Episode 75: Du Fu, Passing the Night by White Sands Post Station
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.
Episode 72: Victoria Chang, My Mother–died unpeacefully…
In this episode, we read one of Victoria Chang’s moving poems from her collection OBIT, and discuss how the poem explores the interplay between life, death, grieving, and memory as the poet.
Episode 52: Shakespeare, Sonnet 73
This sonnet reflects on the autumn of life and an intimate love, and it turns on that love growing stronger in and through its age, even as the body decays. To learn.
Episode 50: Rafael Campo, Primary Care
In this episode, we discuss how Rafael Campo, a practicing physician, uses blank verse to explore the experience of illness and suffering. Thanks to the Georges Borchardt, Inc. for granting us permission.
Episode 38: Laura Van Prooyen, Elegy for My Mother's Mind
In this episode, our guest Laura Van Prooyen reads "Elegy for My Mother's Mind," a poem that navigates the complexities of memory, loss, and familial relationships. Laura's poem gives us an opportunity.
Episode 24: Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays
Robert Hayden was one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century. His poems are known for their formal grace and his deep and broad explorations of the African American experience..
Episode 16: John Milton, When I Consider How My Light is Spent
The episode explores Milton's great sonnet spun from the difficulties of middle age and new disappointments. We consider how he pulls consolation from his sense of defeat and near despair. Faced with.
Episode 12: James Merrill, Christmas Tree
In this episode, Spencer Reece guides us through a reading of "Christmas Tree," one of the last poems that James Merrill wrote before his death. We learned so much through this conversation–about.