Open Windows Podcast

I continue my programs about summer. My program last week was inspired by one of the wonderful noises on a summer night -- the sound of trains passing in the distance. Today I read poems about another element that especially marks summer -- birds.  I include poems by William Butler Yeats, Wallace Stevens, Steven Schroeder, Lauren Camp, and Fred Burstein. I end the program with two of my own poems about birds.

My last two programs have been about summer. One of the things I like to do in the summer is to open the windows at night and listen to all sorts of things humming and buzzing outside the window screens. One of the things I most love, among all those wonderful sounds and noises on a summer night, is the sound of trains passing in the distance.  So today I read poems about trains by Emily Dickinson, Ezra Pound, W.H. Auden, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Bob Dylan. I end my program with two of my own poems about trains.

My program last week about summer received positive and encouraging responses, and some of my listeners suggested that I might continue that focus this week as well. The affirmation of light and warmth in a time when both of those -- at least metaphorically -- seem just beyond the bend in the road, would be a positive thing. So today I read more poems about summer, by Derek Walcott, Charles Wright, Carl Sandburg, Siegfried Sassoon, Dick Allen, and Judita Vaičiūnaitė.  I end the program with two of my own poems.

I read poems about summer today. To celebrate this special time of year removed from the other three seasons. To affirm that there is joy and hope in the world around us even in what seems to us all to be a darker hour.  I include poems by Robert Frost, William Butler Yeats, Gail Mazur, Marie Ponsot, and Louise Gluck.  I end the program with one of my own poems about summer.

In my last program, I talked about the year 1968 and read poems by several poets about 1968 or written in 1968. Today I continue that focus on 1968 and read a number of poems that I wrote in 1968. They are from a new book of mine -- titled Early Poems 1966-1969 -- which was published in April of this year. 

My program today is about 1968. It was a year marked by astonishing and unforgettable and brutally painful events, in this country and across the world. It was a year in which so many of us thought that the world, as we knew it, was coming to an end. 2020 has been compared by some to 1968. There are differences. I read poems by Adrienne Rich, Rita Dove, Margaret Walker, Geoffrey Hill, Sharon Olds, W.H. Auden, and John Lennon/Paul McCartney. I end the program with one of my own poems.

My program today is dedicated to all those who believe, as do I, that if there is no justice, there can be no peace.  My program today is in memory of George Floyd, Breonna Tayler, Ahmaud Arbery, and all the other American citizens who have been killed for no reason other than the color of their skin. I read poems by Langston Hughes, Gil Scott-Heron, Ntozake Shange, Nikki Giovanni, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Claudia Rankine.

My program last week presented poems by New England poets who considered some of the complex matters that are part of life in urban settings. Today I move to more rural settings and present equally complex poems by Vermont poets: Ellen Bryant Voight, John Engels, Major Jackson, Jay Parini, and Verandah Porche.

My program today is the second program to focus on New England urban poets and the complex range of human issues unfolding in urban settings. I read poems by Julia Alvarez, Ocean Vuong, Richard Wilbur, Martin Espada, and Maya Williams.

My last two programs focused on New England poets who wrote eloquently about the land -- Robert Frost -- and who wrote powerfully about the sea -- Robert Lowell. I mentioned, in passing, in my introductions to those programs, that New England also has important cities, sophisticated urban centers, in which the complex range of human life unfolds. I plan to present a couple of programs about that dimension, beginning today with a look at the poetry of Wallace Stevens (1879-1955).