“As we live in times of hate, we need poems of love.” For today’s episode, Allen is joined in the studio by Matt Rothschild to enjoy a selection of poems performed live on-air by Martín Espada and discuss a wide range of topics like Puerto Rico, identity, mortality, memory, and the beauty of shared humanity.

Martín Espada is professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has written many poetry collections, most recently Vivas to Those Who Have Failed, a cycle of sonnets about the Paterson Silk Strike. Two of his recent poems about migrant detention at the U.S.-Mexico border were published in The Progressive Magazine online, available here.

Cover photo by Rachel Eliza Griffiths