Episode 19 Transcript: Exploring Art and Expression with Liz Rosenberg, Poet and Professor

There’s a Lesson in Here Somewhere Podcast
Episode 19 Transcript
Guest: Liz Rosenberg, Poet, Author, Professor

There’s a Lesson in Here Somewhere is a podcast hosted by Jamie Serino and Peter Carucci that features exceptional people that have compelling stories to tell. Whether it’s a unique perspective, an act of kindness, an inspirational achievement, a hardship overcome, or bearing witness to a captivating event, these are stories that must be heard, and from which we can draw important lessons. 

Exploring Art and Expression with Liz Rosenberg, Poet and Professor

In this episode, Jamie Serino and Peter Carucci sit down with acclaimed poet and professor Liz Rosenberg for a heartfelt reunion that explores the intersections of poetry, music, teaching, and personal connection. What begins as a nostalgic reflection on a college classroom quickly unfolds into an exploration of how poetry, music, art and storytelling shape identity, relationships, and the way we move through the world.

Liz reflects on the opportunity for artists to engage with the world around them, while also offering a compassionate perspective on teaching, creativity, and the emotional risks that come with self-expression. The conversation also delves into the idea of poetry as witness, examining how art can respond to injustice, preserve memory, and help us process both personal and collective pain. Check out this episode for a compelling conversation that is both intellectually engaging and fun!

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Transcript

INTRO

Welcome to there's a Lesson in here Somewhere conversations with interesting people with fascinating stories to tell and from which we can draw important lessons. Here are your hosts, Jamie Serino and Peter Carucci.

JAMIE SERINO

Hello and welcome to There's a Lesson in Here Somewhere. I'm Jamie Serino.

PETER CARUCCI

And I'm Peter Carucci.

JAMIE SERINO

And we're here today with Liz Rosenberg, accomplished and award-winning author, poet, and professor. And you should know that Peter and I took a class with Liz. So it's a bit of a reunion of sorts. So welcome. It's such a pleasure to have you.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 00:42

Very nice to be here with you too.

JAMIE SERINO: 00:44

Could you start off just maybe completing an introduction, a little bit more about yourself, something that you'd want to say?

LIZ ROSENBERG: 00:52

Oh my golly. Let's see. Well, at this point, I have actually been teaching at Binghamton University for 45 years.

JAMIE SERINO: 01:03

That's a long time. Congratulations.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 01:05

And yes, I did start when I was 12.

PETER CARUCCI: 01:10

Well, you are our origin story. You are where Jamie Sereno and I met in your class, and somehow your mindset and what you do wound up allowing us to be in a band together and uh foreign the world and playing music and uh of course getting into poetry and creative writing and

PETER CARUCCI: 01:40

 things like that. But you're where we met and we've always had a place in our hearts and minds for you. And so this is really exciting for us. Yeah.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 01:53

I love the idea that you guys connected and began to become friends in that class. Because honestly, creating a community inside a classroom is absolutely one of my main goals. You know, so anytime I hear that that has happened or that has succeeded, um, I'm really truly delighted about that. Yeah. I think there may have even been one marriage that came out of two people, yeah, being in my class at the same time. I know there was. This is really kind of sad. There was a an engagement that happened and was broken that began in my class. So, you know, one for two. I I won't get into the whole. Maybe so. Maybe so.

PETER CARUCCI: 02:52

I I'm trying to remember. Uh, I mean, I remember day one in your classroom. I remember where I sat because I I remember, you know, you go to your classes and you're like, the room in the building, and you go there, and I remember sitting there, and I remember my first I it's bizarre because it's one of the rare memories I have of first class. And it was you. And I remember thinking, I'm gonna like this class. I remember, and you were just your you know why? Also, you're just your genuine humanity, your persona just came through, and it was captivating from day one. I have to share that with you.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 03:29

Oh, that's lovely. And I I want to ask you something. When did you first kind of become aware of Jamie as a sort of kindred spirit in that room with you? When did you guys kind of do that?

PETER CARUCCI: 03:43

I I only remember, I mean, Jamie, you gotta correct me here.

JAMIE SERINO: 3:45

I have my version of it.

PETER CARUCCI: 03:47

I just remember a big circle, and we circled up and we were deciding to do, I guess, uh it was a project, and we were either to work with others or whatever, and I remember somehow Jamie was to my like three seats over to my right, and somehow I I don't remember the exact things, but I was like, oh, can we do it with music? And I was like, Well, I play guitar, and Jamie was like, Oh, I I play drums. Jamie was like, This, I play drums. And I was like, this is great. What do we what do we work together, Jamie? And he was like, let's work together on this project. That's my memory of it. I don't know, is that right, Jamie?

JAMIE SERINO: 04:35

Well, well, so mine is he asked, can we do music? And my ears perked up. I was like, oh, that would be awesome. And then Peter said, I'm this really awesome guitarist that you've ever seen. And I was like, oh yeah.

PETER CARUCCI: 05:06

It may have backfired because I remember, and I think we talked about this on the phone. I remember because we were circled up, and this dude who I was sort of friends with, I don't want to say his name, let's say his name was Jason. He shows up and starts playing jazz records slowly. And he, you know, on the on the phonograph, the record player, the corner. And he starts playing it, and uh he sits down, and I remember we're all looking at each other, and it was like a slow reveal. He goes, I like to play this when I make love. And we were all, and I remember looking at you, Liz, your face, you were because I was like this. It was like I'm sure there were a few ladies who perked up going, oh. And but I I was like, wait, can you say that? Can we do that? Can we talk about this? Can we say that? Liz, you you guided the whole thing into like, okay, like somehow you got it, you got imposed into whatever it was that had to do with what we were talking about in like class or something, you know? I was like, whoa.

JAMIE SERINO: 06:19

Yeah, your your your class was like one of those classes where, you know, because I just sort of shrugged, this guy said it. I was like, I like jazz too, you know? And I was like, you know, this this guy's this guy's all right, you know. And I was just like, all right, this because and I remember that class, and I took a drugs and behavior class, and people said whatever the hell they wanted in that class. And a lot of people said what they wanted in your class. And and uh I think that that was part of the community being built, and this feeling that people could talk about whatever and disagree. You know, I remember this one guy was talking about nine-inch nails lyrics and saying how how much he thought like it was this, you know, great expression, and then this woman was like, well, he's really angry, and anger is not the only emotion, and I think he's not really emoting well because he just speaks through anger. And it got this guy so upset, and I was like, She's kind of right, you know, because what it was like with Nine Inch Nails was that for the for music, you know, we were coming out of the 80s, which had this sort of, you know, the harder, heavier music was very glossy and and did not really say much. And then you had grunge and and alternative, and they were starting to say things, and so Trent Reznor was like held up as like, oh, this this guy's like saying something, and the music is heavy. Um, and so I think that's where this guy was coming from. But then the the woman coming from it from a poetry perspective was like, he's not really emoting, he's just angry. And I remember that being this stirred up the pot a bit, and people were kind of getting on sides there. It was an interesting conversation.

PETER CARUCCI: 08:02

Yeah, you know, and as an um we're talking a lot, but what's crazy is that as an educator, you allowed for full expression and guided it in a strange, almost like I can't even explain it, into the focus that it needed to be ultimately. It's a rare gift. And um, as we talked about before, I went into education for uh an alternate career path to music, and uh you made such a mark on how I operate and operated in education that I think you need to hear that.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 08:38

Well, I'm delighted to hear that and very touched.

JAMIE SERINO: 08:42

So, question. Um, so when when I took the class, I took the class because I had always been writing, but I mostly wrote like short stories and stuff. And then all of a sudden, something changed in my brain, and I began writing poetry, right? And I didn't really know why, and I and I wasn't really, you know, I read poetry here and there, but I just was like, why am I writing like this? And then I took the class, you know, and then I was really learning about poetry, and you taught poetry, and then you had us writing and doing creative, you know, expression and stuff, and that really helped. And then it was like a phase for me because I will occasionally write poetry here and there, but I I still really write like short stories and stuff. But it was this phase, and so is there something you could say about like when you started writing poetry or what it was that this is a form of expression for me, you know?

LIZ ROSENBERG: 09:40

Well, I was thinking, you know, I was actually thinking, Jamie, that it's interesting that you two wanted to do music. That to me says a lot about why you were probably drawn to poetry because it's such a musical way of using language. And people who are very drawn to that musical aspect and kind of can hear how rhythm and um tone can change so much about what you're saying and how it's heard that like to me that makes sense that it was a point in your life when you know you were doing the drums, right?

PETER CARUCCI: 10:23

Yeah.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 10:25

I mean, nothing nothing comes closer, I would say, to what's going on in poetry than keeping up with rhythm.

PETER CARUCCI: 10:34

Yeah.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 10:34

So that makes sense to me. In terms of my own writing of poetry, it feels like it was always there, you know, almost feels like it was there from the beginning. I can remember the first poem I wrote. I can remember how bad it was, and that I knew it was bad even when I was a kid. And maybe that's the part that could have made me know that I'd be serious about this for a while. The fact that I knew that I had made a mistake and that I had to find some other way to express myself. I think, as I as I said, I think, I think I was very young, but maybe maybe eight years old. And it ended up being a rhyming poem. But I started with the uh you guys have eaten pomegranates. Have you ever eaten a pomegranate? So the inside of a pomegranate, I think, is so stunningly beautiful. You know, that just does kind of it's like what jewels aspire to be, and they don't usually get there. And so I wanted to write about what the inside of pomegranate granite looked like and how it reminded me of garnets. And I wrote this entire poem, I think it was called Gems as Seen in Nature. So that's that's a hint right away that it was going to be pretty bad. And the whole thing rhymed. And I got to the end of the poem and I realized I had never mentioned pomegranates.

PETER CARUCCI: 12:07

Oh, wow. Well.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 12:10

And I thought, okay, I have to, I have to figure out how to write so that I actually talk about what I want to be talking about and not let the the rhyme dictate what I'm going to be able to talk about. So that was like a a baby step, but it was kind of a first step. And I never forgot it. I've never forgotten it. I've also never been able to write about how pomegranates look like garnets, but you know.

PETER CARUCCI: 12:32

I remember I I was also doing uh my graduate most of my graduate work at Binghamton, and uh somehow we had reconnected a few times about something else that I want to bring up later, but I remember that as I was playing a lot of music, you had a somehow we connected like in front of the the library tower or something. And you said, Hey, why don't you accompany me while I to some of my poems? And I was so excited about it. And I don't know how it we we never were able to manifest it, but I'll never forget I have.

And I looked at this online because you wrote this nice inscription here, and I won't say the year because it does, it is a long time ago. But I remember that we were trying so hard, and I was like, wow, this is so exciting because I could just be doing some classical stuff in the background to your poems, and I can articulate the musicality of what this poem might might be. Now, when you when you write, and it always made me think, like when you write poem, when you write, doesn't even have to be a poem, are you hearing like I mean, what are you it what's the term synesthesia? Are you mixing senses? Are you writing from a place sometimes like you said, a rhyming poem? When you're writing prose or when you're writing slant, whatever, do you do you hear other things?

LIZ ROSENBERG: 14:08

No, that's a really interesting question, and I think writers love to talk about that question actually. So for me it's both. It's whether I'm in fact, it's whether I'm writing poetry or let's say a picture book or a novel. No matter what it is, if the rhythm doesn't come to me, and pretty quickly that thing, whatever it is, is dead in the water. And I usually cannot I can't breathe life into that into that body. You know, it it comes with a rhythm. And there's an Irish novelist, and of course the Irish are about the most lyrical human beings on earth, but he wrote about how when he starts a novel, he begins with a rhythm. He begins with a rhythm. So it is that important. I I just feel like it's your sign, it's it's the wave you're writing, you know, and if if you can catch that, then it will take you a long way, honestly. It's like having a voice when you write something. You you do need to have a voice, and it should be one that you're kind of hearing clearly in your own head or feeling it. You know, Alan Ginsburg, the poet, said, you know, that poetry really comes from the movement of the blood through the body and you know, the pounding of the heart, and that's all part of it. And I I think that's true. I think that's just true when we write. We feel it when we go to the movies, right? Because anytime something scary is happening, you know that your body is changing at that moment. You can feel it, right? You can feel that, oh, this is making me sick and scared, you know, or if there's uh like a romantic moment or a kiss you've been waiting for, you know, everything kind of softens and relaxes. So yeah, I I think art has that effect on us. It does, it doesn't just affect our ears or our brain. I think it's really um it's our whole body. And I think that a big part of that is just kind of connecting to whatever that rhythm feels like. And certainly with words, because we're used to hearing words, right? And words do have a rhythm. That's how we know if we're in trouble with someone we're talking to and disagreeing with. That's how we know that things are going well. You know, it's tone for sure. Um, but I think it's it's also just the sound, the speed, the rhythm of words.

JAMIE SERINO: 16:58

Yeah, you're you're right. I had a a question, but now you the but the the way you ended there reminded me of Clayton Eshleman and he was a poet introduced to me at Binghamton, and he talked a lot about finding that um sort of primal point. Like, can you get to that point? He talked about like poetry so raw I would tear the reader's face off, and he would use phrases like that. But then he also talked about

LIZ ROSENBERG: 17:26

Now that was Clayton, not Melt?

JAMIE SERINO: 17:31

Uh I I remember it as Clayton Eshleman.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 17:41

Milt Tesla loved Clayton Eshleman. That was the first thing I thought of when you mentioned so maybe he was there at some point, but he was never there when I was there, unless maybe briefly as a visitor. But go ahead, go to Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JAMIE SERINO: 17:56

I I mean, yeah, maybe they were influencing each other and whatnot. And well one thing that I loved that Clayton Eshleman said is that he only publishes about two percent of what he writes, and he says he has notebooks, and he says his wife helped him, you know, w with that, and I thought that was interesting. But the but one thing that popped into my head as you were talking was this idea of like finding this sort of like root. Now I'm paraphrasing it, but it's like this root, this primal root, a source of a feeling or an action. Um and he talked about climbing through the caves of Lascaux and getting to those cave paintings and that feeling of origin there and and getting back to this primal state. And and so I I think all that's all that was just brought back as you were talking there, and I thought that was really interesting. And so he he was kind of seeking that as well.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 18:48

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um my guess is that, you know, at least to some degree, all poets are seeking that, and probably really all artists are seeking that.

JAMIE SERINO: 19:01

Yeah. And and so do do you ever approach it from like a different angle? Like, I want to write about this topic and approach it from that angle, or is it always this feeling?

LIZ ROSENBERG: 19:16

That that tends to be the death of certainly of a poem. I remember uh for a brief time we had uh great poet Jason Schinder came for like a semester and taught, and I taught with him at Bennington for a summer, and he he said um whenever a student would say to him, I have an idea for a poem, he would say, I'm sorry to hear that.

PETER CARUCCI: 19:45

That's great, that's great.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 19:47

Yeah. Um, but sure, I mean, a lot of what uh poetry does is write toward an image. So you can often begin with an image. You can begin with just a scrap of a phrase that comes into your mind. Um a metaphor is enough to, you know, spark like the whole fire of a poem. Yeah. So yeah, there's lots of an emotion, you know. Sometimes it's really just a very strong emotion. You take that to the page with you as if you're sort of asking the page, can you help me do something with this? Can you help me manage this? Or is there any way I can use this emotion to like express something to the world and then it can help someone else?

JAMIE SERINO: 20:35

Right.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 20:36

I'm I'm pretty, pretty keen on the idea that that's one of the real values of writing is that feeling that you can get when you read something that you love. And I'll bet you've both had this experience when you read what you needed to read at a particularly hard time in your life. And I've always thought of it as kind of like footsteps going through a swamp. You feel like you're in a swamp, but when you see those footsteps, you somehow know someone else made it through here. And if someone else made it through, I can kind of keep those footsteps in my line of sight, and maybe I'll be able to get through this as well. I think that's hugely one of the things that art can do for us.

PETER CARUCCI: 21:25

But footsteps analogy is a great idea for a poem.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 21:30

Well, there you go. I'm sorry to hear that.

PETER CARUCCI: 21:36

Well, it's interesting too because I'm just hearkening back and we keep talking about your class because for us it was like a seminal moment, you know, we're meeting it. And I honestly don't remember what we what our project was, Jamie. Was it did I write a song or did we write a song?

JAMIE SERINO: 21:53

Uh well, you you sang The Bottle. We we did that, but uh, I think there Also, was this quick kind of mini song that we sort of put together? Um, I think, but we definitely played the bottle.

PETER CARUCCI: 22:11

Wow, which is crazy. That sounded like our second album, by the way. Well, that's crazy. But I remember, you know, you That's wonderful. We used this as a guide, I believe.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 22:21

Oh, yeah, Against Forgetting, right? By Carolyn Forché.

PETER CARUCCI: 22:24

Yeah. And I, as a result of this class, got minorly obsessed with the poetry of Carolyn Forché. I don't know if you remember this. And then in my graduate school years.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 22:36

Absolutely, yeah.

PETER CARUCCI 2: 22:38

Yeah, after um Professor Coiner, uh Constance Coiner passed in um with her daughter in that uh, what was that, Flight 800? Is that right?

LIZ ROSENBERG: 22:49

Yeah, I believe so. Right. It went down over Long Island.

PETER CARUCCI: 22:53

Somehow you met brought, I believe, Carolyn Forché to Binghamton. Yeah. And you you somehow got knocked me in or something, if I recall. I don't even remember. I was a graduate student, so who knows? I probably had every right to see that. But I remember at the end you introduced me to her, and it was like my it was like having these, it was like having the Beatles introduce you to the Rolling Stones. You know, it was like, oh my gosh, you know, and she signed that, you know, like and um yeah, you you uh you were um very, very uh what's the term? You were a mentor for us, you know. And I my question was about this. So when you chose pathology, because this has this overall theme against forgetting bearing witness, poetry of witness, I think. Yeah, that's Jamie and I had literally for X amount of years, I won't say how many, we still talk about this, which is crazy. It'd be like a late night, and we'll still we'll still talk about literally the poetry of witness, and some of our songs have to deal with a different a same a similar perspective, I would say.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 24:01

You know, that's a great anthology. I still teach from it. And I'm I'm so glad that you brought that up, that book up, because I meant to say kind of almost at the start, um, that part of me wanted to talk about the day today, because it's the day after yet another um demonstrator was murdered in Minnesota. And we do have to respond to those things and we have to bear witness about them. And so it feels like you should never kind of follow up a day like that uh with silence because it's against forgetting when you when you bear witness and when you um when you're silent, it it is kind of a way of forgetting, certainly for me. And you know, it's hard to remember something as terrible as someone, you know, being shot in the back 10 times because they're trying to help another demonstrator who's been, you know, forcibly thrown down on the ground. And heartbreaking to live in a country where that has somehow become acceptable behavior, where we don't all go running, screaming into the streets to say, stop. You just you have to stop this now. And Carolyn has spent so much of her life putting herself into dangerous situations, right? And bearing witness.

PETER CARUCCI: 25:47

Right. Yeah.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 25:48

And she caught a lot of flack at the earlier part of her career for doing that. Um, you know, people basically saying, well, you don't have any right to talk about those things, or you shouldn't be talking about those things, or you're over-emphasizing uh these political events or murders in El Salvador and people being disappeared. I don't know how you could really say at someone, what are they, overstating the case or responding to? That's impossible. It's it's almost literally impossible. Again, short of people just running out into the street and saying this has to stop right now. So um, yeah, I'm glad we bring that into a conversation about poetry, about art.

PETER CARUCCI: 26:41

It it is a uh an interesting time right now. And in case anyone's wondering, I am wearing a scarf because we're also in the middle of 27-inch uh snowstorm. Well, if the power should go out here, you'll know why we we did this. But it is an interesting time right now, and I think there are so many links to his history that uh whether it's what Carolyn Forché was doing or this is this is 20th century poetry of witness. Right. And what I think it did for me personally was as most writers, and I've written, I couldn't even tell you how many songs, like to write the lyric or the music. A lot of them like to just do it so that people look at them or so that people need there's a need to be heard. And I think what transits transitions here is I don't need to be heard, we just need to look around. And it changes the whole perspective, and that's definitely what happens for me. I mean, I think I have a song. We have a song called The Forest's End, which is you know, it's like a visual perspective of watching what happens when the forests go away, you know, and that's the poetry of wit, that's that's that is witnessing something and just speaking to it as opposed to just emoting and going, I I'm in love, or I like, you know, and and um you have a knack in in all of your poetry and all of your writings of of I think articulating that space perfectly. Uh but I I did want to ask you something else about because you don't just write poems, you're not just a poet, right? So, and then uh you mentioned earlier your picture books and novels. Um where where does your artistic bend lead you now? Where what are you working on?

LIZ ROSENBERG: 28:42

You know, I think I almost always am writing in multiple genres, and I pretty much always have been, um let's say since I was a teenager, something like that. And for me, it's almost a bit of a safety net because if let's say a novel's not going well, it's okay. I can step back and I'm, you know, pick up a poem that I know I need to revise or explore um an idea. Here we go to the idea, an idea that I have for like a children's book or a children's novel. And I can work on that while I'm kind of waiting uh for things to calm, for the waters to calm enough so that I can return to that novel, let's say. So I thought you were gonna say, is there is there anything you won't write? Because I often feel that way. Like I would write the back of cereal boxes if I couldn't, if I couldn't write anything else. It is a little bit of a Jones, you know. I mean, it's it's definitely a little bit of an addiction, but some things are just they come to you uh for this particular form, and some come in another. And it's just um, yeah, it's just the way that I work. And I guess I've kind of always worked that way because there are some things that I feel are they're meant, the story is meant to go on for a long time, and other things it could really be just an image or a metaphor, and it feels like that needs to be a poem. The only time I can think of when one turned into another was a poem I was trying to write about something that one of my doctors had said to me uh about himself and his childhood. He was from Lebanon, and he had come to this country, and I I asked him, what did you miss most about Lebanon? And he said, I miss the silence in the mountains. And I thought that was such a beautiful thing, and I tried to write a poem about it. But no matter how much I tried, I I couldn't, I couldn't get there, you know. I could I couldn't get that song, right? And so many years later, I ended up writing a picture book, and it's called The Silence in the Mountains, and it's about um a boy whose family moves. I don't say the country, but it I think it's clear that it's the Middle East, and they can only bring some things with them. And what the boy misses most is the silence in the mountains. So that's kind of what it's about. It's about him and his family trying to adjust to this new life and how he's able to find a different kind of silence in um the countryside in America. So that's the only example I can think of. But usually things are C.S. Lewis has this great, great essay on the subject on three ways of writing for children. Did I ever make you guys read that? Or probably not because it wasn't a writing for children class, but um, it's so brilliant, and every writer should read it because a big part of what he talks about in that essay is how, you know, he doesn't write children's books because he thinks it's going to be commercially successful, or uh because that's what he's done in the past. He said it's because this is the only form this thing can take. Um, just like somebody who writes a, you know, a death march, a musician who does that, it's because that's that's how they can express the ideas or the emotions of that thing that they need to kind of um share. So yeah. Everybody should read that essay by C. And it's not long at all. It's like five pages of just sheer brilliance from the man who brought us the lion, the witch in the wardrobe.

PETER CARUCCI: 33:07

Yeah. And do you, when you're writing um a children's book or a picture book, yeah, are you seeing the imagery like how and and then how does that incarnate? How does that how does that like do you describe like what how does how does that become a picture book?

LIZ ROSENBERG: 33:26

Yeah, I I mean Well, the first picture book I ever did, I I wept when I saw I saw the illustrations and not in a good way. Um and I remember sort of wailing to my editor, but that's not the way I saw it in my mind. And she was this great children's writer herself as well as editor named Charlotte Zolato, and she said, Liz, I have published whatever it was, like a hundred books, and I have never yet had a single book that where the illustrations matched what I had in my head. So um, so that was an important lesson, I would say. And I've always told like students in my writing for children class, I had a great ceramics teacher who was actually teaching at Binghamton for a little while. And she told us once, because we were making these like ceramic vases and being so careful with the glazes we put on and the colors we chose and the patterns. And she said, you know, uh I understand that you're all working very hard on this, but when you put it in the kiln, you give it over to the flame. And I think that's a perfect metaphor for illustration. You give it over to the flame of the artist, and you just have to learn to look at it that way, and then you can appreciate the genius of what the other person does. I adore the illustrations for that first book now because I can see, you know, I can see what the illustrator brought to that and how much they were seeing and creating that I hadn't that I hadn't. So it's a it's a pretty great collaboration, and it's usually a completely silent one.

JAMIE SERINO: 35:25

Yeah, I I had um the uh a children's author said that she had never met any of her illustrators, like never even met them.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 35:34

That is pretty difficult.

JAMIE SERINO: 35:36

Yeah, and it it does seem like a massive disconnect, you know, like if you just like look at it like that. But then when you just described it, it is like, well, here's this person's interpretation of the writing. Yeah.

PETER CARUCCI: 35:48

Right.

JAMIE SERINO: 35:48

And then, you know, so it sounds like maybe it also got you to look at your writing slightly differently and you know, take take an outside in perspective on it. And um and it's good that you were able to to you know feel okay about it and and still not feel like you know it wasn't the right illustrations.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 36:07

But um, yeah, it it it's I'm sorry, are you guys hearing a lot of background noise here? No. No, it's not bothering you. Okay. That's and I can't ruffling through a drawer of what feel like every tool in the house.

JAMIE SERINO: 36:23

I I had someone come down. Um I'm in my basement, I had someone come down during a

PETER CARUCCI: 36:26

You didn't hear my dog scratching at the door either, right?

JAMIE SERINO: 36:40

Any um poets that you know you feel like it inspired you, you know, and still inspire you today?

PETER CARUCCI: 36:48

Hold on, I want to get a drum roll for this.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 36:52

Oh, is there somebody's name I'm supposed to say?

PETER CARUCCI: 36:55

I don't know.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 36:57

I think I think there are different poets who have truly affected me and directed me really at different times in my life. Um, the first one for sure was Robert Frost. Um, and that's when I was 10, and I got I received the first book of poems I think I'd ever gotten by one poet. And I still love that book. It's called You Come To. Um and it's some great poems by Robert Frost. And then um, but but the one the other one that really stands out to me is when I was maybe 17 and I was standing in the high school library and I pulled out the book Ariel by Sylvia Plath. Oh my god, is that You Come Too?

PETER CARUCCI: 37:46

I loved this book.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 37:51

That's amazing.

PETER CARUCCI: 37:55

This is probably, I mean, I I loved this too. Look, I mean, I even did uh earmarked pages I must have liked when I was that is so great. I I got I I was obsessed with with Frost for a good many years. And then and then you said who is the second one?

LIZ ROSENBERG: 38:14

Sylvia Plath. Sylvia Plath. I remember pulling out the book Ariel. I guess that was her first posthumous book and literally sinking down onto the carpet of the library because I did not want it like let go of that book. And it was so powerful. I couldn't just stand there reading it. I had to, it kind of knocked me off my feet. I had to sit down to read it. So yeah, and then at different times it has been different people. You know, they it seems like they come to you when you need them. It's kind of like that that old expression, when the student is ready, the teacher will come. So when the reader is ready, I think the book will come. And yeah, I think I think I believe that.

PETER CARUCCI: 39:06

Yeah.

JAMIE SERINO: 39:09

I I was just gonna say I I enjoyed um we we read Sylvia Plath in in your class, and then we uh touched on Emily Dickinson and also William Carlos Williams. Um and I and I remember those discussions and I really enjoyed those. Um and learned a lot also just about the type of poetry that William Carlos Williams was was doing. And and and so and that's that that to me is really like capturing a very specific moment, you know.

LIZ ROSENBERG 4: 39:42

Yes.

JAMIE SERINO: 39:43

And the famous wheelbarrow poem also like it it plays around with time, I think, too, because it unfolds until finally you you see the full picture.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 39:57

And it's you're absolutely right. I never thought about that before. It even plays with time in the sense that it it refers to like the day before, or right? Because the the wheelbarrow is glazed with rainwater. Right. So it's got time built into it.

JAMIE SERINO: 40:17

Right. And it's like so so much depends on in the end, it's the rain on a farm.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 40:24

Yeah.

JAMIE SERINO: 40:25

And and it that unfolds in such a short amount of time. Um, I think one of the reasons why that poem is so so loved. Um and and uh and so yeah, like those moments to capture that almost like a haiku, even like that that very short kind of kind of expression. Um so and you know, we we talked a little bit about Emily Dickinson and you know, capturing depression, you know, and and those types of emotions. Um and so uh I mean and Sylvia Plath, of course. Uh so how how about like are there any m musicians that you feel like speak to you, their their lyrics, you know, with the you know, the the the way their music is performed?

LIZ ROSENBERG: 41:13

Yes, definitely. Um the first one that came to my mind, and there are many contemporary musicians that matter to me a lot, but the first person that came to my mind was Beethoven. And what I was remembering, uh you might have seen me smiling because I John Gardner was my first husband, and I can only remember two fights we ever had in our lives together. One was over who was greater Beethoven or Mozart, and the other was over who was the greater writer, Hawthorne or Melville. That one I was so angry at, I got out of the car. Wow, just walked away.

PETER CARUCCI: 42:06

So funny. So it's it's obviously Hawthorne. Hawthorne's obviously better, right?

LIZ ROSENBERG: 42:13

Thank you. Thank you. I felt that that was as clear as Beethoven being greater than Mozart. But, and also, you know, when you get a bit older, then you begin to be able to acknowledge, yeah, but you know, Mozart is really freaking great himself. And so is Melville, you know.

PETER CARUCCI: 42:35

So, but yeah, those I remember my first day, and I think we talked about this before, in your classroom. I got there and I'm like, oh, you know, I'm going to try this class out. I'm sitting against the wall. There was uh one of those gray um uh shelves with like all these John Gardner books.

LIZ ROSENBERG 4: 42:56

Yeah.

PETER CARUCCI: 42:57

And and I and you did mention, and we were talking about this earlier, you did say something like, if you ask me about it, what what did you say exactly?

LIZ ROSENBERG: 43:06

Oh, I I think I think what I might have said is um critical. Yeah. You there are very few rules in this classroom, but um, if you have something really negative or nasty you want to say about John Gardner, don't say it in this classroom, don't say it to me. Because, you know, and then I would explain that he had been uh like the greatest teacher I ever had, for one thing, and my first husband, and I thought just this great soul, and I could not be objective about him at all. I remember walking with the husband of a friend once around Otsaninga Park, right? I don't know if you guys remember that, and they had like a big sort of lake pond in the middle of it, and we were talking about. Contemporary authors or something, and I I mentioned John Gardner, and this guy said, Well, I always thought he was quite the pompous ass. And I remember there was an instance where I literally thought about just pushing him into the pond and continuing on my walk around the water. And I and I remember I asked, you know, are you aware that I was married to this man? And he said, yes. And I thought, okay, well, then we're we're dealing with a bigger issue than this.

Yeah. Believe it or not, that guy turned out to be an amazing person. An amazing person. He did struggle. He did struggle with things. And I think one of them was being on the spectrum. But uh he was he was a lovely, he was actually a lovely person. He came over and buried my dog for me when my dog died. Oh yeah. Yeah. And we did that so that my daughter wouldn't have to come home and see her dog getting stiffer and stiffer. So I'll never forget that. He must have dropped the phone and run over with his shovel. So I'm glad I didn't push him into the pond.

PETER CARUCCI: 45:30

Are you objective now with regard to John Gardner?

LIZ ROSENBERG: 45:33

Oh no.

PETER CARUCCI: 45:34

Yeah. Right?

LIZ ROSENBERG: 45:36

No, not at all. Not at all. I um I did teach Grendel a few years ago, and I I did kind of tell the class, look, this is this is the scoop. So, you know, we can talk about the themes, we can talk about the writing, but you know, just don't attack this writer. Which I mean, you never need to do that anyway. That's the most boring kind of conversation you can ever have in a class, right? I really like this. Um, I really hate this. So, I mean, there's so many other ways to talk about, you know, what's happening or how you're responding, or one of the million things that's going on in a book. And our opinions really hardly matter in that sense. I like, I hate, you know. Now you were saying something about, that's right. Uh, Jamie, weren't you saying something? It might have just been we we were talking amongst ourselves, that there was a little bit of a kind of lively debate that went on about Nine Inch Nails.

PETER CARUCCI: 46:43

Yeah, yeah.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 46:44

Right?

JAMIE SERINO: 46:45

Yeah.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 46:45

And emotions do run high at at that time, but it sounded like both people were able to articulate why they felt the way they felt about the work itself. And that's that's always okay. You know, because you you can learn. You can learn from, you know, opposition is fruitful, is what uh William Blake said.

JAMIE SERINO: 47:14

Yeah, and I'm sure that that that guy, you know, the nine-inch now fan, you know, he's probably really pissed off, but you know, you'd like to think that later on he's like processing it and he probably did learn something from that, you know, yeah. Dialogue. Um, and and I and and I I thought it was sort of kind of brave for that woman just to come out and say that.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 47:36

Yes.

JAMIE SERINO: 47:37

Um, and she wasn't saying it to, you know, be controversial or whatever, but it that's how she felt about it. Right. Another lively debate in your class, uh, we had talked about this, yeah, um over the phone. But when that there's this one guy said how much he hated T.S. Elliott. And I don't know if you remember this, but he he kind of went into like this diatribe about like this guy's just trying to make himself look like he's smart, he uses footnotes, and yeah, this is an expression, there's no emotion, and he's just like some, you know, like ivory tower guy, and and I hate it, and you know, I he really went off on it. And then, you know, you you you handled it really well, I thought, and and you explained, you know, that it's one way to express yourself, and this is what he needs to do to get his point across. And um, and and so because we we talked about the wasteland, you know, for a a class or two, um, and you had us do a creative project around it, and he was just like not having I hated, I hate it, I hate it. Yeah, yeah. So and there are a couple people that you know were popping up on both sides of that argument. But I mean I imagine, yeah, imagine you have these types of debates in your class like all the time about stuff.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 48:60

Yeah, yeah, they they definitely they definitely do crop up. And I think

unlike what it feels like we're seeing in the world, um, which is where people can't and won't and don't listen to each other, I'm seeing more and more really good listening inside the classroom, which I have to say gives me hope for the future. You know, a couple of years ago, when October 7th happened in Israel, there were two young women in my class, and one uh had lived in Israel for a long time and had family there, and the other was a young woman who was Palestinian. And they were so incredibly kind and caring to each other. And it really felt almost like they had between them what you guys had between them, which was a shared understanding of the actual lived experience on the ground. They both certainly believed in peace um and opposed violence. And, you know, where I was afraid at first, oh my God, this could really get bad. It it sort of was the opposite. And I was kind of wonderstruck by how well they handled that and who they were, how it showed who they were. So I I feel like an awful lot of young people in this particular generation are they're so gentle. It's almost like they must be looking at their the grown-ups around them, saying, you guys are out of your minds.

JAMIE SERINO: 50:44

Yeah.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 50:45

We we have to find another way. We have to save the planet. We have to not kill each other off, you know, and I think it leads to these great, these uh ability to have these great conversations.

JAMIE SERINO: 51:01

Yeah, um, I and and it's uh it's interesting that you brought that up because I I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about like what you're seeing now, you know, that with with students, with people of that age, um, you know, because it it is the world keeps changing and and uh you know with everything social media, just electronics in general.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 51:34

I was gonna say I'm gonna give you a two-minute answer for that. Um I I really do think I I know you hear one hears a lot of complaints about the young people now, but I have had the opposite experience, and I really feel as though they're bringing this incredible caring and idealism with them. Admittedly, I've got a select group because I'm just basically talking about the kids at Binghamton University. Though lately, almost as soon as I announced my retirement, in fact, I began teaching at the local prison in Broome County. And I was knocked out by those women, absolutely knocked out by by them. Um so there's there's there's that, and then at the same time, I have to say I worry a lot for them about the effect of social media, and they will all say that they know they're addicted, they feel the addiction, and it scares them. It does scare them. So I think that's a huge factor right now, yeah. And it's working against them, but I see so much strength and kindness and love in them, really, that I think they're gonna find their way through even that blank wall that is a screen. So this has been so much fun, and I know you guys have to go running off, and I have dolphins to go try to find swimming around.

PETER CARUCCI: 53:10

Oh my gosh.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 53:19

It's crazy that those two realities can exist in the same country, but maybe maybe that's a metaphor for other things that exist. Yeah.

PETER CARUCCI: 53:28

It's a great idea for a poem.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 53:34

All right, guys. Well, I always did love you, and I still do.

JAMIE SERINO: 53:39

Thank you, Liz. This was wonderful.

PETER CARUCCI: 53:41

Um is there any other is there a work that you're coming out with that you want to talk about at all or promote?

LIZ ROSENBERG: 53:49

Or I'm working on some children's book sort of ideas, really, with an editor right now. I'm working on poems. So we'll sort of see what happens with that.

JAMIE SERINO: 54:05

Great. Looking forward to it. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, and thanks everybody for watching and listening. And uh, we'll see you next time.

LIZ ROSENBERG: 54:14

All right, bye. Thanks.