Poetry For All

Episode 61: Ada Limón, "The Raincoat"

May 11th, 2023  |  Season 5  |  18 mins 34 secs

ada limon, body, children, gratitude, insight, love, mothers, music, narrative, pain, poet laureate, poetic line, protection, surprise, the raincoat, wonder

With her quality of attention and focus on vivid, specific images, Ada Limón brings us to a moment of surprising insight in "The Raincoat."

Episode 60: Li-Young Lee, From Blossoms

May 2nd, 2023  |  Season 5  |  19 mins 7 secs

from blossoms, incantation, joy, li-young lee, peaches, repetition, rose

In 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."

Episode 59: Tichborne's Elegy

April 7th, 2023  |  Season 5  |  21 mins 25 secs

catholicism, elegy, english renaissance, execution, paradox, queen elizabeth i, repetition, tichborne

In 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.

Episode 58: Richie Hofmann, Things That Are Rare

February 27th, 2023  |  Season 5  |  23 mins 57 secs

art, beauty, c.p. cavafy, desire, environment of feeling, eros, james merrill, lyric, presence and absence, richie hofmann, sonnet, still life, vibrant matter

Episode 57: Edna St. Vincent Millay, She had forgotten how the August night

February 14th, 2023  |  Season 5  |  23 mins 46 secs

desire, eros, formalverse, imagery, lineation, new woman, pulitzer prize, repetition, sonnet

Edna St. Vincent Millay was the emblem of the "New Woman" and one of the most important American poets of the twentieth century. In this episode, we focus on a sonnet that showcases how Millay approached desire and eros in her poetry.

Episode 56: Queen Elizabeth, On Monsieur's Departure

January 31st, 2023  |  Season 5  |  18 mins 46 secs

duke of anjou, iambic pentameter, petrarch, portraiture, queen elizabeth i, renaissance poetry, rhymed verse, selfhood

Queen 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.

Episode 55: Kay Ryan, Crib

December 19th, 2022  |  Season 5  |  17 mins 17 secs

assonance, christmas, etymology, innocence, kay ryan, recombinant rhyme, rhythm, theft, wit

In 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.

Grant Writing Break

December 5th, 2022  |  Season 5  |  2 mins 59 secs

This 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.

Episode 54: Carl Phillips, To Autumn

November 21st, 2022  |  Season 5  |  24 mins 47 secs

carl phillips, hopkins, horace, intimacy, keats, ode, pindar, restlessness, shakespeare, sonnet, to autumn

In 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.

Episode 53: Carter Revard, What the Eagle Fan Says

November 7th, 2022  |  Season 5  |  25 mins 38 secs

accentual verse, anglo saxon poetry, contrapuntal poetry, native american poetry, osage nation

In 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.

Episode 52: Shakespeare, Sonnet 73

October 24th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  19 mins 18 secs

aging, autumn, shakespeare, sonnet 73, twilight, volta, writing process

This 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.

Episode 51: Martín Espada, Jumping Off the Mystic Tobin Bridge

October 10th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  30 mins 20 secs

advocacy, boston, charles stuart, lawyer, lineation, migration, narrative poetry, patterns of repetition, poetic swerve, poetic turn, poetry, poetry as advocacy, poetry of place, poetry of witness, rhythm, social justice, swerve, tenant lawyer, tobin bridge, volta

In this episode, we talk with the 2021 winner of the National Book Award, Martín Espada, about narrative poetry, poetry of engagement, and the witness of poetry as a work of advocacy.

Episode 50: Rafael Campo, Primary Care

September 26th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  22 mins 24 secs

argument, blank verse, caesura, enjambment, iambic pentameter, illness narratives, insight, medical humanities, primary care, rafael campo, refrain

In this episode, we discuss how Rafael Campo, a practicing physician, uses blank verse to explore the experience of illness and suffering.

Episode 49: Lisel Mueller, When I am Asked

September 12th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  19 mins 57 secs

ars poetica, elegy, lisel mueller, nature, when i am asked

In 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.

Episode 48: Joy Harjo, An American Sunrise

April 28th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  21 mins 47 secs

american sunrise, golden shovel, indigenous literature, joy harjo, poet laureate, survivance

In 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.

Episode 47: Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

April 22nd, 2022  |  Season 4  |  26 mins 39 secs

america, christopher hanlon, civil war, crossing brooklyn ferry, death, democracy, emerson, leaves of grass, patterns of repetition, prophecy, slavery, song of myself, whitman

In 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.