Today’s program is about how poets often use the fact and idea of earth, in all of its forms, as an essential structural motif and as part of an organizing metaphoric and thematic frame. The program takes a quick look at how the beginning of the world, of earth and soil and dirt, is presented in creation myths, including the Big Bang. Poetic presentations of the importance and the roles of “earth” include three of my translations that use earth in distinctive ways, a poem by Steven Schroeder about the American prairie, and two of my own poems in which “earth” plays an essential role.

Today’s program is about how poets often use the fact and idea of fire, in all of its forms, as an essential structural motif and as part of an organizing metaphoric and thematic frame. The program takes a quick look at some of the roles fire plays in mythological presentations, in early Greek narrative poetry, and in later lyrical poetry. Those later poems include three of my translations that use fire in distinctive ways as well as two of my own poems in which fire plays an essential role.

Today’s program is about how poets often use the fact and idea of wind, in all of its forms, as an essential structural motif and as part of an organizing metaphoric and thematic frame. The program takes a quick look at some of the roles wind plays in mythological presentations, in early Greek narrative poetry, and in later lyrical poetry. Those later poems include three of my translations that use water in distinctive ways as well as two of my own poems in which wind plays an essential role.

Today’s program is about how poets often use the fact and idea of water, in all of its forms, as an essential structural motif and as part of an organizing metaphoric and thematic frame. The program takes a quick look at some of the roles water plays in mythological presentations, in early Greek narrative poetry, and in later lyrical poetry. Those later poems include three of my translations that use water in distinctive ways as well as two of my own poems in which water plays an essential role.

Today’s program is about “epistolary poetry,” that is, poetry that is written in the form of a letter to someone. My last program was about a particular genre of poetry – found poetry – and I suggested that found poetry shows us that poetry is all around us and that we should not be afraid of what we have too often been told are its hidden messages and structural mysteries. My program today presents “epistolary poetry” as a different poetic genre that also provides us with wide-ranging and foundational awareness of how we live our lives both as individuals and as members of communities.  I explore this genre more fully today and then read some epistolary poems from a book I had the great privilege and pleasure of putting together.  It’s called Pushing the Envelope: Epistolary Poetry and it was published in 2015 by Lamar University Press. It is the first major anthology of its kind.

Today’s program is about where poetry might come from, where poetry might be “found.”  We don’t usually believe that poems are found like lost objects in hidden corners, but it is my contention that poetry and its lyrical power are everywhere around us, that poetry may be one of the most common forms of art that we see and hear in our lives, and we can indeed find it everywhere. It is my belief that there is something in the fundamentals of language itself – in all languages – that encourages us to find poetry filtering under and through their surface currents.  I set out a couple of years ago to explore these ideas and was quite fortunate to have been able to put together an anthology titled Unlocking the Word, An Anthology of Found Poetry, which was published by Lamar University Literary Press in 2018.  It is the first major anthology of its kind and it provides wonderful examples of the poetry that exists everywhere around us. This program includes several of such poems from that anthology.