I was delighted to receive this recording from a college classmate of yore who has since gone on to become the kind of math professor who starts his classes with passages of TS Eliot.  

Tom Clark reads and reflects on Scott Cairn's poem "Possible Answers to Prayer". 

Dave Mehler-- the local poet and friend I interviewed in episodes 12 and 45-- takes the mic today to read from Chris Dombrowski's book "Ragged Anthem". 

Dombrowski is a northwesterner, outdoorsman, and teacher as well as poet, and his slim book is one that you might need to add to your library. 

I'm back after summer break for a little chat, a promise of what's to come, and of course a poem.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55500/during-the-second-world-war-

"Finding a Teacher" by W.S. Merwin

In this mini episode, my nephew reads a poem he wrote for his baby sister. Buckle your seat belt; it's dangerously adorable!

Apparently I'm not done reading Charles Wright poems to you! I've got a fever and the only cure is another dive into the bright, dark, poetic, folksy, scary, exhilarating pool of his book "Caribou". In this episode I share

"Chinoiserie II"

"Heaven's Eel"

"Life Lines"

Today's episode is dedicated to Keith Hansen, who made an ambivalent comment about this poem that I'm crazy about. I try to explain my enthrallment with this poem and Wright's latest work in general. Was it a success or 

Sit yourself down at Uncle Keith's knee; he's got some poems to read to you...about fambly. 

"But I felt: you are an I,

This poem is a story...in which a hot waiting room and a National Geographic magazine provoke a little girl's painful recognition of herself. 

"In The Waiting Room" by Elizabeth Bishop

Keith Hansen brings us Denise Levertov's grouping of poems titled "Lake, Mountain, Moon." These are lush, grand, and worth listening to with closed eyes and a still body...if you can pull that off.