PEL Presents Subtext: Erin's New Book "Avail"
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
Mark Linsenmayer
4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 7 December 2025
⏱️ 68 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Erin just published her first book, "Avail," which you can order here: https://www.pauldrybooks.com/products/avail
"Avail" features a long prose-poem which titles the book and winds through sections of lineated, often formal poems. The prose-poem comprises a series of lyric meditations on the image of the veil—from religious and cultural veils, to veils imbedded in idiom and metaphor, to veiled women in art and classic films, to veils drawn and parted by illness and death—which slowly divulge the harrowing details of the poet's blood disorder.
Throughout, allusions to classic film, literature, and art serve as the "veils" with which the poet attempts to obscure the self-estrangement and vulnerability her illness has induced—insecurities which follow her long after her recovery. In a poem about a break-up set during her career as a jazz singer and against the backdrop of a 1930s screwball comedy, she longs "to shake life by the martini (but stay self- / possessed), to star in the movie of myself / instead of playing second lead." During a visit to Naples, Mt. Vesuvius becomes "a Crawford eyebrow / arched over the bay." And in California, after a trip to the Getty Villa, she recalls Sontag's "missive on allusion, that no part / of any work is new, that all is reproduction." By the end of the collection, O'Luanaigh has fashioned from the sum of these various allusions her own poetic identity, unveiled in the poems themselves.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today we have a very special episode of subtext. We will be talking about Aaron's forthcoming book Avail. It'll be published on January 20th, 2006 by Paul Dry Books. |
| 0:21.8 | It won't surprise listeners that this is a really wonderful book. |
| 0:26.0 | It reflects not just Aaron's mastery of her craft, but also her extensive knowledge of the arts more generally and her interest in film. |
| 0:34.1 | You can pre-order it on Amazon.com right now. |
| 0:36.6 | If you go to subtextpodcast.com |
| 0:38.9 | slash avail, you'll be redirected to that Amazon page. You can also find Aaron's poems in the Yale |
| 0:44.6 | Review, Bad Lilies, AGMI, The Southern Review, Subtropics, 32 poems, Wildcourt, the Hopkins |
| 0:52.6 | Review, the Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. |
| 0:56.1 | Erin graduated from the University of Florida's MFA program. She's currently a PhD student |
| 1:00.5 | in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Utah, where she is a |
| 1:04.7 | Stephenson Cannon Fellow and the Senior Poetry Editor of Quarterly West. She's also a co-host of a subtext. Welcome to your own show, |
| 1:13.6 | Aaron. Wow, it's great to be here. It's strange to be here in this capacity. So we don't, |
| 1:20.3 | is this going to be an interview? Is this going to be a regular subtext discussion? Am I going to |
| 1:25.0 | get in a big argument with you about what something means? Who knows? |
| 1:29.0 | I'm nervous. I'm nervous to be our first ever guest. It doesn't really count, does it? |
| 1:33.9 | Kind of counts. It's weird. You're playing two roles at once here. I know. Yeah, I feel a bit nervous, too, |
| 1:40.0 | which I don't know why. Like I told you, you know, it's not my book. Why should I be nervous? |
| 1:45.0 | Well, thank you so much for doing this. |
| 1:47.4 | It's really sweet. |
| 1:48.2 | Well, it's sweet of you to be here and to be a successful poet, |
| 1:51.8 | co-hosting that I'm co-hosting the podcast with, |
| 1:54.2 | as opposed to a failed poet. |
... |
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