Lindsay Garbutt: Welcome to The Poetry Magazine Podcast. I'm Lindsay Garbutt. This week, I'm very excited to introduce this conversation between The Cyborg Jillian Weise and Ishmael Reed. Reed is a writer whose decades of work have been immensely influential to Weise. They've shared stages and pages in their work as poets, performers, editors, and activists. They both wield humor and satire to seriously consider the violence of our governments, our literature, and the many other forms of erasure that are enacted on the lives and works of disabled people.
Reed was born in Tennessee in 1938, and Weise was born in Texas in 1981. Across that 40-year age difference, they share a sort of poetic kinship. Their conversation today ranges from working across genres, smashing tokenism, and the joy of making up new words and new paths. You'll also hear each of them read from some of their recent work. Now, here's The Cyborg Jillian Weise and Ishmael Reed.