Poetry For All
Finding Our Way Into Great Poems
About the show
This podcast is for those who already love poetry and for those who know very little about it. In this podcast, we read a poem, discuss it, see what makes it tick, learn how it works, grow from it, and then read it one more time.
Introducing our brand new Poetry For All website: https://poetryforallpod.com! Please visit the new website to learn more about our guests, search for thematic episodes (ranging from Black History Month to the season of autumn), and subscribe to our newsletter.
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Episodes
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Episode 35: Matthew Zapruder, Poem for Wisconsin
December 15th, 2021 | Season 3 | 22 mins 56 secs
21st century, free verse, laborers, surprise, winter, wonder
In this episode, we discuss the way in which Matthew Zapruder attends to vivid, specific details to create a sense of wonder, connection, and surprise.
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Episode 34: Tracy K. Smith, Declaration
December 7th, 2021 | Season 3 | 23 mins 10 secs
21st century, anger, black history month, erasure, grief and loss, poet laureate, social justice and advocacy
In 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.
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Episode 33: Adrienne Rich, Power
November 10th, 2021 | Season 3 | 17 mins 21 secs
20th century, ars poetica, body in pain, free verse, guest on the show, lgbtqia month, science and medicine, social justice and advocacy, women's history month
This 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.
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Episode 32: Rick Barot, Cascades 501
November 3rd, 2021 | Season 3 | 38 mins 32 secs
21st century, asian american & pacific islander month, free verse, guest on the show, lgbtqia month, narrative, nature poetry, surprise
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Episode 31: Jane Kenyon, Twilight: After Haying
October 27th, 2021 | Season 3 | 16 mins 48 secs
20th century, autumn, christianity, free verse, intimacy, nature poetry, night, spirituality
This 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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.'"
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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.
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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.
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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.