Poetry Centered

Abigail Chabitnoy curates poems that dwell in fields of searching, connecting, and being. She introduces Michael Wasson communing with those who are no longer breathing (“Aposiopesis [or, The Field between the Living & the Dead]”), Jean Valentine considering the moment and its boundaries (“To my soul”), and Saretta Morgan writing into love over many years (“Dearth-light”). To close, Chabitnoy reads her poem “Signs You Are Standing at the End,” which enters its own field of imagining acros...

Diego Báez introduces us to three Gabriels connected by themes of reclamation and new beginnings. He shares Gabriel Dozal approaching the US-Mexico border with humor (“You Look at Crossers, You Look Just Like Them”), Gabriel Palacios unpacking narratives of inheritance and race (“The Friar’s Daughter’s Mother”), and Jimmy Santiago Baca experiencing the birth of his son, Gabriel (“Child of the Sun—Gabriel’s Birth (Sun Prayer)”). Báez closes by reading “Neuropathy with Lamb,” which reflects on ...

Valerie Hsiung selects poems that disorient as they open us to the vital, visceral present. She introduces Roberto Tejada and the poem as a breaking fever (“Kill Time Objective”), Jennifer Elise Foerster as a channel for a multiplicity of lost voices (“Hokkolen: I become the canyon, its dreaming eye”), and Mei-mei Berssenbrugge narrowing the senses to expand what remains (“Slow Down Now”). To close, Hsiung reads from her sequence “a-begging,” her voice responding to the room where she’s recor...

Geffrey Davis selects recordings that reveal the bold, risky, and relentless work of attention and connection that poetry undertakes. He shares Lisel Mueller pushing against the limits of human understanding (“What the Dog Perhaps Hears”), Carl Phillips exploring change as more than calamity (“Continuous Until We Stop”), and Ross Gay asserting that pain and grief live alongside gratitude (“Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude”). Davis closes by reading his poem “Inside the Charged Dark,” paying tri...

Vickie Vértiz curates poems that chart a path to a collective future where we can survive crises, connect with others, and see life’s beauty. She introduces Khadijah Queen looking to words as weapons amidst grief (“bloodroot,” “Dear fear…”), Lehua M. Taitano moving through the luminous ocean of time (“Queer Check-Ins”), and Angel Dominguez breaking through the world’s isolation (“What Does the Future Sing to You in Dreams”). Vértiz closes with her poem “Disco,” a celebration of discovery and ...

Eugenia Leigh introduces poems that speak from a particular moment into our own time, offering possibility amidst struggle. She shares John Murillo’s engagement with resistance and reality (“Enter the Dragon”), Monica Sok’s truth-telling about genocide (“Tuol Sleng”), and Angel Dominguez’s joyful protest against capitalism. Leigh closes with her poem “This City,” which ends with renewal. Watch the full recordings of Murillo, Sok, and Dominguez reading for the Poetry Center on Voca: John Muril...

Mary Jo Bang brings together poems united by astonishment at the continuation of a world that seems utterly self-destructive. She shares Claudia Rankine on the illusions of American optimism (“Don’t Let Me Be Lonely”), Srikanth Reddy on mortality and teaching literature (“Underworld Lit”), and Timothy Donnelly on the human experience of a polluted world (“In My Life”). She closes with her own “Cosmic Madonna,” an ekphrastic poem inspired by Salvador Dali. Watch the full recordings of Rankine,...

Olatunde Osinaike curates poems that meld comedy, cultural scrutiny, and self-imagination. He introduces Patricia Spears Jones clearing a path for desire (“Self-Portrait as Midnight Storm”), Morgan Parker pursuing feeling through description (“Magical Negro #217: Diana Ross Finishing a Rib in Alabama, 1990s”), and Ishmael Reed satirizing wealth and importance (“Sixth Street Corporate War”). Olatunde closes with his own self-identification, “Self-Portrait in Lieu of My EP.” Find the full recor...

Sawako Nakayasu selects poems that confront griefs personal and national, told directly and obliquely. She introduces Timothy Liu documenting the atrocities of Japanese imperialism (“A Requiem for the Homeless Spirits”), Daniel Borzutzky’s translation of Raul Zurita witnessing to the brutal crimes of the Chilean dictatorship (“Song for His Disappeared Love”), and Keith Waldrop conjuring a grief-riddled dream landscape (“An Apparatus”). Nakayasu closes with her own “Ant in a silvery tide,” a p...

Jake Skeets curates poems by Diné poets centering on translation and the way that the Diné language orients its speakers to the world, which exists before them. He shares Rex Lee Jim’s invocation of voice as what brings life (“Language”), Laura Tohe’s embodiment of meaning in rhythm and sound (“Niltsá Bi'áád, Female Rain” and “Niltsá Bika', Male Rain”), and Luci Tapahonso’s blending of Diné syntax with English (“Hills Brothers Coffee”). Skeets closes with his poem “Emerging,” which traces the...

Sally Wen Mao shares poems that trace her awakening as a poet, invoking teachers both in person and on the page. She introduces Claribel Alegría on how to express the unknowable and untraceable (“Savoir Faire”), Terrance Hayes on transformation as the role of poetry in the world (“The Deer”), and Bhanu Kapil on poetic language as a means of collapsing borders (“Humanimal”). Mao concludes with her poem “a dream or a fox,” written after Lucille Clifton’s “A Dream of Foxes.” Find the full ...

Lauren Camp selects poems that each inhabit a place, a music, another person—shaping a cosmos large or small in language. She introduces Beckian Fritz Goldberg synchronizing past and present (“Black Fish Blues”), Olga Broumas moving through shadows toward individual lives (“The Moon of Mind Against the Wooden Louver”), and Lisel Mueller cherishing names as a beginning (“Naming the Animals”). Camp closes with her poem “Ode to Two,” where land, house, and lovers are celebrated by light. Listen ...

Sophia Terazawa introduces poems that lead us to encounter both the beloved and the enemy, seeing them blurred and intertwined—seeing them as human. She shares Joy Harjo’s prayer of courage for the heart (“This Morning I Pray for My Enemies”), Khaled Mattawa’s recognition of the faceless dead (“Face: To the One Million Plus”), and Carolyn Forché’s liturgy for the last hour (“Prayer”). To close, Terazawa reads her poem “Gibbons Howling,” a prayer spoken from dreams into dust. Wa...

Radical Reversal highlights the reformative abilities of the arts by bringing poetry, music, and music production workshops—along with performance and recordings spaces—to detention centers and correctional facilities. In this bonus episode, Radical Reversal co-founder Randall Horton shares recordings from three youth writers and performers who worked with Radical Reversal at Jefferson County Youth Detention Center in Birmingham, Alabama. Poet Patrick Rosal makes a guest appearance on flute f...

Manuel Paul López curates poems that draw us into the nourishing mysteries of water. He shares Ofelia Zepeda’s evocation of moisture’s deep ties to people and land ("The Place Where Clouds Are Formed"), Li-Young Lee’s meditation on weeping and the gifts given by those we’ve lost ("'Why are you crying,' my father asked…"), and Quincy Troupe’s precise, tender visions of sunlight and sea ("The Point Loma Series of Haikus and Tankas"). López closes with "Green Water," his own meditation on "the w...