Poetry For All

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).