Episode 69: Live with Marilyn Nelson!
Our first live performance of the podcast, featuring Marilyn Nelson and a discussion or her amazing poem “How I Discovered Poetry.” On January 31, we met at Calvin University for its January.
Episode 68: W.S. Merwin, To the New Year
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.
Episode 63: Rumi, Colorless, Nameless, Free
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.
Episode 61: Ada Limón, "The Raincoat"
With her quality of attention and focus on vivid, specific images, Ada Limón brings us to a moment of surprising insight in “The Raincoat.” “The Raincoat” appears in Ada Limón’s book The.
Episode 60: Li-Young Lee, From Blossoms
In this episode, we explore the poetry of joy in a world of shade and death, looking to sounds and repetitions while examining how “From Blossoms” speaks back to the poem that.
Episode 55: Kay Ryan, Crib
In this episode, we discuss Kay Ryan’s “Crib,” a brief poem that begins with an interest in the deep archaeology of language and shifts to a powerful meditation on theft, innocence, and.
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 47: Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
In this episode, Christopher Hanlon joins us to discuss an excerpt from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. We discuss the poem’s prophetic voice, its patterns of repetition, the connective tissue that binds.