Poetry For All
Finding Our Way Into Great Poems
Displaying Episode 1 - 10 of 22 in total of Poetry For All with the tag “20th century”.
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Episode 79: W.H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts
October 3rd, 2024 | Season 6 | 39 mins 1 sec
20th century, ekphrasis, free verse, guest on the show, lgbtqia month, modernism, word and image
In this episode, Shankar Vendantam joins us to read and discuss "Musee des Beaux Arts," a poem that explores the ways in which humans become indifferent to the suffering of others.
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Episode 76: Philip Levine, What Work Is
August 22nd, 2024 | Season 6 | 24 mins 56 secs
20th century, labor day, laborers, narrative, poet laureate, work
In this episode, we read and discuss Philip Levine's most famous poem, "What Work Is." We consider his deft use of the second-person perspective, the sociability and narrative energy of his poetry, and his deep concern for the insecurity that defines the lives of so working-class laborers.
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Episode 60: Li-Young Lee, From Blossoms
May 2nd, 2023 | Season 5 | 19 mins 7 secs
20th century, asian american and pacific islander month, free verse, gratitude, joy, repetition or refrain, summer, wonder
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."
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Episode 57: Edna St. Vincent Millay, She had forgotten how the August night
February 14th, 2023 | Season 5 | 23 mins 46 secs
20th century, eros and desire, modernism, night, repetition or refrain, rhymed verse, sonnet, summer, women's history month
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.
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Episode 55: Kay Ryan, Crib
December 19th, 2022 | Season 5 | 17 mins 17 secs
20th century, advent/christmas, free verse, lgbtqia month, poet laureate, rhymed verse, wonder
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.
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Episode 53: Carter Revard, What the Eagle Fan Says
November 7th, 2022 | Season 5 | 25 mins 38 secs
20th century, alliterative verse, guest on the show, native american heritage month, nature poetry, spirituality
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.
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Episode 49: Lisel Mueller, When I am Asked
September 12th, 2022 | Season 5 | 19 mins 57 secs
20th century, ars poetica, elegy, free verse, grief and loss, repetition or refrain
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.
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Episode 46: Lucille Clifton, spring song
April 13th, 2022 | Season 4 | 17 mins 35 secs
20th century, black history month, christianity, easter, free verse, hope, joy, love, repetition or refrain, spring, wonder
Lucille Clifton (1936-2010) was one of the most powerful poets of the twentieth century. This joyful poem caps a sequence of sixteen poems called "some jesus," which walks through biblical characters (beginning with Adam and Eve) and ends on four poems for Holy Week and Easter.
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Episode 42: Robert Hayden, Frederick Douglass
February 23rd, 2022 | Season 4 | 17 mins 58 secs
20th century, anger, black history month, blank verse, gratitude, hope, repetition or refrain, restlessness, social justice and advocacy, sonnet
In this episode, we offer a close reading of "Frederick Douglass," a poem in which Hayden channels the prophetic energies of his subject in order to imagine what freedom might one day mean.
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Episode 36: Denise Levertov, On the Mystery of the Incarnation
December 21st, 2021 | Season 3 | 16 mins 42 secs
20th century, advent/christmas, free verse, wonder
In this episode, we discuss Denise Levertov's powerful meditation on the horrors of the twentieth century, and how the mystery of the incarnation might provide humanity with hope.