104: Sheela Clary — Perspective

104: Sheela Clary — Perspective

**Full show notes and poems on ⁠Substack [poetrybetweenfriends.substack.com]⁠** What if you grew up believing your father built both your house and the river beside it? Host Rachel Schroeder exchanges poems with Sheela Clary—storyteller, essayist, journalist, teacher of Italian and storytelling, wife, mother, cold-plunge enthusiast, and Rachel’s dear friend since the age of two—about inner and outer landscapes, fatherly authority, and the invisible forces that hold us back or tickle us forward. In Sheela’s “Gravity,” a girl grows up in a big, weird house beside a shimmering river, believing her father’s word built both. In Rachel’s “Sneaky Currents,” the hard-won effort of reaching a mountain summit gives way to an unseen force lifting her toward flight—even as Gravity hooks her heels with the old commands: can’t, shouldn’t, must not. Together, Rachel and Sheela explore the pull between being planted and taking wing—and what it takes to let Choice choose through you. New episodes on Sundays. Hosted & Produced by Rachel Schroeder • Music by Andrew Veivers • Cover Art by Mathayu Warren Lane • Sound Engineering by Revision Sound. Recorded in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on unceded Mohican land • Engineered, edited & mixed in Lewisville, Texas, on Jumanos and Kickapoo land. Because poetry lives between friends.

103: Jason Howard — Cosmology

**Full show notes and poems on Substack [poetrybetweenfriends.substack.com]**   What happens when a man dressed in pea soup floats into the ever after — and a voice whispers that we are not crumbs, not parts, but whole? Rachel exchanges poems with Jason Howard — actor, fight choreographer, writer, coder, and her dear friend since college — about amnesia, a mantra that echoes across lifetimes, and absurdity that just might be wisdom. Through Rachel’s “Not Crumbs” and Jason’s “PeaSoupland (aka Couch Lounger Bingo),” they explore the odd comfort of being both a speck of dust and a planet, the mystic journey of finding wholeness in a universe that keeps forgetting itself, and the search for meaning in inscrutable messages. Hosted and Produced by Rachel Schroeder • Music by Andrew Veivers • Cover Art by Mathayu Warren Lane • Sound Engineering by Revision Sound • Recorded in New York, NY on unceded Lenape land • Engineered in Lewisville, TX on Jumanos and Kickapoo land. Because poetry lives between friends.

102: Derralyn Rennix - Home

**Full show notes and poems on Substack [poetrybetweenfriends.substack.com]** What happens when home is both wound and origin — gravesite and garden, the place we leave and the place that won't leave us? Rachel exchanges poems with Derralyn Rennix — poet, veterinarian, Buddhist chaplain, hospice bereavement volunteer, and NVC facilitator — about childhood homes, ancestral memory, mourning, healing, and the alchemy of transformation. Through Rachel’s “Divine Boot Camp” and Derralyn’s “Controlled Burn,” they explore how poetry can help us witness what was lost, bless what remains, and turn ashes into fertile ground. Hosted and Produced by Rachel Schroeder • Music by Andrew Veivers • Cover art by Mathayu Warren Lane • Sound Engineering by Revision Sound • Recorded in New York City on unceded Lenape land and in Otisfield, Maine on unceded Wabanaki land • Engineered in Lewisville, Texas on Jumanos and Kickapoo land. Because poetry lives between friends.

101: Mathayu Warren Lane — Wonder

**Full show notes and poems at Substack [poetrybetweenfriends.substack.com]** What happens when the ordinary world begins to shimmer — when a chicken, a droplet, a toothbrush, or a passing moment becomes a doorway into wonder? In the series premiere, Rachel Schroeder reunites with her dear friend Mathayu Warren Lane — poet, painter, screenwriter, grocer, and fellow high school theater kid — to exchange poems about hatching, becoming, delight, and the sacred hidden inside ordinary life. Through Rachel’s “Hatching Day, The Chicken Does Not Ask” and Mathayu’s “Be, Come, Droplets,” a warm and playful conversation unfolds about friendship, artistic process, presence, and what it means to become. Hosted and Produced by Rachel Schroeder • Music by Andrew Veivers • Cover Art by Mathayu Warren Lane • Sound Engineering by Revision Sound • Recorded on unceded Mohican land • Engineered in Lewisville,TX on Jumanos and Kickapoo land. Because poetry lives between friends.

Trailer

Before each episode, I send an original poem to someone I love. They write one in conversation with mine. During the episode, we read each other's work aloud, then follow the poems wherever they lead. Whether you've been writing in secret for years, yearn to write, or writing is your life's work, you are very welcome here. Hosted and produced by Rachel Schroeder, a New York–based playwright, poet, lyricist, and educator.