Poetry For All

Episode 81: Niki Herd, The Stuff of Hollywood

October 31st, 2024  |  Season 6  |  37 mins 37 secs

21st century, black history month, found poetry, free verse, guest on the show, social justice and advocacy, violence, word and image

In this episode, Niki Herd joins us to read and discuss an excerpt from The Stuff of Hollywood, a collection in which Herd experiments with a range of forms and procedures to examine the history of violence in America.

Episode 77: Jennifer Grotz, The Conversion of Paul

September 5th, 2024  |  Season 6  |  26 mins 14 secs

21st century, body in pain, christianity, ekphrasis, free verse, friendship, grief and loss, narrative

Poetry engages in conversation. Today, we explore a long, beautiful, narrative poem weaving together the work of fellow poets while looking carefully at a Caravaggio painting, all reflecting on illness, death, and friendship.

Episode 74: Diane Seuss, [The sonnet, like poverty]

July 26th, 2024  |  Season 6  |  24 mins 22 secs

21st century, ars poetica, elegy, gratitude, grief and loss, labor day, laborers, repetition or refrain, sonnet

This remarkable sonnet dives into issues of poverty, poetry, and grief. We talk about the pedagogy of constraint, while exploring the achievements, including the hardbitten gratitude, embedded in this poem.

Episode 72: Victoria Chang, My Mother--died unpeacefully...

May 22nd, 2024  |  Season 6  |  20 mins 1 sec

21st century, aging, asian american, elegy, free verse, grief and loss

In this episode, we read one of Victoria Chang’s moving poems from her collection OBIT, and discuss how the poem explores the interplay between life, death, grieving, and memory as the poet tries to process her mother’s passing.

Episode 70: Lauren Camp, Inner Planets

March 19th, 2024  |  Season 6  |  28 mins 29 secs

21st century, free verse, nature poetry, night, poet laureate, wonder

Episode 69: Live with Marilyn Nelson!

February 11th, 2024  |  Season 6  |  55 mins 17 secs

21st century, anger, ars poetica, black history month, children, guest on the show, poet laureate, sonnet, surprise, wonder

Our first live performance of the podcast, featuring Marilyn Nelson and a discussion or her amazing poem "How I Discovered Poetry."

Episode 68: W.S. Merwin, To the New Year

January 18th, 2024  |  Season 6  |  22 mins 48 secs

21st century, free verse, hope, nature poetry, new year’s day, ode, poet laureate, spirituality, surprise, winter, wonder

In the first episode of 2024, we read one of the great poets of the past century, W.S. Merwin, and his address to the new year, considering his attentiveness, his style, and his wondrous mood and mode of contemplation and surprise.

Episode 67: Alex Dimitrov, Winter Solstice

December 18th, 2023  |  Season 6  |  24 mins 27 secs

21st century, city, free verse, hope, intimacy, lgbtqia month, loneliness, night, winter

In this episode, we read and discuss a poem that provides a powerful meditation on the longest night of the year.

Episode 66: Katy Didden, The Priest Questions the Lava

November 21st, 2023  |  Season 6  |  26 mins 10 secs

21st century, christianity, climate change, erasure, grief and loss, guest on the show, nature poetry, spirituality, visual poetry, word and image

In our discussion of "The Priest Questions the Lava," Katy describes her interest in the sentience of the natural world, her erasure of documentary texts, her interest in visual poetry, and the importance of poems that examine ethical and spiritual questions in an era of climate change.

Episode 61: Ada Limón, "The Raincoat"

May 11th, 2023  |  Season 6  |  18 mins 34 secs

21st century, body in pain, children, free verse, gratitude, hispanic heritage month, love, mother's day, poet laureate, surprise, 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."