Art and Madness

Today’s show is a recording of a poetry show I did at Mount St. Mary’s University in Los Angeles, where I teach. I took Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “The Panther,” memorized it, and performed it for the students, along with other poems that followed the theme. The all about the cages that we live in, […]

Susana Marcelo is a professor at California State University Northridge, a writer, poet, essayist, and. . .well, a lot more! In our interview, we spend time on what it means to write in the different genres (poetry, fiction, nonfiction), and how many of us like to push against those definitions, crossing from one genre to […]

Kenya Lopez and Marcos Villatoro meet at the AWP Conference in Tampa Florida, March, 2018. " data-image-caption="Kenya Lopez and Marcos Villatoro meet at the AWP Conference in Tampa Florida, March, 2018. " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/thewritingbull.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/IMG_0580.jpg?fit=300%2C225&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/thewritingbull.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/IMG_0580.jpg?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1" />Ken Lopez is a Mexican and Salvadoran poet from Kansas City. She hopes her work will, like Chinua Achebe said, tell the story of the hunt from the perspective of the lion. She will be pursuing her MFA in poetry at Brooklyn College in the fall. I had the chance to interview her at the […]

José Orduña and Marcos Villatoro discuss writing and politics at the AWP conference in Tampa Florida. " data-image-caption="José Orduña and Marcos Villatoro discuss writing and politics at the AWP conference in Tampa Florida. " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/thewritingbull.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/IMG_0566.jpg?fit=300%2C225&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/thewritingbull.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/IMG_0566.jpg?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1" />I met José Orduña at the Associated Writing Program conference in Tampa, Florida this past spring. He had arrived at the conference about 48 hours after getting arrested in D.C. for civil disobedience, fighting for the rights of DACA recipients. José is a Professor of creative writing at the University of Nevada. His take on […]

George Plimpton and Marcos Villatoro talk books, acting, and baseball on the podcast The Writing Bull " data-image-caption="George Plimpton and Marcos Villatoro talk books, acting, and baseball on the podcast The Writing Bull " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/thewritingbull.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/George-Plimpton-1979436193-1528846483431.jpg?fit=300%2C178&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/thewritingbull.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/George-Plimpton-1979436193-1528846483431.jpg?fit=768%2C456&ssl=1" />Today’s podcast of The Writing Bull offers you a two-fer: Years ago I had the opportunity to interview one of the founders and the editor of The Paris Review, George Plimpton. You might recognize him, his face popped up all over the place in the second half of the twentieth century, playing in a professional baseball game […]

Guisell Gomez, Colombian-American poet, at the Associated Writing Programs conference in Tampa Florida, March 2018 " data-image-caption="Guisell Gomez, Colombian-American poet, at the Associated Writing Programs conference in Tampa Florida, March 2018 " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/thewritingbull.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2018-03-10-11.06.38.jpg?fit=300%2C225&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/thewritingbull.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2018-03-10-11.06.38.jpg?fit=1024%2C768&ssl=1" />While I was at the Associated Writing Programs conference in Florida this past month, I met Guisell Gomez, a student of creative writing and a published poet. Born in Colombia, she and her family moved to the United States when she was a child. She remembers the move, the brutal act of being torn out […]

George Gordon Lord Byron, British poet, suffered from manic depression and from it wrote some of the finest romantic poetry of English literature. " data-image-caption="George Gordon Lord Byron, British poet, suffered from manic depression and from it wrote some of the finest romantic poetry of English literature. " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/thewritingbull.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Lord-Byron-I-go-mad-3614469503-1526941808863.jpg?fit=300%2C117&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/thewritingbull.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Lord-Byron-I-go-mad-3614469503-1526941808863.jpg?fit=850%2C332&ssl=1" />There are studies on the connection between the artistic impulse and mental illness. The best are books written by Kay Redfield Jamison, especially her “Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament.” In that book, she charts hundreds of writers, from George Gordon Lord Byron to Virginia Woolf, and reveals how the mental illness […]

Poet Francisco Aragón is doing is doing more for U.S. Latinx literature than any person I know. While writing his own work, he’s also always pushing and promoting the literary works of others, namely, the new Latinx writers on the block. He’s the son of Nicaraguan immigrants, born and raised in San Francisco, CA. He […]

Poet and publisher Alexandra Lytton Regalado with Marcos Villatoro " data-image-caption="Poet and publisher Alexandra Lytton Regalado with Marcos Villatoro " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/thewritingbull.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Alex-Regalado-1858304231-1526246703555.jpg?fit=300%2C181&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/thewritingbull.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Alex-Regalado-1858304231-1526246703555.jpg?fit=1024%2C616&ssl=1" />When I attended the Associated Writing Programs conference in Tampa, Florida in March, I sought out Latinos, because the last time I went to the conference, about ten years ago, AWP truly deserved the nickname that people of color gave it: “All White People.” It’s still a majority white, but I found the Latina/o/x writers […]

César Vallejo, gran poeta de Perú. " data-image-caption="César Vallejo, poeta de Perú. " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/thewritingbull.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Cesar-Vallejo.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/thewritingbull.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Cesar-Vallejo.jpg?fit=604%2C340&ssl=1" />Every once in a while I do a podcast in Spanish, and talk about what it means to be Latino today, in the U.S. Porque, para mí, el español siempre fue, y es, el idioma de amor–ese amor de la niñez, cuando las mujeres de la casa en mi pueblo natal, San Francisco, CA–las tías, […]