Poetry For All - Episodes Tagged with “Social Justice And Advocacy”

Episode 86: Gwendolyn Bennett, I Build America

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 08:00:00 -0500

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.

To learn more about Gwendolyn Bennett, see Heroine of the Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Gwendolyn Bennett's Selected Writings, edited by Belinda Wheeler and Louis J. Parascandola (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018). Thanks to Pennsylvania State University Press for granting us permission to read this poem.

You can also click here to read a brief biography of Bennett.

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 81: Niki Herd, The Stuff of Hollywood

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 08:00:00 -0400

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.

To learn more about Niki Herd, you can visit her website.

The Stuff of Hollywood was just published by Copper Canyon Website. Please visit their website to purchase a copy.

Photo credit: Madeline Brenner

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 44: Ann Hudson, Soap

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 15:00:00 -0400

In this episode, Ann Hudson joins us to read her poem “Soap” and discuss how its narrative structure allows her to explore the history of science, technology, and our notions of progress and beauty, even when those notions do great harm to ordinary workers.

Ann is the author of two collections of poetry: The Armillary Sphere, which was selected by Mary Kinzie as the winner of the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize and published by Ohio University Press; and Glow, published by Next Page Press. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals, including Crab Orchard Review, North American Review, Orion, Prairie Schooner, and The Seattle Review. Ann is senior editor for RHINO.

To learn more about Ann's work, please visit her website.

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 33: Adrienne Rich, Power

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 13:00:00 -0500

This week, the poet and scholar Stephanie Burt joins us to discuss the extraordinary power of Adrienne Rich. We think through how the spacing and stanzas of a poem can draw out denials and divulgences, while also exploring the life and writing of Rich.

Stephanie Burt's excellent book Don't Read Poetry ends with an examination of this poem by Adrienne Rich. The book, which can be found at the link, offers an introduction to reading poems and different ways of approaching them.

For the text of the poem, see here.

For more on Adrienne Rich, please see the Poetry Foundation.

For more on Stephanie Burt, please see the Poetry Foundation.

Photograph of Adrienne Rich by Robert Giard.

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 26: Brenda Cárdenas, "Our Lady of Sorrows"

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 12:00:00 -0400

In this episode, Brenda Cárdenas guides us through a reading of "Our Lady of Sorrows," an ekphrastic poem that is inspired by the work of Ana Mendieta.

To read more of Brenda Cárdenas's work, click here:

https://uwm.edu/english/our-people/cardenas-brenda/

To learn more about Ana Mendieta's work, click here:

https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/ana-mendieta

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 19: Naomi Shihab Nye, Gate A-4

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 18:00:00 -0500

Naomi Shihab Nye, a Palestinian-American poet born in St. Louis and raised in Jerusalem and San Antonio, focuses on the ordinary to observe the extraordinary. Her poetry often speaks of cultural encounters and celebrates different cultures. She is the recipient of many awards and is currently the Poetry Foundation's Young People's Poet Laureate.

In this poem, we explore what makes a poem "poetry" versus some other genre, and we consider what difference such designations make while walking through a longer, narrative poem.

For the text of the poem, see here: https://poets.org/poem/gate-4

For more on Naomi Shihab Nye, see the Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/naomi-shihab-nye

This poem comes from Honeybee: Poems and Short Prose.

The image has a creative commons license and can be found here.

Episode 15: Amanda Gorman, Chorus of the Captains

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 20:00:00 -0500

Amanda Gorman became the first poet ever to perform at the Super Bowl on February 7, 2021. In this episode we talk about poetry for the masses, mass media, genres of poetry, spoken word, the visual and the verbal, and the mix of ancient methods with emergent forms.

See her poem here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ejbSCjg2qo

See this great article by Virginia Jackson and Meredith Martin about Amanda Gorman's Inauguration Poem at Avidly:
The Poetry of the Future

For more on Amanda Gorman, see The Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/amanda-gorman

Episode 13: Amanda Gorman, The Hill We Climb

Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen — Mon, 25 Jan 2021 09:00:00 -0500

In this episode, we discuss Amanda Gorman's "The Hill We Climb," the poem that she recited at the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. We discuss how well suited the poem is to its occasion, Gorman's powerful use of sound, and the conversation that she engages in--with John Winthrop, the Constitution, the Bible, George Washington, Maya Angelou, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Like everyone else in America, we are in love with this poem and hope you enjoy the discussion.

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

Links: