Poems for Company

“Unrequited Love (Part Three)”: Three poems written by men reveal curious responses to the phenomenon of being rejected in love.  Then we close with a female poet witnessing the consequences of romantic rejection for various men she knows.  Michael Drayton, Sonnet #61–“Since there’s no help” (1619).  Ben Jonson, “My PIcture Left in Scotland” (1640-41).  Sir John Suckling, Song–“Why So Pale and Wan” (1646).  Ellen Bass, “I Love the Way Men Crack,” from Mules of Love (BOA Editions, 2002).  Our show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun,” from Live from Montana (available at sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with the kind permission of Mr. Aaberg.

“Insects Among Us”: All four poems place insects on center stage.  Our first opens with a question: “Don’t you remember them?”  These are poems of memory and poems of the present, with speakers who are descriptive and very curious.  Danusha Lameris, “The Bugs of Childhood,” from Blade By Blade (Copper Canyon Press, 2024).  Robert Wrigley, “I Want to Praise Her Parts,” from The True Account of Myself as a Bird (Penguin Books, 2022), and used with the kind permission of the poet.  Pedro Pietri, “Ode to a Grasshopper,” from Selected Poetry (City Lights Books, 2015), used with the permission of the Estate of Pedro Pietri.  Thomas...

“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 the Smithville Methodist Church,” “Ambush at Five O’Clock,” “On the Death of a Colleague,” all from Stephen Dunn, The Not Yet Fallen World: New and Selected Poems (Norton, 2022).  Our show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun,” from Live from Montana (available at sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with the kind permission of Mr. Aaberg.

“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 permission of the author.  I am sorry to report that Philip Aaberg died in late May of this year.  When I reached out to him years ago and requested to use his music on my show, he was spontaneously generous.  Compelling in concert, he continues to be...

“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 a favorite poem that makes you laugh?  If so, please contact me, Brian Dillon, at feedback@kmun,org.  The show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun,” from Live from Montana (available at sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with the kind permission of Mr. Aaberg.

“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, 1993; Pharaoh’s Daughter by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill | WFU Press ).  Philip Larkin, “Aubade,” from Collected Poems (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2001). The show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun,” from Live from Montana (available at sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with the kind permission of Mr. Aaberg.

“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), used with the kind permission of the author.  The show’s theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun” from Live from Montana (available at sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with the kind permission of Mr. Aaberg.

“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 The Gallery Press, 2022 (www.gallerypress.com).  J. Estanislao Lopez, “Alternate Ending: The Escape of Jephthah’s Daughter,” from We Borrowed Gentleness (Alice James Books, 2022).  Brian Doyle, “The Second Letter of Lazarus to His Sisters,” from A Shimmer of Something, copyright by Brian Doyle (Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, 2014), 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).  Ada Limon, “Joint Custody,” from The Hurting Kind (Milkweed, 2022).  Our theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun” from Live from Montana (available at sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with the kind permission of Mr. Aaberg.

“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,” from The Dead and the Living (Knopf, 1991), and used with the kind permission of the poet.  Our theme music is Philip Aaberg’s “Going-to-the-Sun” from Live from Montana (available at sweetgrassmusic.com) and used with the kind permission of Mr. Aaberg.