Podcast Summary: "Strange Hymn: Poems" with Carlene Kucharczyk

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Kavya Sarathi
Guest: Carlene Kucharczyk
Date: October 25, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of New Books Network features poet Carlene Kucharczyk discussing her debut poetry collection, Strange Hymn (University of Massachusetts Press, 2025), winner of the Juniper Prize for a first book. Kucharczyk and host Kavya Sarathi delve into the origins of the collection, its thematic preoccupations with wonder, form, and literary influence, and the process of compiling and arranging a book of poems. Carlene also gives a live reading and reflects on her creative process, influences, and editorial decisions.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Approach to "Strange Hymn"

• Genesis of the Book:
  • Most of the poems were written over several years, but “I had a lot of individual poems that I wasn’t necessarily thinking of as a book until later on.” (02:16)
  • The acknowledgment section was written last and surprisingly shaped some of the thematic thinking.
• Connection to Childhood Wonder:
  • The book is rooted in a childhood sense of wonder, referenced explicitly from the acknowledgments:
    • “I would swing and sing and think outside for hours. This is the place these poems come from.” (Acknowledgments, quoted 03:06)
  • “That sense of wonder and wonderment and... kind of thoughtfulness and singing... felt like where these poems come from.” (04:21)

2. Poetry and Truth: Autobiography vs. Persona

• Discusses the boundary (or lack thereof) between autobiography and invention in poetry:
  • “The thing I try to be allegiant to with my poems is language and the musicality of language and the lyricism.” (05:12)
  • “The poems in this book are more autobiographical... But that’s not to say... the voice is always exactly me or that there isn’t some kind of Persona Happening.” (06:25)
  • “That can be a sense of completion for the poem.” (06:02)

3. Title and Thematic Framing

• On the Book Title:
  • “Strange Hymn isn’t a phrase in the book. It’s not a title of any poem in there. But it felt like it was this encompassing what was going on in the book and this sense of singing that’s a theme throughout, but often in different ways.” (06:54)
  • “Like a hymn, but a little bit off. Like there’s that dissonance, like Strange Hymn." (07:23)

4. Ordering and Structure

• Chose not to divide the book into sections, instead setting the opening poem, “Church,” apart as a kind of preamble or invocation:
  • “That poem is kind of a prayer poem, and I wanted to evoke that with that poem as kind of an umbrella for the whole collection.” (07:58)
• On curating the collection:
  • Poems such as "Mary" and "Self Portrait Through Glass" (longer, hybrid pieces) brought cohesion.
  • “The collection didn’t really come together until I included them in it.” (10:00)
• Decision-making was highly intuitive:
  • “That collection came really, like, manually, like trial and error and putting this here and putting something else somewhere else... seeing what felt like it worked right.” (15:42)

5. Key Poems and Favorites

• Frequently featured in readings: “Church,” “On Beholding the Beloved’s Rotting Body,” and “The Sirens.” (09:10)
• “Church is so short that I have that memorized, too. It’s the only one in the book that I have memorized fully...” (09:46)
• “There was one poem, Ghosts, I took out after it was accepted for publication... just didn’t feel right in there.” (11:00)
• Favorites include “Church,” “On Beholding the Beloved’s Rotting Body,” the “Mary” piece, and “Self Portrait Through Glass” (“or maybe specific parts of that than as a whole”). (12:19 – 12:33)

6. Influence of Other Writers

• References to Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath, Rainer Maria Rilke, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Emily Dickinson surface throughout the collection.
  • “The American Romantics definitely... and Transcendentalism definitely influenced my thinking at the time of writing these poems. And also Emily Dickinson...” (13:12)
  • Some references are deeply personal, others included for the “particular line” rather than sustained importance: “Sometimes I almost felt like it was heading in a misdirection by the inclusion of someone who maybe wasn’t that important to me. But this particular line, I felt was really evocative by including that.” (14:26)

7. Space, Form, & The Page

• Intentional use of white space and non-traditional form to convey “a breath” and create participation for the reader:
  • “I like that there’s a lot of space there... it invites more participation from the reader, from the listener, than there would be otherwise. It’s kind of like a breath.” (17:19)
• Interest in exploring more spacious forms going forward, particularly influenced by how it changes reading aloud (18:21)

8. Page vs. Oral Tradition in Poetry

• Reflects on the difference between poetry designed for the page and the oral tradition:
  • “It’s interesting if you’re thinking of it like just what’s on the page or if that is how you’re thinking most people will encounter your work versus an oral tradition...” (19:01)

Memorable Quotes & Highlights

• On Wonder and Origins:
  “That sense of wonder and wonderment... kind of thoughtfulness and singing... those things together at the same time felt like where these poems come from.”
  — Carlene Kucharczyk, (04:23)

• On Lyric Process and ‘Rightness’ in Poetry:
  “The thing I try to be allegiant to with my poems is language and the musicality of language and the lyricism... that can be a sense of completion for the poem.”
  — Carlene Kucharczyk, (05:12)

• On Referenced Writers:
  “The American Romantics definitely... and Transcendentalism definitely influenced my thinking at the time of writing these poems.”
  — Carlene Kucharczyk, (13:12)

• On the Importance of Reading Aloud:
  “I love when people are able to recite their poems or other people’s poems as well, because it brings something really different to it, a different energy and kind of be more alive in the spontaneity.”
  — Carlene Kucharczyk, (09:46)

• On the Use of Space:
  “It invites more participation from the reader, from the listener... It’s kind of like a breath. You’re not trying to fill in all the space... it just kind of allows a spaciousness there.”
  — Carlene Kucharczyk, (17:19–18:17)

Notable Segment Timestamps

• Introduction to the Poet and Book’s Origin: 01:35 – 02:57
• Discussion of Childhood Wonder & Acknowledgments: 03:05 – 04:32
• Fiction vs. Nonfiction in Poetry: 04:55 – 06:46
• Title and Thematic Breadth: 06:46 – 07:40
• Arranging the Collection & Poem Selection: 07:40 – 11:00
• Influences & Referencing Other Poets: 12:39 – 14:48
• On Space, Order, and Editorial Choices: 15:42 – 18:17
• Page vs. Oral Considerations: 19:01 – 19:25
• Poetry Reading ("On Beholding the Beloved’s Rotting Body”): 19:42 – 20:57

Live Poetry Reading

At [19:42], Carlene Kucharczyk reads from her poem “On Beholding the Beloved’s Rotting Body,” blending humor and philosophical musing about literary figures and memory.
Notable excerpt:

“I think it is beautiful that Emerson dug his wife out of the grave a year and two months after she died just to see how she was making out. Perhaps I would have liked to marry Emerson. ...I do not really like beards anyway.... I am always thinking of Thoreau. But back to Emerson’s wife. Maybe he thought she was caught somewhere between the skeleton and the soul.”
— Carlene Kucharczyk, live reading (19:47 – 20:57)

Final Thoughts

This episode provides an intimate, candid look into the making of Strange Hymn, balancing craft talk with personal reflection. Kucharczyk’s openness about her process, influences, and decisions offers valuable insight for poetry readers and writers alike. The episode’s tone is thoughtful, occasionally wry, shaped by the poet's precise attention to language and form.