Folgen
-
In this episode, we read and discuss "Singer," a narrative poem that celebrates the poetic speaker's mother in all of her complexity.
Dorianne Laux is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Life on Earth (https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324065821), which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected Poems (https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393652338) which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is also the author of a new craft book titled Finger Exercises for Poets (https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324050667/).
“Singer” appears in LIFE ON EARTH by Dorianne Laux. Copyright © 2024 by Dorianne Laux. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. -
In this episode, Katy Didden and Abram Van Engen discuss the extraordinary leaps, narrative disjunctions, and temporal frames that fill Diaz's extraordinary ekphrastic poem, a reflection on Bruegel's painting, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" written in conversation with W.H. Auden's poem "Musée des Beaux Arts."
"Two Emergencies," appears in My Favorite Tyrants (https://a.co/d/3IUlLmp) (University of Wisconsin Press 2014), winner of the 2014 Brittingham Prize in Poetry.
For more poetry of Joanne Diaz, see also The Lessons (https://a.co/d/bZOFIOp) (Silverfish Review Press 2011), winner of the Gerald Cable Book Award.
For W.H. Auden's "Musee des Beaux Artes (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/159364/musee-des-beaux-arts-63a1efde036cd)" see The Poetry Foundation -
Fehlende Folgen?
-
This episode explores the incantation and mystic union of Momaday's famous delight poem, ending with a recorded recitation in his own rich voice. We explain anaphora and explore its power, and we trace the links and connections from one thought to the next throughout the poem.
Special thanks to Universty of California Television (UCTV) for permission to share the audio of Momaday's reading. For the interview with Momaday from which this reading has been pulled, see "A Conversation with N. Scott Momaday -- Writer's Symposium by the Sea 2023 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PA3PZqeIuc)" on Youtube. "The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee" appears in In the Presence of the Sun by N. Scott Momaday. Copyright © 2009 University of New Mexico Press (https://www.unmpress.com/), 2009.
For the text of the poem, see The Poetry Foundation here (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46558/the-delight-song-of-tsoai-talee).
For more on Momaday, see his biography (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/n-scott-momaday) at the Poetry Foundation. -
This episode was recorded on March 2, 2025 at the Phillis Wheatley Heritage Center in St. Louis., Missouri. In this conversation, Pádraig Ó Tuama reads several poems from Kitchen Hymns (https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/kitchen-hymns-by-padraig-o-tuama/) (Copper Canyon Press, 2024), his newest collection. We discuss subversive speech, belief and doubt, lyrical poetry, the psychology of poetic forms, and the power of ancient myths.
Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet with interests in conflict, language and religion. He presents Poetry Unbound (https://onbeing.org/series/poetry-unbound/) from On Being Studios, and has published two anthologies (2022, 2025, both with WW Norton) from that podcast. A freelance artist, one of Ó Tuama’s projects is poet in residence with the Cooperation and Conflict Resolution Center at Columbia University. He splits his time between Belfast and New York City.
To learn more about Ó Tuama, you can visit his website (https://www.padraigotuama.com/). -
Oksana Maksymchuk joins us for a reading and discussion of "Tempo," a poem that explores the how war causes us to "whirl with / planets and stars that coil / around our fragile core."
Oksana Maksymchuk is a bilingual Ukrainian-American poet, scholar, and literary translator. Her debut English-language poetry collection Still City (https://upittpress.org/books/9780822967354/) is the 2024 Pitt Poetry Series selection, published by University of Pittsburgh Press (US) and Carcanet Press (UK). And while Still City is Oksana’s first poem in English, she is an accomplished poet in the Ukrainian as well. She is also the co-editor of Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine, an anthology of contemporary poetry (https://www.wordsforwar.com/). -
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.
Monica Ong is the author of two books: Silent Anatomies (https://korepress.org/product/silent-anatomies-by-monica-ong), which was the winner of the Kore Press First Book Award in 2015; and Planetaria, which will be released in May 2025. Last year, Ong was named a United States Artists Fellow. Ong’s visual poetry has been published in many literary magazines and exhibited in galleries and museums all over the world.
To learn more about Ong's work, please visit her website (https://www.monicaong.com/).
To purchase a copy of Planetaria, visit the Proxima Vera website (https://www.proximavera.com/publication). -
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 (https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-08096-3.html?srsltid=AfmBOoq8tb3m52BjI0wdtoiguILdKqt-HT2PdahVAq938K08Uj20668V), 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 (https://poets.org/poet/gwendolyn-bennett) to read a brief biography of Bennett. -
In this episode, we read and discuss a poem that takes its inspiration from a painting by Andrew Wyeth. The poem provides a meditation on what we perceive and interpret when we look at a painting, and at one another.
-
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.
To learn more about Ted Kooser, visit his website (https://www.tedkooser.net/).
If you like these poems that we discussed in this episode, please read Ted Kooser's Winter Morning Walks: 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/W/bo43505466.html) (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2001). Thanks to Carnegie Mellon Press for granting us permission to read these poems aloud. -
In this episode, we read and discuss Emily Dickinson's poem about the death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. We discuss Dickinson's innovative syntax, her use of deep pauses, and her meditations on death and grief that create surprising effects in this short lyric.
I went to thank Her
I went to thank Her—
But She Slept—
Her Bed—a funneled Stone—
With Nosegays at the Head and Foot—
That Travellers—had thrown—
Who went to thank Her—
But She Slept—
'Twas Short—to cross the Sea—
To look upon Her like—alive—
But turning back—'twas slow— -
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-herbertFor the Geneva translation of Psalm 52, which Mary Sidney would have known, see here:https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2052&version=GNVFor 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) (https://a.co/d/6lKqKPS), edited by Hannibal Hamlin.Psalm 52translated by Mary SidneyTyrant, 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.
-
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 (https://www.nikiherd.com/).
The Stuff of Hollywood was just published by Copper Canyon Website. Please visit their website (https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/the-stuff-of-hollywood-by-niki-herd/) to purchase a copy.
Photo credit: Madeline Brenner -
In this episode, we closely read Shelley's "Ozymandias," a poem written in a time of revolution and social protest. We focus on the poem's sonnet structure, its engagement with--and critique of--empire, its meditation on the bust of Ramses II, and its afterlife in an episode of _Breaking Bad. _
To learn more about Percy Bysshe Shelley, click here (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/percy-bysshe-shelley).
Here is the text of the poem:
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Photo: Ramses II, British Museum -
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.
To learn more about Shankar Vendantam and the Hidden Brain podcast, visit his website (https://www.npr.org/people/137765146/shankar-vedantam).
To read Auden's poem, click here (https://english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/auden.html).
Thanks to Curtis Brown Ltd. for granting us permission to read this poem. -
In this episode, we read and discuss Jericho Brown's "Duplex," a poetic form that he created in order to explore the complexities of family, violence, and desire.
This is one of several duplex poems that you can find in The Tradition (https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/the-tradition-by-jericho-brown/) (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize. Thanks to Copper Canyon Press for granting us permission to read this poem.
To learn more about Jericho Brown, visit his website (https://www.jerichobrown.com/).
To learn more about the duplex form, you can read Brown's essay (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/featured-blogger/81611/invention) on the Poetry Foundation's Harriet blog. We also love Jericho Brown's interview with Michael Dumanis (https://www.benningtonreview.org/jericho-brown-interview) in the Bennington Review.
Cover art: Lauren “Ralphi” Burgess. To learn more about her work, visit her website (https://www.rphrt.com/about). -
Poetry engages in conversation. Today, we explore a long, beautiful, narrative poem weaving together the work of fellow poets while looking carefully at a Caravaggio painting, all reflecting on illness, death, and friendship.
For the poem, see here: https://www.nereview.com/vol-40-no-1-2019/the-conversion-of-paul/
For Grotz's incredible book, Still Falling, see Graywolf (https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/still-falling)Press here: https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/still-falling
“Still Falling is an undeniably gorgeous book of love poems full of grief. In these pages, Jennifer Grotz writes line after line of direct statement in rhythms that would leave any reader breathless and wanting more. . . . I am in awe of Grotz’s power to grow and transform book after book. I cannot read Still Falling without crying.”—Jericho Brown
For the Caravaggio painting, The Conversion on the Way to Damascus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_on_the_Way_to_Damascus), see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConversionontheWayto_Damascus
For more episodes on ekphrasis, please see our website and keywords here:
https://poetryforallpod.com/episodes/
Thanks to Graywolf Press for permission to read this poem on the podcast. Jennifer Grotz's "The Conversation of Paul" was published in her collection titled Still Falling (Graywolf, 2023). -
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.
Click here to read "What Work Is": https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52173/what-work-is
Photo credit: Geoffrey Berliner
"What Work Is" was published in What Work Is (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/100554/what-work-is-by-philip-levine/) (Knopf, 1991). Thanks to Penguin Random House for granting us permission to read this poem. -
What is a good life, and how do we make sense of the world when it seems like society is collapsing? In this episode, Lucas Bender joins us once again to discuss the work of Du Fu (712-770 C.E.), the great Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty. Luke helps us to see how Du Fu’s “Passing the Night by White Sands Post Station” can be read in multiple ways depending on how one translates each word of the poem. In doing so, he reveals the poem’s concerns with aging, disappointment, and the possibility of hope in difficult times.
Click here (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/tu-fu) to learn more about Du Fu.
Lucas Bender is the author of Du Fu Transforms: Tradition and Ethics amid Societal Collapse (https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674260177) (Harvard University Press, 2021).
To learn more about Luke Bender, visit his website (https://campuspress.yale.edu/lucasrambobender/).
Cover art: Wang Hui, Ten Thousand Li up the Yangtze River, Qing Dynasty. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. -
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.
Thank you to Graywolf Press for permission to read and discuss the poem. Diane Seuss's "[The sonnet, like poverty, teaches you what you can do]" was published in her collection titled frank: sonnets (Graywolf, 2021).
See the work (and buy it!) here: https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/frank-sonnets
For more on Diane Seuss, see here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/diane-seuss
For more on the Sealey Challenge, see here: https://www.thesealeychallenge.com/ -
In this episode, Professor Stephanie Kirk guides our reading of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz’s “Sonnet 189.” Her scholarly insights help us to appreciate the nuances of Sor Juana’s poetry and her importance in her own lifetime and beyond.
Professor Kirk read Edith Grossman's translation of "Sonnet 189" from Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Selected Works (https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393920161). Copyright (c) 2014 by Edith Grossman. With permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
To learn more about Stephanie Kirk’s scholarship, you can click here (https://artsci.wustl.edu/faculty-staff/stephanie-kirk).
Cover image: Miguel Cabrera, posthumous portrait of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, 1750. Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico City, Mexico. Public domain. - Mehr anzeigen
