Creative Crossover

I listen to a lot of podcasts about poetry, about writing poetry, about writing in general. But I also get a lot ideas from listening to podcasts concerning other creative people, their processes, their lives, etc. Here are a few I recommend:

1) WTF with Marc Maron. This is an interview show focused on comedians. I find it extremely compelling, particularly the parts about people's career paths, their ways of being original and/or finding original material, how they perform under pressure, etc.

2) Meet the Composer with Nadia Sirota. Sponsored by WQXR New York, this show is an interview format featuring contemporary composers and showcasing their work. I love hearing about the problems they encounter in composition and how they go about solving them.

3) Radiolab hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. I've raved about this podcast before, and its still great. Stimulating science stories for everyone. New material to bounce around in your brain. I've had several poem ideas come from what I've heard on this show.

4) The Arcade the podcast of Hazlitt Magazine, hosted by Anshuman Iddamsetty. This show from Canada's Hazlitt Magazine weekly interviews someone from popular culture. Often it's someone literary, which is useful, but which doesn't necessarily fit the category of this list. It's the other interviews, particularly the cartoonists, that have surprised me with comments that I've found helpful in considering creative problems of my own.

Radiolab is Pure Genius

I've been meaning to blog about some of my favorite podcasts for a few weeks now, and today I have the perfect impetus to get started because...Jad Abumrad, one of the hosts and producers of my all-time favorite podcast Radiolab, has won a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant (putting him in the good company of  poets Kay Ryan and A. E. Stallings, also winners this year). 

Jad Abumrad (along with Robert Krulwich) tackles topics weaving science, philosophy, and often sounds and music (Abumrad is a composer) in this fascinating show that teaches you something in each episode. If you don't like science, don't worry. This is for the thinking person, but not necessarily the tekkie. Everything is clearly explained, and the bigger questions behind them are explored in historical contexts.

For me, reading and listening to popular science books and shows generates new ideas. It was from a Radiolab episode about (among other things) the chemist Dmitri Mendelev (who organized, or invented, the correct verb is debated during the podcast, the periodic table) that I came up with the idea for a poem about Mendeleev.

Some other favorite Radiolab episodes are about symmetry,  a world without words, the edge of human limits, the relationship between music and language, how cities are fundamentally different, numbers, will power, memory and forgetting, the walls of Jericho, sperm, randomness...well, clearly I could go on and on.

There's pretty much nothing they don't discuss on Radiolab. For instance, here's an episode featuring poet Mark Doty. Krulwich even gave the commencement address at my alma mater.

Available only twice a month, each episode of this show is impatiently awaited by a growing audience. You should join us!