Basement Poetry Podcast

Basement Poetry Podcast

By Wayne BensonArtsBooks
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Basement Poetry Podcast episodes

  • Ada Limón "The Vulture & The Body"
    Poem - "The Vulture & The Body"
    Link to Poem - https://www.vqronline.org/poetry/2017/10/vulture-body
    Poem:
    On my way to the fertility clinic,
    I pass five dead animals.
    First a raccoon with all four paws to the sky
                   like he’s going to catch whatever bullshit load falls on him next.
    Then, a grown coyote, his furred golden body soft against the white 
            cement lip of the traffic barrier. Trickster no longer,
    an eye closed to what’s coming.
    Close to the water tower that says, “Florence, Y’all,” which means I’m near Cincinnati,
       but still in the bluegrass state, and close to my exit, I see
    three dead deer, all staggered but together, and I realize as I speed past in my
    death machine that they are a family. I say something
    to myself that’s in between a prayer and curse—how dare we live
        on this Earth.
    I want to tell my doctor about how we all hold a duality
           in our minds: futures entirely different. Footloose or forged.
    I want to tell him how lately, it’s enough to be reminded that my body
         is not just my body, but that I’m made of old stars and so’s he, and that last Tuesday,
    I sat alone in the car by the post office and just was for a whole hour, no one
    knowing how to find me, until I got out, the sound of the car door shutting like a gun,
    and mailed letters, all of them saying, Thank you.
    But in the clinic, the sonogram wand showing my follicles, he asks if I have any questions,
    and says, Things are getting exciting.
    I want to say, But what about all the dead animals? The Earth? Our trapped bodies?
    But he goes quicksilver, and I’m left to pull my panties up like a big girl.
    Somedays there is a violent sister inside of me, and a red ladder 
    that wants to go elsewhere.
    I drive home on the other side of the road, going south now. The white coat has said
         I’m ready, and I watch as a vulture crosses over me, heading toward
    the carcasses I haven’t properly mourned or even forgiven. What if, instead of carrying
    a child, I am supposed to carry grief? The great black scavenger flies parallel now,
    each of us speeding, intently and driven, toward what we’ve been taught to do with death.
    11 min
  • "This Is Just To Say" - William Carlos Williams

    Today we will take a look at the poem "This Is Just To Say"  by  William Carlos Williams.

    https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56159/this-is-just-to-say

    This Is Just To Say 

    I have eaten

    the plums

    that were in

    the icebox

    and which

    you were probably

    saving

    for breakfast

    Forgive me

    they were delicious

    so sweet

    and so cold

    7 min
  • "I, Being Born a Woman..." - Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Link to Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/148564/i-being-born-a-woman-and-distressed


    "I, being born a woman and distressed"

    BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

    I, being born a woman and distressed

    By all the needs and notions of my kind,

    Am urged by your propinquity to find

    Your person fair, and feel a certain zest

    To bear your body’s weight upon my breast:

    So subtly is the fume of life designed,

    To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,

    And leave me once again undone, possessed.

    Think not for this, however, the poor treason

    Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,

    I shall remember you with love, or season

    My scorn with pity,—let me make it plain:

    I find this frenzy insufficient reason

    For conversation when we meet again.


    10 min
  • Langston Hughes: "Dinner Guest: Me"

    Today we will discussing the poem Dinner Guest: Me by Langston Hughes

     Link to reading by Langston Hughes: https://open.spotify.com/track/7Ji7oKNUCM3WasFMjS7eD1?si=Fts84dpLSyWJ0m6C2rTeTQ


    8 min
  • Is This The End?
    This may be the exact poem you need to get you through the Apocolypse
    Today we will be talking about a poem titled "Zombie" by Daniel McGinn from an anthology of zombie poetry titled "Aim For The Head" edited by Rob Sturma
    Link to Anthology: https://www.amazon.com/Aim-Head-Rob-Sturma-ebook/dp/B0071NV5JY
    Link to Poem: https://books.google.com/books?id=04dXDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT43&lpg=PT43&dq=zombie+Daniel+Mcginn&source=bl&ots=NGorwDVAqv&sig=ACfU3U2DS9rPdZ7UUy4yqcBkMY15jq7u0w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjaubq9psXqAhWvmuAKHWPzD5cQ6AEwAXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
    12 min
  • Love
    Today I will be reading a poem of mine that was just published today titled "Love" 
    Link to Poem: https://www.perhappened.com/lovewaynebenson.html
    For Inquiries: [email protected]
    7 min
  • "After great pain, a formal feeling comes – (372)"

    We will be taking a look at Emily Dickinson's poem "After great pain, a formal feeling comes "

    https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/emily-dickinson

    After great pain, a formal feeling comes


    After great pain, a formal feeling comes –

    The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –

    The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’

    And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?


    The Feet, mechanical, go round –

    A Wooden way

    Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –

    Regardless grown,

    A Quartz contentment, like a stone –


    This is the Hour of Lead –

    Remembered, if outlived,

    As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –

    First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

    11 min

About Basement Poetry Podcast

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Recorded in my basement, a podcast where we read and discuss poetry and try to uncover the roots of what makes a poem work.