Anatomy of a Love Poem with Teri Ellen Cross Davis

In honor of Valentine’s Day, poet Teri Ellen Cross Davis discusses the challenges and joys of writing love poems while sharing the creative process behind “The Goddess of Interracial Dating,” which appears in her collection A MORE PERFECT UNION. She also discusses the value of writing groups and residencies, literary magazine submission strategies, the art of persona poems, making her own superheroes, returning to her writing self after having children, and more.

 

Teri Ellen Cross Davis is the author of A MORE PERFECT UNION, winner of the 2019 Journal/Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize (Mad Creek Books, 2021) and HAINT (Gival Press, 2016), winner of the 2017 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. She is the poetry coordinator for the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. Learn more by visiting poetsandparents.com.

 

Mentioned in this episode:

• “My Beloved” by Charles Simic
• Emily Dickinson
• The Uncanny X-Men
• Study: “The Protective Role of Melanin Against UV Damage in Human Skin”
• Walt Whitman
• Wanda Coleman
• Terrance Hays
• O.B. Hardison Poetry Series
• Tyre Nichols
• Tamir Rice
• Gordon Square Review
• “The Embers of Eve”
  Ali Black
• Cave Canem
• Hedgebrook
• The Community of Writers
• Virginia Center for the Creative Arts
• Sharon Olds
• Brenda Hillman
• Gregory Pardlo
• Folger Shakespeare Library
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• Library of Congress
• John Wilmerding Symposium

 

Page Count is produced by Ohio Center for the Book at Cleveland Public Library. For full show notes and a transcript of this episode, visit the episode page. To get in touch, email ohiocenterforthebook@cpl.org (put “podcast” in the subject line) or follow us on Twitter or on Facebook.