Basement Poetry Podcast

Basement Poetry Podcast

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Basement Poetry Podcast episodes

  • Biking Across Town

    Today, I will be reading one of my own poems titled "biking across town at 15" 

    All Inquiries: [email protected]

    biking across town at 15

    boy riding free—

    don’t you dare hide your heat

    from this world

    let them smell the rubber

    burning at your feet

    watch their faces turn

    and sink

    when they see you

    speeding downhill

    shirt snatched back

    by the wind

    boy follow those yellow lines

    and freeze time

    between them—

    only then can you observe

    how they all      pause

    and swerve      making sure

    you know fear

    is rising behind their minds

    like smoke

    you won’t know

    if they are scared

    for your life

    or because of it—

    9 min
  • With Gratitude
    Today we will take a look at "Ode to Buttoning and Unbuttoning My Shirt" by Ross Gay and talk about Imagery in Poetry
    Email all inquiries to [email protected]
    Link to Poem: https://onbeing.org/poetry/ode-to-buttoning-and-unbuttoning-my-shirt/
    Ode to Buttoning and Unbuttoning My Shirt
    by Ross Gay
    Listen
    No one knew or at least
    I didn’t know
    they knew
    what the thin disks
    threaded here
    on my shirt
    might give me
    in terms of joy
    this is not something to be taken lightly
    the gift
    of buttoning one’s shirt
    slowly
    top to bottom
    or bottom
    to top or sometimes
    the buttons
    will be on the other
    side and
    I am a woman
    that morning
    slipping the glass
    through its slot
    I tread
    differently that day
    or some of it
    anyway
    my conversations
    are different
    and the car bomb slicing the air
    and the people in it
    for a quarter mile
    and the honeybee’s
    legs furred with pollen
    mean another
    thing to me
    than on the other days
    which too have
    been drizzled in this
    simplest of joys
    in this world
    of spaceships and subatomic
    this and that
    two maybe three
    times a day
    some days
    I have the distinct pleasure
    of slowly untethering
    the one side
    from the other
    which is like unbuckling
    a stack of vertebrae
    with delicacy
    for I must only use
    the tips
    of my fingers
    with which I will
    one day close
    my mother’s eyes
    this is as delicate
    as we can be
    in this life
    practicing
    like this
    giving the raft of our hands
    to the clumsy spider
    and blowing soft until she
    lifts her damp heft and
    crawls off
    we practice like this
    pushing the seed into the earth
    like this first
    in the morning
    then at night
    we practice
    sliding the bones home.
    10 min
  • "The Double Image"

    Today We will look at "The Double Image" by Anne Sexton

    All questions or poetry suggestion, send to [email protected]


    Anne Sexton Bio: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/anne-sexton

    Poem Link/Transcription: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53110/the-double-image

    6.

    In north light, my smile is held in place,

    the shadow marks my bone.

    What could I have been dreaming as I sat there,

    all of me waiting in the eyes, the zone

    of the smile, the young face,

    the foxes’ snare.

    In south light, her smile is held in place,

    her cheeks wilting like a dry

    orchid; my mocking mirror, my overthrown

    love, my first image. She eyes me from that face,

    that stony head of death

    I had outgrown.

    The artist caught us at the turning;

    we smiled in our canvas home

    before we chose our foreknown separate ways.

    The dry red fur fox coat was made for burning.

    I rot on the wall, my own

    Dorian Gray.

    And this was the cave of the mirror,

    that double woman who stares

    at herself, as if she were petrified

    in time — two ladies sitting in umber chairs.

    You kissed your grandmother

    and she cried.

    7.

    I could not get you back

    except for weekends. You came

    each time, clutching the picture of a rabbit

    that I had sent you. For the last time I unpack

    your things. We touch from habit.

    The first visit you asked my name.

    Now you stay for good. I will forget

    how we bumped away from each other like marionettes

    on strings. It wasn’t the same

    as love, letting weekends contain

    us. You scrape your knee. You learn my name,

    wobbling up the sidewalk, calling and crying.

    You call me mother and I remember my mother again,

    somewhere in greater Boston, dying.

    I remember we named you Joyce

    so we could call you Joy.

    You came like an awkward guest

    that first time, all wrapped and moist

    and strange at my heavy breast.

    I needed you. I didn’t want a boy,

    only a girl, a small milky mouse

    of a girl, already loved, already loud in the house

    of herself. We named you Joy.

    I, who was never quite sure

    about being a girl, needed another

    life, another image to remind me.

    And this was my worst guilt; you could not cure

    nor soothe it. I made you to find me.

    11 min
  • Remain Uncomfortable
    Today we have a poem that really speaks to what our nation is going through, and what black people have to go through on a regular basis. We will take a look at Terrance Hayes's poem "Talk" 
    Link to his Bio: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/terrance-hayes
    Transcription of the Poem: 
    Talk
    like a nigger now, my white friend, M, said
    after my M.L.K. and Ronald Reagan impersonations,
    the two of us alone and shirtless in the locker room,
    and if you're thinking my knuckles knocked
    a few times against his jaw or my fingers knotted
    at his throat, you're wrong because I pretended
    I didn't hear him, and when he didn't ask it again,
    we slipped into our middle school uniforms
    since it was November, the beginning
    of basketball season, and jogged out
    onto the court to play together
    in that vision Americans wish for
    their children, and the point is we slipped
    into our uniform harmony, and spit out GO TEAM!
    our hands stacked on and beneath the hands
    of our teammates and that was as close
    as I may have come to passing for one
    of the members of The Dream, my white friend
    thinking I was so far from that word
    that he could say it to me, which I guess
    he could since I didn't let him taste the salt
    and iron in the blood, I didn't teach him
    what it's like to squint through a black eye,
    and if I had to wonder if he would have grown
    up to be the kind of white man who believes
    all blacks are thugs or if he would have learned
    to bite his tongue or let his belly be filled
    by shame, but more importantly, would I be
    the kind of black man who believes silence
    is worth more than talk or that it can be
    a kind of grace, though I'm not sure
    that's the kind of black man I've become,
    and in any case, M, wherever you are,
    I'd just like to say I heard it, but let it go,
    because I was afraid to lose our friendship
    or afraid we'd lose the game -- which we did anyway.
    14 min
  • A Lament for Spring
    Today I bring you very special news, as well as "The Widow's Lament in Springtime" by William Carlos William. 
    Basement Poetry Podcast email: [email protected]
    I am welcome to all inquiries and comments (be nice though)
    Link to Poem: https://poets.org/poem/widows-lament-springtime
    William Carlos Williams Bio: https://poets.org/poet/william-carlos-williams
    14 min
  • The Gift

    Today I will give you a gift; it’s a poem called “The Gift” by poet Li-Young Lee.



    Link to the poem:

    https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43010/the-gift-56d221adc12b8


    Link to Li-Young Lee Bio

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


    15 min
  • What Is There to Be Afraid Of?
    Today we will be looking at the poem "Allowables" by Nikki Giovanni. 
    For more info on Nikki Giovanni: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/nikki-giovanni
    Poem Transcription: 
    I killed a spider
    Not a murderous brown recluse
    Nor even a black widow
    And if the truth were told this
    Was only a small
    Sort of papery spider
    Who should have run
    When I picked up the book
    But she didn’t
    And she scared me
    And I smashed her
    I don’t think
    I’m allowed
    To kill something
    Because I am
    Frightened
    10 min
  • What's Love got to Do With It

    Welcome to the inaugural episode of Basement Poetry Podcast. I hope you enjoy your stay. Today I will introduce myself, and read the poem, Love Is Not All" by Edna St. Vincent Millay.  


    Link to Poem: https://poets.org/poem/love-not-all-sonnet-xxx

    10 min

About Basement Poetry Podcast

From the publisher's feed

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