We read from Matthew's newest book and also the poem My Father's Locker by James Ciano.
Matthew Nienow’s recently released collection, If Nothing (Alice James Books, 2025), has been recommended by the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post Book Club, Publishers Weekly, and Poetry Northwest. He is also the author of House of Water (Alice James Books, 2016) and three earlier chapbooks. His poems and essays have appeared in Gulf Coast, Lit Hub, New England Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry, and have been recognized with fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and Artist Trust. He lives in Port Townsend, Washington, with his wife and sons, where he works as a mental health counselor.
In this episode of The Hive Poetry Collective, host Julie Murphy talks with poet Preeti Vangani about humor, loss, and the surprising ways joy can hold our grief. The episode opens with Vangani reading Ross Gay’s beloved poem “To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian,” setting the tone for an exploration of abundance and community. Vangani then reads several poems from her new collection of poems Fifty Mothers available here for presale. discusses craft, memory, lineage, and the intergenerational textures of care. She reflects on her workshops in Writing Grief Through Joy, and the surprising healing possibilities that emerge when poetry turns its attention toward the everyday.A warm, intimate conversation with one of today’s most compelling emerging poets. Sunday night at 8 p.m. on KSQD Santa Cruz 90.7, 89.7, and 89.5 FM, or anytime at HivePoetry.org.
Three “bees” from The Hive Poetry Collective warm your minds with cozy—and existential–conversation about winter poems as we draw closer to the Winter Solstice.
Roxi Power talks with Julia Chiapella and Parker Shabala live in the Santa Cruz KSQD radio station about poetry ranging from Shakespeare’s sonnet to his beloved about aging to Elizabeth Robinson’s new poetry about members of the unhoused community surviving frostbite. We talk about winter’s philosophical soundscapes in Louise Glück’s “bone dice/of blown gravel clicking” and in the U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze’s “world of being [that] is like this gravel:/ you think you own a car, a house, /this blue zig-zagged shirt, but you just borrow these things.”
Tune in and let us borrow an hour of your time to enjoy Kenneth Patchen’s spiritual and erotic snowscapes, laugh about Anne Sexton’s branches that “wear the sock of God,” and contemplate Wallace Stevens’ “mind of winter” that beholds “Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.”
Santa Cruz County Poet Laureate Nancy Miller Gomez founded the Rising Voices Program, providing Santa Cruz County high school students with workshops led by local poets devoted to introducing poetry to teens. Listen in to hear some of the students read their poetry and learn from the teachers participating how poetry is affecting young lives.
Jane and Dion plumb the mysteries when they read and discuss Hirshfield's newest book, The Asking: New and Selected, which recently came out in paper book.
Award-winning poet, essayist, and translator Jane Hirshfield is the author of ten collections of poetry, including The Asking: New and Selected Poems (2023); Ledger (2020); The Beauty (2015), longlisted for the National Book Award; Come, Thief (2011), a finalist for the PEN USA Poetry Award; and Given Sugar, Given Salt (2001), a finalist for the National Book Critics Award. Hirshfield is also the author of two collections of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (1997) and Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World (2015), and has edited and co-translated four books collecting the work of world poets from the past: The Ink Dark Moon: Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan (1990); Women in Praise of the Sacred: Forty-Three Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women (1994); Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems (2004); and The Heart of Haiku (2011).
Listen in as Farnaz Fatemi and Maggie Paul preview this year's Morton Marcus Memorial Poetry Reading, taking place Thursday November 20, 2025 at UCSC, featuring Ellen Bass.
To register for this week's event go to thi.ucsc.edu
Find out about the history of this reading series and the accompanying annual $1000 poetry prize. Hear poems from Morton Marcus and several of the past featured poets and prize winners.
To read Maggie Paul's interviews with several of the featured readers over the last 15 years, check out her website.
For an archive of the series, check out https://www.mortonmarcus.com/history-of-reading-orig
Ruth Mota joins Julia and provisional Hive member Hannah Tool to read and discuss Dylan Thomas’s Fern Hill and share selections from her debut chapbook, Kitchen Table Midwife of the Dispossessed, which is available for pre-order here. You can hear more of Ruth’s poems on December 4th at “The Power of Her Voice,” a poetry benefit for Santa Cruz Community Health, at Temple Beth El in Aptos - tickets available here.
Ruth Mota currently lives in the redwoods of Santa Cruz, California after residing a decade in northeast Brazil and working as an international health trainer throughout Latin America and Africa. Now she devotes her time to writing poetry and facilitating poetry circles to groups in her community like veterans, seniors or men in jail. Her poem “The Sloth” is nominated for a Pushcart Prize by The Connecticut River Review, and over sixty of her poems have been published in online and print journals. Her first chapbook, entitled Kitchen Table Midwife of the Dispossessed, is available for pre-order now through Finishing Line Press.
Victoria Bañales joins the Hive Live! at Bookshop Santa Cruz on Tuesday Feb 10, 2026 at 7pm. Event information here. Join our non-spamming email list here to keep up with Hive events.
Victoria (Vicky) Bañales is the 2025-2027 Watsonville Poet Laureate. A Chicanx educator and writer, she is the author of the poetry collection, The Sun Will Not Harm You by Day, Nor the Moon by Night (Jamii Publishing, 2025), and the founder of Journal X, a social justice literary arts magazine, which was awarded the Superior Distinction by the National Council of Teachers of English. Her writing has been supported by Hedgebrook, Storyknife, Macondo, Vermont Studio Center, and other artist residencies. She holds a Ph.D. in Literature and Feminist Studies from UCSC, and teaches composition and creative writing at Cabrillo College, where she also serves as the Faculty Senate President. More at vickybanales.com.
Marie Howe buzzes into the Hive to read from her newest books and also to recite a little Juan Ramon Jimenez.
Marie Howe is the author of New and Selected Poems (W. W. Norton, 2024), winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; Magdalene (W. W. Norton, 2017), which was long-listed for the National Book Award; The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (W. W. Norton, 2009), which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; What the Living Do (W. W. Norton, 1998); and The Good Thief (Persea Books, 1988), which was selected by Margaret Atwood for the 1987 National Poetry Series. What the Living Do is in many ways an elegy for Howe’s brother, John, who died of AIDS in 1989. In 1995, she coedited the anthology In the Company of My Solitude: American Writing from the AIDS Pandemic (Persea, 1995).
Keetje Kuipers and Dion read and discuss a poem by Ruth Schwartz and then read from Kuiper's new book, Lonely Women Make Good Lovers.
.Keetje Kuipers’ fourth collection of poetry, Lonely Women Make Good Lovers, was the recipient of the Isabella Gardner Award. Her poetry and prose have appeared in American Poetry Review, New York Times Magazine, and Poetry, and have been honored by publication in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies. Keetje has been a Stegner Fellow, NEA Literature Fellow in Creative Writing, and the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Resident. Previously a VP on the board of the National Book Critics Circle, Keetje is currently Editor of Poetry Northwest, and teaches at the dual-language writers’ gathering Under the Volcano in Tepoztlán, Mexico. She lives with her wife and children in Montana, where she co-directs the Headwaters Reading Series for Health & Well-Being and keeps an eye out for bears in her backyard.
Join Julie Murphy and Dion O'Reilly for a conversation that moves through love, loss, and wonder — from Yeats’ “The Wild Swans at Coole” to Andrea Cohen’s sharp humor in Something, Richard Siken's quiet reflections in “Kitchen Window,” and the stargazing tenderness of Keith Wilson's “there aren’t enough idioms about the stars.” We’ll also talk about Gabrielle Calvocoressi’s moving “Miss you. Would like to grab that chilled tofu we love” and the poignant beauty of Connie Leung's “Autumn in Prison.” These poems remind us how language can hold both the ache and the brightness of being alive.
Maxine Chernoff and Paul Hoover talk with Roxi Power in this second part of our interview, revealing their mutual love of film and poetry inspired by it. From Chernoff’s surreal meditations on François Truffaut’s French New Wave film, Jules et Jim, toHoover’s weaving of Wim Wenders’ Lisbon Story into his dreamlike language, we look through the lenses of other artforms—including the deep and unsettling Brazilian musical genre, Fado—to experience the strange and gorgeous interior worlds of these prolific and beloved Bay Area poets.
Listen to Part 1 of our interview from 8-9-25 here.
Maxine Chernoff is professor emeritus of creative writing at San Francisco State University. She is the author of 19 books of poetry and six of fiction, including recent collections from MadHat Press: Light and Clay: New and Selected Poems (2023)and Under the Music: Collected Prose Poems (2019). Peter Johnson called her the most important prose poet of her generation. She is a recipient of a 2013 National Endowment for the Arts in Poetry and, along with Paul Hoover, the 2009 PEN Translation Award for their translation of The Selected Poems of Friedrich Hölderlin. In 2016 she was a visiting writer at the American Academy in Rome. A former editor of New American Writing, she lives in Mill Valley.
Paul Hoover is the author of over a dozen collections of poetry; his most recent book of poetry is O, and Green: New and Selected Poems (MadHat Press, 2021). He has also published a collection of essays and a novel, and translated or co-translated a few books, including Black Dog, Black Night: Contemporary Vietnamese Poetry. Founding and current Editor of the literary annual, New American Writing–now published by MadHat Press–and two editions of the indispensable Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology, Hoover teaches at San Francisco State University. He’s also won an NEA and numerous awards, including the Carl Sandberg Award in poetry which Chernoff has also won.
Emilie joins Farnaz Fatemi to discuss her new book, how poetry helps her stay in touch with "moments [she] felt truly like herself," and giving oneself permission to be in the state--like butterflies in chrysalis--of goo. Moving, wise, and funny thoughts are everywhere when you're talking with Emilie Lygren.
Hive Live! hosts Emilie Lygren and Stephen Kuusisto at 7pm, November 4, at Bookshop Santa Cruz.
Emilie discussed the Soul Bone/Maharishi International University MFA in Creative Writing. Find out more.
Emilie Lygren's Once I Was a Stone is an intimate portrait of gender nonconformity rooted in the context of childhood and the natural world. Lygren grapples with the complexities of selfhood, power, and loss, offering a gentle yet unflinching look at what it means to be in relationship with place.
Emilie Lygren is a nonbinary poet and educator whose work is grounded in curiosity and reverence. Her poems have appeared in over twenty literary journals and anthologies, and her first book of poetry, What We Were Born For, was selected as the Poetry Foundation’s monthly book pick in 2022. Currently, Emilie is a professor of creative writing, a poet in the schools, and at work on an anthology of poems on mental health for teens. For more of her work and words, visit: https://emilielygren.com/
We read and discuss [It is abominable, unquenchable by touch] by Diane Seuss and then read from Kim's newest book Exit Opera.
Kim Addonizio is the author of nine poetry collections, two novels, two story collections, and two books on writing poetry, The Poet’s Companion (with Dorianne Laux) and Ordinary Genius. She has received fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation, Pushcart Prizes in both poetry and the essay, and her work has been widely translated and anthologized. Tell Me was a National Book Award Finalist in poetry. Her new poetry collection, Exit Opera, is out from W.W. Norton. She lives in Oakland, California.
Poet Roger Reeves, author of King Me, Best Barbarian and Dark Days: Fugitive Essays, is a National Book Award finalist, Griffin Poetry Prize Winner, Whiting Award winner and professor at UT Austin. His frank and gracious discussion of poetry, growing up in the Pentecostal church, parenthood, and the importance of silence, carves a path encouraging us toward the revelation that the life we want is already here, reaching out for our hand.
Nicelle Davis is a California poet, collaborator, and performance artist. Her poetry collections include The Language of Fractions (Moon Tide Press 2023). The Walled Wife (Red Hen Press, 2016), In the Circus of You (Rose Metal Press, 2015), Becoming Judas (Red Hen Press, 2013), and Circe (Lowbrow Press, 2011).
Penguin Noir recently won the Changing Light Novel in Verse Prize from Livingston Press and will be released Summer of 2025. Her poetry film collaborations with Cheryl Gross have been shown across the world. She has taught poetry at Youth for Positive Change, an organization that promotes success for youth in secondary schools, MHA, Volunteers of America in their Homeless Youth Center, Red Hen’s WITS program, and with MEP. She currently teaches Middle School in the High Desert of southern California.
Also mentioned in the episode: Plants Painting and Poetry, A Youtube Channel by Nicelle Davis and Anthony M Sannazzaro.
Joseph Millar's first collection of poems, Overtime, was a finalist for the 2001 Oregon Book Award. His second collection, Fortune, appeared in 2007, followed by a third, Blue Rust, in 2012. Kingdom was released in early 2017, and Dark Harvest, New & Selected Poems, was released in 2021. His latest collection, Shine, was published in October of 2024.
Millar grew up in Pennsylvania and attended Johns Hopkins University before spending 30 years in the San Francisco Bay area working at a variety of jobs, from telephone repairman to commercial fisherman. It would be two decades before he returned to poetry. His work—stark, clean, unsparing—records the narrative of a life fully lived among fathers, sons, brothers, daughters, weddings and divorce.
He has won fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in such magazines as DoubleTake, TriQuarterly, The Southern Review, APR, and Ploughshares. Millar teaches in Pacific University's low-residency MFA Program.
Susan Browne and Dion read from Susan's new book, Monster Mash, and talk about Nicole Sealey's poem Object Permanence
Susan Browne is the author of four poetry collections, including Monster Mash (Four Way Books, 2025) and Just Living (Catamaran Literary Reader, 2019), winner of the 2019 Catamaran Poetry Prize. She is a recipient of the Four Way Books Intro Prize, the James Dickey Poetry Prize and a Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship. She was an English Professor for 34 years and currently teaches poetry workshops online. She lives in Northern California.
Julia Chiapella interviews the teen editors of the newly published anthology Waking Up (Sixteen Rivers Press). Editors Simon Ellefson and Sylvi Kayser are joined by project advisor, Farnaz Fatemi. The poets read and discuss contributions from the anthology, reflecting a range of themes which matter to young people in the current climate.
Waking Up is a poetry anthology from youth throughout Santa Cruz County, available now from Sixteen Rivers Press.
“The world needs this collection of poems right now to help us wake up to the truth of the world as it exists and to imagine the change and growth our country so urgently needs. The teen voices in Waking Up have much at stake in our collective future, and they are rising to this need with the eloquence and nuance that poetry provides. I know that once you hear these voices, you’ll agree.” (From Farnaz Fatemi).
Award-winning poets and founding editors of the groundbreaking journal, New American Writing, Maxine Chernoff and Paul Hoover talk with Roxi Power about their most recent books from MadHat Press and how poetry canreveal then reconstitute the brokenness of the world. Hoover says of writing poetry, “You have to purposefully break a few dishes along the way. The brokenness and emotional force bring the pieces back together.”
Chernoff, writing under the shadow of Covid, says, “We stand at the margins of this bustling, often cruel but beautiful world and, in a way, the poem writes itself because the world gives us conditions to think about at the same time—the ecology of the world, governments falling apart, etc. It’s happening to all of us. Part of being a writer is simply noticing the moment you’re in, personalizing and capturing it in a way that only your particular words at this particular time can do.”
These beloved Bay Area poets collage philosophy, film, history, and—in Hoover’s newest work—Old Testament stories and cadences in poems that redesign rather than restore theshattered surfaces of the world in new forms—like poetic wabi-sabi.
Peter Johnson recently called Chernoff the most important contemporary prose poet born during his generation. Marjorie Perloff wrote of Paul Hoover’s most recent book, “He’s atthe top of his game.” Tune into this interview with two of the most articulate poets about their own craft. It’s part 1 of a two-part interview. More to come!
Maxine Chernoff is professor emeritus of creative writing at San Francisco State University. She is the author of 19 books of poetry and six of fiction, including recent collections from MadHat Press: Light and Clay: New and Selected Poems (2023) and Under the Music: Collected Prose Poems (2019). She is a recipient of a 2013 National Endowment for the Arts in Poetry and, along with Paul Hoover, the 2009 PEN Translation Award for their translation of The Selected Poems of Friedrich Hölderlin. In 2016 she was a visiting writer at the American Academy in Rome. A former editor of New American Writing, she lives in Mill Valley.
Paul Hoover is the author of over a dozen collections of poetry; his most recent book of poetry is O, and Green: New and Selected Poems (MadHat Press, 2021). He has also published a collection of essays and a novel, and translated or co-translated a few books, including Black Dog, Black Night: Contemporary Vietnamese Poetry. Founding and current Editor of theliterary annual, New American Writing–now published by MadHat Press–and two editions of the indispensable Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology, Hooverteaches at San Francisco State University. He’s also won an NEA and numerous awards, including the Carl Sandberg Award in poetry which Chernoff has also won.