Open Windows Podcast

My program today presents poems about February, about midwinter, as a time that stands as a kind of fulcrum for the season, as a point of transition between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. I read poems by Ezra Pound, Boris Pasternak, James Schuyler, Margaret Atwood, Ted Kooser,  Jayne Cortez, and Patricia Goodrich.  I end the program with one of my own poems.

My program today considers how poetry uses rhyme to reinforce theme and how rhyme can be an important part of the aesthetic experience of reading a poem.  I read poems by Chaucer, Robert Frost, Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wilbur, Howard Nemerov, Mona van Duyn, and Rachel Hadas. I end the program with one of my own poems.

My program today continues my consideration of the two faces of poetry -- poem as memory and poem as anticipation -- and presents poems about things that are awaited, that are anticipated, even if their contours are not always clearly visible.  I read poems by Emily Dickinson, D.H. Lawrence, Amy Lowell, Lisel Mueller, Andrei Voznesensky, Wislawa Szymborska, and Bob Dylan. I end the program with one of my own poems.

My program today considers the two faces of poetry -- poem as memory and poem as anticipation -- and presents poems about January, the month named for Janus, the two-faced Roman god of beginnings and endings who presided over every entrance and every departure, with his two faces looking simultaneously in two directions.  I read poems by Jonathan Swift, Dylan Thomas, William Carlos Williams, John Updike, Denise Levertov, and W.S. Merwin.  I end the program with one of my own poems.

My program today considers the relationship between poetry and prophecy.  I read poems about prophecy, prophets, and poets as prophets by H.D., Louise Bogan, Robinson Jeffers, Richard Wilbur, Dana Gioia, Camille Rankine, and Bob Dylan.  I end the program with one of my own poems.

Today, in the second in a series of programs that illustrate my work over the years, I continue to present some of my translations of Lithuanian poetry and to read my own poems.  I begin with my translations of poems by Nijolė Miliauskaitė and end with two of my own poems. Both halves of this program include a focus on prophecy and on female figures from Greek mythology.

To mark my one hundredth program, and as the first of several programs to come that illustrate my work over the years, I read my translations of Lithuanian poetry and my own poems.  I begin with my translations of poems by Kornelijus Platelis and end with a few of my own poems. 

I end my consideration of December today, reading poems that are a bit more upbeat as we move next into a new year, poems about peace and harmony that may provide us with a different perspective on the many upheavals we faced in 2020. They include poems by John Lennon, Walt Whitman, Sara Teasdale, Anne Spencer, Wendell Berry, William Stafford, Denise Levertov, and James Simmons.  I end the program with one of my own poems.

I continue my consideration of December today and read poems about winter, about ice and snow. They include poems by Dante, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Kenneth Patchen, Wallace Stevens, Mark Strand, and Kobayashi Issa. I end the program with one of my own poems.

To continue my consideration of December and to mark this month's affirmation of the end of the year and the inevitable progression of time, I read poems about aging and old age today. They include poems by Sappho, Lu You, William Shakespeare, Robert Frost, Stanley Kunitz, Julie Chappell, and Tautvyda Marcinkevičiūtė.  I end the program with one of my own poems.