In the fall of 2013, host Katherine Hastings arranged to visit Pulitzer Prize winning poet Carolyn Kizer, who is no longer appearing in public. She brought with her award-winning poet Annie Finch and Joyce Jenkins of Poetry Flash. It was a deeply moving and somewhat historical meeting of the four women. Tonight, Hastings reads an essay that Finch wrote about that visit and published with the Poetry Foundation. Following the essay, Pennsylvania poet Philip Terman reads from The Torah Garden and Rabbis in the Air.

WordTemple host Katherine Hastings opens the program with a reading by Pulitzer Prize in Poetry winner Carolyn Kizer that took place on International Women's Day, March 8, in 2007 at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts. Since Kizer is no longer giving public readings, this is a wonderful opportunity to hear one of America's most important contemporary poets. Following Kizer, award-winning poet Annie Finch, the author of six books of poetry, reads from her collection Calendars. Finally, Katherine Hastings reminds listeners that they are invited to participate in Digging Our Poetic Roots, her poet laureate project culminating in an anthology of Sonoma County poets.

WordTemple host and newly appointed Poet Laureate of Sonoma County Katherine Hastings introduces her poet laureate project, Digging Our Poetic Roots, and invites you to join in on the fun by reading and responding to poems she'll send out. Tonight, Hastings plays a "poetry party" segment that includes different styles of poetry — Robert Duncan, Carolyn Kizer, Anne Sexton and many more — and ends the program with an interview and reading by Nickole Brown, author of Fanny Says (forthcoming, BOA Editions).

WordTemple host Katherine Hastings airs a recording of a WordTemple Poetry Series event with Swedish poet KJELL ESPMARK and DANA GIOIA. These readings were major highlights of the 2013 WordTemple season.

WordTemple host Katherine Hastings, in a short tribute to Nelson Mandela, plays "Bring Back Nelson Mandela" from the Musical Sarafina. Following the tribute is a reading by T.S. Eliot, and then Dylan Thomas reads his beloved short story, "A Child's Christmas in Wales."

This week WordTemple host Katherine Hastings presents readings by Annie Finch and Kazim Ali.

Poet, writer, and performer Annie Finch has published more than twenty books and chapbooks of poetry and poetics. Tonight she will read from her most recent collection, Spells - New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press 2013) and Calendars (Tupelo Press).

Next, Hastings talks with the poet, essayist, fiction writer and translator Kazim Ali, who will read from his fourth and most recent collection of poems, Sky Ward (Wesleyan University Press 2013).

Katherine Hastings airs two readings recorded in Boston earlier this year.

Sydney Lea, Poet Laureate of Vermont and founder of New England Review, reads from his tenth collection of poetry, I Was Thinking of Beauty (Four Way Books, 2013). A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for his collection Pursuit of a Wound, Lea lives in Vermont and is active both in literacy efforts and conservation.

Mark Irwin reads from his most recent collection Large White House (New Issues, 2013). The author of six other collections, Irwin is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship, the James Wright Poetry Award and fellowships from the Fulbright, Lilly, and Wurlitzer Foundations. He lives in Colorado, and Los Angeles, where he teaches in the Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature Program at the University of Southern California.

Katherine Hastings pays tribute to the poet F.D. Reeve who passed away this summer (June 28) by airing an interview with him and playing a number of cuts from his poetry/jazz CD The Blue Cat Walks the Earth. Reeve was a much celebrated and award-winning poet, fiction writer, non-fiction writer, critic, father of the late actor Christopher Reeve, and translator — he even accompanied Robert Frost to Russia for his meeting with Nikita Kruschev in 1962. This, and more, on WordTemple!

Poet, professor and poet-in-residence at Sonoma State University, Gillian Conoley covers a host of interesting topics with Katherine Hastings and reads from her newest collection, Peace, including a poem dedicated to Gabrielle Giffords taking phrases from President Obama's memorial speech and phrases repeated on news radio. Following Conoley, Hastings play a portion of an earlier program with Paul Hoover reading from Sonnet 56.

Host Katherine Hastings interviews Dr. Bonnie Bergin, founder of Bergin University for Canine Studies, and two veterans who are the first instructors for the new Dogs Helping Veterans program at Bergin, Steve Moore and Daniel Fudge. Tune in to learn how this new program is helping our veterans of war suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder live fuller, healthier lives by working with service dogs.

Also - recorded live at the WordTemple Poetry Series, Iraq war veteran turned poet Hugh Martin reads from his award-winning book of poems The Stick Soldiers. Martin served six years as an M1A1 Tanker, participating in hundreds of missions including raids, conducting foot patrols, clearing routes for IEDS, disposing of unexploded ordinance and searching thousands of Iraqi vehicles. A graduate at Arizona State University, Martinis a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.