Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast · Aaron Smith and James Allen Hall

Aaron and James Went to Pittsburgh

·33 min·2 clips

Billy Collins told James, "I've been thinking about the cock and dick problem."

Aaron and James are back from Pittsburgh, still buzzing from the hotel hang, the friends, the pizza, and the kind of weekend that feels absurd until it suddenly doesn't. Then Ed Ochester comes into focus. The tribute celebrates his life, especially his long run editing the Pitt Poetry Series and shaping books by Aaron and many others. Grief has lipstick on here. Friday has a reading, Saturday has panels, and the memorial keeps slipping out of ceremony and into a living room full of poets. Nobody treats poetry like glass in a case. They remember Ed through edits, taste, publishing history, and the strange way someone's presence gets clearer after loss, once people gather and start talking. The weekend has gossip too, thank God. One packed Saturday session in the cathedral opens up Ed's broad aesthetic and his place in American poetry, but the room is the real charge: community members, undergraduates, MFA students, poets, and writers at different publishing stages all breathing the same literary air. Then the jokes start popping. A panel tangent about sound, insult, and word choice turns funny, craft-smart, and very much this show. Aaron and James linger on how one small language choice can carry tone, intimacy, social heat, and a whole performance of personality. The episode softens, too. One guest is visibly moved by the care around Ed beyond the editor role, and that surprise lands. By the end, the cathedral has become mock names, a drag-name riff, and one last proof that this show can make a memorial feel alive without tidying up the grief.

As heard by us

A warm tribute episode that lets poetry, queer community, and rude humor sit comfortably together.

This episode folds poetry talk, queer life, and a fair bit of affectionate mischief around a tribute to Edo Chester in Pittsburgh. James and Aaron move from hotel gossip and filthy jokes to a real respect for Chester's editorial range, especially when they talk about his time…

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Why you'd press play

Press play for a poetry tribute that turns into hotel gossip, dirty jokes, and real affection.

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