Poetry For All
Finding Our Way Into Great Poems
We found 7 episodes of Poetry For All with the tag “modernism”.
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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 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 27: Marianne Moore, Poetry
September 22nd, 2021 | Season 3 | 21 mins 11 secs
20th century, ars poetica, christianity, modernism, rhymed verse, women's history month
In this episode, we read and discuss the influential modernist poet Marianne Moore and her witty, wonderful poem called "Poetry," a classic ars poetica (a poem about writing poetry).
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Episode 25: William Carlos Williams, "This is Just to Say"
September 8th, 2021 | Season 3 | 18 mins 13 secs
20th century, free verse, modernism, surprise, wonder
In this episode, we discuss a simple, iconic, "sorry-not sorry" poem from the early age of American modernism, which has taken on new life in the age of Twitter and the pandemic.
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Episode 23: Langston Hughes, "Johannesburg Mines"
May 21st, 2021 | Season 2 | 19 mins 29 secs
20th century, anger, black history month, free verse, grief and loss, laborers, modernism, repetition or refrain, social justice and advocacy
In this episode, we discuss social poetics, poetry of witness, and the places where poetry speaks loudly of silence -- where language fails in the face of trauma. "The worst is not, so long as we can say, 'This is the worst.'"
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Episode 22: Two Poems of World War I
April 27th, 2021 | Season 2 | 24 mins 43 secs
20th century, grief and loss, guest on the show, modernism, rhymed verse, sonnet, veteran's day
In this episode, we talk with Vince Sherry about two poems of WWI: Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier" and Ivor Gurney's "To His Love." The first poem, a stately beauty, imagines war almost peacefully; the second poem, scarred by combat, speaks back nervously and angrily. We talk through this remarkable set of poems and experiences and examine how a careful use of language conveys their effects.
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Episode 5: Claude McKay, "America"
September 29th, 2020 | Season 1 | 14 mins 40 secs
20th century, anger, black history month, harlem renaissance, modernism, rhymed verse, social justice and advocacy, sonnet
In this episode, we discuss Claude McKay, an influential poet of the Harlem Renaissance, taking a close look at his incredible sonnet "America."