Poetry For All

Episode 30: John Keats, To Autumn

October 20th, 2021  |  Season 3  |  22 mins 18 secs

19th century, autumn, climate change, guest on the show, nature poetry, ode, rhymed verse

John Keats was one of the great British Romanticists. In this episode we talk with Michael Theune and Brian Rejack about one of his last odes, "To Autumn," which has inspired poets ever since it was first composed in 1821. We encourage you to read along with the text of the poem as we talk through its implications for the 21st century and our age of ecological disaster.

Episode 29: Elizabeth Bishop, One Art

October 6th, 2021  |  Season 3  |  25 mins 16 secs

20th century, grief and loss, lgbtqia month, love, rhymed verse, villanelle, women's history month

Episode 28: Countee Cullen, Yet Do I Marvel

September 29th, 2021  |  Season 3  |  24 mins 48 secs

20th century, anger, black history month, christianity, guest on the show, harlem renaissance, rhymed verse, social justice and advocacy, sonnet, surprise

Countee 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.

Episode 27: Marianne Moore, Poetry

September 22nd, 2021  |  Season 3  |  21 mins 11 secs

20th century, ars poetica, christianity, modernism, rhymed verse, women's history month

In 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).

Episode 26: Brenda Cárdenas, "Our Lady of Sorrows"

September 15th, 2021  |  Season 3  |  21 mins 44 secs

21st century, ekphrasis, erasure, free verse, grief and loss, guest on the show, hispanic heritage month, nature poetry, social justice and advocacy, spirituality, visual poetry, word and image

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.

Episode 25: William Carlos Williams, "This is Just to Say"

September 8th, 2021  |  Season 3  |  18 mins 13 secs

20th century, free verse, modernism, surprise, wonder

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.

Episode 24: Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays

June 14th, 2021  |  Season 2  |  20 mins 49 secs

20th century, aging, black history month, children, father's day, gratitude, love, sonnet, surprise, winter, wonder

Episode 23: Langston Hughes, "Johannesburg Mines"

May 21st, 2021  |  Season 2  |  19 mins 29 secs

20th century, anger, black history month, free verse, grief and loss, laborers, modernism, repetition or refrain, social justice and advocacy

In this episode, we discuss social poetics, poetry of witness, and the places where poetry speaks loudly of silence -- where language fails in the face of trauma. "The worst is not, so long as we can say, 'This is the worst.'"

Episode 22: Two Poems of World War I

April 27th, 2021  |  Season 2  |  24 mins 43 secs

20th century, grief and loss, guest on the show, modernism, rhymed verse, sonnet, veteran's day

In 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.

Episode 21: Christian Wiman, I Don't Want to Be a Spice Store

April 13th, 2021  |  Season 2  |  18 mins 45 secs

21st century, children, father's day, free verse, guest on the show, surprise

In 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.

Episode 20: Hester Pulter, View But This Tulip

March 29th, 2021  |  Season 2  |  25 mins 44 secs

17th century, christianity, guest on the show, hope, rhymed verse, science and medicine, spirituality

Wendy 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.

Episode 19: Naomi Shihab Nye, Gate A-4

March 9th, 2021  |  Season 2  |  18 mins 59 secs

21st century, hope, joy, narrative, social justice and advocacy, spirituality, surprise, wonder

Remember airports? In this wonderful, narrative poem, Nye speaks of the remarkable capacity for community in a world of strangers.

Episode 18: Jenny Johnson, Dappled Things

March 2nd, 2021  |  Season 2  |  27 mins 25 secs

21st century, gratitude, guest on the show, joy, lgbtqia month, nature poetry, thanksgiving, wonder

In this episode, Jenny Johnson discusses the sources of inspiration for her poem "Dappled Things," her love of Gerard Manley Hopkins, and the incredible diversity--and fragility--of the natural world.

Episode 17: Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty

February 23rd, 2021  |  Season 2  |  14 mins 35 secs

19th century, alliterative verse, gratitude, joy, nature poetry, rhymed verse, sonnet, thanksgiving, wonder

In this extraordinary curtal sonnet (a shortened sonnet, curtailed), Hopkins packs immense power. He uses the shortened form to heighten the emotion, drawing himself up short in the end with nothing else that can be said other than "Praise him." This week, we walk through these short lines and unfold some of the ways that Hopkins works.

Episode 16: John Milton, When I Consider How My Light is Spent

February 15th, 2021  |  Season 2  |  15 mins 57 secs

17th century, aging, anger, body in pain, christianity, grief and loss, hope, rhymed verse, sonnet, surprise

The 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.

Episode 15: Amanda Gorman, Chorus of the Captains

February 9th, 2021  |  Season 2  |  17 mins 56 secs

21st century, alliterative verse, black history month, free verse, gratitude, narrative, social justice and advocacy

Amanda 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.