Transcript: Poems on Air, Episode 58 - Diane Seuss

The following transcript is provided for accessibility only. Layout, formatting, and typography of poems may differ from the original text. We recommend referring to the original, published works when possible to experience the poems as intended by their authors.

[Music intro]

LYNNE THOMPSON: Hello! My name is Lynne Thompson, Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles and I’m so happy to welcome listeners to this installment of Poems on Air, a podcast supported by the Los Angeles Public Library. Every week, I’ll present the work of poets I admire, poets who you should know, and poets who have made a substantial and inimitable contribution to the art and craft of poetry.

LYNNE THOMPSON: To say 2022 has been a banner year for Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award finalist, Diane Seuss, is an understatement. Seuss won the L.A. Times Book Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry for her collection frank: sonnets, and the year isn’t half over! As the PEN judges said of this work: “[h]er ability to radically associate and tell stories extends the [traditional sonnet] far beyond each poem’s initiating moment. The evolution of the sonnet is intertwined with the evolution of self…” Seuss, the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other recognitions, taught at Michigan’s Kalamazoo College from 1988 through 2016.

LYNNE THOMPSON: Today’s poem is [My favorite scent is my own funk] by Diane Seuss.

[My favorite scent is my own funk]


My favorite scent is my own funk, my least favorite scent, other
people’s funk, and this, my friends, is why we cannot have nice
things. I value the advice I give others but I don’t like the advice
that comes my way unless it reflects what I would have done anyway.
You know how it goes. I like how my voice sounds in the car
when I sing along with Earth, Wind & Fire but no one else can
pull it off, no one. My bad acting, when I acted, was charming.
I intended it to be bad as a comment on the state of theater
in the 20th century. On days I don’t have to see anyone I don’t brush
my hair. I don’t wear underwear or shoes or chemical portions meant 
to extinguish my funk, and in these times, I am nearly perfectly happy.
If you’re me, it’s luxurious to go unobserved. When asked the inevitable
questions, whether I’d wear eyeliner if I was the last person on earth,
no, hell no. Eyeliner is war. When I’m alone, I lay my weapons down.

LYNNE THOMPSON: The Los Angeles Poet Laureate was created as a joint program between the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Los Angeles Public Library and this podcast is available wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!

[Music outro]

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    • DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a certified or verbatim transcript, but rather represents only the context of the class or meeting, subject to the inherent limitations of real-time captioning. The primary focus of real-time captioning is general communication access and as such this document is not suitable, acceptable, nor is it intended for use in any type of legal proceeding. Transcript provided by the author.

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