Poetry For All - Episodes Tagged with “Anger”

Episode 96: Gerard Manley Hopkins, God's Grandeur

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 10:30:00 -0400

Today we look at a sonnet by Gerard Manley Hopkins that dwells equally in the grandeur of God and the wreck made of earth. Hopkins wonders how these two aspects of our world could possibly relate, and he holds out hope for the dearest freshness deep down things.

God's Grandeur
By Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Episode 82: Sidney, Translation of Psalm 52

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 18:00:00 -0500

Psalm 52 concerns a lying tyrant and God's impending judgment. Mary Sidney, who lived 1561-1621, was an extraordinary writer, editor, and literary patron. Like many talented writers of her time, she translated all the psalms. Here we talk about translation, early modern women's writing, religious engagements with politics, and the power of Psalm 52.

For more on Mary Sidney, see The Poetry Foundation page: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-sidney-herbert

For the Geneva translation of Psalm 52, which Mary Sidney would have known, see here:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2052&version=GNV

For a new collection of English translations of the psalms in the early modern era, see The Psalms in English 1530-1633 (Tudor and Stuart Translations), edited by Hannibal Hamlin.

Psalm 52
translated by Mary Sidney

Tyrant, why swell’st thou thus,
Of mischief vaunting?
Since help from God to us
Is never wanting.

Lewd lies thy tongue contrives,
Loud lies it soundeth;
Sharper than sharpest knives
With lies it woundeth.

Falsehood thy wit approves,
All truth rejected:
Thy will all vices loves,
Virtue neglected.

Not words from cursed thee,
But gulfs are poured;
Gulfs wherein daily be
Good men devoured.

Think’st thou to bear it so?
God shall displace thee;
God shall thee overthrow,
Crush thee, deface thee.

The just shall fearing see
These fearful chances,
And laughing shoot at thee
With scornful glances.

Lo, lo, the wretched wight,
Who God disdaining,
His mischief made his might,
His guard his gaining.

I as an olive tree
Still green shall flourish:
God’s house the soil shall be
My roots to nourish.

My trust in his true love
Truly attending,
Shall never thence remove,
Never see ending.

Thee will I honour still,
Lord, for this justice;
There fix my hopes I will
Where thy saints’ trust is.

Thy saints trust in thy name,
Therein they joy them:
Protected by the same,
Naught can annoy them.

Episode 69: Live with Marilyn Nelson!

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 09:00:00 -0500

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

On January 31, we met at Calvin University for its January Series and spoke with Marilyn Nelson about poetry and her work for a live audience.

For more on Marilyn Nelson, visit her website or The Poetry Foundation.

This poem is the title poem of an extraordinary book called How I Discovered Poetry

It was originally published in The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems

Thank you to LSU Press for permission to read and discussion this poem on our podcast.

Episode 51: Martín Espada, Jumping Off the Mystic Tobin Bridge

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Mon, 10 Oct 2022 10:00:00 -0400

To learn more about Martín Espada, click here.

To read the poem, click here.

This is the first poem that appears in Floaters, the winner of the 2021 National Book Award. To purchase a copy of the book, click here.

Photo credit: Lauren Marie Schmidt (cropped to fit dimensions)

Episode 48: Joy Harjo, An American Sunrise

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 12:00:00 -0400

In this episode, we examine The Golden Shovel form and discuss the idea of "survivance" through the work of Muscogee (Creek) poet Joy Harjo, the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States.

You can find the text of "An American Sunrise" here, though this is an earlier version of the poem. The final version appears in her finished book of the same title, which you can find here.

For an introduction to The Golden Shovel form, see here.

Links:

Episode 42: Robert Hayden, Frederick Douglass

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 16:00:00 -0500

To read Hayden's poem, click here.

Thanks to W.W. Norton & Company for granting us permission to read this poem. Reginald Dwayne Betts's introduction to the Collected Poems of Robert Hayden is very moving, as is the afterword by Arnold Rampersad.

For a series of insightful observations about Hayden's sonnet, see Ross Gay, Aracelis Girmay, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Patrick Rosal, and Ira Sadoff, "Poets Respond: A Discussion of "Frederick Douglass" by Robert Hayden." American Poetry Review, 38.3 (2009): 25-28.

For a helpful close reading of the poem, see Fred M. Fetrow, "Robert Hayden's 'Frederick Douglass': Form and Meaning in a Modern Sonnet." CLA Journal 17.1 (September 1973): 78-84.

Episode 41: F.E.W. Harper, Learning to Read

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 15:00:00 -0500

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was a prolific writer and activist of the nineteenth century. In this episode, Professor Janaka Bowman Lewis joins us to discuss her power, influence, voice, and work. "Learning to Read" foregrounds the ballad style in a narrative poem designed to keep alive the memories of fighting for both literacy and liberation.

For the full text of the poem, see here: "Learning to Read"

Janaka Bowman Lewis is an Associate Professor of English at the University of North Carolina--Charlotte, and she includes a chapter on Frances Ellen Watkins Harper in Freedom Narratives of African American Women: A Study of 19th Century Writings.

For a good recent article about this poem by Madeline Zehnder, see Commonplace.

For more on Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, see the Poetry Foundation.

For good resources on F.E.W. Harper, especially materials related to the recovery and teaching of her first book of poems, Forest Leaves, see the Just Teach One archive at Commonplace.

For the best collection of Harper's work, see Frances Smith Foster, A Brighter Coming Day: A Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Reader

For further reading, see Harper's most famous novel, Iola Leroy.

Links:

Episode 39: Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear The Mask

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 15:00:00 -0500

This week, Rafia Zafar joins us to discuss "We Wear the Mask" by the great poet and writer Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906). Rafia leads us in a discussion of Dunbar's fame and influence while opening up broader themes of African American history and literature.

We Wear the Mask
BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

For more on Paul Laurence Dunbar, visit The Poetry Foundation.

For more on Rafia Zafar, see her personal website at Washington University in St. Louis.

Youtube has a brief clip from the Library of America hosting Kevin Young's discussion of "We Wear the Mask."

Elizabeth Alexander also discusses this poem for the Library of America.

For more on the poetic form of the rondeau, see the Academy of American Poets.

Links:

Episode 34: Tracy K. Smith, Declaration

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 09:00:00 -0500

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.

For the poem (including a reading and discussion of the poem by Tracy Smith), see the Poetry Foundation.

For Solmaz Sharif's discussion of the political implications of erasure poetry, see "The Near Transitive Properties of the Political and Poetical: Erasure": https://thevolta.org/ewc28-ssharif-p1.html

See also "Erasure in Three Acts" by Muriel Leung.

For more on Tracy K. Smith, see The Library of Congress.

For a look at the various drafts of the Declaration of Independence, visit this page on the Library of Congress website: https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jeffdec.html

Thanks to Graywolf Press for granting us permission to read this poem, which appears in Wade in the Water (2018).

Thanks to Harvard University and photographer Stephanie Mitchell for granting us permission to reproduce Tracy Smith's photo.

Links:

Episode 28: Countee Cullen, Yet Do I Marvel

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Wed, 29 Sep 2021 12:00:00 -0400

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.

For more on Countee Cullen, see the Poetry Foundation.

Here is the text of the sonnet:

Yet Do I Marvel
Countee Cullen

I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,

Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,
Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare

If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
To struggle up a never-ending stair.

Inscrutable His ways are, and immune

To catechism by a mind too strewn

With petty cares to slightly understand

What awful brain compels His awful hand.

Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:

To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

For the main collection of Countee Cullen's poetry, edited by Gerald Early, see My Soul's High Song.

Links:

Episode 23: Langston Hughes, "Johannesburg Mines"

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Fri, 21 May 2021 11:00:00 -0400

In this episode, we discuss social poetics, the poetry of witness, and the way poets can speak of the failure of language and the need for silence in the face of trauma. "The worst is not, so long as we can say, 'This is the worst.'"

For the text of Langston Hughes's poem "Johannesburg Mines," see here.

For more on Langston Hughes, see the Poetry Foundation.

For more on social poetics, see Mark Nowak's book by that name.

For more on the poetry of witness, see Sandra Beasley's essay "Flint and Tinder."

For Anna Akhmatova's "Instead of a Preface" in her great work Requiem as an alternative approach, see here.

Thanks to Harold Ober Associates, Inc., for granting us permission to read this poem on our podcast.

Links:

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

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Mon, 15 Feb 2021 12:00:00 -0500

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.

THE TEXT

John Milton, "When I Consider How My Light is Spent"

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-milton

Episode 14: George Herbert, The Collar

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Mon, 01 Feb 2021 09:00:00 -0500

In this episode, we look at "The Collar"--a famous single-stanza poem, playing with meter, rhythm, and rhyme by the seventeenth-century priest and poet, George Herbert.

Here is the poem in full:

THE COLLAR

I struck the board, and cried, "No more;
I will abroad!
What? shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free, free as the road,
Loose as the wind, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?
Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me blood, and not restore
What I have lost with cordial fruit?
Sure there was wine
Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn
Before my tears did drown it.
Is the year only lost to me?
Have I no bays to crown it,
No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted?
All wasted?
Not so, my heart; but there is fruit,
And thou hast hands.
Recover all thy sigh-blown age
On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute
Of what is fit and not. Forsake thy cage,
Thy rope of sands,
Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee
Good cable, to enforce and draw,
And be thy law,
While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.
Away! take heed;
I will abroad.
Call in thy death's-head there; tie up thy fears;
He that forbears
To suit and serve his need
Deserves his load."
But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild
At every word,
Methought I heard one calling, Child!
And I replied My Lord.

For more on George Herbert, visit the poetry foundation.

Episode 9: Anne Bradstreet, In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 11:00:00 -0400

This week we read Anne Bradstreet's elegy for her grandchild Elizabeth and draw out the multiple voices (both faith and doubt, both grief and consolation) and the tensions and deep emotions in the work of this talented Puritan poet--the first woman from British North America to publish a book of poems.

"In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet, Who Deceased August, 1665 Being a Year and a Half Old"

Farewell dear babe, my heart's too much content,
Farewell sweet babe, the pleasure of mine eye,
Farewell fair flower that for a space was lent,
Then ta'en away unto eternity.
Blest babe why should I once bewail thy fate,
Or sigh the days so soon were terminate;
Sith thou art settled in an everlasting state.

By nature trees do rot when they are grown.
And plums and apples thoroughly ripe do fall,
And corn and grass are in their season mown,
And time brings down what is both strong and tall.
But plants new set to be eradicate,
And buds new blown, to have so short a date,
Is by His hand alone that guides nature and fate.

For more on Anne Bradstreet, please see the Poetry Foundation.

For an essay on Anne Bradstreet's art, please see this short piece by Kevin Prufer.

For an essay on Anne Bradstreet's publication of The Tenth Muse (the first published book by a woman from British North America) and her ambitions as a poet, see this piece by Charlotte Gordon.

For an understanding of Puritan spirituality, please see this short review essay by Abram Van Engen.

Links:

Episode 5: Claude McKay, "America"

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 10:00:00 -0400

In this episode, we discuss Claude McKay, an influential poet of the Harlem Renaissance, taking a close look at his incredible sonnet "America."

For help in our preparations for this podcast, we want to thank Professors Bill Maxwell and Vince Sherry at Washington University in St. Louis, both of whom have often taught Claude McKay and this poem in particular. Bill Maxwell in addition has written extensively on McKay, and we encourage you to look up his work.

For the complete collection of McKay's poetry, see Bill Maxwell's edited volume:
Claude McKay, Complete Poems

And for more information on McKay, please visit the Poetry Foundation:

Links:

Episode 3: Phillis Wheatley, On Being Brought from Africa to America

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Tue, 15 Sep 2020 09:00:00 -0400

To view the poem, please see: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45465/on-being-brought-from-africa-to-america

To hear Cornelius Eady reading the poem and discussing it, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QezAVP_HiY

For a foundational essay about Phillis Wheatley and her work, please see June Jordan's essay, "The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America."

For two examples of the way Wheatley has inspired other artists and writers, please see the work of Cornelius Eady and Honoree Fanonne Jeffers.

Eady, "Diabolic"
Eady, "To Phillis Wheatley's Mother"
Eady, Interview

Jeffers, The Age of Phillis

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