Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s deeply disturbing 1847 poem about a woman escaping slavery and killing her child was written to shock its intended white female readership to the abolitionist cause. Browning was the direct descendant of slave owners in Jamaica and a fervent anti-slavery campaigner, and her dramatic monologue presents a searing attack on the hypo ... Show More
Nov 17
Fiction and the Fantastic: Two Novels by Ursula K. Le Guin
When the polymorphous writer Ursula K. Le Guin died in 2018, she left behind novels, short stories, poetry, essays, manifestos and French and Chinese translations. The huge and loyal readership among children and older readers that she built during her lifetime has only grown sin ... Show More
14m 3s
Mar 2020
The Trials of Phillis Wheatley
In 1773, Phillis Wheatley became the first person of African descent to publish a book of poems in the English language. It was yet another milestone in Wheatley's extraordinary life, which began with a childhood in Africa, a passage on a slave ship, twelve years in Boston living ... Show More
1h 28m
Aug 2022
437 A Million Miracles Now - "A Bird, came down the Walk" by Emily Dickinson
Responding to a listener email, a heartbroken Jacke takes a close look at Emily Dickinson's astonishing poem "A Bird, came down the Walk."
Additional listening suggestions:
120 The Astonishing Emily Dickinson
418 "Because I could not stop for Death" by Emily Dickinson
... Show More
51m 31s