You’re not supposed to talk about this: a conversation with Amanda Russell and Susan Ayres

Poetry Medicine for the Soul is a podcast inviting poets to share and examine their work, produced and moderated by John Gillespie. Episode 5 features Amanda Russell and Susan Ayres. Amanda Russell reads “Rediscovery” from her chapbook Processing. Susan Ayres reads “Unforeseeable” from her chapbook Walk Like the Bird Flies. Both poets are part of the Fort Worth Poetry Society.   Rediscovery By Amanda Russell   I was told not to write this. Not yet. That I’d have more to say years from now. But I do not need more to say. There is no someday like this day. Mark it now: When the kids leave the house, so will we. We’ll go somewhere / anywhere, maybe on a walk, a long walk, a very long walk and be gone for months … we’ll walk until we’ve left. Until we’ve stepped out of the roles we’ve spent years putting on. We’ll peel them off like old skins, let them drop on sharp rocks. Tell me we will make it to then. Tell me every evening, when we meet in the kitchen and wash the last of the dishes that we are already on our way.   Unforeseeable   by Susan Ayres Remember that one grain of grit can ruin a whole dish. —Katherine Anne Porter   Sometimes an otherwise fine Greek   meal will have grit in the spinach.   Your plate overflows with pan-fried perch, sautéed   baby portabella mushrooms, rice and spinach, when   you comment, My, this spinach is gritty. Your lover, the cook, will rest his hand on the table and glare at   you long after you eat the spinach     and your words. Sometimes an oak limb suddenly   will break, crushing a car or jogger one dry   summer’s day. Once, a limb crashed through   a bedroom window, killing a mother and  toddler,   who’d run to her bed   frightened by the storm. Once a limb   crushed a jogger, who lived to become a   paraplegic     governor. Sometimes a green hummingbird will hover   inches away when you are quietly reading  in the   garden. And you will imagine it’s your recently dead   mother greeting you, showing off,   checking in. Just like she’s the mourning dove   perched on the eave, cooing   at daybreak. You see her everywhere     saying, take joy in being alive, love the grit.   Somewhere a dog is barking. A small dog with   the kind of bark that hurts your ears. Two   hummingbirds settle in a high vitex  branch, then   fly off, looking for nectar, cheeping  in short,   high-pitched chirps that sound like toy  ratchets.   As usual, doves sit on the telephone  lines. Once   I found a hummingbird nest lying  on the   ground. Inside were tiny eggs   I mourned.  Amanda Russell is an editor at The Comstock Review. Her poems have appeared or will appear in Lily Poetry Review, Pirene’s Fountain and Gulf Stream Magazine. She is the author of Barren Years (Finishing Line Press, 2019) and Processing (Main Street Rag, 2024). She is a member of the Fort Worth Poetry Society and the Calling All Poets Series. She lives in the DFW Metroplex with her husband, two kids and a labrahound named Lilly. Learn more at www.poetrussell.wordpress.com. Susan Ayres is the author of Walk Like the Bird Flies (Finishing Line, 2023) and Red Cardinal, White Snow (Main Street Rag, 2024). Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her poems and translations from the Spanish have appeared in numerous journals. She lives in Fort Worth and teaches at Texas A&M University School of Law. Learn more at www.psusanayres.com. This podcast is hosted and produced by John Gillespie. Check out our website or Simplecast podcast feed for more episodes. Listen and subscribe to Poetry Medicine for the Soul in Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more and get in touch: poetrymedicineforthesoul.com