Laura Rosenthal, Connie Johnstone, and Kacper Bartczak

On the 8/7/24 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Laura Rosenthal starts off the show describing how her poetry has grown by being more conscious of her reader. She states that maturing throughout life has allowed her to scribe her most complex emotions in her writing. Rosenthal then shares a poem of praise, “Psalm.” Poet Connie Johnson joins next to discuss her recent entrance into the poetry world. She shares a poem, “Winter Relay” before discussing the thematics of her upcoming chapbook The River of Perpetual Departure. The last guest on the show is prominent Polish poet and scholar Kacper Bartczak. Bartczak describes his early poetry as playing off his personal experience and moving towards confession, and recent poetry as more experimental with language. He says both Polish and American poets have influenced his practice such as John Ashberry and Frank O’Hara. He then speaks on his experience as a university teacher and how he tries to show his students that writers in the Romantic era shifted the perception of nature.

Laura Rosenthal is a recovering public interest lawyer and has published in Sacramento Voices, Tule Review, the Boog City Baseball Edition, Buddhist Poetry Review, Driftwood Press, and other journals. She leads workshops on writing and spiritual practice, has served as a senior editor of Tule Review, and is a member of the Community of Writers. In addition to degrees from Cornell University and Stanford Law School, Laura recently received her MFA in poetry from Pacific University.

Poetry found Connie Johnstone in 2021; her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Ginosko Literary Journal, The Scarred Tree, Poetry of Moral Injury, Orchards Poetry Journal, Ravenous: le terroir du Montolieu, The Amethyst Review, The Tule Review, Loss Anthology 9, The Calendula Review, Journal of Narrative Medicine, Spoon Knife Anthology: Numbers, Voices 24: Anomalies, Pathologies & Paradise; and elsewhere. Her chapbook, The River of Perpetual Departure, will be out in 2025 from Kelsay Books. She published a novel, The Legend of Olivia Cosmos Montevideo (Atlantic Monthly Press); edited an anthology, I’ve Always Meant to Tell You (Pocket Books); was a professor of English and chair of creative writing at American River College; changed careers and was a hospice chaplain with Kaiser Permanente, specializing in Narrative Therapy. Degrees include MFA Bennington and MTS Harvard Divinity School. She lives and writes in Davis, CA.

Kacper Bartczak is a Polish poet, scholar, and translator. Recent poetry volumes include Czas Kompost [Time Compost] (2023), Widoki wymazy (2021), Naworadiowa [Radionaves] (2019), Pokarm suweren [Food Sovereign] (2017), and Wiersze organiczne [Organic Poems](2015). He has translated and published volumes of poetry by Rae Armantrout, Charles Bernstein, and Peter Gizzi. and many other poets into Polish. In English translation, his poetry has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Poetry, Denver Quarterly, Interim, Berlin Quarterly, Aufgabe, Jacket2, and Lyric. He is an associate professor and department chair at the University of Łódź

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