Episode 2 of Experimental Practice is here!
A few weeks ago, when summer was just popping to life, I had the honor of speaking with Selah Saterstrom about literary form and divination, their intersections with uncertainty, and the powerful cross-pollination of different parts of ourselves.
Selah tells us, “Don't lose yourself in fields of bland absence. The engagement with the mystery that creates the work, the work being an artifact signaling back to that engagement–that is the work. And the visitations that are our poems are our stories, they can only be uniquely nuanced through us, through our beings, and the mysteries collaborating with those stories through us to become manifest in the world.”
This conversation felt affirming and made me excited to write, and I hope it will feel that way to you, too. Find the episode on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or on my website for some pithy, nuanced, and joyful weekend listening—plus, we round our conversation out with divination!
About Selah Saterstrom
Selah Saterstrom is the author of five books— Rancher (Burrow Press/Stetson University, 2021), Ideal Suggestions: Essays in Divinatory Poetics (Essay Press, 2017), Slab (Coffee House Press, 2015), The Meat and Spirit Plan (Coffee House Press, 2007), and The Pink Institution (Coffee House Press, 2004). She teaches and lectures across the United States, is on faculty in the University of Denver’s English and Literary Arts program, and runs Four Queens, a platform celebrating Divination and Divinatory Poetics. You can stay up to date with her classes and offerings here.
Mentioned in this episode
Anne Waldman and the Summer Writing Program at Naropa University
University of Denver’s Literary Arts program
Dr. Mark Ledbetter at Millsaps College
Dr. David Jasper at the School of Divinity - University of Glasgow
Rebecca Brown at Goddard College
Bob Glück and his essay “Long Note on New Narrative”
Biting the Error: Writers Explore Narrative by Gail Scott, Camille Roy, and Robert Glück
Autotheory
Maria Goretti
CD Wright
Eleni Sikelianos
Laird Hunt
Julie Carr
Tarot cards discussed: Nine of Pentacles (“The Bird Lady”); Death, Five of Pentacles, and the World (our tarot reading at the end of the episode)
About Experimental Practice
Experimental Practice podcast is a place for conversations about literature, trajectories into and through creative work, and things learned along the way. The podcast is itself an experiment for me in its early stages, one I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. I’m still figuring out its tone and rhythm—like what it looks like to stay “current” with this time-based medium, without treating it as a conduit for endless content generation. Stay tuned for the next sporadic release!
In case you missed it, the very first episode features Miranda Mellis on literary form and the relationship between her writing practice, politics, and Buddhism. We also explore the tricky work of staying connected to one’s values in and through writing, and creative practice as refuge.