Even though Palestinian-American Fady Joudah’s poem is sparingly titled “[...],” an ellipsis surrounded by brackets, this work itself is psychologically dense. Through crisp lines and language, it wrestles with the nature of human ambivalence — about things like fear, desire, disaster, liberty — and it finds certainty only in the shaky universal ground of th ... Show More
Yesterday
Armen Davoudian — Coming Out of the Shower
In Armen Davoudian’s casually intimate poem “Coming Out of the Shower”, mother and son perform their morning routines in the small, shared space of their household’s only bathroom. She chats and puts on her makeup, while he showers and uses her shampoo and robe — oh what rhythm, ... Show More
16m 23s
Jan 23
Orlando Ricardo Menes — Grace
Some religions and some people have very specific ideas about “grace”, and that includes poet Orlando Ricardo Menes. In the carefully constructed “Grace”, he manages to both demystify and remystify what grace is, leaving us with the possibility that at any moment or no moment it ... Show More
15m 20s
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
Feb 2025
Alcools, by Guillaume Apollinaire. Partie III.
Apollinaire is a pivotal figure in the history of French poetry. Friend of Picasso, albeit a sometimes volatile one, inventor of the term 'surrealism' and the poem without punctuation, he advocated a poetry that was direct and intuitive, free of any refined intellectualis ... Show More
46m 57s
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
Aug 2024
1180: The Gardener 85 by Rabindranath Tagore
<p>Today’s poem is The Gardener 85 by Rabindranath Tagore.</p><br/><p>The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Poetry has a way of collapsing time, and by working the senses, having us experience an era. In the blues rhythms of Langston Hughes’ po ... Show More
6m 17s
Feb 2025
Dana Gioia: Why Poetry Matters | How I Write
Dana Gioia is a poet, former Chairman of the NEA, and one of America's most insightful writers on the craft of poetry and prose. This is the deepest conversation I've ever had about writing. Dana breaks down the writing process from his first drafts to revision, and shares practi ... Show More
3h 10m
<p><strong>John Keats</strong> (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet prominent in the second generation of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Romantic</a> poets, with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w ... Show More
