Episode 41: Poetry That Pairs With Bread

What do a Brooklyn bakery at dawn, the bones beneath the soil, and a political manifesto have in common? They’re all hiding inside a loaf of bread—at least when poets get their hands on it.

This episode, we’re pulling three poems warm from the oven: Richard Levine’s tender portrait of a grandfather whose night shifts fed more than just his family, Margaret Atwood’s unflinching reminder that every slice carries the weight of the earth’s dead, and Pablo Neruda’s passionate demand that bread belong to everyone.

Along the way, we explore why poets have always reached for food when they want to say something true—about memory, labor, mortality, and love expressed without words. Because bread is never just bread. It’s what we make when we want to say you are home.

Settle in with something warm. This one’s meant to be savored.

Five poems walked into a rainstorm.

One sat in a hut during a war and thought about dying. One stayed in bed and didn’t apologize. One woke up next to someone and watched the cage break open. One wandered a muddy field looking for arrowheads. And one, the oldest of the bunch, told us what we already knew: into each life, some rain must fall.

This episode is for the gray days. The ones where you look out the window.

🎧 Listen now.

Where Literature Meets the Cheese Board

Indulge your mind and your palate. This episode pairs timeless works from literary masters—Doyle’s mysteries, Chesterton’s wit, Hall’s bold verse—with the perfect artisanal cheese. Discover Gorgonzola, Pont l’Évêque, Port du Salut, Caprice des Dieux, and the mighty Stilton. It’s the podcast for readers who savor every bite.

Subscribe and taste the classics anew.

Why does white space on the page make so many poets nervous? In this episode, we explore Amy Wright’s chapbook “Wildlife” and her poetry that trusts silence, embraces the margin, and lets the page breathe. We dig into why some poems pack every line tight while others invite readers into the open spaces. If you’ve ever wondered what a poem leaves unsaid – and why that matters – this one’s for you.

“Full Snow Moon,” by Amy Wright

https://bainbridgeisland.press/products/wildlife

“What the Living Do,” by Marie Howe

https://poets.org/poem/what-living-do

As autumn deepens, we explore four poets who understand that soup is never just soup. Soup is comfort, ritual, and sustenance for the soul. Join us for Pablo Neruda’s Chilean chowder, Carl Sandburg’s working-class honesty, Louis Simpson’s wartime soup, and Joy Harjo’s celebration of the kitchen table where the world begins.

Join us for an intimate hour-long conversation with poet Wally Swist about his powerful new collection, Discovering What to Say.

Available Now!

https://bainbridgeisland.press/products/discovering-what-to-say

What do we choose to say when time becomes precious and every word must count?

Written over five years as his spouse, Tevis, lives with Alzheimer’s in care, Swist’s poems don’t dwell on illness but instead reveal how a life fully lived continues to discover what matters most. From intimate encounters with the natural world to tributes to literary masters like Rilke and Merwin, from childhood’s complex legacy to meditations in sacred places, this septuagenarian poet grapples with life’s essential questions.

In this conversation, we explore the craft behind these profound verses, the role of nature as refuge and revelation, and how poetry helps us speak what needs speaking—especially in life’s final chapters.

Discovering What to Say is available now for $19.99 at

https://bainbridgeisland.press/products/discovering-what-to-say

Subscribe for more author conversations

Join us for an intimate hour-long conversation with poet Wally Swist about his powerful new collection, Discovering What to Say.

Available Now!

https://bainbridgeisland.press/products/discovering-what-to-say

What do we choose to say when time becomes precious and every word must count?

Written over five years as his spouse, Tevis, lives with Alzheimer’s in care, Swist’s poems don’t dwell on illness but instead reveal how a life fully lived continues to discover what matters most. From intimate encounters with the natural world to tributes to literary masters like Rilke and Merwin, from childhood’s complex legacy to meditations in sacred places, this septuagenarian poet grapples with life’s essential questions.

In this conversation, we explore the craft behind these profound verses, the role of nature as refuge and revelation, and how poetry helps us speak what needs speaking—especially in life’s final chapters.

Discovering What to Say is available now for $19.99 at

https://bainbridgeisland.press/products/discovering-what-to-say

Subscribe for more author conversations

In 1957, a bookstore owner got arrested for selling Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl'—today, that same poem is assigned reading in high school English class. The Beat poets thought they were destroying the literary establishment with their wild, spontaneous, sexually explicit poetry, but they just ended up becoming the new establishment of American rebellion. It's the most predictable revolution in literary history, and it shows us something fascinating about how genuine artistic breakthroughs actually get absorbed into the culture they were trying to shake up.

And a few other things I have opinions on.

We love to celebrate literary rebels like John Keats and Emily Dickinson, but here's the thing—when they were actually being rebellious, critics hated them. Keats got trashed for being a working-class 'cockney poet' while the aristocrats got all the praise, and Dickinson's wild punctuation and syntax? Her first editors basically sanitized all the weirdness out of it to make it 'acceptable.' Turns out we're pretty good at loving rebels—as long as we get to smooth out all the rough edges first. Sound familiar? Welcome to the dead horse we keep beating: gatekeeping.

Big thanks to David J. Rothman and Susan Delaney Spear for writing “Learning the Secrets of English Verse” so we can learn about things like Anglo-Saxon Strong-Stress Alliterative Meter, and how it loosely applies to poems we already know!

Like Dickinson! (what)