Esther Belin and Tacey M. Atsitty on Monsters

This week, Esther Belin speaks with Diné poet Tacey M. Atsitty. Atsitty’s debut full-length collection, Rain Scald, was published in 2018, and Arthur Sze described the book as filled with a poetry “where rain, expected to be nourishing, is also a torrent, burning with sensation.” Today, we’ll hear two new poems by Atsitty, “Things to Do with a Monster” and “Lady Birds’ Evening Meetings” from the December issue of Poetry. Atsitty’s new poems come out of her desire to create a bestiary of Diné monsters. The poems explore how and why we create and abandon monsters, what we learn from them, how monsters humble us, and more.