ep. 168 - David James

David James has published six books, six chapbooks, and has had more than thirty of his one-act plays produced in the U.S. and Ireland. His most recent books are Alive in Your Skin While You Still Own It and Wiping Stars from Your Sleeves. His second book, She Dances Like Mussolini, won the 2010 Next Generation Indie book award. He has taught writing at Oakland Community College for over twenty years. Alive in Your Skin While You Own It: https://kelsaybooks.com/products/alive-in-your-skin-while-you-still-own-it Wiping Stars from Your Sleeves: https://www.shantiarts.co/uploads/files/jkl/JAMES_STARS.html Nail Yourself into Bliss: https://kelsaybooks.com/products/nail-yourself-into-bliss As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Think about the geographical place that says home to you, its flora and fauna, the distinctive shape of the land and the buildings there rooted, the people who feel like family and community, whose tongues shapes sounds like your own. Then, even in so simple a form as a list, draw the most distinctive of those elements together and show—in hints or explicitly—how you are partly contingent on those specificities, how you emerge from that milieu. Next Week's Prompt: Start with a first line from a James Tate poem and write a poem (or prose poem) that incorporates dialogue within the narrative. See where your imagination takes you! The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.