Open Windows Podcast

My program today is the fifth in a series of programs that present poems written by poets living in various geographic regions of the country. My four earlier programs in this series included poets from the Southwest, the South more broadly, the Midwest, and the Mountain Region of the West. Today I read poems by poets from that part of the West known as the Pacific Region, which includes the states of Alaska, Oregon, Washington, California, and Hawaii. They are Theodore Roethke, William Stafford, Jewel, Meliza Bañales, Garrett Hongo, and Clarissa Mendiola.

My program today is the fourth in a series of programs that present poems written by poets living in various geographic regions of the country. My three earlier programs in this series included poets from the Southwest, the South more broadly, and the Midwest. Today I read poems by poets from that part of the West known as the Mountain Region, which includes the states of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. They are May Swenson, John Perry Barlow, Anne Waldman, Blair Cooper, Vern Rutsala, and Rosanne Sterne.

My program today is the third of several programs that focus on poems written by poets living in the various regions of the United States.  In my last two programs, I read poems by writers living in the Southwest and more widely in the South.  In today’s program, I read poems by poets from the Midwest. They are Timothy Murphy, Fatimah Asghar, Daniel Borzutzky, Steven Schroeder, Hart Crane, and James Wright.

My program today is the second of several programs that focus on poems written by poets living in the various regions of the United States. Last time, I read poems by writers living in the Southwest, which is part of the larger Southern region of our country. In today’s program, I read poems by poets from what is traditionally considered to be the South. They are Cal Nordt, William Logan, Michael Mott, Robert Penn Warren, Heather Ross Miller, Elizabeth “Betty” Adcock, and David Larsen.

I’m delighted to offer Episode 52 of Open Windows. My program today is the first of several programs that focus on poems written by poets living in the various regions of the United States.  I begin with some poets from the American Southwest. I have read poems by several poets from the Southwest in earlier programs, their work illustrating various themes I’ve explored. In today’s program I read poems by poets from the Southwest whose work I have not included in my earlier programs. They are Jerry Bradley, Katherine Hoerth, Lyman Grant, Nathan Brown, James Hoggard, Juan Manuel Perez, and Benjamin Myers.

My program today is part two of my consideration of 50, some of its significances, and some of its presentations. In today’s program, I present poems of mine written during the five decades – the fifty years – that I have been writing and publishing poetry and which are acknowledged in my next book – Collected Poems 1970-2020 – which is coming in March from Lamar University Literary Press. I begin with a poem published 50 years ago in the Yale Literary Magazine, when I was a twenty-year-old undergraduate, and continue by reading a poem from each of the decades that followed: from the 1980s, the 90s, the 2000s, and the 2000-teens.  

Today’s program is my fiftieth weekly episode. Fifty has various cultural and symbolic significances. Fifty is also significant to me because this year marks fifty years that I have been writing and publishing poetry. It is also the year when my 50th book will be published – Collected Poems 1970-2020 – which gathers poems published during those fifty years. So this program will be a two-part program. Today I read poems that incorporate fifty in differing ways: by William Butler Yeats, J.D. McClatchy, Langston Hughes, Hungarian poet Imre Oravecz, and Canadian poet Glen Sorestad. Next week, in part two of this sequence, I will read poems that I wrote over the course of the past fifty years, one from each of the decades since 1970.  

I talked about time and eternity and related ideas in an earlier program and last week I talked about the figure of the wheel as it might be revealed and used in poetry. I follow up on both of those programs today and read poems about watches and clocks and such circular devices to tell time; and, perhaps most importantly, the fact of what clocks and watches do: they signify the passage of time. I read poems by the French poet Charles Baudelaire, by Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, the Greek poet C.P. Cavafy, Howard Nemerov, and a found poem discovered by Steven Schroeder. I end my program with two of my own poems in which clocks play essential thematic roles.

Advent and Christmas and Hanukkah have come and gone, the solstice has passed, the New Year has been rung in. The year, of course, is a great wheel, a circle that cycles through the seasons, and new beginnings point us toward maturing seasons and anticipated endings and new beginnings once again. I’d like to read poems today that consider wheels, both as practical objects and as symbols beyond their physical appearance. I read poems by William Butler Yeats, William Carlos Williams, Jack Kerouac, and Wendy Barker. I end with two of my own poems in which the figure of the wheel – both literal and symbolic - plays an important thematic role. 

Today’s program, on this first day of 2020, at a time distinguished by resolutions, expectations, promises for new beginnings, and hope, is about all of those: about expectation, promise, and hope. I read poems by Walt Whitman, Robert Hass, W.S. Merwin, Italian poet Vivian Lamarque, Kerry Shawn Keys, and Walt McLaughlin.  I end with two of my own poems that look at hope from two perspectives.