Poetry For All

Episode 104: Jane Zwart, I read that the moon is rusting

January 31st, 2026  |  Season 8  |  24 mins 28 secs

21st century, children, free verse, grief and loss, guest on the show, spirituality, surprise, wonder

This episode brings together a collage of images to explore the meaning of time, the emergence of events from one to another, and the wonder of the unknown.

Episode 96: Gerard Manley Hopkins, God's Grandeur

September 3rd, 2025  |  Season 7  |  24 mins 23 secs

19th century, alliterative verse, anger, christianity, climate change, grief and loss, hope, rhymed verse, sonnet, wonder

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.

Episode 90: N. Scott Momaday, The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee

April 16th, 2025  |  Season 6  |  20 mins 23 secs

21st century, free verse, joy, native american heritage month, repetition or refrain, spirituality, wonder

This episode explores the incantation and mystic union of Momaday's famous delight poem, ending with a recorded recitation in his own rich voice.

Episode 87: Monica Ong, Her Gaze

March 6th, 2025  |  Season 6  |  35 mins 21 secs

children, ekphrasis, free verse, science, visual poetry, wonder, word and image

In this episode, Monica Ong joins us to discuss "Her Gaze," a visual poem that celebrates the achievements of astronomer Caroline Herschel. "Her Gaze" appears in Planetaria, Ong's new collection that merges archival materials with striking lyric poems.

Episode 84: Ted Kooser, excerpts from Winter Morning Walks

December 12th, 2024  |  Season 6  |  21 mins 10 secs

free verse, loneliness, nature poetry, poet laureate, winter, wonder

In this episode, we offer close readings of poems from Ted Kooser's Winter Morning Walks: 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison. Kooser's poems allow us to think about the poem as a social act, as a form of healing, and as a kind of meditation.

Episode 71: Hopkins, As Kingfishers Catch Fire

April 18th, 2024  |  Season 6  |  23 mins 55 secs

19th century, christianity, nature poetry, rhymed verse, sonnet, wonder

This episode dives into the wonderful world of Gerard Manley Hopkins, the musicality of his language, and the vision he has of becoming what we already are.

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 63: Rumi, Colorless, Nameless, Free

August 29th, 2023  |  Season 6  |  29 mins 56 secs

13th century, ghazal, guest on the show, islam, joy, poetry in translation, restlessness, rhymed verse, spirituality, surprise, wonder, world poetry

In this episode, poet and translator Haleh Liza Gafori joins us to closely read and discuss a poem by Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (1207-1273 CE), one of the greatest of all Sufi poets. We discuss the poetic constraints of the ghazal form, Rumi's encounters with the divine, and the significance of his friendship with Shams, a man who transformed his life and poetic practice.