Candle-extinguishing butts, 3am afterparties, collections of seamen (and semen)--this dishy tour of Langston Hughes's love life will leave you gagging with the gays.


Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Pretty Please.....Buy our books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

SHOW NOTES:

Watch Hughes recite his poem, "The Weary Blues" to jazz accompaniment on tv in 1958.

You can check out troves of Hughes's poetry here, here, and here.

Read Langston Hughes's poem "Café: 3AM"

Listen to Hughes read "Harlem."

Langston Hughes's first memoir, The Big Sea, about his seafaring travels--including upon the West Hesseltine where he said he had that fateful encounter with a sailor--can be found here. It includes the essay "Spectacles in Color" in which Hughes describes queer ballroom scene and Countee Cullen's wedding to Yolanda Du Bois (with Harold Jackson, his boyfriend, serving as best man).

Faith Berry's biography of Hughes is Before and Beyond Harlem. Her papers are at the Library of Congress.

Read more about Arnold Ampersad's biography of Hughes:
Volume 1 (which covers 1902-1940 and does have a snazzy subtitle: I, Too, Sing America).
Volume 2 (which covers 1941-death and also has a snazzy subtitle: I Dream a World).

Other receipts for the episode can be found in the following essays and scholarship:
Hilton Als, "The Elusive Langston Hughes" (The New Yorker, 2015)

Juda Bennett, "Multiple Passings and the Double Death of Langston Hughes" (Biography, vol 23.4, 2000).Link through Project Muse.

Andrew Donnelly, "Langston Hughes on the DL" (College Literature, Volume 44, Number 1, Winter 2017). Link through Project Muse.

Mason Stokes, "Strange Fruits: Rethinking the Gay Twenties" (Transition , 2002, No. 92). Link through JSTOR.

Shane Vogel, "Closing Time: Langston Hughes and the Poetics of Harlem Nightlife," in Criticism (Vol 48.3, 2006). Link through Project Muse.

Jennifer Wilson, "Queer Harlem, Queer Tashkent" (Slavic Review , FALL 2017). Link through JSTOR.

Finally, visit Ann Patchett's bookstore online here: https://www.parnassusbooks.net/

Whet your appetite with half a poem from 3 fabulous poets and choose your own poetic fulfillment!

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Pretty Please.....Buy our books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

SHOW NOTES:

Read Catherine Bowman's poem "1-800-Hot-Ribs."
Read Catherine Barnett's poem "'Have You Ever Written a Poem About Death?' My Mother Asks."
Read Catherine Pierce's poem "The Curator of the Earth Museum Speaks of People."

Watch Catherine Bowman’s read her poem "Makeshift" (~1.5 mins) from Can I Finish, Please (Four Way Books, 2016). Bowman's title poem from 1-800-HOT-RIBS which we read on the show can be found on the blog “Read Good Poetry,” which was updated through 2022.

Watch Nicole Sealey read Catherine Barnett's poem "Apophasis at the All-Night Rite Aid" (1 min). You can catch Catherine reading (about 7 min) here. Click here to read another Barnett poem in APR called “Envoy” (also from Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space). Visit Barnett's website here.

Catherine Pierce reads four poems from Danger Days here (~20 mins) and talks craft on the Wednesday Night Sessions show. Visit Pierce's website here, and check out episodes of Mississippi Poetry Podcast (which Pierce hosts) here.

The queens go in (and out) on poetry trends for 2025, all while doing their Kegel exercises.

Please Support Breaking Form!
Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.

Pretty Please.....Buy our books:
Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series.
James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.

SHOW NOTES:

Watch Marie Howe in conversation with poet and friend of the show, Nicole Tallman (18 mins), for South Florida Poetry Journal.

You can catch a reading of some poets included in Invisible Strings: 113 Poets Respond to the Songs of Taylor Swift here.

Read Carol Frost's poem "Gross Clinic" from her book I Will Say Beauty (mentioned in the show).

When we mention "the Sharon Olds stanza," here’s a representative of what we mean: "After Making Love in Winter" (Poetry Magazine, May 1987)

A bit more about The Vivienne, a drag superstar and winner of Season 1 of Drag Race UK, can be found here.

More about Ada Limon's historic appointment as Poet Laureate can be accessed here.

A few Game Shows poems:
Jennifer L. Knox, “The New Let’s Make a Deal”
Julie Marie Wade, "From the Jeopardy! Category Spoiler Alerts"