Painted Bride Quarterly’s Slush Pile

This last episode before summer has us dreaming of the beach, Slushies—watching moonlight on the waves, reading novels in the sand. But not before we share this packed episode with you. Today we welco...

Kathy puts the kibosh on our introductory weather ramblings, Slushies. Instead we’re sharing what makes us grateful. Seems like, with our combined love of coffee, we’re keeping the baristas in busines...

Jason takes the helm of our artisanal editorial process today when KVM is called away at the last minute. It’s always our hope that our discussion will be instructive for both the poet and our listene...

Episode 137: Collective Effervescence (ENCORE) While we're on AWP hiatus, we’re bringing back an encore episode of the Slush Pile. Listen to Episode 137, Collective Effervescence, where we dive into p...

We’re going deep today, Slushies. Kathy and Tobi school us on the origin of the word “podcast” with its roots in both early Apple technology and agricultural lingo (think broadcast of seeds). In this ...

It’s a banner day here on the pod, Slushies. We welcome a very special guest, American Poetry Review’s Elizabeth Scanlon to the table as we discuss three prose poems from Sara Burant. Dagne sends o...

In this our second episode discussing work from poet Eli Karren, we’re shifting timelines, story lines, wine time, and coffee time. We welcome special guest, Tobi Kassim, as part of the podcast team f...

At the table: Dagne Forrest, Samantha Neugebauer, Jason Schneiderman, Kathleen Volk Miller, Lisa Zerkle   This recording had a rough start, Slushies. We’re talking technical difficulties, disappearing...

Summer scrambled us, Slushies, from UAE to North Carolina, from D.C. to Scotland and back, from North Carolina to New York City, and to Philly, of course. Phew! Sam has just returned after a month-lon...

Episode 137: Collective Effervescence   Don’t be jelly, but we’re having a blast with three poems from the poet Han VanderHart in this episode! You can join in on the fizzing of our collective efferve...

Episode 136: Mapping Experience Part II   Here’s a first for PBQ, the second of a two-part series on a single poet! We’re calling this two-parter the The Maggie Wolff Experience. We delight in spendin...

Episode 134: Tidbits & Trolls  Join us for a conversation about new poems by Kelly Egan and a discussion about line breaks, image systems, and the surprise turns poems make. Keep your eyes and ear...

Episode 133: Delicious Disorientation    Three poems by Christopher Brean Murray cleverly dropped us all into a wonderful sense of disorientation that we relished navigating. Our discussion touched on...

Episode 132: Trust & Fear   Talking about fiction is our JAWN slushies. Join us as we discuss Terry Dubow's "The Q," a short story that sounds like it wants to be a crime novel: a murderer gets ou...

Goodnight, Mary Magdalene first aired in June 2020 and features three poems by Vasiliki Katsarou, a poet and publisher. In 2023, Vasiliki published a short collection of poetry Three Sea Stones with S...

While we’re on a brief recording hiatus, we have a re-issue of an episode from 2019, when our team took a rare look at a non-fiction piece by author Andrew Bertaina. It’s great timing to take a fresh ...

Slushies, waves abound in this lively discussion of a poem by Martha Silano and two more by Jane Hilberry. The way stream of consciousness can crest and fall, sound waves, the missed and caught waves ...

The natural world and human nature provide a variety of jumping off points for three poems that contrast the ego and experience of each poem’s speaker with other perspectives, both observed and imagin...

What's your love language, Slushies? Is it touch, or talk? Recipes or arithmetic? Join us for this episode devoted to poems by Jin Cordaro, whose work strikes an incantatory tone, draws us in, and get...

We just had to start this episode with a reassurance that everyone was dressed, which you’ll understand as soon as you read or listen to “Pneuma”, the poem by BJ Soloy that kicks everything off. The b...

Our first order of business was debating lifestyle choices in NY vs. Philly, after which we dug into two wonderfully different poems by Glenn Shaheen. “Imago” plunged us into an elegaic interrogation ...

We kick off this episode with some riffing on Hallmark movies and a suspension of Jason’s voting rights. No worries, though! The two poems under discussion are by a former student of Jason’s and it co...

Watchers        Zany lies amid clutter on the floor beneath the dining room windows hugging her bandaged arm. She huffs loudly enough to reach the front porch where Mom and Aunt Vi imbibe scotch. Vi s...

Well, this could be awkward: when we last featured a story on the podcast a year ago, it also focused on parasocial relationships and included masturbation! This time around, we are again in deft hand...

Dear Slushies, we have a confession. The first draft of these show notes included references to Wawa, Jason's sweet tooth, the relative repulsiveness of hot milk shakes, and professional wrestling. Bu...

Episode 123: The Catholic Episode   Dear Slushies, we have a confession. We love being close readers as much as we love being close listeners. And if you are a fan of this podcast, we know the same is...

Dearest Slushies, we’re so happy to be back in the saddle! We took a mini-hiatus and return with this episode devoted to the poems of Jodi Balas. You’ll hear us mull over her artful use of concrete po...

In this episode we discussed three very different poems by Oregon poet Lorna Rose, all three resulting in juicy conversation and resulting in three tie-breakers (none of them involving the same voting...

Slushies, in this episode we consider two poems by C. Fausto Cabrera, both of which speak, in very different ways, to the imagination in building our sense of self. The notion of being seen, a topic o...

When to break a line, Slushies. And why? What’s the shape your poem takes, and how does the poem’s form serve its complexities, subtleties, and heart? Three poems by Karl Meade are up for consideratio...

A wonderful sense of wordplay permeates the poems we were able to discuss from Barbara Diehl. Sadly, one of three poems we’d flagged for the podcast was snapped up before our discussion was recorded, ...

In the midst of excitedly preparing for AWP 2017, we record this episode in which we discuss two poems by Rita Banerjee, “The Suicide Rag” and “Georgia Brown” This week’s discussion both took us back ...

July 2023 Update: Sarah is preparing to appear at the New York City Poetry Festival at the end of July. Sarah will read a poem and be interviewed as part of an appearance with the monthly poetry show ...

In this short trailer, we tease the next three poets to be featured on the Slushpile: C. Fausto Cabrera, Barbara Westwood Diehl, and Jodi Balas. We are so excited to be featuring poetry from these thr...

What were you wearing in the ‘90s, Slushies? Sleeveless flannel and crochet? Paco Rabanne? We’re beguiled by Emily Pulfer-Terino’s poems on this episode as we discuss how she slides us back to the ‘90...

Finding flow in modern life is increasingly challenging, Slushies, but we sure found it here in two poems by Erica Wright. Loosely defined as the melting of action and consciousness into a single stat...

For a really fresh take on obsession, take a look here Slushies! Lisa Gordon’s short story is a masterclass in taking a popular form and quietly exploding it (pun intended). By turns deeply human, com...

We are enswirled in this episode, Slushies, enswirled! We discuss three poems by John Sibley Willliams, two of which are ghazals. Williams’ poems are the gravitational force around which our conversat...

Are you ready to get primal, Slushies? We look at poems of birth and mothering that call on the senses as they shift between what’s animal and what’s human in us. Kathy celebrates the pure, messy plea...

Can you lean into experience without always needing meaning, Slushies? The psalm is a Christian form similar to a song or poem where meaning is often elusive unless the reader is prepared to put in th...

There’s a lot packed into this episode, Slushies, including sibilance and balancing gravity with a light touch. Differing perspectives and the resonance of history, both real and mythical, cascade thr...

Slushies, get ready for some trailblazing poems in the form of mathematical proofs, theorems, and other types of mathematical reasoning that level their gaze at heartbreak. One poem even embeds a seco...

If your story had a sound, Slushies. What would it be? A rush, a zuzz, a sizzle? David Landon’s “Bach, Onomatopoeia, and the Wreck” triggers a discussion of stories and sounds, and poems that resist n...

How much meaning do you need, Slushies? When language lingers, when images form a spiral, a murmuration, might a poem’s mood hold meaning close to its heart and simultaneously at bay? And, also, how d...

We have a special treat, Slushies!! In today's episode, you’ll get a duet from Nancy T and Rachael Philipps. Starting with the accents of Long Island, T’s poem makes Alex think of Nassau and Suffolk C...

It’s okay to be somber, Slushies! Don't let the poetic gestures confuse you as the rhythm and pacing contribute to a starburst of flash fiction by Maria McLeod. The obligation to help the writer leave...

Join us as we consider a pack of poems by Pier Wright, and the complexities of pacing, prosody, and narrative poems with strange and powerful images: memory, tenderness, a “magnificent young moose,” &...

Slushies, what are some ways a writer may gain your trust? Kathy lifts a brow at poems including questions. Marion looks side ways at pop-cultural references. (Check out this favorite of ours from iss...

How do you pronounce “San Gorgonio,” Slushies? How do you say “Schuylkill?” We talk regional accents, local knowledge, and artistic craft-- from the risks of the pathetic fallacy to the unknowability ...

Hello Slushies. Do you see the string? Past the blooming peonies and fungus gnats? Follow us into the labyrinth of our minds as we discuss the work of Eric Stiefel. You may need to brush up on your Gr...