The Poem As Novel, featuring Forrest Gander

We welcome you to 2025 with a show that explores the exploration of form. In this conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Forrest Gander, we consider the nature of the writing journey—and its connection to landscape, the multiplicity of selves, and the kaleidoscopic experience of bringing together multiple eras of a lived life. Gander calls his new book a novel poem, and you’ll find out why, along with other beautiful insights about love and loss and the journey of being a writer—and a human.

ABOUT FORREST GANDER

Forrest Gander was born in the Mojave Desert in Barstow, California, and grew up in Virginia. He spent significant years in San Francisco, Dolores Hidalgo (Mexico), Eureka Springs, and Providence. Forrest’s book Be With was awarded the 2019 Pulitzer Prize, and his book Core Samples from the World was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His latest book is a novel poem called Mojave Ghost. He holds degrees in geology and English Literature and lives in Northern California with his wife, the artist Ashwini Bhat.