one of the few prominent writers to respond, back in the day, when Rhian and I solicited a bunch of bigwigs for our short-lived little mag, Teacup.

I can't recommend this podcast enough--McHugh is an awesome interviewee, full of energy and good humor, and the conversation took all kinds of unexpected turns. We discussed DJ music, the spondee, reading Finnegan's Wake aloud, and poetry as visual art. Check it out at the Writers At Cornell blog.

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