Rattle Poetry

Brendan Constantine first appeared on Rattlecast 108. He's back with a brand new book from Red Hen Press, The Opposites Game. Brendan is a poet based in Los Angeles. His work has appeared in many of the nation’s standards, including Poetry, The Nation, Best American Poetry, Ploughshares, Tin House, Virginia Quarterly, and Poem-a-Day. A popular performer, Brendan has presented his work to audiences throughout the U.S. and Europe, also appearing on NPR’s All Things Considered, TED ED, numerous podcasts, and YouTube. Brendan currently teaches at the Windward School and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Since 2017, has been developing poetry workshops for people with Aphasia and Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI). Find more here: https://brendanconstantine.com/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. Submit your poems through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that rallies against its own epigraph. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a villanelle that features something you see every day–and you’re the only person in the world that does. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Lori Jakiela was a 2025 Rattle Poetry Prize Finalist for "Build a Bear." She is the author of eight books, including the memoir Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe, which received the Saroyan Prize for International Literature from Stanford University, was a finalist for the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses' Firecracker Award and the Housatonic Book Award, and was named one of 20 Not-To-Miss Nonfiction Books of 2015 by The Huffington Post. Her most recent book, All Skate: True Tales from Middle Life, was published by the great literary underground Roadside Press in 2025. A former international flight attendant, Jakiela directs the writing program at The University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, teaches creative writing in the doctoral program at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and leads many community workshops. Find more here: https://www.lorijakiela.net/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. Submit your poems through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write about a time you took something more literally than you probably should have. Include as many colors as possible. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that rallies against its own epigraph. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

David Mason first appeared in episode 64. He returns to share his new book, Cold Fire. David grew up in Bellingham, Washington and has lived in many parts of the world, including Greece and Colorado, where he served as poet laureate for four years. His books of poems began with The Buried Houses, The Country I Remember, and Arrivals. His verse novel, Ludlow, was named best poetry book of the year by the Contemporary Poetry Review and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. It was also featured on the PBS NewsHour. He has written a memoir and four collections of essays. He lives with his wife Chrissy (poet Cally Conan-Davies) in Tasmania on the edge of the Southern Ocean. Find the book here: https://redhen.org/book_author/david-mason/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. Submit your poems through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Pick an obscure holiday that occurs during the next week, and write a poem that celebrates accordingly. Include which holiday/date in the notes of your submission. Next Week’s Prompt: Write about a time you took something more literally than you probably should have. Include as many colors as possible. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Nick Lantz's poem "Dolorimetry" appeared in issue 88 and won the 2026 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor. He's the author of five collections of poetry, most recently The End of Everything and Everything That Comes After That (University of Wisconsin Press, 2024). His poetry has received several awards, including the Larry Levis Reading Prize, the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writer Award, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches in the MFA program at Sam Houston State University and lives in Huntsville, Texas, with his wife and cats. Find more info here: https://www.nick-lantz.com/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. Submit your poems through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem about a time you couldn’t keep the correct time straight. Include at least one temporal shift. Next Week’s Prompt: Pick an obscure holiday that occurs during the next week, and write a poem that celebrates accordingly. Include which holiday/date in the notes of your submission. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Jane Zwart teaches literature and writing at Calvin University, where she also co-directs the Calvin Center for Faith & Writing. Her poems have appeared widely in periodicals, including Poetry, The Poetry Review, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and Threepenny Review. Her first book, Oddest & Oldest & Saddest & Best, was just released from Orison Books. Find more info here: https://www.janezwart.com/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. Submit your poems through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem which confesses something that’s secretly seasonal to you, but not so much to others. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem about a time you couldn’t keep the correct time straight. Include at least one temporal shift. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

​jason b. crawford (He/They) born in Washington DC and raised in Lansing, Michigan, is the author of Year of the Unicorn Kidz. Their second collection, YEET! is the winner of the Omnidawn 1st/2nd Book Prize and was published Fall 2025. They have been published in Poetry Magazine, Academy of American Poets, Cincinnati Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, RHINO Poetry, among others. They are a 2023 Emerging Writers Fellow for Lambda Literary and hold their MFA in Poetry from The New School. Find more info here: https://www.jasonbcrawford.com/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. Submit your poems through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that begins precisely where you currently are in life, but lands somewhere else entirely. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem which confesses something that’s secretly seasonal to you, but not so much to others. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Alexandra Oliver was a finalist for the 2025 Rattle Poetry Prize. She is the author of three collections published through Biblioasis: Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway (2013; recipient of the Pat Lowther Memorial Award), Let the Empire Down ( 2016), and Hail, the Invisible Watchman (2022). Her libretto for From the Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King, conceived in conjunction with composer Scott Wilson at the University of Birmingham, was performed by Continuum Music in Toronto in December, 2017. Oliver is a past co-editor of Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters (Everyman’s Library/Random House, 2015) as well as of the formalist journal The Rotary Dial. She has performed her work for CBC Radio and NPR, as well as at The National Poetry Slam and a murder of festivals and conferences. Oliver teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto and OCAD University. Find her most recent book here: https://www.biblioasis.com/shop/new-releases/hail-the-invisible-watchman/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. Submit your poems through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that examines a surprising aspect of a job you otherwise generally love to do. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that begins precisely where you currently are in life, but lands somewhere else entirely. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Morri Creech is the winner of the 2025 Rattle Poetry Prize. He is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently The Sentence. His book Field Knowledge (Waywiser, 2006) received the Anthony Hecht Poetry prize and was nominated for both the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the Poet’s Prize. The Sleep of Reason was a 2014 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. A recipient of NEA and Ruth Lilly Fellowships, as well as grants from the North Carolina and Louisiana Arts councils, he is the Writer in Residence at Queens University of Charlotte, where he teaches courses in both the undergraduate creative writing program and in the low residency M.F.A. program. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with his wife and two children. Find more at his website: https://www.morricreech.com/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. Submit your poems through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Quick! Write a poem that moves fast. Include as many unique verbs as possible. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that examines a surprising aspect of a job you otherwise generally love to do. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Luisa Muradyan is originally from Odesa, Ukraine and is the author of I Make Jokes When I'm Devastated (Bridwell Press, 2025), When the World Stopped Touching (YesYes Books, 2027), and American Radiance (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). She holds a Ph.D. in Poetry from the University of Houston and won the 2017 Raz/ Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize. Additionally, Muradyan is a member of the Cheburashka Collective, a group of women and nonbinary writers from the former Soviet Union. Additional work can be found at Best American Poetry, the Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, and Only Poems among others. Find more at her website: https://www.luisamuradyan.com/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. Submit your poems through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a Petrarchan, Shakespearean, Spenserian, or Miltonic sonnet. Use an exclamation mark at some point, and don't forget the volta! Next Week’s Prompt: Quick! Write a poem that moves fast. Include as many unique verbs as possible. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Note: Due to technical difficulties, Rhina wasn't able to join us. Instead, Timothy Green and Katie Dozier talked about her work and read poems with her friends Alfred Nichol and Pedro Poitevin. Rhina P. Espaillat is a bilingual poet, essayist, short story writer, translator, and former English teacher in New York City’s public high schools. Her newest book is For Instance, just out from Wiseblood Books. She has previous published twelve books, five chapbooks, and a monograph on translation. Her most recent works include the poetry collections: And After All, The Field, and Brief Accident of Light: A Day in Newburyport, co-authored with Alfred Nicol. Her numerous translations include work by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, San Juan de la Cruz, Garcia Lorca, Miguel Hernandez, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, Richard Wilbur, and many contemporary poets of the Americas and the Hispanic diaspora, among others. Find For Instance here: https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/store/p173/For_Instance%3A_Poems_by_Rhina_P._Espaillat.html As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. Submit your poems through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that explores how one of the cognitive biases has shaped your life. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a formal sonnet—choosing between a Petrarchan, Shakespearean, Spenserian, or Miltonic sonnet. Don’t forget the volta and at some point, use an exclamation mark! The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Liz Robbins won the 2025 Rattle Chapbook Prize for her book Backlit. She's author of four previous collections, including Night Swimming, which won the 2023 Cold Mountain Press Annual Book Contest, and Play Button, which won the Cider Press Review Book Award, judged by Patricia Smith. She lives in St. Augustine, Florida, where she works as an editor, as well as a poetry screener for Ploughshares. Find more on Liz at her website: https://www.lizrobbins.net/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. Submit your poems through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem about a time something was put somewhere that it didn’t belong. Include an unusual detail about the person that found it. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that explores how one of the cognitive biases has shaped your life. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Billy Collins has contributed frequently to Rattle over the years, including an interview in issue 15. He is the author of 16 collections of poetry, including Sailing Alone Around the Room, Aimless Love and, most recently, Dog Show. He served two terms as United State Poet Laureate and is a former Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College and New York State Poet. He is a New York Public Library Literary Lion and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is currently “between dogs,” his most recent an Australian Shepherd mix named Jeannine. He lives in Winter Park, Florida, with his wife Suzannah. Find Dog Show here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/790238/dog-show-by-billy-collins/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that describes the taste of a surprising food as creatively as possible. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem about a time something was put somewhere that it didn’t belong. Include an unusual detail about the person that found it. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Poet, writer, food-travel journalist, dining critic, and educator Jen Karetnick is the author/co-author of 22 books, including seven full-length poetry collections, including Organ Language (Lit Fox Books, forthcoming September 2026); Domiciliary (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, forthcoming October 2026); and Inheritance with a High Error Rate, winner of the 2022 Cider Review Press Book Award. She is co-founder/co-curator of the non-profit organization, SWWIM (Supporting Women Writers in Miami), which offers residencies and a reading series for women-identifying poets, and Managing Editor of its publishing arm, the daily online literary journal, SWWIM Every Day. Find more on Jen here: https://jkaretnick.com/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that explores something left behind. Include as many tactile details as possible. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that describes the taste of a surprising food as creatively as possible. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Ron Koertge first appeared in episode #47. A prolific writer, Ron began publishing in the ’60s, including many novels for young adults, and is a two-time winner of the PEN Literary Award for Children’s Literature. Author of over 20 books of poetry, his most recent is Pandora's Kitchen, just out from Red Hen Press. Find more on Ron here: http://www.ronkoertge.com/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a villanelle that involves a trip. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that explores something left behind. Include as many tactile details as possible. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Manuel Iris served as Poet Laureate of Cincinnati, Ohio, and as Writer-in-Residence at both the Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library and Thomas More University. In 2021, he was named a member of Mexico’s National System of Art Creators, one of the country’s highest honors for artists. Author of six poetry collections, Iris has been awarded the Mérida National Poetry Prize (2009) for Cuaderno de los sueños and the Rodulfo Figueroa Regional Poetry Prize (2014) for Los disfraces del fuego, a book that was also a finalist for Ecuador’s International Poetry Prize Ciudad de la Lira. In 2025, Iris received the Ambroggio Prize from the Academy of American Poets for his book The Whole Earth is a Garden of Monsters/Toda la tierra es un jardín de monstruos. Manuel Iris has given readings, lectures, and talks across Mexico, the United States, and Europe. He currently resides and writes in Cincinnati, Ohio. Find more on Manuel here: https://manueliris.com/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Think about the biggest improvement you’ve made as a poet this year and write a poem that showcases your skill. Include what you’ve learned in the notes with your submission. Next Week's Prompt: Write a villanelle that involves a trip. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Julia B. Levine has appeared twice in Poets Respond, and she has a new chapbook, Lullaby for the Sixth Extinction, is just out from Wolfson Press. Her poetry awards include the 2015 Northern California Book Award for her fourth collection, Small Disasters Seen in Sunlight (LSU 2014), a 2024 Pushcart Prize, the 2024 Terrain Poetry Prize, the 2023 Oran Robert Perry Burke Award from The Southern Review, as well as a 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship for her work in building resiliency in teenagers in the context of climate change. Her fifth collection, Ordinary Psalms (LSU 2021), won a Nautilus Silver Award in Poetry. Find more on Julia here: https://sites.google.com/view/juliablevine As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that’s all about breaks. Next Week’s Prompt: Think about the biggest improvement you’ve made as a poet this year and write a poem that showcases your skill. Include what you’ve learned in the notes with your submission. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Our scheduled guest, Billy Collins, was sick with a cold, so he postponed to January 19, 2026. Instead, we'll reveal this year's Pushcart Prize winners, and invite you to share your favorite poem that you wrote or published this year. You can still find Billy Collins' new book, Dog Show, here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/790238/dog-show-by-billy-collins/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that begins at the kitchen table and interrupts itself. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that’s all about breaks. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Jeff McRae’s debut collection, The Kingdom Where No One Dies, honors the ache and beauty of ordinary life. A contributor to Rattle dating back to 2004, Jeff lives in Vermont with his wife and three children. He earned a Masters in Writing from the University of New Hampshire and a Masters in Fine Arts in poetry from Washington University, St. Louis. Since returning to Vermont, he’s worked as a fly rod builder, a digital marketing copywriter, a youth employment specialist, and for fifteen years as a creative writing and literature instructor. He has been a finalist for several first book awards including the New Issues Poetry Prize, the Gerald Cable Book Award, and the Cider Press Review Book Award. An active musician, he also performs in theaters, clubs, and concert halls throughout New England. Find the book here: https://www.pulleypress.com/the-kingdom-where-no-one-dies As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write an ode to something personal to you without it becoming a “personal poem”—i.e., a poem that only carries meaning to a very select group privy to specific knowledge. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that begins at the kitchen table and interrupts itself. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Richard Gilbert first appeared in episode 6 of the Rattlecast, way back in 2019. He earned a Ph.D. in Poetics and Depth Psychology at the Union Institute and University, 1990. In 1997, he moved to Japan to pursue Japanese haiku research. He is currently Associate Professor, Department of British and American Language and Literature, at Kumamoto University. In 2006, Richard was awarded a two-year grant from MEXT (the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) for research on modern Japanese haiku. His most recent book, Haiku Language Thought, explores haiku as the essence of poetic consciousness. Find the book here: https://www.modernhaiku.org/mhbooks/Gilbert-book-2025.html As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that begins with an ordinary parenting event that snowballs into something more. Next Week's Prompt: Write an ode to something personal to you without it becoming a “personal poem”—i.e., a poem that only carries meaning to a very select group privy to specific knowledge. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Julia Kolchinsky came to the United States as a Jewish refugee when she was six years old, from Dnipro, Ukraine. She is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Parallax(The University of Arkansas Press, 2025), selected as finalist for the Miller Williams Prize by Patricia Smith. Her other books include of 40 Weeks (YesYes Books, 2023), Don’t Touch the Bones, and The Many Names for Mother. Her next book is When the World Stopped Touching (YesYes Books, 2027), a collaborative collection with Luisa Muradyan. She is Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Denison University and lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her family. Find more Julia's most recent books here: https://www.juliakolchinsky.com/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write an assay that includes an allusion to at least five senses. Next Week’s Prompt: Write a poem that begins with an ordinary parenting event that snowballs into something more. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.