# POETICS Podcast: "Muscle Memories of Love and Disaster," by Tim Mayo

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Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/poetics-poetry-podcast-7109691/poetics-podcast-muscle-memories-of-love-and-disaster-by-tim-mayo.md
Podcast: [POETICS: Poetry Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/poetics-poetry-podcast-7109691)
Published: 2026-05-28T15:58:24+00:00
Episode link: https://bainbridgeislandpress.substack.com/p/poetics-podcast-muscle-memories-of
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Duration seconds: 1615

## Resource

Available in POETICS Bookstore: Muscle Memory of Love and Disaster, poetry by Tim Mayo If you open this book in the bookstore, open it to "At the Chemo Clinic" –– a powerful elegy that refuses to go quietly as a father accompanies his daughter to the chemo ward, and likens it to a kind of gas station, where nurses "attach the clear plastic hose to her chest and start the pump." In his poem "Self-portrait with Trache ," Mayo writes "Grief is a black parrot in my throat." But there is more than grief in these poems. They tell us how a life is carried—stubbornly, tenderly—in the body––as the lyric moment glides from still-life landscapes and winter woods to hospital rooms, rehab corridors, and how life can still be remade with meaning via the music and clarity of poetry. An insistence on attentiveness lives fiercely in these compelling poems. — Ilya Kaminsky , author of Dancing in Odessa and Deaf Republic Get full access to Bainbridge Island Press at bainbridgeislandpress.substack.com/subscribe

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## Transcript

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