Episode Details

As National Poetry Month draws to a close, Commonweal’s Claudia Avila Cosnahan is joined by poet, scholar, and professor Joshua Bennett to talk about his new book, Spoken Word: A Cultural History.

A prominent slam champion himself, Bennett explains how spoken word poetry has shaped his life and how the art form contributes to the ongoing work of community-building and liberation. 

And be sure to stick around for a short conversation with Mollie Wilson O’Reilly about the life of Claire Huchet Bishop (1898–1993), a writer, librarian, and opponent of anti-semitism who also served for many years as the children’s books editor at Commonweal. 

For further reading: 

• Alejandro Nava on the theology of hip-hop
• Anthony Domestico reviews Joshua Bennett’s Owed
• Daria Donnelly on the imagination of children’s books 
• Claire Huchet Bishop on book bannings in the 1940s