Hi, this is against everyone with Connor Abeeb. A weekly podcast featuring my conversations with

countercultural figures and presenting complex, philosophical, spiritual, and political ideas in an

engaging and accessible way. I'm so excited to be joined for this episode by the poet D.A. Powell to talk about

the occult and alchemical powers of poetry,

and to also talk about what poetry does and does not do in the world and why we are so

obsessed with asking those kinds of questions. D.A. Powell, who just I know as Doug, has written a lot of critically acclaimed books of poetry,

probably best known as his trilogy, which is known as Repast, which is the three books,

tea, lunch, and cocktails.

And one of the great things about D.A. Powell's poetry and his views on poetry is that he refuses a kind of reduction.

This is what the poem is about. So, in other words, people have repeatedly referred to that trilogy as a trilogy about AIDS. And he says, no, this is not about AIDS. Although it is related

to AIDS, there's a lot else going on here, and I don't want to reduce my poetry to that angle.

And you know, I think it's, it's sort of an important thing to keep in mind when we think about poetry because although i don't

say it in this episode i think that if poetry is supposed to do anything and i don't think that

poetry is supposed to do anything in particular but if it is supposed to do something it is supposed to

stop us from narrowing in and just seeing one aspect, one side of the story or the

world. In other words, it shows us how many aspects of the world there are. And we talk about that,

in particular when we talk about a poem that Dia is written called The Kiwi comes to Gridley, California.

And what I mean by that is like, you know, you know some people are just so focused on Trump and the

Trump administration, and that's all I can talk about. You know, it spills over into their social media,

it's their dinner party conversations, the conversations with their family, and it's this perpetual anxiety. And yet, all the while,

so many things are happening in the world, in that moment, while they're having that conversation,

with this sort of deep point of anxiety. So, you know, there are, there are Picasso triggerfish swimming in the ocean, and there are cells

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