Cut and Paste

Nika Marble’s artistic toolbox holds an eclectic mix: A shot of tonic, a staccato note and a sharp pair of scissors. Each tool is in service of one of her artistic endeavors: music, mixology and collage making. But as she dons one hat after another, how does Marble define herself? In this reboot of our Cut & Paste podcast , we talk with Marble about an identity crisis that plagues many creative people. “Am I am I an artist who waits tables? Or am I a waiter who occasionally makes art?” Marble said. “This is a thing that has worried myself and a lot of my friends in their lives.”

Carl Phillips was teaching Latin to high school students when a poet changed his life. Phillips had long been an avid reader and wrote poems casually, but he never conceived of poetry as a career path. The poet Martin Espada visited the school where he worked and led a workshop for faculty. He saw what Phillips wrote in an exercise and suggested he apply for a state grant. He got the grant. Then he won a poetry contest that led to publication of his first collection, “In The Blood,” in 1992. The next year he secured a position on the faculty at Washington University, where he remains a professor of English and leads a workshop in the graduate creative writing program. Many awards and honors later, Phillips published his 15th poetry collection in March this year.

You know what they say: You can’t spell Cut & Paste without “u.” OK, go ahead: groan. We're groaning with you. We know that no one says that. But seriously, we want to know what you want to hear in Cut & Paste, our arts and culture podcast . Not necessarily “who,” but what kinds of conversations and experiences do you want to be in on?