In this, the final episode of The Personhood Project, host Aaron Tyler Hand sits down with poet Kathy Fagan. Fagan is the author of six poetry collections, including Bad Hobby, Sycamore, and The Raft. In the episode, the two discuss how poetry is often felt before it’s understood, and how its music and mystery allow both readers and writers to access emotions and truths that ordinary language can’t reach. They also talk about the difficulty—and necessity—of confronting the past, why that work is “so worth the time and effort,” and how poetry creates space for claiming one’s place in the world.

Discover more about ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Rough Draft TX⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Personhood Project⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

In this penultimate episode of The Personhood Project, poet Diannely Antigua sits down with host Aaron Tyler Hand for a conversation about the intersection of healing and craft. In the episode, the two discuss Antigua’s poetry collections Ugly Music and Good Monster, and how diary-entry poems can serve as a bridge between the therapeutic and the artistic. They also discuss the importance of noticing the poetic in the mundane, the role of community in healing, and how reclaiming one's story by sharing it can be a powerful act of care and resistance.

Discover more about ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Rough Draft TX⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Personhood Project⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

This month poet Rosebud Ben-Oni sits down with Aaron Tyler Hand for the season two finale of The Personhood Project. In this episode, the two discuss the ways in which poetry can offer hope when all other signs point towards there not being any and the ways poetry allows us to see people more three-dimensionally. The two also discuss the pain of watching a loved one get locked up as well as the importance of writing to congress to make change in things you believe in. Rosebud also offers insight into her chapbook 20 Atomic Sonnets and the full length collection that it's developing into.

You can find our writing prompts and the incarcerated writers' poems ⁠HERE⁠!