Episode 2: The podcast has landed. I am supremely grateful for early support from those of you who have listened and told me what you thought of the podcast so far.
I’ve always liked radio and voice-only communication (though, if I do say so myself, I have a face for TV—maybe only local access, but still), and considered doing this kind of thing for some time. I’m excited that I have finally made it happen.
Episode 2 features Jesse Nathan, whose first book, Eggtooth, was released last fall through the new-to-me Unbound Edition Press. I’ll start by saying this place is really doing it right. Beautiful books.
I met Jesse during Bread Loaf’s lockdown edition, in 2021, when we were both in Craig Morgan Teicher’s online workshop. It was a wonderful group, and I was impressed by Jesse’s poems right away. So of course I was very excited when I heard his first book was coming out, with an introduction by Robert Hass, no less!
Eggtooth contains a number of poems that use a stanza structure adapted from John Donne, and I find it quite marvelous how Jesse is able to bend this rather intricate rhymed stanza to his own usage. For him, it becomes a flexible storytelling loom that holds both lyric and narrative threads.
Take a listen; I hope you enjoy it!
Find the show on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Transistor, and many other podcast hosts.
Jesse Nathan was raised in northern California and rural Kansas. His first book of poems, Eggtooth, was published by Unbound Edition Press in 2023. One poem in the book, “Dame's Rocket,” was selected for the Best American Poetry 2024. The collection won the 2024 New Writers Award in Poetry from the Great Lakes College Association.
Nathan’s poetry has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, The American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, and the inaugural issue of Revel, among other magazines. His work has been supported by fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Stanford University, Bread Loaf, and the Kansas Arts Commission. He's a 2024 LABA Bay Area Fellow.
Nathan’s translations from the Popol Vuh, done with his nephew and brother-in-law, have appeared in Poetry, and they were the subject of a Poetry podcast hosted by Srikanth Reddy. He's made translations of Alfonsina Storni and Brenda Solís-Fong with his sister, and these have appeared in Mantis and Poetry International. Nathan was a founding editor of the McSweeney’s Poetry Series. Nathan’s reviews and interviews appear in the online McSweeney’s series “Short Conversations with Poets.”
He'll be teaching in the 2024 Kenyon Review Online Workshops. Nathan teaches in the English Department at UC Berkeley.
Find out more at Jesse Nathan’s website.
Grab a copy of Eggtooth.
Future Episodes:
Episode 3: Lisa Ampleman / Mom in Space
Episode 4: JL Conrad / A World in Which
Reading Recommendations:
Craig Childs’ Stone Desert is a fantastic travelogue of the author’s time as a guide in Canyonlands National Park. The new edition from Torrey House Press contains a facsimile of Childs’ original journal pages, including the sketches he made of the florae, faunae, and geologic features he noticed. I had the great pleasure to work with Childs during a nonfiction workshop outside of Zion National Park this past February. A smart and affable teacher, just like his books.
Other ways to follow the show:
Website: http://drunkasapoet.com
Instagram: @drunkasapoetonpayday
BlueSky: drunkasapoet.bsky.social
TikTok: @jgraypoet
About your host: Jason Gray is the author of the poetry books Radiation King (Idaho Prize for Poetry) and Photographing Eden (Hollis Summers Prize), and his poems and reviews have appeared in Poetry, Kenyon Review, Southern Review, American Poetry Review, and Smartish Pace. His career in publishing has brought him to the university presses of Ohio State and Wisconsin, and Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. In the summer of 2023, he was the Artist-in-Residence at Zion National Park.
A note on the podcast title. I am an unabashed fan of The Simpsons, and in Season 8, Episode 9 “El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer),” Marge attempts to stop Homer from going to the local chili cook-off, because, as she says, every time he does, he “get[s] drunk as a poet on payday.” And that has made me laugh for decades now.
I in no way endorse getting oneself overserved and behaving like a jackass, poetic or otherwise. And if you or anyone you know is struggling with alcohol, there are resources for you: Alcoholics Anonymous Al-Anon
Such a fine podcast of interviews produced by an equally fine poet—Jason Gray!