Poetry For All by Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen

05.22.2024

Episode 72: Victoria Chang, My Mother--died unpeacefully...

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...

04.18.2024

Episode 71: Hopkins, As Kingfishers Catch Fire

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....

03.19.2024

Episode 70: Lauren Camp, Inner Planets

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...

02.11.2024

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 Series and spoke with Marilyn Nelson about poetry and...

01.24.2024

Announcement

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

01.18.2024

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 his wondrous mood and mode of contemplation and...

12.19.2023

Episode 67: Alex Dimitrov, Winter Solstice

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. Thanks to Copper Canyon Press for granting us permission to...

11.21.2023

Episode 66: Katy Didden, The Priest Questions the Lava

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...

10.19.2023

Episode 65: Du Fu, Facing Snow

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...

09.22.2023

Episode 64: Shakespeare, Sonnet 29

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...

08.29.2023

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 the poetic constraints of the ghazal form,...

08.11.2023

Episode 62: Kobayashi Issa, Haiku

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...

05.11.2023

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 Carrying by Milkweed Editions. Thank you to Milkweed Editions...

05.02.2023

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 immediately precedes it in Lee's great book Rose. For...

04.07.2023

Episode 59: Tichborne's Elegy

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...

02.27.2023

Episode 58: Richie Hofmann, Things That Are Rare

In this episode, we are delighted to have Richie Hofmann as our guest. Richie Hofmann is the author of two collections: Second Empire and A Hundred Lovers. His poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Yale Review,...

02.14.2023

Episode 57: Edna St. Vincent Millay, She had forgotten how the August night

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...

01.31.2023

Episode 56: Queen Elizabeth, On Monsieur's Departure

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...

12.19.2022

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 guilt. "Crib" appears in The Best of It...

12.05.2022

Grant Writing Break

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...

11.21.2022

Episode 54: Carl Phillips, To Autumn

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...

11.07.2022

Episode 53: Carter Revard, What the Eagle Fan Says

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....

10.24.2022

Episode 52: Shakespeare, Sonnet 73

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. Our favorite...

10.10.2022

Episode 51: Martín Espada, Jumping Off the Mystic Tobin Bridge

To learn more about Martín Espada, click here. To read the poem, click here. 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. Photo credit: Lauren...

09.26.2022

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 to read this poem. You can find "Primary Care"...

09.12.2022

Episode 49: Lisel Mueller, When I am Asked

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...

04.28.2022

Episode 48: Joy Harjo, An American Sunrise

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"...

04.22.2022

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 his ideas and invites readers in, and the...

04.13.2022

Episode 46: Lucille Clifton, spring song

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...

04.03.2022

From Talk Easy: Claudia Rankine’s Just Us: An American Conversation

We’re sharing a special preview of a podcast we’ve been enjoying, Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso, from Pushkin Industries. Talk Easy is a weekly interview podcast, where writer Sam Fragoso invites actors, writers, activists, and musicians to come to the...

03.23.2022

Episode 45: Ben Jonson, On My First Son

In this episode, we look at Ben Jonson's elegy for his son who died of the plague at the age of 7. This poem is so brief, and yet, it manages to cross a lot of emotional terrain as Jonson...

03.16.2022

Episode 44: Ann Hudson, Soap

In this episode, Ann Hudson joins us to read her poem “Soap” and discuss how its narrative structure allows her to explore the history of science, technology, and our notions of progress and beauty, even when those notions do great...

03.02.2022

Episode 43: Margaret Noodin, What the Peepers Say

In this episode, Margaret Noodin joins us to discuss her poem "What the Peepers Say." In our conversation, we talk about Margaret's writing in both Anishinaabemowin and English, her attention to sounds and rhythms, and what the peeper--a tiny springtime...

02.23.2022

Episode 42: Robert Hayden, Frederick Douglass

To read Hayden's poem, click here. Thanks to W.W. Norton & Company for granting us permission to read this poem. Reginald Dwayne Betts's introduction to the Collected Poems of Robert Hayden is very moving, as is the afterword by Arnold Rampersad. For...

02.16.2022

Episode 41: F.E.W. Harper, Learning to Read

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was a prolific writer and activist of the nineteenth century. In this episode, Professor Janaka Bowman Lewis joins us to discuss her power, influence, voice, and work. "Learning to Read" foregrounds the ballad style in a...

02.09.2022

Episode 40: William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

In this episode, we provide a close reading of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, which allows us to consider the poem's definition of a love that is enduring. In addition, though, we consider a reading of the poem which foregrounds a...

02.02.2022

Episode 39: Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear The Mask

This week, Rafia Zafar joins us to discuss "We Wear the Mask" by the great poet and writer Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906). Rafia leads us in a discussion of Dunbar's fame and influence while opening up broader themes of African...

01.26.2022

Episode 38: Laura Van Prooyen, Elegy for My Mother's Mind

In this episode, our guest Laura Van Prooyen reads "Elegy for My Mother's Mind," a poem that navigates the complexities of memory, loss, and familial relationships. Laura's poem gives us an opportunity to think about the deep sources of poetic...

01.19.2022

Episode 37: Why Poetry For All

Joanne and Abram launch the fourth season of Poetry For All with a short discussion about what this podcast is all about and how it relates to all the other great poetry podcasts in the world. This conversation is an excerpt...

12.21.2021

Episode 36: Denise Levertov, On the Mystery of the Incarnation

In this episode, we discuss Denise Levertov's powerful meditation on the horrors of the twentieth century, and how the mystery of the incarnation might provide humanity with some hope. Our close reading of this poem is informed by Eavan Boland's...

12.15.2021

Episode 35: Matthew Zapruder, Poem for Wisconsin

In this episode, we discuss the way in which Matthew Zapruder attends to vivid, specific details to create a sense of wonder, connection, and surprise. To read "Poem for Wisconsin," click here. "Poem for Wisconsin" originally appeared in the collection ...

12.07.2021

Episode 34: Tracy K. Smith, Declaration

In this episode, we discuss erasure poetry and its power to reveal hidden histories and redacted stories through Tracy K. Smith's erasure of the Declaration of Independence. For the poem (including a reading and discussion of the poem by Tracy Smith),...

11.10.2021

Episode 33: Adrienne Rich, Power

This week, the poet and scholar Stephanie Burt joins us to discuss the extraordinary power of Adrienne Rich. We think through how the spacing and stanzas of a poem can draw out denials and divulgences, while also exploring the life...

11.03.2021

Episode 32: Rick Barot, Cascades 501

In this episode, poet Rick Barot guides us in our reading of his poem "Cascades 501" from The Galleons, his most recent collection. Rick's insights into how poets engage with place, create juxtapositions, and arrive at insights taught us so...

10.27.2021

Episode 31: Jane Kenyon, Twilight: After Haying

This week we take a closer look at another autumn poem, this one by Jane Kenyon from her wonderful book Otherwise: New and Selected Poems. Kenyon builds from and transforms the same tradition of the autumn ode we examined last...

10.20.2021

Episode 30: John Keats, To Autumn

To Autumn by John Keats Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd...

10.06.2021

Episode 29: Elizabeth Bishop, One Art

Elizabeth Bishop was one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, and "One Art" is certainly one of the greatest villanelles. In this episode, we talk about the poetic form and its constraints. We also draw upon recent scholarship...

09.29.2021

Episode 28: Countee Cullen, Yet Do I Marvel

Countee Cullen was a major voice of the Harlem Renaissance. Joined by the renowned cultural critic Gerald Early, we here examine together story of Countee Cullen and the astounding sonnet that opens his main collection of poetry, My Soul's High...

09.22.2021

Episode 27: Marianne Moore, Poetry

In this episode, we read and discuss the influential modernist poet Marianne Moore and her witty, wonderful poem called "Poetry," a classic ars poetica (a poem about writing poetry). This poem has gone through many different editions. We take an...

09.15.2021

Episode 26: Brenda Cárdenas, "Our Lady of Sorrows"

In this episode, Brenda Cárdenas guides us through a reading of "Our Lady of Sorrows," an ekphrastic poem that is inspired by the work of Ana Mendieta. To read more of Brenda Cárdenas's work, click here: https://uwm.edu/english/our-people/cardenas-brenda/ To learn more about Ana...