The art of losing isn't hard to master in this episode devoted to the loves and losses of Elizabeth Bishop's life.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

Read Bishop's villanelle (the only one she ever published!) "One Art." Read about her drafting process (at least 16 versions) here.

You can listen to Bishop read a few of her poems, including "In the Waiting Room" here--recorded at the 92nd Street Y in October 1977. And here's a much younger Bishop reading "The Fish."

Bishop's Paris Review interview is absolute gold.

For more on Lota and Samambaia, the house she built north of Rio, read this Paris Review article on two recent movies made about Bishop and Lota.

Other receipts for what we say in the show are found in this New York Times article, "The Love of Her Life"

For more about the acrimonious "war of the legal wills" between Bishop and Macedo Soares, I recommend David Hoak's article "Proofs of Love: The Last Letters of Lota de Macedo Soares," published in PN Review Volume 42 Number 2 (Nov-Dec 2015). The link contains a paywall.

See more photographs of Samambaia, the glass butterfly-shaped house Lota built in Petrópolis.

Here are the receipts about Judy Flynn.

Receipts for the Louise Crane-Billie Holiday tryst are here and here.

Read "The Loneliness of Elizabeth Bishop" in The Nation.

Crusoe in England" was a coded coping with grief over Soares' death. when the repatriated Robinson Crusoe recalls the loss of “Friday, my dear Friday,” who “died of measles / seventeen years ago come March.” Had Soares lived to one more March birthday, the couple would have spent seventeen years together. You can hear Bishop read (and follow along the text of) "Crusoe in England" here.

Jericho Brown returns to finish the conversation about Reginald Shepherd, (in)formalism, and inspiration.

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.
Jericho's THE SELECTED SHEPHERD is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.

We talk about Shepherd's "The Gods at 3am" on another episode of Breaking Form in "Mona in the Corner."

Read more about Papa Legba, a figure in voodoo traditions in West Africa, the Caribbean, and Louisiana.

Read Jericho's poem "Again" from his first book, Please.

Jericho mentions his poem "Say Thank You Say I'm Sorry" which appeared in The New York Times early on in the pandemic.

Daniel Black's book title is titled Black on Black: On Our Resilience and Brilliance in America. Read the NPR review by Gabino Iglesias here, and follow him on Instagram @drdanielblack

Some fabulous essays on Shepherd or reviews of his books can be found in the resources listed below:
John Gallagher on Shepherd
Joan Houlihan, In Memoriam of Reginald Shepherd
Brian Henry on Wrong

As always, check out Shepherd's own blog.

If you bring along to Breaking Form Book Club an extra bottle of chardonnay, we'll read some poems from books you may have missed....

If you'd like to support Breaking Form:
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.
Buy our books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

Read more about Zando and Sarah Jessica Parker’s SJP Lit: https://zandoprojects.com/imprints/sjp-lit/

Read the entirety of Marilyn Chin's poem "How I Got that Name"

Read the title poem of Denis Johnson's collection The Incognito Lounge.

You can read more about the poet 'Annah Sobelman here, including a few poems.

Randall Jarrell's poem "Losses" appeared in August 1944 issue of Poetry Magazine. It is the title poem of his 1948 book (Harcourt). You can read Jarrell's NY Times obit here.