Denise Leto and Jennifer Bartlett: February 21, 2020

Denise Leto talks about how her neurogical condition interacts with her experience with nature. She speaks about her writing project with poet Pat Reed that they call "Aimless Wandering Without Instruction." Leto reads with Rose Giannini co-voicing: “Tend The Water With Them,” “Of Beasts,” The Scar Becomes a Scar,” “Comforted in the Deep Duress of Time,” and “The Nest of a Letter I Lay in.” She then reads from her completed manuscript The Body is a Wild Summons: “Mythical Map Of The Sea,” “We Are Each Other’s Country Now,” and “Mythical Map Of A Room.”

Jennifer Bartlett reflects on feeling fortunate to read with Denise Leto, on her job working on access issues involving the subway for the Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York City, and how she hasn’t written poetry since the 2016 Presidential election. Bartlett reads from her book (A) Lullaby Without Any Music, poems written in the form of untraditional field guides: “A Field Guide to Sound,” “Field Guide to the Body,” “Field Guide to Speech,” Field Guide to Home,” "A Body Rewritten in the Form of a Museum Piece” and “Self Portrait.” She then reads from The Hindrances of a Householder: “Portrait,” “This is a Poem About Lying,” and “Everything can be Eliminated by Water.” She ends on talking about Cave Canem, the first writing residency for poets of color, and how it inspired her to work to start a residency program for poets with disabilities—Zoeglossia, a literary organization seeking to encourage new kinds of inclusive spaces for poets with disabilities.