Annie Finch | Rattlecast 249

Annie Finch is an American poet, writer, translator, speaker, teacher, and performer. She is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Spells: New and Selected Poems. Her other works include influential essays, books, and anthologies on poetics, feminism, and women’s earth-based spirituality, including the influential book Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters. Educated at Yale and Stanford University, where she earned her Ph.D, she has lectured at universities including Berkeley, Harvard, and Oxford and performed her poetry across the United States and in India, Mexico, Africa, and throughout Europe. She was the interviewee in issue 82 of Rattle.
For more on Annie, visit her website:
anniefinch.com/
Annie also shared some links and notes on meter:
How to Scan a Poem video
• How to Scan Poetry Wit...
Substack scansion intro
anniefinch.substack.com/p/use...
How to Scan a Poem (print)
bookshop.org/a/1041/978173730...
Poetry Witch Community/Meter Magic Spiral
www.poetrywitch.org
As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins.
For links to all the past episodes, visit:
www.rattle.com/rattlecast/
This Week’s Prompt:
Write a poem set in a place you’ve always dreamed of going to but never have. Allude to all the basic senses.
Next Week’s Prompt:
Write an extended metaphor poem that features a celestial body.
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0:00 Welcome
1:25 Terry Kirby Erickson, "My Father"
7:55 Featured Guest: Annie Finch
1:16:50 Prompt Lines
2:10:15 Sciku, Next Week's Prompt & Guest

[@anniefinchpoetrywitch]

warm thanks to Tim and the wonderful Rattle Community for such a full conversation! :)

[@spencejam1]

Responding to a comment in chat around 43:00 / Tim's question about trochees. - Trochees might seem more natural in American speech, because we tend to stress prefixes, where British speakers generally stress the syllable after a prefix. This is something that American actors have train to do when dealing with classical texts as well as other dialects, like Received Pronunciation. "Prefix" doesn't fit that pattern, but for example, all of the "un" words in Richard II would be a place to see this; in fact almost every prefix that negates should not receive the stress in Shakes' verse.

[@spencejam1]

I just happened to come across this, czcams.com/video/gQ7R38Jt2kg/video.html, a day or two after catching up on this broadcast. It's Robert Hass talking about form - makes for a great pairing with what this Rattlecast talks about.