Poetry For All
Finding Our Way Into Great Poems
Displaying all 3 Episode of Poetry For All with the tag “labor day”.
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Episode 86: Gwendolyn Bennett, I Build America
February 20th, 2025 | Season 6 | 25 mins 19 secs
free verse, harlem renaissance, labor day, laborers, persona poem, social justice and advocacy, twentieth century, violence, women's history month
Gwendolyn Bennett was a poet, journalist, editor, and activist whose contributions helped to fuel the Harlem Renaissance. In this episode, we read "I Build America," a poem that exposes and critiques the exploitation and suffering of ordinary workers.
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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 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.