SoundPages
SoundPages is produced by Jack Straw Cultural Center as part of the Jack Straw Writers Program. This podcast features interviews and live readings from artists in the Jack Straw Writers Program. Each year a series of twelve episodes is produced featuring the current Jack Straw Writers and curator.-
Up South – Robert Lashley
2016 Jack Straw Writer Robert Lashley talks with program curator Karen Finneyfrock about Up South, the forthcoming collection of poetry he was working on during his Jack Straw residency. Robert also shares his thoughts on his favorite forms of poetry and some of the writers who’ve inspired him, including his uncle, Moses Williams. “He considered himself like an old school singing-school-style poet . . . that was very interested in making a poem read orally and also read on the page.”
Music by Seattle Jazz Composers Ensemble, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Maria – Ruby Hansen Murray
2016 Jack Straw Writer Ruby Hansen Murray‘s novel The Heart Stays People tells the story of Maria, a 16-year-old Osage girl raised by Cherokee who longs for her own people and doesn’t know what to do next. She talks with Curator Karen Finneyfrock about the challenges of creating an original story that reflects history accurately. “I feel compelled to . . . do the best I can to understand how people saw the world at that time and to convey what their decisions might have been. I also feel compelled to write a strong narrative which frees itself from real people and what might have happened or what did happen.”
Music by Seattle Jazz Composers Ensemble, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Disaster - Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum
2016 Jack Straw Writer Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum talks with Curator Karen Finneyfrock about her in-progress collection of short stories addressing many forms of disaster, from the personal to the geological. She also shares some of her process as a writer and her thoughts on the perfection of the short story: “There’s a sense of complete delight in the beauty of control that the story offers.”
Music by Seattle Jazz Composers Ensemble, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Incidentals – Linda Andrews
Linda Andrews‘ work – whether poetry, prose, or a hybrid of the two – is always written with an ear for the spoken word. She talks with 2015 Jack Straw Writers Program Curator Kevin Craft about writing for the ear, her experience as a teacher, and doing rewrites while driving through the Palouse. ” I think it’s so important to hear what we write through our voice. It’s the best way, I think, that we know what we’re writing about.”
Music by St. Helens String Quartet, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Humboldt – L. J. Morin
For her Jack Straw Writers Program project, L. J. Morin (Lisa Carcia) wrote a series of poems inspired by the tale of a parrot in Venezuela who was the last known speaker of a dead language. She speaks with 2015 Writers Program Curator Kevin Craft about Alexander Von Humboldt, the tirelessly curious discoverer of this parrot, as well as the many challenges involved in turning history into poetry.
Music by St. Helens String Quartet, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Paralegal – Anca Szilágyi
Anca Szilágyi‘s novel Paralegal looks at the runup to the 2008 financial crash through the eyes of Binnie Greenson, a diorama artist working a summer job in a corporate law firm and struggling with her identity as an artist. She talks with 2015 Jack Straw Writers Program curator Kevin Craft about Joseph Cornell, the gradually developing executive function of twenty-somethings, and how to let your characters speak for themselves.
Music by St. Helens String Quartet, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Zac – Matthew Schnirman
Matthew Schnirman‘s poems combine humor, nostalgia, intimacy, and sex into a voice that’s by turns sardonic and sincere, ironic and heartfelt. He talks to 2015 Jack Straw Writers Program Curator Kevin Craft about his “Zac Poems,” whose titular character floats through the films of Zac Efron as viewed through Matthew’s poetic lens.
THIS PODCAST CONTAINS ADULT LANGUAGE
Music by St. Helens String Quartet, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Mapping – Laura Da’
Laura Da’s poems explore the European-American takeover of the North American continent by examining the mapping and surveying that was an inextricable part of it. Narrative poems delve into the lives of two characters, while lyrical pieces look at the larger consequences. She talks to 2015 Writers Program Curator Kevin Craft about how she developed this approach. “I needed a lens to see how this was possible, because it was such an act of horrible cruelty and theft. . . . I came to the idea of surveying and measurement as a manageable way to look at how people justified some of the actions in history.”
Music by St. Helens String Quartet, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Histories – Clare Johnson
Clare Johnson‘s writing delves both into the past – resurrecting voices and stories from generations past – and into her own personal experiences. She talks with 2015 Writers Program curator about the influence of travel and homesickness on her work and her process for creating these patchwork pieces, which Craft refers to as “core samples of time.”
Music by St. Helens String Quartet, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Work – Bernard Grant
Bernard Grant‘s stories and essays are carefully constructed, his language terse and spare. Phrases like “I saw my father twice,” and “brand new screen door” instantly pull the reader into the world he’s created. He talks with 2015 Writers Program curator Kevin Craft about his craft and how he shapes his text. “When I write I sense a certain rhythm for each line, for each sentence, each paragraph, every part of it.”
Music by St. Helens String Quartet, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
