Almost There - Episode: "How to tell ourselves the truth about the history of slavery" (36 mins)
Almost There - Episode: "How to tell ourselves the truth about the history of slavery" (36 mins)
An interview with Clint Smith hosted by Dwayne Betts from Emerson Collective and Magnificent Noise
Host Dwayne Betts: “I had somebody do this to me once, so I'm going to do it to you. He read one of my poems on air, and I was like, "Man, he about to mess my poem up…He read it better than me."
Recommendation Type: Episode
Episode Length: ~36 minutes
Format/Style: Host-Led Two-Way
Host Dwayne Betts and guest Clint Smith, two of modern literature’s greatest, come together for a deep, thoughtful conversation. They talk about Smith’s nonfiction work, How The Word is Passed, his new poetry title Above Ground, and so much more. There’s even some live POETRY! (Wait, isn’t this a nonfiction audio rec podcast…? Yes…but I can be multihyphenate, a word I learned from the brilliant Morgan Jerkins when we interviewed her for this episode of Into America.)
Dwayne Betts is an extraordinary voice doing captivating work with words and audio in multiple arenas (see here from MOMA PS1 in 2019, here with Poetry Society, and here with Connecticut Youth in 2023). He’s also part of a club I just invented of poets-who-host-podcasts (hello Al Letson of Reveal). To hear Betts lead on the mic here made my heart sing. Props to the production team for showcasing the interview format at its finest. Their edit of this two-way podcast is an art onto its own. So much more than a “conversation” is happening here. Let’s call it inspiration.
Episode Web Page: https://www.emersoncollective.com/articles/almost-there-podcast-episode-1-how-to-tell-ourselves-the-truth-about-the-history-of-slavery
Transcript: https://res.cloudinary.com/dapibcwcy/image/upload/v1687222136/cdn/Podcast/Almost%20There/Transcripts/Almost_There_-_Transcript_-_Clint_Smith.pdf
Credits (from the transcript): Almost There is produced by Jesse Baker and Eric Nuzum at Magnificent Noise for Emerson Collective. Our production staff includes Eleanor Kagan, Paul Schneider, and Kristin Mueller, along with Patrick Darcy, Alex Simon and Amy Lowe from Emerson Collective. Special thanks to Nia Elliot. Hosted by Reginald Dwayne Betts.