Podcast Summary:

New Books Network | Taylor Byas, "Resting Bitch Face: Poems" (Catapult, 2025)
Host: New Books
Guest: Dr. Taylor Byas
Date: October 8, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode features a dynamic conversation between the host and poet Dr. Taylor Byas about her forthcoming poetry collection, "Resting Bitch Face" (Catapult, 2025). The discussion delves into the book’s central preoccupation with the gaze—especially as it relates to Black womanhood, art, surveillance, and resistance. Byas illuminates her poetic strategies, the shaping of her collection’s structure, the use of artistic forms, and the transformative power of ekphrasis and persona in her poems. The episode also considers the nuances of audience, vulnerability, and the intersectional layers present in Byas’s work.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Centering the Gaze, Vulnerability, and Audience

• Dedication and Gaze:

  • The book opens with a dedication "for women, for black women, for those who have been frozen under the unwanted gaze of a man."
  • Byas discusses how she consciously wrote primarily for Black women, creating intentional spaces of access and exclusion:

    "I want there to be spaces in this book in which women, black women in particular, are the ones that can fully embody and access those experiences. And there is work that other readers have to do to reach the same place..." (08:05)

  • She reflects on the timing of considering audience, noting that for this book, the protective considerations about self and others came in earlier than usual.

• Discomfort and Truth:

  • The host remarks on resonating with the collection as a Black woman, to which Byas replies:

    "Even for black women, there can be a level of unease...that some sort of truth about their experience has been rendered..." (10:04)

Thematic Overview of "Resting Bitch Face"

• Surveillance, Art, and Museum Spaces:
  • Byas outlines the thematic core of the collection as the experience of being constantly "surveilled" and the absence (or problematic presence) of Blackness in art spaces:

    "...to move through a life...where there's really no space...for true privacy or true safety, especially in the context of art, photography, and film...even in a museum, most of what you see doesn't look like you. And when it does, it's often created by those in positions of historical violence." (11:54–13:12)

Structural Choices & Title Evolution

• Section Titles as Process:

  • The collection is organized into four sections: Canvas, Gesso, Dry Down, and Signature, reflecting the layered process of creating a painting.

    "The process of even putting this together felt very much like that meticulous but multilayered process of putting together a painting..." (13:43)

  • The "Signature" section was a late addition, prompted by the writing of a poem for a Cincinnati museum, which Byas realized was the book's final note.

• On the Title "Resting Bitch Face":

  • Initially apprehensive about pushback from the publisher, Byas was instead encouraged:

    "They were actually the ones that said, 'No, that's the title. Resting Bitch Face is it.' And they gave me the courage...It's so critical, right at the middle of the book, it serves as this hinge point." (16:48–17:35)

  • She reclaims the term from insult to act of resistance:

    "I wanted Resting Bitch Face...to be the response to someone who's trying to police or who wants me to appear a certain way." (20:15)

Exploring Form and Ekphrasis

• Defining Ekphrasis:

  • Byas describes ekphrasis as a written response to visual art—a practice central to her poetic journey and abundant in this collection:

    "In undergrad...it was taking an ekphrastic poetry workshop...that actually changed the entire trajectory of my writing career." (22:43)

  • Ekphrasis allows her to "puzzle through" art, language, and the challenge of inviting readers into those spaces—particularly where art has historically aligned with objectification and violence.

• Form as Artistic Resistance:

  • Byas actively uses a range of forms (pantoum, burning haibun, duplex, palindrome) both to reflect and subvert.

    "Traditional forms have been historically populated by...white Eurocentric authors, men for the most part...I write the forms that I wish I could have read. I write the form of poems that I hope people are bringing into classrooms." (27:32–30:00)

  • The repetitive and reversible nature of these forms mirror the "back and forth" of the gaze in the collection, as noted by the host.

• Formal Innovation and Poetic Lineage:

  • Byas emphasizes the importance of honoring predecessors and contemporaries experimenting with traditional and newly invented forms:

    "We get these forms because someone was brave and experimental enough to do something different or to take what existed previously and break it somehow..." (31:34)

The Role of Art References, Allusion, and Epigraphs

• On Epigraphs:
  • Byas believes references should enhance but not be required for understanding:

    "A poem should function without needing the outside information. The outside information should only enhance the reading experience." (39:56)

  • Epigraphs help build artistic lineage, signaling the works and artists in conversation with her collection.

Place, Setting, and Narrative in Poetry

• Place as Lived Experience and Influence:
  • Byas discusses how her locations (Alabama, Birmingham, Chicago, Cincinnati) deeply influence her poetry, shaping its content and aesthetic:

    "I'm hyper aware...of how geographical location influences how I'm experiencing the world. It influences everything." (46:51)

  • Her fiction background inflects her "narrative" poetry with a strong sense of scene and setting.

Process, Truth, and Editorial Perspective

• Truth, Fact, and Poetic License:
  • Byas shares that sometimes a poem resists being written as nonfiction and "wants" to be fictionalized—a freedom poetry offers:

    "Sometimes it's not even something you choose. Sometimes you're trying to write it one way, and that's just not the way that the poem...wants to exist." (56:19)

• Editorial Experience Affecting Poetic Craft:
  • Her work as an editor gives her insight—and relief—about acceptances and rejections, and makes her meticulous about submitting work:

    "There is some relief, being on the other side of the curtain...all these decisions...so little...has to do with the quality of the work...But I'm much more meticulous about how I put things together." (57:56–61:08)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On writing for Black women and the gaze:

  "When we're thinking about audience, like, I'm writing for the black woman, and then we're thinking about the gaze, which is, you know, very much a gendered gaze...a violent white male gaze...In that gaze, they are different."
  —Taylor Byas (05:10)

• On reclaiming "Resting Bitch Face":

  "I wanted resting bitch Face to be the act, not the insult, not the descriptor, but like the response, the chosen response to being kaleased."
  —Taylor Byas (21:03)

• On ekphrasis and the challenge of access:

  "There was so much puzzling that has to go into creating these openings when it comes to engaging with visual art...it ended up being perfect for this project in which I'm thinking about the historical role that art has played in violation and objectification."
  —Taylor Byas (24:39)

• On poetic form as resistance:

  "I write the forms that I wish I could have read...We get these forms because someone was, you know, brave and experimental enough to do something different or to take what existed previously and break it."
  —Taylor Byas (30:00)

• On meticulous editing:

  "If I send this out on the world, I now have an idea of what they're going to see when they get this submission packet...I am just much more meticulous about how I put things together, which is not a bad thing at all."
  —Taylor Byas (59:46)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Reading from the book: "My friend says Steven Spielberg is invited to the cookout..." — 01:37
• Discussion of audience and the gaze — 04:28 – 09:13
• Overview of the book’s themes and museum spaces — 11:53 – 13:32
• Section structure: Canvas, Gesso, Dry Down, Signature — 13:32 – 16:30
• On the title "Resting Bitch Face" and reclaiming the insult — 16:30 – 22:02
• Defining and discussing ekphrasis — 22:26 – 26:53
• Form and innovation (pantoum, burning haibun, duplex, palindrome, etc.) — 26:53 – 34:08
• Camera lens as poetic device; cinematic prose poems — 35:01 – 37:42
• Epigraphs, allusion, and artistic lineage — 39:56 – 43:08
• Place, narrative, and the influence of geography — 46:51 – 52:16
• Truth vs. fiction in poetry; form and content negotiation — 55:54 – 57:34
• Editorial perspective on the poetics and submissions process — 57:56 – 61:08

Episode Highlights

• The conversation is rich with craft insights and critical examinations of how marginalized bodies navigate art spaces and language.
• Byas shares valuable perspectives on the importance of artistic lineage, both through epigraphs and formal play.
• The host and guest have an engaging rapport, delving deeply into the mechanics and politics of poetic creation, with sharp, accessible explanations for all listeners.
• Listeners learn not only about Resting Bitch Face as a singular collection, but also about broader questions of art, identity, literary tradition, and the evolving landscape of Black poetics.

Guest:
Dr. Taylor Byas
Instagram: @taylorybiaspoet
BlueSky: @taylorybias

Host:
Sullivan Sommer
Instagram: @thesullivansommer
Substack: sullivansommer