Join August, Eleanor, and Marcus, as we take an acerbic look at the worst excesses of the contemporary poetry landscape: celebrity poetry books, influencer vanity projects, the finest verse of instagram, the flarf, the slam, the alt lit, all of it—we’ll be reading the cream of the crop of the lowest of the brow.
Episode 008: The David Duchovny Files (w/ Steven Michael Holmes)
Hi everyone, hope 2025 was good! Sorry for the hiatus. I was busy. In this episode, we chat with friend of the pod Steven Michael Holmes about VHS archival work and our shared lore before we jump into a discussion of 2025's most viral TikTok poem, "I Met My Younger Self for Coffee" by Jennae Cecelia. At ~27:00, we begin our discussion of David Duchovny's new book of poetry, About Time, published by Akashic. Does Mulder's poetry have the X-factor? Or should we file it away? And are there any alien poems? (Nope.)
Songs:
"NFFC Theme"
"drone strike" - Frozen Water
"X-Files Theme"
"Wrong Ones" - Plum Wooer
Steve's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Tube.Time.T.V (https://www.youtube.com/@Tube.Time.T.V)
August's new tunes: https://plumwooer.bandcamp.com/ (https://plumwooer.bandcamp.com/album/a-partial-list-of-my-flaws-wrong-ones)
Eleanor's Substack: https://substack.com/@fanghoneyy (https://substack.com/@fanghoneyy)
Marcus's band: https://www.instagram.com/stillsubmarine/ (https://www.instagram.com/stillsubmarine/)
20 Jan 2025
Episode 007: The Inauguration Poet Special
It's the new year! It's also inauguration day (boooo)! We're serving up something different for 2025's beefy first episode. First, we take a look at the year ahead with some literary predictions from writers across the lit space: Steff Yue Duhem, Tao Lin, Jill McDonough, Rachelle Toarmino, catch breath, Lloyd Schwartz, Kit Rosewater, Chelsey Minnis, and more contribute their forecasts. Then we analyze and rank every past inaugural poet before musing on whom Trump's should be.
Songs:
"NFFC Theme"
"Bait the Hook (demo)" - Plum Wooer
"Heavy Water / I'd Rather Be Sleeping" - Grouper
"Watching Star Wars (demo)" - Plum Wooer
Follow along and make your own inaugural poet tier list here: https://tiermaker.com/create/us-inaugural-poets-17814399 (https://tiermaker.com/create/us-inaugural-poets-17814399)
Buy August's book: https://apocalypse-confidential.myshopify.com/products/visitors-from-the-red-star-by-august-smith (https://apocalypse-confidential.myshopify.com/products/visitors-from-the-red-star-by-august-smith)
Eleanor's Substack: https://substack.com/@fanghoneyy (https://substack.com/@fanghoneyy)
Marcus's band: https://www.instagram.com/stillsubmarine/ (https://www.instagram.com/stillsubmarine/)
Stephanie Yue Duhem and August Smith dissect the viral poem 'For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper' and Matthew McConaughey's 'Greenlights,' revealing the wisdom and absurdity in modern poetry.
14 Jun 2024
Episode 005: Jewel Thieves (w/ Bob Sykora)
Our first guest episode! We welcome dear friend and poet-colleague Bob Sykora to the podcast, where we talk about his upcoming book, Ivanka Trump's quatrain, grade school poems, the relevance of journals, and 90s folk-pop artist Jewel's book of poetry, "A Night Without Armor," published in 1998 by It Books. Jewel discussion starts at ~33:00 and boy did we have lots to say.
Songs:
"NFFC Theme"
"Ste. Helene (demo)" - Still Submarine
"Sun Goes Down (benjamin remix)" - Plum Wooer
"Intuition" - Jewel
"WITFIN" - EVIL MTN
"Rainbow Signs" - mewithoutYou
Preorder Bob's book: https://www.gameoverbooks.com/store/p/utopians-in-love (https://www.gameoverbooks.com/store/p/utopians-in-love)
Eleanor's latest: https://issuu.com/bryantuniversity/docs/blr2024-layout-final/44 (https://issuu.com/bryantuniversity/docs/blr2024-layout-final/44)
August's new songs: https://plumwooer.bandcamp.com/album/sun-goes-down-ithryn-luin (https://plumwooer.bandcamp.com/album/sun-goes-down-ithryn-luin)
Marcus's band insta: https://www.instagram.com/stillsubmarine/ (https://www.instagram.com/stillsubmarine/)
2 May 2024
Episode 004: Donna Ashworth, Coworker Poet
It's normie time. We talk about: ranking art forms (truncated convo), "coworker music," 2 viral poems about Gaza ("The Jesus Fridge" and "There's Laundry to Do and a Genocide to Stop"), and "Wild Hope" by bestselling/viral Scottish poet Donna Ashworth.
Songs:
"NFFC Theme"
"Maples Ablaze (demo)" - Plum Wooer
"The crudest thing Scarlett's ever said" - Hans Geiger
"Window" - Donna M Ashworth
August's poem: https://metatron.press/digipub/shopping-complex/ (https://metatron.press/digipub/shopping-complex/)
Eleanor's newsletter: https://fanghoneyy.substack.com/ (https://fanghoneyy.substack.com/)
Marcus's band: https://stillsubmarine.bandcamp.com/ (https://stillsubmarine.bandcamp.com/)
14 Mar 2024
Episode 003: Drake's "Poetry" "Book"
Due to technical difficulties, this episode is woven together from two separate recordings. So just pretend the jarring cuts aren't there. In this one: August performs an opening monologue about Taylor Swift and AWP; we chat about Josh Brolin's Dune poems; and we're brought to the brink of insanity by "Titles Ruin Everything: A Stream of Consciousness" by Drake and Kenza Samir.
Songs:
"NFFC Theme"
"Mario Kart 8 Theme" - Atsuko Asahi, Soyo Oka
"Wii Shop Bling" - ToonLink/Nosquist
"Angel Wings (demo)" - Woe Spiral
"Floriane Theme" - EVIL MTN
Eleanor's newsletter: https://fanghoneyy.substack.com/
Marcus's band: https://stillsubmarine.bandcamp.com/
August's website: https://augustsmith.net/
23 Feb 2024
Episode 002: Lawn of Del Rey
Did you know that 98% of podcasts never make it to a second episode? Just kidding, I made that up. In this one, we start off by talking about offing ourselves on mic, what kinds of plants we'd be, the Napoleon movie, and twitter sonnet discourse. Then we chat about tumblr chanteuse Lana Del Rey's book of poetry, "Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass" published by Simon & Schuster in 2020. I forgot to mention this on the podcast but her book sold 30k units in its first week which is so nuts. To be honest, I forgot to mention a lot of stuff that I researched about this book. Whoops. These secrets I take to my grave.
Songs:
"NFFC Theme"
"1thingstraight (demo)" - EVIL MTN
"Norman F****** Rockwell" - Lana Del Rey
"Radio" - Lana Del Rey
"Still Alice" - Still Submarine
Eleanor's newsletter: https://fanghoneyy.substack.com/
Marcus's band: https://stillsubmarine.bandcamp.com/
August's website: https://augustsmith.net/
4 Feb 2024
Episode 001: The Earnest Crimes of Ernie Cline
Okay, so we recorded this pilot a few months ago. That's okay, who cares. Sue me. In this opening salvo, we (August Smith, Eleanor Eli Moss, and Marcus Khoury) discuss: the name of the podcast, how we know one another, geek culture, and slam poetry, all leading up to a discussion of Ernest Cline's putrid little tome, "The Importance of Being Ernest," published by Write Bloody in 2013. At the end, August unveils the book's UK sales numbers and digs up some of Cline's unpublished poems from the cutting room floor by emailing a guy on ebay. We conclude with Marcus's "Napoleon Minute."
Songs:
"NFFC Theme" - composed by all 3 hosts w/ drumming by Steven Michael Holmes
"How I Felt Before" - Still Submarine
"Elevator to the Moon (demo)" - EVIL MTN
"Orbs in the Blossom (demo)" - Plum Wooer
"Rich Broth Lullaby" - Plum Wooer
Eleanor's newsletter: https://fanghoneyy.substack.com/
Marcus's band: https://stillsubmarine.bandcamp.com/
August's website: https://augustsmith.net/
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
6 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
16 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 24 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
20
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
71
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