Poetry For All

In this episode, we continue our series on the villanelle with Patricia Smith's "XXXL." In this poem, Smith uses the constraints of the villanelle form to create a powerful portrait of familial love. Patricia Smith is the author of numerous collections of poetry, a winner of the National Book Award for The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems (Scribner, 2025), and a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts.

In this episode, we continue our villanelle series with the incredible formalist poet A.E. Stallings. Every form begs for a bending of the rules, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in big ways. We look here at how slight bends in the rules bring home the poem. For more on A.E. Stallings, see her biography at The Poetry Foundation. Thank you to Northwestern University Press for permission to read the poem. This poem comes from A.E. Stallings' remarkable collection of poems titled Olives. We encourage you to check it out. For another great villanelle of Stallings that is available online, see Daedal.

In this episode, we introduce the first villanelle in our three-part series on that poetic form. We begin with Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," a poem that attempts to stave off the inevitability of mortality. To learn more about Dylan Thomas, visit the Poetry Foundation.

In this episode, we read one of Langston Hughes's most famous poems. We discuss Hughes's conversational style, how he evokes the topography of Harlem, and the way the poetic speaker addresses the complexity of the power dynamics in the classroom. You can read the text of this poem here. To learn more about Langston Hughes, visit the Poetry Foundation website. Thanks to Harold Ober Associates for granting us permission to read and discuss this poem.

Walt Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” sparks a lively discussion about classroom learning, scientific measurement, and the freedom of wandering beneath the stars. The conversation explores Whitman’s Civil War context, Emerson’s intellectual independence, poetry’s power to transform facts, and the tension between formal education and direct experience.

In this episode, Laura Evers (who has done so much work for this podcast), joins us to discuss the poem that drew her into poetry. We explore Katie Ford's haunting poem of longing, absence, and the desire to know, and we examine how her grammatical choices (including the absence of punctuation or breath marks) enhance the experience of reading and rereading the poem. "The Shroud of Turin" can be found in Katie Ford's first book of poems, Deposition. For more on Katie Ford, visit her website: https://www.fordkatie.com/ Thanks to Graywolf Press for permission to read the poem on this episode.

In this third installment of our series on the aubade, we feature a contrapuntal poem that explores various states of grief and loss. Tarfia Faizullah is the author of two poetry collections: Registers of Illuminated Villages (Graywolf, 2018) and Seam (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014). She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. To learn more about her work, visit her website. Thanks to SIU Press for granting us permission to read this poem on the podcast. _ To read this poem, click on this link.

Philip Larkin’s “Aubade” turns the traditional morning love song into a stark meditation on mortality. The discussion explores how fear of death becomes paralysis, how formal structure and iambic pentameter intensify the poem’s severity, and how sound, grammar, repetition, and dawn mirror its creeping dread. Larkin’s vision is also compared with John Donne’s playful treatment of morning.

In a special episode, we celebrate the release of Joanne Diaz's latest book, Electric Dress, by reading "The Face," a poem of double ekphrasis that reflects on the hope of tomorrow in the losses of today. To order the book Electric Dress, see Barrow Street Press here: https://barrowstreet.org/press/product/electric-dress-joanne-diaz/ For more on Joanne Diaz, see her faculty homepage: https://www.iwu.edu/english/faculty/diaz.html For more on the work of William Utermohlen, see this article and exhibition: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=utermohlen For the work of Catherine Drabkin, see her website: https://catherinedrabkin.com/

This episode begins a three-part series on the "aubade," a poem to greet the morning (often by wishing the morning away). We discuss Donne's many wonderful techniques and even recite a little Romeo and Juliet. Here is the poem: The Sun Rising By John Donne Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late school boys and sour prentices, Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride, Call country ants to harvest offices, Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. Thy beams, so reverend and strong Why shouldst thou think? I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, But that I would not lose her sight so long; If her eyes have not blinded thine, Look, and tomorrow late, tell me, Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me. Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay. She's all states, and all princes, I, Nothing else is. Princes do but play us; compared to this, All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy. Thou, sun, art half as happy as we, In that the world's contracted thus. Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be To warm the world, that's done in warming us. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44129/the-sun-rising For more on Donne: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-donne