Episode 30: Anna Lena Phillips Bell
Might Could
“Might Could.” An Appalachian and Southern English phrase that might sound a little odd to those not used to it, but it’s sweet tentativeness is so rich and lovely. And Anna Lena Phillips Bell’s new book, Might Could, which won the Anthony Hecht Prize from Waywiser Books, is that and more. The book ranges in form and style and burgeons with the troubles of the natural world and human fertility, and being a human in a world that we are hastening toward inhospitableness.
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In addition to Might Could, Anna Lena Phillips Bell is the author of Ornament, winner of the Vassar Miller Poetry Prize, and the chapbook Smaller Songs, from St Brigid Press. Poems appear in journals including The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, Electric Literature, Orion, The Sewanee Review, 32 Poems, and Subtropics, and in anthologies including Counter-Desecration: A Glossary for Writing within the Anthropocene and A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia.
Bell is the recipient of a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship in literature and the winner of the Winter Anthology Award. Her writing and artist’s books have been supported by the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Marble House Project, and Penland School of Crafts. She formerly served as senior editor at American Scientist, covering botany, ecology, and the arts, and in 2013 became editor of Ecotone, the literary magazine that seeks to reimagine place, and Lookout Books, at UNC Wilmington.
An associate professor in UNCW’s MFA and BFA programs in creative writing, Bell lives with her family near what is now called the Cape Fear River, and calls ungendered Appalachian square dances in North Carolina and beyond.
Pick up a copy of Might Could here.
Read more about Bell here.
Some notes:
Bell’s poem “Emerald” was discussed on the show. Find it here.
Bell mentioned her teacher, poet Carolyn Beard Whitlow. Here’s a poem I found of hers online that I admire.
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Coming Up: That’s a wrap for National Poetry Month. My ambitious plan to release one a week did not come to pass. But never fear, our shows with Dan Beachy-Quick and David Baker are up next, and then we’ll have Erin O’Luanaigh, and a few more planned for early summer.
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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 Image. 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, and he now works as a freelance writer and editor. Additionally, he teaches poetry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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