Basement Poetry Podcast

Robin Becker Bio: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robin-becker

To spice things up with the start of the 4th season of the Basement Poetry Podcast, we will look at John Kenney's poem, "Hold the Elevator?"

Link to John Kenney's website: Books — John Kenney (byjohnkenney.com)

Amazon.com: Love Poems for the Office: 9780593190708: Kenney, John: Books

If you would like a poem read on the podcast, send an email to [email protected]

Link to poem: American Poetry Review – Poems (aprweb.org)

If you stayed to listen to the end, or if you did not, please submit your work to American Writers Review (San Fedele Press Submission Manager (submittable.com)

https://allpoetry.com/Tonight-I-Can-Write-(The-Saddest-Lines)

Happy Valentine's Day. 

Today we talk about Pablo Neruda's poem, "Tonight I Can Write (The Saddest Lines) 

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Today we will be looking at the poem "Words for Worry" by Li-Young Lee.

Bio: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/li-young-lee

The Poem:

by Li-Young Lee

Another word for father is worry.

Worry boils the water

for tea in the middle of the night.

Worry trimmed the child’s nails before

singing him to sleep.

Another word for son is delight,

another word, hidden.

And another is One-Who-Goes-Away.

Yet another, One-Who-Returns.

So many words for son:

He-Dreams-for-All-Our-Sakes.

His-Play-Vouchsafes-Our-Winter-Share.

His-Dispersal-Wins-the-Birds.

But only one word for father.

And sometimes a man is both.

Which is to say sometimes a man

manifests mysteries beyond

his own understanding.

For instance, being the one and the many,

and the loneliness of either. Or

the living light we see by, we never see. Or

the sole word weighs

heavy as a various name.

And sleepless worry folds the laundry for tomorrow.

Tired worry wakes the child for school.

Orphan worry writes the note he hides

in the child’s lunch bag.

It begins, Dear Firefly….

Today we will be looking at the poem "Mr. On Time" by Alan King

Link to Alan King's Website: https://alanwking.com/2018/06/02/mr-on-time-alan-kings-point-blank/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/poet-billy-collins-reflects-on-9-11-victims-in-the-names

"The Names" - Billy Collins

Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.

A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,

And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,

I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,

Then Baxter and Calabro,

Davis and Eberling, names falling into place

As droplets fell through the dark.

Names printed on the ceiling of the night.

Names slipping around a watery bend.

Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.

In the morning, I walked out barefoot

Among thousands of flowers

Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,

And each had a name —

Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal

Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.

Names written in the air

And stitched into the cloth of the day.

A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.

Monogram on a torn shirt,

I see you spelled out on storefront windows

And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.

I say the syllables as I turn a corner —

Kelly and Lee,

Medina, Nardella, and O'Connor.

When I peer into the woods,

I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden

As in a puzzle concocted for children.

Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,

Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,

Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.

Names written in the pale sky.

Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.

Names silent in stone

Or cried out behind a door.

Names blown over the earth and out to sea.

In the evening — weakening light, the last swallows.

A boy on a lake lifts his oars.

A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,

And the names are outlined on the rose clouds —

Vanacore and Wallace,

(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)

Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.

Names etched on the head of a pin.

One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.

A blue name needled into the skin.

Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,

The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.

Alphabet of names in a green field.

Names in the small tracks of birds.

Names lifted from a hat

Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.

Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.

So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.

Today we will take a look at "The Rainstick" by Seamus Heaney. 

Bio: Seamus Heaney is widely recognized as one of the major poets of the 20th century. A native of Northern Ireland, Heaney was raised in County Derry, and later lived for many years in Dublin. He was the author of over 20 volumes of poetry and criticism, and edited several widely used anthologies. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past." Heaney taught at Harvard University (1985-2006) and served as the Oxford Professor of Poetry (1989-1994). He died in 2013.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/seamus-heaney

"The Rainstick" by Seamus Heaney.

Upend the rainstick and what happens next

https://newrepublic.com/article/114546/seamus-heaney-rainstick

Today we will be taking a look at the great Nikki Giovanni's poem, "No Pancakes Please" 

This poem direness from her 2020 collection of poetry and prose Make Me Rain

Bio: Nikki Giovanni is one of America’s foremost poets. Over the course of a long career, Giovanni has published numerous collections of poetry—from her first self-published volume Black Feeling Black Talk (1968) to New York Times best-seller Bicycles: Love Poems (2009)—several works of nonfiction and children’s literature, and multiple recordings, including the Emmy-award nominated The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection (2004). Her most recent publications include Make Me Rain: Poems and Prose (2020), Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid (2013) and, as editor, The 100 Best African American Poems (2010). A frequent lecturer and reader, Giovanni has taught at Rutgers University, Ohio State University, and Virginia Tech, where she is a University Distinguished Professor.https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/nikki-giovanni