Poetry For All
Finding Our Way Into Great Poems
Displaying 4 items of Poetry For All with the tag "18th century".
-
Episode 105: Phillis Wheatley Peters, "To the Earl of Dartmouth"
February 19th, 2026 | Season 8 | 25 mins 44 secs
18th century, black history month, encomium, guest on the show, rhymed verse
Today, joined by Professor Kirsten Lee, we read a poem about freedom written on the eve of the American Revolution by Phillis Wheatley, the first African American to publish a book of poetry. In praise to the new British Secretary of State, she guides him how to rule while tying an American love of Freedom to her own personal experience of enslavement.
-
Episode 100: Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
October 29th, 2025 | Season 7 | 34 mins 53 secs
18th century, elegy, grief and loss, melancholy, night, rhymed verse
This episode takes us to a graveyard for Halloween and explores one of the most canonical poems in the English language, poised between two huge eras of poetry as it meditates on how "the paths of glory lead but to the grave."
-
Episode 62: Kobayashi Issa, Haiku
August 11th, 2023 | Season 6 | 17 mins 19 secs
18th century, haiku, joy, poet laureate, poetry in translation, spring, surprise, world poetry
What makes haiku "the perfect poetic form"? This episode reads three wonderful haiku by Kobayashi Issa and explores what makes them so moving and fun.
-
Episode 3: Phillis Wheatley, On Being Brought from Africa to America
September 15th, 2020 | Season 1 | 14 mins 9 secs
18th century, anger, black history month, christianity, hope, rhymed verse, social justice and advocacy, surprise
This episode examines a short, incredible, difficult and important poem by one of the founding figures of African American literary traditions, Phillis Wheatley.