Episode 115: A.E. Stallings, Burned
In this episode, we continue our villanelle series with the incredible formalist poet A.E. Stallings. Every form begs for a bending of the rules, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in big ways..
Episode 114: Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
In this episode, we introduce the first villanelle in our three-part series on that poetic form. We begin with Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” a poem that.
Episode 101: Emerald GoingSnake, Someday I'll Love–
This episode opens “Someday I’ll Love” poems through the vivid imagery of a young poet’s connection with their grandmother, remembering in love as memory begins to slip. Emerald ᏃᏈᏏ GoingSnake is an.
Episode 100: Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
This episode takes us to a graveyard for Halloween and explores one of the most canonical poems in the English language, poised between two huge eras of poetry as it meditates on.
Episode 92: Dorianne Laux, Singer
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,.
Episode 83: Emily Dickinson, "I went to thank Her–"
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.
Episode 74: Diane Seuss, [The sonnet, like poverty]
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.
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.