Shows
The Other Pages2021 NPM 30 Jane HirshfieldThis will be our last article for National Poetry Month. I hope you have enjoyed the series. I would like to extend my warmest thanks to Kashiana Singh and Nelson Howard Miller, who each contributed three thoughtful, varied articles, and also thank Kashiana for her three podcasts. Nelson helped out despite contracting Covid and being hospitalized, followed by surgery. Kashiana, despite being in the process of a cross-country move.
Today’s poem is a deceptively simple piece by American poet Jane Hirshfield, a former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and author of nine books of...
2021-05-0403 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 29 Yonatan BergWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I have been curating the series with help and contributions this year from Kashiana Singh and (Nelson) Howard Miller. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
Technically, National Poetry Month is over, but we didn’t quite get to thirty, so I thought I would squeeze a few more in.
Today’s poem is by Yonatan Berg, an Israeli poet I was not familiar with until I ran across an article in Lun...
2021-05-0304 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 28 Naomi Shihab NyeWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year with help and contributions from Kashiana Singh and (Nelson) Howard Miller. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
Technically, National Poetry Month is over, but we didn’t quite get to thirty, so I thought I would squeeze a few more in.
Today’s poem, You Are Your Own State Department, was written by Naomi Shihab Nye, a woman who is, in many respects, much like h...
2021-05-0306 min
The Other Pages20201 NPM 27 - JoJo Rabbit and Rainer Maria RilkeWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Kashiana Singh, (Nelson) Howard Miller. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
Today’s article is by Poet and Contributing Editor Kashiana Singh, and unfortunately, as she is slightly under the weather today, it’s me you’ll be listening to on the podcast, instead of her soothingly thoughtful voice. My apologies. To quote Theo Metro, “It can’t be helped.”
There is a r...
2021-04-3006 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 26 - Rita DoveWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair, Kashiana Singh, and (Nelson) Howard Miller. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
I mentioned a few days ago that we have not spent enough time focusing on Poet Laureates. The current U.S. Poet Laureate is Joy Harjo. Article # 16 focused on Ted Kooser. Today we’re going to focus on Rita Dove, who was U.S. Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1...
2021-04-2705 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 25 Khaled MattawaWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair, Kashiana Singh, and (Nelson) Howard Miller. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
I’m going to talk about two things today, Imagery and enumeration. Both are very common in poetry, as a vehicle for conveying ideas, emotions, memories, and metaphors. As a way to give emphasis, and to define, in example bits and pieces, those things that are often diff...
2021-04-2609 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 24 Michael TorresWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair, Kashiana Singh, and (Nelson) Howard Miller. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
Today I want to focus on two poems by American poet Michael Torres (https://www.michaeltorreswriter.com/). He is a current professor in the Minnesota State University system, and a former graffiti artist, originally from Pomona California. His first collection, titled An Incomplete List of Names, was pu...
2021-04-2609 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 23 Fred MarchantWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair, Kashiana Singh, and (Nelson) Howard Miller. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
Bad things happen. They happen everywhere. Sometimes you try to disconnect from the world, but when you reconnect, they are there again, facing us, challenging us to figure out how we are going to respond. We’ve all had that experience, at one point, or at many poin...
2021-04-2404 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 22 Kashiana Sharma (fictional)Welcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair, Kashiana Singh, and (Nelson) Howard Miller. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
Today is celebrated as Earth Day, a day to be introspective and consider the state of the world we live in, and the world we leave to our children, and our children’s children. At the risk of being a little self-serving I’m going to take a...
2021-04-2202 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 21 Vona GroarkeWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair, Kashiana Singh, and (Nelson) Howard Miller. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
Today’s selection once again focuses on a poet I should have known about, but did not. Irish poet Voana Groarke was born in Mostrim (population 2,072) in the middle of the country. She received her degrees from Irish universities including Trinity College, Dublin, before coming to the U.S...
2021-04-2108 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 20 Nora Marks DauenhauerWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair, Kashiana Singh, and (Nelson) Howard Miller. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
Occasional poetry consists mainly of poems written to remember or commemorate special events. Battles, coronations, state funerals, the dedication of a building. But poets write many occasional poems at a more personal level - on the birth of a child, for example. I always thought one of th...
2021-04-2005 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 19 The gleaming work of Kazim Ali - The Voice of Sheila Chandra.Is a book in which the poems feel like succulents. Lonely and speaking of survival.
By Kashiana Singh
Poet and writer Kazim Ali was born in the United Kingdom to Muslim parents of Indian descent. Ali lives in Oberlin, Ohio and cofounded Nightboat Books in 2003. He teaches, writes poetry, and reads. Ali’s latest poetry collection is The Voice of Sheila Chandra (Alice James Books, 2020). He is currently a Professor of Literature at the University of California, San Diego. Besides other books, he also has a memoir of his Canadian childhood, Northern Light.
...
2021-04-1909 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 18 Melissa BalmainWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair, Kashiana Singh, and (Nelson) Howard Miller. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
Did I mention that we haven't talked about love poems much in this series? We still aren’t there, but at least we have the title this time. Love Poem by Melissa Balmain is light verse-ish. What is light verse? Great question. There is no real defi...
2021-04-1904 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 17 Keorapetse William KgositsileWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair, Kashiana Singh,and (Nelson) Howard Miller. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
I have emphasized that poetry, because it has the ability to fix things in memory, to make them understood and memorable and give them emotional weight, is highly effective at saying the important things that need to be said in this world. Along with the things that am...
2021-04-1707 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 16 - Ted KooserWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair, Kashiana Singh,and (Nelson) Howard Miller. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
It’s hard, in the course of one month, for us to give you, the listener, or the reader, a full spectrum overview of all that is poetry. As the curator of the series, all I can say is that I try my best to look for shor...
2021-04-1605 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 15 Michael HamburgerNational Poetry Month Number 15 - Michael Hamburger - The Grape and Nut Letter
Welcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair, Kashiana Singh,and (Nelson) Howard Miller.I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
Today's article is the third of three by Nelson Howard Miller, one of the major contributors to Poets’ Corner at https://theotherpages.org. Anything with the initials NM next to it, is than...
2021-04-1503 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 14 - Richard BlancoWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair, Kashiana Singh,and (Nelson) Howard Miller. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
As a novelist, and one who subjects his characters to perils that sometimes go off the charts, I recognize they need resilience, but also they need anchors. Some thought or person or place that provides them a concept of stability when nothing else can, and their world is...
2021-04-1405 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 13 - Tina Cane / Anna AkhmatovaWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair, Kashiana Singh,and (Nelson) Howard Miller. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
Earlier in this series I commented on Irish poet Eavan Borland’s poem referencing American poet Anne Bradstreet. Today we’re going to shift timelines and talk about Tina Cane’s poem Some Kinds of Fire.
Cane is an American poet and currently serves as the Poet...
2021-04-1304 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 12 Leila ChattiWriting of womanhood - Deluge, a chronicle of illness, womanhood, and faith.
Kashiana Singh
In her debut collection of poems - Deluge, released April 2020 by Copper Canyon Press, Leila Chatti explores what the body can do and how the female experience with the body
is often canonized. She writes with inner most persuasion and focus towards the woman. Her style is gentle, her words trip over each other into the pathways of menstruation, aches and arrivals and stirred stories of possibilities.
Reading Leila Chatti is like being on a pilgrimage to...
2021-04-1210 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 11 Yolanda WisherWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair i, Kashiana Singh and (Nelson) Howard Miller.
In retrospect, love poems, as such, are not a form we have covered much in this series. Today’s poem is an unusual one. Like the earlier example from Ladan Osman, this is also a prose poem, though on a lighter subject. It might be more accurately classified as an infatuation poem. Maybe a serious infatuation poem. Not a serious poem, a se...
2021-04-1102 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 10 Tishani DoshiWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair in Texas, Kashiana Singh in Chicago, and (Nelson) Howard Miller in Georgia. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
Poems can be about many things, sometimes physical things, or events or people, or as in Thursday’s poem by Hayden Carruth, things and the relationships of things. One thing poetry does well, I think, is give us a medium for...
2021-04-1004 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 09 Eavan BorlandWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair in Texas, Kashiana Singh in Chicago, and (Nelson) Howard Miller in Georgia. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida.
It is not uncommon for poets to write poems about the art of writing poems, or about other poets, especially those they admire. In the category of light verse, where humor and sarcasm predominate, poems about people they despise are often common.
But today’s piece by I...
2021-04-0904 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 08 Hayden CarruthWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair in Texas, Kashiana Singh in Chicago, and (Nelson) Howard Miller in Georgia. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
Today’s piece was contributed by (Nelson) Howard Miller, who has been one of the major contributors to Poets’ Corner (you can find the full collection at https://theotherpages.org/poems/). Anything with the initials NM next to it, is something he sel...
2021-04-0803 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 07 Maria NazosWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair in Texas, Kashiana Singh in Chicago, and (Nelson) Howard Miller in Georgia. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
It’s generally easier to write free verse or blank verse than it is to write highly structured, rhymed poems, but forms with structure and repeating patterns can often be far more memorable and impactful. Sometimes, as in today’s piece by Ame...
2021-04-0708 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 06 Pat MoraWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair in Texas, Kashiana Singh in Chicago, and (Nelson) Howard Miller in Georgia. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
Today we’re going to take a look at a short, tightly-written, and beautifully interwoven poem by American Poet Pat Mora, who was born in El Paso, Texas, and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, both places in which the desert is n...
2021-04-0603 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 05 Ladan OsmanWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair in Texas, Kashiana Singh in Chicago, and (Nelson) Howard Miller in Georgia. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida.
One “new” poetic form that has become increasingly popular in recent decades is the prose poem. Perhaps I should mention that poetry is such an ancient art that anything in the last century still qualifies as, well, relatively new. Denise Levertov, whom I discussed earlier, wrote many. It’s one of...
2021-04-0505 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 03 Vassar MillerWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair in Texas, Kashiana Singh in Chicago, and (Nelson) Howard Miller in Georgia. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades. After yesterday’s light-humored contemplation of Karma, we turn to more serious stuff, as today is Easter Sunday, as recognized by the non-Orthodox Christian faiths. Orthodox faiths follow the Julian rather than the Gregorian calendar, which recognizes May 2nd this year. Faiths of all...
2021-04-0403 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 03 Terence DegnanWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair in Texas, Kashiana Singh in Chicago, and (Nelson) Howard Miller in Georgia. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
In today’s short poem, the yes no, American poet Terence Degnan explores the idea of karma, in a slightly sideways sense. While I’m not one of those people who believe that for every good thing that happens to you, someth...
2021-04-0304 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 02 - Molly PeacockWelcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. This marks the fifth year of this event, where we try to explore at least one poem a day throughout the month of April. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series, with help and contributions this year from Bob Blair in Texas, Kashiana Singh in Chicago, and (Nelson) Howard Miller in Georgia. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.
Oops is not generally a word we associate with poetry. Most poets review what they have written ma...
2021-04-0203 min
The Other Pages2021 NPM 01 - Denise LevertovNational Poetry Month at The Other Pages - Number 01 - Denise Leveretov - The Room
Welcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. This marks the fifth year of this event, where we try to explore at least one poem a day throughout the month of April. This is a good opportunity to discover new poems and poets, or maybe to gain an insight on something familiar.
My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series, with help and contributions this year from Bob Blair in Texas, Kashiana Singh in Chicago, and (Nelson...
2021-03-2805 min