Poetry For All

Latest Episodes:

Episode 86: Gwendolyn Bennett, I Build America Feb 20, 2025

Show notes

Gwendolyn Bennett was a poet, journalist, editor, and activist whose contributions helped to fuel the Harlem Renaissance. In this episode, we read "I Build America," a poem that exposes and critiques the exploitation and suffering of ordinary workers.

To learn more about Gwendolyn Bennett, see Heroine of the Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Gwendolyn Bennett's Selected Writings, edited by Belinda Wheeler and Louis J. Parascandola (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018). Thanks to Pennsylvania State University Press for granting us permission to read this poem.

You can also click here to read a brief biography of Bennett.

Episode 85: Jacob Stratman, To Momento Mori Jan 21, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, we read and discuss a poem that takes its inspiration from a painting by Andrew Wyeth. The poem provides a meditation on what we perceive and interpret when we look at a painting, and at one another.

Episode 84: Ted Kooser, excerpts from Winter Morning Walks Dec 12, 2024

Show notes

In this episode, we offer close readings of poems from Ted Kooser's_ Winter Morning Walks: 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison_. Kooser's poems allow us to think about the poem as a social act, as a form of healing, and as a kind of meditation.

To learn more about Ted Kooser, visit his website.

If you like these poems that we discussed in this episode, please read Ted Kooser's Winter Morning Walks: 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2001). Thanks to Carnegie Mellon Press for granting us permission to read these poems aloud.

Episode 83: Emily Dickinson, "I went to thank Her–" Nov 27, 2024

Show notes

In this episode, we read and discuss Emily Dickinson's poem about the death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. We discuss Dickinson's innovative syntax, her use of deep pauses, and her meditations on death and grief that create surprising effects in this short lyric.

I went to thank Her

I went to thank Her—
But She Slept—
Her Bed—a funneled Stone—
With Nosegays at the Head and Foot—
That Travellers—had thrown—

Who went to thank Her—
But She Slept—
'Twas Short—to cross the Sea—
To look upon Her like—alive—
But turning back—'twas slow—

Episode 82: Sidney, Translation of Psalm 52 Nov 14, 2024

Show notes

Psalm 52 concerns a lying tyrant and God's impending judgment. Mary Sidney, who lived 1561-1621, was an extraordinary writer, editor, and literary patron. Like many talented writers of her time, she translated all the psalms. Here we talk about translation, early modern women's writing, religious engagements with politics, and the power of Psalm 52.

For more on Mary Sidney, see The Poetry Foundation page: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-sidney-herbert

For the Geneva translation of Psalm 52, which Mary Sidney would have known, see here:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2052&version=GNV

For a new collection of English translations of the psalms in the early modern era, see The Psalms in English 1530-1633 (Tudor and Stuart Translations), edited by Hannibal Hamlin.

Psalm 52
translated by Mary Sidney

Tyrant, why swell’st thou thus,
Of mischief vaunting?
Since help from God to us
Is never wanting.

Lewd lies thy tongue contrives,
Loud lies it soundeth;
Sharper than sharpest knives
With lies it woundeth.

Falsehood thy wit approves,
All truth rejected:
Thy will all vices loves,
Virtue neglected.

Not words from cursed thee,
But gulfs are poured;
Gulfs wherein daily be
Good men devoured.

Think’st thou to bear it so?
God shall displace thee;
God shall thee overthrow,
Crush thee, deface thee.

The just shall fearing see
These fearful chances,
And laughing shoot at thee
With scornful glances.

Lo, lo, the wretched wight,
Who God disdaining,
His mischief made his might,
His guard his gaining.

I as an olive tree
Still green shall flourish:
God’s house the soil shall be
My roots to nourish.

My trust in his true love
Truly attending,
Shall never thence remove,
Never see ending.

Thee will I honour still,
Lord, for this justice;
There fix my hopes I will
Where thy saints’ trust is.

Thy saints trust in thy name,
Therein they joy them:
Protected by the same,
Naught can annoy them.

Episode 81: Niki Herd, The Stuff of Hollywood Oct 31, 2024

Show notes

In this episode, Niki Herd joins us to read and discuss an excerpt from The Stuff of Hollywood, a collection in which Herd experiments with a range of forms and procedures to examine the history of violence in America.

To learn more about Niki Herd, you can visit her website.

The Stuff of Hollywood was just published by Copper Canyon Website. Please visit their website to purchase a copy.

Photo credit: Madeline Brenner

Episode 80: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias Oct 17, 2024

Show notes

In this episode, we closely read Shelley's "Ozymandias," a poem written in a time of revolution and social protest. We focus on the poem's sonnet structure, its engagement with--and critique of--empire, its meditation on the bust of Ramses II, and its afterlife in an episode of _Breaking Bad. _

To learn more about Percy Bysshe Shelley, click here.

Here is the text of the poem:

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Photo: Ramses II, British Museum

Episode 79: W.H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts Oct 03, 2024

Show notes

In this episode, Shankar Vendantam joins us to read and discuss "Musee des Beaux Arts," a poem that explores the ways in which humans become indifferent to the suffering of others.

To learn more about Shankar Vendantam and the Hidden Brain podcast, visit his website.

To read Auden's poem, click here.

Thanks to Curtis Brown Ltd. for granting us permission to read this poem.

Episode 78: Jericho Brown, Duplex Sep 20, 2024

Show notes

In this episode, we read and discuss Jericho Brown's "Duplex," a poetic form that he created in order to explore the complexities of family, violence, and desire.

This is one of several duplex poems that you can find in The Tradition (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), the winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize. Thanks to Copper Canyon Press for granting us permission to read this poem.

To learn more about Jericho Brown, visit his website.

To learn more about the duplex form, you can read Brown's essay on the Poetry Foundation's Harriet blog. We also love Jericho Brown's interview with Michael Dumanis in the Bennington Review.

Cover art: Lauren “Ralphi” Burgess. To learn more about her work, visit her website.

Episode 77: Jennifer Grotz, The Conversion of Paul Sep 05, 2024

Show notes

Poetry engages in conversation. Today, we explore a long, beautiful, narrative poem weaving together the work of fellow poets while looking carefully at a Caravaggio painting, all reflecting on illness, death, and friendship.

For the poem, see here: https://www.nereview.com/vol-40-no-1-2019/the-conversion-of-paul/

For Grotz's incredible book, Still Falling, see Graywolf Press here: https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/still-falling

“Still Falling is an undeniably gorgeous book of love poems full of grief. In these pages, Jennifer Grotz writes line after line of direct statement in rhythms that would leave any reader breathless and wanting more. . . . I am in awe of Grotz’s power to grow and transform book after book. I cannot read Still Falling without crying.”—Jericho Brown

For the Caravaggio painting, The Conversion on the Way to Damascus, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_on_the_Way_to_Damascus

For more episodes on ekphrasis, please see our website and keywords here:
https://poetryforallpod.com/episodes/

Thanks to Graywolf Press for permission to read this poem on the podcast. Jennifer Grotz's "The Conversation of Paul" was published in her collection titled Still Falling (Graywolf, 2023).

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