Shows
Poetry For AllEpisode 97: Donald Justice, Pantoum of the Great DepressionThis episode begins a three-part series on the pantoum and looks at how the repetitions work especially well for a poem that dwells incessantly in memories of the past, trying to recover, trying to move forward.
For the text of the poem, see The Poetry Foundation:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58080/pantoum-of-the-great-depression
For more on Donald Justice, see The Poetry Foundation:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/donald-justice
Copyright Credit: Donald Justice, "Pantoum of the Great Depression" from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2004 by Donald Justice. Read on our podcast by permission o...
2025-09-1726 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 96: Gerard Manley Hopkins, God's GrandeurToday we look at a sonnet by Gerard Manley Hopkins that dwells equally in the grandeur of God and the wreck made of earth. Hopkins wonders how these two aspects of our world could possibly relate, and he holds out hope for the dearest freshness deep down things.
God's Grandeur
By Gerard Manley Hopkins
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his...
2025-09-0324 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 95: Ted Kooser, StudentIt's back to school time, and we're back at Poetry For All, heavy with hope for another season. Today we look at a poem unified by an extended metaphor describing a student who makes his heroic way to the library. Short and simple--and so much to love.
This poem comes from Ted Kooser's Pulitzer-Prize winning book, Delights and Shadows, published by Copper Canyon Press in 2004. Thank you to Copper Canyon Press for permission to read the poem for this episode.
For the text of the poem, see here: https://www.versedaily.org/student.shtml
2025-08-2022 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 94: Sumer is icumen inIn this episode, we offer a close reading of "Sumer is icumen in," a Middle English song that anticipates the abundant joys of summer.
Thanks to the Pias Group for granting us permission to share the Hilliard Ensemble's rendition of this song. You can find the manuscript that includes the lyrics and music at the British Library.
2025-06-1925 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 92: Dorianne Laux, SingerIn this episode, we read and discuss "Singer," a narrative poem that celebrates the poetic speaker's mother in all of her complexity.
Dorianne Laux is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Life on Earth, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected Poems which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is also the author of a new craft book titled Finger Exercises for Poets.
“Singer” appears in LIFE ON EARTH by Dorianne Laux. Copyright © 2024 by Dorianne Laux. Used by permission of W...
2025-05-0825 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 91: Joanne Diaz, Two EmergenciesIn this episode, Katy Didden and Abram Van Engen discuss the extraordinary leaps, narrative disjunctions, and temporal frames that fill Diaz's extraordinary ekphrastic poem, a reflection on Bruegel's painting, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" written in conversation with W.H. Auden's poem "Musée des Beaux Arts."
"Two Emergencies," appears in My Favorite Tyrants (University of Wisconsin Press 2014), winner of the 2014 Brittingham Prize in Poetry.
For more poetry of Joanne Diaz, see also The Lessons (Silverfish Review Press 2011), winner of the Gerald Cable Book Award.
For W.H. Auden's "Musee des Beaux A...
2025-04-2424 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 90: N. Scott Momaday, The Delight Song of Tsoai-taleeThis episode explores the incantation and mystic union of Momaday's famous delight poem, ending with a recorded recitation in his own rich voice. We explain anaphora and explore its power, and we trace the links and connections from one thought to the next throughout the poem.
Special thanks to Universty of California Television (UCTV) for permission to share the audio of Momaday's reading. For the interview with Momaday from which this reading has been pulled, see "A Conversation with N. Scott Momaday -- Writer's Symposium by the Sea 2023" on Youtube. "The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee" appears in...
2025-04-1620 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 89: Pádraig Ó Tuama, excerpts from Kitchen HymnsThis episode was recorded on March 2, 2025 at the Phillis Wheatley Heritage Center in St. Louis., Missouri. In this conversation, Pádraig Ó Tuama reads several poems from Kitchen Hymns (Copper Canyon Press, 2024), his newest collection. We discuss subversive speech, belief and doubt, lyrical poetry, the psychology of poetic forms, and the power of ancient myths.
Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet with interests in conflict, language and religion. He presents Poetry Unbound from On Being Studios, and has published two anthologies (2022, 2025, both with WW Norton) from that podcast. A freelance artist, one of Ó Tuama’s projects is poet in resi...
2025-04-0354 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 88: Oksana Maksymchuk, TempoOksana Maksymchuk joins us for a reading and discussion of "Tempo," a poem that explores the how war causes us to "whirl with / planets and stars that coil / around our fragile core."
Oksana Maksymchuk is a bilingual Ukrainian-American poet, scholar, and literary translator. Her debut English-language poetry collection Still City is the 2024 Pitt Poetry Series selection, published by University of Pittsburgh Press (US) and Carcanet Press (UK). And while Still City is Oksana’s first poem in English, she is an accomplished poet in the Ukrainian as well. She is also the co-editor of Words for War: Ne...
2025-03-2029 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 87: Monica Ong, Her GazeIn this episode, Monica Ong joins us to discuss "Her Gaze," a visual poem that celebrates the achievements of astronomer Caroline Herschel. "Her Gaze" appears in Planetaria, Ong's new collection that merges archival materials with striking lyric poems.
Monica Ong is the author of two books: Silent Anatomies, which was the winner of the Kore Press First Book Award in 2015; and Planetaria, which will be released in May 2025. Last year, Ong was named a United States Artists Fellow. Ong’s visual poetry has been published in many literary magazines and exhibited in galleries and museums all over th...
2025-03-0635 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 86: Gwendolyn Bennett, I Build AmericaGwendolyn Bennett was a poet, journalist, editor, and activist whose contributions helped to fuel the Harlem Renaissance. In this episode, we read "I Build America," a poem that exposes and critiques the exploitation and suffering of ordinary workers.
To learn more about Gwendolyn Bennett, see Heroine of the Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Gwendolyn Bennett's Selected Writings, edited by Belinda Wheeler and Louis J. Parascandola (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018). Thanks to Pennsylvania State University Press for granting us permission to read this poem.
You can also click here to read a brief biography of Bennett.
2025-02-2025 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 85: Jacob Stratman, To Momento MoriIn this episode, we read and discuss a poem that takes its inspiration from a painting by Andrew Wyeth. The poem provides a meditation on what we perceive and interpret when we look at a painting, and at one another.
2025-01-2220 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 84: Ted Kooser, excerpts from Winter Morning WalksIn this episode, we offer close readings of poems from Ted Kooser's_ Winter Morning Walks: 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison_. Kooser's poems allow us to think about the poem as a social act, as a form of healing, and as a kind of meditation.
To learn more about Ted Kooser, visit his website.
If you like these poems that we discussed in this episode, please read Ted Kooser's Winter Morning Walks: 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2001). Thanks to Carnegie Mellon Press for granting us permission to read these poems aloud.
2024-12-1221 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 83: Emily Dickinson, "I went to thank Her–"In this episode, we read and discuss Emily Dickinson's poem about the death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. We discuss Dickinson's innovative syntax, her use of deep pauses, and her meditations on death and grief that create surprising effects in this short lyric.
I went to thank Her
I went to thank Her—
But She Slept—
Her Bed—a funneled Stone—
With Nosegays at the Head and Foot—
That Travellers—had thrown—
Who went to thank Her—
But She Slept—
'Twas Short—to cross the Sea—
To look upon Her like—ali...
2024-11-2720 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 82: Sidney, Translation of Psalm 52Psalm 52 concerns a lying tyrant and God's impending judgment. Mary Sidney, who lived 1561-1621, was an extraordinary writer, editor, and literary patron. Like many talented writers of her time, she translated all the psalms. Here we talk about translation, early modern women's writing, religious engagements with politics, and the power of Psalm 52.
For more on Mary Sidney, see The Poetry Foundation page: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-sidney-herbert
For the Geneva translation of Psalm 52, which Mary Sidney would have known, see here:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2052&version=GNV
For...
2024-11-1526 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 81: Niki Herd, The Stuff of HollywoodIn this episode, Niki Herd joins us to read and discuss an excerpt from The Stuff of Hollywood, a collection in which Herd experiments with a range of forms and procedures to examine the history of violence in America.
To learn more about Niki Herd, you can visit her website.
The Stuff of Hollywood was just published by Copper Canyon Website. Please visit their website to purchase a copy.
Photo credit: Madeline Brenner
2024-10-3137 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 80: Percy Bysshe Shelley, OzymandiasIn this episode, we closely read Shelley's "Ozymandias," a poem written in a time of revolution and social protest. We focus on the poem's sonnet structure, its engagement with--and critique of--empire, its meditation on the bust of Ramses II, and its afterlife in an episode of _Breaking Bad. _
To learn more about Percy Bysshe Shelley, click here.
Here is the text of the poem:
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half...
2024-10-1721 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 79: W.H. Auden, Musée des Beaux ArtsIn this episode, Shankar Vendantam joins us to read and discuss "Musee des Beaux Arts," a poem that explores the ways in which humans become indifferent to the suffering of others.
To learn more about Shankar Vendantam and the Hidden Brain podcast, visit his website.
To read Auden's poem, click here.
Thanks to Curtis Brown Ltd. for granting us permission to read this poem.
2024-10-0339 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 78: Jericho Brown, DuplexIn this episode, we read and discuss Jericho Brown's "Duplex," a poetic form that he created in order to explore the complexities of family, violence, and desire.
This is one of several duplex poems that you can find in The Tradition (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize. Thanks to Copper Canyon Press for granting us permission to read this poem.
To learn more about Jericho Brown, visit his website.
To learn more about the duplex form, you can read Brown's essay on the Poetry Foundation's Harriet blog. We also love...
2024-09-2022 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 77: Jennifer Grotz, The Conversion of PaulPoetry engages in conversation. Today, we explore a long, beautiful, narrative poem weaving together the work of fellow poets while looking carefully at a Caravaggio painting, all reflecting on illness, death, and friendship.
For the poem, see here: https://www.nereview.com/vol-40-no-1-2019/the-conversion-of-paul/
For Grotz's incredible book, Still Falling, see Graywolf Press here: https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/still-falling
“Still Falling is an undeniably gorgeous book of love poems full of grief. In these pages, Jennifer Grotz writes line after line of direct statement in rhythms that would leave any re...
2024-09-0526 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 76: Philip Levine, What Work IsIn this episode, we read and discuss Philip Levine's most famous poem, "What Work Is." We consider his deft use of the second-person perspective, the sociability and narrative energy of his poetry, and his deep concern for the insecurity that defines the lives of so working-class laborers.
Click here to read "What Work Is": https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52173/what-work-is
Photo credit: Geoffrey Berliner
"What Work Is" was published in What Work Is (Knopf, 1991). Thanks to Penguin Random House for granting us permission to read this poem.
2024-08-2224 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 75: Du Fu, Passing the Night by White Sands Post StationWhat is a good life, and how do we make sense of the world when it seems like society is collapsing? In this episode, Lucas Bender joins us once again to discuss the work of Du Fu (712-770 C.E.), the great Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty. Luke helps us to see how Du Fu’s “Passing the Night by White Sands Post Station” can be read in multiple ways depending on how one translates each word of the poem. In doing so, he reveals the poem’s concerns with aging, disappointment, and the possibility of hope in difficul...
2024-08-0718 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 74: Diane Seuss, [The sonnet, like poverty]This remarkable sonnet dives into issues of poverty, poetry, and grief. We talk about the pedagogy of constraint, while exploring the achievements, including the hardbitten gratitude, embedded in this poem.
Thank you to Graywolf Press for permission to read and discuss the poem. Diane Seuss's "[The sonnet, like poverty, teaches you what you can do]" was published in her collection titled frank: sonnets (Graywolf, 2021).
See the work (and buy it!) here: https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/frank-sonnets
For more on Diane Seuss, see here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/diane-seuss
For...
2024-07-2624 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 73: Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, Sonnet 189In this episode, Professor Stephanie Kirk guides our reading of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz’s “Sonnet 189.” Her scholarly insights help us to appreciate the nuances of Sor Juana’s poetry and her importance in her own lifetime and beyond.
Professor Kirk read Edith Grossman's translation of "Sonnet 189" from Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Selected Works. Copyright (c) 2014 by Edith Grossman. With permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
To learn more about Stephanie Kirk’s scholarship, you can click here.
Cover image: Miguel Cabrera, posthumous portrait of Sor Juana I...
2024-07-0824 min
Poetry For AllWord Made Fresh (and Exciting Updates)We're interrupting your summer this week with a few exciting updates about Poetry For All and an excerpt from Abram Van Engen's newly released book, Word Made Fresh.
If you want to join Abram for a book launch online on July 9 at 4pm Eastern, register for free by clicking this link.
And if you want a free subscription to Image Journal, which is an incredible faith and arts magazine, check out this offer here by clicking this link.
You can see the book here: https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802883605/word-made-fresh/
Or at...
2024-07-0112 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 72: Victoria Chang, My Mother--died unpeacefully...In this episode, we read one of Victoria Chang’s moving poems from her collection OBIT, and discuss how the poem explores the interplay between life, death, grieving, and memory as the poet tries to process her mother’s passing.
Thanks to Copper Canyon Press for granting us permission to read this poem, which was originally published in OBIT.
Victoria’s newest collection of poems, With My Back to the World,was inspired by the work of Agnes Martin and published earlier this year.
To learn more about Victoria Chang, visit her website.
2024-05-2220 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 71: Hopkins, As Kingfishers Catch FireThis episode dives into the wonderful world of Gerard Manley Hopkins, the musicality of his language, and the vision he has of becoming what we already are.
This poem illustrates the cover of Abram Van Engen's new book, Word Made Fresh. The book explores connections between poetry and faith, and it serves as an invitation to reading poetry of all kinds--with tools and tips for how to get started and explore broadly.
Special thanks to John Hendrix for the cover illustration of Word Made Fresh, which is an illustration of "As Kingfishers Catch Fire."
2024-04-1823 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 70: Lauren Camp, Inner PlanetsIn this episode, Lauren Camp joins us to read and discuss "Inner Planets," a poem that she wrote during her time as the astronomer in residence at Grand Canyon National Park. She describes her poetic process and the value of solitude in a place full of wonderment.
To learn more about the Grand Canyon Astronomer in Residence program, click here.
To learn more about Lauren Camp, visit her website.
Lauren's newest collection, In Old Sky, is a collection of the poems that were inspired by the Grand Canyon.
2024-03-1928 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 69: Live with Marilyn Nelson!Our first live performance of the podcast, featuring Marilyn Nelson and a discussion or her amazing poem "How I Discovered Poetry."
On January 31, we met at Calvin University for its January Series and spoke with Marilyn Nelson about poetry and her work for a live audience.
For more on Marilyn Nelson, visit her website or The Poetry Foundation.
This poem is the title poem of an extraordinary book called How I Discovered Poetry
It was originally published in The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems
Thank you to...
2024-02-1155 min
Poetry For AllAnnouncementWe share some news about a new website at poetryforallpod.com and a live event next week!
https://poetryforallpod.com/
2024-01-2402 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 68: W.S. Merwin, To the New YearIn the first episode of 2024, we read one of the great poets of the past century, W.S. Merwin, and his address to the new year, considering his attentiveness, his style, and his wondrous mood and mode of contemplation and surprise. Picking up on the "radical hope" we discussed in Dimitrov's "Winter Solstice," we turn to Merwin's sense of what is untouched but still possible as he greets the new year.
In this episode, we quote a few pieces from The New Yorker. Here they are, plus a few other resources.
"The Aesthetic Insight of...
2024-01-1822 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 67: Alex Dimitrov, Winter SolsticeIn this episode, we read and discuss a poem that provides a powerful meditation on the longest night of the year.
To learn more about Alex Dimitrov, please visit his website.
Thanks to Copper Canyon Press for granting us permission to read this poem from Love and Other Poems.
During our conversation, we briefly allude to "Love," Dimitrov's wonderful poem that he continues to write each day. To read the original poem, you can check the American Poetry Review; and to read Dimitrov's additional lines on Twitter, you can follow him at @apoemcalledlove...
2023-12-1924 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 66: Katy Didden, The Priest Questions the LavaIn our discussion of "The Priest Questions the Lava," Katy describes the sentience of the natural world, her erasure of documentary texts, her interest in visual poetry, and the importance of poems that examine ethical and spiritual questions in an era of climate change.
To see Katy's erasure, click on the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day feature.
Visit the Tupelo Press website to purchase a copy of Ore Choir: The Lava on Iceland.
The website includes a lesson plan for those who might want to introduce Katy's poetry into the classroom.
2023-11-2226 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 65: Du Fu, Facing SnowIn this episode, Lucas Bender guides us through his translation of Du Fu's "Facing Snow," one of the most famous poems in the Chinese language.
To learn more about Du Fu's life, work, and cultural significance, please see Lucas Bender's Du Fu Transforms: Tradition and Ethics amid Societal Collapse (Harvard University Press, 2021).
2023-10-1923 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 64: Shakespeare, Sonnet 29In episode 64, we talk about Shakespeare's sonnet 29, a poem about comparison and competition, leading the poet almost to despise himself before, by chance, he remembers his dear friend and is lifted by the deep joy of that relationship.
We link our discussion to present-day concerns about social media, the Surgeon General's warning about an epidemic of loneliness in this country, and a long-term Harvard study of happiness. Links below.
Here is the poem:
Sonnet 29
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
2023-09-2219 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 63: Rumi, Colorless, Nameless, FreePoet and translator Haleh Liza Gafori joins us to closely read and discuss a poem by Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (1207-1273 CE), one of the greatest of all Sufi poets. We discuss the poetic constraints of the ghazal form, Rumi's encounters with the divine, and the significance of his friendship with Shams, a man who transformed his life and poetic practice.
Haleh Liza Gafori's translations of Rumi's poetry appear in Gold (NYRB Press, 2022).
You can learn more about her work as a vocalist, poet, translator and performer here.
To learn...
2023-08-3029 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 62: Kobayashi Issa, HaikuWhat makes haiku "the perfect poetic form"? This episode reads three wonderful haiku by Kobayashi Issa and explores what makes them so moving and fun.
We use the beautiful translations of award-winning poet Robert Haas in The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa. To see these haiku and others online, visit The Poetry Foundation here.
To see (and purchase) the book, see HarperCollins here.
Thank you to HarperCollins for permission to read these translations on our podcast.
For more on Kobayashi Issa, visit the Poetry Foundation here.
2023-08-1117 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 61: Ada Limón, "The Raincoat"With her quality of attention and focus on vivid, specific images, Ada Limón brings us to a moment of surprising insight in "The Raincoat."
"The Raincoat" appears in Ada Limón's book The Carrying by Milkweed Editions. Thank you to Milkweed Editions for permission to read the poem on this podcast.
You can find the "The Raincoat" on the Poetry Foundation website.
To learn more about Ada Limón, the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States, visit the Library of Congress website.
Ada Limón's author website includes information abou...
2023-05-1118 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 60: Li-Young Lee, From BlossomsIn this episode, we explore the poetry of joy in a world of shade and death, looking to sounds and repetitions while examining how "From Blossoms" speaks back to the poem that immediately precedes it in Lee's great book Rose.
For more on Li-Young Lee, see The Poetry Foundation here.
Thanks to BOA Editions for granting us permission to read Li-Young Lee's work on our podcast. "From Blossoms" and "The Weight of Sweetness" originally appeared in Rose (BOA Editions, 1986).
2023-05-0219 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 59: Tichborne's ElegyIn this episode, we read the elegy of Chidiock Tichborne, written the night before his execution, and contemplate the power of repetitions, the balanced precision of a man facing his end, and the drumbeat of monosyllables that takes his imagination beyond the moment of his death.
Tichborne's Elegy
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain:
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I...
2023-04-0721 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 58: Richie Hofmann, Things That Are RareIn this episode, we are delighted to have Richie Hofmann as our guest. Richie Hofmann is the author of two collections: Second Empire and A Hundred Lovers. His poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Yale Review, and many other literary magazines, and he is the recipient of Ruth Lilly and Wallace Stegner fellowships.
To learn more about Richie, visit his website.
To learn more about Richie Hofmann's poetry and process, read Jesse Nathan's interview with Richie Hoffman in McSweeney's.
Richie Hofmann photo credit: Marcus Jackson
2023-02-2723 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 57: Edna St. Vincent Millay, She had forgotten how the August nightShe called herself Vincent, she smoked cigarettes, and she wore shimmery golden evening gowns when she read her poetry to sold-out crowds. Edna St. Vincent Millay was the emblem of the "New Woman" and one of the most important American poets of the twentieth century...but in years after her death, her literary reputation suffered, and only recently have critics and historians revisited and properly celebrated her work.
In this episode, we focus on a sonnet that showcases the ways in which Millay approached desire and eros in her poetry.
To learn more about Edna...
2023-02-1423 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 56: Queen Elizabeth, On Monsieur's DepartureQueen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) was one of the longest-reigning monarchs in all of British history, but she was also a gifted poet. In this episode, we discuss "On Monsieur's Departure," a poem that is inspired by Petrarchan conventions and gives insight into the public and private selves of a powerful queen.
(For the text of the poem, scroll to the bottom.)
In this episode, we attempt to describe the magnificence of some of Queen Elizabeth's portraiture. To learn more, visit the National Portrait Gallery of London:
To learn more about Petrarch and his...
2023-01-3118 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 55: Kay Ryan, CribIn this episode, we discuss Kay Ryan's "Crib," a brief poem that begins with an interest in the deep archaeology of language and shifts to a powerful meditation on theft, innocence, and guilt.
"Crib" appears in The Best of It © 2010 by Kay Ryan. Used by permissions of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
For more on Kay Ryan and her work, you can visit the Poetry Foundation website.
Our favorite interview with Kay Ryan appears in the Paris Review.
2022-12-1917 min
Poetry For AllGrant Writing BreakThis week, Joanne and Abram take a break to write a grant for the podcast. We very much hope you enjoy Poetry For All. And if you do, please leave us a review, share it with a friend, and let us know! Thank you all for listening.
2022-12-0502 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 54: Carl Phillips, To AutumnIn this episode, we talk with David Baker about "To Autumn" by Carl Phillips, exploring the way Phillips masterfully achieves a sense of intimacy and restlessness in a lyric ode that tosses between two parts while incorporating the sonnet tradition.
For more on Carl Phillips, please visit the Poetry Foundation.
For more on David Baker, please visit the Poetry Foundation.
"To Autumn" has been read from Carl Phillips' latest book of poetry, Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020.
The latest book by Carl Phillips is a collection of essays called...
2022-11-2124 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 53: Carter Revard, What the Eagle Fan SaysIn this episode, we focus on the life and work of Carter Revard, an Osage poet whose medieval scholarship informs the structure of "What the Eagle Fan Says." Jessica Rosenfeld, a professor of medieval literature at Washington University in St. Louis, joins us for this discussion.
Carter Revard was a prolific poet and scholar. To learn more about his work, click here.
"What the Eagle Fan Says" was published in How the Songs Came Down (Salt Publishing, 2005).
To learn more about accentual verse, read this brief treatment by poet Dana Gioia.
2022-11-0725 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 52: Shakespeare, Sonnet 73This sonnet reflects on the autumn of life and an intimate love, and it turns on that love growing stronger in and through its age, even as the body decays.
To learn more about Shakespeare's sonnets, visit Folger Shakespeare page.
Our favorite editions of Shakespeare's sonnets are edited by Colin Burrow and Stephen Booth.
Sir Patrick Stewart's reading of Sonnet 73 is one of our favorites.
2022-10-2419 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 51: Martín Espada, Jumping Off the Mystic Tobin BridgeTo learn more about Martín Espada, click here.
To read the poem, click here.
This is the first poem that appears in Floaters, the winner of the 2021 National Book Award. To purchase a copy of the book, click here.
Photo credit: Lauren Marie Schmidt (cropped to fit dimensions)
2022-10-1030 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 50: Rafael Campo, Primary CareIn this episode, we discuss how Rafael Campo, a practicing physician, uses blank verse to explore the experience of illness and suffering.
Thanks to the Georges Borchardt, Inc. for granting us permission to read this poem. You can find "Primary Care" in Alternative Medicine (Duke University Press, 2013). Links:Campo reads Primary CareCampo Author PageCampo at the Poetry Foundation
2022-09-2622 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 49: Lisel Mueller, When I am AskedIn this episode, we closely read Lisel Mueller's "When I am Asked" in order to better understand grief as a deep source of artistic expression. We look at language as a source of connection and hope, even in the midst of sorrow and solitude. With this poem about the making of poetry (an_ ars poetica_), we come to see how one artist turned to the intricacies of language in the face of a nature that seemed indifferent to her loss.
"When I Am Asked" appears in Alive Together: New and Selected Poems, published by Louisiana State University...
2022-09-1219 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 48: Joy Harjo, An American SunriseIn this episode, we examine The Golden Shovel form and discuss the idea of "survivance" through the work of Muscogee (Creek) poet Joy Harjo, the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States.
You can find the text of "An American Sunrise" here, though this is an earlier version of the poem. The final version appears in her finished book of the same title, which you can find here.
For an introduction to The Golden Shovel form, see here.Links:Joy Harjo Official Site - Joy HarjoAn American Sunrise by Joy Harjo | Poetry...
2022-04-2821 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 47: Walt Whitman, Leaves of GrassIn this episode, Christopher Hanlon joins us to discuss an excerpt from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. We discuss the poem's prophetic voice, its patterns of repetition, the connective tissue that binds his ideas and invites readers in, and the cultural context in which Whitman produced his work.
To read the text of this poem, click here or see below:
To learn more about Walt Whitman and his work, visit the Walt Whitman Archive, a magnificent compendium of information about Whitman's life, cultural context, and editions of Leaves of Grass.
To learn more...
2022-04-2226 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 46: Lucille Clifton, spring songLucille Clifton (1936-2010) was one of the most powerful poets of the twentieth century. This joyful poem caps a sequence of sixteen poems called "some jesus," which walks through biblical characters (beginning with Adam and Eve) and ends on four poems for Holy Week and Easter. She wrote other poems on the Bible as well, including "john" and "my dream about the second coming," which reimagine a way into biblical characters to make their stories fresh.
Clifton wrote from the perspective of a Black woman and many of her most famous poems address race and gender. Clear-eyed...
2022-04-1317 min
Poetry For AllFrom Talk Easy: Claudia Rankine’s Just Us: An American ConversationWe’re sharing a special preview of a podcast we’ve been enjoying, Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso, from Pushkin Industries. Talk Easy is a weekly interview podcast, where writer Sam Fragoso invites actors, writers, activists, and musicians to come to the table and speak from the heart in ways you probably haven't heard from them before. Driven by curiosity, he’s had revealing conversations with everyone from George Saunders and Cate Blanchett to Ocean Vuong and Gloria Steinem. In this preview, Sam talks with poet Claudia Rankine about her book Just Us: An American Conversation, how history remains presen...
2022-04-0315 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 45: Ben Jonson, On My First SonIn this episode, we look at Ben Jonson's elegy for his son who died of the plague at the age of 7. This poem is so brief, and yet, it manages to cross a lot of emotional terrain as Jonson struggles to understand the profundity of his loss.
Here is the poem:
On my First Son
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.
Seven years tho' wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on...
2022-03-2321 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 44: Ann Hudson, SoapIn this episode, Ann Hudson joins us to read her poem “Soap” and discuss how its narrative structure allows her to explore the history of science, technology, and our notions of progress and beauty, even when those notions do great harm to ordinary workers.
Ann is the author of two collections of poetry: The Armillary Sphere, which was selected by Mary Kinzie as the winner of the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize and published by Ohio University Press; and Glow, published by Next Page Press. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals, including Crab Orchard Review, North Amer...
2022-03-1623 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 43: Margaret Noodin, What the Peepers SayIn this episode, Margaret Noodin joins us to discuss her poem "What the Peepers Say." In our conversation, we talk about Margaret's writing in both Anishinaabemowin and English, her attention to sounds and rhythms, and what the peeper--a tiny springtime frog--can teach us about presence and listening.
Margaret Noodin is the author of two bilingual collections of poetry in both Anishinaabemowin and English: Weweni and What the Chickadee Knows. She is a professor of English and American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she also serves as director of the Electa Quinney Institute for Am...
2022-03-0224 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 42: Robert Hayden, Frederick DouglassTo read Hayden's poem, click here.
Thanks to W.W. Norton & Company for granting us permission to read this poem. Reginald Dwayne Betts's introduction to the Collected Poems of Robert Hayden is very moving, as is the afterword by Arnold Rampersad.
For a series of insightful observations about Hayden's sonnet, see Ross Gay, Aracelis Girmay, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Patrick Rosal, and Ira Sadoff, "Poets Respond: A Discussion of "Frederick Douglass" by Robert Hayden." American Poetry Review, 38.3 (2009): 25-28.
For a helpful close reading of the poem, see Fred M. Fetrow, "Robert Hayden's 'Frederick Douglass': Form...
2022-02-2317 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 41: F.E.W. Harper, Learning to ReadFrances Ellen Watkins Harper was a prolific writer and activist of the nineteenth century. In this episode, Professor Janaka Bowman Lewis joins us to discuss her power, influence, voice, and work. "Learning to Read" foregrounds the ballad style in a narrative poem designed to keep alive the memories of fighting for both literacy and liberation.
For the full text of the poem, see here: "Learning to Read"
Janaka Bowman Lewis is an Associate Professor of English at the University of North Carolina--Charlotte, and she includes a chapter on Frances Ellen Watkins Harper in Freedom Narratives...
2022-02-1623 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 40: William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116In this episode, we provide a close reading of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, which allows us to consider the poem's definition of a love that is enduring. In addition, though, we consider a reading of the poem which foregrounds a disappointed poetic speaker who can see the love's transience, too.
For the text of this poem, click here.
Colin Burrow and Stephen Booth's editions of Shakespeare's sonnets are essential reading for anyone who wants to know more about this amazing sonnet sequence.
During the pandemic, Sir Patrick Stewart has read one Shakespeare sonnet each...
2022-02-0925 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 39: Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear The MaskThis week, Rafia Zafar joins us to discuss "We Wear the Mask" by the great poet and writer Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906). Rafia leads us in a discussion of Dunbar's fame and influence while opening up broader themes of African American history and literature.
We Wear the Mask
BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why sh...
2022-02-0222 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 38: Laura Van Prooyen, Elegy for My Mother's MindIn this episode, our guest Laura Van Prooyen reads "Elegy for My Mother's Mind," a poem that navigates the complexities of memory, loss, and familial relationships. Laura's poem gives us an opportunity to think about the deep sources of poetic inspiration, the revision process, and the power of metaphor.
To learn more about Laura's work, check her website.
Click here to see the version of the poem that appeared in Prairie Schooner.
Our two favorite books on elegy are Jahan Ramazani's Poetry of Mourning: The Modern Elegy from Hardy to Heaney and Peter...
2022-01-2629 minPoetry For AllEpisode 37: Why Poetry For AllJoanne and Abram launch the fourth season of Poetry For All with a short discussion about what this podcast is all about and how it relates to all the other great poetry podcasts in the world.
This conversation is an excerpt from our virtual visit with the students in Grace Talusan's creative writing workshop at Brandeis University. Grace uses our podcast in her course, and her students have gone on to create their own podcasts that focus on close readings of poems. If you want more information on how to use our podcast in the classroom, please...
2022-01-1914 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 36: Denise Levertov, On the Mystery of the IncarnationIn this episode, we discuss Denise Levertov's powerful meditation on the horrors of the twentieth century, and how the mystery of the incarnation might provide humanity with some hope. Our close reading of this poem is informed by Eavan Boland's Preface and Anne Dewey and Paul A. Lacey's Afterword in The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov (New Directions, 2013).
To read "On the Mystery of the Incarnation," click here.
To read Levertov's essay "Some Notes on Organic Form," click here.
''On the Mystery of the Incarnation'' by Denise Levertov comes from her book A...
2021-12-2116 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 35: Matthew Zapruder, Poem for WisconsinIn this episode, we discuss the way in which Matthew Zapruder attends to vivid, specific details to create a sense of wonder, connection, and surprise.
To read "Poem for Wisconsin," click here.
"Poem for Wisconsin" originally appeared in the collection Sun Bear. Thanks to Copper Canyon Press for granting us permission to read this poem on the podcast.
For a glimpse of the "Bronze Fonz," click here.
To see how the Milwaukee Art Museum opens its wings, watch this time-lapse video.
For a sense of the "many moods" of...
2021-12-1522 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 34: Tracy K. Smith, DeclarationIn this episode, we discuss erasure poetry and its power to reveal hidden histories and redacted stories through Tracy K. Smith's erasure of the Declaration of Independence.
For the poem (including a reading and discussion of the poem by Tracy Smith), see the Poetry Foundation.
For Solmaz Sharif's discussion of the political implications of erasure poetry, see "The Near Transitive Properties of the Political and Poetical: Erasure": https://thevolta.org/ewc28-ssharif-p1.html
See also "Erasure in Three Acts" by Muriel Leung.
For more on Tracy K. Smith, see The Library...
2021-12-0723 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 33: Adrienne Rich, PowerThis week, the poet and scholar Stephanie Burt joins us to discuss the extraordinary power of Adrienne Rich. We think through how the spacing and stanzas of a poem can draw out denials and divulgences, while also exploring the life and writing of Rich.
Stephanie Burt's excellent book Don't Read Poetry ends with an examination of this poem by Adrienne Rich. The book, which can be found at the link, offers an introduction to reading poems and different ways of approaching them.
For the text of the poem, see here.
For more on...
2021-11-1017 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 32: Rick Barot, Cascades 501In this episode, poet Rick Barot guides us in our reading of his poem "Cascades 501" from The Galleons, his most recent collection. Rick's insights into how poets engage with place, create juxtapositions, and arrive at insights taught us so much about how poets create their best work.
To learn more about Rick Barot, you can visit his website:
https://www.rickbarot.com/about/
To learn more about The Galleons, you can visit the Milkweed Editions website:
https://milkweed.org/book/the-galleons
To read "Cascade 501," visit the Academy of American...
2021-11-0338 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 31: Jane Kenyon, Twilight: After HayingThis week we take a closer look at another autumn poem, this one by Jane Kenyon from her wonderful book Otherwise: New and Selected Poems. Kenyon builds from and transforms the same tradition of the autumn ode we examined last week with John Keats.
Thank you to Graywolf Press for permission to read this poem from Otherwise: New and Selected Poems by Jane Kenyon.
Click here for the full text of Twilight: After Haying.
See the Poetry Foundation for more on Jane Kenyon.Links:Twilight: After Haying by Jane Kenyon...
2021-10-2716 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 30: John Keats, To AutumnTo Autumn
by John Keats
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has...
2021-10-2022 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 29: Elizabeth Bishop, One ArtElizabeth Bishop was one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, and "One Art" is certainly one of the greatest villanelles. In this episode, we talk about the poetic form and its constraints. We also draw upon recent scholarship that has revealed a great deal about Elizabeth Bishop's life and work in order to understand the power of poetic constraint.
Click here to read "One Art": https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47536/one-art
For more about Elizabeth Bishop's life and the cultural context that informed her work, read Megan Marshall's Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for...
2021-10-0625 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 28: Countee Cullen, Yet Do I MarvelCountee Cullen was a major voice of the Harlem Renaissance. Joined by the renowned cultural critic Gerald Early, we here examine together story of Countee Cullen and the astounding sonnet that opens his main collection of poetry, My Soul's High Song.
For more on Countee Cullen, see the Poetry Foundation.
Here is the text of the sonnet:
Yet Do I Marvel
Countee Cullen
I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,
...
2021-09-2924 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 27: Marianne Moore, PoetryIn this episode, we read and discuss the influential modernist poet Marianne Moore and her witty, wonderful poem called "Poetry," a classic ars poetica (a poem about writing poetry). This poem has gone through many different editions. We take an earlier, longer version and ask how it participated in the modernist practice of "making it new" in the early 1900s.
Marianne Moore was a technical master with widespread influence who was at the very center of American modernism -- friends with William Carlos Williams (see episode 25), Ezra Pound, H.D., and many others, as well as a...
2021-09-2221 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 26: Brenda Cárdenas, "Our Lady of Sorrows"In this episode, Brenda Cárdenas guides us through a reading of "Our Lady of Sorrows," an ekphrastic poem that is inspired by the work of Ana Mendieta.
To read more of Brenda Cárdenas's work, click here:
https://uwm.edu/english/our-people/cardenas-brenda/
To learn more about Ana Mendieta's work, click here:
https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/ana-mendieta
2021-09-1521 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 25: William Carlos Williams, "This is Just to Say"In this episode, we discuss a simple, iconic, "sorry-not sorry" poem from the early age of American modernism, which has taken on new life in the age of Twitter and the pandemic.
For more on William Carlos Williams, see the Poetry Foundation. See the text of "This is Just to Say" there as well.
“This Is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams, from The Collected Poems: Volume I, 1909-1939, copyright ©1938 by New Directions Publishing Corp. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
2021-09-0818 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 24: Robert Hayden, Those Winter SundaysRobert Hayden was one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century. His poems are known for their formal grace and his deep and broad explorations of the African American experience. "Those Winter Sundays" is one of our all-time favorite poems. We hope you enjoy this conversation.
For the text of "Those Winter Sundays," click here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46461/those-winter-sundays
For more about Robert Hayden, click here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-hayden
We love Reginald Dwayne Betts's introduction to the Centenary Edition of Robert Hayden's Collected Poems, edited by...
2021-06-1420 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 23: Langston Hughes, "Johannesburg Mines"In this episode, we discuss social poetics, the poetry of witness, and the way poets can speak of the failure of language and the need for silence in the face of trauma. "The worst is not, so long as we can say, 'This is the worst.'"
For the text of Langston Hughes's poem "Johannesburg Mines," see here.
For more on Langston Hughes, see the Poetry Foundation.
For more on social poetics, see Mark Nowak's book by that name.
For more on the poetry of witness, see Sandra Beasley's essay "Flint...
2021-05-2119 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 22: Two Poems of World War IIn this episode, we talk with Vince Sherry about two poems of WWI: Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier" and Ivor Gurney's "To His Love." The first poem, a stately beauty, imagines war almost peacefully; the second poem, scarred by combat, speaks back nervously and angrily. We talk through this remarkable set of poems and experiences and examine how a careful use of language conveys their effects.
"The Soldier"
by Rupert Brooke
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever En...
2021-04-2724 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 21: Christian Wiman, I Don't Want to Be a Spice StoreIn this episode we talk with Christian Wiman about the arc of a book of poetry, the structure of an individual poem, the desire for openness and accessibility, and the surprising shifts from levity to seriousness that take even the writer by surprise. The episode considers how poets construct and organize their poems, and it also touches on differing approaches poets take across their career.
Christian Wiman is the Clement-Muehl Professor of Communication Arts at Yale Divinity School, the former editor of Poetry magazine, and the author, editor, and translator of multiple books. He has won countless...
2021-04-1318 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 20: Hester Pulter, View But This TulipWendy Wall joins us to discuss an extraordinary poet whose works went unknown for over three hundred years. Hester Pulter brought together science, religion, poetic traditions and so much more. Her 120 remarkable poems are now available at the award-winning Pulter Project website.
In this episode we discuss her work with emblems, her scientific chemistry experiment with flowers, and her wonderment (both worried and confident, doubtful and awestruck) about the resurrection of the body and its reunification with the soul after death.
For a biography of Hester Pulter, see here:
https://pulterproject.northwestern.edu/about-hester-pulter-and-the-manuscript...
2021-03-2925 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 19: Naomi Shihab Nye, Gate A-4Naomi Shihab Nye, a Palestinian-American poet born in St. Louis and raised in Jerusalem and San Antonio, focuses on the ordinary to observe the extraordinary. Her poetry often speaks of cultural encounters and celebrates different cultures. She is the recipient of many awards and is currently the Poetry Foundation's Young People's Poet Laureate.
In this poem, we explore what makes a poem "poetry" versus some other genre, and we consider what difference such designations make while walking through a longer, narrative poem.
For the text of the poem, see here: https://poets.org/poem/gate-4
2021-03-1018 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 18: Jenny Johnson, Dappled ThingsJenny Johnson is the author of In Full Velvet (Sarabande Books, 2017). Her honors include a Whiting Award, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, and a NEA Fellowship. She has also received awards and scholarships from the Blue Mountain Center, Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Yaddo. Her poems have appeared in The New York Times, New England Review, Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics, and elsewhere. After earning a BA/MT in English Education from the University of Virginia, she taught public school for several years in San Francisco, and sh...
2021-03-0227 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 17: Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied BeautyPied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
In this extraordinary curtal sonnet (a shortened sonnet...
2021-02-2314 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 16: John Milton, When I Consider How My Light is SpentThe episode explores Milton's great sonnet spun from the difficulties of middle age and new disappointments. We consider how he pulls consolation from his sense of defeat and near despair. Faced with his coming blindness, he hears the voice of Patience giving him the strength to wait.
THE TEXT
John Milton, "When I Consider How My Light is Spent"
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless...
2021-02-1515 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 15: Amanda Gorman, Chorus of the CaptainsAmanda Gorman became the first poet ever to perform at the Super Bowl on February 7, 2021. In this episode we talk about poetry for the masses, mass media, genres of poetry, spoken word, the visual and the verbal, and the mix of ancient methods with emergent forms.
See her poem here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ejbSCjg2qo
See this great article by Virginia Jackson and Meredith Martin about Amanda Gorman's Inauguration Poem at Avidly:
The Poetry of the Future
For more on Amanda Gorman, see The Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation...
2021-02-1017 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 14: George Herbert, The CollarIn this episode, we look at "The Collar"--a famous single-stanza poem, playing with meter, rhythm, and rhyme by the seventeenth-century priest and poet, George Herbert.
Here is the poem in full:
THE COLLAR
I struck the board, and cried, "No more;
I will abroad!
What? shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free, free as the road,
Loose as the wind, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?
Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me...
2021-02-0118 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 13: Amanda Gorman, The Hill We ClimbIn this episode, we discuss Amanda Gorman's "The Hill We Climb," the poem that she recited at the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. We discuss how well suited the poem is to its occasion, Gorman's powerful use of sound, and the conversation that she engages in--with John Winthrop, the Constitution, the Bible, George Washington, Maya Angelou, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Like everyone else in America, we are in love with this poem and hope you enjoy the discussion.
2021-01-2518 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 12: James Merrill, Christmas TreeIn this episode, Spencer Reece guides us through a reading of "Christmas Tree," one of the last poems that James Merrill wrote before his death. We learned so much through this conversation--about the friendship between James Merrill and Spencer Reece, the rhetorical force of visual poems, and the emotional power of elegy during the AIDS pandemic as well as in our own moment.
For the full text of "Christmas Tree," please see this page from the September 1995 issue of Poetry magazine.
For more on James Merrill, please see this page from the Poetry Foundation website.
2020-12-0221 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 11: Alberto Ríos, When Giving Is All We HaveIn this episode, we think with the inaugural state poet laureate of Arizona, Alberto Ríos, about the meaning of giving. Why do we give? What is giving? And what are its consequences? Ríos wrote this poem for a broad audience and has shared it with many different groups. It is, on the one hand, a very simple and accessible poem, easy to understand. And it is also, on the other hand, filled with rich layers, structures, images, and contexts. We explore here how simplicity and complexity work together.
For the full text of the poem, se...
2020-11-1715 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 10: Mary Jo Bang, The Head of a DancerThis week Mary Jo Bang joins us! We learn about the Bauhaus movement and an influential photographer named Lucia Moholy, whose works were largely stolen during her lifetime. Mary Jo Bang's collection, A Doll for Throwing uses ekphrastic prose poetry throughout to delve into the riches of the Bauhaus movement which flourished in Germany between the world wars and had longlasting consequences for modern art. With Mary Jo Bang's poem this week, we explore both ekphrasis (poetry about an image) and prose poetry (poetry with no line breaks).
For the full text of the "Head of the...
2020-11-1022 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 9: Anne Bradstreet, In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth BradstreetThis week we read Anne Bradstreet's elegy for her grandchild Elizabeth and draw out the multiple voices (both faith and doubt, both grief and consolation) and the tensions and deep emotions in the work of this talented Puritan poet--the first woman from British North America to publish a book of poems.
"In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet, Who Deceased August, 1665 Being a Year and a Half Old"
Farewell dear babe, my heart's too much content,
Farewell sweet babe, the pleasure of mine eye,
Farewell fair flower that for a space was...
2020-10-2714 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 8: Toi Derricotte, "The Minks"Carl Phillips joins us this week to take a close look at Toi Derricotte's "The Minks." Together we consider the art of narrative poetry, the movements of a single-stanza poem, and the meaning of line breaks.
Toi Derricotte is the author of five books of poetry and a collection of prose called The Black Notebooks. She has won numerous awards and fellowhips, including the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Distinguished Pioneering of the Arts Award from the United Black Artists, the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement, the PEN/Voelcker Award...
2020-10-2020 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 7: John Donne, Holy Sonnet 14This week we look at one of John Donne's Holy Sonnets from the seventeenth century. This famous poem (#14, "Batter my heart") turns a poetic tradition of love and longing to religious ends, earnestly seeking God and questioning whether union with God will ever be achieved.
John Donne was an influential metaphysical poet who enjoyed wide fame in his own day, then went largely unread for two centuries, and then, saw his reputation radically revived in the early twentieth century. He was born into a Catholic family, converted to Anglicanism, and became a minister. Along the way, he...
2020-10-1415 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 6: Jen Bervin, NetsIn this episode we learn about erasure poetry and poetic tradition by looking at Jen Bervin's incredible book NETS, composed of erasure poems created from the sonnets of Shakespeare. The erasures are extraordinary--short and moving--and you'll never see Shakespeare the same way again. We also discuss poetic traditions, and the idea of writing into and over top of what has come before.
For an important essay on the political implications of erasure poetry, please see "The Near Transitive Properties of the Political and Poetical: Erasure" by Solmaz Sharif.
For more on Jen Bervin, please visit...
2020-10-0619 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 5: Claude McKay, "America"In this episode, we discuss Claude McKay, an influential poet of the Harlem Renaissance, taking a close look at his incredible sonnet "America."
For help in our preparations for this podcast, we want to thank Professors Bill Maxwell and Vince Sherry at Washington University in St. Louis, both of whom have often taught Claude McKay and this poem in particular. Bill Maxwell in addition has written extensively on McKay, and we encourage you to look up his work.
For the complete collection of McKay's poetry, see Bill Maxwell's edited volume:
Claude McKay, Complete Poems
2020-09-2914 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 4: Shakespeare, Sonnet 18In this episode we introduce listeners to one of the most resilient forms in English-language poetry: the sonnet. And we do it with one of the most famous sonnets Shakespeare wrote.
For the sonnet in full, see https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45087/sonnet-18-shall-i-compare-thee-to-a-summers-day
For helpful works on Shakespeare's sonnets, see:
Stephen Booth's edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets
and
Helen Vendler's edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets.
2020-09-2216 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 3: Phillis Wheatley, On Being Brought from Africa to AmericaTo view the poem, please see: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45465/on-being-brought-from-africa-to-america
To hear Cornelius Eady reading the poem and discussing it, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QezAVP_HiY
For a foundational essay about Phillis Wheatley and her work, please see June Jordan's essay, "The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America."
For two examples of the way Wheatley has inspired other artists and writers, please see the work of Cornelius Eady and Honoree Fanonne Jeffers.
Eady, "Diabolic"
Eady, "To Phillis Wheatley's Mother"
Eady, Interview
2020-09-1514 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 2: Emily Dickinson, Tell all the truthFull poem:
Tell all the truth but tell it slant — (1263)
by Emily Dickinson
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
For more on Emily Dickinson, see https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/emily-dickinsonLinks:Emily Dickons, Tell all the truth but tell it slant --Emily Dickinson | Poetry Foundation
2020-09-1014 min
Poetry For AllEpisode 1: Seamus Heaney, DiggingIn this episode, we begin learning about poetry through Seamus Heaney's great poem "Digging."
For the text of Heaney's poem, please see: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47555/digging
To hear Seamus Heaney reading this poem himself, please see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNRkPU1LSUg
For more on Seamus Heaney, please visit: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/seamus-heaneyLinks:Digging by Seamus Heaney | Poetry FoundationSeamus Heaney reading "Digging"More on Seamus HeaneySeamus Heaney, Death of a Naturalist
2020-08-3114 min