Elizabeth Bradfield's Books in Dark Times (JP)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Elizabeth Bradfield's Books in Dark Times (JP)

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: John Plotz
Guest: Elizabeth Bradfield
Date: May 21, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this installment of the "Books in Dark Times" series, host John Plotz speaks with poet, naturalist, and Brandeis University professor Elizabeth Bradfield about the books she turns to for comfort, guidance, and engagement during challenging moments. The conversation ranges from the power of poetry in dark times to field guides, epic projects, and the joys of reading as both child and adult. Bradfield also reads from her own work, giving listeners insight into the mind and habits of a contemporary poet.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power and Functions of Poetry

• Poetry as Comfort:
  Bradfield shares that during scattered, stressful times she gravitates towards poetry rather than novels, finding it offers resonance and solace amid chaos.
  • "I find myself pretty scattered right now, so…I’m turning, not unsurprisingly, to poetry." (03:32 – Bradfield)
• Eavan Boland’s “Quarantine”:
  Bradfield discusses the poem "Quarantine" and its historical context, reading it aloud and reflecting on its themes of love, sacrifice, and the intertwining of personal and political histories.
  • "Let no love poem ever come to this threshold. There is no place here for the inexact praise…and the easy graces and sensuality of the body. There is only time for this merciless inventory." (06:28 – Bradfield quoting Boland)
• On Proving Love:
  The meaning of “proved” in Boland’s poem is discussed; Bradfield interprets it as "tested" or "attested."
  • "To have the last act of your life…to have love be your final gesture. I think that's what she means." (07:10 – Bradfield)

2. Mapping Community and Place in Literature

• Bradfield reflects on the ability of novels and poetry (e.g., Maeve Binchy’s work, “Spoon River Anthology”) to map out complex small-town dynamics and relationships:
  • "All of those power dynamics and the services and disservices of a community feel really visible." (08:51 – Bradfield)
• She enjoys project books for their capacity to create a “fractal view of a community”—offering glimpses through individual stories and leaving the reader to fill in gaps. (09:43–10:26)

3. Project Books, Epic, Lyric, and Bardic Impulses

• Discusses “project books”—collections with a thematic or structural focus—and their merging of lyric (self-reflective) and bardic (public, outward) impulses.
  • References include Brian Teare’s Doomstead Days (climate change, body, landscape), Derek Walcott’s Omeros, and Martha Ronk’s Folding Cliffs.
  • "Many lyric poems in these book length projects… Through these lyric moments…they’re engaging with how were these experiences shaped and what are the political realities for these figures as well." (13:13–14:07 – Bradfield)

4. Field Guides as Literature

• Bradfield finds comfort and stimulation in natural history guides, especially in times of crisis and with spring’s arrival.
  • "One of the things I'm really turning to as a reader these days is…field guides. Like…Guide to the Nests, Eggs and Nestlings of North American Birds. I could read all day long." (15:35–15:44 – Bradfield)
• She revels in the structure and detail of field guides, and how they connect her to learning and the outdoors.
  • "It gives me this little satisfying bump of feeling that I'm learning something…" (16:00 – Bradfield)

5. The Wonder and Complexity of Nature Writing

• The duo marvels at how naturalists decipher complex life stages of animals and insects, mentioning Thomas Eisner’s For Love of Insects.
  • "How did someone have the time or even the imagination to watch an ant crawling across the yard and envision the complexity of that?" (17:25 – Bradfield)
• Bradfield and Plotz share awe at discoveries about nature's intricacies. (18:58–20:00)

6. Childhood & the Awakening to Poetry

• Bradfield’s early reading focused on book series (Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew), not poetry.
• "Poetry wasn't the thing for me then…But I will say I still love, love reading young adult novels." (20:50 – Bradfield)
• Her poetic awakening came in high school—when poetry became a way to process "big dramatic feelings"—and further solidified in college via the discipline of revision.
  • "Revision of poetry started to feel like…Tetris, which I also love." (23:23 – Bradfield)

7. On Creative Process and Revision

• Bradfield credits early teachers for helping her see revision as transformational:
  • "Having [my teacher] re-envision a poem, it felt like a superpower to me. Like, oh, what if you put the end at the beginning? …Oh my god, you just blew my mind." (24:11 – Bradfield)

8. Recommendation: Leanne Simpson’s "This Accident of Being Lost"

• Bradfield passionately recommends Leanne Simpson, a First Nations writer:
  • "She's a little bit punk rock…brings ideas of indigeneity and relationships…how do you honestly live contemporary life with an awareness of genocide." (25:13 – Bradfield)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Boland’s Poetic Power:
  "She is the most passionate advocate for poetry's power and the most uncompromising critic and reader of poems." (04:28 – Bradfield)

• On Project Books:
  "I love a book that has a real focus, whether it's a community or a set of obsessions or a historic figure." (09:43 – Bradfield)

• On Field Guides:
  "I love the field guide as an initial point of reference because I also love to see what's on either side." (17:25 – Bradfield)

• On Childhood Series:
  "For me, it was Trixie Belden…she was a schoolgirl, Seamus…young detective and kind of a tomboy." (20:22 – Bradfield)

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Highlight: Elizabeth Bradfield Reads “We all want to see a mammal” (26:39)

"We all want to see a mammal. Squirrels and snowshoe hares don't count, voles don't count.
Something preferably that could do us harm. There's a long list…
But we want to see a mammal. Our day, our lives incomplete without a mammal. …
Mammal breasted and nippled and warm, warm, warm."
— Elizabeth Bradfield (26:39–27:43)

• Bradfield describes this as part of her series of "cranky naturalist poems," blending humor, self-awareness, and the allure of the wild. (28:00)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Eavan Boland and “Quarantine” Discussion: 03:32–07:20
• Mapping Communities and Project Books: 08:14–10:26
• Epic, Lyric & Bardic Poetry Discussion: 11:40–14:07
• On Field Guides & Nature Literature: 15:35–18:14
• Wonder of Nature & Learning: 18:14–20:00
• Childhood Books & Young Adult Novels: 20:22–21:46
• Poetry’s Early “Aha!” Moments, Revision as Tetris: 21:57–23:32
• Book Recommendation – Leanne Simpson: 25:13–26:26
• Bradfield Reads “We all want to see a mammal”: 26:39–27:43

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Closing Thoughts

This episode balances deep literary and poetic analysis with accessible, personal storytelling. Bradfield’s enthusiastic engagement—ranging from Eavan Boland’s searing poetry to the subtle joys of field guides—offers listeners both comfort and sparks of intellectual curiosity. Her reading of “We all want to see a mammal” stands out for its wry, self-aware humor and connection to the natural world. The episode is a testament to literature's ability to sustain, inform, and connect us—even, or especially, in dark times.

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Transcript

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

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[Elizabeth Bradfield]

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[Elizabeth Bradfield]

My lips are sealed.

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[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Hi, I'm Elizabeth Ferri. Welcome to another rebroadcast from the RTB archives.

[John Plotz]

From Brandeis University. Welcome to Recall this book where we assemble scholars and writers from different disciplines to make sense of contemporary issues, problems and events. John I'm Jon Plotz and our RTB virtual guest today is the poet and naturalist Elizabeth Bradfield, who's the author of several amazing books including Toward Antarctica, Once Removed, Approaching Ice, Interpretive Work and a recent collaborative work called Theorem. She's my colleague, my amazing colleague at Brandeis University in English and creative writing. And she's also founder and editor in chief of Broadsided Press. And for the past 20 some years, she has also worked as a naturalist and guide. So, Liz, hello and hi. Hi. Thank you so much for doing this from your cozy Cape Cod. Eerie. Oh, my pleasure.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Thanks for inviting me.

[John Plotz]

Yeah. So. So, Liz, you know, I, I should say this is another installment of our Books in Dark Times series which asks what books we turn to for guidance and sustenance and engagement at moments like these. And the series as a whole takes its inspiration from, from Hannah Arendt's idea in Men in Dark Times that, you know, even at the darkest moments, you can find sustenance from the thought that things you know have been better and will be better in the future. And just a reminder that the question we're asking you today we're also asking our listeners as well. So we want you to think about what sustains and engages you, what pushes and prods you, and maybe, you know, what makes you want to get out there and do things in the world again. So, Liz, can I just start off with some of those general questions I started you with in advance? Like, you know, what. What books give you comfort and why Comfort or joy and why?

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Well, I find myself pretty scattered right now, so I usually, I love to dive into novels, but I don't have the mind for it right now. So I'm turning, not unsurprisingly, to poetry. Um, I actually scout, skipping through a bunch of different books. Different little things in the news are sending me to different books on my shelves. You know, Evan Boland's death a couple days ago sent me back to look at all of her. Her work was just, just so phenomenal. And the resonance of a poem of hers like Quarantine in this moment, I mean, it's just. It's such a heartbreakingly beautiful poem.

[John Plotz]

Can we say more? I'm so glad you mentioned her because I was just reading her obituary this morning and realizing even though I teach Irish literature, I don't know as much about her as I should. So tell us about. Can you tell us about Quarantine?

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Yeah, I mean, actually, I have it.

[John Plotz]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Here.

[John Plotz]

Amazing.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

You know, Evan, she taught at Stanford for a long, long time. And so I was fortunate enough to be able to study with her when I was there. And she is just the. She is the most passionate advocate for. For poetry's power and the most uncompromising critic and reader of poems. She's both incredibly generous and incredibly hard eyed and always, always incredibly certain, which really baffles me as a person. But this poem of hers is from her book Against Love Poetry, and she introduces that. There's so many great videos of her online reading this poem and talking about it. But she talks about how she discovered the instance for this poem, which was by reading a text in which the story of a woman stepping out from her house and finding two people frozen to death huddled together nearby. And it made Ivan come to this poem and to think about the devastating history of the famines in the late 1800s in Ireland. Quarantine in the worst hour of the worst season of the worst year of a whole people. A man set out from the workhouse with his wife. He was walking. They were both walking north. She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up. He lifted her and put her on his back he walked like that, west and west and north, until at nightfall, under freezing stars, they arrived. In the morning, they were both found dead of cold, of hunger, of the toxins of a whole history. But her feet were held against his breastbone. The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her. Let no love poem ever come to this threshold. There is no place here for the inexact praise and the easy graces and sensuality of the body. There is only time for this merciless inventory. Their death together in the winter of 1847. Also what they suffered, how they lived, and what there is between a man and woman, and in which darkness it can best be proved.

[John Plotz]

Wow, Liz, that's amazing.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Almost broke down crying in the middle of reading that.

[John Plotz]

Thank you. What does the word proved mean there in that final. That final word? I've been baking a lot, so I think about proofing. And is that. Is it that sense is proved, tested, attested?

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Yeah. I mean, in the way that. Tested, I think. Right. I mean.

[John Plotz]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

If you are sick and starving and huddled together outside to have, you know, to have the last act of your life. Sorry.

[John Plotz]

No, no.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

It's an amazing generosity, you know, to be one in which, in times of trouble, to have love be your final gesture. It's just. I think that's what she means.

[John Plotz]

Yeah. That's incredible. When we talk about Irish literature, we talk a lot about the Troubles and how the Troubles is a word for one time in Ireland, but it could be a word for, like, many decades in Ireland. Like, there's a lot of Troubles there.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Yeah, for sure. I love the way Ivan Boland, you know, she brings together the personal details of lives and. But she doesn't ignore the historic political context that shaped them. And so there's bridging of. It's not quite confessional, although that's in some of her poems. But this. This awareness of how the personal is politicized or how politics shapes the personal, and. And it's done in such a beautiful and natural way. It's not forced at all in her poems, but again and again, she finds the right moment to turn that. Turn that screw. And let us really examine how these things work with each other, really.

[John Plotz]

Do you know this woman, Maeve Binchy? I'm just reading Circle of Friends. Yeah. She's amazing. And she's so. I mean, she's such a. In a way, like. I mean, I say light, but not in the sense of lightweight. Like, she's so enjoyable and kind of soap opera y. And engaged in a melodramatic. Set of plots. But you always know who's Protestant and who's Catholic, who's comes from the great house, who comes from down the village when there's a. When there's a house that doesn't quite belong to the village or to the. You know, who lives there and why their story is different. You know, that. That sense of provincial possibility of locating people and relationship to one another very easily. Yeah.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Yeah. I think. I mean, I think about just listening to that and thinking about it, that I think it's one of the things that I love about living where I do. Living out here on the Cape, in Truro, in Provincetown. And I feel like I'm able to map. I'm able to map that much more acutely than I would be in a larger community. You know what I mean? The person who's checking out my groceries is also an amazing artist. And I know that, you know, because the town is small or who's has summer home and how are they buying the influence for the. You know what I mean? All of those power dynamics and the services and disservices of a community feel really visible.

[John Plotz]

Yeah, so do. So, Liz, are you a fan of any of these books that kind of poetry that. Like Winesburg, Ohio or something, or Spoon River Anthology, rather like poems that just kind of like summon up a whole set of people in their relationship to one another?

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Yeah, I mean, I love a project book. You know, a book of poems that I always read, books of poems, start to finish, like as. As one would a novel. And I. I enjoy that unfolding. And I. I love a book that has a real focus, whether it's a community or, you know, a set of obsessions or a historic figure. So I do. And I think what I like about things like Spoon River Anthology is that fractal view of a community just having these flashes of people and the gaps between those flashes being something that I get to map a little bit that's left for me to fill in. I think that's part of what I enjoy about that type of collection, too.

[John Plotz]

Yeah. Wait, can you say more, Liz, about other project books? Because I was thinking. You made me think of the Louise Gluck book about Persephone and Demeter, which I. All this. Is that what it's called?

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

I can't remember.

[John Plotz]

Yeah. So that doesn't sound like you're a fan of that or that's not one that does it for you, but I. That book, I really worked for me as a project book.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

No, I think you know, I think when I think of Louise Gluck, I always go to the Wild Iris.

[John Plotz]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Of her collections, but honestly, I haven't read her as deeply as some other poets. But you know, I'm thinking of thinking right now of Brian Teare's book Doomstead Days that I just finished. It's a new book and Brian Teare is just an amazing writer and thinker. And a lot of the poems in Doomstead Days, he's engaging with climate change, but he's looking at the way the body's frailties are mapped onto the landscape's frailties. He looks at the first public disaster he witnessed, which was an oil spill in San Francisco Bay. He talks about his own illness and the, the pharmaceuticals in his body entering into the world. I'm just this, this mix of the permeability of the self and the world. And a lot of poems are composed on these long walks.

[John Plotz]

When we go through high school, we get taught about like the different forms of poetry, lyric poetry, epic poetry, dramatic poetry. Is that length point you're making? Like are all of the poems you're talking about, would you call them lyric or do you think there's a way in which the longer poem kicks into a different genre or. You know, I guess I don't know if people even write epic poetry nowadays, but.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Well, sure. You think about Derek Walcott's Omero.

[John Plotz]

Yeah, I was thinking about that. That's it's not just a project book, right? That is a poem.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Yeah, the poem and Rwin's the Folding Cliffs. I mean that's amazing. Looking at early contact Hawaii and the devastation of Leipz on the island.

[John Plotz]

The folding Cliffs. Wow, okay.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Yeah, it's an amazing book.

[John Plotz]

Yeah. But those are deliberately epic sort of book length poems. Right, but then you're talking about, I don't know, lyric piled on lyric or something.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Yeah, I think often that happens and I think, you know, when I was in graduate school, one of my teachers was Linda McCarriston and she talked a lot about the lyric impulse versus the bardic impulse. So not thinking of lyric as a short thing necessarily, but the lyrics as the self reflecting upon the self, whether it's in resonance with a cloud or whatever. And the bardic being the self speaking outward, an Irish tradition, the poet speaking to power for the people and the lyric being this moment of self reflection. And I think there are many lyric poems in some of these book length projects like say Natasha Trethewey's book, Belloc's Ophelia, in which she looks at. She looks at this photographer in New Orleans who early days of photography would go to the brothels in New Orleans and particularly the brothels of mixed race prostitutes and document them. And so she brings a lyric perspective into those moments. And she gives one of the models that he photographed her own voice in those poems, this woman named Ophelia. So. So it's Belloc's Ophelia is the title. But overall it becomes a bardic impulse, which I think is really interesting because through these lyric moments, these moments of reflection as they accumulate, you realize that they're engaging with how were these experiences shaped and what are the political realities for these figures as well. And so I think they're kind of doing both, you know.

[John Plotz]

Yeah.

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[John Plotz]

So. So let's that to say more about the bardic like. I feel like there's a distinction. Oh, yeah, isn't it Yates's distinction. We make of a quarrel with others politics. We make it of our quarrel with ourselves poetry. So you're actually kind of. This is a different from that Yates distinction, Right? Because you're saying there's a bardic impulse that is poetic but is actually could be a quarrel with others. It doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be naval contemplation.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

One of the things I'm really turning to as a reader these days is not even narrative nonfiction, but field guides like.

[John Plotz]

Oh, field guides. Yeah.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Guide to the Nests, Eggs and Nestlings of North American Birds. I could read all day long.

[John Plotz]

You know, say more about that. Like, what does it. Do. To do for you? Is it. Is it a substitute? Is it a. Does it put you in the. Put you out there? Does it.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Well, it gives me this little satisfying bump of feeling that I'm learning something, which is fun just sitting around and. But also, I think it's partly because it's spring, too, right? And migratory birds are coming through. And I just start thinking about. There's so much that I don't know about so much. So hear a bird, look up the bird, read about the nest. I just. I find. I find the. You know what I think it is? I think also the form and the structure of a natural history guide where you have these categories and they're each kind of answered in detail. Like, there's this. In this book, there's the description of the nest, the breeding season, the eggs, the incubation, the nesting period. These. And they're. They vary, but they're the same. And I. I find it really beautiful and fascinating as the genre as well as just the information that's in there, you know?

[John Plotz]

Yeah, I totally hear you. And I have these Sibley guides, and I try to read them that way sometimes, and it's somehow I'm just not programmed that way. Like, I read them. I can read one section and think it's great. But I don't know, like, when I was in the. When I was lucky enough to go to the Galapagos that, you know, then the books just came alive for me, and I was reading them, like, the second I got back on the boat, I would just start reading them. But it. It was. Because it was. It was over. Determined, you know, like, the world gave me the reference. And you're clearly able to bring the world in to that taxonomy.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

I don't know if it's that different, though, really, because I'm. It's not like it's the first thing I turn to in the morning, but as soon as I come back inside from having been outside, there's something that I see, like, pick up a shell on the beach. Do I really know what this is? Let me go look it up. And I. I love. I love the field guide as an initial point of reference because I also love to see what's on either side. You know what I mean? And looking stuff up online is just not as satisfying as these books, which, you know, the. They blow my mind, too, for just. How did we figure some of that stuff out? Like, how did someone get into that nest cavity and document this building? How did someone have the time or even the Imagination to watch an ant crawling across the yard and envision the complexity of that.

[John Plotz]

Do you know a book called the Love of Insects by maybe his name is Eisner or Esner, not Lauren Isley, but it's like that. He's a friend of E.O. wilson's and he's like an insect. He is an expert. I mean I think he's just generally an insect guy but. But he's had like a 50 year career and he's interested in insects, camouflage and weaponry basically. Like so he's interested in how a fecal shield works on a dun dung beetle and how different kinds of miming work. Like how much energy do you have to give up to look a little bit like a bee? How much energy do you have to give up to look a lot like a bee if you're a non stinging insect? Oh, and that's. It's just amazing to me how we can know those things.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

I know especially animals that go through radically different life stages. Like I was thinking about the life stages of, of echinoderms the other day. So starfish, urchins, sand dollars. And to figure that out in the ocean that you have this tiny planktonic creature that looks a little bit like a space capsule and then, and then the later form is growing inside of it and it turns itself inside out like a sock and becomes an urchin. I mean it's. How. How did anyone. I don't know.

[John Plotz]

I know. And we make fun of people for calling barnacle geese barnacle geese. I'm like, you know, listen, geese coming out of barnacles is actually not as crazy as some of the things that actually happen. Like that one happened to be wrong but true. It's. By the way, it's Thomas Eisner for love of insects. You should check it out. Even the. Just the images are unbelievable. And I wonder if that guy is still alive. It was, you know, he figured out like how hot the spray is. It comes out of beetles like it's 227 degrees or whatever.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Oh my God. It's amazing.

[John Plotz]

Yeah, just. I love that.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Me too.

[John Plotz]

So Liz, I think lots of people listening will want to know, you know, since we often talk about childhood books here. So people will want to know. Kind of like it's like the childhood of the poet question. Like when you were a kid, did poetry turn you on? Do you remember early books that did turn you on?

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

I, I love to read. I was super obsessed with all the series books. Any ones I could get my hands on. Right. Book in Series, you know, Nancy Drew or the Boxcar Children. Or for me, it was Trixie Bellin. It was kind of this. She was a schoolgirl, Seamus, you know, she was a young detective and kind of a tomboy and she. This stuff. I. I loved Trixie Belden.

[John Plotz]

Trixie Velvet Belden. Wow.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Belden.

[John Plotz]

Amazing.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Yeah, she was. She was great. But I didn't know. I, you know, we had Child's Children's Garden of Verse and we had some Shel Silverstein around the house, but poetry wasn't the thing for me then. I will say that I still love, Love reading young adult novels. I actually just read. That's a. That's a book that I still can fall into in. In these moments. A friend who is bit younger than me and who grew up in Austria, we were talking about books and she asked if I had ever read the Giver. Do you know this? It was published, I think, in 94. We found out. And I, I had never heard of it. It was beyond my, you know, young adult reading days. I was being very old.

[John Plotz]

Lois Lowry. Yeah.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Yeah, I just read that last week. And that was the kind of book that on a rainy day, just put me on the couch and don't talk to me, you know, you could fall into. And I love.

[John Plotz]

So what was. So what was your aha moment with poetry? Like? Did it come in formal education or did it come just, like, out in the world? Like, what, what poetry? Like lit a rocket under you?

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Well, I mean, I think there's a. There's a double pronged answer, you know, like when I was young and in school, we get these assignments like, oh, you could do a haiku instead, or write a poem from the perspective of this historic character. I was like, that sounds easy. I'll do that.

[John Plotz]

And poetry the easy way out.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

And I would get praise for it. So that made me feel good. So it's like, oh, let me do some more. But I didn't really feel it as a driving passion then, not until really high school, when there were a lot of feelings that needed dealing with. And poetry for me felt like the place that gave me permission to have big dramatic feelings. And then it became really a lifeline. And then. But. And then. But I don't think I really. I don't think I really seriously considered trying to always write or be a poet in any way, shape or form until. Until I took a workshop in college as a freshman and we had to revise. And all of a sudden, the logic side of my brain that likes puzzles and that likes order and surprise met the emotional part of my brain, likes beauty and that playing that felt, you know. The video game of the time was Tetris, which I also love.

[John Plotz]

Just, oh, my God, I love Tetris. Yeah.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

So fun. And that's what revision of poetry started to feel like. Like all those little pieces just coming together and building something. And then I. Then I was. I was hooked.

[John Plotz]

Yeah. Wow. So is there a poet who stood for that, for you? Like you were watching, you were reading a poem by Elizabeth Bishop and you saw, oh, this is how it's done, or you saw a revision. Nothing like that.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

No. I mean, I think it was being forced to do it to my own poems.

[John Plotz]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

And even just seeing in a workshop, the teacher, she was a graduate student at the time, Shelley Withrow, she had the best accent. And being. Having her re envision a poem, it felt like a superpower to me. Like, oh, what if you put the end at the beginning? I was like, oh, my God, you just blew my mind. You can do that.

[John Plotz]

Wow, that's great. Do you ever translate? No, I was just wondering. In the puzzle side of things, it sounds like that might be appealing, but.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Yeah, unfortunately, I mean, I'm. I have. I have rough Spanish and rough Italian, but I don't have a depth of knowledge of another language. And, yeah, I think. I think that energy, that puzzle solving energy in relation to poetry is maybe more what I put into broadsided and pairing the literary and visual and.

[John Plotz]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Design in mind, too. Yeah.

[John Plotz]

So, Liz, maybe like a final question. I love the way you talked about reading sort of a whole book. So is there a book you want to leave us with? We sometimes call this the Recallable book, which is basically like a book that, you know, if this conversation got you thinking, you know, what's the book you would pull off the shelf? You've actually given us a ton of different things. But, you know, I wondered if there's one book, you know, you know, that hasn't come up that you wanted to go to bat for.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Yeah, I mean, it's so hard to pick one. There's so many books I think are amazing, but a recent discovery for me, a friend of mine, a former student, actually, she recommended that I read one book by this author, and I did, and it was amazing. And then I got another by Leanne Simpson, and this book of hers, this Accident of Being Lost, and she. She is a First nations writer from the Greater Toronto area. But I think what I love about this book, and she's. She's a little bit punk rock. She's got a lot of attitude and swagger, and she also has a lot of self questioning and she's bringing in ideas of indigeneity and relationships and there's so much complicated negotiation with lovers and friends and political moments and contemporary life. And how do you. How do you honestly live contemporary life with an awareness of genocide. And I. I really have been loving her work.

[John Plotz]

Hey, Liz. Can I put you on the spot? You don't have to do this if you don't want to, but can you read my favorite. You know that. My favorite poem by you and I know what, because I know it so well. Is we all want to see a mammal. Can. Is there a chance you could read that? You don't have to if you don't want to.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

I could read it. I could almost recite it, but I can't quite. Let me find it. All right. We all want to see a mammal. Squirrels and snowshoe hares don't count, Voles don't count. Something preferably that could do us harm. There's a long list Bear, moose, wolf, wolverine, even porcupine would do the quills, the yellowed teeth and long claws Beautiful here Peaks and avens Meltwater running its braided course. But we want to see a mammal. Our day, our lives incomplete without a mammal. The gaze of something unafraid that we're afraid of meeting ours before it runs off. Linnaeus was called indecent when he named them Plenty of other commonalities. Hair live young. A proclivity to plot, but no mammal. Mammal breasted and nippled and warm, warm, warm.

[John Plotz]

Thank you, Liz. That was great. Wow. I love the. I love the tone you read that in. I never really realized quite how sardonic you. It starts out. You know, you're like.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

It's one of a series of what I call my cranky naturalist poems.

[John Plotz]

Yeah, I like it because I feel like you're. You're channeling those folks up at the. Up at the side of the boat with their glasses, but you're kind of mocking them at the same time. That's.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

That's like, oh, and I am one at the same.

[John Plotz]

You are one of them, right?

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to see a mammal. I catch myself doing that stuff all the time. Like, this wonk is boring. If only I could.

[John Plotz]

Yeah, I know. No, no, you. You really capture it well, Liz. Thank you so much. So I'm just gonna read the credits now and say that recall this book is hosted by John Plotz and usually by Elizabeth Ferry, with music by Eric Chaslow and Barbara Cassidy, sound editings by Claire Ogden, website design and social media by Kaliska Ross. And as you know, dear listeners, we do always want to hear from you with comments, criticism, suggestions for future episodes, and also with your own books in dark times. You can email us directly. You can tweet out at booksindarktimes or contact us via social media and our website. Finally, if you enjoyed today's show, please, please, I'm begging you here. Be sure to write a review or rate us on itunes or Stitcher or wherever you get your podcast. You might want to check out other books in dark time conversations and also conversations with such writers as Zadie Smith, Shisha Niu, and Samuel Delaney. So, Liz, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

[Elizabeth Bradfield]

Thank you for inviting me. This is fun.

[John Plotz]

And thank you all for listening. Sa.