Poetry For All

In this episode, we offer a close reading of "Sumer is icumen in," a Middle English song that anticipates the abundant joys of summer. Thanks to the Pias Group for granting us permission to share the Hilliard Ensemble's rendition of this song. You can find the manuscript that includes the lyrics and music at the British Library (https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2012/06/sumer-is-icumen-in.html).

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

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 (Penn State UP, 2018). 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-herbert For the Geneva translation of Psalm 52, which Mary Sidney would have known, see here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2052&version=GNV For 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 52 translated by Mary Sidney Tyrant, 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.

We're interrupting your summer this week with a few exciting updates about Poetry For All and an excerpt from Abram Van Engen's newly released book, Word Made Fresh (https://a.co/d/07v1cD4a). If you want to join Abram for a book launch online on July 9 at 4pm Eastern, register for free by clicking this link. (https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZclde2srz8uGNxRv0IOrlI5m5HPzEUN0BZv#/registration) And if you want a free subscription to Image Journal (https://imagejournal.org/), which is an incredible faith and arts magazine, check out this offer here by clicking this link (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdaChG6KXAca5PX0Q34-eb2APcX8yTw6ipOOIVaLmncVMMctQ/viewform). You can see the book here: https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802883605/word-made-fresh/ Or at Amazon: https://a.co/d/0j5d3utJ If you read it, leave a review! Thanks for listening.

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 tries to process her mother's passing. Thanks to Copper Canyon Press (https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/) for granting us permission to read this poem, which was originally published in OBIT. Victoria's newest collection of poems, With My Back to the World, (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374611132/withmybacktotheworld)was inspired by the work of Agnes Martin and published earlier this year. To learn more about Victoria Chang, visit her website (https://victoriachangpoet.com/).

This episode dives into the wonderful world of Gerard Manley Hopkins, the musicality of his language, and the vision he has of becoming what we already are. This poem illustrates the cover of Abram Van Engen's new book, Word Made Fresh (https://a.co/d/ixArJjV). The book explores connections between poetry and faith, and it serves as an invitation to reading poetry of all kinds--with tools and tips for how to get started and explore broadly. Special thanks to John Hendrix (https://www.johnhendrix.com/) for the cover illustration of Word Made Fresh, which is an illustration of "As Kingfishers Catch Fire." Here is the poem by Hopkins: As Kingfishers Catch Fire As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame; As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came. I say móre: the just man justices; Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces; Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is — Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his To the Father through the features of men's faces. See the poem at the Poetry Foundation. For more on Hopkins, see here (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gerard-manley-hopkins). The last chapter of Word Made Fresh (https://a.co/d/626hzDG) dwells at length on this poem by Hopkins as an expression of what poetry does and can do in the world.

In this episode, Lauren Camp joins us to read and discuss "Inner Planets," a poem that she wrote during her time as the astronomer in residence at Grand Canyon National Park. She describes her poetic process and the value of solitude in a place full of wonderment. To learn more about the Grand Canyon Astronomer in Residence program, click here (https://www.grandcanyon.org/experience-grand-canyon/residency-program/astronomer-in-residence). To learn more about Lauren Camp, visit her website (https://www.laurencamp.com/). Lauren's newest collection, In Old Sky (https://www.grandcanyon.org/products/grand-canyon-conservancy-in-old-sky-gc-poetry-book-10247), is a collection of the poems that were inspired by the Grand Canyon.

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 Series and spoke with Marilyn Nelson about poetry and her work for a live audience. For more on Marilyn Nelson, visit her website (https://marilyn-nelson.com/) or The Poetry Foundation (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/marilyn-nelson). This poem is the title poem of an extraordinary book called How I Discovered Poetry (https://a.co/d/6xrZVm9) It was originally published in The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems (https://a.co/d/0iajt2m) Thank you to LSU Press for permission to read and discussion this poem on our podcast.

We share some news about a new website at poetryforallpod.com and a live event next week! https://poetryforallpod.com/

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 his wondrous mood and mode of contemplation and surprise. Picking up on the "radical hope" we discussed in Dimitrov's "Winter Solstice," we turn to Merwin's sense of what is untouched but still possible as he greets the new year. In this episode, we quote a few pieces from The New Yorker. Here they are, plus a few other resources. "The Aesthetic Insight of W.S. Merwin (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/18/the-ascetic-insight-of-w-s-merwin)" by Dan Chiasson "The Final Prophecy of W.S. Merwin (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/the-final-prophecy-of-w-s-merwin)" by Dan Chiasson "The Palm Trees and Poetry of W.S. Merwin (https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-palm-trees-and-poetry-of-w-s-merwin)" by Casey Cep "When You Go Away: Remembering W.S. Merwin (https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/when-you-go-away-remembering-w-s-merwin)" by Kevin Young See also The Poetry Foundation (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/w-s-merwin). The poem originally appeared in Present Company (https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/present-company-by-w-s-merwin/) (Copper Canyon Press, 2005). Thanks to the Wylie Agency for granting us permission to read this poem on the episode.

In this episode, we read and discuss a poem that provides a powerful meditation on the longest night of the year. To learn more about Alex Dimitrov, please visit his website (https://www.alexdimitrov.com/poems). Thanks to Copper Canyon Press (https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/authors/alex-dimitrov/) for granting us permission to read this poem from Love and Other Poems. During our conversation, we briefly allude to "Love," Dimitrov's wonderful poem that he continues to write each day. To read the original poem, you can check the American Poetry Review (https://aprweb.org/poems/love0); and to read Dimitrov's additional lines on Twitter, you can follow him at @apoemcalledlove on Twitter (https://x.com/apoemcalledlove?s=20).

In our discussion of "The Priest Questions the Lava," Katy describes the sentience of the natural world, her erasure of documentary texts, her interest in visual poetry, and the importance of poems that examine ethical and spiritual questions in an era of climate change. To see Katy's erasure, click on the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day feature (https://poets.org/poem/ore-choir-priest-questions-lava). Visit the Tupelo Press website to purchase a copy of Ore Choir: The Lava on Iceland (https://www.tupelopress.org/product/ore-choir-the-lava-on-iceland/). The website includes a lesson plan for those who might want to introduce Katy's poetry into the classroom.

In this episode, Lucas Bender guides us through his translation of Du Fu's "Facing Snow," one of the most famous poems in the Chinese language. To learn more about Du Fu's life, work, and cultural significance, please see Lucas Bender's Du Fu Transforms: Tradition and Ethics amid Societal Collapse (Harvard University Press, 2021). (https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674260177)

In episode 64, we talk about Shakespeare's sonnet 29, a poem about comparison and competition, leading the poet almost to despise himself before, by chance, he remembers his dear friend and is lifted by the deep joy of that relationship. We link our discussion to present-day concerns about social media, the Surgeon General's warning about an epidemic of loneliness in this country, and a long-term Harvard study of happiness. Links below. Here is the poem: Sonnet 29 When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. Links to the Surgeon General's Warning about Social Media https://www.npr.org/2023/05/23/1177626373/u-s-surgeon-general-vivek-murthy-warns-about-the-dangers-of-social-media-to-kids#:~:text=Social%20media%20can%20present%20a,a%20new%20advisory%20released%20Tuesday. Various Links on the Harvard Happiness Study https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/harvard-happiness-study-relationships/672753/ https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/10/85-year-harvard-study-found-the-secret-to-a-long-happy-and-successful-life.html https://www.reuters.com/markets/wealth/what-worlds-longest-happiness-study-says-about-money-2023-02-06/

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 the poetic constraints of the ghazal form, Rumi's encounters with the divine, and the significance of his friendship with Shams, a man who transformed his life and poetic practice. Haleh Liza Gafori's translations of Rumi's poetry appear in Gold (https://www.nyrb.com/products/gold) (NYRB Press, 2022). You can learn more about her work as a vocalist, poet, translator and performer here (https://www.halehliza.com/). To learn more about Rumi, visit the Poetry Foundation website (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jalal-al-din-rumi). Cover photo from The Walters Art Museum (https://art.thewalters.org/detail/77715/illuminated-preface-to-the-second-book-of-the-collection-of-poems-masnavi-2/)

What makes haiku "the perfect poetic form"? This episode reads three wonderful haiku by Kobayashi Issa and explores what makes them so moving and fun. We use the beautiful translations of award-winning poet Robert Haas in The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa. To see these haiku and others online, visit The Poetry Foundation here (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50983/selected-haiku-by-issa). To see (and purchase) the book, see HarperCollins here (https://www.harpercollins.com/products/essential-haiku-volume-20-hass?variant=32118145876002). Thank you to HarperCollins for permission to read these translations on our podcast. For more on Kobayashi Issa, visit the Poetry Foundation here (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/kobayashi-issa).

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 Carrying (https://milkweed.org/book/the-carrying) by Milkweed Editions. Thank you to Milkweed Editions for permission to read the poem on this podcast. You can find the "The Raincoat" on the Poetry Foundation website (https://poets.org/poem/raincoat). To learn more about Ada Limón, the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States, visit the Library of Congress website (https://guides.loc.gov/poet-laureate-ada-limon/activities-at-the-library). Ada Limón's author website (https://www.adalimon.net/) includes information about her six books of poetry as well as interviews, press releases, and her calendar of events. Photo credit: Shawn Miller, Library of Congress

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 immediately precedes it in Lee's great book Rose. For more on Li-Young Lee, see The Poetry Foundation here (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/li-young-lee). Thanks to BOA Editions for granting us permission to read Li-Young Lee's work on our podcast. "From Blossoms (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43012/from-blossoms)" and "The Weight of Sweetness (https://poets.org/poem/weight-sweetness)" originally appeared in Rose (https://www.boaeditions.org/products/rose) (BOA Editions, 1986).

In this episode, we read the elegy of Chidiock Tichborne, written the night before his execution, and contemplate the power of repetitions, the balanced precision of a man facing his end, and the drumbeat of monosyllables that takes his imagination beyond the moment of his death. Tichborne's Elegy My feast of joy is but a dish of pain, My crop of corn is but a field of tares, And all my good is but vain hope of gain: The day is past, and yet I saw no sun, And now I live, and now my life is done. The spring is past, and yet it hath not sprung, My fruit is fallen, and yet my leaves are green, The spring is past, and yet it hath not sprung, I saw the world, and yet I was not seen: My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun, And now I live, and now my life is done. I sought my death, and found it in my womb, I looked for life, and saw it was a shade, I trod the earth, and knew it was my tomb, And now I die, and now I was but made; The glass is full, and now the glass is run, And now I live, and now my life is done. For more on Tichborne, see The Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/chidiock-tichborne See also all the related content at The Poetry Foundation

In this episode, we are delighted to have Richie Hofmann as our guest. Richie Hofmann is the author of two collections: Second Empire (https://www.alicejamesbooks.org/bookstore/second-empire) and A Hundred Lovers (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/689918/a-hundred-lovers-by-richie-hofmann/). His poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Yale Review, and many other literary magazines, and he is the recipient of Ruth Lilly and Wallace Stegner fellowships. To learn more about Richie, visit his website (https://www.richiehofmann.com/). To learn more about Richie Hofmann's poetry and process, read Jesse Nathan's interview with Richie Hoffman in McSweeney's (https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/richie-hofmann). Richie Hofmann photo credit: Marcus Jackson

She called herself Vincent, she smoked cigarettes, and she wore shimmery golden evening gowns when she read her poetry to sold-out crowds. Edna St. Vincent Millay was the emblem of the "New Woman" and one of the most important American poets of the twentieth century...but in years after her death, her literary reputation suffered, and only recently have critics and historians revisited and properly celebrated her work. In this episode, we focus on a sonnet that showcases the ways in which Millay approached desire and eros in her poetry. To learn more about Edna St. Vincent Millay and her life and times, take a look Burning Candles: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay, an informative documentary available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9ItdEiBR-o&t=2901s Here is the poem: She had forgotten how the August night Was level as a lake beneath the moon, In which she swam a little, losing sight Of shore; and how the boy, who was at noon Simple enough, not different from the rest, Wore now a pleasant mystery as he went, Which seemed to her an honest enough test Whether she loved him, and she was content. So loud, so loud the million crickets' choir. . . So sweet the night, so long-drawn-out and late. . . And if the man were not her spirit's mate, Why was her body sluggish with desire? Stark on the open field the moonlight fell, But the oak tree's shadow was deep and black and secret as a well. We so admire the podcast Poem Talk. In this episode, Al Filreis, Elisa New, Jane Malcolm, and Sophia DuRose offer a close reading of two more poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/podcasts/155947/biologically-speaking-a-discussion-of-love-is-not-all-and-i-shall-forget-you-presently-by-edna-st-vincent-millay photo by Carl Van Vechten

Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) was one of the longest-reigning monarchs in all of British history, but she was also a gifted poet. In this episode, we discuss "On Monsieur's Departure," a poem that is inspired by Petrarchan conventions and gives insight into the public and private selves of a powerful queen. (For the text of the poem, scroll to the bottom.) In this episode, we attempt to describe the magnificence of some of Queen Elizabeth's portraiture. To learn more, visit the National Portrait Gallery of London (https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/research/programmes/making-art-in-tudor-britain/case-studies/the-queens-likeness-portraits-of-elizabeth-i): To learn more about Petrarch and his poems that were such an enormous influence on English poets of the sixteenth century, please read this book (https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674663480&content=toc), which provides Petrarch's original poems in Italian and Robert Durling's stunning translations into English. To learn more about what it meant to "fashion a self" in the Renaissance, see Stephen Greenblatt's foundational work on this idea (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo3680145.html) . On Monsieur's Departure BY QUEEN ELIZABETH I I grieve and dare not show my discontent, I love and yet am forced to seem to hate, I do, yet dare not say I ever meant, I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate. I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned, Since from myself another self I turned. My care is like my shadow in the sun, Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it, Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done. His too familiar care doth make me rue it. No means I find to rid him from my breast, Till by the end of things it be supprest. Some gentler passion slide into my mind, For I am soft and made of melting snow; Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind. Let me or float or sink, be high or low. Or let me live with some more sweet content, Or die and so forget what love ere meant.

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 guilt. "Crib" appears in The Best of It © 2010 by Kay Ryan. Used by permissions of Grove/Atlantic, Inc. For more on Kay Ryan and her work, you can visit the Poetry Foundation (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/kay-ryan) website. Our favorite interview with Kay Ryan appears in the Paris Review (https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5889/the-art-of-poetry-no-94-kay-ryan).

This week, Joanne and Abram take a break to write a grant for the podcast. We very much hope you enjoy Poetry For All. And if you do, please leave us a review, share it with a friend, and let us know! Thank you all for listening.

In this episode, we talk with David Baker about "To Autumn" by Carl Phillips, exploring the way Phillips masterfully achieves a sense of intimacy and restlessness in a lyric ode that tosses between two parts while incorporating the sonnet tradition. For more on Carl Phillips, please visit the Poetry Foundation (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/carl-phillips). For more on David Baker, please visit the Poetry Foundation (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/david-baker). "To Autumn" has been read from Carl Phillips' latest book of poetry, Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020 (https://www.amazon.com/Then-War-Selected-Poems-2007-2020/dp/0374603766). The latest book by Carl Phillips is a collection of essays called My Trade Is Mystery. Purchase at Yale University Press (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300257878/my-trade-is-mystery/) or Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/My-Trade-Mystery-Meditations-Writing/dp/0300257872) or wherever you get your books.

In this episode, we focus on the life and work of Carter Revard, an Osage poet whose medieval scholarship informs the structure of "What the Eagle Fan Says." Jessica Rosenfeld, a professor of medieval literature at Washington University in St. Louis, joins us for this discussion. Carter Revard was a prolific poet and scholar. To learn more about his work, click here (https://source.wustl.edu/2022/01/obituary-carter-revard-of-arts-sciences-90/). "What the Eagle Fan Says" was originally published in How the Songs Came Down (https://www.saltpublishing.com/products/how-the-songs-come-down-9781844710645) (Salt Publishing, 2005). To learn more about accentual verse, read this brief treatment (https://danagioia.com/essays/writing-and-reading/accentual-verse/) by poet Dana Gioia.

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 more about Shakespeare's sonnets, visit Folger Shakespeare page (https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/shakespeares-sonnets/). Our favorite editions of Shakespeare's sonnets are edited by Colin Burrow (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/complete-sonnets-and-poems-9780199535798?cc=us&lang=en&) and Stephen Booth (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300085068/shakespeares-sonnets/). Sir Patrick Stewart's reading (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqdhZo9b7NU) of Sonnet 73 is one of our favorites.

To learn more about Martín Espada, click here (http://www.martinespada.net/). To read the poem, click here (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/148216/jumping-off-the-mystic-tobin-bridge). This is the first poem that appears in Floaters, the winner of the 2021 National Book Award. To purchase a copy of the book, click here (https://bookshop.org/books/floaters-poems/9780393541038?gclid=Cj0KCQjw1vSZBhDuARIsAKZlijT8OEgpGJEIilmuKjBVZAg1Blepy5UUN7ylUOjDN5Ivq8AdnC9iFPsaApX6EALw_wcB). Photo credit: Lauren Marie Schmidt (cropped to fit dimensions)

In this episode, we discuss how Rafael Campo, a practicing physician, uses blank verse to explore the experience of illness and suffering.

In this episode, we closely read Lisel Mueller's "When I am Asked" in order to better understand grief as a deep source of artistic expression. We look at language as a source of connection and hope, even in the midst of sorrow and solitude. With this poem about the making of poetry (an_ ars poetica_), we come to see how one artist turned to the intricacies of language in the face of a nature that seemed indifferent to her loss. For the text of the poem, click here: "When I Am Asked (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/36931/when-i-am-asked)" Note: When out of copyright, we reproduce the text of the poem ourselves. When still in copyright, we link to the text of the poem elsewhere. For more on Lisel Mueller (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lisel-mueller), see the Poetry Foundation.

In this episode, we examine The Golden Shovel form and discuss the idea of "survivance" through the work of Muscogee (Creek) poet Joy Harjo, the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States. You can find the text of "An American Sunrise" here (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/92063/an-american-sunrise), though this is an earlier version of the poem. The final version appears in her finished book of the same title, which you can find here (https://www.joyharjo.com/book/an-american-sunrise). For an introduction to The Golden Shovel form, see here (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/92023/introduction-586e948ad9af8).

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 his ideas and invites readers in, and the cultural context in which Whitman produced his work. To read the text of this poem, click here (https://poets.org/poem/song-myself-6-child-said-what-grass) or see below: To learn more about Walt Whitman and his work, visit the Walt Whitman Archive (https://whitmanarchive.org/), a magnificent compendium of information about Whitman's life, cultural context, and editions of Leaves of Grass. To learn more about scholar Christopher Hanlon, click here (https://newcollege.asu.edu/christopher-hanlon). Text from Leaves of Grass: A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose? Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation. Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, Growing among black folks as among white, Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same. And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. Tenderly will I use you curling grass, It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken, It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, soon out of their mothers' laps, And here you are the mothers' laps. This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers, Darker than the colorless beards of old men, Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths. O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues, And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing. I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women, And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps. What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children? They are alive and well somewhere, The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas'd the moment life appear'd. All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

Lucille Clifton (1936-2010) was one of the most powerful poets of the twentieth century. This joyful poem caps a sequence of sixteen poems called "some jesus," which walks through biblical characters (beginning with Adam and Eve) and ends on four poems for Holy Week and Easter. She wrote other poems on the Bible as well, including "john (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54586/john-56d2351ad543b)" and "my dream about the second coming (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46667/my-dream-about-the-second-coming)," which reimagine a way into biblical characters to make their stories fresh. Clifton wrote from the perspective of a Black woman and many of her most famous poems address race and gender. Clear-eyed about struggles and hardships, insistent in her calls for justice and equality, Clifton's poetry carries a consistent joy and hope, which is apparent (and abundant) in "spring song." Clifton's poetry was known for its lean style, paring everything down to its essential elements. In addition to award-winning collections of poetry, Clifton also wrote sixteen books for children (and had six children herself). For the text of "spring song," and for a recording of Lucille Clifton reading it, see The Poetry Foundation (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54587/spring-song-56d2351b45223). For more on Lucille Clifton see her biography (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lucille-clifton) at The Poetry Foundation. For an introduction to Lucille Clifton, see the poem sampler "Lucille Clifton 101 (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/155348/lucille-clifton-101)" by Benjamin Voigt.