Podcast: Lauren Delapenha on “Supermarketing”

Apple Podcasts logo

Listen on Apple Podcasts.

Spotify Logo Green

Listen on Spotify.

Transcript: Lauren Delapenha Podcast 

Headshot and Issue 31 cover

LAUREN DELAPENHA speaks to EMILY EVERETT about her poems “Supermarketing” and “If You Are Learning English,” which appear in The Common’s spring issue. Lauren also discusses her process and revision methods, her time at the Disquiet Literary Program in Lisbon, and how balancing both teaching and writing challenges her.

Lauren is a Jamaican poet and English teacher. She earned her master’s in creative writing from the University of Oxford, and her work has received an Oxbelly Fellowship, a Helen Zell and Jamaica Poet Laureate’s Young Writers Prize for Poetry, a Grindstone International Poetry Prize, and two Pushcart nominations. She currently lives and teaches in Connecticut.

­­Read Lauren’s poems in The Common at thecommononline.org/tag/Lauren-Delapenha.

Learn more about her work at laurendelapenha.com.


The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook.

Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. In 2025 her debut novel All That Life Can Afford was a Reese’s Book Club pick, and her work appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column. Previous publications include the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Podcast: Lauren Delapenha on “Supermarketing”

Related Posts

Book cover of Making the Turn by Wyatt Townley

Dancing on the Ceiling: Meaning Movement in Wyatt Townley’s Making the Turn

AIDAN COOPER
Perhaps “Wedding Vows” epitomizes Making the Turn: a falling that becomes, or rather makes itself known as, falling together. It considers surrendering control and finding oneself an instance of a larger, universe-spanning tango. The whole book does this, flowing with direct, dizzying specificity

Podcast: Liz DeWolf on “Ex Situ”

LIZ DEWOLF
Liz DeWolf speaks to Emily Everett about her story “Ex Situ,” which appear in The Common’s spring issue. The story follows an American living in Istanbul, navigating the end of a relationship, and the appeal and alienation of living abroad in a layered, complex city. She also discusses her process and revision methods, the themes she often returns to, and her work as a nonfiction book editor.

Headshot of Brionne Janae

September 2026 Poetry Feature

BRIONNE JANAE
did you keep your mind? / you got to walk it for yourself / and on returning what state did you find it in? / as in what state were you in? / were you where you left yourself? / and who was left? / was anyone left? / and how sure were you that you could reach them?