Miller Aud-cast #24: David Olimpio

Hello and welcome to Miller Aud-cast, Episode 24. In this episode, we feature three poems from David Olimpio, a finalist for the 2021 Miller Audio Prize in Poetry. David Olimpio grew up in Texas, and currently lives and writes in Philadelphia. He is the author of This Is Not a Confession (Awst Press, 2016) and the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Atticus Review. You can find more about him at davidolimpio.com, including links to his writing and photography. He Tweets and Instagrams as @notsolinear. From David: "This little triptych of poems sprang forth in quick succession during a period of intense sadness and transformation where I was shedding some old stuff to make way for some new. What all three poems have in common is the theme of divorce and the associated feelings of loss (of love, of life, of identity). One of the poems is about an abortion. Another is about perceptions of self around the concept of masculinity. The pieces are part of a larger collection I am building around these themes. An interesting side note is that each poem also draws inspiration from a particular Mad Men episode. Somehow that show feels deeply important to my life in a way I can't adequately explain coherently. And maybe that's what poetry is for: to adequately explain things incoherently. I've never felt satisfied with just the writing of words on paper. I like to accompany text with sounds or images. I've long made "photopoems," [link: https://davidolimpio.com/category/photoblog/] most of which are actually written by my dogs while I am sleeping, or otherwise unconscious, and then edited by me later. But a new interest of mine is working with audio and video, mixing the written word with those mediums. (Of course I'm kidding about the dogs — they're also involved in the editing process.) I tend to hear my poems as I write them, the inflection, the tone, the pauses. For me the aural quality of a poem isn't an afterthought. It's more integral to the way I conceive a poem, or even a piece of prose. I'm glad there are projects like the Miller Aud-Cast to showcase audio literary work. It's really the preferred way I like to share my writing." Instagram: @notsolinear Twitter: @notsolinear Medium: @davidolimpio Website: davidolimpio.com Much gratitude to David Olimpio for sharing his poems with us, and for the conversation they inspired. Stay tuned for Miller Aud-cast #25, coming soon. We hope you’ve been enjoying the Aud-cast, and remember: if they’ve inspired you to record your own creative work, whether in poetry, prose, humor, or audio documentary, submissions are open now for the 2021 Miller Audio Prize. The deadline for this year’s contest was just extended to June 22. Learn all about it at our website. Thanks also to the Missouri Review contest editor, Bailey Boyd, and to Patricia Miller, for her generous support for the Miller Audio Prize.