Take this poem

Can't get enough of the agitation, perturbation, and talking worms in this most wonderful early autumn poem. 

Story time! I read poet Denise Duhamel's tale of a poem that ambushed her, dwelt with her, was stolen, and... you'll see. 

The poem is "Modifications" by Ron Koertge and I read from the anthology Dark Horses: Poets on Overlooked Poems. 

Do you remember reading the Romantics in high school English class? My friend Carrie Adams joins me to read poems by Wordsworth, Byron, and Keats and to talk a bit about her experience teaching these poems to teenagers.

Spoiler alert: old-fashioned Romantic ideas endure in the zeitgeist today... we just don't speak of them as prettily any more. 

I find what it's like on the other side of the mic as a guest host steps in to conduct the interview.  

Although I have misgivings about the title "poet" as applied to me, I couldn't resist Keith Hansen's offer to narrate two of my poems for the podcast. So this turned out to be quite a collaborative episode. 

Here is the Radiolab episode that inspired my poems

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/segments/121385-bus-nowhere

Here's issue #25 of Triggerfish Critical Review

https://triggerfishcriticalreview.com/issue-25/

My son Luke joins me at the mic to read a poem that he wrote this year. He shares a little about his writing process, and I just generally enjoy having a mini poetry chat with him. 

As I gather new poems for my students to memorize I enjoy looking through the stack of review poems from yesteryear. I also love the word yesteryear. 

In this episode I choose three favorites from our review pile. And as a special bonus we'll hear two pint-sized listeners share poems from their own little memories! 

Here is the poem that 3-year-old Judah says. 

My friend Amy gives us all a gift in this episode: an introduction to Ruth Pitter.

Pitter was a poet and artist who lived for almost 100 years and corresponded by letters with many of her century's literary luminaries. (Hilaire Belloc, John Masefield, and Walter de la Mare are three of her pen pals whose poetry has appeared on this podcast so far!) She and C.S. Lewis had a friendship of deep mutual admiration and respect for each others' work.

Most importantly for our context, she wrote wise, beautiful poetry at a time that the world was reeling from war and meaning was sometimes difficult to find. 

Amy introduces her eloquently and reads many of her poems, so I'll let her take it away.

Amy's email address

[email protected] 

Here's a small but juicy Emily Dickinson poem for you.

Why aren't there more poems about swimming? If you know of a good one, please let me know. 

This episode is for the long commutes or jumbo laundry piles!

Artist, poet, and friend Craig Goodworth joined me at my table to talk about art&theology, beauty, the joys&challenges of in-person poetry, reading The Odyssey to kids, and the fact that some days you see a deer and some days you don't. With lots in between. There are some good poems in this one!

I like that the mic picked up the clinking of ice in our glasses. We had fun chatting and sharing poems, and I hope you have a little fun listening. 

http://craiggoodworthart.squarespace.com/

When my friend and listener Kelly has time home alone she does wild things like sending poems to me. And I couldn't be happier. In this episode I pair her poem "To Molly" with Kay Ryan's poem "Masterworks of Ming". 

Kelly's musings on writing can be found at writing-life.blog