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CHELSEA R. GRIMMER: Hi,
welcome to my channel, which
actually hosts The Poetry Vlog.
I have several introductions
to The Poetry Vlog.
This is the fall 2018 edition.
I'm making this at
the end of October.
There are a few quick updates
as well as an overview
of what you'll find here.
So weekly to biweekly, I still
post interviews and guest
appearances with different types
of writers, authors, artists,
community activists,
folks who do things that
seem tangentially related
to poetry such as therapy,
or maybe they work at
a local coffee shop.
And we talk about how
poetry and pop culture
intersect with their daily
lives to create livability
in an increasingly
hostile political climate.
And in particular, as a
doctoral candidate and you'll
read in my bio, I focus
on gender studies,
sexuality studies,
race studies, diaspora,
and I look at ecological
crises such as water shortages
in Flint or Detroit
through a lens
of queer and racial livability.
So every podcast and
every YouTube episode
is dedicated to looking at ways
that poetry already intersects
with our daily lives and
intersects with pop culture
to name the conditions for
livability and lovability,
and to find ways into a more
unconditional livability
and lovability for one another.
So it's very woo.
It's very hopeful, but it's
also very historically critical.
And part of the reason that this
entire project started for me
is that I am a
professor and instructor
as a doctoral candidate here
at the University of Washington
in Seattle.
And I noticed that a lot
of the podcasts I found,
while incredible-- and I'll
do an episode on them soon--
were very much insider
language, so either
insiders for scholars
or insiders for poets.
When I was teaching
undergrad poetry, I'm like,
we really need short-form
audio and visual content
that's extremely accessible,
that both a poet and a scholar
would understand,
learn, and engage with,
but also someone who
finds poetry intimidating
but wants to learn more would
find accessible, entertaining,
and engaging.
So thus, The Poetry
Vlog was born.
During the academic year,
I try to post weekly.
It comes up to more
like bi- and triweekly
for the guest interview,
but there's also
the podcast version.
The podcast offers anything on
here in just audio-only version
for folks who are more on the go
or prefer podcasts, especially
slightly older demographics.
But it also has a little
bit of additional content.
So sometimes I'll post
podcast-only bonus episodes,
which I'll signal
from now on here
so that the YouTube followers
can also catch those.
Something else that's on the
daily podcast is every weekday,
Monday through Friday, roughly--
sometimes I skip a day--
I post a two-minute-or-less
poetry reading and poetry
defined very loosely.
They're called flash briefings
because you can access them
through Amazon Alexa.
So if you're someone who has
the creepy, creepy Alexa,
you can definitely check this
out every day by being, hey,
Alexa, what's my flash
briefing poetry reading?
And she'll play what the
poem that day is for you, not
in her own voice, and the voice
of myself or the poets reading.
So we have flash briefings.
We have weekly to
tri- to biweekly
depending on the academic
time of year, guests.
Guests range from "I think I
might be interested in poetry,
but I'm not sure" to
very well-established,
award-winning, kind of
famous poets and artists.
And then the other element
that I think is really fun--
In Patrick and Pop Culture,
since he's a sound studies
background, we break down pop
music and why it's catchy,
and then I bring my own cultural
studies lens in and talk more
about the lyrics.
And then Patrick, who's also
a poet, an amazing poet,
and a scholar, then has
a conversation with me,
and we read the lyrics closely.
So just to recap, here you'll
find the different episodes
that I use, initially
created just for teaching,
but it's open access.
So it's free, and it makes
some of the higher education
poetry and cultural
studies content
that I would normally
teach in a literature
department, cultural studies
department, or creative writing
department available to you on
"the YouTube," as I call it,
because I'm still learning.
You'll also find
links to the podcast,
where you can get your weekday
flash briefing poetry readings.
You'll also find that there
is audio podcasts that
are bonus episodes not
necessarily fully covered here,
and then you'll also find
here the regular features
with Patrick, which I
think are just a blast,
and it's just Patrick
and Pop Culture.
All right.
Finally, I want to flag all
of the ways you can reach out
to me and follow along.
First of all, of course,
like and subscribe
if you can to the videos.
I would love to within
the next three years
reach that 1,000
mark because then I
can create a customized URL.
So if you can and if you
like it, subscribe, like.
It would be very
helpful for the channel.
You can also reach out to
me at chelseagrimmer.com,
and you'll notice
various contact buttons.
I'm open to collaborators.
I love collaborating.
I love when people I don't know
are willing to be on the vlog.
It just creates
exciting conversation.
And then you'll also notice
that there's a submissions area.
If you have a poet
you want me to cover,
a book you want me to
cover, a pop culture
icon you want me to cover,
you can submit that.
If you want to join me to
converse about those things,
you can submit that.
And finally, this
is where some poets
might be really interested--
The Poetry Vlog
is a publication.
It's just an audio and an
audio visual publication.
And we are currently open to
submissions for audio files
where you read your
own work, and that
counts as a poetry publication.
So if you want to be one of
the flash briefing readings
and you want to read
it in your own voice,
you want me to read
it for you, that
would be one way for you to
get published through a not
print-based or expensive
medium, and I'd
be more than glad
to put together.
And we have some new
collaborations coming up.
Like, Shirley Magazine is an
incredible magazine based out
of Portland for mostly
hybrid fiction poet writers,
for instance.
They'll be submitting
flash briefing readings
when solicited from
the editors, and that's
one of the
collaborations I'm doing.
So that's The Poetry Vlog.
Welcome to the channel.
If you've been
keeping up this far,
I hope that update
number three is helpful
and you're seeing how I'm
learning the different mediums.
Feel free to reach out
to me for anything.
But otherwise, just like,
subscribe, follow the podcast,
follow the YouTube
channel, and keep
me posted with your
thoughts and opinions.
I always love to hear feedback,
even when it's negative.
All right, I hope you
all have a wonderful day.
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