Poetry For All

Latest Episodes:

Episode 76: Philip Levine, What Work Is Aug 22, 2024

Show notes

In this episode, we read and discuss Philip Levine's most famous poem, "What Work Is." We consider his deft use of the second-person perspective, the sociability and narrative energy of his poetry, and his deep concern for the insecurity that defines the lives of so working-class laborers.

Click here to read "What Work Is": https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52173/what-work-is

Photo credit: Geoffrey Berliner

"What Work Is" was published in What Work Is (Knopf, 1991). Thanks to Penguin Random House for granting us permission to read this poem.

Episode 75: Du Fu, Passing the Night by White Sands Post Station Aug 07, 2024

Show notes

What is a good life, and how do we make sense of the world when it seems like society is collapsing? In this episode, Lucas Bender joins us once again to discuss the work of Du Fu (712-770 C.E.), the great Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty. Luke helps us to see how Du Fu’s “Passing the Night by White Sands Post Station” can be read in multiple ways depending on how one translates each word of the poem. In doing so, he reveals the poem’s concerns with aging, disappointment, and the possibility of hope in difficult times.

Click here to learn more about Du Fu.

Lucas Bender is the author of Du Fu Transforms: Tradition and Ethics amid Societal Collapse (Harvard University Press, 2021).

To learn more about Luke Bender, visit his website.

Cover art: Wang Hui, Ten Thousand Li up the Yangtze River, Qing Dynasty. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Episode 74: Diane Seuss, [The sonnet, like poverty] Jul 26, 2024

Show notes

This remarkable sonnet dives into issues of poverty, poetry, and grief. We talk about the pedagogy of constraint, while exploring the achievements, including the hardbitten gratitude, embedded in this poem.

Thank you to Graywolf Press for permission to read and discuss the poem. Diane Seuss's "[The sonnet, like poverty, teaches you what you can do]" was published in her collection titled frank: sonnets (Graywolf, 2021).

See the work (and buy it!) here: https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/frank-sonnets

For more on Diane Seuss, see here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/diane-seuss

For more on the Sealey Challenge, see here: https://www.thesealeychallenge.com/

Episode 73: Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, Sonnet 189 Jul 08, 2024

Show notes

In this episode, Professor Stephanie Kirk guides our reading of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz’s “Sonnet 189.” Her scholarly insights help us to appreciate the nuances of Sor Juana’s poetry and her importance in her own lifetime and beyond.

Professor Kirk read Edith Grossman's translation of "Sonnet 189" from Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Selected Works. Copyright (c) 2014 by Edith Grossman. With permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

To learn more about Stephanie Kirk’s scholarship, you can click here.

Cover image: Miguel Cabrera, posthumous portrait of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, 1750. Museo Nacional de Historia, Mexico City, Mexico. Public domain.

Word Made Fresh (and Exciting Updates) Jun 30, 2024

Show notes

We're interrupting your summer this week with a few exciting updates about Poetry For All and an excerpt from Abram Van Engen's newly released book, Word Made Fresh.

If you want to join Abram for a book launch online on July 9 at 4pm Eastern, register for free by clicking this link.

And if you want a free subscription to Image Journal, which is an incredible faith and arts magazine, check out this offer here by clicking this link.

You can see the book here: https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802883605/word-made-fresh/

Or at Amazon: https://a.co/d/0j5d3utJ

If you read it, leave a review!

Thanks for listening.

Links:

Book Launch for Word Made Fresh — Book Launch for Word Made Fresh, July 9 at 4pm EST

Episode 72: Victoria Chang, My Mother--died unpeacefully... May 22, 2024

Show notes

In this episode, we read one of Victoria Chang’s moving poems from her collection OBIT, and discuss how the poem explores the interplay between life, death, grieving, and memory as the poet tries to process her mother’s passing.

Thanks to Copper Canyon Press for granting us permission to read this poem, which was originally published in OBIT.

Victoria’s newest collection of poems, With My Back to the World,was inspired by the work of Agnes Martin and published earlier this year.

To learn more about Victoria Chang, visit her website.

Episode 71: Hopkins, As Kingfishers Catch Fire Apr 18, 2024

Show notes

This episode dives into the wonderful world of Gerard Manley Hopkins, the musicality of his language, and the vision he has of becoming what we already are.

This poem illustrates the cover of Abram Van Engen's new book, Word Made Fresh. The book explores connections between poetry and faith, and it serves as an invitation to reading poetry of all kinds--with tools and tips for how to get started and explore broadly.

Special thanks to John Hendrix for the cover illustration of Word Made Fresh, which is an illustration of "As Kingfishers Catch Fire."

Here is the poem by Hopkins:

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

See the poem at the Poetry Foundation.

For more on Hopkins, see here.

The last chapter of Word Made Fresh dwells at length on this poem by Hopkins as an expression of what poetry does and can do in the world.

Links:

Word Made Fresh: An Invitation to Poetry for the Church — Have you ever read a book that turned your world upside down? What about a poem? Poetry has the power to enliven, challenge, change, and enrich our lives. But it can also feel intimidating, confusing, or simply “not for us.” In these joyful and wise reflections, Abram Van Engen shows readers how poetry is for everyone—and how it can reinvigorate our Christian faith. Intertwining close readings with personal storytelling, Van Engen explains how and why to read poems as a spiritual practice. Far from dry, academic instruction, his approach encourages readers to delight in poetry, even as they come to understand its form. He also opens up the meaning of poetry and parables in Scripture, revealing the deep connection between literature and theology. Word Made Fresh is more than a guide to poetry—it’s an invitation to wonder, to speak up, to lament, to praise. Including dozens of poems from diverse authors, this book will inspire curious and thoughtful readers to see God and God’s creation in surprising new ways.

Episode 70: Lauren Camp, Inner Planets Mar 19, 2024

Show notes

In this episode, Lauren Camp joins us to read and discuss "Inner Planets," a poem that she wrote during her time as the astronomer in residence at Grand Canyon National Park. She describes her poetic process and the value of solitude in a place full of wonderment.

To learn more about the Grand Canyon Astronomer in Residence program, click here.

To learn more about Lauren Camp, visit her website.

Lauren's newest collection, In Old Sky, is a collection of the poems that were inspired by the Grand Canyon.

Episode 69: Live with Marilyn Nelson! Feb 11, 2024

Show notes

Our first live performance of the podcast, featuring Marilyn Nelson and a discussion or her amazing poem "How I Discovered Poetry."

On January 31, we met at Calvin University for its January Series and spoke with Marilyn Nelson about poetry and her work for a live audience.

For more on Marilyn Nelson, visit her website or The Poetry Foundation.

This poem is the title poem of an extraordinary book called How I Discovered Poetry

It was originally published in The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems

Thank you to LSU Press for permission to read and discussion this poem on our podcast.

Announcement Jan 24, 2024

Show notes

We share some news about a new website at poetryforallpod.com and a live event next week!

https://poetryforallpod.com/

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected