intro (00:00)
Welcome to In Three Poems. Our featured guest today is Daniel Lurie. I'm your host, David J. Bauman. Daniel is a writer, editor, and educator from eastern Montana. He holds an MFA from the University of Ohio. Daniel writes about the environment: Judaism, rural life, gentrification, and grief. And his work has appeared or is forthcoming in literary journals and magazines like Iowa Review, Swamp Pink, Poetry Northwest, Gulf Coast, and Cutbank, among many others.

He's the co-founder and co-editor of Outskirts Literary Journal. He served as the 2025 to 2026 Ronald Wallace Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin Madison and is a current Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

David (00:42)
I'm talking

with Daniel Lurie today

man, your output this last year, 25 and 26, I was telling you before we started recording that I went through a period of time where I was just submitting constantly.

Daniel Lurie (00:54)
Mm.

David (00:55)
lately I've sort of been in more creative mode, a little bit of editing mode and obviously doing other things like this podcast. but I haven't been in submission mode for a while.

Do you find it works like that for you? Like you're you're in creative mode and then submission mode, or do you do you kind of find time throughout the your clock or calendar to do a little bit of each?

Daniel Lurie (01:15)
Feel like you kind of just get these spurts. and I think it helps when you're actively working on, you know, a project like you're talking about. So I've been working on my book all through grad school, you know, starting in 21 to now. and yeah, so there's definitely the creative spurts for it. And then, like, I'm just gonna sit down and I'm just gonna submit these 20 packets. And then I'm not gonna look at submittable and I'm not gonna think about it until those next 20 or something go out. So yeah, it's definitely, I feel like it's those spurts, but there'll be a few, you know, a couple of contests or

something like that where you know I'll throw a packet out or you know I don't want to miss something like that.

David (01:49)
So you've avoided sitting and watching submittable to see if it goes from blue to green or anything?

Daniel Lurie (01:55)
I mean I'll check it once in a while. I have the you know the big

ones out right now, like you know, the Paris Review just put my you know my packet into progress. And I'm like, cool, I'll hear back from them in a year or fifteen months or something. So yeah, but

David (02:05)
Yeah. Yeah, and it'll be a no or something. Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (02:10)
it can be it can be, you know, it can be a a killer to really just sit there and you know search through it. You can get really get sucked into that whole sort of process. Yeah.

David (02:18)
And then when you have to withdraw from a place that is is on your dream list,

so what kind of advice do you have then for for people who are submitting?

Daniel Lurie (02:28)
I you know, the whole I had a mentor who told me the whole the you know the standard 100 rejections a year.

David (02:33)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (02:34)
last year, I think I had somewhere near 160. This year I'm already sitting at 70 something. a lot of it is a numbers game. You know, it's such a it's such a subjective process when the editors read your work. It's not that they hate it. so it's really just finding journals, places that you love that you vibe with when you send it out.

And then the the other thing with it too is just like don't ever write yourself off. You know, yeah, I've

David (02:58)
Mm.

Daniel Lurie (02:58)
sent packets to places that I'm probably not going to get in. but I've been surprised and it can be such a great experience, especially for like your self-worth, to be like, Yeah, I'm just gonna go send these to a place that has a point zero one acceptance rate. So yeah, I

David (03:13)
Right. Yeah. A and that

helps me with editing too. If I know I wanna send it there then I before I send I'm I'm taking one last really good look at this, you know. Is this really ready to go? 'Cause

Daniel Lurie (03:25)
yes. Cool.

David (03:27)
now I'm being serious. not that I wasn't serious originally. But Yeah, it's I I think I love what you said about sending it to places that you love. I've told

Daniel Lurie (03:35)
Mm-hmm.

David (03:36)
people some of the best advice given to me was like, if you don't like reading

the poems at a particular magazine, why would you send your stuff there? You know.

Daniel Lurie (03:44)
Absolutely, yeah.

David (03:45)
but like you said, a lot of it too is the numbers game. And it's it's better to

Daniel Lurie (03:47)
It is. It's a it's a full

blown to numbers game. I've sent stuff out to judges before and my work hasn't even made it to the judge. I've had work go

David (03:54)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Lurie (03:54)
in front of judges where I don't write anywhere near, you know, their sort of style and they ended up picking work. also there's no shortage of just incredible literary journals that are out there. So like you can be picky. You can really be picky with it.

David (04:08)
Yeah.

Yeah. And and really, these articles that come up about, poetry's dying and it's like we're kind of in a golden age, really. We

Daniel Lurie (04:16)
We really are. Yeah.

David (04:17)
are not there are so many opportunities and good opportunities. and you know, that's part of too on this podcast where I try to have

I try to do a variety of people. I mean, we're only in season two, but I've got season three pretty much planned out. and so people who are I'm talking to now were already planning for next year in season season four in the spring. but I try to do a variety because, there are people who who aren't academic poets and people who are. I don't have an MFA, my my master's work is in library and information science. And I thought, well, so was Philip Larkins, you know.

but everybody's circumstances are a little different. And so I'll have some some academics, some non-academics, some people who have not yet published, their first book,

and I try to have some people that are maybe local that I've met at a reading or maybe met in Pittsburgh at a reading or something, but also make myself be brave enough to just reach out to somebody I've never talked to before and say, hey, do you want to be on this podcast that you've never heard of yet?

but yeah, I do. Golden Age is probably is probably totally true.

Daniel Lurie (05:17)
Yeah, absolutely. I think you know, more than ever as as voices especially that have been suppressed are really not let into, you know, we're gonna call the canon or the sort of platform that we're on. There's so many incredible voices out there. Young poets

David (05:30)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (05:30)
are incredible. I'm always inspired by my students or just young poets that I see in general, which feels weird to say young poets. I mean I'm not super old, but Yeah.

David (05:39)
Well, to me

you're a whipper snapper. No, you're not that.

Daniel Lurie (05:43)
But I mean it there's I I poetry is not dying. I mean you can cut the NEA, you can cut any of these things, and we're still gonna be here. We're s there's a reason why it's been around for thousands and thousands of years.

David (05:54)
Right, And part of the fun of doing this is that we hook into some of the the original oratory of it. heard out loud and

They're just I think meant to, however you do it, come off the page. In last season, Monica Prince,

she does performance poetry, but also that is so so intricately edited and researched. Just beautiful. There's there's such a variety of of of ways to write and perform poetry as well. So part of the fun of this whole thing is that I get to read the first poem when we do

these. And

Daniel Lurie (06:27)
That's perfect. That's preferred.

David (06:29)
and you let me choose one of yours. This was in the shore poetry.

Was it 2025? Or just this year?

Daniel Lurie (06:37)
yeah, that sounds right.

David (06:38)
And as a dad, I have a hard time reading this sometimes, so I'll hold it, I'll do my best to hold it together. I'm just gonna jump in and read it, and then I'll ask you about it afterwards. How's that? Is that okay?

Daniel Lurie (06:48)
That sounds great.

David (06:49)
Okay, it's letter I wish my father wrote from eastern Montana.

I thought I'd write to you when I got back from the underpass, smoked a few cigarettes, flicked them at the trains. When I returned to the house, your mom had fallen. I found her in that damn egg yolk kitchen, half mixed curdled milk and flour on the counter. The nurse made a house call, said she only needed a few stitches. When our conversation dropped a few weeks ago, I wondered if your mountains cut the signal.

I've got the 77 up on blocks, but I can't bring myself to work on it. The plough's still leaking fluids, spark plugs in the tin where you left them. I know you think you hate country, but I smile thinking about you. Mouthing Johnny Cash last time you were here.

Everything is muddy right now. Sour leaves and sweet rot. The neighbors finally cut down the shattered cottonwood from that storm last year. I still shovel dog shit out of the yard. Looks like the levy is going to pass, so we'll pay for something we'll never see.

Talk about what isn't said. I mean, wow. I mean there's so much in poetry that I've I've said before that it's not just what's in the line but what's between the lines.

Daniel Lurie (08:04)
Mm. Yeah.

David (08:05)
What's in the cesuras

and the pauses in the middle?

Daniel Lurie (08:08)
Absolutely. I mean there's the this this whole thing is, you know, what isn't said. Letter I wish.

David (08:14)
It's yeah.

Daniel Lurie (08:16)
And so it's there's just something that's so alluring about the epistolary form. You know, it's something

David (08:22)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Lurie (08:23)
of it allows you to to wander, it allows you to really, you know, yammer on if you want to and long and kind of seek in you know in a way that maybe other forms, don't allow you to.

David (08:36)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Lurie (08:37)
and also contain

and capture a voice and that's really what this poem is trying to do. You know, what would it sound like if the speaker's father was how they wanted them to be, to say what they wanted

David (08:47)
Hmm.

Daniel Lurie (08:48)
them to say?

David (08:49)
And yet at the same time

the speaker's father is really still being evasive in the even in the letter. So it's like you think if he's this evasive in the letter, how must this have been for the speaker in real life? And I because I know personally my dad have a poem about him where like one of our most intimate moments was me as a kid after the car broke down at my uncle

Bob's farm and I'm I'm sitting there, you know, helping to hold something while he's working at something under the hood, And like that where he never said anything to me other than, the hold the hold the flashlight kind of thing.

Daniel Lurie (09:25)
Hold the flashlight.

David (09:28)
But at the end of it, he did say, I couldn't have done it without you.

Daniel Lurie (09:31)
Mm.

David (09:32)
And it's like my dad never said stuff like that. So so that was a huge, huge moment.

But here, like even in the writing, there's these this series of evasions, you know. I thought I'd write to you when I got back from the underpass. then there's the whole when I returned to the house and your mom had fallen.

And the nurse, saying she only needed a few stitches. But you get the feeling that, well, he must have just left after that. because it skips to the evasion of when our conversation dropped a few weeks ago. And he also there's the evasion of saying, I thought maybe it was your signal.

which kind of has that the dad not taking responsibility,

Daniel Lurie (10:09)
Yeah.

David (10:10)
Yeah, I thought maybe you had a bad signal with the mountain there.

And there's just a a weight, a truckload of feeling going along with with what isn't said. And then the evasion of, yeah, I got the car up on you know, the kind of you know holding the flashlight kind of talk, like we said,

Daniel Lurie (10:24)
Yeah, yeah.

So much of my work measures or tries to examine,

expression or lack thereof of masculinity, especially in in in rural spaces.

David (10:34)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (10:35)
thinking about the stereotypes without and why there's stereotypes and what sort of representations of masculinity I had growing up in these spaces. And so I very much relate to that almost said, you know, form of of tenderness there. Like I thought I'd write to you when I got back from the underpass. So thinking about the son and then later in there, you know, the vehicle up up on blah.

You know, we worked on this together. So yeah, saying to

David (10:59)
Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (11:00)
you, I couldn't have done this without you is that form of tenderness, is that form

David (11:05)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (11:05)
of appreciation, but it needs to be said with other language.

David (11:09)
Yeah. Had have you ever seen the movie Gran Torino?

Daniel Lurie (11:14)
absolutely. Yeah.

David (11:15)
I I used that in a college linguistics course as when we were talking about doing research and about men masculinity and language.

Daniel Lurie (11:24)
Absolutely.

David (11:24)
that whole scene in the barber shop where he's trying to teach the kid how to talk like a man, you know, and then the kid goes too far

Daniel Lurie (11:32)
Yep.

David (11:33)
and he's gonna walk it down and tell the other guy to put the gun down and all of that. but

I think a lot of my life I just thought a lot of guys I went to school with were just jerks and assholes. And I and it really it surprised me studying some linguistics and thinking about my own dad and whatnot and and how he and I came around.

and I think I find it's funny, I find myself now as the youngest of six kids having to defend my 93-year-old dad saying, you know,

it's like I don't want to make excuses for him.

Daniel Lurie (12:06)
No.

David (12:07)
but I also know, you know, growing up for him, rurally thirteen kids in a farm, in an area called Croak Hollow there wasn't, you know, that whole time frame he came from, there wasn't such a thing as or at least not a lot of examples of intimacy between fathers and sons, you know, that kind of thing.

And the fact that he tries it all, you know, is a big deal.

Daniel Lurie (12:31)
It definitely, yeah. Those those poems really that not, you know, talking about mine or those one but those ones that reach for something I think are so, you know, powerful, especially when we're looking at gender or something like that. I'm always so taken, especially by yeah, the father-son relationship, which just shows the the sort of complications, you know.

David (12:52)
And I think of, you know, the Winter Sundays poem, Those Winter Sundays.

Daniel Lurie (12:56)
yes, yes, yeah.

David (12:58)
It captures that too, you know.

Daniel Lurie (12:59)
Yeah,

absolutely. You know, getting yeah, getting the horse you know, the house warmed for for the rest of the family before you know starting the day. Mm mm. Yeah.

David (13:05)
polishing my shoes and you know, I didn't even give a thought to it. And

of course y all of that can go too far and maybe excuse abuse or neglect. And of

Daniel Lurie (13:15)
Absolutely.

David (13:16)
course that's not at all what I mean to do. but when when you can recognize that

somebody trying to do something with where they came from. And I think what's so heartbreaking about this is you can see this dad in his way trying.

Daniel Lurie (13:32)
Mm-hmm.

David (13:34)
But the killer is in the fact that in the title is Letter I Wish My Father Wrote.

Daniel Lurie (13:39)
Mm.

David (13:39)
that even as distant and things not being said and things said in between is there that this never really happened. And you have that phrase that, you know, yeah, referring to taxes and the the a dike levy system or whatever, but so

Daniel Lurie (13:55)
Yeah, but

David (13:55)
we'll pay for something we'll never see.

Takes on a whole different other meaning. You know.

Daniel Lurie (14:00)
Right. It is

too, and just the I think the limitation with something like this, especially when I'm trying to write, you know, these persona or letter poems from the perspective of my parents, just the limitation of language and trying to like personify that voice, but none of the asks in this poem are

unrealistic yet big at all. Like,

David (14:20)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (14:21)
yeah, it's it's the speaker saying, or the poet be because I wrote it, type thing like

David (14:27)
Ha ha.

Daniel Lurie (14:28)
this is how I wish it was be it was, or that we could have this sort of tenderness between us, but like they're not big asks The mother still is having health issues in here, the town is still, you know, falling apart, all of these things, but it's just like just even those little moments of tenderness in here. So just maybe it's even the limitations of how the speaker.

imagines even this relationship could have been.

David (14:51)
Yeah. Yeah. You do it beautifully, Daniel.

Daniel Lurie (14:53)
I I appreciate that. Thank you. It's I

David (14:55)
very welcome. And

Daniel Lurie (14:56)
when you were reading it, I was like, this is this is just your poem now. It's it was such a good read. I was like, you can just have this.

David (15:04)
thank you.

Yeah. It's just like as a dad and my relationship with my dad and and my relationship with my sons. I could just because I was determined my sons were gonna have I was determined, first of all, my dad and I were gonna have a relationship whether he liked it or not.

Daniel Lurie (15:16)
Okay.

David (15:18)
That was after my mother passed away, you know.

Daniel Lurie (15:20)
Right, right.

David (15:22)
and it's still there's still lots of stuff in between, you know, like when when it moved from

Careful on on the way home, watch for deer. That's the

Daniel Lurie (15:29)
Mm-hmm.

David (15:30)
central Pennsylvania way of saying love you. You know.

Daniel Lurie (15:32)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, be safe. Yeah.

David (15:36)
he'd say that and I'd say, I love you too, Dad. and eventually he'd laugh and he'd go, Love you too, bud. And I said to my

Daniel Lurie (15:40)
Yeah.

David (15:41)
sons, When did I become Bud? When did that happen? You know? But that sort of softens the atmosphere intimacy, you know, by by or maybe hardens it, you know, puts some masculinity in there, bud.

Daniel Lurie (15:51)
Yeah.

David (15:51)
Not

so dangerous. So I can thank you. It is so that's some of the fun of it is taking somebody else's work and imagining how should this be voiced.

Daniel Lurie (16:01)
Mm.

David (16:02)
You know, is this a line break that is wanting to focus on this word, or is it a line break that's in jammed that wants to pull me into the next line? And and that's that's part of the the fun of exploring it. And I feel like I don't

For me, that's kind of my method, reading them out loud. I

Daniel Lurie (16:17)
Mm.

David (16:18)
do that a lot when I'm reading poetry alone, you know, and I really caught onto something. I want to go back and, you know, no one else is in the living room and I read it out loud. Or if Brian is, I say, Brian, can I read this to you? Okay.

Daniel Lurie (16:29)
Yeah. It's

such a missed opportunity if you don't I I always ask my students, Well, did you read this out loud? You know, when they're like something they're No, I didn't do that. I'm like, we'll give it a shot, you know, and they'll they'll catch

David (16:39)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (16:39)
something in there. and also I think

David (16:42)
It's also a great

editing tool when you're writing.

Daniel Lurie (16:44)
Yes. Yeah, it definitely is for redundancies. and then yeah, the little the little Easter egg thing, which anyone who would see or look at this poem, it's in a sonnet format. So little Easter egg there

David (16:55)
Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that. Like

Daniel Lurie (16:57)
of like because we know that a sonnet can be, you know, some sort of love thing or appreciation. So it's another unsaid sort of thing from the speaker's, you know, father that's there but contained.

David (17:08)
In a way, it's a love poem of the speaker to himself,

Daniel Lurie (17:11)
Yeah.

David (17:11)
giving himself maybe what

He wasn't given from his dad that he needed.

Daniel Lurie (17:15)
Yeah, yeah, there is again, when you were talking about that, yeah, love you bud or whatever, that's sort of it's the that risk of of getting too close. And and and now that we're talking about it, I see that happening here. But I smile thinking about you, Mal thinking Johnny Cash last time are you were here and it it's getting too close. Everything is muddy right now, bringing it back to the landscape, to the town. which I adore about rurality and people from these spaces that we need to bring it back to.

To

because the things that we're going to talk about are where we live, which is a form of sort of tenderness. And even at the end, so we'll pay for something we never see. The speaker is still being anchored and pulled back to this landscape here.

David (17:56)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Lurie (17:58)
but yeah, it's so it's it's interesting, and I love it you say that. The the way that it's kind of it's the speaker talking to themselves, obviously,

David (18:05)
Mm.

Daniel Lurie (18:06)
with it. what's interesting is this this poem is hard to pin down.

And then going back to talking about submissions, I sent this one out forever and people

David (18:14)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (18:15)
didn't seem interested in it. This was one of those ones that I kept sending

David (18:18)
Really?

Daniel Lurie (18:18)
out there. It was so different to my other work. I hadn't really done the whole persona thing. This was kind of a standalone. At one point, I think it really was called Letter from Eastern Montana or something, which truly

David (18:31)
Hm.

Daniel Lurie (18:31)
changed it. So a title change really carried the charge that this needed.

David (18:35)
Yeah.

anything else you want to say about that w this one

Daniel Lurie (18:38)
I love that you picked it. Yeah.

I think it's it's that one that could you know, it's you have those poems that just stick around. I've

David (18:44)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Lurie (18:45)
swapped so much out, especially with the manuscript, and this is one of the only remaining earlier poems that's there. And

David (18:51)
Mm.

Daniel Lurie (18:52)
it just feels like it's necessary. and it really also paved the way for the sort of epistolary through line that kind of shows up in this collection.

David (19:00)
tell me about the poem that you chose to read of yours.

Daniel Lurie (19:02)
Yeah, so I went through and we kinda and I mean do you want me to start with reading it or

David (19:06)
You can just

jump right in if you want and then we can talk about it after. I like it that way.

Daniel Lurie (19:10)
Okay, perfect.

Family portrait featuring a Talala, Oklahoma sunset, bleeding across a late July sky like a delicious head wound. Mom is still alive, riding the turn of the sentry's collarbone. Dad skips dinner to work, but we know the glow from his office's window is a world of Warcraft raid.

My brother is in the Tulsa County lockup for the night after stealing DVDs in the garden section of Walmart. There's a giant pool that wobbles like a mouth, spilling secrets from my sisters push the sides down. Water fills pockets in the dirt, and I scoop out earthworms, grasshoppers, and rolly pulleys. I've never seen the ocean, but I imagine these are tide pools.

Mom says we'll move to the coast someday. Maybe we'll leave Dad and my brother behind. Thick swarms of mosquitoes open blooms like science fair volcanoes on our skin. The birds are molting, hungry, hummingbirds sucking at nectar, chickadees and wrens at the feeder, killldeer retreating with a cold hot dog. Bats smudge dusk in soft pastels.

Lightning bugs emerge, and mom shows us how to softly fill a jar with eyes. The neighbors are jealous of our leftover black cats. Mom even lets me light one of the fuses. I dive into the tall grass and forget the ticks when a whale like an uncaged animal fills the night sky. Silence, then bursting of color, slipstream, like a little god spent a million dandelion spores.

David (20:55)
Hmm. There's so much cool imagery.

Daniel Lurie (20:59)
And with this one, I mean it's it really is kind of just you know, ripping off that sort of epistolary. which I mean we could get into a very long conversation about prose, you know, poetry. something like this. This one was you know is deeply inspired by Richard Siken's new collection.

David (21:15)
Mm.

Daniel Lurie (21:16)
You know, I do know some things, which is in it's

David (21:19)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (21:19)
insane, insane. but the prose poet you know, the prose poem, thinking about containment sort of

in the same way as that epistolary form. I'm always thinking about what happens when you let things leak out and

what happens with fragmentation, especially with line breaks, stanza breaks, and this poem felt too fraught and too disparate to really try to break up. I know I tried, I tried with lines, I tried with with different forms. but I think it's also such a great way for you to snapshot a moment or kind of try to hold things together. and that's really

David (21:59)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Lurie (21:59)
what this this poem is trying, you know, to to work toward.

David (22:03)
and yet you have so much music in this. maybe more so sonically than the one that I read.

Daniel Lurie (22:09)
Mm.

David (22:09)
you've got the the July sky alive, you know, all in that first line.

I love riding the turn of the century's collarbone.

But you've also got like we know the glow.

the and window as well and World of Warcraft, those W's in there. So so it's definitely it's definitely got the the sonically musical, even though it's not broken into lines in the same way, you know, as as the other poem.

Daniel Lurie (22:35)
Yeah, it's it's in in this poem's

David (22:36)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (22:38)
dressed up too. You know, I do this a lot with and you know, poets do this. We yeah, of course we do. We dress it up, we dress it up with language. and there's so much that's buried in here. Obviously the relationship with the father and with the brother, and these things

David (22:51)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Lurie (22:52)
are like the letter poem are

There are sentiments that can't be said outright and they need to be dressed up in it. But I mean, arguably this landscape, and it was, you know, the first almost decade of my life, I grew up in Talala, Oklahoma. I think at that point there was maybe a couple hundred people that lived there. We had a water tower and a gas station down the street.

David (23:11)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (23:12)
You really have to like look for that admiration for landscape and where you are to appreciate it. which

is something that you don't really think about that much, I think, when you're a kid, because you're just caught up in everything that's happening in your little bubble of life. And so

David (23:27)
Right.

Daniel Lurie (23:27)
it's really interesting to try to re-enter that space as an adult. You know, I'm almost thirty at this point.

David (23:33)
And you describe so

well the the wobbly unsupported walls of a of a swimming pool. Like I know exactly what kind of swimming pool that is. Wobbles

Daniel Lurie (23:41)
Yeah, but

David (23:42)
like a mouth and the tide pool, you know, the these are what like tide pools are. Like perfect. That's perfect.

Daniel Lurie (23:48)
I love that little pool, yeah. Yeah.

David (23:50)
I've noticed some of your poems you you do focus on that and not in a prurient way on

describing things as a mouth. I know there was another poem I of yours I I read that you were in an you

Daniel Lurie (24:00)
I do, I do.

David (24:02)
were in it was it was one about figure emergency contact. And you talked

Daniel Lurie (24:07)
yes, yeah.

David (24:08)
about folding the paper in like the shape of a mouth and kind of looking at the room through that.

Daniel Lurie (24:13)
Yep, yep. Mouths, yeah, it's those things, you know, it's the whole Richard Hugo triggering towns, our obsessions, which we really

David (24:19)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (24:20)
are. Poets are so confined but also freed by your obsessions once you give into them. And I feel like it's the same with it's the same way with language. And so mouths show up and of course birds. There's so many birds in this collection, in this poem in particular. and fingers.

David (24:37)
And I've never seen a killdeer eat a

piece of a hot dog, so that was good to know.

Daniel Lurie (24:40)
Yeah, Killdeer yeah.

And I have such an affinity for those birds that aren't the f the brightest. and that's Killdeer you know, putting their they're always

David (24:50)
The nest just out in the

parking lot of the yarn factory up the street.

Daniel Lurie (24:54)
They would, they

would. We had a gravel r you know, driveway in in outside of this place and they would put their eggs in there. It's perfect camouflage and then my sister would come through to weed whack the driveways and that would also include the eggs that were hidden in there.

So yeah, but yeah, mouse. It's a that's that is something that shows up a lot in my poems. moons. I've become obsessed with mo with moons and bones.

David (25:19)
And other body

parts here with eyes as the the fireflies and eyes.

Daniel Lurie (25:22)
Yes, yeah.

David (25:24)
That's that's that's a really great image.

Daniel Lurie (25:26)
It's I think I mean the most in in this so many other people have talked about this and probably put it better, but I mean it's really just that like looking for ourselves in landscape really is what it is. Is one of the I think the the easiest way to embed ourselves in and sort of you know, sort of personifying or anthropomorphizing it.

David (25:46)
I think that's one of the fun things too, though looking at nostalgia and childhood poems, because it's easier to see that in those poems

Daniel Lurie (25:53)
Yeah.

David (25:54)
now.

Daniel Lurie (25:54)
It and it definitely is. And maybe that really is, you know, something with this poem of like these things can't break out of of this poem. They cannot break out of this prose block because then they b they bring with them all of the the sort of interrogation of the

David (26:09)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (26:09)
present speaker or something like that. And so I there are there are some prose poems that I have where

They they can't be any other form. They can't be broken open because it it then becomes too complicated and muddled by a present-day speaker.

David (26:23)
And I will have links too, because all the poems we talk about today I think are all available online. And I'll have links in the show notes. Or if one you're on YouTube, they'll be down in the description. so people can get a a chance to look at the way it the way it's presented on the page,

But then you chose to read a poem by somebody else that is shaped very differently.

Daniel Lurie (26:43)
Right. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

David (26:46)
by Ocean Vuong a surprising poem I would say, called You Guys. what made you choose this, may I ask?

Daniel Lurie (26:54)
I can't stop thinking about it. And those are the those are the points. I mean, that's Ocean in general. I just Ocean is incredible. and I really wish that I could have made his tour, you know, as he came through with

David (27:03)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (27:03)
his book. Even Emperor of Gladness is a perfect novel. It is insane. If you have not read it, I think anyone should read it. I've been telling everyone about it. They should probably give me a commission at this point.

David (27:14)
And

and the things he said about well, talking about men masculinity and language, you know, about how even in in whether it's sports or academic competition or whatever, you're killing it,

Daniel Lurie (27:26)
Yeah.

David (27:27)
you beat him, you know, that there's this this language of violence in in everything. and the way he gently bumps up against that it's beautiful.

Daniel Lurie (27:34)
Yeah.

David (27:35)
I don't want to give too much of the poem away though before you read it.

Daniel Lurie (27:38)
Absolutely. Yeah. And just the well and well and this is something, you know, I think that is is relevant. you know, I I also always, you know, sort of frame this for my students to look in this way, of like kind of looking and measuring between how that violence and tenderness shows up in a poem. Because arguably

David (27:55)
Hmm.

Daniel Lurie (27:55)
it's something that you can measure with any poem when you try to look

David (27:58)
Hmm.

Daniel Lurie (27:59)
at it, whether it's the language or the image, the rhythm, there's those moments of range of of violence or tenderness that's in there.

David (28:06)
Interesting.

Daniel Lurie (28:07)
And this poem by Ocean, I mean, just just does that. The the sort of just tonal switches that we have.

David (28:12)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (28:13)
yeah, should we should we read it? Okay. yeah, I have it

David (28:15)
Yeah, please do.

Daniel Lurie (28:17)
right here. It's yeah, a little bit of a a little bit of a longer one. But yeah, not a prose block, not an epistolary.

David (28:24)
So we talk about similarities and differences here. So that's part of the fun of it. Yeah, the the contrast is exciting as well.

Daniel Lurie (28:24)
okay. I gotta show some range in here. I mean it's gonna look yeah.

But yeah, this is from his newest poetry collection, Time as a Mother, out from Penguin. And it's called You Guys.

You guys.

Brushing my teeth at two in the morning, I say over my shoulder, You guys, you guys, I'm serious. What are we going to make of this mess? My voice muffled with winter green foam. What are we going to do now that it hurts when I look at those I love like you two, you who have been through so much together, the thick in skin of it. I'm proud of you both, I say as the foam pinkens through my lips. I'm told our blood is green, but touches.

Is the world with endings my name a place where I've waited for collisions. You guys are you listening? I'm sorry for being useful only in language. Are you still with me? I ask, as I peer into the tub where I place them gently down the two white rabbits I'd found on Harris Street, the way back from Emily's where we watched American Dad on her mom's birthday, her mom who would have been fifty six this year, we ate.

rocky road in bowls with blue tulips. I'm too tired, she said, to be this happy. And we laughed without moving our hands, perhaps. The rabbits are lovers or sisters sometimes. It's hard to tell gender from breathing. Earlier I had scooped down from the pavement. They were crushed but only kinda one had a dented half face. The others back flattened like a courage sock. I cradled them wetly in my sweatshirt.

But now the tub is a red world, save for the silent island of fur flickering in my fugitive words. Guys, I say, just wait for me, all right. Just wait a bit longer. I swear I'll leave this place spotless. When I'm done, I say, reaching back to my wisdom teeth, forgetting it's been four years since they are gone.

No punctuation in there. very interesting in in there. No punctuation whatsoever on the page. Yeah, kind of for people actually seeing the video, it kind of just scatters across the page.

David (30:44)
And and if

you if you look at it on the link that I'll give is I think it was originally published in Granta and there

Daniel Lurie (30:51)
okay.

David (30:52)
are a couple of little differences that I didn't notice until I heard you read it directly from the book

Daniel Lurie (30:56)
As

in the the poem has changed a little bit.

David (30:59)
Just yeah, just some minor little edits. And that's always fascinating too so when to see the differences

Daniel Lurie (31:03)
Yeah, yeah, that is interesting with it.

David (31:07)
like he'd switched out it's hard to tell sex from breathing to it's hard to tell gender from breathing in the book, apparently.

Daniel Lurie (31:12)
Yeah.

David (31:14)
so interesting. D and it works both ways, I can see. different

Daniel Lurie (31:17)
Mm-hmm.

David (31:18)
you know,

Are are the rabbits lovers or sisters? You know, it's hard to tell.

Daniel Lurie (31:21)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

David (31:24)
And not just it's hard to tell the difference, it's hard to tell gender from breathing or sex from breathing.

Daniel Lurie (31:29)
Yeah.

David (31:30)
and if you've ever I raised rabbits when I was young, 'cause like, you know, a rural thing, I guess. I built my own rabbit cages and all that kind of stuff.

but yeah, huddling together. And it's so surprising because at first I'm thinking, you know, these are he's hanging out with they all must have been out partying or something. He's brushing his teeth at two A.

Daniel Lurie (31:47)
Yeah.

David (31:48)
And

At first I'm thinking, is this like siblings, parents? No, it's two AM. He's talking to you guys, so they must be friends of his. They must have been out. And he was out, but what he is who he's talking to are these two rabbits that is it turns out are more damaged than I thought.

Daniel Lurie (32:06)
Mm-hmm.

David (32:07)
He didn't just pick up two stray rabbits. I mean, they were hurt. And ooh.

Daniel Lurie (32:10)
Yeah. It's it's just

it's sho I mean it's shocking as you go through and it would be so i you know easy to give to the reader, like you know, quicker getting to those rabbits that are in the but we but we stop

David (32:22)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (32:23)
where I place them gently down the two white rabbits I found on st then we move to that moment with the friend and the sort of con you know consoling her after her her mother prematurely died. and then we really don't return.

David (32:35)
Yeah, because it's

it's we're having on her mother's birthday, but then it's like who would have been fifty six? you know, so it's he doesn't reveal everything

Daniel Lurie (32:39)
Right. Who would have been, yeah.

David (32:42)
at first.

Daniel Lurie (32:43)
It it just the folding in here is so it's it's astounding. I mean this this is the the poem that's gonna stick in the back of your mind and until you die and then beyond.

David (32:53)
Yeah. And you don't even realize at first, like he's brushing his teeth.

Daniel Lurie (32:57)
Mm-hmm.

David (32:57)
and what was it that that led me to believe

yeah, as I say as the foam pinkens, you know,

Daniel Lurie (33:02)
Mm-hmm.

David (33:03)
you realize, he's brushing his teeth. He's either got very sensitive gums or he's brushing his teeth so hard he's made himself bleed. You know, because

Daniel Lurie (33:08)
Right. Right.

David (33:09)
then he goes into the the the blood is green, but

touches the world with endings, my name, a place. foreshadowing

Daniel Lurie (33:17)
yeah, yeah.

David (33:19)
of what else is there in that tub.

Daniel Lurie (33:21)
It is. I mean, it's such a great yeah, the foreshadowing in here is is is fantastic. I mean, it's it's surreal and even somewhat horrific when you realize that both of you know the rabbits, you're like, it's kind of strange that there's just two rabbits just chilling in the tub, like maybe he found them, you know. People do and that it's such a a brill thing too for like, yeah, for you I mean, it was such an issue or I grew up along a major highway where people would just dump, you know, their cats and dogs and also rabbits. And so you would see like fifty rabbits.

It's

you know, white ones and spotted and just they weren't the kind you know, the kind

David (33:54)
That you know aren't

natural. Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (33:56)
Yeah. And you would just see them out there. so yeah, maybe he did pick up two, you know, two rabbits and then bring them back. But there's that's there's that sort of notion, and this is what I'm talking about, of like trying to tow, you know, that line between tenderness and violence, of trying to hold something after the fact and still holding

David (34:13)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Lurie (34:13)
that friend's, you know, grief with it, holding the rabbits after they've already been massacred and trying to to give them some sort of to to console them when it it's impossible.

David (34:22)
And

hard to tell gender from breathing. Then you realize

Daniel Lurie (34:26)
Yeah, absolutely.

David (34:27)
when you look back at it after more is revealed and you like there's that that almost desperate hopeful are are they still breathing? Are they, you know?

Daniel Lurie (34:35)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

And then at the end there, you know, I'll leave this place spotless when I'm done, like trying to you know, this place. Obviously we're talking about the world, you know, something like that. Reach back to my wisdom teeth, forgetting it's been four years since they're gone. And so it's like, gosh, like you know, life just moves so fast.

that grief still manifests its way. know, it's something that you can always count on.

David (34:58)
I mean, the poem is a trip, you

Daniel Lurie (35:00)
Yeah.

David (35:01)
know. and I think one of the things it really has in common, as I was starting to say it it looks so different on the page from

Daniel Lurie (35:08)
Mm-hmm.

David (35:09)
say the prose poem or the sonnet that we looked at. But one of the things that that really connects it, I think, in a way that I didn't expect was that concept of of what isn't said,

Daniel Lurie (35:20)
Mm-hmm.

David (35:20)
or maybe what isn't said yet.

Daniel Lurie (35:22)
Right.

David (35:23)
Or what is left unsaid that you have to imagine. and he f he does it in a very different form, in a di very different way.

As well as those those interesting lines that that happen because if it were punctuated it would sometimes happen in the middle of a line.

Daniel Lurie (35:37)
Mm-hmm.

David (35:39)
I think it like the rabbits are lovers or sisters sometimes. that if you had made that a period after sisters, then it would be sometimes it's hard to tell sex or gender. hard to tell gender from breathing.

it's one of the things that is so cool about poetry is is being able to say a lot of different things in the smallest amount of words or the space between words, you know. And so when you read a line just on its own like that, sometimes when you when a line lives on its own in a very intriguing way,

Daniel Lurie (36:11)
Mm-hmm.

David (36:12)
even separate from from the next line or from from the sense of the whole.

The rabbits are love are lovers or sisters sometimes.

the tub is a red world save for the silent. You know what

Daniel Lurie (36:22)
Mm-hmm.

David (36:23)
I mean? And and there that opens it up to be something bigger than just the tub.

Daniel Lurie (36:26)
Yeah, yeah. And on the the page where this is originally published, it's a s it's a single stanza, right? That goes Okay. Yeah.

David (36:34)
I believe so, yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (36:35)
So it's a little bit I mean, just thinking about how yeah, especially with how long this is, because in this book it spans three pages. So the fact that

David (36:42)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Lurie (36:43)
you sort of have to make that movement and keep go it's it's jarring and it's overwhelming with no punctuation and this sort of

You're not supposed to be grounded in here and it's supposed to be overwhelming. And yeah, the first time I read it, I had to go back through and read it again because it just was so fast.

David (36:58)
And it adds like a almost a

a surreal Frank O'Hara breathlessness to it without the punctuation. But at the

Daniel Lurie (37:02)
Mm-hmm. It does too. And also

David (37:06)
same time oddly slows you down because you're trying to figure it out where that punctuation might be.

Daniel Lurie (37:09)
You're trying to figure out yeah, even

though I this is not something I've read out loud before. So like yeah, trying to figure out where you would even try to take an actual breath as you move 'cause like, you know, literally you would not take a breath until this poem is done. You would need to be like Michael Phelps or something reading with it.

Yeah, so just trying to figure out how to read it and it it just the disjointedness, but also the way you talk about that with the you guys. We think that this is a yeah, like everyone's stuck in a you know, in the bathroom, the speaker Yeah. Yeah.

David (37:36)
Hey you guys, you guys, what are we gonna do with this mess?

Daniel Lurie (37:39)
Were we yeah, what are we gonna do with this? You they've come back from a party, this the speaker's brushing their teeth, you know, when you're drunk, you do the oddest things and you gotta, you know, watch

David (37:46)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Lurie (37:47)
out for your your you know your dental hygiene. and then just yeah, the the unveiling, that sort of unveiling to the violence or what's happened, you know, left in the tub. this poem is it's just so good.

David (37:57)
Yeah.

And I I was reading an article in the Williams Record I am assuming the Williams Record is a university magazine, I believe. and this was written by Lily Goldberg when she was talking about him reading in November of two thousand eighteen. and she says, Vuong spoke on his desire to get away from the forward momentum,

expected of artists at all times. Upon answering a question about his poem Daily Bread, Vuong discussed the artistic process and the importance of waiting for things to come.

Daniel Lurie (38:27)
Mm.

David (38:28)
This poem comes from the idea that you can stay still and s still do work. And that made me think about, my God, so often in these little conversations I end up ending by saying, So what are you working on next? And

I remember reading something else about that recently and I thought, my God, I don't mean that as pressure on anyone.

Daniel Lurie (38:47)
Right.

David (38:48)
It's just, you know, we only have like half an hour or so that we're talking. And

Daniel Lurie (38:52)
Mm-hmm.

David (38:53)
I know, you know, maybe you're promoting a book, or maybe somebody hasn't, put out a book yet, or

This doesn't specifically have to do with that poem, but

The expectations maybe? I don't know.

Daniel Lurie (39:03)
I I love that. I think that I mean this applies so well to this poem because again we don't we don't get to know what's happening with the rabbits, the image in there. Asking

David (39:11)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (39:11)
a reader

To stay for three pages is a lot. You know, we're

David (39:14)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (39:15)
thinking about attention span of things and how we have now reels and these short things we have, you know, poems that are formatted for Instagram and sort of to be digestible.

there's even the stigma of like if you write a poem that's over, you know, a page or something, like you're cutting down on your chances of it getting published or something. And there's all, you know, the stigma of that too.

David (39:36)
We've all counted

lines when you're sending things somewhere. They want it this long.

Daniel Lurie (39:38)
Absolutely. Yeah. Don't send

a poem that's more than nor than you know 19 lines or whatever. and I and I talk about this so often with other poets and I also feel like it is gendered in a way of where

David (39:49)
Mm.

Daniel Lurie (39:49)
needing permission to move to a second page.

David (39:53)
Hmm.

Daniel Lurie (39:54)
Or feeling like you need permission when it's literally our own poem, our own language, our own words.

but I do feel like it is very much a gendered thing too. If you look at if you look at male, female poets, and then obviously, you know, when we're looking at it, you know, historically or something, obviously that landscape has changed a lot with you know trans and non-binary poets and stuff. But yeah, I feel like it's so interesting to need to feel like you need permission to move to that to that section.

page in there and so what ocean's talking about about I love that staying in a spot but doing that work unfolding just like this poem in the bathroom makes so much sense. It doesn't really move anywhere else per se.

David (40:31)
There's a there's a something, Taoistic about that, you know, waiting for it to come or working with the flow of something rather than trying to force your will upon it.

Daniel Lurie (40:41)
Right, right.

David (40:42)
But I think the expectation for output as well as answers and conclusions, or

Daniel Lurie (40:49)
Mm-hmm.

David (40:49)
you know, okay, you've done this, what's the next thing? and again, in those digestible quick chunks, like you said, or

Daniel Lurie (40:55)
Mm-hmm.

David (40:55)
they're saying, you gotta post reels daily and all of that. Of course, all those views on Instagram.

for the podcast don't necessarily always translate into you know, downloads and listens to the podcast.

So if you are listening to the podcast, please like and follow and all that stuff. Spread I should put in some more commercials in the middle, I guess, like this.

Daniel Lurie (41:10)
See, that they already got you. You already

got you.

David (41:19)
so what what else did you want to say about this before we close things up? We could talk all day, I'd love it.

Daniel Lurie (41:24)
I just love Yeah, I mean just to e just that just the moments, you know, where they slow down. You know, Emily's where we watched American Dad and her mom's birthday party. I just think it's it also

David (41:34)
And you've got

I'm sorry, you've got that sort of summer celebration that in there as well.

Daniel Lurie (41:39)
Mm. Yeah, yeah, balls of blue tulips.

I'm too tired, she said, to be this happy is so like

David (41:45)
Mm.

Daniel Lurie (41:45)
especially when yeah, when you're supposed to be you're supposed to be grieving or whatever those rules are. whether

David (41:51)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (41:52)
it be, you know, religious grieving or your own personal thing and you're like, I'm supposed to be crying right now, I'm not supposed to be happy. Grief is such a just yeah, the way you measure it is such a strange concept and it's so isolated as well, because

when you're the one in it, you keep it, you stay with it. And so, you know, the people, the friends or family, whoever it is that check on you for those first few weeks, that's sort of the customer, you know, type of thing. my family's Jewish, so it's a little bit different as far as like sitting Shiva and things like that.

but yeah, the way that you sort of sit with it and will sit with it for the rest of your life, I think this poem really shows that.

David (42:27)
That's an interesting I mean he and he never does fully say I mean, I suspect these rabbits are no longer alive.

Daniel Lurie (42:34)
Mm-hmm.

David (42:34)
But he doesn't really say that. there's the evidence of blood.

in the the the color of the water there's the the

Daniel Lurie (42:39)
Every

David (42:40)
the description of the the one with the sort of looks like maybe broken back and the other one with the face. And at first, you know, I'm reading it hopefully thinking, you know, like when I raised rabbits like, you know, minil lops, they have like a pushed in face. And

Daniel Lurie (42:52)
Mm-hmm.

David (42:53)
but then I realized it's it's it's worse than that.

and so in a way it's interesting that you bring up sitting Shiva. In a way he's

Daniel Lurie (43:00)
Mm-hmm.

David (43:01)
Maybe he's doing that in this poem, sort of and and the rabbits are standing in for something

Daniel Lurie (43:06)
Yeah.

David (43:07)
else, somebody else.

Daniel Lurie (43:08)
It's hard not to imagine it as being sort of something that is like grotesque because yeah, I very much read both of these rabbits have been run over or something. you know, dented and what does it say? The the line in there, which I had to look it up before and I had this whole conversation with my partner about it with what is it? they were crushed, but only kinda. One had a dented half face, the other's back flattened like a courage sock, which I had to look up a courage sock, because I had a different I thought it was something else.

David (43:36)
What is it? 'Cause I didn't

actually look that up. I'm

Daniel Lurie (43:38)
I

thought it was gonna be something to do with like I thought it was like I don't even know why, like a cum sock or something, you know, like the like you know, American pie or like, but like looked it up

David (43:47)
Right.

Daniel Lurie (43:47)
and they're like these literal like flashy socks that like men with suits wear that say like you are brave and you are proud. And I was just

David (43:54)
gosh.

Daniel Lurie (43:55)
like, what I was like

It was hard to take seriously. If you wear courage socks or anyone else does, it's no judgment. But I'm like, I don't think I'd be

David (44:03)
Wow.

Daniel Lurie (44:04)
which is so interesting, and I'm not sure if obviously that was the intention, you know, with Ocean in there. But what what then what do you do? You have these two dead rabbits in your tub. If they were alive, you have to keep them alive, you have to feed them, you have to bring them somewhere else. But the fact that they're dead on the road, he picked them up, brought them back, and put them in the tub. So many of those other things, when we think about it, it's not even ethically, it's like in a sand.

sanitary level, it's it's these things that make you like involuntarily cringe at it.

David (44:31)
Well it's it's it's very if Edgar Allan Poe had more empathy in his work. You

Daniel Lurie (44:36)
Yeah.

David (44:38)
know what I mean? It's very very that. you get a little

Daniel Lurie (44:41)
Right. And it is. It's

David (44:42)
bit of you get a little bit of Bates Motel feeling but with it's this

Daniel Lurie (44:45)
It i and it is, it really is. I mean it's

David (44:47)
intimacy and love and and I apologize, Ocean, if that if that doesn't sound like a compliment. I mean it as one. Because it's intriguing.

Daniel Lurie (44:53)
It it really it definitely does though.

And and this is something that I think some of my maybe more surreal poems try to do in general. And the

David (45:01)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Lurie (45:02)
one that you were talking about us possibly reading with the toes that are in there. My partner

David (45:07)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (45:08)
my partner hates that poem. She's like it just she's like the toes rattling, it bothers, but like I kind of want to write more like hor horror poetry. I wanna write more like I haven't come across like a lot. I mean, obviously we think about Edgar Allan Poe and these different things.

these sort of like yeah, horror-esque you know, ways in it. And I really see that sort of operating in this poem. Like it's somewhat, it's it's kind of awful that they're dead and they're crushed and they're in the tub. And then there's the question of like, what do you do with it? But then the speaker's holding them in his shirt, and he's trying to hold his friend's like dead mother, and like that's so tender.

David (45:43)
And and he is, he's even asking, you know, you guys, you guys, what are we gonna do with this mess?

Daniel Lurie (45:47)
Yeah.

David (45:48)
Both literally and of course, you know, figuratively, maybe with, you know, his friends, but his friends, the mother, but but also in a broader sense, you know, my life, this

Daniel Lurie (45:57)
Mm-hmm.

David (45:58)
life in general, you know,

Daniel Lurie (45:59)
Yeah, yeah.

David (46:00)
Beautiful work. Thank you to Penguin for allowing us to read it.

what else do you wanna say before we go? let us I I already asked you a little bit about the book, and I don't wanna put pressure on what's your next project?

Daniel Lurie (46:11)
Yeah.

I mean it's it's it really is this move I to the bay, I think is gonna be big.

David (46:17)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (46:18)
you know, a move out there, I'm gonna have two years

David (46:20)
As a

Daniel Lurie (46:21)
so incredibly grateful for the time and space. and it's it's finishing this book. It's getting close. You know, this book is here and I think it's at a point of where

It does need to be contained like a prose block and I need to work with what's in there instead of continuing to let new work leak in. but who knows? because I fully gutted my first manuscript completely. So that may just happen

David (46:41)
Well,

Daniel Lurie (46:41)
again.

David (46:42)
I have just I know that I have enjoyed reading your poems here and there, and I was so happy you were enthusiastic on Instagram about the podcast and delightful.

to to have you here and be able to talk about these poems with you.

Daniel Lurie (46:54)
Thank you. I mean, yeah, thank you so much. I yeah, I adore this. This it's not even a project, this service that you're doing to the community. I love the literary community. that's the only way, you know, that you and I obviously met. and whether it's publications or anyone reading your your work or anything out there, like the only reason why that's happening is because of the community. Like I would

David (47:15)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (47:15)
still write, you know, I think Chen Chen posted about this the other day. Like, even if publishing didn't exist or there wasn't anything, like we'd still do it.

for yourself

David (47:23)
Yeah.

Daniel Lurie (47:24)
if that's the reason why you're writing poetry. But I'm so incredibly grateful when anyone ever wants to take a chance or read my work or you know when you're doing a project like this and you you have me on here. So thank you so much.

David (47:36)
And it's so much fun to get a chance to hear it in people's words and to be able to, like I said, wrap your own lips around it. and compare notes and just talk about isn't it just so cool that we get to do this? How frickin' lucky are we? Dark poetry or not. Amen.

Daniel Lurie (47:46)
It is. It's so cool. And poetry is alive and well.

David (47:52)
Golden age, as we said.

Well thank you, Daniel, again. And look at the links down in the show notes and follow Daniel on Instagram and all the other places. Thanks again.

Daniel Lurie (48:04)
Thank you.

outro (48:04)
Our first poem was Letter I Wish My Father Wrote from Eastern Montana. That was by Daniel, read as it appeared in the shore poetry. And our second poem, A Family Portrait, featuring a Talala, Oklahoma sunset, also written and read by Daniel Lurie. That was published in Southwest Review. Our third poem was You Guys by Ocean Vuong read by Daniel, and we had a wonderful time talking about that. It's from the book Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong

Published by Penguin Press an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright 2022 by Ocean Vuong Thank you to Penguin Press once again for the permission to read it here on the podcast. Again, this has been In Three Poems. Follow us on Instagram and all the places, and be sure to share the podcast if you enjoy listening. Thank you so much. See you next time.