Poet-Playwright-Essayist Alison Luterman: Where My Hope Is
Alison Luterman is a writer of extraordinary passion, power, courage and depth. Her work is both timely and timeless, engaging with contemporary issues in profound and complex ways while simultaneously probing the fundamental question of what it means to be human. In this conversation, we talked about her childhood—she started writing poetry when she was six!—her writing process, her recent poetry collection In the Time of Great Fires, her song cycle We Are Not Afraid of the Dark (with composer Sheela Ramesh—song excerpts included!), and the young activists who inspire her. She also reads her stunning poems “Some Girls” (selected by Naomi Shihab Nye for the New York Times Sunday Magazine) and “Insatiable.”
Off-Leash Arts theme music by Asher Witkin. This episode also includes song excerpts from We Are Not Afraid of the Dark, by Alison Luterman and Sheela Ramesh, sung by Ashley Burroughs, Gabriela Gamache, and Julia Geisler.
If you enjoyed this episode, you might enjoy the interview with singer-songwriter Holly Near, titled I Am Open, and I Am Willing; and with poet Athena Kashyap, Where A Poem Lives. You might also enjoy my poems, Doing Yoga With the Buddha and The Breath of Love.
