Open Windows Podcast

"Remembering" and "memory" are major elements in the creation of poetry. There are essential focuses or common themes that poems that include memories often use.  I take a look today at another one of those focuses, memories of loss and especially the loss of home. I read poems by Nijolė Miliauskaitė, Elizabeth Bishop, Abraham Lincoln, Zeina Azzam, and Rainer Maria Rilke.  I end the program with one of my own poems.

I am happily spending time on the coast of Maine, and so read poems about Maine and about the ocean by Robert Lowell, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, Pam Burr Smith, George Oppen, and Louise Bogan.  I end the program with three of my own poems.

My programs each week typically illustrate a theme or poetic focus. From time to time, however, I read some of my own poems that do not have such a defined focus but which have helped present my work as a poet over the years more generally.  Today, as part of such a presentation of my work, I read poems from my book Salt, which was published in 2007. The poems of Salt affirm my longstanding commitment to expanding the use of anonymous lyric narrators.  

In celebration of my 50th Yale College Reunion, and to affirm the literary bonds I forged then and have continued with other poets in my class, I read poems by my Yale classmates: William Logan, Timothy Murphy, Cal Nordt, James Stephenson, and Jamie Stern. I end my program with my own poems.  I include, too, a poem for Ukraine by Ihor Kalnyets.

 I continue my presentation of Australian poets today and read poems by Bronwyn Rodden and Les Wicks. I also read poems by New Zealand poet Lisa Samuels.  I begin with a poem for Ukraine by Volodymyr Sosiura.   

 I continue my presentation of Australian poets today and read poems by Cassandra Atherton, Peter Boyle, MTC Cronin, Philip Hammial, Dominique Hecq, and S.K. Kelen.  I begin with a poem for Ukraine by Ania Chromova.   

Poetry written in English thrives across the world. Those of us in the United States often forget that we are not the only voices of poetry in our native language.  And we forget, too, that the Northern Hemisphere is not the only locus for English language poetry. So today I read poems by three Australian poets who have been strong voices on the Australian poetic stage: Robert Drummond, Grant Fraser, and Edward Reilly. I begin with a poem for Ukraine by Halyna Kruk.

This week marks the 77th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. It's an anniversary during which another European war is being fought. So today I read poems about World War II, in commemoration of the end of that war but also as a reminder that such a war can happen again.  I begin with a poem for Ukraine by Serhiy Zhadan and read poems by John Ciardi, Harry Rosolenko, John Frederick Nims, Randall Jarrell, Miklós Radnóti, and Ephim G. Fogel. 

I begin my program with a poem for Ukraine by Vasyl Holoborodko. I then read poems about spring, and particularly about dogwood trees and flowers, by George Marion McClellan, Roy Sheele, Martin Willitts, Jr., William Johnson, and David Baker.  I end the program with two of my own poems.

I begin my program with a poem for Ukraine by Taras Shevchenko. I then talk about the oneiric tradition in poetry -- poetry that is written about dreams -- and read poems from my book The Woman on the Bridge, which began as a dream.

I begin my program with a poem for Ukraine by Vasyl Stus. I then read poems about the moon by Sappho, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Amy Lowell, Carl Sandburg, Wallace Stevens, Jean Toomer, e.e. cummings, Philip Larkin, and Larry D. Thomas. I end the program with one of my own poems.

The idea of new beginnings, of initiation after conclusion -- and in this program linked to the symbols and signs of Easter -- guides my selection of poems today. I read poems by Kim Stafford, T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, William Butler Yeats, Claude McKay, Amy Clampitt, Charles Wright, and Anne Sexton. I end the program with one of my own poems.  

April is celebrated as “National Humor Month.” It is also the only month of the year that begins with a Fool's Day, a day celebrated in many countries with sanctioned frivolity and pranks ever since the 1500s. So today I want to lighten the moment and read some humorous poetry by Ogden Nash, Philip Larkin, Shel Silverstein, "Anonymous," Pamela Ayres, and Stuart McLean.

I am part of a small press called Black Spruce Press, which publishes collections of poetry by established poets and by young poets who have not yet had a full book. Today I read poems by four of the poets published by the Press: Kerry Shawn Keys, Michael Jennings, Alan Berecka, and  Susana Cuartas-Ordoñez.  

My programs each week typically illustrate a particular theme or poetic focus. From time to time, however, I have read some of my own poems that do not have such a defined focus but which have helped present my work as a poet over the years more generally.  So today, as part of such a presentation of my work, I read poems from my book White, which was published in 2004.  

My program today features poems by men Native American poets: Simon Ortiz, Orlando White, Sherman Alexie, Ray Young Bear, Mark Turcotte, Gordon Henry, Jr., and Adrian C. Louis.

Today I read poems about the beginning and ending of war. I focus on poets whose families and whose countries have been victims of various kinds of wars: Kornelijus Platelis, Wisława Szymborska, Yehuda Amichai, Mahoud Darwish, Seamus Heaney, and Lawson Fusao Inada. I end the program with one of my own poems about the beginning of war.

Today I read poems by Ukrainian poets, in support of the Ukrainian fight against brutal Russian invasion. The poets are Iya Kiva, Boris Khersonsky, Vasyl Makhno, Borys Humenyuk, and Natalka Bilotserkivets.

My program today features poems by women Native American poets:  Tacey Atsitty, Esther Belin, Diane Burns, Laura Da', Roberta Hill Whiteman, Linda Hogan, Lois Red Elk, and Ofelia Zepeda.

 I read poems in today's program, and in one or two programs to come, written by indigenous people of North and South America. I begin today with lyric poems written in the Mayan and the Aztec languages.

Sounds are incorporated into poems as part of a poet's observational paradigm and thereby shape the meanings of poems. Because many of us are especially attentive to sounds at night and of the night, today I read poems about night sounds by Thomas Hardy, James Joyce, Robert Frost, Maxine Kumin, Carolyn Kizer, and Alejandra Piznarik. I end the program with two of my own poems.

In my program today, I consider paradox and contradiction -- what the Romantic poets referred to as "the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant elements or qualities"  -- and the roles they may play in poetry. I read poems by Catullus, an Unknown Poet, Emily Dickinson, Wilfred Owen, Wallace Stevens, and Bob Dylan.  I end the program with two of my own poems.

My program today follows up on my programs about the whiteness and cold of winter. The physical and emotional and aesthetic contexts of winter at the ocean are powerful affirmations of life experienced, so today I read poems about the ocean in winter, celebrating the clarities made possible by whiteness and cold that wraps the sands and waters. I read poems by Walt Whitman, Sara Teasdale, John Betjeman, Thomas McGrath, and Joseph Millar. I end the program with two of my own poems.

My program today is about how poets incorporate the idea of cold and coldness into their poems, to create texture, to control mood and tone, to provide symbolic or metaphoric significances, and to create and direct images that resonate connotatively for different readers. I read poems by Annie Lennox, D.H. Lawrence, Federico Garcia Lorca, William Carlos Williams, Roberta Hill Whiteman, and James Wright. I end the program with two of my own poems.

We had our first significant snowfall and the horizon is white. I was struck by that whiteness, so I read poems today that use the color white -- directly or indirectly -- to create texture, to control mood and tone, to provide symbolic or metaphoric significances, and to create and direct images that resonate connotatively for different readers. I read poems by Emily Dickinson, A.E. Housman, Robert Frost, Philip Larkin, W.S. Merwin, Sylvia Plath, and Wisława Szymborska. I end the program with two of my own poems.

I read poems about the Brooklyn Bridge today, during the beginning of the month named for the two-faced god Janus, and ask you to consider how both this month and bridges point in two directions, both forward and backwards, to the past and to the future, to memory and to prophecy. I read poems by Walt Whitman, Marianne Moore, Hart Crane, Jack Kerouac, Harvey Shapiro, and Alfred Corn.  I end the program with one of my own poems.

Today's program continues my consideration of December as a time of reflection and remembrance and focuses on several poets we lost this year. I read poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Adam Zagajewski, Friederike Mayröcker, Jean Binta Breeze, Robert Bly, and Thomas Kinsella.

Today's program continues my consideration of December and focuses on poems that incorporate an actual or a metaphorical hearth or fireplace into their lyrical or narrative frames. I read poems by J.R.R. Tolkien, William Butler Yeats, C.K. Williams, Robert Hayden, and Ken Hada.  I end the program with two of my own poems.

Today's program continues my consideration of the end of the calendar year and is the second of several programs that focus on poets born in December. I read poets who were born in the second week of December, during various decades and in various countries: Bjornstjerne Bjornson, Padraic Colum, Delmore Schwartz, Emily Dickinson, Nelly Sachs, and Grace Paley.

Today's program continues my consideration of the end of the calendar year and is the first of several programs that will focus on poets born in December. I begin with poets who were born in the first week of December, during various decades and in various countries. I read poems by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Alfred Corn; William Stanley Braithwaite, Joyce Kilmer, Ira Gershwin, Yosano Akiko, and Pearl Cleage.

Today's program considers the end of the calendar year and some of its significances.  Today, December 1, is the first day of winter in the meteorological calendar. This is the month of the winter solstice; it's the time of Advent and Christmas in the Christian calendar, Hannukah in the Jewish calendar, and Yule for pagans.  It's the time when daylight is short and the end of the calendar year, we believe, promises the return of light. So today I'd like to read some poems that consider the idea of light returning to the world. The coming of light, of course, means that there is also darkness that must be conquered or dispelled. That tension between darkness and light is what gives the return of light its ultimate power.  I read poems by Emily Dickinson, Dylan Thomas, Wendell Berry, and Latvian poet Inara Cedrins. I end with one of my own poems that considers the tension between light and dark as well.  

I conclude my readings of poems from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read translations into English of poems by women poets of the Tang Dynasty in China: Xue Tao, Li Ye, Yu Xuanji, Cheng Changwen, and palace maid Tianbao.

I continue my reading of poems from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read poems by Scott Wiggerman, David Wright, and Agnė Žagrakalytė. I end the program with three of my own poems.

I continue my reading of poems from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read poems by Wally Swist, Larry Thomas, Judith Valente, Sarah Webb, and Arisa White.

I continue my reading of poems from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read poems by Elizabeth Raby, Li Sen, Steven Schroeder, and Jamie Stern.

I continue my readings of poems from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read poems by Lorraine Henrie Lins, Katia Mitova, Li Nan, Donna Pucciani, and Matthias  Regan.  

I continue my reading of poems from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read poems by Albert DeGenova, Ken Hada, Laurynas Katkus, Christopher Kelen, and Kerry  Shawn Keys.  

I continue my reading of poems from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read poems by Jerry Craven, Sherry Craven, Nitoo Das, Paul Friedrich, and Patricia Goodrich.

I continue my reading of poems from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read poems by Sandra Becker, Rosebud Ben-Oni, Daniel Bowman, David Breeden, and Inara Cedrins.  

In my program today, and in several of my programs to come, I will be reading from books published by Virtual Artists Collective during the course of the past two decades. I read poems by Nina Corwin, Christopher Gallinari, Lu Wei, Scott Wiggerman, Tang Danhong,  Li Sen, and Steven Schroeder.  

I continue my late summer hiatus and now present a few programs that were the least listened to during the past two and a half years, with the hope that I might inspire some additional interest in them. My program today is about how heaven may be used in poetry as an essential structural motif and as part of an organizing metaphoric and thematic literary frame. The program takes a look at various depictions of heaven in the work of four Lithuanian poets – both in their pagan and in their Christian iterations – and in three of my own poems.

I continue my late summer hiatus and now present a few programs that were the least listened to during the past two and a half years, with the hope that I might inspire some additional interest in them. My program today continues my consideration of how poets use references to the senses as essential structural motifs and as parts of organizing metaphoric and thematic literary frames. This program – about the sense of smell – takes a look at the possible meanings of smell, in their various explications, and how they might be used in poetry to create mood and modulate tone. I read and consider two of my translations of Lithuanian poems, each of which presents different perspectives on smell, and a poem by Jamie Stern. I end the program with two of my own poems.

I continue my late summer hiatus and now present a few programs that were the least listened to during the past two and a half years, with the hope that I might inspire some additional interest in them. My program today -- originally broadcast -- is the second program in which I focused on New England urban poets and the complex range of human issues unfolding in urban settings.  I read poems by Julia Alvarez, Ocean Vuong, Richard Wilbur, Martin Espada, and Maya Williams.

It's late summer and I continue time my short hiatus, replaying a few of my most popular programs during these weeks (and starting next week the least popular, with the hope that they might find some rekindled interest). Today's program --originally broadcast in December 4, 2019 -- considers poetry as a counterpoint and antidote to the misuse of power, and how poetry is a source of truth in the face of the corruption and lies that political power – and especially today – succumbs to.  I begin with a consideration of the Elizabethan idea that poetry rouses us to virtue and then include an excerpt from President John F. Kennedy's remarkable speech – delivered on the occasion of the dedication of the Robert Frost Library – on the role of poetry and of the artist in a free society.  I read poems by Robert Frost, Michelle Hartman, Brazilian poet Ferreira Gullar, Michael Casey, and Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert to illustrate that poetic exhortation to truth. 

It's late summer and time for a short hiatus, so I will be replaying a few of my most popular programs in the next few weeks (and after that, the least popular, with the hope that they might find some rekindled interest). Today's program, which dates back to March 2019, focuses on longing, love, pagan romantic relationships, and the Odyssey. It includes my translations of poems by Lithuanian poets Sigitas Geda and Judita Vaičiūnaitė.  It ends with two poems of my own from my book The Kingfisher's Reign (2012).    

It's late summer and time for a short hiatus, so I will be replaying a few of my most popular programs in the next few weeks (and after that, the least popular, with the hope that they might find some rekindled interest).  Today's program is about poems written about other works of art. Such poems are part of a long literary tradition called the “ekphrastic tradition” and they provide a different perspective on how we might experience works of art generally. The program includes a brief literary history of the form, including comments about Homer's The Iliad, Keats' “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” and Pictures from Brueghel by William Carlos Williams. It also includes my translations of ekphrastic poems by three Lithuanian poets as well as two of my own ekphrastic poems.

To continue my discussion of poetry as a transformation of experience that is a product of the lyrical imagination, and to wrap up my consideration of surrealist and magical realist poetry, I read poems from my book Three White Horses.    

To continue my discussion of poetry as a transformation of experience that is a product of the lyrical imagination, I follow up my consideration of surrealistic poetry with examples of magical realist and fantasy poems. These three threads are layerings of the essential core of imaginative writing and affirm how poetry is a form of transformative aesthetic expression that enables us to explore the world beyond the limits and constraints of what we individually know about it. I read poems by Pattiann Rogers, Elise Cowen, Benjamin Péret, David Gascoyne, William Butler Yeats, and Kerry Shawn Keys.  I end the program with one of my own poems. 

To follow up on my comments last week about differences between poetry as a recording of experience and poetry as a transformation of experience, I read surrealistic poems to affirm the importance of getting beyond the self-indulgent confessional voice that dominates (and, as I suggested last week, that suffocates) so much contemporary poetry. I read poems by André  Breton, Hans Arp, Andrei Codrescu, Helen Ivory, Philip Lamantia, James Tate, and Joyce Mansour.  I end the program with one of my own poems.

I consider differences between poetry as a recording of experience and poetry as a transformation of experience and focus on poems about exploration in various forms. In those contexts, I read poems by Walt Whitman, T.S. Eliot, Theodore Roethke, Langston Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop, Michael Jennings, and Lauren Camp. I end the program with one of my own poems.

As I discussed in my program last week, highways lead us to new destinations and to new discoveries there, so today I reconsider one such recent destination and read poems about Maine and about the ocean by Robert Lowell, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, Pam Burr Smith, George Oppen, and Louise Bogan.  I end the program with three of my own poems.