This is Episode 105 of Poems for the Speed of Life.

Today's poem is "Vanity" by Kathryn Stripling Byer.

Kathryn Stripling Byer or Kay Byer, was an American poet, essayist and teacher who died in 2017 at the age of 72. She was State poet of North Carolina for five years until 2009 and published six collections of poetry, including 2002’s Catching Light, in which this poem appeared.

"Vanity" is just 69 words, but its brevity contains great depths. At first reading, for example, I missed the complexity of those first two words, Without hands. I’m still not sure what those words mean.

Overall the poem is, I think, a nuanced reflection on how we see ourselves as much as how we really are. Of course, I’m a man, and it is almost certain that this poem will connect in a much different way with a female reader. But still, the fruit of self-knowledge is available to all of us, if we dare.

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For a detailed outline of the mission and purpose behind this podcast, please check out Episode 100, "Why Poems for the Speed of Life?", in your podcast player or ⁠click here to listen on Spotify⁠.

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This is Episode 104 of Poems for the Speed of Life.

Today's poem is "Blessings" by Francis Harvey.

Francis Harvey was an Irish poet who died at the age of 89 in 2014.

Born on the UK side of the Irish border in County Fermanagh, he lived most of his life in the Republic of Ireland, in County Donegal, just a handful of miles away. He was a member of Aosdána, an Irish association which includes and honours artists who have produced a distinguished body of work of genuine originality.

Referenced in this poem is Lough Eske — from the Irish Loch Iascaigh, or “Lake of the Fish” — a designated special area of conservation in Donegal. In its two lines, spanning 17 lines, “Blessings” contains a multitude about loneliness, togetherness, the infinity of the past and the future, and life in all its forms.

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For a detailed outline of the mission and purpose behind this podcast, please check out Episode 100, "Why Poems for the Speed of Life?", in your podcast player or click here to listen on Spotify.

***

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Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://onsound.eu/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com

This is Episode 103 of Poems for the Speed of Life.

Today's poem is "The Singers" by Eavan Boland.

Eavan Boland was an Irish poet who died in 2020 at the age of 75. She taught at Stanford University professor for the last 25 years of her life. "The Singers" came to some prominence when Mary Robinson, the first female President of Ireland, quoted the last line in her historic inaugural address in December 1990.

The poem takes as its starting point the female singers on Ireland’s "unforgiving" west coast.

Widening the lens, though, could Ireland itself be revealed as "the West" and the singers all women who found themselves silenced and could now, together, find their voice?

Widening further, the poem stands as a form of prayer, perhaps, for anyone—sex, faith, race or minority—who might need a hand up to a greater height. (This is the second time an Eavan Boland poem has featured on this show. You can search for Episode 68 for "The Lost Land" which also looks to Ireland as a sort of symbol.)

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This is Episode 102 of Poems for the Speed of Life.

Today's poem is "Each Moment a White Bull Steps Shining into the World", by Jane Hirshfield.

Jane Hirshfield an American poet, essayist, and translator. She has published 12 collections since 1982 and served as Chanceller of the Academy of American Poets between 2012 and 2017. She is in many ways a poet of science—her works touch on physics and biology and she was visiting artist in the neuroscience department of the University of California San Francisco, where the objective was to bridge the gap between science, logic and left brain thinking, and creativity, randomness and the right hemisphere.

This poem bridges that divide in its own way.

It is, I think, about the unknown and limitless possibilities of each moment—and not just the unknown, but the unknowingness of those moments, into which at any time a shining white bull might step.

And it’s about what we might do with that then, knowing that each door that opens to us forces us to close another.

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Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://onsound.eu/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com

This is Episode 101 of Poems for the Speed of Life.

Today's poem is "Anger" by Yusef Komunyakaa.

Yusef Komunyakaa is an American poet and at the time of this podcast, in his 82nd year, is still teaching at New York University, where he is Professor of English.

He has published more than 15 collections of poetry and two collections of essays and won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1994.

Born James William Brown, he reclaimed the African name of his grandfather Komunyakaa.

This poem charts the role of anger, an emotion often seen as destructive, but here presented as something much more complex, as an essential creative force.

It encourages us, perhaps, not to quell our own anger, or to dismiss it in others, but to seek within it the seed of action and creativity.

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Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://onsound.eu/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com

This is Episode 100 of Poems for the Speed of Life.

For this milestone, a break from the regular type of episode.

This podcast tries to give you an answer to the most important question we can ask about anything: Why?

Why Poems for the Speed of Life?

Why poetry in the first place?

This show, referencing the work of Dr Iain McGilchrist, esteemed psychiatrist and the author of books The Master and his Emissary and The Matter with Things, tries to explain.

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This is Episode 99 of Poems for the Speed of Life.

Today's poem is "Tent" by Pat Boran.

Pat Boran is an Irish poet. He has published 10 collections since 1990, including two in 2022, plus two editions of Selected Poems.

He is former Editor of Poetry Ireland Review and has been Director and Editor of the poetry publisher Dedalus Press since 2006.

This poem, "Tent", speaks about rites of passage, about the journey from boys to men, about those moments when everything changes and make us see the world differently forever. It also, when we look and listen closely, encourages us to question what is claimed or what’s suggested, because that might not always give us truth.

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Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://onsound.eu/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com

This is Episode 98 of Poems for the Speed of Life.

Today's piece is "Color" by Tina Chang.

Tina Chang is an American poet with a Taiwanese heritage. She has published three collections of poetry and co-edited the anthology Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond.

The poet laureate of Brooklyn, on taking up that role she described her mission as trying "to break down the wall between people and poetry. Somewhere along the way, we have felt intimidated by it, or we have felt we have to be well-educated in order to be able to access it or walk into that world."

That mission tallies with what I’m attempting to do in this podcast. To introduce a single poem each day that might help you, as listener, see yourself, see the world, see yourself in the world in a new light. "Color" is easy to read but it contains depths of unknowing, focusing on maybe the biggest unknowing of all: our own complex identity, our own idea of who we are, who we were, who we are becoming.

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This is Episode 97 of Poems for the Speed of Life.

Today's piece is "Lift Every Voice and Sing" by James Weldon Johnson.

James Weldon Johnson American writer, civil rights leader and activist born in 1871. 

The son of an immigrant mother from the Caribbean, he devoted his work to helping the advancement of black people and became a prominent early member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, an organization with aims that included extending brotherhood, scholarship and service and devoting itself to fostering the "inclusive we", to be a part rather than apart from of the wider community. Today, Phi Beta Sigma mentors thousands of young men and extends more than $1 million in scholarships every year.

"Lift Every Voice and Sing" could be interpreted now as a powerful and inspiring anthem for Black people, or, more broadly, for all of us, everywhere in the world, as a call to action to continue the labours of our lives with energy and faith despite everything that might go against us.

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This is Episode 96 of Poems for the Speed of Life.

Today's piece is "This afternoon, burn down the house" by Ray Bradbury.

Ray Bradbury was a celebrated American novelist and screenwriter who died in 2012 at the age of 91. He wrote fantasy, science fiction, horror and mystery. Perhaps he is best known now for Fahrenheit 451, a dystopian novel where books have been made into people and are tortured and burned by the firemen appointed to that task.

This piece was not, actually, intended as a poem, but having seen it laid out as one on a social media post, it does fit the bill. It is a short segment from his book Zen in the Art of Writing, Bradbury’s collection of essays on creativity, which was published in 1990.

As an introduction to this segment, the line before it in the book reads: "The history of each story, then, should read almost like a weather report: Hot today, cool tomorrow."

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Once Upon a Time by Alex-Productions | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://onsound.eu/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  | Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com