logo
episode-header-image
Dec 2024
20m 4s

Diego Báez — Inheritance

ON BEING STUDIOS
About this episode
Many people say their experience of time changes after they have children, a phenomenon that Diego Báez captures in “Inheritance.” In this poem, a past, present, and future starring the same child shift ceaselessly in a parent’s mind, like photos flipped through in an album, dots placed on a timeline, moments that one wishes they could build monuments for. 
Up next
Jan 19
Cyrus Cassells — Jasmine
In fewer than two dozen lines, Cyrus Cassells’s poem “Jasmine” offers readers a multisensory, cinematic immersion into late spring life in Rome. Not only is the “sweet, steady broadcast” of jasmine ever-present amid “the joyous braiding of sun and rain”, but there’s also Daria, a ... Show More
14m 4s
Jan 16
W.S. Merwin — For The Anniversary of My Death
W.S. Merwin’s “For The Anniversary of My Death” is a slim, precise poem — just 13 lines made up of 84 words — about the very weightiest of subjects, one’s future death. With it, Merwin has crafted an elegant vessel, a small and sturdy container to hold some of life’s big question ... Show More
15m 17s
Jan 12
Kimblerly Blaeser - my journal records the vestiture of doppelgangers
Words can’t quite fully capture the activity, oddity, and awe that is everywhere around us, but poet Kimberly Blaeser makes a gorgeous attempt in her poem “my journal records the vestiture of doppelgangers.” The three stanzas overflow with an exuberance of colorful creatures — fr ... Show More
20m 8s
Recommended Episodes
Nov 2024
Craig Arnold's "Meditation on a Grapefruit"
<p>Craig Arnold, born November 16, 1967 was an American poet and professor. His first book of poems, <em>Shells</em> (1999), was selected by W.S. Merwin for the Yale Series of Younger Poets. His many honors include the 2005 Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize Fellowship in literature, the ... Show More
9m 13s
Mar 2021
[Unedited] Naomi Shihab Nye with Krista Tippett
It’s pretty intriguing to follow poet Naomi Shihab Nye’s idea that most of us actually “think in poems” whether we know it or not. Rarely, as she points out, do you hear anyone say they feel worse after writing things down. That, she says, can be a tool to survive in hard times l ... Show More
1h 34m
Jul 2021
John Keats' "On the Grasshopper and the Cricket"
tail spinning
7m 13s
Mar 2025
Digging for Words
In 1773, Phillis Wheatley became the first African American to publish a collection of poems. Jade Cuttle looks at the way her poems were described and asks what do we categorise as nature writing? Her essay considers the idea of "coining" and the work of a new generation of poet ... Show More
13m 49s
Oct 2024
Ernest Lawrence Thayer's "Casey at the Bat"
<p>Though its author remained otherwise undistinguished, today's poem–with all its ecstasy, agony, and irony–has become almost as essential to the American experience as baseball itself. Happy reading!</p><p>Ernest Lawrence Thayer was born on August 14, 1863, in Lawrence, Massach ... Show More
7m 15s
Oct 2024
Walter Savage Landor's "To Robert Browning"
<p>Though we remember Browning far more readily than we do Landor, this poem dates from a period when their fortunes were reversed and the latter was eager to acquaint the world with the budding talent he had discovered.</p><p>Walter Savage Landor (30 January 1775 – 17 September ... Show More
7m 20s
Oct 2023
Two by Oscar Wilde
tail spinning
14m 49s
Sep 2025
Bruce Smith Reads Mary Ruefle
tail spinning
40m 40s
Sep 2020
Mary Oliver's "Every Morning"
Mary Oliver was born on September 10, 1935, in Maple Heights, Ohio. Her honors include an American Academy of Arts &amp; Letters Award, a Lannan Literary Award, the Poetry Society of America's Shelley Memorial Prize and Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, and fellowships from the Gugg ... Show More
5m 58s