“Stephen Dunn’s Dilemmas”: All three poems are by the late contemporary poet Stephen Dunn.  In each poem, the speaker faces a concern that challenges his sense of who he is and what he thinks he knows.  The circumstance may seem mundane, but the concern is profound.  If, that is, we are inclined to empathize with the speaker.  “At...

“Gone Parents“: Poets featured today consider deceased parents, somewhat sentimentally or as mysterious dream figures.  Ted Kooser, “Mother” and “Father,” from Delights & Shadows (Copper Canyon Press, 2004).  Seamus Heaney, “Uncoupled,” from Selected Poems 1988-2013 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014; originally published in Human Chain (2010).  Kathleen Flenniken, “The Sound of a Train,” from Famous (U. of Nebraska Press, 2006), used with the kind...

“What’s So Funny?”: Will any of today’s poems make you laugh?  Billy Collins, “To My Favorite 17-Year-Old High School Girl,” from Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems (Random House, 2013).  Stephen Dunn, “John & Mary,” from The Not Yet Fallen World: New and Selected Poems (W.W. Norton & Company, 2022).  Caroline Bird, “Little Children,” from The Air Year (Carcanet, 2020), https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784109028/the-air-year/   Would you like to share with me...

“Wake Up: Modern Aubades”: Traditionally, aubades are lyrics announcing the arrival of dawn all too soon for lovers who want the night to be prolonged.  The twentieth-century poems featured here take some liberties with that tradition.  After an excerpt from John Donne’s “The Sun Rising” (1633), Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, “Aubade,” from Pharaoh’s Daughter (Wake Forest U. Press,...

“Neighbors”: When you recall the places where you lived, do you inevitably reflect on who else was in close proximity?  This episode presents three distinct ways of thinking about one’s neighbors.  Robert Frost, “Mending Wall.”  John Heywood, “A Quiet Neighbour.”  Robert Wrigley, “Praise Bob,” from The True Account of Myself as a Bird (Penguin Books, 2022),...

“Revised Bible Stories”: Poets give voice to characters who are silent in the Bible, and they speculate on what the Bible left out.  They allow us to imagine less conventional roles for certain characters, as these three poems suggest.  Molly Twomey, “Noah’s Wife,” from Raised Among Vultures, and used by kind permission of the author and...

“Parents Viewed Unconventionally”: Three contemporary female poets comment on one or more parents in somewhat unexpected ways.  Molly Twomey, “The Drop Off,” from Raised Among Vultures, and used by kind permission of the author and The Gallery Press, 2022 (www.gallerypress.com).  Kathleen Flenniken, “Married Love,” from Post Romantic, used by kind permission of the author (U. of Washington Press, 2020). ...

“Friendship”: Three poems consider the shared activities, the camaraderie, the tensions, and the goofiness of friendships.  Ada Limon, “Blowing on the Wheel,” from The Hurting Kind (Milkweed, 2022).  Delmore Schwartz, “Do the Others Speak of Me Mockingly, Maliciously?” from Selected Poems, copyright 1959 by Delmore Schwartz.  Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.  Sharon Olds, “Best Friends,”...

“Narrative Poems”: These poems offer at least an outline of a story, with a plot and some time references.  Like many successful stories, substantial relevant questions may remain unanswered, requiring some speculation on our part.  John Greenleaf Whittier, “Telling the Bees.”  Edwin Arlington Robinson, “Mr. Flood’s Party.”  Our theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun” from Live from...

“Remembering the First World War”: Our first poem details the life of a veteran who managed to survive the carnage and reflects on–or tries not to reflect on–his specific experiences during the war.  The next two poems depict civilians beginning to come to terms with their memories of the suffering shared throughout England.  Edmund Blunden,...