Season 2, Episode 3 brings you poet and inaugural Granum Foundation Prize winner, Nicole Sealey. We begin the discussion with Sealey's earlier works, The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named (Northwestern University Press, 2016) and Ordinary Beast
(Ecco, 2017). Sealey recounts her editorial decisions in her first publications, and how they sparked ideas for new work. We also explore her sources of inspiration, including a conversation with her mother, and the role of form in propelling her creations. In the second half of the episode, we discuss her award winning project, "The Ferguson Report: An Erasure," which she describes as "a lyric lamentation on police brutality." The book adapts the pages of the Department of Justice’s 2015 report, which details bias policing and court practices in Ferguson, Missouri, to create an evocative poem that strives to bring to life the stories of those who have suffered from them. 

She reads "Candelabra with Heads," "In Defense of Candelabra with Heads," "The First Person Who Will Live to Be One Hundred and Fifty Years Old Has Already Been Born," and "Object Permanence." Sealey also provides a preview from "The Ferguson Report: An Erasure."