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In this episode, I talk with poet, translator, and consultant Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr. about her new poetry collection, After the Operation (Four Way Books, 2025). The book began after Elizabeth underwent brain surgery to remove a benign tumor. In it she weaves poems, medical documents, journal entries, and memories into a thought-provoking and entirely captivating book.

We discuss the decision to have the surgery, how the poems emerged during recovery, and what it meant to give herself fully to this new work. Elizabeth talks honestly about ambition, how she’s juggled a creative life with a demanding career, and what her writing journey has looked like.

About the guest:

Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr. is a poet, translator, critic, and corporate consultant. Previous collections of poetry include Salient (New Directions, 2020) and Series | India (Four Way Books, 2015). Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season (New Directions, 2022), her translations of Iran’s major modern woman poet, Forough Farrokhzad (1937–1962), was a finalist for the 2023 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. The Green Sea of Heaven, a 30th anniversary edition of her translations of Iran’s major medieval mystic poet, Háfiz (d. 1389), appeared from Monkfish Publishing in 2024. She currently serves on the Boards of Kimbilio for Black Fiction, the Beloit Poetry Journal Foundation, Friends of Writers, and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran. She was a founder and managing partner/CEO of Conflict Management, Inc. and Alliance Management Partners, LLC, boutique corporate consulting firms. She holds a BA and JD from Harvard University and an MFA from Warren Wilson and lives in New York City.

Connect with Elizabeth: https://etgrayjr.com/
Order After the Operation: https://fourwaybooks.com/site/after-the-operation/

What We Aim To Do is a podcast about vocation. Featuring conversations with artists, writers, and founders, host Megan Nichols asks questions about the challenges and joys of pursuing meaningful work, balancing ambition with well-being, and finding purpose in the work we share with the world.

www.whatweaimtodo.com

Megan Nichols is the author of the chapbook Animal Unfit (Belle Point Press, 2023). Her poems have appeared in Iron Horse Literary Review, The Threepenny Review, Frontier Poetry and elsewhere. She lives in the Ozark Mountains.

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What Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr. Aims To Do