Poetry Magazine Podcast

This is not a journal, this is not a website or a blog, this is a podcast. In my opinion this is the way that poetry should be shared. Contemporary poetry especially deserves the voice of the writer. It's an amazing way to hear the dialect of the poem, the energy and purpose of the poem. In the podcast there is a fun element that gives to the poetry. The commentators of the podcast are able to catch meaning in the abstract poems without giving a solid conclusion or sense of strict purpose to it.
The commentators of the podcast show the energy of each poem through the words of the writers that are read aloud. They are able to grab points in a poem that they found pungent and they can use the authors voice to help push their points. It's like a harkness discussion but instead of looking in the reading for a quick passage, soundbites are used instead. I really think this pushes meaning in the poetry farther as tones that cannot be heard while reading simply can be expressed through the voice of the author.
There were two very nice poems that gave me strong meaning and purpose. First was Hannah Gambles "Growing a Bear" which speaks about the pains of a middle aged man who wants to regain what he has lost through the years. Hannah's drawn out voice gives every word purpose as it slowly pushes through every lingering stanza. But this allows the reader to really feel every word for its true purpose and catch a meaning that Gambles wants you to collect. The next is Nate Marshall's "Praise Song" which depicts a fight between him and his best friends. As a rapper, Nate already has strong presenting voice but he adds soulful rhythms that gives the feeling that you are listening to a preacher.
The podcast wraps up with a discussion with poet Peter Quartermain on "stubborn poetries." Quatermain says that poetry became so boring to him that he actually took leave from it. He learned as a child that every poem has a strict meaning and that you must dissect it until you find it. It wasn't until he had to teach a class on American Contemporary poetry that he realized that it could be so spontaneous and have multiple meanings for multiple readers.
Quatermain's ideologies summarize my points. I too believe that poetry can be spontaneous and exiting and that this spontaneity can give whole new meanings. I believe the voice of the author can give this spontaneity to help develop new meanings. 

To Listen to the Podcast

Hannah Gamble's "Growing a Bear"

Nate Marshall's "Praise Song"

Louis Jenkins

Many people ask the most common question about poetry, "what's the poem about?". I would disagree with them and ask "who is the ending for?". Somewhere in the ending the poem's tone and style might shift and there will be a connection with the reader. I think Jenkins likes to connect with himself, before he connects with anyone else. He truly writes for himself.
Jenkins's poetry are like a collection of ideas that are put together in a poetic fashion, but he does not write for the people who read his poems. For instance in his poem "football" there is an obvious narrative voice, but it moves from story to self discovery. This movement excludes the reader from grabbing at the meaning of the poem before Jenkins does. Now the reader is not completely expelled from gaining any sort of purpose from the poem, but they have to apply Jenkins's experience to themselves. It's an open ended way to end a poem, where it allows the reader to take from it what they like.
Now this is very typical in poetry but before he ends his poetry, he just points out observations he has made and I don't think he cares if the audience has any sort of reaction. But he does not care for cliche or randomness, he just writes for the sake of poetry.